• I downloaded Civilization IV the other day. I love sim games and back in the day I was all about the Warcraft and Age of Empires. Anyway I had read a lot of good things about the Civilization series and I was pretty excited to play it and build my empire. Well, this game BLOWS!@!!!@@ WTF there’s like “turns” ?? You actually have to hit [return] like every 3 seconds to tell the game your turn is over. Ugh I wanted to kill myself after playing just the tutorial for all of 5 minutes. Not to mention there were all kinds of horrible animated scenes with ugly cgi characters getting all up in my grizzle about diplomatic relations. I don’t think anything will ever come close to the original Warcraft or Age of Empires. I downloaded Age of Empires III as well and will give that a try tonight. Otherwise I suppose I’ll play some Sim City 4, which isn’t nearly as great as I’d hoped it would be. Why do games always have to ruin themselves?

• Orange Fanta is really good until you drink more than 8oz., at which point it makes your intentines shrivel up and you will feel like gutwrenching death.

• I was bummed to hear about the James Kim saga ending in death. After actively following the story on Digg for a week, I felt so invested in the story. And the fact that it could have happened to anybody just made it so relatable and tragic :’(

• After a month of playing the horribly slowpaced, text-only online strategy game Inselkampf, I have finally amassed 80 points. I will soon be destroying all the weaklings surrounding my island.

• Am I completely retarded or is it impossible to post comments on Gawker-Media blogs such as Gawker and Deadspin?? I wanted to post a comment on Deadspin the other night to tell everyone how to stick it to the NFL Network by streaming the games on their PCs, but apparently it’s just simply not possible to register and post a comment?? WTF? Am I missing something?

• Every time I see a Scion xB business vehicle (about every 3-5 minutes if I’m driving somewhere), a shiver of rage traverses down my spine.

• Apparently The Decemberists accepted Stephen Colbert’s counter-counter challenge and will… compete in some sort of instrument challenge? I have no idea. The whole thing’s weird. And the Decemberists suck. Yeah they used to be good but they went too far with their Renaissance revival shtick and now every time I hear them I feel like I’m supposed to be dressed up as a Midieval peasant driving my friends to the Renaissance fair after our weekly Dungeons & Dragons game.

• Bob Dylan’s The Hurricane is still one of the greatest songs ever.

• Just say NO to the new NBA basketball. I vote for bringing back the cowhide. No one likes synthetic crap.