Google Existence, because life is too short for social interaction.

How does it work?

Live happily ever after. People want to know what’s going on in your life. But all you really want is to play World of Warcraft. Xsistence is what you need!

Just add water. After you’ve initially seeded Xsistence with your social network logins and some information about yourself, it lives your life for you. Tweets about your daily commute, Facebook status updates and pictures from that great party you were at, and more!

Keep up with yourself. Xsistence sends you regular status updates about all the things you supposedly did so you know what questions to expect when you actually have to talk to people outside your guild.

Gee where can I sign up?

PopCap Games rings in the holidays with some Mac user love.  They’re selling all Mac download games for 50% off. That’s right. 50%.

PopCap games have been making games for a long time and Christmas holidays have always been something they’ve taken to heart. Early PopCap games paid tribute to Santa and the like. That’s where I got hooked.

I’m still a fan after all these years, so I’m excited about this limited time offer of 50% sale on all Mac downloads.

PopCap Games Mac Download Sale

Sale ends December 23rd.

Taggart, my brother, is afflicted with ALS. It’s not a pretty disease. Just months ago Tag was a truck driver, working 60 hours a week driving. Today he is wheelchair bound.  The progress hasn’t slowed yet since they uncovered it.

This week we visited and Tag requires assistance full time. I arrived in time to help him out of bed into his wheelchair. During our visit, his wife had to help him onto the toilet. At the end of the visit, Tag was helped into bed.

It’s not pretty. Tag’s a fighter though.  He’s working to maintain his dignity. At every turn he did what he could by himself.  His one arm is still strong enough to allow him to push the wheel chair himself if the surface allows.

Tag is still making use of his good hand for more than just feeding himself. His current hobby is repairing, upgrading and customizing XBox 360 consoles. He’s got three he’s working on now.  Tag even tackles play testing them with just the one hand.

The mood could be dark but Tag isn’t settling for that.  It’s a bit tougher on everyone else though.  His wife has decided to go to work part time only so to be able to care for him.  Our mother has been his primary caretaker for a while now. It’s a lot of work for her.

Tag spends his waking moments working on the consoles, playing Xbox 360 games, and occasionally getting some sun. The family desperately needs some ramps though. Right now for him to leave the house, someone has to carry him over steps from one wheelchair to another.

We plan on visiting with him as often as possible. It really seems to lift his spirits. Though him and I talked a bunch on this visit, it is getting decidedly more difficult for him to carry on a conversation for more than a few minutes.

He’s opted to accept using a tracheotomy tube for breathing. That should give him several extra months of decent life.  Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be any treatment to cure ALS. Only symptoms can be dealt with and those not well.

What do I want? Just your positive energy, prayers, and for you to give all the love you can to those in your life. Forgive any issues between you and the loved one and move on with the rest of your lives.  You won’t have them forever.

Thanks for your continued support.

Cheers,

Todd

Zombie avatar created at PopCap Games Halloween site.

Dungeons & Dragons comes to Facebook and the world loops back on its self.  Coming full circle from the original social game.  Wizards of the Coast brings us Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures.

Tiny Adventures isn’t about little cartoon D&D characters. Adventures are short, include only your character, and are scripted. Players choose a race and character class combination, choose a name, and then their off on the first adventure.

Equipment is the key to preparing for each adventure.  Characters can equip, purchase, sell, and loot gear.  Not all gear is usable by every class, much like in the pen and paper version of D&D. Druids can’t use swords being a prime example.

Adventures consist of a series of encounters.  Each encounter requires a ‘roll’, comparing against some stat.

Derit Row made an Armor Class check with a difficulty of 26 . . . and rolled 22.

Each roll affects the outcome of the encounter. A low roll spells trouble, while making the roll nets rewards.  Encounter rewards include gold, experience, and equipment. Most encounters result in some loss of hit points.  Potions can mitigate damage or even boost stats enough to make encounters safer.

Adventures are solo, and players have no interaction with the plot other than choosing to take a potion or equip/unequip items. This is not like the select an option and that chooses your path adventures.

There is one element of cooperative play. Players can buff and heal friends’ characters. Buffs last for a few encounters. Healing can only be done between encounters.

I love the story feel of it. Reminds me of a DM relating an encounter to the players. Miss having choices though on what actions to take. Miss adventuring along side other players.

Expect more articles on this game in the future.

Game Credits:

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Tonight Zynga releases Mafia Wars Lottery on Facebook. You can follow the discussion on the Zynga Mafia Wars official forums.

You can see it now in action though it’s disabled; check it out here. (may be live by the time you check this out)

The lottery spawns a whole new collection as well. I’ll keep you posted here.

