In addition to my usual readiness to play Mario Kart at the drop of a hat, I am now avalable for Tetris Party. Facebook Scrabble, too (I'm Laga Ratica). Why does everyone use their real name on Facebook? It seems weeeeird.

Why does everyone use their real name on Facebook? It seems weeeeird.

Because originally, that was the whole point of Facebook. To connect with your college friends, whom you knew in person or met at parties.

Despite my clever use of a pseudonym, they're all seeming to find me.

I can't remember exactly when the policy changed, but when I joined FB you had to use your real name and it had to be attached to a .edu email address. (And you had to register uphill, both ways, in the snow. It was hard times, I tell ya!)

Mal kicked our asses at Yahtzee on Saturday, so there's that gaming news.

Also, we finally played the Castle Ravenloft board game. It's made of fail. Or possibly of being used by Hasbro.

Now, I'm an old-school gamer, so 4.0 is just one of the options I think of when I think RPG. And it's not one of my favorites. But I thought 4.0 might be more fun as a board game, esp. one that didn't require a DM like Descent does. Not so much. In fact, it wasn't any fun at all.

The art sucks (although the figs are OK, and I'll probably paint them); the mechanics suck, the rules are hard to use and don't match the parts that come in the box, and it has nothing to do with Ravenloft (except for Hasbro wanting to capture fan money).

I wasn't as offended as the person who paid cash money for it, but dang, it was the cheap junk food of games...for a white-tablecloth price.

Ugh that sucks Raq. Had a similar experience with a board game a while back, now I forget what it was, but the interior of the box was cheap junk compared to what the price and graphic design promised.

The Supreme Court Transcripts from the Video Games Ban Case - Part 1:

MR. MORAZZINI: California asks this Court to adopt a rule of law that permits States to restrict minors' ability to purchase deviant, violent video games that the legislature has determined can be harmful to the development

JUSTICE SCALIA: What's a deviant -- a deviant, violent video game? As opposed to what? A normal violent video game?

MR. MORAZZINI: Yes, Your Honor. Deviant would be departing from established norms.

JUSTICE SCALIA: There are established norms of violence?

MR. MORAZZINI: Well, I think if we look back -

JUSTICE SCALIA: Some of the Grimm's fairy tales are quite grim, to tell you the truth.

MR. MORAZZINI: Agreed, Your Honor. But the level of violence -

JUSTICE SCALIA: Are they okay? Are you going to ban them, too?

The Supreme Court Transcripts From The Video Games Ban Case - Part 2:

MR. SMITH: Well, I guess I can imagine a world in which expression could transform 75 percent of the people who experience it into murderers. That's clearly not the way the human mind works. Here the reality is quite the opposite. Dr. Anderson testified in the Illinois trial, which is in the record, that the vast majority of people playing the games will grow up and be just fine. And in fact, he acknowledged that the effects of these games are not one whit different from watching cartoons on television or reading violent passages in the Bible or looking at a picture of a gun.

JUSTICE SCALIA: You really don't want to argue the case on that ground. I gather you don't believe that the First Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech except those that make sense."

The Scott Pilgrim game is half price (400 points aka $5) on Xbox live right now. Which figures, since I just bought it a couple weeks ago.

Never in my life did I ever think I would agree with anything that Justice Scalia said.

Never in my life did I ever think I would agree with anything that Justice Scalia said.

I'm glad to see his Jesuit training in action.