Time Warp

Addiction is a terrible thing, really. My productivity has suffered massively lately due to Hedgehog Launch, an hilarious game in which you are given a little bit of in-game money, a store, and an infinite supply of hedgehogs, with the goal of launching them heavenward to either earn more money to fund the next launch, or for the ultimate and noble goal of helping them transcend the boundaries of the Earth's atmosphere, and escape this fragile blue ball to the endless frontier that is space. It's addicting as hell. First, it's a very simple action game. You can buy fuel for thrusters that can maneuver you right/left in the air, or upgrade those thrusters to give you more "oomph." You can buy longer poles for your launcher or a stretchier rubber band. With lots of money, you can buy booster rockets, or parachutes, although the latter are a waste of time for the spacebound hedgehog, since the goal is only to reach space, not to fall back to the ground unharmed. The cartoonish graphics do not allow anything grotesque to happen to your furry friend, but you can fill in the gaps with your imagination. In the air, you'll find little dots that represent money, along with platforms which do the same as well as launch your hedgehog avatar upwards. With enough maneuvering fuel, radar and luck, you can exploit these platforms to increase your height. The amount of money you make for any one stage is your found money times your highest altitude, multiplied by the time you managed to stay airborn. For some, I'm sure it's as exciting as tax time, but for me, as with any game with economic differentials, it's a candidate for a new twelve step program.

Thanks to the iPhone, I've also been watching a lot of Heroes. I'm incredibly behind the curve on this one, so if you see me, please don't even tell me how it begins, much less ends. I'm still on season one, probably episode thirteen or fourteen by now, and finding the connections and play with powers to be a lot of fun. I'd also recognized the actor who plays Sylar--Zachary Quinto--from the show So NoTORIous, where I found him to be hilarious and not creepy in the slightest. I guess it's how they light you. I am excited to see how he portrays Mr. Spock in the upcoming Star Trek movie, but J.J. Abrams has let me down often enough that I don't exactly have high hopes for it.

As an aside about So NoTORIous, I caught an ad for it last year while I was running on the treadmill and immediately thought, "Wow, that is a great Tori Spelling impersonator. She can sing really well. I'll bet the REAL Tori is pretty pissed that someone is cashing in on her reputation." And it was only later that, also while running, I found out it was her, and that she's funny. Dammit, Hollywood, just when I was ready to cynically dismiss all of your second-generation wannabes as talentless hacks raised up by their producer fathers, they actually show talent, and more-than-average at that. Is nothing sacred?

So, anyway, the above are my excuses for not posting so often, although I reserve my apologies for times when dramatic things are ACTUALLY happening.