So I’ve been playing a lot of Diablo II recently, because I can’t seem to get on task at all. I seem to have a thing for older games, and Diablo II isn’t an exception — it was released in 2000. (Technically I’m playing the expansion, which is from 2001.)

But the announcement a month ago of Diablo III has reminded me how many good games are in the works right now. Let’s see:

Blizzard alone has two very highly anticipated (as in, anticipated for the last decade) games on the way: Diablo III and Starcraft II. Of course, they’ll be coming out on a Blizzard-like schedule, which means in two years, but you can’t blame ‘em–all their games remain heavily played over a decade after their releases. They have to get it right, y’know?

Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour are coming out in a few months, and will surely be an improvement on the already-awesome Rock Band. Personally, I find Activision has been a negative influence on the Guitar Hero franchise. (Their ideas get worse and worse–guitar battles? DS game? Aerosmith-centered game!?) But regardless, I’m sure GH:WT will be a pretty cool game. And both games have great setlists!

There has been lots of good news besides game announcements: Final Fantasy XIII will not be a PS3 exclusive, Xbox Live might switch to free multiplayer gaming, console storage is going up (including Nintendo, who realized that a console should probably have more than 512 MB of storage).

More Portal levels are coming soon, and an entire sequel is in development. Bungie is working on a new Halo-related game (not my thing). And of course, Spore is on its way, and will be the last thing you’ll ever desire. (Sorry for the Battlecruiser 3000 reference, but Spore really isn’t my thing. I’ve never enjoyed a god game. But doesn’t Spore’s gameplay sound just a little bit like Battlecruiser 3000?)

Good times. But for the next few months, I can keep on truckin’ through Sanctuary with Bezos the Amazon, who is currently on Act 3 of Nightmare difficulty. Beware her level 20 Charged Strike. (Except for the lightning immune monsters which are really annoying me.)

My team was instead dubbed “Time Without Bells” as part of a series of inscrutable team names devised by the tournament director. I was much more out of practice than I thought, and combined with a notable deficiency in math and physics, this resulted in a worse personal performance than anticipated. The stats are available here.

In case you are wondering who “Carlo’s Bitch” is, that’s Nick, who managed to net -5 points for his team over the whole day. I mean, I know I only got 95 points, but that’s a lot higher than -5.

One of the best parts of CO, however, was having another van ride with the New Trier team, known for our amazing van conversations on the way to tournaments. For instance:

Jonah: “I’ve been working since legally allowed.”
Carlo: “Yeah, but you can’t be in porn until you’re 18.”
Nick: “When can you start child porn? Oh wait…”

Several other conversations were even less appropriate.

Anyhow, I’ve learned that I need to learn a lot more organic chem and molecular biology to really have a chance at more science questions. Time to crack open that organic chem book again!

Oh right, and write questions. I should do that.

I’m leaving Bloomington this weekend to participate in the 2008 incarnation of the Chicago Open, an open quizbowl tournament (essentially, the ultimate national championship), held at the University of Chicago.

I will be playing on a team dubbed “Sophomoronic” with three other soon-to-be-sophomores, including one long-time rival and occasional teammate, Greg Peterson. The great prognosticators that be (i.e. Matt Weiner) have pegged us at 10th out of 17, which would be pretty cool if it actually happened. Unfortunately I’m extraordinarily out of practice, but I plan to read lots of music and science questions tonight, so maybe I’ll get back in the swing of things a bit.

More Chicago Open news to come later.

I got a free full mattress and boxsprings and metal frame from Craigslist! We had to strap them to the top of a station wagon and look really goofy for a few blocks, but all in all, I don’t think you can beat that deal.

Plus, it’s only two years old and really clean. I win!

Okay, so I don’t really get what’s with the Indianapolis and RIchmond airports. They have lots of restaurants and shops outside the concourses, but once you pass through security, there’s almost nowhere you can eat.

On the other hand, O’Hare, Lambert, and all other large-ish airports I’ve been to (as far as I can recall) have lots of restaurants after security, but almost none before security. Now, I understand that it might make sense to have some things before security, because then they’re accessible to people waiting for friends to return, seeing friends off, etc.

But it seems to me that most of the places ought to be after security. If people want to take food or drinks onto a plane, they would need to buy them from shops after they pass through security. Travelers on layovers might need to eat lunch or something but it would be obnoxious to have to exit and reenter the concourse.

And of course, in an effort to not miss your flight, you might want to enter the concourse before sitting down for a meal, because it’s hard to predict how long it will take to go through security.

If there really is some good reason to put all the eating establishments before security rather than after, can someone explain it to me?

Lastly, a story about foodservice at airports that happened to me yesterday at Indy:

McDonald’s worker: “What drink would you like with that?”
Me: “Do you have Mountain Dew?”
Worker: “No, we have Sprite.”
Me: (pause) “Um. Okay, I’ll have Coke then.”
Worker: (hesitates, possibly confused)
Me: “Or Pepsi, it doesn’t matter.”
Worker: (hits a button)

Guess which they had? Coke. It was a confusing exchange.

I haven’t been writing much lately because I’ve been focused on math research for my REU project. When I haven’t been working on the math, I’ve been actively developing GreekComm‘s product for next year, which kinda has to be finished ASAP. And this weekend, I didn’t work on either, because I was in Richmond visiting my lovely girlfriend.

On that note, traveling between two small airports (IND and RIC) is kind of a pain, because you have to take tiny Embraer regional jets with three seats in every row. And you have to take two of them, because there are no direct flights between Indianapolis and Richmond! Also, let it be known that regional jets don’t land quite as smoothly as Boeing 777s.

However, I have just learned (through Wikipedia) that Embraer is actually a Brazilian company! (It stands for Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica! Who knew?) I did, however, know that they were the third biggest aircraft manufacturer, behind titans Boeing and Airbus. Which is pretty impressive, considering how big Boeing and Airbus are. Actually, the entire aircraft manufacturing business is really screwy, because (relatively speaking) so few planes are actually manufactured every year, and they cost so much to actually buy (much less actually operate). Makes me wonder what the future of airlines are: can so many separate airlines continue to support themselves?

Enough with the air travel digression, though. I’m going to head out for now, but I’ve got a bunch of posts in store for you guys soon, so stay tuned!