Posted 1:29 PM by Floyd

Sorry to be so lazy with my blog. (Free Shanghainese lesson: "lei-mo" means "lazy cat", and is used to deride a lazy person. It's what I say to my wife when she sleeps in till noon.) After eight months of unemployment it is difficult to get used to having a full-time job; I feel like I never have enough time.

Also I've fallen off the wagon. I bought SimCity 4 two months ago. I played a lot of SimCity 2 in 1997 and 1998, and upgraded to SimCity 3 in 1999 and enjoyed it even more. SimCity 4 has very cool graphics, and the controls and reporting are well done.

But the game leaves me cold. The problem is that it's too realistic; your city just sits there, slowly growing. Also everything is tinged dark green, so it's not visually interesting. I would play for an hour or so, reading a book while waiting for something to happen. At some point I said, "Why am I sitting here reading a book?" I have not played since.

So I've gone back to Civilization III. I followed a friend's suggestion and played "Pangea" games, where the world is one big continent. This is more challenging because it puts you in contact with all your hostile neighbors at once. In my current game I am playing the Greeks on Level 4. I have been at war with the French and the Germans, which should make all you Old Europe bashers happy.