CE Wills

    Hey, everyone. I have been sitting on the porch, this late summer evening. The cattle are bellowing, over on the hillside. It is in the low 80's and very nice. I have a glass of iced tea, my I-Pad and ... a Squirt. That's right. A Squirt is a being. It looks like a big drop of dark ink, with eyeballs. On a good day, they'll just spin if you tap them. Sometimes a group of them will attack you. Then again, if you have a certain potion, they will follow you around like love-sick puppies, with little red hearts hovering around them.     Well, you guessed it. I am playing the latest hot game on the app store called Bastion . I splurged on this $4.99 game for several reasons; chief of which is the fact that I was told that I would not get stuck on it and waste my hard-earned dinero, like many of the premium games. This seems to be true, as I have played it for several hours and made steady progress. If you are not a highly skilled gamer, do this at the beginning. Tap the upp

    Hey, gamers. I normally don't play a lot of endless runner games on the I-Padster. They are certainly in vogue, since the runaway (Ha,ha) success of Temple Run . Late last night I ran across (Ha,ha) a new game in this genre called The Last Driver . This is the story of a post-apocalyptic world in which you are behind the wheel of a muscle car, literally driving for your life. Here's the recipe.     As you drive, there are zombies to avoid, shoot or run over, as you so desire. As for me, I always wanted a zombie for a hood ornament. There are times that you will want to dodge them, to fulfill a task designated by the game. There are many power-ups and improvements to cars, guns, armor and other things. You can get these by grinding (just playing the game until you accumulate sufficient in-game credits) or by buying in-app purchase coins. I liked the game well enough that I felt obligated to buy some coins. Hey, these folks have to make a living.     I particularly like the

    Hey, everyone. Last night I read a good book and I thought I'd give you a review. With the long weekend coming up, I reasoned that you might have time for an enjoyable read. This novel is entitled Some People Die Quick by J.C. Simmons.      It is the story of a private detective named Jay Leicester, who works his job in the Gulf Coast region of the United States. One day, a horribly disfigured woman named Anna Yillah walks into his office. She has been the victim of a shark attack which she thinks was orchestrated by a human being. She wants Jay to find out who set her up to be a snack. Needless to say, Jay takes the case.     It seems that Anna is a brilliant scientist, a researcher into all things sharky. Her specialty, though, is in developing a formula which will repel sharks. This would make her both rich and famous. Someone soaked her wet suit with shark attracting potion before she made a dive on an old submarine. She barely escaped with her life.     As with any mur

     If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a goat thief. That's why three of my friends and I were involved in a battle in a remote desert village.     These four dudes had stolen our goat and we were going to make them pay. We had an expert tracker. We knew we could find the goat. In fact, you might say that we had a GPS device installed on him. Note the upper right of the picture above.     The village was less than sterile. You could hear the flies buzzing. But then, what can you expect from goat thieves? We cornered the varmints and I myself shot the goat-napper. Was the goat glad to see me? No, not so much. It is a fickle, fun-loving goat and will ride on anyone's back. If a man is shot out from under it, the goat merely goes on its merry way, heedless of the blood spilled on its behalf.     Of course I am playing Trigger Fist in the barbaric Goat mode. It is hectic and intense. The shooters are going nuts in this one. If the arrow in the upper right is

     Hey, everyone. The title says it all. One of my favorite apps is free for today only. That will save you $4.99, which is cool. It is a shooter game and you can play on-line or off. Give it a try, you will probably like it a lot. Fact is, I was about to play it when I saw that it was now on sale. Felt obliged to let you know.     Goodnight.    I'm CE Wills.

