13/08/2005 @20:57:41 ^21:46:43

WAS YOUR DENTIST NAMED DR.TL

BECAUSE HOLY SHIT THAT WAS A WHOLE LOT OF WORDS!!

puzzles

For some reason I cannot fathom, last week my mother brought home a thick book of Sudoku puzzles. I like them because they're easy, well, easier than crosswords, anyway. You don't need to know the entire dictionary nor how to decode crossword clues. I can just about manage logic puzzles.

Then the Now Show made fun of them for being a fad and now I don't know what to do. They're right, and I hate being caught up in fads or anything popular. Oh well. I preferred nonograms or whatever those damn things Sarah used to do were called, anyway. That's a logic puzzle too but you end up with a pretty picture at the end so it's artistic as well!

Oh that reminds me, why does GD(3pm) say there is a GD::Image->newFromXbm when it doesn't actually seem to exist? I have the Xpm version of libgd installed. The function is there in the C library and in the Perl documentation but not actually in the GD.pm glue code. It is most vexing. This is one of a number of things that over the years I would have posted in the Debian BTS, but I hate that they don't make any attempt to disguise your email address. You'd think they hadn't heard of spam and address harvesters!

flowers

The rose plant in the garden sprouted a rose last week that was quite simply the most gargantuan flower I have seen. Seriously this thing was the size of a cabbage. A very pink cabbage, but nevertheless. It smelled like a type of sweet you can get from Woolworths Pick'n'mix. (I can't remember the name of the sweet and it's been annoying me all week)

Also my father's cactus sprouted a large white flower which is apparently a very rare thing. He brought it over to show us. Sitting in its black bucket with this large spiky stalk thing emanating from one of the small nubs on top of the plant, the whole thing looked frankly alien. I half expected it to jump out of the bucket and grab my face.

maps

Kaiser_5 Another in the Kaiser series, this one is a base, with outdoor areas. There's lots of detail, as you would expect, and a number of somewhat unexpected special effects due to it being a Boom map, like doors that swing open when you press on them. Innovation is all very well but it always unsettles me when things happen that are impossible in vanilla maps, but then I am stupid like that. There is also a rather entertaining huge monsterfight towards the end. It's quite a surprise! Just after that you get the yellow key, but I think it would have been better if it had ended there instead - the actual yellow-locked area felt tacked on. It's vaguely reminiscent of Kaiser_9 although maybe all techbase in valley maps look alike, I don't know. Anyway, it's really good and I recommend it.

Mall This is a deathmatch map with some tacky extra graphics. I am mentioning it for two reasons: 1) I think the mirror in the men's toilets is really clever (though I think ZDoom can do this on the fly now) and 2) I think the fact that you can't get into the women's is very humorous. No girls play Doom, see? Anyway, have a look if you like silly attempts at "realistic" levels.