When I think summer and song … first thing that comes to mind is “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess. I don’t have many favorite slow moving songs, but that one sounds beautiful and has lovely words. Witness…

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

Photo from flickr user itsjustkate

It flows and captivates. Why don’t I like more slow songs? I think part of it is because they’re harder to hear and follow. For example, I love “Sunday” from Sunday in the Park with George, but I can only hear the latter half of the song. I saw the song in its entirety on TV with captions and liked it. Some of the lyrics:

Sunday, by the blue purple yellow red water
on the green purple yellow red grass
Let us pass through our perfect park
pausing on a Sunday

By the cool blue triangular water
on the soft green elliptical grass
as we pass through arrangements of shadow
toward the verticals of trees
Forever . . .

Beautiful way to describe the famous painting by Georges Seurat.

As for other things that come to mind with “summer,” it’s all the usual stuff: swimming, 4th of July, vacations (rare), the smell of suntan lotion, camp.

Over to you: What do you think of when it comes to summer? Can be songs, activities, whatever.

Brain food…

• Old School Book Marketing Techniques for Digital Age: Book business card — brilliant.
• How to Tell If Your Website Sucks: How timely. I just finished judging 100+ sites to write an annual top websites article. Many of websites got knocked out because they had the problems covered in this infographic. People will argue that popup windows can work — depends on popup.
• How To Respond To The “Pick My Brain” Question: Worth memorizing. [Link: John Haydon]
• So You’re Having a Bad Day: That was me on Monday, but nothing serious. Just an off day. It happens. I got through it. It’ll happen again. And I’ll get through it even though it won’t feel like it when I’m in the moment.
• The 50 Best Short Stories of All Time: Impressive list. I haven’t read short stories since college, and yet this list captures the ones I remember. Only one missing is Edgard Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. That freaked me, but I’ll take that over The Telltale Heart. I also did my 11th grade thesis on James Thurber. Boy, I wish I saved it.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults in History: Faulkner, Emerson and Capote insult Twain, Austen and Kerouac.
• Zork: Free download for your PC or Mac. Wow. I played this game on my first computer, an Apple ][+. What do ya mean, "What the hey is Zork?"
• America According to Twitter: Apparently, I live in Metroplex. Supposedly, I was born and bred in Funkytown. Column Five also has many other infographics. [Link: Bitrebels]
• Top 10 Manliest Quotes: We shall have our fight … [fill in the blank]. [Link: Esther Schindler]
• 10 Funny and Fabulous Flow Charts: Like Mental Floss always makes me laugh. Beware: these charts can waste hours of your life. [Link: Michelle Mangen]

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

With the weather bad in many places (we have snow in Texas) — it’s a great time to cuddle up with a fun adventure and hidden object game. If you enjoyed Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst and PC Game Review: Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove, download Nightfall Mysteries – Curse of the Opera and don’t bother reading the rest of this.

I haven’t checked out Nightfall Mysteries – Curse of the Opera because I’ve had to lay off games and using the computer in the evenings due to eye problems. But I’m hearing it’s the kind of game that fans of point-and-click adventures will want to play while waiting for the sequel of their favorite to be released.

Take on the role of a lowly stagehand in an opera company tasked with solving a deadly mystery! The Opera troupe is invited by the reclusive Count Vladd Vansig III to his small hamlet to perform a special Opera for him. Strangely, there are no villagers to speak of except for the Count and his caretaker. Over the course of the night, people go missing and are killed! Use your Hidden Object skills to find out the identity of the killer and escape the village alive in Nightfall Mysteries – Curse of the Opera!

• No Recession for Me links: “Stop freaking, start reading.”
• Benefits of Twitter for Writers: my tweetID is merylkevans.
• StateStats: Enter keyword(s) to get state stats.
• B2B Email Marketing interview
• Write or Die: Dr. Wicked’s Writing Lab – Super duper motivational writing tool. Scary stuff if you pick the hard core options. It erases your text if you take too long! [Link: Daphne Gray-Grant]
• Brands That Tweet: Companies and executives on twitter.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Letter to the Editor: The Biggest Loser – Indeed the casual games industry needs to get along and compromise.
• Man spends 26 years solving Rubik’s Cube: Loser or incredibly patient who didn’t give up?
• The Dial Up Kid: Reliving my modem days… even I could recognize these awful sounds.
• Far Side Reenactments: Comic strip turned real life. Hubby had this original one posted in his first job.
• Sleeping Chinese: My dad would’ve loved this. He could fall asleep anywhere.
• FAIL Blog: Nation fail and Extra Fresh Fail. Need all the laughs we can get! The grocer needs to watch abbreviations!
• New Alltop Topics: Art, Museums, Books, History, and Board Games

Yesterday, I talked about bloggers receiving free stuff or posting advertisements. I left out another discussion on this topic — when publishers send books, videos and other odds and ends for review without asking.

