Platinum Sudoku 2: Great Battery Drainer!

Had this Samsung SPH-m300 a couple years now. Just a basic cell phone. Decent features. I've test-texted a story, of sorts, to my blog: an experiment...I was all thumbs at. The phone has its web browser, hasn't memory enough, I couldn't possibly get into Protag, but then this handy flip phone was only really intended for roadside emergencies and such; for phoning ahead when I'm running late for Christmas dinner. It's off more than on.

When I first wrestled it out of its fiendishly unyielding blister pack those years ago, I tried downloading a Sudoku game. Yes, Yoda would say, "Do, or do not, there is no Try": sometimes having tried best sums-up any attempt at doing, Master. The download never worked. Spent an hour on the phone with customer service re-trying, eventually draining dead the phone battery. The phone settled into its use-as-needed, two-year slumber inside my fanny pack.

Until this week. Not that there was any emergency; no family dinner to go to. I wanted to...try, again. I wanted Sudoku for this phone. And the download worked, spectacularly!

Platinum Sudoku 2, by Gameloft. Ubisoft's equally talented game-developer sibling, Gameloft. I should say here my Samsung SPH-m300 version of Platinum Sudoku 2 (version 1.0.2) doesn't at first playing match exactly the game description from Gameloft.com, so it's likely as they say: game content does vary by handset.

I'm still happy with this version 1.0.2 I got. Splendiferous mobile number-puzzler I wouldn't call a little game. Basic Sudoku comes in five difficulty modes: Easy, Medium, Hard, Professional, and Sudoku X. It's said that finishing a game on Hard unlocks Professional Mode. Finishing one on Professional unlocks Sudoku X. The playing field adds the diagonal in Sudoku X. That's sure to hurt my little grey cells, heh.

The Sudoku grid is bright and readable. From the Options menu, I can choose from 3 grids, 6 fonts, 3 control configurations. Play with sound on or off: I've heard a lively Euro'Pop Welcome theme and Congratulatory fanfare; tones confirming menu activations. And there are skins: differently coloured and textured backgrounds, to match my playing mood. I unlocked a skin simply in finishing my first game on Easy. The game called me a genius for that.

I'm no Sudoku master. I play for the fun of it. Easier puzzles: for the quick buzz. And the not as easy: the sit-and-stares. The Tutorial in Main Menu delivers game basics. In Sudoku, numbers 1 through 9 must show only once in every line, every column, every 3 x 3 box. Depending on the challenge level a player likes, more or fewer numbers are given at the start: clues sprinkled over the Sudoku grid. Aforementioned player fills in the blanks until all 81 cells are done. And correct.

Filling in those blank cells is a simple thumb exercise on the phone. I'm playing with default controls. Tapping the navigation ring moves us around the 81-cell puzzle grid. Pressing a number on the numbers pad enters that number. Pressing 0 deletes the number. The * shows a hint. The # enters a draft number.

We access all the goodies from the game Main Menu. Besides Sudoku Game, there's Solver Mode (the computer solves a puzzle you input, say a puzzle from the morning newspaper), and Custom Puzzle (when You want to solve the puzzle from the morning paper). We've got our Stats to ogle. Those display Options to tinker with. And the Tutorial, which I haven't finished. I'm going to play through the Tutorial just as soon as I'm done writing this: finishing Tutorial unlocks a skin, too.

There are hints, coins for buying those hints. Guessing there's a rewards system here. When I'm done, there's a nice plain EXIT from the main menu. And the game saves a game in progress: saved even when I was interrupted and simply closed the flip-phone (the bus...my stop).

I can see myself draining the phone battery over and over, over this jewel. Even my version 1.0.2 cut of it.

No Humourous Words Follow

Pollen. No humourous words follow. I've sat here long minutes now, tapping false starts intended to follow Pollen. I like humour. Even to over-play with it. Humour lifts, the why, obviously.

Enough of that. Time's wasting. DayJob's kept me all week from all the truly important things. Writing. Play. Family, oh'yeah.

Blog'spots work again. Good t'see. I have to file a retraction of sorts: the Access Denied issue actually appears now more a local sickness, not any sort of cyber-pandemic. I found the link I based part of my assumptions on in last week's History and tracked a bit: a Canadian blogger posted her Access Denied cry for help on Google UK's Support forum. I put 2 and 2 together and made 5 from that; and from a UK blogger suffering Access Denied woes in late February seemingly caused by a...uh, a widget, perhaps in Internet explorer 8. The aforementioned Canadian blogger is based in British Columbia. Telus, ISP to so many here in British Columbia, yes, has addressed, if not corrected, et cetera. I do love a puzzle sometimes. Only wish I could pay the rent playing with puzzles.

