The regular version of Diner Dash 5: Boom! is now available for $6.99. Here is the review of Diner Dash 5: Boom!

The Collector’s Edition includes:

• Exclusive advanced levels for extra gameplay
• An interactive strategy guide
• Behind the scenes concept art
• Animated screensaver and wallpapers
• “Flo Over Time” historical retrospective

Image via Wikipedia

Big Fish Games is offering 30% off all games (except Collector’s Edition games) through February 15, 2010 in honor of President’s Day.

Use the code: PREZSALE

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. February 15th: 50% off on Born Into Darkness

Tue. February 16th: 65% off on The Clumsys 2: Butterfly Effect

Wed. February 17th: 65% off on Evoly

Thu. February 18th: 50% off on Many Years Ago

Fri. February 19th: 65% off on Farm Mania 2

Sat. February 20th: 65% off on Azteca

Sun. February 21st: 65% off on Green Valley – Fun on the Farm

After two years or so of reviewing casual games, I discovered a new passion: writing game reviews and announcing game news. I thought it was time to create a separate games web site as not all of you care about computer, mobile, and handheld games.

But every single one of you offers great insight. So I’m asking if you would please take a look at the test site and provide feedback: good and needs fixin’. Ready to meet my latest baby?

http://test3.spyrestudios.com/

I want to make the launch fun and exciting for you. So I think I shall seek out prizes. Yes, the catch is that the prizes will promote the new site. Contact me if you’d like to donate a prize or two.

• Freelance Writing Fees: Anne Wayman has great series of articles to help writers with their fees. Unfortunately, writers won’t find a straight answer and it’s up to us to figure out our fees. But resources like this can help with the process.
• 70 logo design resources: I love this stuff. It includes books, articles, blogs, and tutorials.
• Visuwords: Online graphical dictionary.
• Uniqlo Grid: Great time waster… don’t go there if you’re busy. Click How to Play to get the details. Just enter a nickname and click Join Now to start.
• GuessTheSpot.com: Can you figure out the famous location or building from an aerial view? [Link: Steve Bass]
• Snopes page on the 9-letter word that appears in the below video.

meryl’s notes has two parts to it: The blog and articles (well, three, if you count the newsletter, but it doesn’t have a feed). The blog contains shorter postings while articles consists of longer posts that are good for a long time such as tips, reviews, and advice. If you subscribe to meryl’s notes blog feed, you won’t see what’s in the articles and vice versa.

Here are the feeds — thank you for subscribing! If there’s anything you want more of… please post a comment. The content should be valuable to you.

• All of meryl’s notes content
• meryl’s notes blog
• meryl’s notes articles
• meryl’s notes games

I’m buried with the final preparations for a big family event happening all weekend. I’ll write about it at another time. In the meantime, I posted a review of Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children, a follow up to the popular Virtual Villagers.

The only recent I mentioned this here is because some of you only get the feed for the blog and not the features, so maybe you’ll find something of interest over there where the “longer posts” are that are too long for an average blog entry.

I believe it’s true that exercising your brain keeps your mind sharp. Here are 8 ways to exercise your brain. Nintendo has released a handful of excellent games for its Gameboy DS that attract the Baby Boomers. Thanks to games like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy, my mom who never got into video games, asked for a Gameboy DS! Poor Mom, Nintendo released the lite not long after Mother’s Day when she received her DS.

Nintendo notes these games with an orange G. These reference Touch Generations brand for nontraditional games. These attract Baby Boomers, seniors and folks like me who enjoy puzzles and challenges. Certainly, children can play them, but they often prefer the traditional games. The strategy paid off.

Though I don’t have much time for games, I hope to get my own DS. My son (Happy Birthday) has a DS, but it’s gross as kids have sticky hands and don’t care about keeping gadgets clean. I’m waiting to see if Nintendo plans to release the larger screen of the DS (it’s getting frustrating to see the company keep rolling out variations of the DS: first one, lite and now maybe larger screens — the company hasn’t confirmed).

The article also mentioned Happy Neurons, but I was disappointed to see it’s a service — not something you can download and play whenever. Services don’t work for all of us and they drain our pocketbooks. I emailed the company asking about the possibility of download programs. Hey, maybe Nintendo could turn these games into a Touch Generations game. [ Link: Lifehack.org ]

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 Big Fish Games — the only time I ever play electronic games. Gotta be careful not to take on too many games or else no work gets done. What I like about Big Fish is its offerings contain the kinds of stuff I like to play.

I love Scrabble and geeky stuff. Enter the perfect gift for people who like the same: L33T Tiles. But when do I have time to play Scrabble? Maybe the tiles will still be around a few years from now when all of my kids are old enough and can play the game.

From the sponsor: Why is a hair restoration ad in here? ‘Cuz Meryl is a sellout.