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World of Goo Review

I’ve always had a soft spot for a good puzzle game. The Incredible Machine series was always one of my favorites and Portal is simply a puzzle masterpiece. I heard about World of Goo a while back and heard good things about it, but never tried it. Steam has it on sale this weekend for $5 and there’s a demo available to try out. I went ahead and bought it after playing the demo.

The gameplay is pretty darn simple. You have to connect your balls of goo into a structure to reach a pipe for your remaning goo balls to escape from. Each level has a goal to reach so you can’t go crazy building your bridges and towers. There’s a couple different types of goo that you have to use to your advantage. The physics and writing in the game are great. The demo only covered the first of four parts and I’m looking forward to the rest.

Pick up World of Goo this weekend if you want a quirky little game that requires a little more thought and problem solving than your average game.

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Books I’ve read from the list of 100

My compacted list of books from this bigger list: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg92b8kj_13hph36sfh

X means I’ve read it.
X+ means I read it and loved it.
X- means I read it and hated it.
* means I plan on reading it.

2. [X+] The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
5. [X] To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
6. [X] The Bible (not all of it)
7. [X] Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
10. [X] Great Expectations Charles Dickens
13. [*] Catch 22 Joseph Heller
16. [*] The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
18. [X] Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
22. [X] The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald
25. [*] The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
33. [X] Chronicles of Narnia CS Lewis
36. [X] The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe CS Lewis
52. [X+] Dune Frank Herbert
87. [X] Charlotte’s Web EB White
89. [X] Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
99. [X] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Not represented here are thousands of read pages from the Dune and Song of Ice and Fire series.

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Shared Google Reader Items #12

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Throwing around the idea of writing a personal finance book

I’ve mentioned the idea about writing a personal finance book to a couple people, but I thought I’d get some feedback from all of you. I’ve become a bit of a personal finance nut over the past year and it took me a while to figure out what was relevant to me as a 20-something and young investor. I sifted through a lot of information and found things that I think people coming out of college or starting a career would want to hear. I want to write what I wish I had a couple of years ago: a book that explores important personal finance topics in an easy to understand way.

The outlining I’ve done so far has the book broken into one part on saving for retirement and a second part on more general personal finance topics. There’s a lot of ground to cover, but each topic discussion would be concise and useful. For example, I would cover Roth and Traditional IRAs, the differences between the two and then provide enough analysis to help the reader figure out which fits them best. I think a big goal of the book would be to help people get a grasp on their financial situation and make smart, informed decisions with their money and about their future.

At this point I think a book would be the best option to contain everything I’m planning to cover. I thought about writing a running series of blog posts, but the topics are going to be tied together enough where it would be annoying to have to constantly say “remember what I talked about in this other post”. In a book format I’d know exactly what the reader has already read. I’d be able to build upon previous ideas and really tie things together when it comes to talking about strategies and the bigger picture.

So I guess my question is, would you be interested in reading a book about personal finance and investing targeted at a younger crowd who still has 30-40 years until retirement?

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2008 Taxes are Done

Our taxes got e-filed this weekend so now we just have to wait for our returns. Federal refund was a little smaller this year, but it should come back quickly. California refund on the other hand may not materialize for a while. The state has until the end of May to get payments out or they have to start paying us interest on our refunds. Have to see how screwed we are once the legislature passes a budget. I’m predicting our taxes will go up.