Thursday, October 23, 2003
Well, the new vat is finally installed, and Mom made cheese for the first time in two weeks, which was exciting for all concerned. Even the cat. I caught her trying to cling to the top of the fencepost outside the cheesehouse window so that she could watch Mom, although the wind was blowing so hard this morning that she kept falling off.
(Our cat, I should mention, is obsessed with windows, and will sit in them for hours looking in at you. If you put her inside, she will sit in the window looking out. We have no clue why she does this.
This is the same cat for whom we invented "virtual petting". Although she will come up to you and rub up against your legs and generally be very affectionate, she hates to be picked up or touched, so we eventually started holding our hands about a foot away from her and making stroking and rubbing gestures, to which she will arch her back and purr like crazy. Do it through a window and her life is to all appearances fulfilled.
Even for a cat, she's pretty weird.)
On the cow front I had nothing more challenging to contend with then Nix deciding, for no apparent reason, to not stop with the mandantory one pass through the milking parlour and to cycle herself through it a couple of times after milking was over, until I finally got fed up and locked her out, the whacko. But all and all this is a relief. Yesterday morning was utter living hell on the cattle front, starting with going out to discover that the yearling heifers had gotten fed up with only getting the second-best pasture and broken into the milking herd's pasture and gorged themselves, and, moreover, were blocking the road so that I couldn't *get* the milking herd and start milking without moving them first. I had the dog, but.... Well, let's just say that there's few worse ways to wake up than standing at a gap in the middle of the field, looking up the hill at a bunch of happily delinquent heifers, and seeing exactly how it will be: you will start calling them and send the dog around them. They will rush past you and go stand at the other end of the field. You'll send the dog around them again, and they'll rush past you in the opposite direction. This will repeat until you can't stand it any more and try to block their path, at which point the dog will get horribly confused because he knows he's supposed to be putting the heifers through the gap but he also knows he's supposed to be bringing them to you and that's no longer the same thing, and the heifers will rush down the hill in pretty much the same way as they have been except that they'll split into two streams and detour around you. You'll loose your temper and start screaming and throwing things. You'll miss.
And then - knowing all this - going and doing it anyway.
Eventually my dad came and took the heifers off my hands, and God only knows what he did to them; I didn't stick around to find out, but instead collected my milking herd and went off to milk, half an hour late. The milking herd doesn't much like schedule changes. They expressed displeasure. Pungently.
And then my baby heifers were out.
And I didn't have the dog, and had to chase them up and down the field myself. Repeatedly.
And then fix all the fence.
Everybody seems to be behaving today, though... and life can't be too bad. I have Farscape; the whole first season, in fact, thanks to a friend. Nothing can be too bad when the whole first season of Farscape unexpectedly shows up in my mailbox.
(Our cat, I should mention, is obsessed with windows, and will sit in them for hours looking in at you. If you put her inside, she will sit in the window looking out. We have no clue why she does this.
This is the same cat for whom we invented "virtual petting". Although she will come up to you and rub up against your legs and generally be very affectionate, she hates to be picked up or touched, so we eventually started holding our hands about a foot away from her and making stroking and rubbing gestures, to which she will arch her back and purr like crazy. Do it through a window and her life is to all appearances fulfilled.
Even for a cat, she's pretty weird.)
On the cow front I had nothing more challenging to contend with then Nix deciding, for no apparent reason, to not stop with the mandantory one pass through the milking parlour and to cycle herself through it a couple of times after milking was over, until I finally got fed up and locked her out, the whacko. But all and all this is a relief. Yesterday morning was utter living hell on the cattle front, starting with going out to discover that the yearling heifers had gotten fed up with only getting the second-best pasture and broken into the milking herd's pasture and gorged themselves, and, moreover, were blocking the road so that I couldn't *get* the milking herd and start milking without moving them first. I had the dog, but.... Well, let's just say that there's few worse ways to wake up than standing at a gap in the middle of the field, looking up the hill at a bunch of happily delinquent heifers, and seeing exactly how it will be: you will start calling them and send the dog around them. They will rush past you and go stand at the other end of the field. You'll send the dog around them again, and they'll rush past you in the opposite direction. This will repeat until you can't stand it any more and try to block their path, at which point the dog will get horribly confused because he knows he's supposed to be putting the heifers through the gap but he also knows he's supposed to be bringing them to you and that's no longer the same thing, and the heifers will rush down the hill in pretty much the same way as they have been except that they'll split into two streams and detour around you. You'll loose your temper and start screaming and throwing things. You'll miss.