    Hey, everyone. Carley and I sat around tonight and watched movies on satellite. If you are going to rent a movie tonight try Hard Rain with Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater. It is part disaster epic and part murder story.     Christian Slater plays Tom, a security guard who works in an armored car. He and his partner have a large load of cash that they are transporting out of an area which is flooding very badly. In fact, the local dam is about to fail. Ed Asner, who plays Tom's partner, has notified his old buddy, played by Freeman (called Jim in the story), of the shipment. Freeman's gang is supposed to rob the truck. During the robbery, Tom's partner is killed. Tom takes the money and swims, yes, swims, to a graveyard. He hides the sacks of cash in a tomb.     Freeman's gang pursues Tom through the flooded, wrecked town. Although he escapes them,Tom is locked in the jail by the Sheriff, until the story of the robbery can be checked out. He almost drowns in

     Hey, everyone. I am playing games late tonight. Trigger Fist is the name of the game and is it fun? I guess so! I am up to a #10 by my name and I am playing much better against these cunning and vicious computer soldiers. I thought I might share a few strategies with y'all. After all, we are all humans and must unite against the AI. By the way, I am playing Team Death Match most of the time.      In the picture above I am in one of my favorite 'nests'. It is a place that I kneel for the simple reason that no one can get behind me. The AI guys are back-shooters. I wait for them to come to me. To insure they come to me, I fire a few rounds. They are attracted to the gunfire like bees to honey. As they come, I have a 200 round clip in my M249 and I just blast away. Be sure that you kneel because it takes twice as long for them to kill you. (Kneel by swiping down on the screen.) Remember, they travel in packs, more often than not. You can rack up three or four kills in no

   Hey, everyone. I have been working on a new label for the blog. As you probably know, at the end of some posts there are labels in colored text that will lead you to posts concerning similar or interesting subjects. In addition, on the right side of the home page is a pop-out menu which has a button for labels. My intent is to go through all 600 plus posts and pick out a few of my own favorites that people rarely read because they don't want to scroll forever. For instance, I like The Zen Squirrel . It goes back a ways. About 500 posts ago.     Unfortunately, it will take me a lot of time to go through all these posts, so, if you want, check that label occasionally. My Favorites.     CE Wills.

   Hey, everyone. Before I start on anything else, I wanted to mention that there is a game that you might enjoy which is radically marked down. Nova 3 , the sci-fi shooter per extraordinaire, is reduced to a 99 cent price which is a terrific bargain. It is deep, has incredible graphics and offers exciting game play. 'Nuff said.      Tonight I was watching a terrific, older movie starring Michael Douglas. The name of it is simply The Game. No one wears a suit the way Michael Douglas does. But I digress.     Michael plays Nicholas van Orten, a wealthy investment banker. He is cold, arrogant and entirely too self-aware. He is recently divorced. He is a control freak and merciless in his business dealings.     Nicholas has a little brother named Conrad. (Played by Sean Penn.) Conrad is the black sheep of the family. Both brothers are a bit messed up by the suicide of their dad many years ago. On his birthday, Nicholas receives a gift from Conrad. It is a card which enables him to e

    Hey, everyone. Let's talk about games. But.. first let's mention Prince Harry. Everybody needs to blow off some steam. Leave the guy alone. Can you imagine living in the fish bowl of public scrutiny that he has to endure? He would probably give his fortune just to be a normal bloke for a couple of weeks. No, I didn't see the pics and don't wish to. Seems like a minor mistake to me. He came, he saw, he partied. What happens in Vegas should have stayed in Vegas. Enough said.     Oh, yeah, the games. First off, the shield. I got a freebie, an endless runner from the app store. It is titled One Epic Knight and has zero to do with Vegas. In this endless runner, you are a Knight with a funny voice. You run through dungeons. You dodge things, jump things and best of all, you smash things. Here's the funny part. I was getting killed by running into objects that I was supposed to smash. There was supposed to be a shield that you use to smash obstacles. Well, instead of

    Hey, everyone out there in the ether. Carley recently took this photo of a butterfly on our butterfly bush. These bushes attract butterflies. Ours is ten feet tall and covered with purple blooms. When the kids were little they called these creatures flutterbys, which is not a word, but is descriptive.    It's a little bit slow on the gaming front for the last couple of weeks. Not a lot of exciting new games coming out. Still, tonight is Wednesday and some new ones will be available around 11 o'clock eastern time.      Our weather has been milder here at the green retreat. Mid eighties; the temperature, not the decade. Not bad for August, especially after that 104, 105 stretch we went through.     I look forward to not having to mow grass for a few months. Unfortunately, the trees lose their leaves and Mother Nature tends to look ... well... naked. I will soon wish that I had done more this summer. I'll think about all the neat places I could have gone. Realizing this

