CE Wills

     Hey, everyone. My wife and I, like millions of people, enjoy feeding birds. You can make or buy a feeder, sprinkle in some bird seed, or fruit, or bread crumbs and watch as birds come to snack. Some are attracted to the crowd of other birds, as their nature is to follow a leader. On a cold winter day, the birds stand out against the snow and you can get some cool photos of colorful plumage to show your friends. I know folks who have photos blown up and decorate their homes with these pictures. Others may blog about the richly colored cardinals or even participate in the scientific studies of migratory habits.     Heck, you don't even have to have a feeder. Just sprinkle food on the ground. Of course, ants and other undesirables might invite themselves to supper. Squirrels are the worst interlopers. I have seen these voracious rascals chew through a plastic bucket to get at the bird seed inside. Sort of like a hacker. Ha, ha. They will walk a support wire and hang upside dow

    Hey, everyone. A new high or low for marketing, depending on your point of view. I stopped at a Shell station today to fill my tank. Imagine my surprise when I watched a monitor while pumping my petrol. Yes, there was a commercial playing on the screen, from Toyota. Things are completely out of hand with this stuff. Heck, for several years there have been news clippings and ads placed over urinals in rest rooms at restaurants. I started to say 'high-end restaurants' but the oddness of it put me off, so I admirably refrained.     In my lifetime, gas stations have gone from full service to no service and now watch commercials while you pump your own. Gee, what a great plan.       Not long ago I heard they were playing commercials on the glass windows of  certain trains, so that you would hear them as you rested your head against the window. From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.

     Hey, everyone. It is a rainy day at the green retreat. After taking a walk, I decided to play some games, specifically the Shadow of Mordor. If by chance you have missed this game, you really should consider buying it. I believe it is the best game I've ever played, and by a good margin. The best thing about it is that you really don't get stuck. Sure, it may take many trials and failures to beat certain parts, missions and the like. But, you can just go and explore or find artifacts or fight Orlucks. This is huge and rare, to my mind. Like one game I'm playing, I'm stuck trying to kill a robot. Until I kill him, I can do nothing else. That is being stuck and causes acute gamer frustration. (AGF) Another game I am playing requires that I slide under a bar, which is causing AGF.       It is not often that I think about Willie Nelson while playing games on my P.C. I did today, though. It happened like this. I have entered a stage of Mordor

    Hey, everyone. I am having a fun day, here at the green retreat. I have a number of things I'd like to talk about, if I don't get sidetracked. Firstly, about deflate-gate and the Super Bowl. I think that anyone who went back and watched the last three years of the playoffs on film and studied the last few minutes of the games closely during the miraculous comebacks, would find food for thought. Specifically, watch the play of defensive backs on many of the losing teams. I think that the deflating of footballs would seem minor, all of a sudden.      The other day I was at Wal-mart and got a wild hair. I had never looked at one of the game guides for the AAA games. They are pricey, and I only played I-Pad games for years. So, I had no reason to read one. I bought one for Far Cry 4 . Why? I just wanted to try one. Heck, I don't even own the game. Seems dumb of me, but I write about video games and I wondered about this phenomenon.     I bought Far Cry1,2, and 3 during

     Hey, everyone. I have been doing an inordinate amount of gaming lately on P.C. and it is fun to play a variety of titles. My latest binge has been Wolfenstein: The New Order . Since I added RAM to my P.C. and turned down the graphic demands on the options page, the game plays well. Glad I didn't turn in a bad review on this game because it wouldn't have been fair.       Firstly, let me say that the storyline is quite compelling. Imagine if Hitler had won World War 2 and took control of the planet? History would have been so radically changed as to be unrecognizable. Well, that is the premise of this game. By the way, don't you think that the German people would like to see the end of movies, games and books that bring up this era? If it was me, I'd say, "Please, enough." I know that there are similar things in most countries' history, certainly America's. With us, things like slavery and the way we treated the Indians would be an example.     

     Hey, everyone. It is a cold , rainy day at the green retreat. The temperature is in the mid-thirties and there is snow in the mountains just west of me. I always hated this weather when I had to get out and work in it. If it had been colder, the precipitation would have been snow and though inconvenient for traveling, at least I wasn't soaked. Now I don't have to get out in it. But, after all those years, I have become somewhat ambivalent about the weather. I went for a drive and walked a track in the rain. I would have preferred to walk in the woods, but no one was walking but me, which is how I like it. Therefore it was a fine day for a walk on the track.       Though I wasn't walking in the woods, I did see some wildlife during the drive. The first was a woodchuck. He was running up the road on this old, narrow, country lane. His fur seemed very light-colored and I thought, perhaps, that he had tinted it, just a little. I wanted to stop and ask him several questi

    Hey, everyone. I watched a terrific, older movie tonight with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. It's called Roman Holiday and begins with Joe Brady (Peck) finding Anne(Hepburn) sleeping on a park bench in Rome. It is late and Joe hates to leave her on the bench. She is scarcely homeless, since she is a Princess who has ran away from home. Princess Anne is weary to death of her velvet prison, the tedium of royal B.S. I'm sure Prince Harry could identify. I would hate to endure the endless boring affairs and social functions. I don't think I would like my underlings telling me what to do and where to go and throwing 'my duty' in my face. Of course, it is very similar with our President, I suppose.       Anyway. Joe doesn't know that she is the Princess of  wherever. He doesn't know that her handlers have given her a sedative. He takes her to his apartment and honorably, some would say stupidly, lets her sleep on his couch. Joe is a reporter, there in Rom

