Monday

Ugh. I came down with a slight cold Saturday and Sunshine came down with a slightly heavier one yesterday. Not a whole heck of a lot happened to us over the weekend because of it. We ate at a lot of comfortable pasta-and-soup type joints. We took cabs along walking distances. We played a lot computer games. Would like to waste your time the way I did all weekend? Okay. First, eat a large bowl of bucatini arrabiata and then go here. It's a game called Fantastic Contraption. The object is to move an object from one area of the playing field to a goal on the other side. To do this, you must create machines with what tools you're allowed: clockwise and widdershins-spinning wheels, axles of greater or lesser substance. The game can get surprisingly difficult when it becomes necessary, by the later levels, to move your object up, or to make a machine that goes one way to gather the object and then the opposite direction to deliver it. I have not yet completed the last two levels. Anyway, if these links work out right, here and here you can see two of the machine designs with which I successfully beat some of the easier levels. Once you click the links, it should take you to a generic-looking page where you will have to click start like you are beginning the game. But it will begin with a machine I created (click the big green button to see the machine in action). Sometimes these links don’t work, though. Okay, admin stuff: we are leaving for Singapore on Wednesday afternoon to celebrate our anniversary (and, I guess, US Thanksgiving). So things should be dark around here until next Monday. Hope everyone has a really nice holiday weekend. [Cavin]