Earlier today, Valve announced that its Steam publishing platform will support the Mac this Spring and I’m crazy-excited. With this, a large number of games based on the Source Engine will also be available on the Mac. (Yay, Portal!) I’m no news guys, but both Joystiq and Kotaku have a lot of great info.

The news comes less than a month after they started beta testing Steam’s new UI, which is still rough around the edges, but now uses Webkit instead of Internet Explorer. (Yay, death-to-IE!)

What’s that? You’re a “Mac guy” and don’t play games so why should you care? Firstly, hating fun isn’t as cool as you hipsters think it is. Secondly, your favored platform just had the single largest digital distribution system for games fall into its lap. With Steam and Valve supporting the Mac, more games are … Read More »

My wife and I had a great time during our recent Disney getaway. It’s the first time we’ve ever really “vacationed” during our 8 years together. (We even skipped a honeymoon!) Epcot was a disappointment, being that there’s nothing to do there but eat once you move past Future World, but we really loved our stay at the POP Resort and our visits to Downtown Disney.

During our trip, I learned a few things:

When going on vacation, try to make more time than just a 3-day weekend.  We’re lucky to live within a two-hour drive of Disney, but I would have liked a “down” day at the resort and rushing on a Sunday night to get ready for the work week is never fun.
I really like the benefits of a “packaged” vacation. We stayed at a really inexpensive Disney resort, and … Read More »

We’ll be right back…

I haven’t got much of a post this week as things have been hectic, but a YouTube video recently caught my attention:

While The Flintstones wasn’t explicitly meant for children in its time, it undoubtedly attracted younger viewers, and this ad most certainly helped encourage kids to smoke. (Not necessarily right away, but most seeds eventually grow.)

Tobacco has had its marketing restrictions steadily tighten since the 60′s, but what other things are advertisers incidentally selling kids on these days? Eating habits? Future buying behaviors? I’d love to hear input on the topic.

Years ago I played World of Warcraft quite a bit –  back when I had considerably more free time. I’ve long stopped playing, but I still look back on it fondly. It was rarely the game itself that held my attention — it was the people and social aspects that kept me coming back so often (as most MMO players would agree).

I was part of a guild called “Bad Mojo” and we got together 3 or 4 times a week for several hours to tackle in-game content. (Far too often for my then-fiancée’s liking and, in retrospect, far too often for me to have any other hobbies.) They were a great group, many of whom I’d consider good friends, and committed enough to the game to have a web site. I wouldn’t openly say so at the time, but it … Read More »