Jefflog

Amazon.com in the year 2001.

Eric conveys an emotion.

Yesterday I was thinking about how most videogames made these days are nothing new. Most seem to be some clone of Doom with smoother, faster graphics and heavier artillery. *Yawn* Then I came across this article at the New York Times (free registration required) which reminded me about the new game The Sims, designed by Will Wright. You might remember him as the genius who created another highly original game, SimCity. According to the NYT article, Wright designed a guinea pig that could be downloaded into the game and made to interact with your characters. Unfortunately, the guinea pig could spread a nasty disease and kill off all of your characters in the game! Brilliant!! I really really hope they come out with a Linux version soon.

As another example of how creative this game is, check out what happens when mental patients are left alone.

The nutcases in Seattle are getting ready to do the Millenium Marijuana March. I’ll tell you, for every one person at that rally who wants marijuana legalized purely for medicinal purposes, there will be 500 toke-heads who want it purely for their own selfish benefit. Strains of the old Beastie Boys song “Fight For Your Right (To Party)” are going through my head.

Several years ago, I put up my first homepage, and one of the first things posted on that homepage was my thought about the Pillsbury Doughboy. In a similar vein, this parody of the Pillsbury Doughboy also denigrates the issue. But apparently, the Pillsbury company is quite against any tainting of the nature of their character. According to a Salon article, the Doughboy was not allowed to be in a planned “Got Milk?” compaign because it would have shown the Doughboy as drinking up all the milk in the house, and the Doughboy is supposed to be a Friend and a Helper, not as someone who takes all the milk. It’s a long article, but well worth the read.

With the release of our new Top Reviewers page at Amazon.com, we made up these nifty hats to send out to the top 100 reviewers. (Actually, the top 25 reviewers got fleece jackets.) There were some leftover hats, so each of us on the team got one as well. Too bad I’m not really a top reviewer.

While we’re on the subject of marijuana…I know you’re all familiar with Pokemon, but what about Tokemon?

The veritable Seattle landmark of the Toe Truck will be needing to find another location. I hope they find a good place for it.

My friend Mark sent me an rant/opinion piece about working environments at software companies. It’s a good read for anyone in the industry.

Announcing a revolutionary breakthrough that will change the way people buy french fries.