Wow. The New York Times just described a Something Awful Let's Play forum series as a fascinating saga.

I'm not denying it (and I quite enjoyed Boatmurdered, and the upgraded followups Headshoots and Syrupleaf (Syrupleaf being arguably the best of the three)), but it's saying something when a collection of forum posts from SA can get that kind of praise in a dead tree newspaper with global circulation like the New York Times. Wow.

Except when they're not. :-/

I have multiple autoimmune diseases -- my body's own control and repair mechanisms are more the blunt object in this situation.

Nah. Too vulnerable to dictionary attacks.

My wife and I called our youngest "Smudge" from the first smudgy ultrasound until birth. The nickname was picked up quickly and well received by our extended families.

...Though some of her blog readers were rather put off by our seemingly insensitive choice of name for a son.

Which makes me (and others in my field) wonder... When is Microsoft planning on scooping up Nokia?

One of my favorite games when I was young was Robot Odyssey, the Learning Company game on the PCjr. Being a TLC game, about half of the fun was in the many tutorial/learning levels, and the other half was the game itself. Though I enjoyed the tutorials to no end, I was unable to properly re-wire the robots in the actual game, and so was only able to complete the first few levels (about 40 %) of the main game. I tried different strategies on and off for years to try and either fix or get around this odd behavior, but could never get anything to work.

A decade and a half later, I finally learned that the game had an odd disk-read-based copy protection scheme which, if it failed, quietly prevented you from re-wiring the robots, making it impossible to progress. However, I had an original game, box, manual, and all, yet the DRM bugged out on me.

The point is, had there been a more blatant or clear message, we could have called TLC and asked for a replacement copy. As it was, I simply believed for years that I just couldn't figure out how to play the game.

Hence the amazing TES Editor, subsequent amazing mods (Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, Francesco's Leveled Lists/Creatures Mod, Martigen's Monster Mod, FCOM, etc.), and amazing community support and efforts which address this issue in their own ways.

To me, at least, that is what TES has been about since Morrowind: A platform on which to build and a sandbox in which to play. I never understood the appeal of purchasing Oblivion on the PS#, it seemed to me to be voluntarily crippling the game.

Warning! Parent is worse than a Goatse Troll!

It's a Rebecca Black Troll!

Well, to clarify, I play with the app with him.

You see, before I started bringing out the phone, he would keep saying "dow! dow!" [Down], as he would get bored of whatever interaction I could provide after a few minutes and want to go chasing after the dog/baby/balloon/whatever else he saw. So, instead, he and I play with the cat together, and I exit the menus he accidentally brings up every minute or two.

But, like I mentioned, at some point I need to unload the cart or talk to someone or whatnot, and my eyes are off of him long enough for him to hit the buttons that could really make a mess on an iPhone.

Wait, I... what?

Are you serious? Autism is a huge set of communication delays, disorders, and impediments, sensory issues, related behavior problems, and co-morbid mental issues such as anxiety disorders and depression.

Some of the more successful and intelligent kids with autism will one day rise to the level of "nerd".

Many, sadly, will not.

Exactly. Has the GP ever tried to keep a child under three quiet and calm in a new and intriguing environment for any length of time? This allows my son to indulge his curiosity without bringing up the temper-tantrum/punishment cycle. He knows this, to a point. When we get into situations like this, he is learning to, rather than getting too fussy, ask for the phone and the talking cat application.

On top of that, my son is on the autism spectrum. Receiving a reward at home, maybe an hour or so later, is well beyond his present understanding.

Really? You think that's how this stuff happens?

I will hand my young son my phone with the Talking Tomcat "ca-caty!" application when I have to wait in a long checkout/service/wahtever line, lest I be holding a screaming toddler who -- like any 2.5-year-old -- prefers to run around the store rather than stand still for 10 minutes.

However, there is a link in the app to download extra features and animals, and even at his age, he can access it quite easily. I can't imagine what kind of charges I would have racked up in the thirty seconds I spend paying for groceries or arguing with Customer Service if my Android phone didn't require extra authorization before making purchases.

I think you missed this part:

All right, you've covered 0.03 % of the earth's surface, there.

Assuming we manage to cram some absolutely astounding population density into that country, where should the other 6.75 billion humans live?

I take it you've never had kids.

Mine aren't quite at that age, yet, but I fondly remember bothering my mother to color and cut me pancakes in this-and-that shape of the ASCII characters used in the Rogue tileset, morning after Kindergarten morning.