And then - knowing all this - going and doing it anyway.
Eventually my dad came and took the heifers off my hands, and God only knows what he did to them; I didn't stick around to find out, but instead collected my milking herd and went off to milk, half an hour late. The milking herd doesn't much like schedule changes. They expressed displeasure. Pungently.
And then my baby heifers were out.
And I didn't have the dog, and had to chase them up and down the field myself. Repeatedly.
And then fix all the fence.
Everybody seems to be behaving today, though... and life can't be too bad. I have Farscape; the whole first season, in fact, thanks to a friend. Nothing can be too bad when the whole first season of Farscape unexpectedly shows up in my mailbox.
Sunday, October 19, 2003
You are Form 3, Unicorn: The Innocent.
"And The Unicorn knew she wasn't meant to
go into the Dark Wood. Disregarding the advice
given to her by the spirits, Unicorn went
inside and bled silver blood.. For her
misdeed, the world knew evil."
Some examples of the Unicorn Form are Eve
(Christian) and Pandora (Greek).
The Unicorn is associated with the concept of
innocence, the number 3, and the element of
water.
Her sign is the twilight sun.
As a member of Form 3, you are a curious
individual. You are drawn to new things and
become fascinated with ideas you've never come
in contact with before. Some people may say
you are too nosey, but it's only because you
like getting to the bottom of things and
solving them. Unicorns are the best friends to
have because they are inquisitive.
Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Okay, dammit. What *is* it with you people and calling me innocent? I am *not* an innocent, have not been for years and years, did not particularly ever desire to be, and certainly never regretted loosing whatever innocence I may have once had. And no, I am not just referring to sex. I'm a fucking *cynic*, for God's sake.
So what is it with everyone calling me innocent?
*cough* Cool pic, though.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
I was wanting to do this some time ago, when the site was down, and have finally gotten around to it:
Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test
Hmmm.
The problem is that I can't take these things without remembering an incident in my freshman pyschology class. The whole class did one of these - not the Myers-Briggs, I think, but something similar - and our answers were taken up and sent off to be analyzed by an actual human being. A week later we were handed back the results - though asked not to show them to each other, as they might be rather personal - and then the teacher took a poll of the class to see how accurate we thought the tests were. Easily ninety percent of the class said they were accurate or very accurate.
It then transpired that there was no person that the tests had been sent off to; the teacher had thrown them all away, unread, and printed out identical copies of the same "personality analysis" and handed them out to us.
This isn't to say that I don't think my Myers-Briggs is inaccurate; in fact I think it's *very* accurate, regarding me, and I suspect that a lot of people who know me would agree with me. But then again, I was one of that ninety percent who agreed with her carbon-copy personality analysis.
People aren't simple. 48 questions aren't enough to tell me, or anyone, anything much about me.
On the other hand, it gave me half an hour's diversion, so who am I to complain?
Oh, and probably my all-time favorite online quiz.
| INFP - "Questor". High capacity for caring. Calm and pleasant face to the world. High sense of honor derived from internal values. 4.4% of total population. |
Hmmm.
The problem is that I can't take these things without remembering an incident in my freshman pyschology class. The whole class did one of these - not the Myers-Briggs, I think, but something similar - and our answers were taken up and sent off to be analyzed by an actual human being. A week later we were handed back the results - though asked not to show them to each other, as they might be rather personal - and then the teacher took a poll of the class to see how accurate we thought the tests were. Easily ninety percent of the class said they were accurate or very accurate.
It then transpired that there was no person that the tests had been sent off to; the teacher had thrown them all away, unread, and printed out identical copies of the same "personality analysis" and handed them out to us.
This isn't to say that I don't think my Myers-Briggs is inaccurate; in fact I think it's *very* accurate, regarding me, and I suspect that a lot of people who know me would agree with me. But then again, I was one of that ninety percent who agreed with her carbon-copy personality analysis.
People aren't simple. 48 questions aren't enough to tell me, or anyone, anything much about me.
On the other hand, it gave me half an hour's diversion, so who am I to complain?
Oh, and probably my all-time favorite online quiz.
.... and some things are just bizarre.
You are...Fuck Off.
What Usage of the Word Fuck are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
It's bad enough that I took this, but *somebody* had the spare time - not to mention the inspiration - to build it.
You are...Fuck Off.
