More Old Skool

I remember when Doom came out -- wow. I got the demo - that allowed a user to play one level, and was hooked. My buddy Ed and I would both play almost all night long, then talk about the game after classes at Del Mar College.

I'd been playing it for about a month - mostly all late nights, when I realized that the game was affecting my brain. I was walking down the hallway at the Del Mar Business Building - where 90% of my classes were taught. I came to a corner, and rather than just casually negotiating the turn, and continuing on to whatever mundane location I was going to, I stopped, leaned my head out and checked for monsters. I was shocked. It's like the sort of realization one might have if they found themselves on a blustery afternoon, and realize they are standing in the bedroom wearing women's underwear. (Unless you are actually of the womanly persuasion. That's probably not as funny as it seemed in my head a second ago.)

Finally, Ed and I were eating lunch one day and I came clean. (Not about transvestitism!) I told him about checking for monsters around the corners and he was shocked! He was doing the same thing!!! Ah, symbiosis. I didn't feel quite so bad or abnormal any more. (Not like either one of us was or is so normal.)

I don't play many games these days. The rigors of work, home life and a nearly 5 year old make it impractical. I don't really miss it - hell, I'm sleepy at 9pm. The pressure of getting up and going to work are a bit different from the choice I made of never having a class before 10am. When I do play, it's usually a benign strategy game, like something from the Command and Conquer genre, or my latest, jigsaw puzzles online. How boring. Nothing like a giant monster coming screaming at you through the CRT, blood dripping from its fangs, making a sound through the headphones that makes you want to scream and run and causes you to pee a little.

Ah, good times.

Old School Nerds

I was reminiscing the other day - the way that old men do... (I turned 40 in July) My nostalgia trip took me to computers. Remembering my first computer - a Franklin PC compatible thing with dual 360K floppy drives and a CGA "color" monitor. No mouse, no modem, no Ethernet NIC... No Internet. How boring. It was an 8088, with 512K of RAM. I learned to use DOS 3.3, and could make that OS sing.

Eventually, I BOUGHT a new computer -- a 386sx with a VGA monitor, and the upgrading began.

I used to read a magazine called Computer Shopper, which I don't think exists any more. It was the ultimate computer magazine for hobbyists. It was about 2" thick, and was about 40 pages of articles and about 400 pages of ads from computer companies that sold either complete systems or parts. Oh, what parts!

It was like being a kid with the Sears Wish Book - I recall poring over the newsprint pages, dog-earing the pages of companies where I could get something for $4 less than some other place. It was crazy - ordering parts from 7 different companies and then (before being able to track shipments online) trying to be patient whilst waiting for the packages to arrive.

You could tell what was going on if I was walking down the hall with "Shopper" tucked under my arm. Somebody'd better light a match.

I remember buying used a 1200 baud modem to get online on BBS's. Paid probably $100 for it. Nothing like the screech of the modem as you connected up at a blazing 12oo baud. Eventually, I ended up running a BBS called "The Circuit Board" in Corpus Christi, Tx. Max speed 14.4kbps, running on a Practical Peripherals modem. Ah, good times. I learned to program a bit in C, got the source code and modded the board to meet my needs. I had fun with it for a few years, until it turned into a job, at which point, I stopped doing it. Most of my users ended up being little 15 year old anarchists and people looking to leech porn pics, which I didn't offer up on the BBS.

The hobbyist in me began to die out, and I wanted to actually use my computer without having to wait for a BBS user to hang up. There was that wonderful F9 key that simulated line noise and dropped the connection.

Eventually, when I was attending classes at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, (or it may have been Corpus Christi State University at the time) I was given a shell account on a DEC Alpha, and the ability to get on the internet. Oh. My. God. What a cornucopia of access that presented to me. I learned to use Lynx to "surf" the web. All in Text. I thought that was so ultimately cool.

I would someday like to present Lynx to a "power" user here at work and see what they can do with it. I was really intrigued by this new "net" thingy. I guess this is before I knew it was the intarwebs.

Not sure what the first time I encountered a true graphical web browser was, but it was at work - using Netscape, and Chameleon TCP/IP on probably a Windows For Workgroups machine. How fun. It took 2 of us to get it to work. We didn't know ANYTHING about TCP/IP - being a Novell shop. If it were IPX or SPX, it would have taken me 4 minutes. We had a fractional T-1 running at 56K. It was SO FAST. When I left we had a 10 meg pipe.

-more later-

Me from Springfield.

Sad / Happy

One of my nephews, Brian is moving with his wife, Taylor to Chicago. Home of da Cubs and da Bears.

