Yesterday JoDee and I did something we haven't done in a while: sat and played video games. I love it when we get a chance to play together, as it doesn't happen very often with her work (anyone who tells you teachers don't put more than 40 hour work-weeks doesn't know a teacher). We both decided to just unplug from the day and play some games. I pulled out the SNK games, and we played Puzzle Bobble, Windjammers, and Magical Drop 2. JoDee then mentioned that I had the game "Seaman" and hadn't opened it. Seaman, for those of you who don't know, is an artificial life simlation for the Dreamcast. The game includes a microphone which plugs into a VMU slot on the Dreamcast controller. It's supposed to be played over months, but I decided to speed things up a bit and set the clock ahead on the Dreamcast every time I restarted the game. Man, that game is FREAKY. For starters, the life-cycle of the Seaman creatures is interesting (to say the least). Another is the vocabulary of the gill-men. I'm not talking "feed me", I'm talking full conversations, with semi-intuitive reactions from the system. At several times, JoDee just stared in shock as the game blurted out a response to something we said. It's not much of a game, and shows more promise as a technology demo, but I must say they did a great job making something interesting. Now if I can just get Leonard Nimoy to buy me a damn thermostat for the heater...