What Usage of the Word Fuck are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
It's bad enough that I took this, but *somebody* had the spare time - not to mention the inspiration - to build it.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
A couple of science fiction writers have commented on Arnie's election. Comments range from the satirical to the outright despairing. I tend to agree. It's not that I have something against Arnold Schwartsenegger in particular, aside from not particularly liking his movies, but it's pretty clear that we're now electing politicians, not on the basis of our political leanings or their political platforms, but via simple brand recognition.
Not that the Democrats and Republicans haven't been making that clear, mind you - because when you get right down to it, the two parties are almost exactly the same in what they say and what they do, and have been for all of my lifetime. Democrats are just sneakier.
And in the meantime we have only one human being that Arnie could probably beat in an IQ comparison - or a spelling bee - and he's the president. Well, fuck. Perhaps I'll just go stick my head under a blanket for the next, oh, I dunno, ten, twenty years.
Not that the Democrats and Republicans haven't been making that clear, mind you - because when you get right down to it, the two parties are almost exactly the same in what they say and what they do, and have been for all of my lifetime. Democrats are just sneakier.
And in the meantime we have only one human being that Arnie could probably beat in an IQ comparison - or a spelling bee - and he's the president. Well, fuck. Perhaps I'll just go stick my head under a blanket for the next, oh, I dunno, ten, twenty years.
Sunday, October 12, 2003
So - just to add to the one screw that kept popping out of the bottom of my chair until it finally got lost - the other screw is now popping out too. I wonder how long until I loose that. Two screws missing give the chair a rather interesting rocking-horse effect, particularly if I lean forward a bit far... add that to the list of things not to do in my chair, right along with lean back too much or let it start rolling without a firm grip on the desk - although that last is not actually the chair's fault. There's a slant to the floor of my room, inperceptable to the naked eye but very significant when one is on a chair with wheels and unthinkingly pushes back from the desk and finds oneself drifting slowly backwards, just fast enough that it's difficult to get hold of the desk in time but not nearly fast enough to be fun, until one is becalmed in the middle of the floor feeling rather stupid.
Maybe I need a new chair.
Maybe I need to not blog when I'm sleepy.
Maybe I need a new chair.
Maybe I need to not blog when I'm sleepy.
Saturday, October 11, 2003
You are Serra Angel. Classy, beautiful, and hard-
working, but a little bit vulnerable.
Which Magic the Gathering card are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
The amusing thing is, I used to own several of these, and played 'em on my brother with devistating effect. They were favorites of mine... ah, Magic. I've still got all those bloody cards somewhere, I suppose.
What a week... nothing huge going down, just tons and tons of little shit, with the result that it's only now, on my day off, that I have time to putz around on the net reading webcomics and posting to my blog. Cruelty! Deprivation!
Among the events of the week were:
Hiking. Spent all of Tuesday climbing a mountain with my bro and our British intern, getting lost, arguing over the map, and trying to figure out whether we'd actually reached the top of the mountain. These are the Appalachians. They're old mountains, not arrogant young upstarts like the Rockies, and they've mellowed over the years, planed out, settled themselves comfortably into the scenery, with the result that climbing one is less a case of starting at the bottom and going up to the top than starting somewhere and heading mostly uphill (but sometimes down) and over bumps and through valleys and into forests and never really quite knowing which point is the highest, because there always seems to be something that's a bit higher than what you're standing on. We wandered around a bit and then chose a likely spot, ate lunch, and went home. We'd been climbing for three hours and anyway, it was starting to rain. It was great fun even if my knees still do hurt.
Cleaning up the cows. Winter is coming: you can tell by the chill, and the frost, and the sad little corpses of birds and rabbits that I keep tripping over. There'll be more of those. Nasty time for the old and the young, winter. But anyway, one of the results of winter is that the cows start getting filthier and filthier, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is they don't like winter all that much. To help keep them clean Dad came in and trimmed all their tails down. Upside: I no longer have great balls of burrs, hair, and shit smashing me in the face while I milk, or leaving patterns across my arms and face that could pass for something you'd hang in an art museum if it weren't for the smell, and the cows have been deprived of a major offensive weapon. Downside: they didn't really like getting their tails cut off with a pair of scissors, and objected (particularly to the few I did. I'm not very good with cutting hair, so I only did a few early on, the cows I felt were really going to improve my quality of life by being hairless - and also, considering my skill level, the cows I didn't like very much. Let's just say it was not fashion central.) To add to things, they didn't get properly fed for two milkings when we were doing this, due to a mix-up with the feed delivery company, and on the second milking Dad finished early and decided to do a little extra work. Cow's udders tend to hair up in winter, drawing extra filth, and so it's quite common to trim them around this time of year, but we discovered long ago that scissors don't work and sticking a set of clippers between a cow's legs is a great way to loose the clippers, your arm, your teeth, and anything else remotely breakable in the vicinity. Our solution? We burn it off.
