Here's How to GET RID of Prohibition

As best as I can glean from the pages of The New Yorker, 1930 was the year of:

• Backgammon. All the department stores were selling deluxe sets and offering free lessons and tournaments.
  
• Tom Thumb golf. Suddenly there were courses everywhere. Rather than the low-rent "mini golf" of today, the fad was marketed to the Gay Young Things as an after-club pastime drunkenly played in evening gowns, tuxedos, and high heels. Much ado was made about the damage to the courses caused by high heels.
  
• Maybe this "depression" thing isn't going away?
  
• Even the staunchest defenders of prohibition are getting sick of it. Like, to the point where virtually everybody wants to somehow repeal it.

The most obvious sign of the anti-prohibition fever so far is this advertisement in the October 18, 1930 issue. It sums up everything I've been reading (click for a larger view).


Joseph S. Auerbach seems to have been a moderately well-known lawyer...well-known enough to have been publishing books before and after this one, at least.

The Volstead Act would not be repealed until 1933, so it will be interesting to see if this vocal opposition continues to swell, or if it will simply be viewed as a fait d'accompli in the laps of the lawyers.

Mathematics from Macy's

By extension, if you're wearing the WRONG clothes then games are only half as much fun.

A Quick Announcement

Backgammon was all the rage in New York City during the summer of 1930.

That is all.

Eat Your Eskimo Pie with the Six Brown Brothers While Playing Tops and Anagrams: A 1930s Trend Retrospective

The New Yorker was in a tizzy about humanism throughout 1930, as the philosophy had suddenly come back into vogue and gained national attention. Thanks to Charles Francis Potter and the establishment of The First Humanist Society of New York, discussing humanism became a frequent pastime among the New York intelligentsia. You can't pick up an issue of the magazine during this period without reading stories and sly jabs about the debates, the propaganda, and the reactionary religious response to the movement.

In the May 31, 1930 issue, Donald Moffat wrote "The Crime at Mrs. Ward's," in which a young man -- fed up with all the latest fads -- actually SHOOTS the guests at a swanky party when they are unable to tell him what humanism is. This supposedly indicates that lots of people gave lip-service to humanism at the time, and they loved to talk about it, but none of them had the faintest idea what it was all about (which seems strange to me, frankly).

Anyway, the interesting thing about the story isn't the heavy-handed plot, it's the long list of PREVIOUS crazes that are presented. Want to know what the highbrow fads were in New York between 1905 and 1930? Here you go.

...my friend acquired a leather-burning set, and happily joined the nation in burning Indian heads on leather--he was too young for the first ping-pong wave. He shouted 'Uneeda Biscuit' to street-car conductors and cabbies, 'Get a horse' to stalled motorists, and said 'ZuZu' to the groceryman. He was among the first of the 1906 diabolo addicts, and as the years rolled by he similarly took to his bosom put-and-take tops, Eskimo Pie, mah-jongg, Coué, scofflawry, categories (or Guggenheim), Queen Marie, crossword puzzles, sex, anagrams, badminton, Yo-Yo tops, and backgammon, as each in turn came into fashion. He seideled to Hoboken and taxied to Harlem when those were the things to do, and wrote little pieces on the social, artistic, and economic significance of....Charlie Chaplin, the Six Brown Brothers, short skirts, Joe Jackson, Lillian Gish, Will Rogers, the return of the corset, Rudy Valée, 'The Well of Loneliness,' Amos 'n' Andy, D. H. Lawrence, Krazy Kat, long skirts, Paul Whiteman, and kindred modern phenomena. He returned from France last summer wearing a beret and espadrilles, and he'd thrown away the top part of his bathing suit.

Whew! Some of them are self-explanatory. Here are my thoughts on the others that require a bit more explanation:

• Uneeda Biscuit: I assume this was just a joke on the name of the biscuit -- "Hey, you need a biscuit" -- along the lines of other knee-slappers at the time like "Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Then you'd better let him out!"
• Zuzu: A ginger snap brand. Their advertisements said "For a bang-up time take five cents to the grocery and ask for Zuzu ginger snaps. You'll hit the mark every time!" I guess this was similar to the hordes of people who walk into Tim Horton's and say "Rrrrrroll up the rim to win!" It's the adoption of a catchphrase.
• Seidel: I have no idea what this means. A seidel was a glass of beer, but how this relates to traveling to Hoboken I don't know.
• I also don't get the "beret and espadrilles" and "threw away the top half of his bathing suit" references.

