I've got the CycloDS and it's easy as pie to grab homebrew stuff, put it on a microsd card with the included usb adapter, and load it up. I've not tried any of the others, but I've no complaints about it. Plug and play all the way.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 2:14 PM on August 26, 2008

Wii Sports is pretty egalitarian, but with potentially 50 players, you may have the one guy who plays GH at home dominating the competition by playing on Expert, even among the pros. Some people take it very seriously.

You may want to consider having a performance-based competition for Guitar Hero, i.e. have the audience judge the winner based on how willing they are to look silly while playing (playing behind their back, on their knees, etc), rather than by score.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:30 AM on August 20, 2008 marked best answer

Check out if libraries, or better yet, school or university libraries, are having a sale. I've found some really great educational classroom posters from the 60's and 70's about the periodic table, the metric system, astronomy, butchery charts, and our bright nuclear future for less than a dollar apiece at my university's library. Not only scientific, but retro-futuristic to boot!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:42 AM on August 11, 2008 marked best answer

Dude, I say pick away. If you're nose mining and she bails, it was never meant to be, but if you munch boogs and she stays, then it's true love.

Many, many people pick their nose. Very few people eat their boogers. Most people find the habit very gross. Personally, I think it's less gross than people who deliberately hawk up and spit out phlegm, but to each their own.

Just do it in the john when you're taking care of other waste expulsion... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 9:46 AM on July 10, 2008

Not sure if this meets your criteria, but Gears of War has a song over the end credits featuring samples from the game, which is a tribute to and perfectly captures the complex and nuanced character of Cole Train.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:52 AM on June 24, 2008

Ernesto Aeroflot - Advice for a Youngster
Excellent advice for anyone really, free, and a fine song to boot.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 3:27 PM on June 6, 2008

There is a collection of animated Soviet propaganda films available which I found a fascinating peek into the other side of the cold war. The discs are available individually through Netflix and there is a disc that deals specifically with anti-capitalist (typically anti-american) themes.

Oddly, in these films the capitalist is usually won over and sees the error of his ways, rather than being killed.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:17 AM on May 30, 2008 marked best answer

I donate online, do not desire any extra incentive, and wish it were possible to donate anonymously to any charity. I opt out of everything I can and despise getting anything back from charities I donate to. Each newsletter and bumper sticker I get that I didn't ask for, I feel like it's money wasted that could have gone towards the charity's actual purpose.

I understand it's important, but it makes charities seem like their in the business of securing donations, rather... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 5:45 PM on April 16, 2008

Many people use MMORPGs and other online games as a way of staying in touch with geographically distant friends and family.

There is an island in Second Life that is exclusive to autistic players, where they can form their own social structure. There was also a game that matched facial expressions to emotions to help them interact with non-autistics, but I can't seem to find the article about that.

Re-Mission is a game which was proven to boost... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 12:32 PM on March 13, 2008

Linnea Quigley as Trash in Return of the Living Dead. Quality of performance is arguable, but definitely cool and memorable.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:15 AM on March 3, 2008

Apart from newer stuff, consider adding in some of their side projects. I find they are composed of both incredibly great and fairly blah songs at about the same ratio as their newer albums. Check out Mono Puff (first album first), John Linnell's State Songs, and if you can find them, John Linnell's House of Mayors (The title track is awesome), and Hello the Band's EP (Town to Town is one of my favorites, but it's very difficult to find).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:00 AM on March 3, 2008

I'm trying hard to think of advice to give to a TMBG-concert goer, and I've really got nothing. You would have to try really really hard and be very deliberate in order to do something considered even slightly inappropriate.

TMBG shows are where the dorks come out to let loose and have a good time amongst their kin. You'll be able to hug a wall or dance your ass off and still fit in. They only way you could possibly not fit in is to not enjoy yourself, which would be... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:17 AM on February 13, 2008

For multiplayer, it's the DS, hands down. The PSP is more of a traditional console, only handheld, and for sure there are a lot of great games for it, but the DS is just geared for casual multiplayer, both in terms of design and its library.

I work in game development, and can always find someone wanting to play some DS game or other. I have yet to find anybody interested in PSP multiplayer anything.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 12:45 PM on January 31, 2008

This?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 6:06 PM on January 28, 2008 marked best answer

Last time I was in Japan I had my mind blown by the Yokohama Joypolis, which is Sega's tremendous arcade/theme park. There is also one in Tokyo, though I haven't visited it. I had no problem navigating it with barely any knowledge of the Japanese language.

Aside from far-out arcade games (Typing of the Dead, a hand-cart simulator, etc) there are also ride-film type attractions that were a bit more expensive, but featured things like bumper cars with tennis ball bazookas... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:34 AM on January 25, 2008

Definitely take a look at rule books from Dungeons and Dragons or other traditional pen and paper RPGs. They're written for the average person to be able to do all the math for an encounter based on stats themselves, in real-time, on paper.