I received a book about adopting and caring for a cat. Have I ever talked about cats other than the time when everyone was putting cat heads on Dvorak and a comic for Geeks with Cats. Once in a while, I’ll review something that comes to me without notification, but most of the time I don’t because it’s not a topic I cover or it’s not closed-captioned. But I’ll review everything I ask for.

Publishers send things to everyone on their list in hopes that the recipients will review them because it’s already in their hands. Reviewers don’t have a lot of time to kill, so we need to select the things that would interest the audience. We don’t want to waste your time. Sure, we could post a review on Amazon and B&N, but I won’t read something that doesn’t interest me. Plenty of books sit on shelves waiting for my attention so I’d rather read those.

I’m lucky that I receive enough books to that I can’t touch the ones gathering dust on their bookshelves. But I also do abstracts for GetAbstract, not just book reviews. I’ve also gotten into game reviews since joining Books, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Reviews

Can you help this Mom-and-Pop style bakery grow and survive the world of Mega-Marts?

It may not have “Tycoon” in its name, but Cake Mania runs like a Tycoon game. You’re Jill (sorry, guys, no Jack), the owner of a bakery who just graduated from culinary school. Jill’s grandparents’ bakery closed thanks to the new Mega-Mart nearby. The goal is to operate a new bakery and earn enough bucks to re-open Jill’s grandparents’ bakery.

Every level requires meeting a financial goal prior to moving to the next level. You can watch your progress at the bottom of the screen, which indicates how much cash you’ve earned in the level and the goal you need to reach. The game has over 45 levels (months) and four different styles of bakeries. As you earn money in each level, you can use it to buy more equipment and operate faster.

You don’t simply take customer orders. You also give them a menu, bake their cakes to their requirements, serve customer, and collect money. Some customers require faster service than others. When you get a new kind of customer, the game tells you about the customer. One example customer is the college student who doesn’t have a lot of money, but has more patience than most customers.

Every cake must be baked in a certain shape and frosted with a specifically requested color. You may need to add decorations, but it depends on the customer’s request. Cheer up customers who lose patience by turning on the television to a favorite station or giving them a cupcake. Of course, you have to earn enough money to buy the television and cupcake microwave.

Levels are represented by the months of the year. Level one is January. As you go through each level, you’ll see characters reflecting that month’s holiday. Expect heart-shaped cakes and cupid in February, a bearded Easter Bunny in the spring, and Dracula. These folks may appear another time of the year as they take vacations, too. Serve Dracula as soon as possible because he scares customers away. These characters keep the game interesting and non-monotonous, a problem that can afflict these types of games.

The superbly designed interface makes those cakes look yummy. As you progress through the levels, you get more customers and the game gets more frantic. The early levels are easy and great practice in preparing you for the advanced levels.

Cake Mania comes with well-written documentation and guides the player throughout the game as new elements enter. Oh, and Jill must do everything as she can’t afford to hire help. As you get more practice, you’ll find a rhythm that works for you. However, once you reach a level where you start losing lives (not earning enough money for the level), it’s going to be tough to survive the level, as all lives were lost in one level.

The game just misses on one point. Once you get stuck on a level, it seems impossible to get through it with all four lives intact.

Sandlot Games has successfully created an addicting game with enough elements to avoid boring the player. Be prepared to work fast and come up with a routine to make it happen. Thank goodness those cakes can’t be eaten, otherwise we’d be in trouble. There’s a handheld version of the game, but better stay away or else real work won’t get done.

System Requirements
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Pentium II 400Mhz or better
128 MB System RAM (256 MB recommended)
3D Hardware Accelerated Video Card with 16 MB Video RAM
Internet Explorer 5.0+, AOL 5,6 or MSN browsers
Direct-X 7 or above
Keyboard and mouse required
Joystick and game pad are not supported

Cake Mania doesn’t have an official rating, but it qualifies for E (Everyone) by ESRB standards.

Download the free trial. The regular price is $19.95.

Bridge Is Cool teaches you how to play mini bridge and regular bridge. Paul and I learned to play bridge with our parents when we were first married and had more time on our hands. Since then, we’ve gotten busy with out children and other things plus our friends don’t know anything about playing bridge. I hope Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s foundation will help bridge get back into action again.

Mattel has instruction sheets for its games and other toys.

EveryRule.com is a difficult to use site and I couldn’t find the instructions I needed. The site also has rules for sports, TV game shows, and party games.

The House of Cards features traditional and family card games, rules, software downloads, and online card games. You can also learn a bit about playing cards and their history.

Monopoly Money – print money when you lose some. Just add pastel paper if you want to match the real thing (the game’s money, not the bucks that buys things). This page also has a guide.

Hasbro games and toy instructions.

BoardGameGeek is a board gaming resource and community.