     Hey, everyone. I just finished the latest novel by John Locke. It is titled Box . It is the story of a world renowned surgeon named, coincidentally, Gideon Box. Dr. Box is brilliant in his chosen field of endeavor but less skilled in anything that involves social interaction. He can't get along with people and is so bad at relationships that his flings at 'romance' normally involve strippers, lap dances and on-line dating services.      After a grueling operation, Box goes on a bender that involves going to visit three women in rural Kentucky that he 'met' on line. I would like to say that these women run the gamut between harmless and dangerous but that would be a misrepresentation. They are all dangerous. One of them has lied about all her particulars. Worse than that, she has pet seahorses and makes a particular powder that can be used as a weapon. The powder contains ground glass, among other things.      Without giving away too much of the plot, Dr. Box

    Hey, everyone. I was just playing a few games on the I-Pad and went to Asphalt 7: Heat . I was greeted by this little jewel. It says that a new update is available. Please update to play on-line. When you hit okay it takes you to the app store. There is no way to play the game without doing this.     I never play this game on-line and don't want the update. It is a huge file, 1.12 Gigs, and I have a limit on my monthly data usage. So, this is a paid-for game that I cannot play unless I bow to Gameloft's wishes. The game has been playing fine for me. I don't want the update. My question is this. I had a game, they have locked it up where I can't play it. I had it, I don't have it. Is it just me being critical or is that like...stealing? Did I ever truly own the game? Or was Gameloft, in their beneficence, allowing me to use it for a while? One more thing. I had all my notifications turned off on my I-Pad. There should have been no communications with Gameloft. Y

     Hey, everyone. Check out this weird mushroom I found. Looks edible, not. Ha, ha.    Hey, I noticed that EA Games has taken the liberty of putting game adds on their paid game called Mass Effect Infiltrator. Irritating. Maybe it's time for some rules on the app store about adds being placed in games after the initial buy. Evidently they can do this without me downloading an update, which begs the question: are they talking back and forth to my I-Pad at liberty, and without my knowledge? I don't know this, just wondering.      I just bought the newest novel by John Locke. It's about a psycho doctor who decides he is going to try out an on-line dating service. He has issues in dealing with social interaction. He is not a 'people' person. Moreover, he sometimes kills other doctors' patients and breaks into people's homes. Should be different, at least. I have yet to read one of Locke's books which I didn't enjoy. I bought this one as an ebook.   

     Hey, everyone. We had a fun day, here at the green retreat. We took a long walk in the woods and found some neat things. I noticed that the hickory nuts are falling. They seem unusually big this year but may seem so because of the string of dry years we've had lately. Squirrels and deer like to eat them. You can see that one of these nuts has been chewed up.     We noticed that the deer have been licking our mineral block. A mineral block is a big, heavy square made of salt and all the stuff deer like to lick. I don't hunt but we like for the deer to come around, so we can watch them. They will, and have, literally licked a hole in the ground around the block. After a rain, the taste is in the soil, I suppose. We found this cool feather. It is oddly shaped. I like the colors on the right but I don't think it is shaped right to be a hawk's, so I'll have to get my bird book and try to look it up. Later in our walk, we found an array of tiny feathers at the cree

    Hey, everyone. I just grabbed a freebie called Hambo HD. This simple physics puzzler has taken the app store by storm, vaulting into a number of 5 star reviews on the first day of release.      You'll be immediately struck by the game's similarity to Stupid Zombies , another good game. Here's the recipe.     You play as a cute little pig. This pig is a scrappy little guy. He wears a red bandana around his head and carries a Beretta. His mission is to kill the army pigs which dare to oppose him, like his name sake, John Rambo, might do. In order to fulfill his mission and rescue his friend Bacon, Hambo will have to bounce his bullets off walls and steel girders. He can shoot through glass walls. I just played a level in which I had to shoot the glass beneath my feet, then fall to the grass below. Then I was able to shoot the piggies. As you might expect, billiard players will excel at the ricochet style of play.      This game is free, fun and has a bit of a 'co

