Darn, my stupid mouse is dying. I didn't think that there would be any problems with an optical mouse. There's no rollerball to get dirty and no roller bars to wear out. Unfortunately I either broke my mouse when I transported it in my backpack or I got dirt inside the mouse. What happens now is that the button is sticking. Not all the time, just occassionally. And I can sort of beat up on the mouse to make it go away for a while. Hmm, maybe it's time to get a new mouse (and an Apple keyboard too, the Macally iKey still occassionally cuts off power to the mouse when I rest it, so then I have to unplug and replug the mouse)...

It's the start of another month and I get to buy more things. I'm trying to keep my budget at $50 for one computer item, $100 for games and $50 for books. I can save money one month and carry it over to the next month, but going over budget costs twice as much. So when I bought Windows NT 4 for $75 that impacted my budget by $100.

For the computer item I have a few needs. A backup program (I'm now testing Switchback because the other program was copying everything every time) which will be $30. Or maybe QuickTime Pro so I can work on some movies and such, that's $30 too. Or maybe a game since I'm getting a hankering for a good computer game like Baldur's Gate (or some other computer RPG that works on Mac OS X). Hmm, maybe there's a port of NetHack for Darwin or Mac OS X. Or maybe I should just save the money so I can buy something expensive later on, like CodeWarrior or AppleWorks.

For the games I'm going to buy some RPGs from Steve Jackson Games. I'm getting way behind on GURPS and now there's Ogre too. $100 doesn't go to far -- that's only four standard books. It maybe keeps up with the SJG product schedule. Hmm, may have to increase that budget since I have lots of other things to buy too. For books I want some book on Mac OS X, or maybe a book on Apache. Or maybe some Star Trek books since there are dozens that I don't have.

In any case, I don't want to blow it all on the first day of the month. The longer I can hold out the better, since as soon as I spend the money I'll want to buy more and next month is a long way off...

My first ever wargame was Panzer Leader, given to me on my 10th birthday by some uncle or older cousin. At the time it was way too complicated for me and I didn't understand the rules. Not so much that but there were so many cases to remember. So I just ignored most of the rules and made it much simpler and played it by myself. This game had four rectangular boards that could be combined in different ways to create different terrain. It portrayed WWII engagements in the Western Front, from D-Day onwards. One of my favorite parts of the game was the Designer Notes, which is it's own booklet. It was great reading about history and what went into the game and it did get me interested in wargames, though it would be years later before I started to get more.

One concern about wargames is the "glorification of Nazis and Nazi symbols." Actually, most wargamers don't care. But there are a few vocal politically correct wargamers that don't like making the Germans really good with elite SS troops and such. They do have some argument. If you read the histories and analyses, the German was good but not that good. In many ways they were overall worse than the Western Allies (Russian units were really bad at first but they did get much better after Stalingrad). It's mostly in tactics is where the Germans did better, developing Blitzkrieg and mobile tank warfare. But that's hard to implement in simpler wargames, hence why instead those games tend to give German units better ratings.

Some day I'll get around to playing the wargames that I have. It's kind of sad seeing all the games that I'm giving away. But they don't really belong to any series and I have way too many games that I'll never play. Still, there will be a bit of pang after they're gone. Strange how you only miss something after it's gone -- and it's not like you were ever going to use it even if you still had it.