I love a good piece of culture-spew, and I also love a good mystery! Any insights?

Dunjonquest: The Curse of Ra

Rah rah rah! Here are the maps for the third and final expansion module in the original "Apshai" trilogy, "The Curse of Ra."

Level One: The Well of Forever


This simple level is a nice introduction to both the game and the overriding Egyptian theme, and it only gets hairy once you reach the pit.

Level Two: The Sphinx


No annoying riddles in this one. The actual MONSTER sphinx is something you meet right near the beginning. The fun part is enjoying their attempt at creating a level which is actually SHAPED like a sphinx, complete with paws, ears, and a tail.

Level Three: The Pyramid

And what a huge place it is, too! Here's the exterior and interior:


but you only reach those inner rooms when you go partway up and then return through the FIRST passage:
Compared to all the other levels, this one provides the most opportunities for increasing your stats (in the sandy rooms to the north). Watch out for the moving statues.

Level Four: Temple of Ra


Because the Apshai engine didn't allow for triggers or conditions of any kind, attempts to convey a complicated causal environment were bound to falter now and then...if you enter a room LATER that the level designers assumed you'd enter much EARLIER, for instance, you might read a room description that tries to evoke a progressive narrative by referring to a room you haven't been in yet. Causality gets reversed. It feels weird.

This is my way of saying that if you proceed through the levels in the way they HOPED you would, you'll feel nicely submerged in the action. If you DON'T, however, then you might feel like you're watching the episodes of a TV series in the wrong order.

Fortunately I played "Temple of Ra" in the "correct" way, so I was baffled by the "mysterious force" in the secret area following the Temple Room. I do suggest you play through the base of the Ra statue before going to the upper section.

And after you're done...that's it for "Temple of Apshai!" But don't despair, the "Hellfire Warrior" sequel comes next.

Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai

I have so many guilty pleasures that I'm in a permanent state of mortification, and one of my pleasures is a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl. It's not because I love killing monsters and collecting treasures; the actual BULK of a dungeon crawl game is incidental to me. What I REALLY like to do is to EXPLORE.

I've always gotten a thrill out of mazes, tunnels, and imaginary digital worlds. Unfortunately there are few games that are simply about exploring...pissy monsters are always attacking you and you have to solve anachronous "eight queens" puzzles at every second step. I'm of the opinion that the world (the real one) is waiting for a computer simulation of a rich landscape that doesn't necessarily have anybody else in it. The fact that I'd enjoy such a thing is creepy, really.

But anyway, my favourite games as a teenager were the ones where you could wander around a maze and map it, and then stare for hours at the map wondering what sort of cool place it would be to live in. Unfortunately back then I had a very low threshold for frustration, so I rarely succeeded in finishing the games that were so fun to explore: Ultima, The Eidolon, Alternate Reality, and...

...the Dunjonquest series, considered to be the first dungeon crawls for the 8-bit home computers. Originally developed by Jon Freeman (who is most idolized these days as being one of the creators of Archon) for his fledgling Automated Simulations company (likewise most idolized for later becoming Epyx), these games were all about wandering around mazes, killing monsters, raising your stats, collecting treasures, and running from Antmen who apparently used a vanilla-scented body lotion.

The Dunjonquest game that most people remember is "Temple of Apshai" and its two sequels, "Upper Reaches of Apshai" and "Curse of Ra." These three games -- like the "Hellfire Warrior" trilogy that followed them -- presented you with a very basic depiction of your surroundings, requiring you to actually read the room descriptions from the accompanying manual (or "Book of Lore.")

Originally written in BASIC in 1979, the first games required a great deal of patience and imagination, and the subsequent games -- with the exception of "Gateway to Apshai," a very different arcade-style adventure -- used the same engine. Even when the Apshai games were eventually released as a re-written, integrated, machine-language "Temple of Apshai Trilogy" -- the way most people remember them -- you still needed to shuffle your little character along featureless corridors, bumping into walls and slaying barely-animated 4-colour monsters.