    Hey, everyone. Late last night, I was on CBS News and read an article about the memorial service at Graceland in Memphis. They were remembering the king of rock, Elvis Presley. Has he really been dead 35 years? Bizarre that he lived one day longer than his mom.     Last night at the vigil, Priscilla and Lisa Marie dropped by and talked to the fans. Outside at the street, a group of fans from Argentina were singing Hunka, Hunka Burning Love. Cool. Some had stood in line since dawn.     What makes people be so devoted to a public figure? Many things, I suppose. He was the icon of a generation. He changed the face of music, forever. He had charisma out the wazoo. To some he was the symbol of their lost or fleeing youth. For others, they had followed his music and movies, his career, for so long that he was part of their family, almost. I almost felt like I knew him but I did not.      I grew up with his music. I saw him on Ed Sullivan. I always wanted to see him in concert, but ne

    Hey, everyone. I bought a cool app last night for 99 cents. It's called Living Earth HD and it has rushed into the top three or four apps on the app store in recent days, garnering many 5 star reviews, and for good reason.    It is awesome visually with an animation of a spinning earth fading into darkness, then light. You can select any cities you want and obtain current and forecast temperature, weather, winds, time, and other cool stuff. I put it on a regional temperature animation that showed Earth's hot spots; very cool looking, ha, ha. I don't mean night clubs or celebrity sightings but rather things like a big, red blotch over Northern Africa. Speaking of big blotches, you can keep up with hurricanes and typhoons as well.      One thing I love about this app is that I can see what time it is in any city, like Sydney, Australia, and the revolving Earth shows if it is in sunlight or nighttime. The bottom line is that it is a great 'show-off app' for your

    Hey, everyone. The other night I spoke at length about Trigger Fist , the on-line and off-line shooter game. This game is a 5 star game. You don't get stuck, it's fun, with great graphics and game-play. It is perhaps the best $5 I have spent on the app store. I really like it. At night you can hear crickets, which is a thoughtful addition. In one desert town, you can hear the flies buzzing, which immediately brought to mind the possibility of dead bodies nearby. It heightened my awareness of the lethal possibilities at hand.     There are in-apps, but they are not necessary to the enjoyment of the game. As you go along, you earn better weapons and are able to survive longer. The way this is done makes it hard to actually see that you have leveled up, but you see that you are not being killed so quickly. There is a little number by your name on the scoreboard, which I guess tells you what level you have achieved. I am a 6, at the moment. You have the choice, in any game, o

     Hey, everyone. I wanted to share some thoughts about the new version of Total Recall . As you know, this is a remake of the sci-fi Schwarzenegger vehicle with Colin Farrell as Hauser. Let me set the plot for you.      In the future there have been a number of wars in which the nations have used Chemical Weapons. As a result, most of the earth is uninhabitable. There are only two areas where people live; The Federated States of Britain is the seat of government and Australia, which is now simply called the Colony. The Government, run by a guy named Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) is not good. People in the Colony have to commute back and forth daily to Britain for work. Wow, heck of a commute, you say. Indeed.       They travel back and forth on a tube, through the center of the earth's core. When they pass the molten core, gravity flips and they are going up instead of down. The government is building droids in Britain and it is their devious plan to send these troops to the Colon

    Hey, everyone. I had a nice day, even though we just hung around the house. Carley played a game called Word Monster . In this puzzler, you have a grid of letters and drag your finger around them to make words. The catch is, you have to make a word that completes a phrase for which they have already given you a portion, like ------ and role. Maybe this fictional example would be cameo . She loves the game and returned to the app store to buy several hundred of the puzzles. You get 40 for free. She played all 40 of them today, while I was doing something constructive, like avoiding the goat. There are 5 additional packs which she bought for 99 cents each. As you might expect, I am not so crazy about it, but that is just me. I have to report that this game takes the liberty of turning on your notifications so they can send you banners on your screen. Just go to settings, notifications and turn everything off , after you download the game.      One of my favorite games, Razor Salvati

