Hi Dark and everyone,

It's finally beginning to cool off here in Texas, and I am finally beginning to feel better. Due to a host of Non-24 and epilepsy health issues, along with some post head injury depression just to make it interesting, I have been sick pretty much all summer. For a while, I couldn't concentrate well enough to even finish a book!

But things are looking up, and I've perfected the art of good-natured patience if nothing else.
As for my reading, listening, and gaming

I have been listening to a lot of St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Alabama Shakes, and Black keys lately.
I haven't been reading much, but history is a new interest that Audible is helping me pursue in style.
As for games, I have just started the Adventure to Fate series, mainly because it looked so complicated and I wanted to force myself to learn something after the brain fog of the summer. It took me a bit of time, but now that I understand the system, these games are great fun. They fill my game wishes well, for a huge world to explore, treasure to find, and items to craft.
Last night, because I couldn't sleep, I started Zombie Exodus, and it is the most realistic IF I've ever played! When you get into a game like this one, you really see the potential for interactive fiction!
Timecrest has also become a new favorite, because of their unique twist on IF.  First, you have no idea what's going on in the world, so you keep playing in an attempt to unravel the mysteries, but every time you make a choice, more questions come up. Then, the game has a realistic feel, because at certain points in the story, the game makes you wait to continue, as if Ash, the hero, is busy doing something else. The soundtrack is great too.
I also played Q9 and became fascinated with side scrollers.
Finally, I downloaded the Blastbay Games tool kit. No idea if any game development will come from it, but I do love to learn new things, so we shall see.

All of that, plus freelance writing, is keeping me occupied, and I am happy to be so after the down time that pretty much usurped my entire summer.

Wishing everyone else good times and great games.

I finally got the Mistborn in audio and keep forgetting (then remembering when I don't feel like reading it).
Last week was LCB's White Water Rafting trip. Which was more of a paintball / ropes course / Lookout Mountain / White Water Rafting trip. I'm not entirely sure what the appeal to the blind is of a place whose main selling point is the ability to see seven states from the top, but the trip up and down the mountain was fun enough, I guess? At one point I got just far enough ahead of my group that a large group of Cantonese-speaking people more or less enveloped me and made turning back a bit awkward, so I just kept going at their pace and waited for everyone at the mid-point restaurant. Also, I am not the type who would find something called "Fairyland Cavern" creepy, except that this one was the most humid place on the mountain and it was dank and drippy and there was cheerful music playing and there were statues of gnoams and the like lining the rather narrow passageways... so I dare say the effect was less Disney and more Haunted House.

(Why can't I programming? )

@Dark,
I wonder if improvements have been made on the first Adventure to Fate, because it was actually the game in the series that really helped me to grasp the concept of how all the games are playd.
I haven't heard of Pendragon Rising, but I will check it out, and give that Choice of Games thread another look.

The Adventure to Fate game I was referring to was Quest to the Core. You're right though, it still has only numbers for the grid, but that actually helped me understand what was happening in Quest for the Future.
Battle Arena is much easier to play, you're right about that too.

Timecrest was created by Sneaky Crab Inc., and they are extremely responsive on Twitter, to their player base in general, but also to those of us with visual impairments. They are releasing huge VoiceOver improvements on the update that will come out in the next few weeks, but the game is fully playable as is, so I think they're just making a good thing great. I love their attitude! They completely rewrote the first two chapters, just to make a better play experience from the story's beginning.

Well that had to rank as one of the most unexpectedly interesting evenings ever, and here I use "interesting" very much in it's chinese sence, as in "I curse you to live in interesting times" .

So I was preparing dinner. Part of dinner involved heating some darritos up in the microwave, these are like small flavoured corn chips.
All was fine until I stuck in my hand and felt something very hot, I looked up and after a screan of "oh my god!" said in what was according to my lady a surprisingly calm tone, ---- "We have fire, as in actual flaming fire" (yes, I did describe the fire with a miner redundent descripter but I wasn't trying to be especially grammatical at that point).

I then proceeded to get my fire blanket (which luckily was where I thought it was), unwrap it and chuck it over the now rather frighteningly extensive flames extruding in a pretty mass of orange and red from the open microwave, ---- apparently I was quite incoherent.

A few minutes later when my kitchin was permiated with the lovely aroma of melted plastic I decided to try and clear the microwave. moving the fire blanket and guess what? ---- more fire!
I let out a rather soprano "oh god!" then said in an equally calm tone "nine nine nine" which is the british emergency services number.

My lady brought the phone and roughly 15 minutes later we're host to some rather friendly firemen who removed the microwave, were quite calm about everything and fitted us with a new smoke detector.

So yes fire! actual flaming fire! the really ironic thing is just before said miner conflagration, we were listening to a weerd al song about "the worst day ever!" which included lines about losing one's wallet and having one's head on fire being part of the worst day ever. Luckily the only thing that caught on fire was the durritos and the most serious injury was a very very miner burn to the tip of my ring finger, (which was fine once I ran it under the tap).

