Showing posts with label freebies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freebies. Show all posts

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Portal (Puzzler game) free until May 24th!

I received this message from a friend recently, read it yesterday, and after getting set up I spent quite awhile playing it last night. Haven't seen anything family unfriendly as yet (and I am on level 15 of 19). You have to download the Steam browser to get it, but this is also free AND they have some other free games once you do. Steam has an excellent rep on the net, so that part doesn't concern me. btw Portal isn't really a shooter. You only 'shoot' where your portal goes on the wall or floor, and knock over a robot or two. This video explains, though its a lot more hectic-looking than anything I have seen in Portal yet ;-)

EDIT:: Got to level 16 (finally) and it suddenly got rougher. You have to avoid these robots..and when you don't you see your character's blood splattered on the walls :(    So...to level 15 its pretty much kid safe.



The other free games are listed here:  There's a racing game and a real-time strategy thingy, and a version of the casual classic, Peggle. Please note that while the usual versions of Peggle are safe for all ages, the free 'Extreme Peggle' Steam offers has 'scary monster' graphics added. IMHO the worst is the opening scene with something apparently trying to eat the unicorn's head. Gave me an extra grin given my recent blog post....


Anyway-

You will notice a mention of Nvidia & ATI card games on the post...both get the same freebies aside from Portal...which used to give half of the game only to Nvidia people.


http://www.steampowered.com/nvidia/

OR

http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/
 

If you have an NVidia graphics card, you might want to pick up your Nvidia special first if you care about the Half Life 2 episodes. The current free Portal promotion seems to be making things a little more complicated for some folks.

First impressions are that most of Steam's free games are PG-ish, and/or guy-centric...but I felt Portal was worth the trouble. It really is a fun thinking game.  :-D

Saturday, February 09, 2008

And now for something completely different...

or so I hope.
Its been a busy month since I blogged - longer still since I *really* blogged. Just as well, the youtube links seem to slow loading this page rather badly- and I had several more bands to share with you! Best wait until a few of them scroll off the page methinks.

The news has been crazy lately, hasn't it? Very grieved to hear of all the tornado and flooding victims in recent weeks. Also puzzled to hear caucus/primary results for locations where the polling places were reported as destroyed on the same day. Rooting for Huckabee & Obama here. Have to see if one of our favorite candidates makes it. [McCain & Clinton are a little too experienced imho ] Honestly, though, we've been too busy to do more than follow the updates.

Tom has finally had that last surgery and it went very well - though it took every bit as long as the Doctor guessed to even to be able to come home from the hospital. Tom was in at 5:30 am, and spent as long waking up as he did in the surgery itself (3-5 hours) - didn't even get in his room until nearly 10pm on the day of surgery though that was partly do to a last minute change of rooms. He had good roomies this time, with similar tv interests - which does make life a little better. The hospital set was on documentaries, funny videos, or news almost the whole time. Sure hope Orlando and Garrett both heal well. They'd had a rough time with traffic accidents. Hope the nurses have gotten over their colds by now. We felt for them. He had nice ones, fantastic care the first couple of days especially. Was very glad we remembered the jar of individually wrapped treats for those giving him care. They earned them, though we were just thinking how this was only a few weeks from Valentine's Day - and how nice a few of them had been before.


Now that my beloved is home again, he's still healing slowly but steadily.



We'll go in for another checkup next week. He's finally at that breakpoint where the surgery hurts less than the condition that sent him in. If he continues to do well, the last tubes get removed and then he's done! We may finally be at the end of waiting from one appointment for him to another.

We had some happy moments prior to surgery itself. Tom had a series of checkups and this meant we had time to see a couple more museums before the day. We worked in the Valentine Museum/Wickham House, and the Edgar Allen Poe museum (finally! been trying to get there awhile now). We ate a delicious lamb giro platter for one lunch, and even a light Chinese buffet. Almost made up for eating soup for the rest of the week ;-) Thanks to volunteers who brought soup lunches I more or less kept Tom company in that bill of fare for awhile. They were good though. I especially enjoyed the potato/veg.

Both before and after the surgery weeks, we had to tend to our son's health as well. We've not had severe trouble with colds this winter, though small ones assailed us often (the last one triggered headaches in everyone who had it - along with the usual messiness. yucka) No reason it should be too bad. Its been fairly mild around our the house, staying in the 50's-70's most days for weeks. It was in the 60's today. Its like we just skipped from late fall to early spring after a week or so. We've had exactly one snowfall of 2-3 inches- and, who knows, maybe the extra pollen is part of it- but Wm's at that age when we were warned some of his babyhood problems might flare again - and one did. Thankfully all he has needed to deal with it is a little medicine, and everyone is quite hopeful this too may soon prove unnecessary- but we'll remain vigilant for awhile. Had to reorganize several rooms since I've gotten back, replacing flattened pillows, passing out the clementines (we've eaten a ton of them this winter) and doling out the vitamin C 'just to be sure.' I've definitely felt like 'mom to the rescue' of late. (whether they need it or not- lol)


Add in a need to both prepare for and recover from the latest hospital adventure, as well as the usual paperwork and studies, and you now know why you haven't heard much from me lately, but its been good. I haven't done much with computers, but I'm cross-stitching a pillowcase and I've read a few more of the fun mysteries I received as Christmas presents. Its now official - Donna Andrews is a new favorite. I love humorous mysteries - and you'll hardly find better than Murder with Peacocks or We'll Always Have Parrots. I just received "The Penguin Who Knew Too Much" as an early Valentine's Day present. With a name like that, I'm loving it already. Yay! Penguins! :-D

So that's all the good news from me for now, but here's a another free ebook site or two or three or four or even five (but thats the limit) to brighten your day.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Educational Holiday Treats



An educational treat from The Teaching Company:

In "Christmas in Victorian Britain," Professor Patrick N. Allitt
explores the celebration of Christmas as we know it today, with
decorations, music, and lavish gift exchanges, and where it
began—Victorian Britain. While the holiday had older traditions such as
those that celebrated the winter solstice, the Victorians enhanced and
clarified the religious elements of Christmas and at the same time
commercialized it.

After familiarizing yourself with the origins of modern-day Christmas,
explore "Christmas in 19th-century America." How did different ethnic
groups in America celebrate Christmas in the early 19th century? Why did
New Englanders often want to avoid all forms of celebration while
Pennsylvania Germans dressed up, visited each other, and drank heavily?
After the Civil War, Christmas celebrations began to be standardized
throughout the nation under the influence of the new department stores,
which ran the Christmas-oriented marketing campaigns we are familiar
with today. "

www.teach12.com/ttcx/HolidayLecture2007.aspx?ai=26520&WT.mc_id=FLAct20071123&pc=Campaign

"You may access your free lectures online between now and January 31, 2008. Please feel free to send the lecture links to any friends of yours who might also enjoy them. They are free for them as well.
Season's greetings to you!"

[Thanks, Chris!]