Also consider playing a simpler RPG like Paper Mario, or PM: Thousand Year door. I found their approach of combat doing damage like "5" a lot easier to grasp the functions behind than a typical Final Fantasy game, where I'm... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 12:25 PM on January 17, 2008

This is a very daunting task, as everyone's going to write down games that were important to them personally. One may as well ask what are the top 20 television shows that should be watched, or top 20 books that should be read. Still, if her intent is to get a basic grasp on some of the more recognizable cultural touchstones of gaming from major genres, here's what I'd recommend. I'm almost certainly leaving some important ones out.

Puzzle - Tetris,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:41 AM on January 8, 2008

Thirding Picross DS, it has hundreds of puzzles that appeal to folks who like traditional pencil and paper-based puzzles like Sudoku or Crosswords.

Speaking of which, there are also Sudoko. For DS, I recommend Sudoku Gridmaster. There are many Sudoku games for DS, and they are not all equal.

Also the New York Times Crossword for DS is just what it sounds like. I haven't tried it myself, though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:32 AM on December 3, 2007

The Adventures of Cookie and Cream is a cooperative split-screen action/puzzler. It's not for everybody, but there's nothing else like it I've ever seen.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 3:12 PM on November 27, 2007

As far as not killing your neck (I assume you mean due to trying to read the text), just make the whole thing, including the text, a group (Object->Group). When you need to read other parts of it, spin the group, then just hit undo to reset it back to normal, no special monitor required.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 2:38 PM on November 19, 2007

If you're into games like Puzzle Quest which are pretty much about rapidly matching colors, Popcap Hits is coming out soon. It has Bejeweled, which is very similar to Puzzle Quest, only without all the spells and RPG elements, just matching colors. It also includes Astropop, which is essentially Breakout (or Arkanoid).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:04 AM on November 12, 2007

Death Race 2000 (1975)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 3:42 PM on September 24, 2007 marked best answer

Everblue and Everblue 2 are both sea-diving games, and revolve solely around sea diving, finding treasure, photographing sealife, etc. Relatively mellow games. Both for PS2
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 6:22 PM on September 20, 2007

The drive on a PS2 starts having trouble with CDs before before DVDs. Usually it will simply not load them on start. I had the same trouble with mine and extended its life simply by turning it on its side. There are more involved solutions involving adjusting the laser's focal depth, but I'd try turning it on its side first.

It may also be a single, unfortunately placed scratch, since it sounds like its freezing for you when it's trying to stream data from the disc.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:19 PM on September 9, 2007

Pretty much anything at all by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, but mostly from "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper"

"Cabbage Patch" by World Class Wreckin' Cru always works for me as well.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 12:36 PM on September 8, 2007

What kind of video card do you have currently? I find it odd that Lego Star Wars 2 would run, but the first wouldn't. According to Lucasarts web site, both require pixel shader support.

To find out, go to Run in your start menu, and type in "dxdiag", once it's done loading, go to the display tab. It should say in there what you have installed.

I'm not making any promises, but if one does and the other doesn't, you may only need a patch... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 5:54 PM on August 30, 2007

Seconding You Don't Know Jack, also Peggle has proven to be extremely competition-inducing.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:45 AM on August 29, 2007

Nothing beats "My Personal Possession" by Nat King Cole. It's an anthem of obsession:

You are my personal possession,
You're mine alone
You are my personal possession,
My very own.

Nobody else must kiss you but me,
Nobody else must miss you but me.
Nobody must dream of you but me,
And nobody else must love you but me.

You're my personal... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:31 AM on August 22, 2007

Thanks for all the great responses! Man this place is full of smart folks. I'll run these by the person who's actually writing the thesis, since I don't speak a lick of German myself.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:14 AM on July 12, 2007

If these PCs are online, it may be worthwhile to browse through the Jay is Games "kidsafe" archives. Many of these are online Java or Flash, but there are downloads as well. Nearly all games featured there are free, and quite a few are educational.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 1:14 PM on July 5, 2007

!!! A couple days ago I struck my first animal with a car after ten years of driving. It was a bird that seemed to deliberately swoop down into my hood. Today another bird tried what seemed to be the same thing.

I've seen this behavior before, but it does seem to be increasing, which I chalked up to confirmation bias after striking one with my car.

Based on what others have told me, birds do this kind of crap all the time. If anything, you'd... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 1:02 PM on June 25, 2007

I find Slacktivist really well-written, deep, and entertaining. He writes from the perspective of a progressive evangelist. Worth it for the Left Behind Fridays series alone.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 5:56 PM on June 10, 2007

From here:

Hint: Erase Save Data
At the title screen, where it says "PRESS START," press UP + SELECT + B to erase your save data and start a new game.

