Romeo Wahed
-
Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters
BioLabs: Outbreak! - Today's Time Waster
by Romeo Wahed Jun 16th 2008
Time wasting is fun, especially when things need to get done. For that purpose BioLabs: Outbreak! is perfect, because it offers the player a fairly repetitive task that is interesting enough that you can keep doing it instead of what you should actually be doing. That, coupled with a very forgiving learning curve, allows you to really take your time with it and get the most out of your time wasting investment.The concept is simple: there is an outbreak of some sort (inside a purple rectangle of all places) and you must administer an antidote to contain and kill off all the elements of the outbreak. But there is a catch, of course. The quantity of antidote is limited and the outbreak continues to grow in size as you progress through the levels. You contain the outbreak by growing bubbles of antidote and surrounding the individual cells with those bubbles. If during the antidote-bubble-growing-process the antidote makes contact with the outbreak, the bubble breaks and wastes precious antidote. So, it is important to exercise caution when growing bubbles, especially in the later stages.
And that's about as deep BioLabs: Outbreak! gets, which is probably good since you really don't want to spend too much time with any one time waster. In the end, BioLabs: Outbreak! will have wasted a good bit of your day and will let you enjoy the hectic catch-up session that follows your time wasting exploits.
RateBeer - Which brew is for you?
Ever wish you could harness the power of the collective intelligence to help you find that perfect stout or pale ale? RateBeer may well be the link to help you find that ultimate brew. Touting itself the most accurate and most-visited source of beer information, Rate Beer has an impressive index of beers which are all, well, rated.Beers can be viewed by latest ratings, category (such as style and country of origin), a top 50 list, annual top beer lists, and any beer or brand you want to search for to see how it fares against the rest of the world of beers. There is subscriber style "premium content" on the site, which mostly revolves around additional rankings like "Beer God's Top 50 Beers" and rankings by state. But all the core features of the site are available for free - which is perusing the main rankings and contributing your own ratings of beers you have enjoyed.
The site also has an event calendar that is fairly stocked with beer-related events, a guide to beer in different areas utilizing Google Maps by highlighting the best places to down a brew around town, and forums for those that like talking about beer almost as much as they like imbibing it. The only downside that we perceive is that the layout and interface are somewhat unintuitive, especially for those of us who are sensitive to usability. But, it's no deal breaker, and is far outweighed by the volume of information and ratings available on the site. Happy brew hunting.
[via LifeHacker]
Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters
MotherLoad - Today's Time Waster
by Romeo Wahed May 30th 2008
Today's time waster is MotherLoad - the time waster that lets you excavate your time away. You are an operator of a digging vehicle on Mars, being one of the brave few that dares dig in this hostile environment. The game's objective is simple: dig your way to riches and upgrade your digging vessel as you sell the collected ore on your way to the hidden treasures deep within Mars.The game has fantastically intuitive controls, which - although being merely the arrow keys - can really be sensed when the digger moves exactly as expected. This not only allows you to get into the time wasting action quickly, but comes in handy as your digging vessel is rather fragile and needs to be cared for if you want to survive multiple trips below the surface.
In order to make any progress in the game, getting upgrades is crucial. Your vessel's fuel range as well as the cargo space that holds the excavated ore is very limited, besides the fact that the beginning drill is awfully inefficient. But, as you make progress and hit certain depths, say 1,000 feet, you will get bonuses from your employers which should help with getting these upgrades more quickly. Once you have some good gear on your excavator, you'll be able to start hitting deeper depths where the ore becomes progressively more valuable.
But be warned, after having pulled in your first few loads and made some basic upgrades, MotherLoad becomes incredibly addicting. Remember to waste time responsibly.
Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters
Blobular - Today's Time Waster
by Romeo Wahed May 29th 2008
On some days, the urge to waste time is just a little stronger than others. If it happens to be one of those days for you today, you are in luck, because Blobular will not only help you waste your time, but also make you slightly nauseous.The game starts innocently enough: Blobular, a blob out and about in the world, needs to get back home to Blobsville. To start you off on your journey, you pick how Blobular looks (his/her/its eyes and body color) and then enter a world of collectible items and foes. Each level has a given number of items you need to collect in order to pass it while running against the clock and avoiding enemies.
But here's the catch: you move your blob by spinning the world around and letting gravity pull the blob around. Although this is slightly disorienting (and slightly nauseating), once you get adjusted this time waster has some potential. As you collect more items (say mushrooms), your blob begins to grow and won't fit through smaller gaps anymore. You can then split your blob apart into smaller blobs that can fit through these gaps, and merge again whenever you please.
Continue until you have finished the game, are done wasting time, or can't continue due to nausea from all the spinning. Don't say we didn't warn you.
Filed under: Google, Googleholic
Googleholic for May 20, 2008
Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google! In this edition:
- Google gets a new office in Taipei
- Third party advertising tags on Google
- Google China mourns to commemorate earthquake victims
- FeedFlare now available for Blogger comments
Googleholic for May 13, 2008
Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google! In this edition:
Search for real estate on Google Maps
Faces getting blurred in Street View
Gmail gets slight loading speed boost
Wikipedia comes to Google Maps
...Googleholic for May 7, 2008
Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google! In this edition:
Google Maps gets a minor makeover
Increased photo storage on Orkut
Multi-size embedding and select for Google Presentations
Google supports Unicode 5.1
...The Beard - Today's Time Waster
by Romeo Wahed
May 6th 2008 {2 comments}
The Beard is a unique time waster in that it is actually possible to be beaten in a relatively short amount of time yet still be totally enjoyable. So instead of spending your entire day wasting time, just get the instant gratification of sweet victory and move on. The premise is this: you are a knight fighting a giant floating head with a beard in a side-scrolling environment. Think of it as a ...Comboll - Today's Time Waster
by Romeo Wahed May 5th 2008 {1 comments}
There are days that call for time wasters of a nature that have virtually no learning curve, are simple, and mindless the way Snake is. Comboll is all of those things, but also adds to that the element of very intuitive, nice bouncy physics that are good the way gummy bears are. The goal of the game (if you can call it that) is to keep your sphere alive in a world of red and blue bars that ...Happy Belated Birthday - Spam turns 30
30 fateful years have passed since what is believed to be the first piece of spam has defiled the inboxes of unwitting victims. Since then things have gotten much worse, with Internet scams at an all time high and spam comprising up to 90% of all email. Gary Thuerk, the only soul that can lay claim to the title "Father of Spam," is the man who started it all, even if he's not to blame for the ...
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
