General update in epistolary format

[oyceter]

Since I have become terrible at posting, a random update:

Games

• Dear Zynga: If you absolutely had to rip off Gardens of Time, couldn't you have at least made the interface for placing things on your estate a bit better? Also, apparently I am fine with clicking repeatedly on mindless things, but not so much with replying hidden object scenes.
• Dear Sims Social: I am still annoyed that you had a measly 5 or so objects for Lunar New Year and have a whole theme and quest for Valentine's Day. Also, I am pretty femme-y, but it'd be nice to have something between saccharine and "messy sports slob." Also also, including pink shopping bags in the sports update to include non-sports people was pretty stupid. Also x3, still sick of how sexualized and revealing the women's clothing is, and still annoyed I can't get stuff from the men's clothing store (my Sim is female).
• Dear Triple Town: I cannot believe I actually paid money for you, but anything that makes the train commute go by in a flash is worth $3.99. There's some strategy, but not too much for the morning commute, the game is very addictive and easy to learn, and it has ninja bears. WIN.
• Dear Tiny Tower: Can I haz more costumes plz? Also, still enjoying subverting the text by dressing the staff of my "Asian Restaurant" (serves: spring rolls, noodle bowl, orange tofu) up as "amigos" (complete with sombrero) and naming it "Asian Amigos." I also get a nice kick out of the random bitizen generator giving me lots of brown people.
• Dear Dream Zoo: You are boring and take forever to load. I don't know why I still play you.
• Dear Echo Bazaar: I didn't like the UI of the updates, but the no-action-cap update and clearer tool tips are making this much more fun. Who knew you could actually craft items from stuff in your inventory?

Reading

• Dear fanfic authors: Snape is much more interesting when he is a childish jerk who nevertheless does some pretty heroic things. Also, please more Ruthless!Hermione?
• Dear Palace of Illusions audiobook: Thanks for scratching the fic itch and also for getting me to pick Subramaniam's Mahabharata adaptation again.
• Dear brain: Grateful for the ability to process text again! I guess the combination of wanting complicated stuff combined with familiar settings and characters is a nice switch from several years of the opposite (i.e. romance novels: unfamiliar characters, familiar settings and plot).

Personal

• Dear SF Muni: I HATE YOU SO MUCH. I have nothing against buses or public transportation, and in fact am very much a fan of the latter, but not when it seems like the system has been deliberately set up to miss every possible commuter rail connection by a minute or so. You'd think bus systems connecting to commuter rail would attempt to make the transfer easier, but that would be assuming that this entire country were civilized enough to do public transportation properly. @$#(&#@$( car culture.
  
  (I leave work at 5:45 and sometimes get into my door at 7:20 or so, depending on bus connections. The new "unified" smart card payment system takes me ten reads to figure out, half the time I can't reload it from inside a station, I still can't figure out what money I put on it goes to which transportation system, I have to re-figure this all out again as soon as I move, IRS cut pre-tax commuter benefits, and I know this is all symptomatic of much larger issues, including how public transportation in SF Bay Area was set up in the first place and complicated things like business systems and whatnot, and it is especially annoying because there is no one thing to rail against. The entire system is a mess because it was haphazardly put into place by assorted different agencies with no thought of intersystem transfers or links and has been held together with band-aids ever since.
  
  (Or, at least, that is my impression as a user of around three months and from the little I know about system design.)

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