The really! scary thing is that had my lady been the one to get the duritos, she'd not have seen or smelt the fire (since she has a very limited sence of smell), so the potential consquence could've been quite nasty indeed! My lady attributes this to angels, though whether angels or some luck by the god of microwaves I'm not sure.

The microwave in question was a talking one from kobold systems and one we've had for a long while since it was a present from an old neighbor who lost his sight early on and then died, leaving his various tech gear to me on the basis some might be useful.
It's been really handy, but quite a thing for it to go out in a literal blaze of glory! .

So yes, this evening was interesting indeed! .

@Mirage, interesting (and in the actual sence of interesting not the flaming fire sense). I might try quest to the core if there is time, since I did understand it didn't have the access fixes the other games did so was a little more problematic.
As to Timecrest, I went and looked up the Applevis page. I do wish slightly someone had posted about that one in new releases since it really sounds like my sort of thing, and something I'll definitely be trying out, though i might as well wait for the vo update.

Dark what possessed you guys to microwave Doritos?!  The seasoning on the chips is not only flammable, but burns at a very high temperature.  People use Doritos for kindling to start fires, haha!

I'm glad you guys didn't burn the whole place down. 

Well I'll be damned I didn't know that doritos were flammable either. See below for a guy cooking a stake using Doritos for fuel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt7oTbxSCjA

@Aprone, I actually thought you were joking there for a minute. We've done doritos in the microwave a good few times, indeed my family would have them with chilly, which moron makes crisps with a flammable seasoning?

Very nuts, and again not something anyone would assume. Though the fire service did think the age of the microwave was in question.

Anyway, it's all worked out and we'll look at getting a new microwave today. The talking one has actually been rather useful. It's one of these things that I'd not exactly need, but have found a very handy thing to have, both as a conventional kitchin timer and in terms of being able to do stuff precisely, they also have a good bulb in them which heats quickly (as indeed I just found out), .

Ah, I've always wondered what dying of spontaneous combustion might be like... Think I'll go get me some of my mother's freshly made flower tortillas as soon as I can.

Well, my first post on one of this topics. I should probably add to the already going conversation but ... nah.
As people who know me know, I'm still going to school. This year's already torcher, we got piles of homework even on the first day and have been getting it all other days too. Luckely the first test is only in middle of October, but we'll be getting other marks before then. Not sure how it's called in English, I guess translated from my language it would be asking, don't care to check, but yeah, some teachers already plan to start this week. I know, I'm complaining to much now, I'll get used to it eventualy, it's allways hard the first munth after summer.
This year it's 9th class. Which means being the oldest, the smartest and all that. It also means choosing where to go next. I'm worried about it. I've got another half a year or so to choose, and I have no ideas what I want to be, where I want to go, why and how. Everyone else eather knows exactly or at least has some idea. I'm honestly afraid to choose wrong, to mess up, I know you can change it later but it will still cost you if you do.
So if anyone bother's answering, how was it for you? How did you decide where to go to, did you have an idea from the beginning or got one the last second? I know that there were school debates here priviusly but still it doesn't hurt to ask.

@Mayana, For me, it was relatively easy, since I always knew I wanted to go to university, if nothing else just to go to university and learn, then again I am a somewhat academic type. The question was what, and once I determined philosophy as a subject that was pretty much settled. then again that was in the days when, if you had good enough marks and a half way decent offer from university, you were able to go without running up debts the size of the national defense budget for the Uk, since then the government has decided that while it's going to pay for athletes and politicians and extra sports centers, students can create cash by paying back lones at whacking great interest for universities who can charge what the hell they like, so it's financially a less viable option over here than it used to be.
Paradoxically though, socially university is probably the best thing i've ever done as a blind person, and since if your visually impared your unlikely to get a high enough paying job to qualify for paying back that lone anyway, it probably doesn't matter anyway.

Either way, if your academic I'd strongly consider university, simply because of who you meet, the life, and the generally good experience.

otherwise your on the basis of looking for a job which can be a pretty dicy prospect if your visually impared.

As for me, life continues. To my utter and ever lasting shock, Lloyds insurence actually paid for a new microwave streight off without any prevarication, which was nice since financially things aren't as esy as they could be right now owing to various complex things to do with bennifits and my lady's entrance into the country, still we'll be okay, we just can't be lavish spenders for a while .

Other than that things are good. I'm writing a review for The Bfg, trying out cosmic rage mud in preparation for writing a db entry, and am now going on to the second volume of mistborn. my wife and I are also reading Star tide rising by david brin which is pretty awesome sf about evolved dolphins, so a definitely interesting read, apart from the fact the uplift universe Brin writes in is just fascinating in and of itself (I've never seen a universe with quite as many  and varied aliens).

I really do hope the audiogames archive sorts things out, since I was in the process of doing things with the db, but hopefully it'll work out okay.