You Might Like to Know

 

I couldn’t resist this one.  Music has always been important to me.  We have tried to bring up our children in an environment where they could hear Megadeath to Marley to Mozart but this takes it to a whole new level.

The Lullabelly is some some little speakers stuffed into a padded cummerbund with an iPod jack.  You can start inflicting your unborn with . . . . well, just about anything.

Would we have gotten one (a Lullabelly) when our kids were attending “the U”?  I don’t know, but I hope not.  I think it would have been a poor substitute for D’yer Mak’er pumping through 15 inch woofers

What is Dy'er Mak'er you ask?  You probably have heard it you just didn't know the funky name

OK so I put together a killer gaming system.  I know what at least one of you is thinking “hey, what about your wingman, um, winggirl?”  The one who used to watch me play Warcraft (the original from 1994).  At 5 or 6 I taught her to play Warcraft and Warcraft II.  I set up a second “gaming” machine next to mine.  We spent countless hours sitting side by side playing our computer games.  Real Time Strategies were our entertainment of choice.  After a couple of years I coaxed her to play  a game called Counterstrike with me.  We could play together on the same team and compete with others online.  Within 6 months her gamer name was consistently in the top half of the standings.  My winggirl although only 9 and I could dominate many matches we played together.  We were like Hans and Franz.  When she was about 12, I took her to a LAN Party with 12 of my 40-something friends, she was at least respectful  as she took each of them out with a well placed round between the eyes.
Since the mid 90s we always had our computers next to each other, sometime playing together sometime playing different games.  They would get upgraded, one then the other leapfrogging each other.  Although a bit unorthodox for a father/daughter, we shared a lot of quality time together at our computers.  
Now she has gone off to college and has adopted a Mac notebook for her daily use.  Needless to say our marathon sessions have dropped off, but we always get in some zombie killing or world domination when she comes home for a visit.  So it makes sense to make sure she (or should I say her computer) can keep up with the old man.  So it’s new processor, motherboard, video card and monitor for my wingman.  We will all be ready to go when she slides into the spot next to me at the desk.

 

As all three of you know, I am a gamer.  I have been playing computer games for 30 years (yes they had computers that long ago).  It’s fair to say I have seen more than my fair share of electronic entertainment efforts.  I have one I would like to share with you.

Even though I am able to shock and awe with my computing platform du jour, this game requires none of it.  The graphics are simple and cartoon like, the objective can be explained in one sentence and lightning fast reflexes are about as useful as a cowboy cook at a vegan party.

The game is called World of Goo by an outfit called 2D Boy Games.  It was developed by 2 guys who had worked for Electronic Arts (game company).  they struck out on their own pooled their $10,000 savings and built a fun simple game that has garnered numerous awards.  It' was like the low budget independent movie The Blair Witch Project that makes it big time.

In the game you try to build a structure that will get your balls of goo from here to there, using balls of goo – that’s it.  It is a game you can play for 2 min or 2.83 hours.  You can start over anytime as many times as you like.  It’s cute, addictive and has personality, it reminds me of a game my mom used to play called Lemmings.

They have sold their game on their web site and other non-traditional channels.  It’s very user friendly, they do not use any copy protection. And to make it just that much more interesting, this week the little goo balls are one year old so they are having a sale.  The title usually sells for $20 but for a few more days (sale ends on 10/19) you pay what you want.  That’s right – set your own price.  Some cheapskates  have paid as little as .01 cent.  It’s a 65MB download, takes just a few minutes, instant gratification

So give those enterprising young guys a few bucks and trade in that old Solitaire game for some Goo. (they have a Mac version too)

you can get it here http://2dboy.com/games.php

Enough about whimppy culinary tricks.  Let me tell you about the awsome power that I have aquired in the latest technology.

In the computer gaming world, I had slowly morphed from one of the jocks on the beach to the guy who got sand kicked in his face and suffered as other players stole his health packs.

My CPU had only 2 slow processors, my graphics card a woefully inadequate number of stream processors, memory? – entry level DDR2

But now!  I have an Intel i5 CPU with 4 (count’em – 4) speedy processors ready to jump into turbo mode at a micro seconds notice.  That’s not all.  My GPU (that’s a graphics card for all you computer wimps out there) has 800 Stream Processing Units and 1GB of memory running so fast it needs it’s own fan to keep it from bursting into flames.  System memory?  Glad you asked – DDR3 thats 50% more DDR than before.

Yes, when I turn this beast on there a slight ripple in the time-space continuum and I turn up my graphics to 11

If you see me online, I won’t kick sand in your face (I know what that is like), but watch your health pack.  Hey – someone get me a volleyball.