I wish these things were better.

"There's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." And yet, just wanting to like something doesn't seem to be quite the same as genuinely enjoying it.

Legends of Zork is a newish browser-based game, nominally set in the world of Zork text adventures.  A more accurate description of the game seems to be turn-based World of Warcraft, with Zork-flavored names for the places and some of the monsters.  There are no puzzles, or, there are things called puzzles which you solve or don't based on a dice roll.  There is no inventory, or, there are weapons you can hold, which, in combination with magic spells you can buy, modify your dice rolling battle results.  There's nothing to look at, aside from maybe a dozen banner-ad sized illustrations, no clever descriptions of things, and nothing to do except grind for points.  Players may fight monsters in order to gain experience points and level up, or they may fight each other for useless fame points and slightly less useless money points with which more weapons and armor are purchased, in order to fight more monsters in order to level up, which increases the maximum allowed wager in the PvP arena, which allows faster money making to buy weapons and armor.  Great.  I've stuck it out so far in the hope of something interesting happening.  Even tried multiple characters with different goals (making money, magic user, fighter) and the gameplay offers nothing to make these characters different from one another.  Still, it's probably a slightly better version of Zork than the novelizations of the late 1980s.  But at least the books didn't keep automatically logging me out.

Parks & Recreation is the quasi-spin-off of The Office (US).  It seems like it leans on the fact that most viewers will see it immediately after The Office on TV, and makes heavy use of all the mock-doc techniques found in the other show.  Granted, I didn't really like The Office either two episodes in, and now I'm a fan, but the thing that makes it seem odd to me is that it doesn't feel like it is or could be a documentary.  Similar to how The Foot Fist Way attempted to use that style without committing to the limits that go with it, maybe, or just too jokey.  I guess I'd rather be wrong, but it's not sitting very well yet.

I saw one Dane watch a Desperate Housewives last night.  That only barely qualifies for this topic because I don't think anything should have to be that lousy.