As I am wont to do, I have been drawn into a number of brief tinkerings dabblings. Here are some of the more memorable items from the crossover from the past few months:

• Desktop Tower Defense - A day to learn, a lifetime to master. Hyperbole? Decidedly so. A game that is deceptively deep and wickedly engaging? Aye. I saw my brother-in-law discretely getting in a few rounds over the holidays and now I understand (the in-law thing and the DTD thing).
• YoYo Games - This is more than just another casual gamers hangout. YoYo Games has the particular distinction of having a complete game creation kit as part of the site. Not convinced? The games you can play on the site (and most of which you can download for free) are made using the kit. You shouldn’t expect Halo 3 but seeing as most of the games are created by independent contributors, as likely to be in the workforce as playing WoW past their bedtime, the results can be surprising. For my own first game, here are the two main characters:
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• New job - I’ve started work at a new company in a New Year. It just seemed like the appropriate thing to do at the time (and it still does). No laptop. No blackberry. Yet.
• Read my first Reader’s Digest article while waiting in line at the Duane Reade. The article on the MUFA diet was just too much to resist. Other than learning that avocados and macadamia nuts are OK, I would still think the disclaimer of good exercise and moderation in everything applies.
• Stumbled on this rambling discussion of wont versus won’t versus want. A dictionary couldn’t resolve this one soon enough.
• Puddin’ - It’s across the street. It’s open. And it’s good. Of course this is very old news, but when you haven’t posted for 7 months you’ve got a lot of ground to cover.
• Dinner @ Prune - It may not be for everyone, but the bone marrow appetizer was better than I expected. I fully feel pretentious admitting this but it was tasty on the warm toasty bread with a parsley salad. The parsley salad was much more flavorful than you might expect from, well, a parsley salad.
• _still_ waiting for Hakata Ippudo (ramen) to open their outpost on 4th avenue. I used to wait patiently. Now I just look at my watch and shake a closed fist at the still-under-construction storefront on my way to work.
• Rameniac - Haven’t read it much, but it is in the feed aggregator for further review. Mostly LA focused but found it based on a NYC blurb.