Even though I only see them a couple of times a year, it has always been comforting that they lived here in town. I'm going to miss them. They are a very bohemian pair, and I really respect that they are their own people. They had a very cool wedding - the first one that I ever took photos of - at the French Legation in Austin. I've enjoyed seeing them at various venues where Brian's band played.

I wish upon them maximum happiness, and hope that they can find the place they need to be. It's with sadness that they are going, but I admire their spirit, and it makes me happy that they are willing to embark on an adventure.

So to Brian and Taylor - I salute you and wish you a great adventure!

Yay

I finally got to go fishing yesterday. I got maybe 10 minutes of fishing between 2 different lakes. Frapping rain.

Weather woes

DAMN. More rain.

The day after my 40th birthday, a day scheduled off for a day of fishing, and I get up to find that the rain is coming down again. Shit. A low pressure system is stalled over Central Texas AGAIN. What the hell? Is this what it's like to live in Seattle? The only "rain gear" I have is a battered golf umbrella stashed in my trunk.

As soon as Academy opens, I'm going up to buy a rain poncho, and I'm going fishing. I don't give a crap if it rains, I don't give a good shit if I get wet. I have put aside fishing for about 2 months now for this shit, and I'm TIRED of it. Most of the lakes around here are closed because of the high water levels and debris in the water.

Nothing funny to write. I'm just trying to keep the cussing to a minimum. On a fun note, yesterday being my birthday and all, we went shooting which was muchly fun. I started getting back in the groove a bit, compensating for some "off" sights on my pistol, and putting together some decent groupings for not having shot in about 3 years. Next time, I'm going to rent an M-4 (M-16) for 8 bucks plus the cost of ammo. I can't wait.

The Classics

I've taken a keen interest in making sure my 4.75 year old clone is exposed to the classics. I think that it's very critical in any child's life to make sure they have a good education and that includes watching cartoons that were my favorites when I was growin' up in South Texas.

I was in the kitchen cooking, and 2.0 was in the living room watching Boom - a cartoon channel that shows oldies but goodies. Tom & Jerry was on, all pretty innocuous, right? Cartoon on cartoon animal violence never hurt anybody, right?

I am not paying micromanagement level attention, and then I hear the song "How Dry I Am." 2.0 is in the other room, laughing at the way the cat was walking after drinking out of the jug marked "XXX." So what MGM presented to my young-un is a cat getting shit-faced, then being chased by a VERY stereotypical black woman. We're talking "Mammy" from Gone With the Wind.

I seriously doubt that anybody outside of Trey Parker and Matt Stone could create such a cartoon these days. People would be shocked. I guess it all comes down to being from a different time and place.

Oh well, back to watching cartoons with him while dinner cooks. I keep saying "Oh, I love this one!"

PS: nothing like explaining to him why Droopy's fleas were smoking cigarettes.

Wii are not amused

I'm not a gamer. Or a gomer as my keyboard wants me to type.

Yesterday, I thought "hey, on the way home, I'll swing by Worst Purchase and pick up a Nintendo Wii." Yeah, a likely thought. The young gentleman who is barely shaving scoffed at me like I was a naive schoolgirl asking for tickets to see the Beatles on their first invasion tour of America. "Uh, they sell out in like, minutes." Ok dude. Sorry to harsh on your buzz.

I said "Ok, well that doesn't make any sense - the hype should be over -- the Wii has been out for months." And was told that they only get 4 or 5 units a week. Ok, I began wondering, just how hard is this quest going to be? I thought it would be simple to just get online and order one, and that would be that. Sheah, right, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

I might have better luck getting an Iphone. Yes, I spelled it incorrectly, as a direct slap in the face of any jerk-off who put his life on hold for X days to stand in a queue (yeah, said like a Brit) to get one of these shiny, pretty little things. Are we monkeys? Are we so dazzled by shiny bits of technology that we are willing to stand in line for DAYS to get one? Excuse me, waiter, I'd like a break.

Maybe instead of getting my son a Wii to play with, I'll start him off with a .22 caliber rifle. I bet it'd be a WHOLE LOT more fun... (Maybe not for his mom) and he'd get street cred at the daycare. By the time he's 10, he'd have a whole arsenal at his disposal. Instead of going to WallyWorld to buy the latest game, he and I could try out hand-loading of armor piercing ammunition.

I bet if he ever went postal -- nobody in the media could ever claim that it was because he was addicted to video games.

"Unthinkable"

I heard this term the other day in a teaser for a news story on the radio. "And in a few minutes, a story that involves the unthinkable."

