The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

Drawspace.com was founded by Brenda Hoddinott, author of Drawing for Dummies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Drawing People Illustrated and hosts free drawing lessons covering basic to advanced topics, jointly developed by Brenda herself and a team of Drawspace.com instructors.

© Drawspace.com

Lesson F10 – Serene Scene under Hatching category

By registering for a free account, visitors get to view all available lessons online and learn how to draw by following the clearly illustrated (pun intended) instructions. Just don’t expect these lessons to be a miracle for obtaining impressive drawing skills Drawing, like any other skill, requires lots of constant practice to develop and perfect, but these online lessons from Drawspace.com (and plenty of time for practice) should significantly ease the journey

© Drawspace.com

Lesson I8 – Tuttle Turtle under the Cartoons and Critters category

If you crave the convenience of viewing these lessons offline or printing them out for handy reference, you can opt for quarterly or lifetime subscriptions for Drawspace.com at 25 or 125 USD which allows you to download high resolution PDF versions of each lesson as well as any future additions to the regularly updated collection of lessons during your subscription period.

Start drawing at Drawspace.com today

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I believe most seasoned (or snobbish) gamers like yours truly don’t exactly regard electronic versions of golf and/or solitaire as extremely exciting games to play and any game combining both seems even less palatable. However Grey Alien Games’ awesome Fairway Solitaire has proven me wrong this time – yep, as much as I hate to admit it but it’s a damn fine game

A single player card game with a golf theme published by Big Fish Games (who are giving it for free till 30 May 2009, see this Jayisgames post), Fairway Solitaire is truly an addictive game especially for Windows Solitaire addicts, golf maniac or card gamers (or even if you’re none of the above).

I don’t understand golf (my very rudimentary knowledge stems from playing the archaic Fuji Golf on Windows 3.1) and neither do I like card games but this game sucked up the time I was intending to spend on playing Mount & Blade .

Like solitaire, its very easy to learn – just match cards from the deck with those numbered one higher or lower (the suit doesnt matter) to remove them from play. Play six or more than cards in a row and get a Long Drive bonus which gives a multipler to your cash earnings at the end of each hole. The number of leftover cards after each round minus the par for that hole constitutes your score and is capped at a maximum of five above par.

Special cards like iron cards which can be used anytime to match any card higher or lower by one, sand wedge cards to clear the corresponding sand trap cards and dreaded water hazard cards make it feel like a day at the golf course. Wild Shot cards add an element of chance to the game and adds a slew of minigames to mix things up and keep things interesting. These features and the Long Drives make winning in games of Fairway Solitaire more about strategy rather than a lucky deal.

If everything sounds too confusing, don’t worry as the excellent nine hole course at The Golf Academy serves as an excellent tutorial. And who knows, you might learn a interesting new thing or two, like wormburners

Graphics are pretty attractive for a casual game and for once I get to choose a granny avatar – you don’t get this in most games, do you? Sounds are minimal at best, the only things you’ll probably hear is some commentary and polite applause. (it’s a game of golf, not soccer, you know) However, Fairway Solitaire still doesn’t change my opinion of golf – golf fashion is really stuffy and yucky

Got to play better, Granny needs a new long skirt at the Golf Shop

Download Fairway Solitaire for free until 31 May 2009 – instructions at this Jayisgames post on 4 free Big Fish Games. (Azada is not too bad, but Fairway Solitaire rules!)

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She Asked … for a Bejewelled Clone

Wallpapers featuring artwork created for the Anima universe designed jointly by Anima Project Studio and Edge Entertainment and used in the Anima : Beyond Fantasy (a non-computer) RPG, the Anima : Shadow of Omega card game and the Anima Tactics miniatures game.

© Anima Project Studio & Edge Entertainment

The official site provides only a small sample of the gorgeous artwork for this fantasy universe, which definitely pales in comparision to the official concepts of ethereal fairies and hellish monsters illustrated by wen-m as posted at his deviantART gallery. Incidentally, wen-m’s gallery was where I first heard of Anima : Beyond Fantasy

© Anima Project Studio & Edge Entertainment

Links to the other illustrators for the Anima universe can also be found at the Anima RPG site under Community > Anima’s Illustrators section.

Download these wallpapers from www.animarpg.com (look under Support > Wallpapers)

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I recently read about the feats of Sea Victory, a oceangoing tugboat operated by Crowley Maritime Corporation – this unassuming looking boat embarked on a 29 day vovage to tow the 45,000 ton battleship BB-63 USS Missouri from Bremerton, Washington to Ford Island, Pearl Harbor near the Arizona Memorial back in 1998 (more info and photos at Star Bulletin and Kitsap Sun).

© Ken Ige / Star Bulletin

In 1999, the ex-battleship BB-62 USS New Jersey was towed by the same boat from Bremerton to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for restoration works before being reworked into a museum ship at Camden, New Jersey.

© The High Seas Marine Art

Sea Victory also towed the ex-battleship BB-61 USS Iowa from Newport, Rhode Island to Suisun Bay, California via the Panama Canal in 2001 – a 6,500 mile journey. (more photos here and here)

Sea Victory’s most impressive vovage must have been the towing of the decommissioned aircraft carrier CV-34 USS Oriskany during a 112-day, 15,153 miles journey from Vallejo, California to Beaumont in Texas in 1999. Haven’t been able to find any pictures of this journey probably because the ship was to be sunk instead of being converted to museum ships like the abovementioned battleships.

Wikipedia Commons does throw up a 2006 photo of the 32,000 ton ex-USS Oriskany being towed by a Crowley tugboat to the Gulf of Mexico where it was deliberately sunk to form an artificial reef there.

More information about this impressive Sea Victory class of tugboats can be found at Crowley Maritime Corporation – the Sea Victory is the first of three boats of its class – the other two being Sea Venture and Sea Vovager, all commissioned in the 1970s.

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Read about Santiago Zapata’s Expedition, a ASCII exploration game from Cymons Games’ review for the 2009 7DRL Challenge.

In Expedition, you are Christopher Columbus, explorer and commander of an expeditionary force preparing to embark on a journey to discover the New World.

Before you eagerly step aboard your ships and set sail on your historic voyage, remember to explore the town and outfit your expedition for the impending journey. The shops labelled 1 to 5 in red will provide the necessary stores, weapons, equipment and manpower for a fruitful expedition.

Expedition is a game for those who prefer to simply go forth and conquer, since the primary option available is to hire a company of soldiers, marines or archers, equip them well with suits of armour (only soldiers can wear plate armour) and cold steel (press a to arm the troops or i for troop attack and defence stats) before sending them over to the New World to teach the native tribes there the benefits of modern civilization and technology. Just remember to head west after you weigh anchor – it’s always tempting to sail south for Morocco, but sorry, it’s already been discovered

There is presently no peaceful way to conduct your explorations – you can build (press b) a new town with 200 wood and 100 rogues but it doesn’t seem to offer any benefits when built. Then again, Expedition is currently only at version 0.16 so there’s still a lot of untapped potential in the game (read : unfinished features )

I recommend the MP3 version of Expedition – Dominik Markzuk’s The 3 Caravels included in Expedition is a wonderfully appropriate piece of music.

Download Expedition.

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