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Paper Birches and Ipad Apps

    Hey, everyone. Just went for a walk in the woods. The general lack of rain is making for dull fall colors. The prettiest trees right now are the birches, which are a pale orange. They are short, scrawny trees but are very nice in the fall. One variety of these is the paper birch. They have bark that peels back of its own accord and looks remarkably like paper. You would like them.
    During our walk we found some fresh scat, very fresh. It was probably from a pretty large animal and most likely not an animal who eats plants and berries. It was deposited at the entrance of a thicket of mountain laurel.
    I thought I'd talk about a few apps for the Apple devices. By the way, I understand that the Iphone went on sale in China this weekend so hello and welcome to all you folks from China who have wandered onto the blog.
    Oregon Trail is a game that has nice graphics. You travel across America during wild-west days in a covered wagon, making decisions about hunting, interacting with people and many other things. It takes a long time to play and is a little boring after a while. For 99cents it's not bad at all. As of this moment I have not made it to Oregon. This is not a must-have app like Plants vs. Zombies or Angry Birds. My wife has beaten every level of Birds which is quite a feat.
    My wife got a free game called Unblock Me Free. This is a free game in which you move puzzle blocks around. It has 400 puzzles on the easy version and she sat on the deck yesterday and played it for hours. Being free it does have ads but it's still pretty cool for a freebie.
    I recently got a free racing game called GT Racing Free. It has awesome graphics. I'm having a bit of a time getting used to a gas and brake pedal which are thumb operated. It's a great game for free but I prefer Real Racing HD by a slight margin. The difference of price between free and the $9.99 that Real Racing costs is certainly significant,though. Then again, compare the $9.99 to the $50 I just gave for a game for the Wii system and you'll see why so many gamers are beginning to dig the app store. That game for the Wii I mentioned is Super Mario Galaxy 2. It has awesome graphics and is certainly entertaining.
    I don't remember if I mentioned Graveyard Shift the other day or not. It's a pretty neat little game for 99 cents. My wife has beat every level. There is also a free version. In this game you remove stone blocks and try to make a skeleton fall in a coffin. It's not as morbid as it sounds and it's worth a buck.
    Being an older guy, I like a retro game called Invaders World Tour. It's like the old Space Invaders that Atari put out many moons ago. You fight alien ships against a backdrop of New York, London and other cities. It's worth a buck.
    Speedy Pigs is a cute little game. A pig in a little pair of swimming trunks( speedos, no doubt), runs through a bunch of hazards which you try to dodge or destroy, depending on the fact that sometimes you have fire and sometimes you don't. I don't like it because it's so fast I can scarcely see it or control it. Then again I'm older and you may like it. At any rate it has a free and a paid version, and at 99 cents for the paid version it's not a high risk proposition. Read the reviews,especially the critical ones that the app store provides. They'll save you some dinero, as I mentioned in a previous blog.
    Finally, a word of thanks to the person who gave me a nice comment on my new short story last night. You are most gracious to take the time to do that.
    From the green retreat, this is CE Wills.
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