Wednesday, October 24, 2007

diamonds



Wis. man finds 3.92-ct white diamond - Yahoo! News
His fiancee Susan Gabrielson — who has "only one carat on her finger" — her daughter Sayde and Susan's sister Sarah accompanied Blake to the park this week. Susan found a 1.47-carat stone and some smaller gems Monday.

"We're going back out today. We'll take a lunch and then go back into the field," Blake said.

More than 700 diamonds have been found at the park this year.

The Crater of Diamonds park is the world's only diamond-producing site open to the public and visitors can keep the stones they dig up. The largest diamond ever found in the United States, the 40-carat white diamond named Uncle Sam, was unearthed in 1924 at the Murfreesboro park.


I need more bling for my ring!

Friday, October 19, 2007

Chore Wars



'Chore Wars,' where 'World of Warcraft' meets toilet cleaner | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
'Chore Wars,' where 'World of Warcraft' meets toilet cleaner
Posted by Michael Kanellos

SAN FRANCISCO--Housework is a lot more fun with a battle axe and a couple of dwarves.

Chore Wars, a game shown off by noted game developer Jane McGonigal at the Web 2.0 Summit recently, gives users "experience" points for various household chores. Collecting those points then lets you advance your profile in the online game.

Jane McGonigal

Jane McGonigal speaks at the Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco this past May.
(Credit: James Martin, CNET News.com)

Swiffer the floor twice a week and get 20 points for charm, that sort of thing. You can also play for virtual gold doubloons. These can be exchanged for rewards, inside your own circle of friends. Earn 200 doubloons and you can receive a get-out of-cleaning-the garage card. Or if you are the low scorer for a month, you can be dubbed a scapegoat and put up for adoption.

Naturally, most players concentrate on people you know. Who cares if some guy in Texas slew 200 yards of PVC pipe in putting together his new sprinkler system and got 1,000 doubloons. The bean bags in your guest room still need to be stacked. Still, you can get a sense of the value that other people put on certain tasks to get a sense of the value of your own.

There are different roles you can play--apprentice, dungeon master (DMs have full administrative power and get to wield the unstoppable cleansing power of Comet) and adventurer.


I hate it.

mags would be he dungeon master, and I would have to clean the toilets for 20 gold.