   Hey, everyone. I broke my own rule and bought a premium game last evening. It was a hefty $4.99 and was a file size of 110 MB. The name of the game is Trigger Fist . The title seems odd but who am I to question it?     This is a shooter game and there is a lot to say about it. Let's get started.     Firstly, there are six different maps or battlegrounds. They are marvelously rendered and the graphics of the I-Pad 3 really shows the game off. I enjoyed walking through a desert town and pausing to look up at the night sky. Van Gogh could have painted his Starry Night here, except for the bullets whining overhead. In another locale, I was sneaking down a big concrete porch with benches against the wall. I would fain have sat down and chatted with an old friend, but alas, war is a strict mistress.      This game is designed to be massively multi-player but guys like me can play off-line and have a good time. Either way, you are involved in one of two, four-man squads. The Beasts

   I had a dream one night. In the dream I walked along a shaded lane through a country setting. A gentle wind blew on my back and I could feel it moving my hair. My footfalls made little noise on the dusty road. It was a narrow, unpaved road. Every little bit of distance I would pass a small cottage, most of them pretty, idyllic places. Some were white, some were yellow or other colors. I passed one white cottage and saw a lady sitting in the living room at a piano. She was playing beautifully, her long white fingers gliding gently over the keys. I paused on the road and listened. It was so lovely that I almost wept.     She began to sing songs as she played them. Many of the songs she played were among my favorites. As I lingered, enjoying the moment, she glanced my way and saw me outside the window, which was open. I was still in the middle of the road, but as I was only 20 feet away and her windows were open, I could hear her plainly. She immediately stopped playing and blushed re

    Hey, everyone. Have you ever heard the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction? I was just reading Google News and saw a headline from Fox News that intrigued me. The story is about a guy named (maybe) Roy Antiqua. He was pulled over for a traffic violation in Florida and gave the cop a phony ID. He was arrested and when his home was searched they found lots of interesting stuff.     They found lots of IDs from organizations like the CIA, Coast Guard, Boy Scouts and medical facilities. They found a photo of the guy in Doctor's garb, holding a new-born baby. They found a bunch of cash. In his closet was a multitude of uniforms ranging from military apparel to the aforementioned Scout Leader. This reminds me of the old adage about Jack of all trades, master of none.      I guess the police have appealed to the public for help in identifying this man. They are pretty concerned with his motives in impersonating a Scout Leader, and in the fact that he might have delivered a

    Hey, everyone. So-called platform games are usually not my cup of tea. These are the Mario-stlye games in which your cute character runs and jumps on various platforms, hence the name. Yesterday I downloaded a freebie of this genre and have really enjoyed it. The name, as the erudite among you already suspect, is called Megatroid . There are in-app purchases for better weapons and the like but you can play a good long ways without spending any dinero.     The graphics are excellent and the controls are fine. You are a space warrior, a lady, who is battling strange robots in a strange place. There are numerous hazards and I'll try to remember a few. You start out with a rifle which fires ion blasts. There are spaceships and droids. There are big mechanical heads which float in the air and shoot purple plasma blasts at you. Not only that, but there are rotating saw blades in the floors as well as spikes on walls. There are also cool anti-grav blasts of air that lift you up to ot

    Hey, everyone. If you were outdoors a while ago and you heard a big thud, I'll tell you what it was. It was the thud of the monkey falling off the back of Great Britain's tennis player, Andy Murray. Not only did he win the gold medal for this Olympics and beat the great Roger Federer, he did all that on Center Court, Wimbledon. He beat Federer in straight sets, as well.     Thank God it didn't rain and there was no roof controversy. Murray, the tall, lanky Scot, not only played very well, but he seemed to have the ball bounce his way in most cases.  I very much rejoice with him in this triumph and wish him well in future endeavors.     I had not planned on posting again this weekend, but I just wanted to say, "Well done".     From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills. 

