Oak Games
  

Home     About     Games     Treasure Hunts     Library     Treehouse     Contact

 
 
 

treasure hunts     games     trivia     media     language     military     history     watches     other

 
 
 
 

Treasure Hunts


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Treasure hunts are now a main menu item. Probably static content.

I'm getting close to flicking the switch to "serious" with Thesaurus Canada treasure hunt book. There is a dedicated website being constructed here. Time to learn some cascading style sheets. Making great progress. You can look at it on a PC, then shrink the browser. Making that menu stable is harder than you think it is.

On a Tuesday I'll think this is normal. People do this. I was born for this project. On a Thursday I'll think .. what have I got myself into? All rather odd. It's ambitious; the multidesigner thing has never been done before. Would things actually come together as I want them to?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 

Tobago

In my imagination this is a rare board game that is great, just right. But I have not played it.

This is nice little explanation. And it's about a treasure hunt.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

When I started this project, I made a treasure hunt, zzzip, surprisingly quickly. I'm working on a second hunt, and it's more swimming upstream, as though I already used up my A material. I do happily come up with prizes, themes, key words, structure, titles, and locations. But the clues are now a problem. We'll see.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Prizes don't have to be expensive (and hunts don't have to be impenetrable). What could be in a cosy cabin prize? Various items. That board game ;-). That other board game. Books. I would toss in one or two wire puzzles. A gift card or two for ordering food. A consumable. Some money. What would you put in? Something decorative?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Games


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Canadian curling with a new twist: N.B. club holds 'Human Bonspiel'

Some New Brunswick action.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mazescape

YouTube short


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

You know, I had in the past recommended moving away from making board games in China. Mind you, that's easy for me to say.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 

New Angeles


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 

Eila and Something Shiny


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Trivia


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
 

What is the completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart?


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Q: Who directed the first episode of Columbo, in 1971?

A: Steven Spielberg (excluding pilots)


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Music, Film, and Television


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The new television show The Studio is as good as they say.

The show is about the chaos and shallowness of modern movie production. It's about a movie producer played by Seth Rogen. The character genuinely respects classic movies. In the first episode he enjoys his new position but has to make a movie based on the Jello product. He is frantic. The show is about Hollywood, and has Hollywood people, for example Martin Scorsese. There are Hollywood things, jokes. My moviemaking vocabulary is failing me, and I'm sure a lot of goes unnoticed by me. There is foreshadowing, payoff whatever. The new show had three episodes.

I went to a friend's house and decided to watch more recent episodes. They had three remote controls plus one keyboard to somehow get their system to work. There was nobody around as it was too late at night. If I asked how to do it, it would be yanked away from me and I would be shown how to click the shlimph button, you twit. These are the people in my life. I had some trouble getting things to load. Typing wouldn't work; I had to type hard which sometimes led to double letters. When I type a certain way a keyboard would take up half the screen and wouldn't go away. That requires the shlimph button, whatever that is. When I clicked to get the fourth episode a couple of times, it just showed black.

The fifth episode, "The War", was about a vicious office politics fight between two people under the producer. It was neat to see the Seth Rogen character looking relaxed. I don't know why he looked relaxed, maybe to show he was clueless about the war.

The next day I had my friend take a run at the missing fourth episode. It just showed black. However, some fast forwarding to the end of the episode showed a studio logo at the end. The episode was called "Missing Reel". It looks like there was something boldly surreal going on.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Language and Culture


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What is Norwegian humour like?


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tenet is pronounced tenet (even backwards). Not tenant, as this tired lady said.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Friendly neighbourhood bagpiper heralds spring in Fredericton.
 

Whatever blows your bagpipes. New Brunswick, in the maritimes.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Military


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Canada will get as many as twelve new submarines.
 
 

To get your submarine fix, watch this.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 

Does Canada have Poseidon aircraft?


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Operation Medusa
 

Canadian Army in Afghanistan.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

History


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What Alexander Graham Bell Did When He Put Down the Phone?
 

That Scottish fellow should work on his English.


 
 
 
 

Getting more engineering.
 

I Built the World's First Wireless Phone From 1880


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Watches


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
 

A Blog To Watch / Worn and Wound


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Other


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Let's add some final material for Your Trump Era Film, then pull the plug. Again. This first term stuff is being overtaken by the second term.
 
 
 

I think television is a good candidate as a character to focus on. Picture some of these scenes in a film.


 
 

I used to watch a lot of MSNBC, particularly Rachel Maddow. She did a good job of presenting how the two Americas lived in two different worlds in terms of perception. Television was very much part of that, with Fox News doing something other than journalism. The new government started on a weird note, as Press Secretary Sean Spicer testily insisted that the crowd size at the inauguration was misreported by journalists, even though the photographs shown on television showed smaller crowds. "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period." On the Meet The Press television show, Kellyanne Conway claimed Mr. Spicer was using "alternative facts".

There was one dramatic shock or revelation after another - Bam! Bam! Bam! - which made it hard to focus. Rachel Maddow used to have a whole show planned out, only to toss it in the trash because of some news event that happened. At the time I was impressed by how it was all about information, and the spread and perception of information. The scandal. The Steele dossier. The other scandal. The Robert Mueller investigation. The thing revealed on the Rachel Maddow show. The latest crazy statement or policy. The inside scoop.

After getting an inheritance from his rich father, Mr. Trump, who had questionable business skills, experienced a series of bankruptcies, famously losing money running a casino. He got a job as a game show host on NBC The Apprentice Opening (there's Omarosa). This was a scripted reality television show. At the same time he got money doing sleazy deals with sleazy Russians. People in America (maybe not New York) got the impression that Mr. Trump was a successful businessman.

Omarosa and, briefly, Anthony Scaramucci wound up on the Big Brother reality television show.

Mr. Trump had a thing about "ratings" during his time as president. That was something he valued. He thought like a television producer. People on television joked that he should be given his own show playing president and make him think he is president.

Mr. Trump spent much of his time as president watching television (and phoning, and posting, and eating hamburgers). He watched Fox to make himself feel good, and other channels to get the news. He marveled at how he could post something controversial on Twitter, then see it on the news. He was also a big leaker.

President Trump was superficial. He chose members of his administration based on seeing them on television. William Barr for example. Somebody might have a look from "central casting". John Bolton's mustache was questionable.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

top