   Howdy. Tonight was the start of the final season of Justified on FX and this post will have some spoilers.      First off, about that title. Dewey Crowe is a character I love. He is so delightfully, deliciously stupid. I loved the guy, I should say. Well, his cousin(?) Boyd shot the ole boy tonight and I felt saddened by it. That's when you know that someone has created a cool character. When the fans grieve for him. Of course, Harlan County, Kentucky is a dangerous place.     Let me say that Damon Herriman stars as Dewey and does a wonderful job. What a great actor. Damon is an Australian bloke, by the way. At any rate, Dewey was working for Boyd Crowder, a ruthless but charming criminal in Harlan. And, when Boyd loses trust in you, bad things happen. So. Dewey is no longer with us.      Let me also say that I am aggravated with the hero of the show, Raylan Givens. (Tim Olyphant). Raylan is a U.S. Marshall and has a justified reputation as a man who is ruthless, and likes

    Hey, everyone. Many years ago I was amused when my Dad or Grandmother would watch Wrestling on TV. It was so patently staged and faked that a child like myself could see it. I'm talking 50 years ago. I tried not to say anything, like everyone else. Clearly they loved the sport and thought it was real. They got a hurt look in their eyes when someone was less than enthused at the bad acting.       I have been a fan of NFL Football since 1958. The last few years have seen some odd things in the playoffs. Shocking rallies of several touchdowns in the last five minutes of games. Defensive backs flailing their arms comically as the ball lands in the receiver's arms. Game hinging calls made two opposite ways in a matter of hours, after slow motion review. It is time for me to quit watching football. It is either that or watch my kids' amused faces as I yell, "Watch him Ref! Can't you see he has salt in his waistband?"

   Talk about odd things to spend a few hours on. Yesterday, for no apparent reason, I studied the quagmire that is the End User License Agreement. As you know, this is the thing you sign for many downloadable games, software and the like. They would have had a tough time inserting this stuff down the throats of Americans many years ago but now most of us are sadly amenable to clicking the "I agree" box.       I read a lot about the agreements over on the terrific site called Wikipedia. The Eula is a device which is intended to form a contract with the user. Its intent is to give the owner of the software more power in copyright than the law allows for. It is many things, including a salve to company insecurities. Many times a court of law will rule them 'unconscionable'. That is, a judge, in good conscious, can't rule for a company that manipulates a customer's young age, ignorance or careless disregard of reading a long boring document, to screw them

    Hey, everyone. I thought that I would talk about gaming today. First off is Enslaved: Journey To the West . I think I mentioned that I had bought this game on Steam for my P.C. I got it on sale at a good price. It was all kinds of laggy and quickly gave me a problem with the lead character not moving off his perch on a wall, I believe in chapter 3. Well, I got past that point and I don't know if they fixed it or I did. I had a guy come in and add some RAM to my PC and I can play this game now. It has good graphics and shows promise but the verdict is still in question. Like most games I play, I find that it would be much more enjoyable if it were easier to make progress. I have a light saber sort of tool with which I beat the living scrud out of Mechs. I also serve as a pack mule for the above-pictured red-head. She is smallish, though and not much of a burden for my powerful back.      Although she placed a slave helmet on my head and is a general pain in the butt, I th

      Hey, everyone. I recently completed a good book which I'd like to tell you about. Good books are rare and my wife has told me that sharing is caring, so here goes.     Bad Luck and Trouble is a Lee Child book starring Jack Reacher. Reacher has become an iconic character and is one of my favorite fictional friends. As you may know, Jack is a former Army investigator who left the army and bums around the United States,hitchhiking or riding buses. In doing so, he lands in various adventures. He is a big guy, about 6' and 5" and tends to take the underdog's side in any scrap.      Reacher checks his bank balance one day at an ATM and discovers that he has more money than expected. To the tune of $1030. Rather than going on his way rejoicing, like most people, he is concerned. Because his former group of Army cops used 1030 as the numerical code for an emergency. So he uses his particular set of skills to find out who is in trouble. The trail leads him to L.A. an

     Hey, everyone. Good morning. I got up this morning with a song on my mind. As the erudite among you might suspect, it was Que Sera, Sera. This song was made famous by Doris Day, back in the 1950's or 1960's. I think it was in a movie she did with the charming Cary Grant. The words mean, whatever will be, will be. It goes like this: Que Sera, Sera. Whatever will be, will be, The future's not ours to see, Que Sera, Sera. When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here's what she said to me.       I was never crazy about the song, back in the day. I was more into rock, which was sweeping into the teen world at that time. It has a nice melody and a different sort of message to the typical romantic song. Since I've retired I like it more, for some reason. I have the music for it and have played it a few times. But recently I find the song's philosophy of life interesting.      For instance,

     Hey, everyone, and Happy New Year. I rang in the New Year in Mordor. It was intense, I can tell you. I am beginning to learn the ropes and to play better. It is easily one of the best games ever. I played for almost 4 hours straight this evening. I enjoyed it so much that I feel that I have already had my $30.00 worth of pleasure from the game. I went through a long session without being killed by Orcs, Urlocks or the massive beasts of this world.     I had a tough time dealing with the loss of a Carogen. I hope that is the right spelling for these huge and ferocious beasts. The Orcs keep the fierce animals caged up in the ruins of a great city. Usually there are several guards around the area. After you kill the guards or sneak up on the cage, you find the cage locked with a chain. Using my sword, I cut the chain. Of course the animals are not tame. You have to climb a wall immediately. Then you can jump down and mount the creature.( Left Control) After mounting him, you