Recently in Games Category

Ford, the Chambers of Commerce and Cities of Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance and Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors present the 2009 International Surf Festival July 31 through August 2. Area lifeguards and youth compete in challenges include bodysurfing, sand volleyball, paddleboarding and a 2-mile run.

Find out which events take place where and when here including the Dwight Crum Pier-to-Pier swim and the Velzy-Stevens Pier-to-Pier Paddleboard Championship. The site also has photos and results from past events.

Trying to help your kid learn to dribble, despite the fact the only game you've played in the past 20 years is office politics?

There's help. Weplay.com, a Web site that helps parents and coaches organize their kids' sports calendars, has a new video library just in time for the fall youth sports season.

The site offers free training videos from star athletes like Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees; 2006 MLB MVP Ryan Howard; 2008 NFL MVP Peyton Manning; USA Softball superstar and Olympic gold medalist pitcher Jennie Finch; gold medal winning soccer star Brandi Chastain; and dozens of other professional athletes. The videos provide everything from basic skills and drills to unique insights into how the pros prepare for the sports they play.
Here's what it's got:
Baseball Drills
Basketball Drills
Cheerleading Drills
Football Drills
Soccer Drills
Softball Drills

Thinking of taking a road trip down to San Diego to check out your favorite characters at Comic-Con 2009? Check the searchable schedule their Web site to find out when Stan Lee, Ludacris, Freddy Kruger and the Wonder Pets will appear at the convention.

Today the print edition of the Daily Breeze introduces KenKen -- or "cleverness squared" -- a logic puzzle that claims to actually make you smarter.

And it just might.

Solving the puzzle requires addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and helps draw out "the primal, self-starting learning instinct of human beings," inventor Tetsuya Miyamoto says in an interview with The Times of London.

The Japanese teacher uses the puzzles -- which he says turn minds into "vigorous problem-solving engines" -- in classes Japanese parents clamor to get their children into.

KenKen looks a lot like Sudoku. Both are based on number-filled squares, but Miyamoto says there is one fundamental difference: "The numbers in Sudoku could be replaced with melons and you would still be able to play. In KenKen the value of the numbers is absolutely central to the solution."

Scared yet? You shouldn't be. Because even though Miyamoto -- citing the importance of the "personal pattern and style of learning" -- refuses to give advice on the best way to approach his puzzle, all you really need is a bit of logic and a bit of simple math -- and we're willing to hand over the clues that the puzzle's distributor shared with us:

"All the numbers 1 through 4 (for an easy puzzle) or 1 through 6 (for challenging) must appear in each row and column without repeating. Numbers within each heavily outlined group of squares, called a cage, must combine to produce the target number in the top-left corner using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division as indicated.

"First, plug in any freebies provided. In a one-square cage, simply write in the number in the top-left corner.

"Next, look for cages whose target numbers are either high or low, since these are often easier to solve. For example, if there is a two-square cage adding up to 3, you know that the numbers must be 1 and 2, and you can go from there.

"Once you've filled in several numbers, you can use some sudoku-like logic, meaning that you can ignore the target numbers and just see which digits have yet to be used in a particular row or column."

KenKen will appear on the Daily Breeze's Take Out page every day except Sundays.

Want to hear Cameron Crowe's thoughts on winning an Oscar or see how king-sized movie posters are assembled? How about a sneak peek at some of the exclusive exhibitions held at the film academy's Beverly Hills headquarters?

The newly revamped Web site of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which launched Tuesday. Film fans of all kinds are welcome, said AMPAS Executive Administrator Ric Robertson.

"It's for almost anyone with an interest in movies," he said. "Depending on the level of interest, there's something there for just about everybody."

The site is more than an extensive homage to the Academy Awards. Visitors can learn about the academy's vast film and script archives (both open to the public), discover educational programs for young filmmakers, glimpse artwork from upcoming academy exhibitions (Fellini's sketches are on view now) and meet the people who vote on the Oscars via video.

There's also a link to Oscars' YouTube page and a chance to receive automated Oscar trivia questions each day from now until the Academy Awards are presented Feb. 22.

"The Academy Awards is this wonderful, huge phenomenon, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know what that is," Robertson said. "In a way, that makes it difficult for us to let the world know all the other stuff the academy does."

That's one of the reasons the organization embarked on an eight-month effort to overhaul its site. The group aims to spread the word about its year-round events that encourage appreciation of movies and the folks who make them in a way that appeals to film fans and filmmakers alike.

"We really serve very distinct constituencies: the research community, journalists and the industry," Robertson said. "But the academy is also an incredibly dynamic organization dedicated to movies, and it has an incredible amount to offer to those who just love movies."

Ever been at a dinner or cocktail party where the bon mots are flying
in every direction and you aren't even sure what a bon mot is? Then
this link Great film speeches will provide you with a fund of clever lines that were produced by writers who could
have, as some did, hold their own at the Algonquin Round Table. It
also could be the source for a your own personal trivia-pursuit game based on the
movies. The site truly proves that all most
Americans know about life they learned at the Bijou.

