After W2K updated itself the other day my PC wouldn't boot and as a quick fix I disabled the Master HDD and reverted to the Slave drive. Little did I know that through Microsoft's crappy software I would rediscover my favourite piece of software of all time
W$R is generally regarded as the most sophisticated and realistic (and addictive) of all financial/stock market simulations, as featured in a front page article (6-22-2000) in Investors Business Daily and previously in the Wall Street Journal, as well as in articles in Byte, InfoWorld, and Popular Computing magazines. The program is an entertaining game, but is also very educational, and has also been used as a highly realistic teaching tool, such as at the Univ. of Missouri Law School. Its list price is $29.95 U.S., and the downloadable setup file is less than 2MB in size.For $30 US dollars this awesome strategy game can keep you too up until, er, 4:48 in the morning. In the game I'm playing just now I'm 5 quarters in and have turned one billion dollars into 22 billion dollars and I control 28 companies. Maybe just one more deal before bed...
There is a new boardgame out in the shops, well Stockbridge bookshop at any rate, called Scottish Quest.
The overall objective is to complete a tour of Scotland by answering a wide range of multiple choice Scottish general knowledge questions (4 topics: History, Nature, Modern and Culture), collect the letters 'QUEST' from various destinations and then travel to the capital city Edinburgh, answering a final question to win the game! Sovereigns are used to help you move around the board and there are a few Destiny cards along the way to trip you up or help you along!Actually looks quite fun, especially if you have lots of non-Scottish friends to play it with. It's 40 quid tho... There's a review in the Scotsman.
I recommend Slingshot Santa for a bit of festive fun. Basically there are two elves and a Santa and the elves push Santa to the edge of the ice while priming a catapult (with Santa in). Tthe further Santa goes, the higher your score. My description obviously doesn't do justice to the amount of amusement that can be had from this...
My high score is 350.4. Report your score here.
Cool - Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly. Although specific to the US version of the game, I can't off the top of my head think why direct substitution of property names (i.e. Boardwalk instead of Mayfair, Park Place rather than Park Lane) would have any effect, maybe some of the money values may vary though.
Also, Hasbro are looking for entrants for the British Monopoly Championship, the winner of which will receive £5000 and an all expenses paid trip to the World Monopoly Championship in Tokyo, Japan from the 7th - 11th of October.