So Dunjonquest games don't have a lot of appeal to gamers these days, and they've slowly faded away from the eyes of even the most nostalgic 8-bit fans.

Until now!

I'm happy to say I'm not alone in my love of these games, and I've been collaborating with Robinson Mason -- and scrounging the darkest corners of the internet -- to reclaim the programs. And not just the programs, but also the even more rare "Books of Lore" which are both essential for play and a delight to read.

While my compatriot tirelessly unearths more of the games and materials, I've been concentrating on reverse-engineering the BASIC code and mapping all the levels. I've discovered some interesting things buried in the convoluted rats-nest of oddly-ported BASIC, but that will come later. Right now, here are maps for the four levels of the first game, "Temple of Apshai."

I decided not to include room numbers, traps, or treasures -- that would not only clutter up my tiny drawings but would also spoil more of the game. And I make no claims to the 100% accuracy of these maps; they are complete and fully-connected, but their proportions may be slightly off. Click on an image to see a larger version.

Temple of Apshai - Level One


Temple of Apshai - Level Two


Temple of Apshai - Level Three


Temple of Apshai - Level Four


The maps for the next game ("Upper Reaches of Apshai") are coming soon (along with playing tips), and I expect there'll be a resource site starting up eventually. Until then, spare a thought to all those digital worlds that are locked up in decaying floppy disks in attics and basements, and consider rescuing them for one last time.

Timely Yo-Yo Tricks

In the November 23, 1929 issue of The New Yorker, a helpful reader (Mary Rose Himler) submits a timely list of popular yo-yo tricks:

The Moanin' Low
The Touchdown
The Standing Sitting Standing
The Lindbergh Loop
The Double Trouble
The Lowdown
The Boop a Doop
The Four Easy Marx Brothers

Who would have thought that trick names would reflect current events? Somebody needs to do a study on this through the last eighty years, to see how the names have changed.

Frustrating Ataxx Obsession

For the past month I've been trying to master Ataxx. The concept is a simple one -- combined with some wonderfully evil graphics and music in the arcade version -- but the damn Mushman (the foe of only "average" skill) beats me almost every time.

The more I play the game, the more I appreciate its complexity. You should be able to learn the best moves by simply watching the computer opponent, but he (or in the case of the busty Gorgon, she) keeps outsmarting me. This might be because I'm not an offensive player.

If anybody out there comes up with a list of hard-and-fast rules -- which must exist, because the computer follows some sort of algorithm -- please pass them along. The only ones I can find are written in poorly-translated French.

The Doomed Ticker Party

Seeing these happy, upscale New Yorkers playing "Ticker: The Wall Street Game" in the middle of 1929 rings my irony warning-bells, and also makes me a little bit sad.

To Hell and Back

I've spent the last six weeks playing "Doom 3." Even considering the hugely inflated price I paid for the Mac version, that's a lot of value for money.

Having savoured each and every level to its fullest I was getting a little impatient near the end. Most of the game is played in tiny corridors, which gets tiresome, and after the joy of a wide-open "Hell" level it was a bit of a letdown to return to the corridors again.

So yeah, for a week or so I've just wanted to FINISH the damn game, and tonight I was happy to discover that the final Cyberdemon boss was a real wuss (Soul Cube, kill some minions, repeat). I'm finally done. And the epilogue cinematic was very cool.

I'm not much of a game player so maybe I'm just naive, but I've got to say that the Doom environment was BEAUTIFUL. Playing it on my 24" monitor with stereo sound blasting was almost too immersive for comfort. Yeah, most of the time you're creeping through dark corridors waiting for something to jump out at you, but the level designers knew enough to put breathtaking rewards in now and then...huge rooms, a blasted Martian landscape, a seemingly-endless elevator shaft. And even those corridors are pretty to look at, draped in steam and shadow.

Kudos also to the almost fetishistic approach to architecture, wherein the game REALLY seems like a microscopic tour of a working space-age factory...WITH MONSTERS! You sometimes get the feeling that the level designers spent more time building pipe schematics than they actually spent on the stuff the player USES.

