We bought Kingdom Rush for the iPad and this weekend we have been totally addicted! It’s a tower defense game, which we like, and it’s on sale, so we figured why not. Compared to The Creeps!, which I have previously recommended, I think Kingdom Rush is more polished, and there’s kind of a story. Yut thought maybe deeper too. But it’s shorter, only thirteen levels, The Creeps! had lots of levels for the free version with lots of in-game purchase levels; I haven’t totally finished all of the included levels yet. We’ve played through all thirteen levels in Kingdom Rush at least once on Easy, but haven’t gone back to look at the other modes for each level. This game also has a building with units to guard and stop the creep which was somewhat reminiscent of Ninja Town which was one of my favorite Nintendo DS games (seriously you should pick that up if you have a DS whatever), so I was extra predisposed to like it, I think. Anyway, I liked it! If you like tower defense games and want to play one, I am recommending this. (And also The Creeps!) [via Tools & Toys]

By the way, I wrote this post on an iPad, using the WordPress app. I think if I was on a computer, I probably would’ve linked to the Kingdom Rush and The Creeps! websites. And the specific post wherein I wrote about the Creeps, but it just felt like kind of a pain. The plan is, I’ll edit and add those in later. :) I mention this ’cause it kind of clarifies how I feel like the process is convenient enough to mean the difference between blogging and not blogging, but isn’t really great yet.

Edited: I added in some links! Also, you can try Kingdom Rush, there’s a free Flash-based version. I still think it’s worth getting. Playing TDs (tower defense games) on the iPad is a nice experience — the touchscreen is a good interface, and it’s nice to play wherever.

Alas, the WordPress app is … kind of inadequate. If all you’re trying to do is add a simple post with no photos, it’s not bad, but somehow, doing anything extra is harder. I hope that it’ll get better since it does get updates now and then. Anyway, I think some of the fault lies with flickr. I host photos on flickr because I like flickr and because I don’t want to deal with hosting photos, but the flickr app is no good either! And I’m not sure if I should hope that flickr is going to get much better unless Yahoo! decides to do more with it or sell it.

So… overall, I don’t think the experience is quite there yet. Not undoable, and I think I will sometimes do it. Using an iPad is just such a pleasure — don’t have to think about it much, it’s easy, and no waiting for the computer to turn on. But if it was my only choice, I don’t think I would like it much. I wrote this on my computer, but actually this post would probably have been relatively suitable for writing on the iPad. Except maybe I put in too many links for it to have been easy.

The joke is that the New Year is the time to make resolutions to break soon thereafter. I’m not usually much of a resolution maker, but this year I’m jumping on the bandwagon: I’m gonna un-abandon this blog and post more often! Wohahaha, let’s see if I can keep it up. :)

So what do you think? Good theme?

Btw, I made a Links page listing some of the blogs I like, in case you’re in need of more time wasters. :)

So… I think it’s pretty much cleaned up now, but I have to re-do all of my prettifying and figure out what plugins I want to use now. I’m too tired! And I know that most people thing that dark text on light background is best, but this default theme is way too glarey! Or I’m getting old. Or something. Gaaaaah, there needs to be 1 button upgrades, even easier than it is now! And I’m ranting but it’s my blog and it really was annoying, SO THERE! :p

Okay and since I’m doing this upgrade and all, I think I’m going to stop using Disqus. It’s not that I don’t like it, I do actually, but it’s like 1 more thing to think about and deal with and right now, I don’t wanna! So I’m not totally sure, but I don’t think I can import the comments back in, and they weren’t mirrored, so they are sort of lost. I mean I can still see them on disqus, but not you. Like you care!

On another topic entirely, I’m trying out disqus for the comment system. It allows for threaded comments and whatnot, which might be cool, although I’m not totally sure that I have enough comments to really need a system. Anyways, let me know how you like it in comparison to the regular comments.

I upgraded Bad Behavior to 2.0.9 then activated Akismet and I still got at least 50 spams per day. So today I upgraded WordPress, which misa had mentioned. I’d been hoping to hold off until 2.1 (which they are saying will be out around January 22nd) because upgrading isn’t that much fun (but not too bad either if I’m honest just choresome), but eh, if it could help, I’ll try it. I also disabled commenting on some of my posts — if anyone actually wants to comment on those, you’ll have to contact me. I’m not sure what else to try now. I mean, on one hand, I’d like the spam levels to go back down to reasonable levels, but on the other hand, I don’t want to make commenting extra annoying. So I guess I’m considering some kind of captcha check (like on the contact form) and maybe turning on that “Comment author must have a previously approved comment” option. But I’m open to suggestions!!!

You know what’s the funniest thing? A lot of the spammers have ip addresses from integrity.com, which says it’s the “nation’s best and safest filtered solution provider.” Basically they offer filters so that you won’t see smutty stuff or whatever if you don’t want to. Which err… :P