Category Archives: Games

Trends – Planking

Games, ,

Planking is a trend that has taken off really only in the last year or so even though it is said to have been invented more than 10 years ago. Planking is a simple thing – in essence you just go out, lie face down somewhere with your hands at the sides of your body, get someone to take a photograph of you in this position and post the photograph on the internet.

In the height of it’s popularity in early 2011, the craze was to carry out planking in the most strange or even dangerous places. This actually led to some deaths of people taking part in planking including the death of a man in Brisbane after planking on a 7th floor balcony. There are other deaths that have been rumoured to be related to planking but it is difficult to prove if this is the case.

Many cases of planking can be found in video format on YouTube as well as participants posting photos of themselves on facebook and other social networking sites.

No doubt planking is a trend that will fizzle out and other strange stunts will be thought of instead in the quest to be the next social media fad.

Lottery and Sweepstakes – Possible Scams

Games,

Every day thousands, if not millions of people receive emails to tell them that they have won a bunch of money in an online lottery or sweepstakes competition. In most cases these lotteries or sweepstakes are competitions that the recipient of the email has ever entered. The lesson in this is beware of anyone that tells you by email that you have won money in a lottery. Particularly if you never knew that you took part.

Many of these scams ask you for your personal details and also maybe to send a cash amount to be able to release the funds to you. Whatever you do, don’t reply to these people. If you have not entered a lottery or sweepstakes then you are not going to win it and it probably does not exist.

The first thing I would advise you to do if you have received an email from someone saying that you have won money in a lottery and you are wondering if it could be true or not, is to google a key phase from the email – maybe they give you an email address to respond to – then google something like ‘lottery win’ and the email address. You should be able to bring up some results that show if this is a scam or not.

Nothing for life generally comes for free so remember this whenever you get any of these emails. If you really have won some money then no doubt they will try and contact you by other means, they will not just randomly email you and then give up. So, much as you might want it to be true, your best bet is just to ignore and delete these emails and never to give out any of your personal information to these people.

 

Deus Ex – Available on PS3 and XBox

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Deus Ex is a role-playing action game that is now in it’s third incarnation. The original Deus Ex game was launched in 2000 and was a futuristic strategic game set in 2052. The third version of the game – Human Revolution was actually a prequel to the original game and is set in 2027. This 3rd version of the game was launched in August 2011 to a fair bit of critical acclaim.

The official Playstation magazine gave Deus Ex 8/10 whereas the official Xbox magazine in the UK gave the game 10/10. Most reviews gave very high scores all round for the 3rd version of Deus Ex.

The Deus Ex game involves the character Adam Jenson and is available on the PS3 and the XBox 360 amongst other formats. It can be bought at all good games outlets including being available to buy at Amazon where you can not only buy the brand new version but also a used version. Check out these Amazon options for buying the Deus Ex game on PS3 or Xbox or also in the Windows version:

Games – Scrabble

Games,

The popularity of scrabble has not waned in the 70 plus years since it was invented.  Scrabble is one of those games that becomes a little bit addictive once you start playing and you just have to keep playing to see if you can better your scores and score more bingos (7 letter words).

In the last few years it has become possible for players to play scrabble online and there are various online scrabble clubs where you can play against friends and complete strangers around the world.

One of the keys to playing a good game of scrabble is to know the short words that can be used – so you really need to memorise the 2 and 3 letter words that are allowable. There are obviously a lot of 3 letter words so that is going to be a harder task than remembering the 2 letter scrabble words which are (and these differ depending on if you use US or UK English):

Aa, ab, ad, ae, ag, ah, ai, al, am, an, ar, as, at, aw, ax, ay

Ba, be, bi, bo, by, de, do, ed, ef, eh, el, em, en, er, es, et, ex

Fa, fe, go, ha, he, hi, hm, ho, id, if, in, is, it, jo, ka, ki

La, li, lo, ma, me, mi, mm, mo, mu, my

Na, ne, no, nu, od, oe, of, oh, oi, om, on, op, or, os, ow, ox, oy

Pa, pe, pi, qi, re, sh, si, so, ta, ti, to, uh, um, un, up, us, ut

We, wo, xi, xu, ya, ye, yo, za

The most important ones I find to remember are qi, xi, xu, za, hm, sh as these can be really useful when you have high scoring letters and you want to place a word both vertically and horizontally.

Another tip to remember in playing scrabble is to always use your S advisedly as it can really get a you a good cross score – don’t waste it on a single word but instead use it to pluralize another word while  also setting up your own word.