Having finished the game without cheating, here are some tried-and-true pieces of advice for those having trouble.

1. Never open a door without your shotgun ready.
2. If something falls down in front of you, turn around IMMEDIATELY and kill the thing that was sneaking up behind.
3. A wide-open space? Get your plasma gun. Need to kill your enemies faster? Rocket launcher.
4. If a room contains little vents near the floor that you can't crawl into, that means trites are waiting.
   
5. Trites are enormously fun to kill with the machine gun. Two bullets and they pop. This becomes like a very easy shooting gallery game.
   
6. When you go through a door for the first time, run a few steps into the room and then back out through the door again. That way, whatever creatures your entry triggered will have to come for YOU. The level designers rarely accounted for this bit of sneakiness.
   
7. The chaingun sucks.
8. When facing imps and wraiths, just run right up to them with your shotgun and shoot them in the head.
9. Go as slowly as you like. The nice thing about the game is that there are no time limits. Of course you might take six weeks to FINISH it...
10. Mars really needed an affirmative action program.

Done, done, done! Back to more productive wastes-of-time.

Hell Is a Dark and Predictable Place

Last week, feeling that I was climbing out of my money-pit at last, I ordered "Doom 3" in order to treat myself. Money-wise that was a mistake but I'm still having lots of fun with it.

MadKevin told me that the game was derisively referred to as "The Monster-In-A-Closet Game," as in, "I wonder what's behind this door? ARRGH, SOMETHING HORRIBLE!" And he's certainly right...you don't get a feeling that the monsters are in any way intelligent. They just pop out at you when you step into certain areas, like bloody, gruesome jack-in-the-boxes.

But what MadKevin perhaps doesn't appreciate is that bloody, gruesome jack-in-the-boxes can be REALLY DAMN SCARY, especially when coupled by a fully-immersive environment. That's why we go into carnival fun-houses after all. The added bonus is that when a creepy thing jumps out at you in "Doom 3" you can shoot it in the head and watch its brain fly out.

"Doom 3" is ALL about the environment, right down to the far-off screams and the scraps of paper in the corners. It uses all the horror movie cliches because, when done effectively, they actually WORK. When I hear something moaning deep inside a maze of busted machinery, and when I have to relinquish my gun in order to pierce the shadows with my vulnerable flashlight, I get spooked something awful.

My favourite part of the game so far? The severed arm in the toilet. When game designers demonstrate that they have no class I REALLY start to worry.

Sick Long Weekend Catch-Up

Since I am too ill to spend my night dancing and my head is too foggy for bloggin', here's a quick update.

1. My cat has not pooped as of yet.
2. One nice thing about having a spiffy new computer is that the old games -- which I could barely play on their lowest settings -- can now be played with maximum eye-candy. So "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" looks particularly good. I just have to remember that it's more effective to shoot enemies in the head instead of the groin.
3. Want to see a great scary movie? I highly recommend "The Ruins." Holy vegetable-infested cow!
4. Yesterday I decided I wanted to drive to a lake. I looked on the map for the one closest to me, then drove all the way to Floradale to find it. And guess what...there's no lake there! There's a tiny one, but the enormous one depicted on the map just didn't seem to exist.
5. I did NOT receive the "Record Save and Sell" this Friday, which is a good sign.

A Mystery

Guess!

...

Have you guessed?

YOUR idea is probably WAY more interesting than the REAL reason, so tell me: Why is this man Pounding the Table in 1929? And don't say it's because he's excited about the Pittsburgh Press newspaper chain, because that would be dull.

Rollerderby Virgin

Today was day three of my whirlwind social tour, which involved driving around all weekend to do new things with interesting people. Am I bushed? You bet! It's been a fabulous time.

My Sunday trip was to see the Tri-City Roller Girls perform for friends, family, and foodbank. I've never seen a rollerderby before -- on the basis of the late-night television show that I occasionally watched during the '90s I'd assumed it was just a bunch of people jumping over alligators -- and I was impressed by the skill and strategy of the actual sport.

I also enjoyed the other significant part of rollerderby these days: the attitude-fashion-lore. Tattoos, rockabilly styles, amazon moms with starstruck children, a guy who looked like Elvis in the "suicide seats."