Posting 'coz I Finally Can Again

Okay. So now I can access my blog. Couldn't, even just minutes ago. And not all evening.

I took breaks, visiting threads. It seems 'blogspot' bloggers here, in BC, other places in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, all have this little wonder in common now.

403
Forbidden You were denied access because:
Access denied by access control list:

Somebody broke something.

I'm able to get in now, though too tired to smile much about it.

Waiting...Day...Twooo

Well, last night started out a soothing evening. Billy Connolly setting out for the Northwest Passage. A documentary series on the great Mekong beginning. Both shows on Vancouver's Knowledge Network. On PBS, KCTS out of Seattle, The National Parks: America's Best Idea.

I'd started writing something first thing yesterday morning. Enthusiastically went at it. Then the workday happened: it used me up. So I finished up last night recharging on teevee documentaries, and doodling little mindmaps: drawing bits of the movies playing in my head that make up the stories and ideas I'd like to write.

It seems to work, this exercising the other, not-as-used-up parts of my brain. I figure mindmapping still counts as pre-writing.



Did intend to post some two-week-old pix of my local cherry trees already in bloom. Stuff’s been getting in my way for almost two weeks now, though. Same last night. Blogger, every 'blogsite' connected to it, all went cryptically inaccessible last night.

403
Forbidden You were denied access because:
Access denied by access control list:

What’ever.

I could go elsewhere in the triple-w matrix just fine. Figured the issue just a problem with Blogger and its relateds. Emailed the draft to myself, for posting today: figured the problem would be resolved by morn, and I’d post from work when the time was right.

Right happens to be the end of another work day.




Two weeks ago, this. One side of the street sees just a bit more warming sun during the day. I’d been waiting for this. The annual return, and winter almost past.

Saw Red

I'll post the cherry blossom in February stuff later. Snapped the pic last Saturday. Still don't feel in a cherry blossom posting mood. Not into pink, not this moment.

There was all this red, see.


Funny, isn't it?
Suppose the folks at Google, just the same as so many other IT folks, must simply expect every pc is always online: therefore, always available for updating whatever bits of software they simply must update. Every hour. More often, if the user dares disable the service on his own machine.

Unlike Google Updater Service...or Gusvc...or Gupdate...I have an off-switch. Also happen to be on dial-up. Yesss, snickering IT guys, dial-up is it in some older parts of this...town.

So. Uninstalled Google ToolBar earlier today. The culprit. Some update, I imagine. Same thing happened to the machine at work, at the same time, two weeks ago. Am currently monitoring for unwanted system behaviour. Will be writing and playing Xbox later. Not sure in which order, that.

A Filled-Up Saturday...and smiling about it

Walked an hour after Saturday shopping. With camera, naturally. Hazy sunshine. Broken sky. Fine enough morning. No specific destination or subject in mind. Filled up my camera. Filled up my head.

Am thinking at last about weekend projects I might actually get to. Writing, I'll say. And...more writing. There are different types of writing I might actually get to, y'see. Here, now, I'm blogging a bit. And there's Protag, naturally — but Protag's for fun, and the camaraderie, and for later, right'right. After working some more on every one of the things underway in my UnderWay folder. My messy NaNo outline has been snoozing too long: I have a fix for it just waiting for a Saturday like this one. And there are contests to search for. Articles and stuff to read. Ideas to jot down. Children of Men is on Space tonight. I have questing to do in Morrowind into Sunday morning, too. I'm busy, okay? There's only so much left of this Saturday that's mine'all'mine!

Nice to be this kind of busy.

Speaking again of Protag: I just added again to Bolsheviki's Mage Hunting. Not a real chapter as such. Only a bit of backstory, for fleshing out some characters. Was fun, though. Drakon wakes in his bed. If you'd like a read, here's the link: http://www.protagonize.com/story/mage-hunting/3164

Self-Talk...One...Sure, why not?

So…we’re talking to ourselves then.

A little play, yes. I need play. And to move around the furniture in my head. And post something.

Need a little discipline too, though. Missed the contest deadline.

Yeah. Saw it coming. As in…passing by.

Worn out from working late. Not time enough left for thinking it out. Same old, same old.

Yes, and fully aware I’d spent away the nights experimenting with five-minute writing, scattered my time over that bunch, when I should’ve turned to the piece with the deadline. And worked it out.

So we know, at least. No excuses.

None. And that’s something.

It is.