Sometimes you get lucky and spot stuff.

Friend me on Twitter.
Friend me on Facebook.
Join my Mafia.
Join my Vampire clan.

So you’ve read that you can enjoy Mafia Wars missions and more in Cuba. But you might not have known that properties is a whole new ball game. Gone is Mafia Mike’s place; now we have plantations, factories, and fields.

The Zynga team has this to say:

Each Cuban business can be purchased once and produces crates of a particular product every 3 hours. Once the crates are produced, they will be stored in your warehouse, ready to be sold for a profit.

Also, this bit of information as well:

Your Cuban businesses can be upgraded in the following ways:

Quality (5 levels) – your business will produce a higher quality product every three hours, allowing you to sell each crate for more pesos; quality upgrades cost twice as much as quantity and capacity upgrades.
Capacity (10 levels) – your business can store a larger quantity of crates in the warehouse.
Output (10 levels) – your business will produce more crates every 3 hours.
Remember to come back often to sell off your crates and maximize your profit!

It’s going to be fun and it’s becoming more about resource management, ala Civ and Sim City, than just about knocking over jewelry stores. There are still missions though and some of them are an interesting take on Cuban crime, such as ransacking a local plantation.

I’m pumped about the new features and will keep you posted.

Please share any goodies, tips, and tricks here or on Facebook.

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Join my mafia.

If you’re an avid Mafia Wars player, chances are you know most of the ins and outs. Just in case you don’t, here’s a link you’ll appreciate.

Zynga has gathered a forum just for a Mafioso Training Grounds. It’s got posts such as “Ultimate Loot/Item List” and “Job Mastery Guide”. These contain complete breakdowns of rewards and strategies. As far as I can tell, the posts are quite up to date.

One of the biggest tips I can give you is get the best attack and defense items you can put your hands on. Secondly, if your fellow mafia members don’t have some of those items, share. Give away a rocket launcher or two, spare a body guard, and share share share your extra collection items. Building your mafia strength pays for everyone.

One other social aspect I want to touch on is posting your mafia invite code. Good grief folks, we see your updates, we know you play Mafia Wars. How about just putting the link on the side of your profile and leave it at that. Oh and maybe consider getting your own blog or website and posting your invite code there. Just a thought?

Yours,
Don Jordan
aka Todd Randall Jordan or Tojosan

Lots of folks are playing Mafia Wars and not getting all their entitled too. What? You’re level 200 and have great stats? Did you know what all those tiers you dabbled in on your way up give rewards?

Rewards and not all that cheesy either. Not only do some jobs provide special items, each tier has a set of collections to be completed. Each set you vault results in a specific bonus.

Beyond that though, completing a tier has it’s own rewards. So you completed a tier one time and forgot about it? Your loss. Complete a tier three times and you’ll receive a unique prize. Each tier has its own.

Completing the Street Thug tier three times nets you the Pistol Bayonet: +4% damage dealt in fights. Another tier mastery drops an item with 30 seconds off of your health regeneration timer. Each is along those lines, enhancing some facet of your profile.

Unfortunately no one else can really help you complete these. They’re drudgery honestly when you could be doing more rewarding missions monetarily. Truth though is that you’ll have more money than you can use in this game, so don’t sweat it.

Here’s a link to the mother of all Mafia Wars rewards lists. If it still works, bookmark it or memorize it, if not, start compiling your own with your mafia.

Good hunting,
Don Jordan
FB Profile – Mafia Wars link is on the profile on the left.

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     Have you used plurk to do more than chit, chat, brag and bemoan? Well Sunday night I gave plurk a try as a group fun platform.

     Lots of folks make jokes or puns, but I think we’ve missed out on a use.  Plurk posts and comments act the same as a thread in forums.  So I figured why not play with that.

     My first few trials were with numbers. Here’s my first number sequence, and here’s my second.  Those both got a response, so I decided to give something else a try.  How about Bible  books.

     Bible books should be fairly easy but it took a while to take off. Here’s the Bible thread. At the time of this writing, it left off at 2nd Chronicles. Thanks Phil Crissman for jumping in.

     The final fun game is still ongoing and just about halfway there. Name 200 cities with no repeats. Feel free to bzzt folks that mess up.

     Are you getting a good sense of what I’m going for?  I see plurk as a chance to do a lot of free form games.  I’m thinking beyond simple name and number games.  There’s potential to do games requiring links to make it work.

     What about you? Any plurk game ideas?  Have you heard of fizzbuzz? I’m thinking that one is on the list for sure.