Throwing a party for a crossword fanatic?
How about an invitation and guest list in crossword form?
Can't draw boxes or make all the words fit together? Then this easy crosswords site is perfect for you. It provides a free service that lets you create a variety of crosswords for every occasion. Just type in the answer and the clue and it will construct a puzzle in just a few seconds. It comes with a number of prepared puzzles, which can help children or adults study for upcoming tests or tasks.
While the site says for a small fee it will provide more decorative options, they aren't really necessary.
There are a number of crossword creator site on the Web: This site for educators has an annoying pop-up but is designed for teachers;
This site points out that newspaper crossword puzzles aren't easy to generate but boasts it can provide you with simple crosswords with just a push of the button;
This site offers already prepared educational crosswords for ages 4-18.
One article on the Web claims that creating crosswords is now easier than solving them. And these sites and few others on the Web bear out that statement.

The big day is at hand. The preparations are complete. The halls are decked, the chestnuts roasted on an open fire, the stockings stuffed, the gifts wrapped, and the eggs nogged.

Now rest, ye merry gentlemen and ladies before a computer and follow these links for some Yuletide joy.

FunTrivia, which in the title bar claims to be the "world's largest trivia and quiz site!," has a very special Christmastime quiz section. Try your hand at any of 30 quizzes that test Noel knowledge. They even track who has been naughty or nice — in this case right and wrong — and reveal how many cohorts answered the questions correctly. Good luck!

For those who wish to give their eye-hand coordination some exercise, free Web-based game repository Miniclip has a collection of games just right for the season.

These games are sure to have your bells jingling.

It's back-to-school time. You're busy with transporting your kids to and from school, helping them with their homework and fixing their lunches. And hopefully, your children are just as busy with schoolwork and extracurricular activities.

But if they still spend the weekends pulling at your sleeves and whining about having nothing to do, worry not. The Internet is here to help. KidsDomain has put up two extensive lists of freeware games for children.

Got a PC? Go to http://www.kidsdomain.com/down/pc/_subjectfreeware-index.html. Own a Mac? Type in http://www.kidsdomain.com/down/mac/_subjectfreeware-index.html.

Download everything from coloring books to origami diagrams to puzzles, mazes and games covering reading, writing, 'rithmetic, science and history. Your kids can even learn Japanese or Arabic. You can view the list organized by subject or age group (most of the games will pique the interests of children 12 and under).

As far as we know, there are no viruses hiding among these links. What's great is that most of these freeware games don't require anything more complicated than your basic operating system and perhaps a printer.

And since they can be downloaded onto your computer for your kids to use offline, you won't have to fret about anonymous Web surfers stalking your children.

The Internet is a haven and resource for the Olympics-obsessed as well as the casual viewer. Here's a selection:

www.NBCOlympics.com
This site should be a first stop for all things Olympic, big and small. Thus far, it's the most-visited Olympics-related Internet site, with more than 4 million unique U.S. visitors on Aug. 9 -- the first official day of competition, according to Nielsen Online.

The site has a wealth of information, including news, features, medal counts, athletes' biographies, games, polls, histories of each event, live-streaming video of events and video of completed events.

The Web site and the NBC Universal TV networks NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen, Telemundo and Universal HD are slated to offer more than 3,400 hours of programming during the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, with each event getting some degree of TV/Internet coverage.

There's even a link to a Spanish-language version of the site.

http://en.beijing2008.cn
The official Web site of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games -- in addition to the traditional scores, schedules, photographs, video, athletes' bios and event histories -- also is an excellent resource for someone actually visiting the Games, with information on transportation, tickets, event venues, food, hotels, sightseeing, shopping and other activities.

For example, one can learn that lv da gun, a jelly roll-like cake that's nicknamed "Rolling Donkey," is made with soybean flour, water and brown sugar.

"At the end of preparation, the bean-flour cake rolls in the soybean flour . . . (and) looks like a donkey rolling over in dust," according to the site.

In addition to English, there are also Chinese, French, Spanish and Arabic versions of this site.

www.olympic.org
The official site of the Olympic Movement originates in the United Kingdom and is about all things Olympic -- and not just Beijing.

Get the latest news from the International Olympic Committee. Search a complete list of medal winners going back to 1896. Find out current Olympic and world records in a variety of events and how those records have evolved over time. Take a virtual tour of the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. See and rate pictures and videos at the site's multimedia gallery.

www.infoplease.com/sports/olympics/2008
Trivia fanatics will thoroughly enjoy this encyclopedic site filled with tons of Olympics factoids as well as quizzes and crossword puzzles on everything from Olympic mascots to the Ancient Greek Games and Olympic sports.

If you want to know the history of the Olympics dating back to antiquity or who has won the most gold medals in Olympic history, this site has it.