Stereotypes

Sure most stereotypes are a bit extreme; not all Venetians wear striped shirts and power little boats along with a big stick, all the while singing romantic songs (I suppose, although I have never been to Venice so I could be wrong). Most stereotypes do have a bit of a basis in fact though. Not necessarily when it comes to ethnicity, more so when it is about a certain demographic. Like the SUV driving people on cell phones. Before I get into the story I want to make one thing perfectly clear, I am not intending to say that if you drive an SUV and talk on the cell phone that it makes you a bad driver, quite the contrary, I am intending to say that if you are a bad driver to begin with you are more likely to buy an SUV (for your own protection) and talk on Continue reading Stereotypes

(libation) Free baseball tickets

This is going to be the first time that I have tried to defend myself when I actually know there is no defense… Since I know that going in you would think that I wouldn’t argue it… Damn this blogger script for making posting so simple… My wife works for a company, I will call it Widgets Inc. That company owns large shares in every damn building in the Phoenix area, or it seems like it anyway. Occasionally they give away their tickets to events through a raffle, such as the V.I.P seating that she won to Ozzfest a couple of years ago, several times she won the “suite tickets” to baseball games (free food, free beer). All good stuff. This time she won the same suite tickets to the baseball game, nix the alcohol. There is no free beer at the game. You have to watch it, second by Continue reading (libation) Free baseball tickets

Fun with math tests

I came across a silly little math test via The Washington Monthly that I simply had to try out. I have not actually done any math in at least a decade, at least not what I would count as math, and supposed that I would bomb this one horribly. It turns out that I am not as bad at this simple stuff as I would have thought. I only missed one! I was pretty happy about that considering how long it has been since I have actually done math for a reason that didn’t involve drug weight conversions or silly video game puzzles. It was only when I went to see what question 6 was that I really started to kick myself in the ass. The question was: “A car dealer sells a SUV for $39,000, which represents a 25% profit over the cost. What was the cost of the Continue reading Fun with math tests

Farewell old PC

It was a different time back when I bought that PC. 466mhz was a pretty decent speed for a processor, 32megs of RAM wasn’t very good, but was certainly usable. The 4.3gig hard drive was a bit small, but there wasn’t that much to put on a PC at the time, what with everyone except college students still barely getting 56k internet connections. Windows 98 was the latest craze when I bought the machine. That little Emachine held it’s own for seven long years. Sure the ram was upgraded from 32 to 256 over time, the hard drive went from 4.3gig to 40gig, a cdrw drive was added, as well as a 32meg Nvidia graphics card, other than that the thing was stock. It was yesterday that I finally had to realize that no amount of TLC could keep it going any longer. The motherboard finally just gave up. I Continue reading Farewell old PC

Video game time sink

Since I got the new Guild Wars game I have been noticing that I have the same ‘missing time’ issues that I used to have when I originally started playing Diablo 2. I am relatively sure that the time is not actually “missing”, it is, rather, horribly spent. Sure the aliens might be abducting me on a nightly basis, the government could be looking into my thoughts with their new satellite technology, but my best guess is that I just get a tad too involved in games, and continue to waste my time on them. The games don’t really even have to be that good for me to get so involved, at least not as far as graphics, since I still waste a hell of a lot of time on BMX Ghost, regardless of the fact that the graphics are twenty years old and the gameplay is damn near impossible. Continue reading Video game time sink

Guild Wars!

Have you ever played it? I never had, until just yesterday. Imagine Diablo II, in 3d, without the annoyances of Everquest. I really enjoy this game. The online play is free, of course, and the graphics are simply amazing. The quests are possible, at least so far, solo or as a group, and the rewards keep the game moving along. There is not a requirement that you get 6-8 guys, all from the same guild, to do a quest, it is possible even if you have no affiliation. There are a bunch of weird quests that you have to do to improve your armor and the such, but that is all optional (not really if you want to live). This game melds the sprite based Diablo II type game so seamlessly with the EverQuest type game that Iwas amazed at how fluid it was. The biggest and most persistent complaint Continue reading Guild Wars!

Shitty game still generating feedback

For those of you who may not have read any of my previous posts about it, I made a silly game in Java several years ago. It is called Lightz Out. I ripped off everything about the game directly from a handheld toy called Lights Out, which was manufactured by Tiger toys. When I say that I ripped everything off I mean it quite literally. I copied all fifty of the boards (which was quite a challenge, as it required that I solve them all), the audio on the applet was recorded directly from the game, I even programmed the same first two moves for help. I did that all just to see if I could. I am not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination. In fact I knew so little about how to do it that everything that happens in the game is handled in the paint Continue reading Shitty game still generating feedback

Proud to be an American?

So it turns out that the state of Mississippi is no longer racist. Really. Check out the headline: Ex-KKK Member Convicted in 1964 Killings So, forty-one years after the crime they finally came up with enough evidence to convict one of the killers! That is great news! Unfortunately that is not the news at all. According to the article the same man was tried for the much lesser crime of violating the civil liberties of the victims in 1967 and walked away without a conviction. I know this all happened a long time ago, at a point where the south was still pretty pissed off about the abolition of slavery and certainly not ready to treat people of color as equals. I will go one step further to say that I don’t think they are any better today than they were in the ’60s. That being said, you would think Continue reading Proud to be an American?

Following suit

Seeing the ease with which Flux over at BlackChampagne was able to integrate a blogger script into his existing page, I thought I would give it a try as well. It turns out that the ease of which I speak is not really easy, more a long and labor intensive game of guess and check (within reason) until things look more or less like you want them to. I lost a few early attempts due to sheer idiocy, but I think this version is pretty stable and looks almost exactly like the previous page. Time will tell, as always. If you are reading this it is because I asked you to look at the page and tell me if you noticed any problems, if you do notice any problems (not counting the date being centered in the table instead of on the page type problems) please do comment about it. Continue reading Following suit