Thorns Part 2: Thornier

I forgot the machete again. I'm not even sure I own a machete, but it might be a good investment. I was back at Veteran's Park last Sunday, but Sean could not join me due to illness and lack of desire to walk around in the cold. Amelia joined me, however, as she needed to take some photographs of the park anyway, so I loaded up my GPS with the last two caches in Veteran's Park, and we were off.

The first cache was over by the lake entrance, not far from the infamous fence that nearly thwarted us during our last outing. After braving the harsh winds on the lakeside path, we came to a stand of trees near the fence, and the GPS informed us our prize lay on the other side. Recalling my bruised stomach last week, we elected to walk around the fence.

We came to a clearing in the trees and determined our cache was somewhere around there. "Around there" were trees, brambles, dead leaves and more brambles. My first thought was that it was lodged in the middle of a huge thorn bush. It was almost impossible to see into the middle of it, so it seemed like a logical spot, and I acquired an exciting number of lacerations before confirming that bush was, in fact, empty. The listing for the cache had warned to watch for poison ivy, so we found ourselves searching the woods, hoping to stumble upon poisonous plant life, since it would mean we were close.

At least twenty minutes later, after beating thorn bushes, kicking over rocks and logs, and searching every low tree branch in sight, I found myself inspecting a vine while trying desperately to remember lost Girl Scout training, when Amelia yelled out that she had found it. Apparently one of the rocks I had not kicked over was not a rock at all. Amelia had kicked it over, and low and behold, there was a small tupperware container beneath it. There were a few coins and some pretty stones, so Amelia took one of the stones for a school project and I left a bumper sticker. We signed the log and, victorious, went on our way.

The second cache was over near the playground entrance, but before we made our way over, Amelia stopped to take some pictures of the battlefield. We found a set of keys lying on the ground there, and mused over which brave Civil War soldier might have lost them.

After a brisk and tiring walk to the other entrance, the GPS led us to a path in the woods near the playground's parking lot. We followed the path until the compass started to point into the woods. We found a smaller, pseudo-path that led off of it, overgrown with thorn bushes about as tall as I am. Walking through the woods soon became an intricate dance, involving stepping on thorny stalks to keep them from catching on our jeans, while simultaneously ducking and lifting higher stalks to keep them from gouging out our eyes. We got caught up multiple times before finally entering a muddy clearing. The GPS led us to the muddiest part of the clearing, where several logs and dead branches formed shaky stepping stones over the mud. The cache, fortunately, wasn't hard to find, hidden in a tree with three trunks. It contained a tiny plastic frog, which Amelia also took for her project. I left another bumper sticker. I have a lot of bumper stickers. We left the woods tired and happy, although the happiness didn't last too long since we still had to walk all the way back to the lake entrance where we parked.

So far now, we have found five caches in Veteran's Park, and I'm pretty sure we've exhausted it's current supply. It was good newbie hunting ground, though, and I am now confident we are ready to level up into urban and, once the weather improves (and not before), state park caches.

It Counts as Sleep as Long as I'm Sitting in Bed, Right?

I have recently discovered the digital version of crack. To my great surprise, it is not an MMORPG. As enjoyable and soul-suckingly addictive World of Warcraft is, it has the misfortune of being bound to a PC.

When I went to my local video game store looking for a new game for my Nintendo DS, I was somewhat disappointed in their selection. They had none of the games I was looking for, and I was about to move on to a different store when a used copy of the game Puzzle Quest caught my eye. I remembered hearing good things about it, and priced at $15 I figured it was worth a shot. Little did I know multi-colored gems would soon haunt my dreams.

Puzzle Quest takes the open-ended leveling and fantasy environment of an RPG and combines it with the casual game Bejeweled, because, well, why the hell not? I would have liked to have been in that design meeting when, after ten hours or so of fruitless brainstorming, someone decided that what serious role-playing games really needed was more gem-swapping. Putting it on a portable system was the next level of genius, since the phrase "and playing Puzzle Quest" can now be accurately added to almost any activity I engage in.

It has all the basics of your usual RPG's, you create a character by picking one of four classes and a portrait to represent her, and before long you're being sent on errand duty by your dad and some queen, and things are trying to kill you. But instead of swinging your sword at said things, you play a puzzle game. You and the monster take turns swapping gems on the board, trying to create lines of three or more, and depending what kind of gems you swap different effects occur. Some gems give you money, some experience points, some just right out hurt the bastard (I always imagine those gems as my character bopping the monster over the head with the pretty glowing staff she's holding in her picture), but most of the gems give you mana of various colors. Your character comes equipped with several spells, and can learn more as she levels up, and each spell requires different amounts of mana. Once you've collected enough of the right color mana from swapping gems (and there is NEVER enough yellow mana) she can cast her spell.

Your enemies do this as well, and, frequently, do it a lot better. The game makes no excuses for the blatant cheating, and I can assure you by the time the orc is on his 5th extra turn and your health is in the single digits from all the +5 damage gems that only drop when it's convenient for him, you may start fantasizing about stabbing him in the head with your stylus. Unfortunately, I've found the stylus is much too blunt for these purposes, so you just have to suck it up.

