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G-A (Oh No!)

 A German Club Resource

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As of April 7, I'll be writing through Blogger. You can take a peek at my posts below or just follow me on the Blogger site itself (click on "186 Purland Walk" below to go to site). All prior posts will stay in my Blog Archive.

Thanks for keeping up wih me on here, and I look forward to your comments on Blogger!

 

Signing Off for 2008

Tuesday, December 30, 2008.


Another year has gone by. One bottle of Cristalino and one bottle of Coppola's Ivory Label Cabernet shall both meet their ends tomorrow night. I believe some Papa Murphy's and "Prince Caspian" may be a part of the private festivities as well. Plans of camping and New York trips may surface soon. And, speaking of items meeting their ends, my Cranberry Obsession Snow Cake met great acclaim and disappeared quickly this Christmas. I may have to use something in place of the kirschwasser for whenever I make that one again.

I've gained apartment space, a new computer, two vacations' worth of memories, and some senses of how I want my life to play out from this point forward. I've lost many co-workers and gained many wine corks in my cork bowl (not necessarily related events). New magazine subscriptions helped me gain knowledge and insight into two related realms I enjoy (magazine one and magazine two). Maybe, just maybe, I'll finally gather the information and knowledge I need to piece together and paint that 1968 Shelby GT-500 model that I've had for ... well ... quite some time now.

So now that 2008 comes to an end, I salute all who I call family and friend. I shall raise a glass in toast to your health, happiness, and hopes. If ever one fails you at any point, may the other two greet you in full force and carry you through.

Slàinte mhor a h-uile là a chi 's nach fhaic.

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Goodbye to an old "Friend" ... and upcoming "hello" to a new one

Sunday, November 23, 2008

The past couple of months mark some significant changes for me ... with regards to computers. A couple of months ago, I said goodbye to my old Apple IIe computers. My experience with computers started with the Apple IIe back in the early '80s. My grade school had a few of them, and we learned to program in BASIC. Our excitement, however, focused on the games: Snake Byte, Sneakers, Oregon Trail, Joust, Spy Hunter, Bouncing Kamungas, Karateka (end music), and Viper. We had semi-scheduled times to go to the computer lab during the school year and during summer school. I remember programming simple programs that printed text to programs that drew complex color pictures. I believe I even learned to type on them, too.

Once I left middle school, I was without an Apple IIe until my sophomore or junior year when I got a pair from friends. I spent hours playing Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Battletech, and Demon's Winter. I broke personal records in Viper and found I could play Joust so long that the level numbers became nonsense statements. When spending time with friends wasn't an option, diving into a game on there helped through the tougher times of life.

Once the PC world opened up to me, my old Apple IIe feel by the wayside and collected dust. The joys of Doom II, Monster Truck Madness2, Diablo, and Warcraft upped the ante. I had fun labeling my IIe so that it'd be my "Pentium IIe" and other related monikers. When my first PC gave up the ghost, I tried to log into my university e-mail account ... and almost succeeded. The modem still worked, the software connected, but it was entirely too slow at its 1200 baud rating to log in and be useful.

After a move and being stashed in a corner and a garage, both Apple IIe machines met their fate at the hands of an e-waste charity for a school. Twenty-four years of Apple IIe in my life came full-circle, and I rather appreciated the ouroboros-like moment. A machine with such popularity in schools ends its life to helps schools once again. I had a really hard time letting go, but it helped to know that I could play those old games (and then some) with equal ability on my PC.

Yet, as all things are eventually replaced, a new PC is on my horizon. We'll see how Vista really is. At best, it'll be more compatible than my current set-up.

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Odds and Ends, with Teasers

Thursday, September 18, 2008


- I couldn't have been happier to find someone who had the cassette-only tracks to Digital Underground's "Sex Packets" album. Well, yes, I do have those tracks and said cassette since 1991, but I didn't have them as MP3s until recently. Now I can finally reconstruct that album to better mirror the cassette I grew to love. Some of my favorite jams unbelievably omitted from the CD version shall finally be back in my immediate collection. For whatever reason, many companies put extra tracks on cassettes. Those tracks didn't make it onto the CDs. I figure it's probably for the same reason why Japanese CDs tend to have extras: it gives people an added incentive to continue buying them. Apparently, with the extra tracks, "Sex Packets" would have been longer than 80 minutes. That could have been a driving point as well. But, to me, without those tracks, the album isn't as good.

Apparently Shock G wrote a book that'll be out next year. According to his blog on MySpace, it'll mainly be about Tupac.

- I'm so close to taking that step forward and getting a new computer built. I'm staying with a PC, so I can continue to play games. I have some choices to make regarding parts, but those shouldn't be too hard. Vista shall be the OS. Although, with rumors that M$ will have yet another OS out in 2009, I may have to re-visit the OS. Once I have the parts set, it'll just be a matter of determining who will build it for me.

- Due to the age of my current computer, new games are not really an option. Hover!, that little semi-hidden game on the Win95 Upgrade disc, caught my attention recently. I played several hours on it and lost many an hour of sleep. Hover! reminds me of the small Apple IIe games I used to play in my youth and, occasionally, on the emulators. A small, simple game that provides much entertainment. Sometimes I'm not up to a long, in-depth adventure in Morrowind. And, when those times come, Hover! certainly delivered.

- Coming up: the magical healing powers of my parents' garage, and a final goodbye to an old "friend". Plus: Does the Karma check actually bounce? And: songs that come to mind after many years - how?

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