As far as I know, all GBA/DS games have as part of their technical requirements for Nintendo, a method for erasing all saved data. Sometimes it's an option in a menu, and often it's an obscure button combination that must be pressed, as in this instance.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:18 AM on April 15, 2007 marked best answer

If you need any assistance getting Basilisk up and running with System 7, drop me a line, e-mail's in the profile. I just recently did so myself for the express purpose of playing old Mac games.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:54 PM on April 11, 2007

I would suggest BASIC if it still has any practical use.

Mindstorms is excellent for introducing kids to programming. I used to teach a robotics class which used that as the primary tool, and kids loved it because, well, it's Legos and it's easy.

If your son is interested in creating RPGs, I recommend RPG Maker XP, which is cheap, comes with lots of pre-made sprite and tilesets and has a point and click scripting language which is pretty easy to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:31 AM on March 5, 2007

The film Constantine features an occassionally pissed off androgynous Gabriel. Pretty good flick too, despite the fact that it had no right to be. I imagine the comic book does too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:48 AM on March 2, 2007

Thanks for the answers so far. Quite mysterious it seems.

After a second look, the stripes on the Israel flag are not on the very edges as they seem to be on this flag, so it's probably unrelated.

Here is a link to the entire painting if it helps.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:44 AM on February 28, 2007

Though the flag itself may remain a mystery, this is veyr helpful info nonentheless. I'm sure there was a reason he put that flag there, and yeah, it is kind of weird that it's somebody's real-life house.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:19 AM on March 1, 2007

There are plenty of home-made titles which approach and surpass the high marks set by the "Quest" games. A good starting place would be Abandonia's adventure games section. Lots of great free games there. They also have RPGs. Then, if something turns out to not be to your liking, at least it was free.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 4:55 PM on February 16, 2007

For the days when you don't want to drive too far, there are things to do in Orange County itself. The Orange County Museum of Art is holding a Chuck Close show while you're in town.

There's also plenty of hiking/biking opportunities. The aforementioned Crystal Cove is quite nice, as is Aliso Canyon.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:54 AM on February 7, 2007

If you're planning on playing twitch games on your LCD TV, one very important factor to look out for is the response time. I was quite happy with my Polaroid LCD until I tried playing Guitar Hero on it, and then the 16ms response time becomes noticeable. The lowest I've seen on an LCD TV is 8ms, but there may be some with less.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 12:09 PM on February 6, 2007

My suggestion would be to have plentiful napkins, or personal cloth handkerchiefs if you plan to eat/play Wii.

Passing around the wiimote combined with finger foods could make for a very dirty wiimote, blech.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:30 AM on January 23, 2007

Thanks for the answers, all. I was just using the pack-ins as a metric since I figured everyone's would be the same.

What a mysterious little device. I didn't think the IR camera would be that much of a drain, since I imagine the camera's still receiving even if it's not pointed at the TV, and the info it sends is updated just as often as any other input method.

However, it does seem like turning off speaker/vibration can be a big boost. I... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 1:43 PM on January 21, 2007

Not sure if this is exactly what you mean, but there are a number of blogs that have been collected in a book, the humbly titled: "The Very Best Weblog Writing Ever"

Little Yellow Different has entries in this book and others.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 2:13 PM on January 14, 2007

A horizontal progress bar. I know I've seen a lot more of those than mercury thermometers or mountain climbers.

Ideally, it could be related to the type of work the volunteer group does.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 1:24 PM on December 15, 2006

The blue shell first made an appearance (to the best of my knowledge) in Super Mario Land, though even then it was still referred to as simply a "Blue Shell".

I have to say I'm leaning towards it being made up. Nothing wrong with that, I've heard it called many colorful things, along the lines of what robocop is bleeding said.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 4:13 PM on December 7, 2006

This is all great advice, and as an emergency backup, if you happen to find yourself acting flustered or nervous, just apologize and say that you're flustered and nervous because you're really very excited about the job. Honesty is the best policy.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 10:46 AM on December 6, 2006

Seconding The Demon Haunted World. It was most influential book on my worldview, and really served to remind me to remember that all we have is our own perspective.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 11:07 AM on November 28, 2006

A few caveman-themed video games:

Caveman
Caveman Ninja
Caveman Games
Big Nose the Caveman
B.C. Racers
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 12:22 PM on October 31, 2006

Little Sound DJ is de rigueur for chiptunes musicians, and runs on the very portable and cheap original Game Boy. I've never used it myself, but it seems pretty straigforward sequencing, as long as you don't mind a really tiny UI. It's primarily used for its distinctive sound rather than an easy to use phrase sketching device, but it sure is portable.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Durhey at 12:15 PM on October 31, 2006