Skip to main content

Just The Turkeys And I

    Hey, everyone. The weather has been just lovely all week, here at the green retreat. Sunny, blue skies and the leaves starting to turn a lot more. I noticed today that even the hickories were beginning to turn yellow. The oaks are turning, but not as much as the hickories. All told, it was an easy day to be happy. These turkeys seemed happy, making their odd, little 'Put,Put,Put' noises as they cruised the woods behind my house. Perhaps they haven't heard about their buddies down at Wal-Mart and the whole Thanksgiving holiday thing. Well, it's not my place to tell them.
     My wife worked today and I was off. I commend myself for doing a dreaded chore. My driveway is 300 feet long and made of gravel. It is up a steep hill and pavement would be tough to ascend in the winter. Ice can't really cause a problem on gravel, except in extreme situations, because there is no flat surface. The weight of a vehicle busts the ice and snow against the gravel. The problem is 'washboarding'. This is when the driveway gets waves in it and ruts so that it bounces your vehicle. The bottom line is a few hours with a shovel and a rake, unless you splurge for a bobcat. (Small bulldozer).
     At the end of my labors I retired to the deck for several ice cold beers and my I-Pod. It actually reached 80 degrees today here, a bit hot for October. That means that in the valley below me it probably reached 84 or 85. That 5 degree difference is not as nice when it is 36 and raining in the valley, believe me.
      I was browsing the games on my Padster last night. I counted 14 games of the adventure type which I am stuck on. That is, I have played them a significant amount of time and can not get past a certain level. This ranges from the very last level on my beloved 9MM to the very first level on Modern Combat, Black Pegasus. My much ballyhooed copy of Shadowgun is now incurring my wrath as I try to defeat a huge drilling machine, about midway through the game. Think I'm alone? My blog on killing the cyber lobster got more hits than any post I've ever had, save one.
      I am a pitiful player, I know. Really, though, when you select 'Easy' on the skill level, don't you think it would be beatable by almost anyone? As it is, I am really buying just a half of a game or less. Is this a marketing ploy? Oh, I see! You're saying that if I give up on a game, I'll go buy another one which keeps a nice flow of cash to Gameloft and their buds. Hence, the 14 adventure games I am taking turns playing, again and again, most of them not advancing any more at all. Sigh.
     Then there is a game called Silent Ops. I liked it real well at first. I made it a pretty good way without getting stuck, even. But when I returned to play a few days later, it put me back to the start. Only a gamer can appreciate how maddening that is. Or, get this. Star Battalion is one of my favorite games. I advanced steadily through it until I was around the middle of it. At that point there was a boring part where you have to cruise around this domed city trying to find a way out. After a lot of tedium I finally escaped. Then, when I returned to play a few days later, it put me back to the start of the hateful level. If my I-Pad wasn't so expensive, I would have thrown it. See why I normally buy the expensive games when they go on sale? That way, when they prove to be an issue, I haven't lost more than 99 cents and some time.
      My buddies, the turkeys, didn't seem concerned at all by my video game travails. They seemed perfectly content with their acorns, and the woods, here at the author's green retreat.
    Goodnight from CE Wills.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The White Chicken Mystery

    The other night I happened to come home very late. It was the middle of the night and I was driving up a steep mountain road. Near the top I saw something white in my headlights. It was standing in the other lane, standing very still. It was a large white chicken. It was probably a rooster because I thought I could see his comb as I whizzed by at my customary pace. He never moved a muscle. This is weird, don't you think?      After a couple of days to consider this phenomenon, I have come up with some plausible answers for his bizarre behavior. 1. He was conflicted whether or not he should cross the road. 2. He was feeling cocky and decided to play chicken with the traffic. 3.He was being hen-pecked at home and had decided to end it all. 4. Someone had egged him on to do it. 5. He had just watched the movie Fantastic Four and decided to try to stop a truck the way that Ben Grimm did on the bridge. 6. He had driven himself crazy wondering if ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Biscuit

    Hey, everyone. What a relief that Christmas is over, huh? I don't think it was meant to be the way it is.     I started thinking about the so-called good 'ole days today. My wife says that at her house, they would take a left-over biscuit and shine their shoes before church. I one-upped her by saying, "Oh, yeah? I ate the biscuit when everyone got finished with it. And I was grateful for it." Truly, though, you can and people did, shine their shoes with a biscuit. Hey, they were greasy little buggers.     Speaking of greasy little buggers, I remember when everyone had wells and were very conservative about water, particularly those of us who had to crank a handle up and down to get a bucket of water. There was no daily bath. (No showers in those days, mate.) About twice a week we took a bath and here's the recipe: The oldest kid took a bath first, then the next oldest etc. You can see why younger siblings hated the older. Bathing in the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Egg Art

     Hey, everyone. One of the odd customs in America is the Easter Egg Hunt. Here at the Green Retreat, we do a hunt every Spring. I just ran across some of the pictures from this years hunt and it is obvious that an artist had sneaked into our midst. The orange egg is a rendering of one of the Angry Birds of gaming lore. If I were a bird and had to pass an egg that size, I would be angry too. Ha, ha.      We typically will dye about 10 dozen eggs and people get quite creative with their quotes and colors, as you can see. Many of the eggs are a bit risque for these pages. After having a few laughs, we hide the eggs. All of them are never found, which is cool. It is amusing to see old men (me) and all ages of folks, walking around with a basket on their arm. Some of the hiding spots are dastardly. Like eggs hidden in the guttering downspouts and ten foot up a tree. The kids are perhaps the most devious at hiding the colorful orbs, goi...
Post a Comment
Read more