    Hello, everyone. Thanks for stopping by the green retreat. I have been reading an excellent novel by Daniel Silva titled The Fallen Angel. This is yet another in Silva's series of books about Gabriel Allon. Gabriel is a sometimes-retired Israeli spy. He has ties to the Mossad but prefers to work on paintings, restoring priceless works by the old masters. His skills in both fields has endeared him to certain people in the Vatican. People who are at the very top levels of this city-state.     As our story opens, Gabriel is restoring a painting at the Vatican. One night a lady falls to her death not far from where he is working. The Pope and his personal assistant ask Gabriel to investigate her death. It soon becomes apparent that she was murdered. As he delves into the circumstances, he stumbles upon a ring of art thieves and people who deal in the illegal sale of art. These people are not concerned with the expectations of honest dealers in a legal provenence for a work, merely

    Hey, everyone. Like most people, I have been watching some of the Olympics. I have enjoyed the games very much and have a few comments to make.     The swimming competitions have been thrilling. I have cheered for my countrymen, of course. Men and ladies have bagged a lot of medals. Phelps is a wonder. I thought back to the days when I was thrilled by Mark Spitz as he swam his way to glory. Phelps has eclipsed his accomplishments. The gentleman from France, Agnel, (hope I spelled that right) had a thrilling effort when he overhauled everyone and won the Gold, several days ago. I was on the edge of my seat. And the young lady from America, Missy Franklin, charmed everyone with her excitement and ability.     I was amused when I read, early in the games, that Lochte had 'failed' in a particular race. These kids haven't failed. Anyone who has made it to the Olympics is a champion. In fact, anyone who competes in sport is a winner. The essence of sport, we forget, is abou

    Hey, everyone. I have noticed, lately, that more and more game makers are giving us an option for 'easy' or 'casual' difficulty. I appreciate this so much. There is a game called Megatroid , which is free today, that has the 'casual' selection. Very cool.      I bought a 99 cent game this week that has a selection for 'easy' but added a note to that selection, "I am a baby", as a mild insult to casual gamers. This is on the game titled Infinity Project 2 . Then, as you enter play after a long tutorial and weapon selection, you immediately get mugged and all your weapons and armor taken from you. Then you wander the streets searching for things you can't find. 'Easy'  ?  "baby" ? Funny.      This game is a bit of an odd duck. It is an RPG stlye, set 200 years in the future. At least it starts there. Your avatar is sent back in time to 2012 to deal with an alien race that has subjugated Earth. They are some ugly dudes

    Hey, everyone. I bought a game a couple of days ago. It is named Invader Hunter and it has been around for a while. I had started to buy it months ago when it came out but I read a review of it that was harsh and decided to wait until it went on sale. It is now on sale for 99 cents and I feel like that is a nice price. Here's the recipe.     As a space marine at a space station you are sent out on missions by your commanding officer. The problem is, there are monsters that keep gaining access to the ship, like cockroaches, except they are huge, ugly and powerful. My personal favorite is a big goon that looks like rocks cobbled together. When he hits the floor, red stalagmites appear all over the room. Seems like an unusual gift. Ha, ha. There is another bad guy, pictured above, that I had to seek a place of sanctuary from. I can't recommend the view from down there, but at least I stayed alive long enough to use my rolling ability and eventually take him down.     Fortuna

     Hey, everyone. The newer games have emerged on IOS for the upcoming weekend. I grabbed a few of them, some free and some paid. Justice League is out. It is $2.99 and I refrained from buying it. I may read some more reviews, watch some video clips etc.     One game, which I bought for 99 cents is called Max Adventure . I bet you guys expected that from the title of the post. Ha, ha. This game is fun, cute and would be an admirable addition for your young person. I was on the app store and I saw where a youngster had replied to some of the game's detractors and had written that "I'm a girl and I like it!" She had added a lot of emoticons. It was very cute. But I digress.     In this game, which has a free version, you play as Max, typical earth kid. Aliens have landed in your neighborhood and taken all the adults away. You are tasked with going around the neighborhood, rescuing the kids and taking them to your tree-house. Sound easy? Well, it has its challenges.