This actually works pretty well. We're not using anything particularly hot - just a burning paper towel, generally - which is enough to shrivel up the hair but doesn't do anything to the flesh. The cows feel a bit of heat and will twitch and kick some, but not much. The disadvantage is that while they can't really feel what we're doing to them they can smell it, and cows do not like the smell of burning hair, especially when they strongly suspect it's their own. It triggers some deep-set instinctive reactions in them, and causes them to voice objections.
Have I mentioned that cows really only have one way of expressing displeasure? Yeah. We were wading hip-deep by the time Dad got through. Not my favorite morning.
Web work. Actually, that's ongoing, since I got in way over my head and had to scream for help. Thank god for a computer-literate friend with a lot of patience.
Mom's vat came. This would be the $14,000 cheese vat which she ordered from Holland and which we have been anxiously following the life and times of as it was picked up from the farm (it's a used vat), refurbished at the factory, loaded onto the boat, shipped across a great bloody ocean, landed in the wrong city, shipped to the right city, lost, found, taken apart by customs, patched back together, loaded onto a truck, lost while on the truck (many frantic phone calls - nobody can find our farm first try), unloaded from the truck by hand and with much grunting and straining, parked in the barn, and finally opened today. I haven't actually seen it yet. Bro says it looks like a giant hot tub.
Dinner. Actual going-out type dinner, at the local hot spot, which isn't much but does serve alcohol: partly a "yay-the-vat's-here" celebration dinner, partly a "Whoops-Mom-was-too-busy-to-cook" save. This lead to a bit of amusement. The bar had just suffered through a visit by the ABC Mafia the week before, and in consequence were checking IDs obsessively. I had mine, and Mom had hers, but neither dad nor our Brit intern had theirs - Dad out of forgetfulness, the intern because she's from a country with a sensible attitude towards alcohol.
Now, my dad is very, very obviously over 21. So is our intern. But this is America, land of legislation and lawsuits, and so neither one of them could get a beer without their driver's liscence. My brother, who was still at home, had to be rung up and applied to for emergency ID delivery. Luckily my parents aren't the fuss-making type, and everyone, including the the wait staff, was laughing about the whole thing by the time my bro got there and they could finally get their drinks.
Now I'm catching up on sleep, webcomics, blogging, and email, in roughly that order. Hopefully next week will be calmer.
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Cows suck.
Case in point: My Day.
So it's Sunday, you see, which means that both my parents and my brother are taking some much-deserved time off (bro and I get alternate weekends off). Not so bad, except that the work dog thinks that if Dad gets a day off, *he* gets a day off, and the dog is much more valuable than all three humans combined. And the cows know. Not right away; one can usually bluff them by shouting the dog's name and giving him commands in a loud, confident voice... but sooner or later they catch on. I got them three-quarters of the way into the barnyard this morning, but by then the hindmost cows had figured out there was No Dog, and stopped for a bit of a graze and a natter, and I had to go back out after them on the bike. Bastards.
But I finally rounded them up and locked them in the barnyard, leaving the holding pen gate unlocked while I went in to start milking so the stragglers could get a drink, as per routine; got the setup finished, turned the system on, and was just about to start slapping cups on when I saw the animals in the holding pen turning around and looking behind them with that look of pleased curiousity that anyone who's owned Jersey cattle knows and dreads. It's an ears-forward, head-up, alert look which can mean something as innocuous as "Oh look, a rather large snake has just dropped from the parlour roof and crawled through a few of our brethren's feet and is causing our human to make shrill noises with her mouth because it is trying to hump the milking machine hoses, how interesting," but all too often means something like, "Oh look, those of us whom the human has not yet chased into the holding pen have broken down a line of fence and are now galloping around the corner with their tails in the air, how interesting," as it did, in fact, mean in this instance. They galloped all the way around the barn and shit on everything they could and ate everything they weren't supposed to and then, when I finally caught up with them and tried to bring them back in, crowded around the concrete lagoon and made like they were going to jump in. None actually did, which was a relief, as swimming around in several thousand gallons of liquid shit trying to get a rope on a panicked animal was not in my plans for the day. By this point I had the dog, but he was convinced that Kid, the younger dog, was after his bucket of milk, and kept popping around to the parlour to stand guard, leaving me to chase around a bunch of disrespectful cows who were too busy having the times of their lives to pay much mind to one swearing, shouting, seriously pissed-off human. If cows had mouths shaped for it, I know they'd have been laughing.
