Believe it or not, life is not all about technology. For as long as I can remember, I have also been involved in some kind of sport. While I played the usual little league baseball and soccer, I soon found myself gravitating more towards individual sports. Not that I have anything against teams per se, it is just that I prefer to stand on my own two feet. After all, I did grow up as part of the "me" generation. Now there is a lot of technology used in sports, and I may yet talk about that in future posts. However, this will be more of a personal history type of story with minimal, if any, talk of sports tech. I had also originally intended to include this in a future "random ramblings" post, but as I began writing, it sort of took on a life of it's own. So please bear with me as I take a stroll down sports memory lane.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Computer Gaming
I have written previously about my little friend Emily, and her love of gOS 3.1 Gadgets. While she still has not hacked into the Pentagon computers yet, at least not as far as we know, she has progressed a bit in the computing world. She has become particularly fond of computer gaming, and has latched on to the oft used tech word "fail". Of course being 3 3/4 years old now, another obsession is saying words three at a time. For instance, when her mother tells her to do something she does not want to do, Emily will simply turn and say "Mommy, fail fail fail!"
Her latest gaming obsession is the very popular Peggle, or in her vernacular, Peggle Peggle Peggle! For those not up on such things, Peggle is the greatest "time waster" computer game to come along since Tetris. At first glance it is obviously derived from the old analog Pachinko machines that were popular many years ago. Upon closer inspection however, it is so much more. Everything from the sound effects, the game play, and the graphics are just simply first rate. You can play it over and over again, and have a different experience each time. The higher you score, the more surprises you get. Another great thing about this game is that it will run fine on the most modest of computer hardware. It also runs very well under the Wine program in Linux. And, if you get beaten by a certain 3 3/4 year old, you get to hear your name followed by the words "fail fail fail!" Heck, the only thing I can recall from that age was learning all the amazing things you could do with a stick.
Her latest gaming obsession is the very popular Peggle, or in her vernacular, Peggle Peggle Peggle! For those not up on such things, Peggle is the greatest "time waster" computer game to come along since Tetris. At first glance it is obviously derived from the old analog Pachinko machines that were popular many years ago. Upon closer inspection however, it is so much more. Everything from the sound effects, the game play, and the graphics are just simply first rate. You can play it over and over again, and have a different experience each time. The higher you score, the more surprises you get. Another great thing about this game is that it will run fine on the most modest of computer hardware. It also runs very well under the Wine program in Linux. And, if you get beaten by a certain 3 3/4 year old, you get to hear your name followed by the words "fail fail fail!" Heck, the only thing I can recall from that age was learning all the amazing things you could do with a stick.
Friday, September 11, 2009
random ramblings of an idiot
Don't know about you folks, but I will be doing something, say watching TV, and all of a sudden a stray thought will come flying in from left field. By "stray" thought, I mean one that is unrelated to what I am doing at the time. It seems to happen a lot when I am watching the local weather forecast. I totally miss the forecast even though I am staring at the TV the whole time. I would pass these off as old age creeping in, but I have actually been this way for as long as I can remember. Unlike my youth however, I now keep a pen and pad handy to jot these down. All of the ideas for this blog come to me this way.
What prompted this particular post was that while reading an article about Twitter the other day, I was suddenly reminded about a guy who "tweeted" long before there was a World Wide Web. His name was Blackie Sherrod, and he was a local sports writer of note. His column, called Scattershooting, was a must read for any sports enthusiast. Rather than write a simple column about a single subject, he would break it down into 2-4 sentence paragraphs, each about a different subject. His columns would often include two dozen or so of these "tweets", along with an occasional one liner thrown in for good measure.
What prompted this particular post was that while reading an article about Twitter the other day, I was suddenly reminded about a guy who "tweeted" long before there was a World Wide Web. His name was Blackie Sherrod, and he was a local sports writer of note. His column, called Scattershooting, was a must read for any sports enthusiast. Rather than write a simple column about a single subject, he would break it down into 2-4 sentence paragraphs, each about a different subject. His columns would often include two dozen or so of these "tweets", along with an occasional one liner thrown in for good measure.
Why I like Linux
Linux how do I love thee, let me calculate the ways using Gnumeric... But seriously, I am often asked why I use Linux as my main OS as opposed to Windows, Apple OSX, BSD, or even one of the various other flavors of Unix. The short answer is that Linux just works better for the way I compute. I actually use all of the above from time to time with the exception Apple OSX, which I have only dabbled with briefly. Linux is just the one that I use the most. To explain further, I'll offer some history of my experience with personal computers.
First I must say that my interest in tech, generally speaking, began when I was 6 or 7 years old. I remember sitting on the couch with my dad watching the original Star Trek series. I thought the coolest place anywhere was the bridge of the Enterprise. All those lights and sound effects, the computer that talked to you, I mean, come on! It does not get any cooler than that. A bit later on in my teen years, I would watch the reruns and notice that there were also hot girls in skimpy costumes. But that is a subject for another post.
First I must say that my interest in tech, generally speaking, began when I was 6 or 7 years old. I remember sitting on the couch with my dad watching the original Star Trek series. I thought the coolest place anywhere was the bridge of the Enterprise. All those lights and sound effects, the computer that talked to you, I mean, come on! It does not get any cooler than that. A bit later on in my teen years, I would watch the reruns and notice that there were also hot girls in skimpy costumes. But that is a subject for another post.
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