Thursday, November 27, 2008

The Economy Post-Game Show

Lately when I see government officials on TV talking about the economy, I feel like I'm watching one of those post-game sports interviews with the coach of the heavily-favored team that just got clobbered by the underdog after fumbling the ball eight times. And the coach sort of hangs his head and scowls and talks about how they just "didn't execute" today the way they planned, and they are going to have to put this behind them and work harder next week.

The trouble is, it is now mathematically impossible for the Economy to make the playoffs. We're already looking ahead to next season's draft.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Air Traffic Chaos

I've been playing a clever little game called Air Traffic Chaos for the Nintendo DS. It's been said that the sign of a good game is that even when you lose, you feel like you almost won. That's what keeps you coming back for "just one more try." This game works that way. You play as an air traffic controller trying to manage the traffic at one of 5 airports. The early stages are very easy, almost boring, but by midway through the levels things really get interesting, and you have to be juggling multiple arrivals and departures on multiple runways all at once. I also like this game because each level is fairly short, so you can play it a little at a time.