Poesysteme: Markmark Xydenden

My latest piece entitled "Markmark Xydenden".

markmark xydenden ter mark
markladentmarkmark markmark mark
markmark outcutmarkden dentact
dentact dentactactdent oneden
mark xyonemarking markdent out
markladentmarkmark mark den out
dentactactdent xydenden den
ter den dentmarksphsty ter

Like I said before, it's far from genius and it's a little disappointing when the poems tend toward the repetitive, but it's pretty entertaining while it lasts.

Word Games

I have a penchant for offbeat games. Over the years, I have moved away from being instantly dazzled by graphics and sound when game play itself hasn't changed at all. I'm looking at you, most first-person shooters. So during the past couple of weeks, I've had a chance to check out a few pretty amazing little independent games thanks in part to the free games list at freegames.1up.com.

One title with which I've spent more time than expected is Poesysteme. An explanation of the game is somewhat difficult because it's not really a game at all. In the fashion of a simulation game, you are able to place grass, trees, and what look like oil splotches around an isometric grid. In true word nerd fashion, the grass is formed entirely of punctuation marks and the trees display similar theatrics. Then, you can also place words which then wander around the grid breaking apart and combining with other words that you place to form new words. At any time, you can hit the space bar to see a poem made from some of the words you've let run around the world. It always ends up being nonsensical but it can be very entertaining. If I can find a place to freely host audio that lets me embed it here at the Green, I'll make a recording of one of the Macintosh voices reading one of my nonsense poems to put on display here. If you'd like to see the game in action without actually playing it, someone has already provided you an option:



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Now playing: Roy Haynes - If I Could
via FoxyTunes

Nick Pics: Episode 2

OK, so it's been another two weeks since my last post. I've always been told that patience is its own reward. And I never really believed it either.

Moving on, Nicholas is growing and changing every day. He almost-smiles at us quite a bit now. We're still not sure if he's really happy about us playing with him or trying to fart, but we'll take anything we can get. He's generally a more pleasant creature to be around these days, despite some minor exceptions like our 40-minute scream-a-thon yesterday. For anyone with a "Maybe he's..." on the tip of their tongues, he had been given his Mylecon, he was dry, clean, fed, warm, and being held and bounced so after that I give up.

When Ian and Rachel were visiting a couple weekends ago, their son Lucian took a few opportunities to check out the scene.


This was Nick about two weeks after his birthday.


And here his is at eight weeks. This is one of my favorite images of him so far. I love his expression. So funny.


One day, Amy went to the grocery store and I stayed home to babysit. She came home to one jealous kitty.


Here he is all dressed up with nowhere to go, which is apprently quite upsetting for babies.