If that were it, it probably wouldn't be too bad. True, games like Bejeweled can be very addicting over short periods of time, and the leveling mechanic would easily extend this addiction, but it would probably still get old pretty quick. But, like any good RPG, Puzzle Quest ropes you in with the side quests. You can search for runes to craft Items of Awesome Power, capture enemies in order to learn new spells from them, and capture, train and level up a staggering array of mounts. And each and every one of these tasks is accomplished through another Bejeweled-style puzzle, ensuring maximum addictiveness potency. I don't understand why the government is wasting time with marijuana when stuff like this is available on the market unrestricted. I walked into Taco Bell today and observed a line of fake yellow tulips sitting along one window, as decoration, and the first thing that came to my fevered mind was "Yellow Mana!!"

So to sum up this rather disjointed review\cry for help, I like Puzzle Quest. A lot. And if you don't mind seeing grids of colorful gems every time you close your eyes and losing sleep to the "just one more turn" mentality, I heartily recommend it. For those without a DS, the game is also available for Xbox Live and the PC through Steam, although they both probably lose something in translation due to the inability to play them at red lights (Red Mana!).

Next Time I'm Bringing a Machete

So Saturday saw Sean and myself embarking on our second geocaching adventure in Veteran's Park. Due to late sleeping on Sean's part, we did not leave until after two in the afternoon, but it was a mild day and we were able to find two geocaches before the sun went down and we were kicked out of the park.

The first cache was pretty simple. We entered at the south(?) entrance to the park, the one with all of the sports fields, and our GPS informed us we were less than half a mile away from the cache. After pausing to contemplate a stone in the middle of the woods memorializing a random Boy Scout's uncle, we headed briskly down a side trail in the vague direction the GPS was pointing us.

It took about a minute and a half for Sean to start complaining that I was walking too fast, but it only took about another minute for me to start getting tired and slow down. We don't power walk much in karate class, unfortunately.

The GPS took us to a bramble filled spot in the woods near a huge fallen tree, not far from the trail, and we got well-acquainted with several thorn bushes before Sean discovered he was basically standing on the cache. The cache turned out to be a large Tupperware container hidden under a smaller fallen log. It was filled with the usual trinkets and small toys, and we examined the contents as discreetly as possible, keeping out of sight of muggles on the trail. We didn't take anything, but we read the log, adding a stirring argument about the temperature.

The second cache turned out to be over half a mile away from our current location, so we headed back to the main path to determine which direction we needed to go. That idea didn't last long as Sean insisted we cut across a field of high grasses and abandoned wooden fencing, but we were going somewhat in the right direction, so I didn't argue.

We discovered a chain link fence in our path, and since the GPS informed me our desired direction lay on the other side of the fence, I made the entirely reasonable suggestion that we jump it. It was only about six feet high and lacked barbed wire, so I didn't see any problems with the idea. Sean started making some bullshit protest about the fence "ending right down there", but I knew he was just being a wuss about climbing it, so I took off my coat and proceeded over. Or tried, at least. It turns out Ugg boots, while absolutely stellar at keeping the feet warm and comfortable in any weather, really kind of suck at fence climbing. After several failed tries, including one barefoot attempt, Sean kneeled down and let me use his back as a step stool to get over. He then proceeded over behind me in one smooth jump. Jackass.

Having conquered the fence, we continued to follow the GPS and discovered there was a lake in our way. Not to be discouraged, we followed the shore until the lake turned into a stream that was, unfortunately, slightly too wide to cross in the middle of February. The stream was directly in our path, so we were forced to walk until we found the bridge and then double back. We briefly considered attempting to cross the stream on a conveniently low-hanging branch, but memories of various incidents from our middle school Stokes trip encouraged us to keep walking.

Once we were on the right side of the stream it didn't take too long to reach the area the GPS pointed us towards, a collection of shallow ponds, mud, and, of course, thorn bushes. What wasn't as easy was finding the actual cache. We knew from the listing that it very small and, thank god, wasn't hidden on the ground. Scouring the area we found fallen logs, feathers, and several empty bird's nests, but the cache eluded us. We had covered a rather wide area and the sun had started to go down before I finally noticed a tiny tube, about the size and shape of a roll of pennies and wrapped in camouflage tape, sitting in the branches of a sapling. A sapling wrapped in brambles as thoroughly as Sleeping Beauty's castle. It took a delicate and steady hand to pull it out, but we didn't have one of those so I just grabbed it. By then I had enough thorn scratches over my body I could barely feel my skin anymore anyway. The tube only contained a log, which we flipped through and signed, feeling victorious.

The feeling faded as we realized we had no idea how to get back to our parking lot. One might think it would be hard to get lost in a park while equipped with a GPS receiver. One would be wrong.

We eventually found the main path and followed it until we saw sports fields. All I had to show for the trip were thorn injuries and bruising on my stomach from leaning over a rusty fence, but all in all, it was a satisfying hunt.

Test Post

Howdy! This is my new blog, and this post, as you can tell from the title, is a test post.