Yahoo! Cares

I got an email recently telling me that Flickr has new features or something. As far as I was aware I had never used Flickr and didn't give two shits about its new features, so I went to the site to try to delete my account and unsubscribe. This proved more trouble than expected.

Facebook's new Scrabble

Recently, the Scrabble game available on the Facebook changed to a new version. I'm not sure why but I assume they think this one will be more profitable somehow. That doesn't bother me, I have no problem with them making money when they're providing me with a free game. What does bother me though is that the new Scrabble is shit.

"Indie" games suck

There, I said it. We've all been thinking it, but people just keep telling us that these games like Braid or Dear Esther are these wonderful stories told through a unique medium or whatever the fuck they go on about, but it's a load of shit.

Buried Hope

My first thought on finishing this book was "Where's the rest?" It doesn't really seem to actually finish, it's more like the author just stopped writing at that point and gave up.

What is there is pretty good, but I can't really say much about it, because basically all you're left with at the end is questions. Maybe it's supposed to be part one of a serialised story, but the Amazon page says nothing about that, so I'm judging it as a stand-alone story.

If a part two appears I'll almost certainly read that, but until it does I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Read Wool Omnibus instead.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Hercule Poirot, #20)

Another great Poirot book, this one with a nice locked-room mystery with a clever solution.

Appointment with Death (Hercule Poirot, #19)

One of the better Poirot stories. All the pieces fall together nicely, but without anything being too obvious.

Kafka on the Shore

Odd. Easy reading and I liked bits of it, but I'm not really sure what the point was, and I found it dragged a bit in places, particularly when I was more interested in what was going on with Mr Nakata and Hoshino and instead it gave me Kafka being introspective in the forest. The incest stuff also seemed pretty unnecessary.

It wasn't hard to read and it was entertaining in places, but I don't know that I really got anything much out of it, or what I was even supposed to get.

Primordia

Primordia is a point-and-click adventure game set in the distant future, in a world in which no humans remain and the Earth is inhabited only by robots. You play as Horatio Nullbuilt and his assistant/son Crispin Horatiobuilt.

Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot, #17)

Pretty standard Poirot mystery. Captain Hastings narrates. Not one of my favourites, but not bad.

Critical Failures

Pretty enjoyable, but felt a bit unfinished. Like, there should have been about half as much again, because the ending seemed too abrupt. Maybe it's just leaving room for a sequel or something, but my first thought on finishing was "OK, then what happens?"

The framing problem of the story was essentially resolved for the moment, and the immediate danger had passed, but it kind of leaves a lot just hanging there.