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AWOLYes, yes, it's been a long time since I posted. However, I've been busy. You see, I've mostly been busy playing with my new toy. And a very nice toy it is, too. It's not often you buy a computer and get better than an order of magnitude speed improvement. This is mainly a testament to how old my previous Mac was (a 233 MHz beige G3). It took me so long to buy a new one partly because it always seemed like the G4s were never quite worth laying out the expense for, and then because I was reluctant to buy the first generation of G5s (though all reports are that they were unusually stable machines for first-gen hardware, and indeed my one at work has been very nice). So it's been quite a switch. "Now wait," you thought a moment ago, "if he's got this new toy, wouldn't it be even easier for him to write journal entries?" Well, sorta. First of all, I've moved from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, which means all-new software for many things. So I've been slowly figuring out what I want, what works for me, and getting it set up and used to it. (Heck, it took me a couple of days just to get all my data moved over - especially my music files). One thing I really miss is a little app called "Mirror", which would compare all the files in a directory hierarchy on my local machine to one on my Web server using ftp, and then synchronize them in one direction or the other. This is, in fact, what I used to manage uploading files to my Web site - including my journal. For the time being, I'm doing it more-or-less by hand (well, using BBEdit). But it's a change that takes some getting used to.
 The other reason, of course, is that I've been spending a lot of my time playing games! To wit: I decided to buy the MYST 10th Anniversary Collection, which contains the first three in the series: MYST, Riven and MYST III Exile. For only $18.00, how could I go wrong? They're favorites of mine, and a short runthrough of all three seemed like a nice way to break in the new computer. Boy, what a bad, bad idea. First of all, MYST and Riven aren't even Mac OS X native - you have to run them in Classic. Ugh. Worse, MYST III Exile has serious sound problems, with hesitations and drop-outs every 2 or 3 seconds. Really nasty. It's not even playable, and I couldn't find any tips on the Web to fix it up. So, it was a waste of money, and I'd advise skipping this set if you're a Mac user. (I did find that realMYST worked fine on OS X when I picked it up a few years ago, though.) Far more satisfying is Alida, a newer game (about a year old, I think) in the MYST style. It works flawlessly on OS X, and is a rewarding game experience. The game's central conceit is that a group of pop musicians decided to create a sort of theme park on an island off the coast of Australia, but the band broke up amidst much feuding before they could finish it. Then Arin, one of the band members, is summoned back to the island and is not heard from for a couple of weeks, so his wife hires you to go find and return him. The island sports a giant guitar, and a number of clever puzzles to solve to figure out what happened and set things right. Amazingly, the whole game was apparently created by a single individual - a huge undertaking. The graphics are right up there with similar games of recent years, the sounds and music work quite well and it's got plenty of atmosphere. It is hard to get past the fact that you're trying to play a giant guitar, but not too hard. I found a couple of puzzles to be a little too abstract, and in the end I was a little disappointed when it ended, as it seemed like there were still places to explore on the island (but it turns out they're just there for show). Admittedly, it is difficult to stage the plot of a game like this so that it doesn't end suddenly - MYST was something of a disappointment in this way, too. Still, Alida is highly recommended for fans of graphical puzzle/atmosphere games like this.
So I will freely admit that I have not gotten enough sleep of late, and have been spending more time than my cats are comfortable with sitting at the keyboard. I did spend this evening sitting on the porch sipping a mixed drink and reading comic books, and the cats seemed happy with that (they caught a couple of bugs, supplementing their usual diet [not that you really needed to know this]). So things are settling down to normal again. Time permitting, I'll catch up on a couple other events over the next few days.
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