And you know what's really amusing? It's when I talk to someone - and this happens pretty often - and some way or another the conversation drifts around to eating habits, and they say, "but - you mean, you're not a vegetarian? But you work with these animals, you know them, you've been around them all your life. How can you bear to eat them?"
And then I laugh great bitter peals of laughter and generally cause the questioner to back away hastily and give me a look that suggests they've only just realized that I am a sadistic madwoman. Poor innocents, raised on Bambi and Disney anthromorphism; how little do you know.
Beef for dinner tonight. Take that, you whores!
Case in point: My Day.
So it's Sunday, you see, which means that both my parents and my brother are taking some much-deserved time off (bro and I get alternate weekends off). Not so bad, except that the work dog thinks that if Dad gets a day off, *he* gets a day off, and the dog is much more valuable than all three humans combined. And the cows know. Not right away; one can usually bluff them by shouting the dog's name and giving him commands in a loud, confident voice... but sooner or later they catch on. I got them three-quarters of the way into the barnyard this morning, but by then the hindmost cows had figured out there was No Dog, and stopped for a bit of a graze and a natter, and I had to go back out after them on the bike. Bastards.
But I finally rounded them up and locked them in the barnyard, leaving the holding pen gate unlocked while I went in to start milking so the stragglers could get a drink, as per routine; got the setup finished, turned the system on, and was just about to start slapping cups on when I saw the animals in the holding pen turning around and looking behind them with that look of pleased curiousity that anyone who's owned Jersey cattle knows and dreads. It's an ears-forward, head-up, alert look which can mean something as innocuous as "Oh look, a rather large snake has just dropped from the parlour roof and crawled through a few of our brethren's feet and is causing our human to make shrill noises with her mouth because it is trying to hump the milking machine hoses, how interesting," but all too often means something like, "Oh look, those of us whom the human has not yet chased into the holding pen have broken down a line of fence and are now galloping around the corner with their tails in the air, how interesting," as it did, in fact, mean in this instance. They galloped all the way around the barn and shit on everything they could and ate everything they weren't supposed to and then, when I finally caught up with them and tried to bring them back in, crowded around the concrete lagoon and made like they were going to jump in. None actually did, which was a relief, as swimming around in several thousand gallons of liquid shit trying to get a rope on a panicked animal was not in my plans for the day. By this point I had the dog, but he was convinced that Kid, the younger dog, was after his bucket of milk, and kept popping around to the parlour to stand guard, leaving me to chase around a bunch of disrespectful cows who were too busy having the times of their lives to pay much mind to one swearing, shouting, seriously pissed-off human. If cows had mouths shaped for it, I know they'd have been laughing.
And you know what's really amusing? It's when I talk to someone - and this happens pretty often - and some way or another the conversation drifts around to eating habits, and they say, "but - you mean, you're not a vegetarian? But you work with these animals, you know them, you've been around them all your life. How can you bear to eat them?"
And then I laugh great bitter peals of laughter and generally cause the questioner to back away hastily and give me a look that suggests they've only just realized that I am a sadistic madwoman. Poor innocents, raised on Bambi and Disney anthromorphism; how little do you know.
Beef for dinner tonight. Take that, you whores!
Thursday, October 02, 2003
The Ninth Annual Interactive Fiction Competition is on, games officially available for download, judging beginning.
Most people don't know about interactive fiction games, or text adventure games, or if - however you want to write it, it's the same thing. It's very simple. A very long time ago, before Doom or any computer game more complex than arcade-style Space Invaders, there were these games put out that were nothing more, and nothing less, than text. You, the player, were the protaganist of these games, essentially being walked through a long and complex story with puzzles and mazes and brain-teasers to keep you interested. Infocom was the company, and Douglas Adams's adaptation of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was probably the most famous of the games, although stories like "Zork" and "Leather Goddesses of Phobos" were popular as well.
Then came Doom. Ba-da-boom. Bye-bye text.
But not quite. There were still quite a lot of people who loved the old story-games, with their rich descriptions and good storylines, and kept writing them, and the format of text adventures grew and changed and improved with titles like Graham Nelson's "Curses" (well-written puzzlefest) or, on the other end of the spectrum, Ian Finley's "Babel" (dark science fiction nightmare.) The games were an incredible amount of work, and generally they were freeware, or at worst donation ware. They were written for the love of the story.