With both teams being somewhat arbitrarily-assigned home-towners -- the Vicious Dishes and the Venus Fly Tramps -- I found it difficult to know who to cheer for. I finally settled on the Vicious Dishes because I know more of the members, and I vividly recall sitting in my parent's living room at the age of fourteen, listening to Depeche Mode with the woman now known as "Mean Little Mama." Old loyalties die hard.

I'll definitely try to keep up with their future exploits. May I see the day when they teach those Hamilton women a thing or two?

The iMac, The Sims 2

My super-duper, ultra beefed-up iMac arrived yesterday. Since I don't currently have anyplace to put her, the as-yet nameless computer will be living on an end table, with a footstool for a seat.

I am already a disciple of the Cult of Mac, being totally in love with its practicality, stability, and integrated nature. But this 24" iMac is simply the most gorgeous thing, its design both elegant and forgettable; even when I'm crouched over on a footstool using it I manage to forget that the computer is even there. Except that I'm using a Dorothy Parker anthology as a mousepad, which makes the user interface a bit clunky at times.

Anyway, I was shocked when I launched Safari...and I was suddenly connected to the internet! The computer isn't even HOOKED UP to the internet yet, at least not via tangible wire. And then I realized: this sneaky little computer was detecting and using somebody ELSE'S wireless network. In fact I have SIX wireless networks to choose from in my menu.

Being new to such things I'm not sure how common this is, or if etiquette (or threat of legal action) dictates I don't steal a bit of their bandwidth until I resolve my "two computers, one modem" issues. Is it bad to do some web browsing on somebody else's network...and can they tell when I'm doing it?

I couldn't take the computer home without buying ONE game, so I paid the usual hugely-expensive price for a Mac conversion ($75) and bought "The Sims 2." I was terribly addicted to the original version and I'm once again amazed at the study that goes into these games. Whenever one of my Sims does a characteristic finger-snapping habit I just about go into "simulation ecstasy." I'm also thrilled the way that the Sims respond subtly to other Sims in their vicinity, turning their heads slightly to look at them now and then. It is, more than ever, like watching actual humans engaged in day-to-day activity, albeit humans who need to be told when to go to the bathroom.

The most useful enhancement to this version that I've found so far is the ability to greet and dismiss visitors as a group, instead of marching up to each one individually and wasting precious energy. It also seems that the "needs" decay a little less rapidly, which keeps you from getting into an exhaustion cycle when it's time for a party.

As thrilled as I am with the new "aspirations and fears" model, it does seem like there are too many collapsible menus, as though the old streamlined interface has bloated a bit.

Still, it's certainly a fun game, and it will be even better once I've downloaded some additional custom content. I hope it's no longer necessary to edit each mesh by hand in order to make it Mac compatible!

The Limitations of a Sim, or, Hope for the Dwarf Fortress Addict

"Simulation" computer games grab me and they refuse to let me go. There's something about my personality that loves playing god with small collections of simulated humans, even if the simulated humans are just washing their dishes.

Along comes "Dwarf Fortress," which is not only an elaborate social sim but also caters to my OTHER game obsession: procedurally-generated worlds in which I can build and populate elaborate environments. This sort of game is the best drug ever for me. It goes straight through my eyes and into the pleasure centers of my brain. It's so good it's like mainlining breakfast, without the annoying waitress and the babies crapping on the highchairs.

But fortunately there seems to be an unavoidable flaw in all simulations. This flaw ultimately dulls the thrill and returns me to my pre-addicted, regularly-blogging self: sims are fun as long as there are more "real-world" details waiting to be exposed to the player...

...but the more detailed a game becomes, the more monotonous the gameplay ends up being, because the real-world is actually horribly dull.

For instance, I really enjoyed "The Sims" until I realized it was essentially an endless routine of getting my simulated people off to work on time, which is so realistic that it actually sucks. Likewise a game like "Alpha Centauri" where the problems boil down to getting your simulated units from one part of the world to the other; in my REAL life I finally bought a car to reduce that sort of monotony. Why should I put up with such things in a piece of escapist entertainment?