Ok, I have a very vivid imagination. I can conceptualize nearly anything. Don't taunt me with an absolute like "unthinkable." Of course, it got the creative gears turning. What could the story be about? Cannibalism? Nah. Something to do with a kid being hurt by a loved one? Probably. It's unconscionable, but not unthinkable. I don't choose to think about it because it makes me so angry and sad. Of course, I never heard the story, but the term stuck in my mind.

Fast forward about 2 days. Some muscle head "professional" wrestler kills his wife, son, and then himself somewhere around Atlanta. I simply can't fathom what could make a father kill his own son. I'm saddened by this. If he would have killed himself, and left the others alone, it would be sad, but by a factor of 10 less than the situation as it stands.

This is the sort of thing - that just thinking about it makes me want to leave the office, go to my son's daycare and pick him up, hug him, and come back to work.

Maybe it is unthinkable. Simply because I won't let myself.

Oooohhh... HDTV

I recently bought a device called the Pinnacle PCTV-HD Pro. It's a USB stick that you attach to your computer, and an antenna or cable to the other side of the stick and you can watch TV on your laptop. Not just any TV, HIGH DEFINITION TV.

I've been avoiding HDTV for a few years. It was too expensive. WAY too expensive. Well, last night I watched the last game of the NBA finals on a laptop - in high def. First, I'm not a basketball fan. You could go so far as saying that I dislike basketball. The ONLY reason I watched was not that San Antonio was playing and they are a semi-home-team for Austin, but because it was the only feed on that was HD at the time. (Doctor Who was on PBS, but in standard def. Yech.) I mean, why watch something that is cerebral, that I love, nicely acted by Christopher Eccleston, when I could watch a bunch of sweaty mans run back and forth a wooden floor chasing an orange ball.

I am now totally engrossed in HDTV. As Mike Myers as Wayne Campbell in the movie Wayne's World said, "It will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine." I'm only afraid that now HD will become my Moby Dick, my holy grail, my obsession.

First off, I have to build a mental justification model for the upgrade. My experience over the last 20 years in the IT industry gives me great comparison models to use. "It's like EGA versus VGA" and "It's going to reduce eye strain" (That one is used to justify the purchase of LCD monitors to replace CRTs.)

I suppose that since my truck will be paid off next month that I cannot allow myself to spend the $481 per month that I'm not paying for it on things like, oh I don't know, paying off credit card debt, and instead will go into debt for a new TV and an upgrade to DISH network.

Well, I gotta save this post now and go check the Circuit City and Best Buy webpages.

Neighborhood Ninnies

I was going to use the name of a former Neo-Fascist group popularized in the 30's and 40's in Germany, but I don't think I want to go that far.

Friday, I got a letter from the Municipal Utility District that provides water and trash service for my neighborhood. In the envelop was a photograph of my house. In that image, you can see my trashcan, and slightly tall grass - maybe 1" longer than normal, and a WET driveway. The date on the photo was 5/31/07. It had rained 6 out of 10 previous days, including a very hard rain on the 28th. Yeah, I'm going to mow wet grass. NOT. Now to call and yell @ them, if they are still in the office.

Soapy Woes

Man if there's one thing that I can't stand, it's when you're in the shower and you pick up the bar of soap, and it snaps in half, giving you 2 half soap bars. They remind me of those ridiculous little soaps that my mother used to have at home - that you were never to use, because they were "fancy" and they smelled of lavender or some such bull-tacos.

This post is inspired by Scott Adams Dilbert Blog: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/for_the_love_of.html

Of course, his entry is far more entertaining, as he is a far funnier guy than me.

New way to distract me

You SHOULD be able to IM me with this little widget. Maybe it works, maybe not. I hope I'm not sending you a virus.

A strange omen

I have no doubt that my kidlet will travel a similar path to me, although, I figure he will have moments of ethical dilemma... This is a 4 year old normal male child who is firmly ensconced on the couch in the living room, watching the movie Wargames. He LIKES it. I'm sitting there picking apart the technical details, mainly how every key stroke on a computer makes a beeping sound as one types.

My favorite line so far is from the 2 tech guys at the company David visits near the beginning of the movie: "Mister Potato Head! Mister Potato Head! Remember you told me to tell you when you were acting 'rudely and insensitively'? Remember that? You're doing it right now."

What a great movie... a true blast from the past. I also love how the monitors have fluorescent lighting around them. Tres cool.