The IF competion is a chance for game writers to strut their stuff and game lovers to get some grand new material. Judging is by popular vote and prizes are purely for the show of it, but it's a great way to get introduced to the IF world. Another way to tell stories. What a wonderful, wonderful idea.
As for the competion games themselves, well, there's no predicting exactly what you'll get, but they tend to fall into a few definitive categories. At the top are the mind-blowers, the truly, really excellent games that everyone agrees are excellent and which place at the top of the comp - Ian Finley's stuff is always good for this, and Emily Short's. Then there are the really good games which are a matter of taste and get argued over heatedly. My personal faves in this category are the humorous games. There's some truly excellent humorous IF out there, but most people seem vaguely uncomfortable lifting them to the heights of the darker works, because we've been so trained to see humor as "light" stuff, clearly inferior. There's always also a couple of hardcore puzzlefests, a few in-joke games like "Being Andrew Plotkin", and a few ultra-literary James Joyce style thingies which no one is entirely sure what to do with.
Then there'll be a vast middle category ranging from the competent and entertaining to the "well, it was a good idea, pity about the programming bugs" or the "nice programming, but it would have helped if the writer had learned English first", and finally there is another small category of really, truly stinking games. Some are simply so buggy as to be unplayable, some are painfully small and pointless and badly written, and some are just... strange. There is almost always one erotica story, which has been without exception very, very bad so far, although I did get a few laughs out of last year's. Nothing like a paragraph-long description of an orgasm using words like "superlative" to give me the giggles.
But it's a narrow genre. The total is down to thirty games entered this year. This makes me sad. The world could always do with less Doom and more stories.
Most people don't know about interactive fiction games, or text adventure games, or if - however you want to write it, it's the same thing. It's very simple. A very long time ago, before Doom or any computer game more complex than arcade-style Space Invaders, there were these games put out that were nothing more, and nothing less, than text. You, the player, were the protaganist of these games, essentially being walked through a long and complex story with puzzles and mazes and brain-teasers to keep you interested. Infocom was the company, and Douglas Adams's adaptation of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was probably the most famous of the games, although stories like "Zork" and "Leather Goddesses of Phobos" were popular as well.
Then came Doom. Ba-da-boom. Bye-bye text.
But not quite. There were still quite a lot of people who loved the old story-games, with their rich descriptions and good storylines, and kept writing them, and the format of text adventures grew and changed and improved with titles like Graham Nelson's "Curses" (well-written puzzlefest) or, on the other end of the spectrum, Ian Finley's "Babel" (dark science fiction nightmare.) The games were an incredible amount of work, and generally they were freeware, or at worst donation ware. They were written for the love of the story.
The IF competion is a chance for game writers to strut their stuff and game lovers to get some grand new material. Judging is by popular vote and prizes are purely for the show of it, but it's a great way to get introduced to the IF world. Another way to tell stories. What a wonderful, wonderful idea.
As for the competion games themselves, well, there's no predicting exactly what you'll get, but they tend to fall into a few definitive categories. At the top are the mind-blowers, the truly, really excellent games that everyone agrees are excellent and which place at the top of the comp - Ian Finley's stuff is always good for this, and Emily Short's. Then there are the really good games which are a matter of taste and get argued over heatedly. My personal faves in this category are the humorous games. There's some truly excellent humorous IF out there, but most people seem vaguely uncomfortable lifting them to the heights of the darker works, because we've been so trained to see humor as "light" stuff, clearly inferior. There's always also a couple of hardcore puzzlefests, a few in-joke games like "Being Andrew Plotkin", and a few ultra-literary James Joyce style thingies which no one is entirely sure what to do with.
Then there'll be a vast middle category ranging from the competent and entertaining to the "well, it was a good idea, pity about the programming bugs" or the "nice programming, but it would have helped if the writer had learned English first", and finally there is another small category of really, truly stinking games. Some are simply so buggy as to be unplayable, some are painfully small and pointless and badly written, and some are just... strange. There is almost always one erotica story, which has been without exception very, very bad so far, although I did get a few laughs out of last year's. Nothing like a paragraph-long description of an orgasm using words like "superlative" to give me the giggles.
But it's a narrow genre. The total is down to thirty games entered this year. This makes me sad. The world could always do with less Doom and more stories.