It's typical that, when I started actually having dreams about "Dwarf Fortress," my dreams were always about moving rocks from one place to another. I'd wake up in the morning feeling as though I'd worked all night in a warehouse, moving junk around from one place to another, then moving it back again later on. Most of the gameplay in "Dwarf Fortress" really comes down to that...

...and it's terribly dull and the exact opposite of entertainment...

...but that's the limitation of an accurate simulation: everyday life REALLY IS about moving stuff around all day, whether it's money or food or your body. The only reason we stay sane is because we forget the number of times we've washed our hands and the number of socks we've picked up (and believe me, the Dwarves in "Dwarf Fortress" are ALWAYS leaving their socks around).

So, my sim-hungry brain craves the most accurate "real life" simulation possible...but my brain is simultaneously uninterested in the mundane tasks that are 95% of real life. "Dwarf Fortress" could only sustain my interest if it got even more ridiculously detailed, but by doing so it would only become more tedious as a result.

I suspect this applies to the high-end modern simulations as well, games like Grand Theft Auto 4 and The Sims 2. I'm sure there's a point in the "fun sim" equation when the lines of "tedium" and "realism" meet, where the player cannot cross.

For my own social future that's surely a good thing.

The Weekend

* At a house party, why am I hearing so much of MGMT, the day after that Good Friend Adrian played them for me in his car? Is it because they're wonderful?

* Losing at Boggle, winning at drinking, general confusion about the game where they stick a paper on your forehead.

* My new neighbour plays various bugle calls, very loudly, on his trumpet. I'm not sure exactly what this is supposed to mean but it's sort of wonderful.

* Who is who? I can't register more than one new name each night.

* Most significantly: why are the birds singing at 2:30am? This doesn't make any sense. When I hear birds singing I assume that it's daybreak, but in this case...no, it's the middle of the night. Crazy birds. Crazy singing.

Dwarf Fortress

I loved "The Sims." I loved "Zangband." I also loved "Sim City" and "Alpha Centauri." I have a thing about games that let me build and micro-manage a situation, especially on a microscopic level.

But rarely does a game possess me so entirely that I can literally spend an entire weekend (and perhaps more) playing it, dreading even the thought of MAKING DINNER or doing anything else that might take precious minutes away from The Entertainment.

I was reading old friend Ian's blog and one of his first posts was about "Dwarf Fortress," described as the most complicated game of all time. I didn't want to delve into some hackneyed freeware game with a steep learning curve, but the premise was intriguing: you manage a settlement of dwarves as they build and defend their fortress.

So I downloaded it and started playing. Wading through the countless menus and options was daunting. I didn't understand what any of the symbols were supposed to mean. The manual was sparse and unsatisfying. I couldn't get anywhere. So I sadly closed the program and resolved not to play it again...

...until I discovered the Dwarf Fortress Wiki, and in particular the "Your First Fortress" page. I followed the suggestions and I began -- haltingly -- to learn the logic of the game's user interface. Each small step revealed another wealth of possibilities until -- as of yesterday morning -- I became totally hooked.

I've got this handful of dwarves, see? Each one of them has a unique and detailed personality, included quirks and religious leanings, along with a huge set of potential skills.

Then I've got this enormous, fractal-generated world full of realistic geology and overlapping biomes. I've got to dig this huge fortress, find a place to stockpile my stones and food and a place for my dwarves to throw their garbage. I need to cut down trees so I can make beds, I have to build their dining halls and kitchens, I have to organize them into military squads.

But dwarves don't like to be outside, so I need to get them to plant crops underground. Since they can't sow seeds into chert (one of the dozens of types of stone you're liable to encounter, each with its own uses), I need to dig channels from a far-off river, diverting the water so that it creates an underground lake under my mountain. Then I need to build floodgates and attach them to gears and levers, which my dwarves can pull in order to selectively irrigate my underground chambers. Then the dwarves plant the crops, harvest them months later, eat them or brew them into alcohol, save the seeds, weave some of them into fiber which can then be made into clothing, sewn with images, dyed, made into ropes which are attached to buckets and blocks to create wells...

...and your wood furnace can be used to make ashes, which can be mixed with water to create potash...or turned into lye and made into soap in the alchemist's workshop...but to build that workshop you need to create glassware, which means collecting sand and heating it in a glassworks...and on and on and on.

