Wouldn’t it be fun to be passionate enough to hate a font.

The brain is an amazing place.

Why we game:

I enjoy killing dragons. On the internet. This has nothing to do with my real first and last name. This has nothing to do with social awareness. This has everything to do with those amazing internet dragons you have created.

This is so true. Finding an electronic item that works for Grandparents is nigh on impossible.

I was looking for a simple Grandparent radio, which basically had on/off and a few preset station buttons. Very difficult to find - they all have equalisers and flashing lights and small buttons and hard to read text.

Same with a mobile phone: if someone invented a Grandparent Mobile with the ability to dial 5 numbers and that’s it, they’d be laughing. I guess you could make an iPhone/Android app where there were just 5 buttons with people’s names, but even that may be one step too far.

Terrific tense football game - the amazing amazing ball control of Spain met the defensive wall of Germany. Spain dominated possession and chances, but couldn’t put the game away until the 73rd minute thanks to the thumping head of Spanish defensive maestro Puyol. Germany never seemed to really wake up in attack, and were so harried on the ball all game that they never got their flow on.

Other than the Spanish passing, one of the most satisfying things was there wasn’t a foul blown until the 26th minute. And hardly many more for the rest of the game, including a total of zero yellow cards. Both sides either had a gentleman’s agreement not to foul and dive, or the stars just aligned right.

Unfortunately The Netherlands have proven to be the masters of the touch dive, so the Final will probably be less clean, but here’s hoping.

Follow Team Columbia riders in real time via Google. Neato.

I don’t want to embed this video as it’s too freaky.

MMO thinker Wolfshead has posted his two part shredding of MMOs - How Convenience Replaced Risk and Fun is for Children, Adventure is for Adults. He rips into Blizzard in particular:

Making a game is far less lofty process than making a virtual world. When you create a game it absolves the creators of the higher responsibility inherent in creating a world. Tolkien created a world, Blizzard created a game.

Other than being a grizzled “in my day” veteran, the main problem with his argument is his premise:

I daresay the majority of people who enter MMOs today would prefer to be immersed in a virtual world of adventure than deposited into a theme park of amusement and fun if offered the choice. 

I’m not convinced that’s accurate. If it were, niche games like Eve would dominate and Warcraft would fall by the wayside. Trouble is, people do want escapism in short bursts, and to feel ‘epic'. I agree it would be nice to have deeper adventure (as opposed to bursts of fun), but the market doesn’t seem to be able to sustain the more challenging MMOs.

Players today want to log on and experience a concentrated blast of shock and awe in their limited play session time. They want it all and they want it now. Everyone expects to be treated like hero without having done anything heroic and companies like Blizzard are only too happy to placate them.

Surely an MMO needs to deliver fun and adventure, not either/or. He fails to convince me (someone who has only known WoW and hence has no basis for comparison) that there is no adventure to be had. The player can create the adventure, even if the game is mainly about fun.

NYT profile of the amazing Mariano Rivera - including a great animated infographic explaining his pitching.

You’re a Yankees rookie, and the season is on the line, and the bases are loaded. Just don’t think about it? Alex Rodriguez, a truly great hitter who has been known to think himself into knots at such moments, may be on to something when he says, “I don’t think he knows what pressure means.”

Bill Simmons: “Spanish announcers annihilating the “No Cheering In The Press Box” rule.”