Back to the kid. Here is the timeline:

• Has own computer - already has one.
• Compiles a kernel - age 6
• Finds a vulnerability - age 8
• Does "something" interesting - age 9
• Becomes a person of interest to FBI, CIA, NSA - age 10.

I guess I should start saving for the lawyer expenses.

The Littlest Geek

Yesterday afternoon, the little guy and I were flipping channels, and he said "Hey, what's that?!" and I realized he was talking about a show on Discovery Science Channel about Mars. He's a space geek!!! YAY! There's another one in the family.

Ooops

I accidentally won an auction tonight on eBay. Well, I guess in a few days I'll be the proud owner of a brand new Pflueger Supreme 8040MG spinning reel, replete with gold accents and 10 bearings and various other bits of bling. Woot!

I bid on a lark, after watching about 12 of these puppies go for around retail price for a week - and I actually lucked out and got a brand new one for 30 bucks under retail, and if I figure in taxes, I'll still be saving around 30 bucks.

Oh, I wonder if I could "accidentally" buy a 42" LCD HDTV and have it installed sometime next week, or maybe a 18'6" boat and have it accidentally left in the garage...

Go Forth, and Do... Important Stuff

I think it's time for me to weigh in on the war in Iraq. My position on this issue has changed significantly in the past year. What happened you ask? I read a book. A very important book. It's called Chasing Ghosts. Click on that for a link to Amazon.com to purchase it. The book is written by Paul Rieckhoff, a former US Army platoon leader in Iraq. I read the book straight through - I couldn't stop reading. Essentially, this Iraq thing is another bureaucratic cluster-f%#!, not unlike our expeditions to the beautiful far east in the 60's and 70's.

Why don't we take the Billions of dollars that we are spending... nay, wasting in Iraq, and do some Important Stuff? Finish the space station. Go to Mars. Improve the lives of those in the US who live in abject poverty. Fund NPR and PBS. (My love of exploration and science makes me wonder if we would have bases on the moon had it not been for the Vietnam war sucking away so much money from the US coffers.)

I know that the war in Iraq has put us in an intractable situation - we are damned if we stay and damned if we pull out. The only thing I know for sure is our damned "leaders" are damned for what they have done. There is far too much corruption in government, whether that be corruption in the way of taking bribes and kickbacks, to basic moral corruption. Since when does it not mean anything to just "do the right thing" all of the time?

I'm a big history buff. I believe that in World War II the U.S. did the right thing - at least most of the time. Our motives were good. I'm proud of all of the soldiers and sailors and Marines that served and especially of those who gave their lives. World War II was a case where fighting and dying was for the greater good of the entire world. Can we say that about Iraq? I'm so angry every time I hear about a soldier being killed - no matter which side they are on. We are all somebody's son or daughter, father or mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin or friend. I can't see the moral imperative that brought us to this point where people are being sacrificed.

All that said, I don't know what the answers are. There are simply people that will never get along and try to kill each other because they believe in a different deity that nobody has ever even seen. Some of them just believe a bit differently about the same deity. Why is it that the great forces of religion that teach peace and love always lead humans to destroy each other?

I think what happened in India in the 40's when Pakistan came to be might be a good pattern for others to follow. If you don't like the religious affiliation of those around you, MOVE. Go somewhere else. And quit picking on each other like 4th graders. Just leave each other the hell alone, and pray to whatever or whoever you want, but like I tell those around me - I don't care what your religious beliefs are, but just don't spill any of it on my shoes. I believe what I believe, and don't have a problem with your particular thing - just keep it to yourself.

Oh yeah, and use some of that Iraq money to help the veterans who are so seriously fucked up from all of the stuff that's happened to them, in this war as well as the last Gulf war, and try to make things right with the thousands of widows and widowers and the children who've lost a parent.

Bravo Zulu Capt. Schirra

CAPT. Walter M. Schirra, USN Ret.
March 12, 1923 - May 3, 2007



High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

Aloha

Today, being Good Friday and all, I set out to make it a personally good Friday. I took the day off, and went fishing. The main thing I caught was a medium sunburn - on a nice overcast day, and I DID catch a fish. Just one, but at least it didn't look like a baitfish.

He went back into the water, and swam away none the worse for wear. I may be feeling the effects of this sunburn for a few days. Yech. Oh, the fish is at arm's length. I guess I should have put a ruler up or something - since it looks like King Kong holding a minnow. I think it was about 12" long - weighed maybe a pound and a half. It was fun.

Nearly 40 years old...

Well, the clock broke. Probably because I turned 40 on July 19th, 2007. *Sniff*