Meanwhile the dwarves are interacting with each other. Some of them fall in love and have children, who gradually grow to have lives of their own. They sit and chat, they wrestle, they play with the dogs, they go out to chase the wildlife or fish by the water. They grieve for lost friends, especially when those friends drowned in the water supply and started belching up great clouds of pink, corrupting miasma.

This description doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. I've been playing constantly for three days and I STILL don't really know what I'm doing.

My advice? DON'T PLAY IT. You will either hate it or you'll be unable to stop, so either way you lose.

The Unofficial "Torchwood Declassified" Drinking Game

If you find yourself watching the bonus "Torchwood Declassified" DVD in the season one box set, set up the booze and follow these rules. You'll only survive if you're very, very drunk.

• When somebody uses a string of one-word adjectives to describe an episode, take a sip for EVERY adjective.
• If the episode is described as "dark," take two additional sips. If it's "SO dark," finish your drink. If somebody says "it's SO dark," and then laughs, polish off the liquor cabinet.
• When Russel T. Davies, Julie Gardener, or one of the executives tries to explain why the sex and violence is "important to the plot," nod your head knowingly and drink a shot. When this explanation is followed by an extended, exploitative montage of sexy clips from the series, simply admit that you knew it all along.
• Whenever it sounds like a cast member is in a "watch Torchwood" commercial, throw your shot glass at the screen. This doesn't count if the cast member is John Barrowman because he ALWAYS sounds that way.
  
• When a cast member talks about their character in the third person, take only a tiny sip, or you'll quickly lose your eyesight.
• Drink a glass of wine every time somebody is described as "lonely."
• Whenever somebody describes Captain Jack in a way that could equally apply to Doctor Who, drink the entire bottle of wine. Destroy your wine cellar if this is within five minutes of somebody saying that the series premise is totally different from Doctor Who.
• When Russel T. Davies "gushes" about a plot twist, that's okay. When the plot twist is horrible and should never have been conceived, let alone filmed, drink your brandy and write him a nasty, fannish email.
• When John Barrowman is slick, Eve Myles is goofy, Burn Gorman is deadly serious, or Naoko Mori is wide-eyed sincere, take a sip of whatever you're drinking and then ask Gareth David-Lloyd for another, please. When Gareth David-Lloyd appears on the screen and you wonder why you never noticed his teeth before, clasp him tightly like John Barrowman would and say "I'm SO SORRY" in a broken-voiced way.
  

ZAngband, My Guilty Pleasure

Every few years I dust off the old Roguelike and spend some time obsessively playing it. For the last eight years my personal favourite has been ZAngband, and I've spent a week joyfully hacking away at it.

What's so nice about a Roguelike? You can play it on any platform. The vibrant development base makes for frequent updates and tweaks. With no attention paid to spiffy graphics -- as you can see above -- all the code can go toward providing balance, interest, and surprise. At the best of times it's like playing randomized chess. At its worst it's an endless tapping out of the same command codes ("m4b*t, m4b*t, m4b*t...").

The BEST thing about playing a Roguelike, though, is that it provides a good opportunity to just sit and listen to a CD at the same time. Each time I sit down to play the game, I put in a CD I haven't properly listened to and then play along with the CD. When the CD's over I force myself to quit the game, because nothing kills your character like general game fatigue.

Another nice thing about it is the "code of game ethics" which states that when your character dies...that's it. Game over. You don't do anything tricky -- like back up your save file -- to resurrect it. This leads to a lot of reflection during the game and a reduction of potentially suicidal choices. It also leads to intense frustration when eight hours of your life go down the toiled due to "Yet Another Stupid Death."

What's so nice about ZAngband? It's the only Roguelike with a huge randomized wilderness full of towns, ruins, and themed dungeons. Its magic system is unparalleled. It also has a good sense of humour, having strayed from the traditional Tolkein influences to bring us Robin Hood and -- jeez -- Barney the chaos-spewing dinosaur.

ZAngband has so many character options -- race, class, magic types -- that it can be a bit daunting to the beginner. So I have only one (nerdy) thing to say: Mindflayer ranger with Death magic. You'll spend the first hour or so running away from everything, but once you hit your stride...