Archived News starting from 05-19-2012 and earlier
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My most fond childhood memories are family trips to Cocoa Beach, Florida. That city will always have a special place in my heart, so I thought it high time Lila experienced the beach for herself. Unfortunately my wife refuses to move somewhere with palm trees, sunny beaches and no snow which leaves us with the Metroparks beach that I'll rate at 1/20th the awesome factor of my favorite city on earth. Despite 5% of full power, Lila still managed to
have a blast and happily explored the sand while the other kids hopefully inspired her to start walking full time.
Yes it's true, against my better judgement I bought Facebook stock today. My order took almost 10 minutes to go through and didn't place till it was $40 and so far today it's already down to $36 so not the most wise investment I've ever made. I told myself I wasn't going to do it, and since TomTom harped about it I'll use him as my excuse, but in reality it was my sick dream of riding the Zuckerberg success train to wealth. Figures the only major Internet IPO I get in on is the one that bombs horribly. Maybe in a few years I'll read this and laugh because the stock still isn't above $40.
In the run up to E3 2012, Lila was
hopeful she might attend this year and I felt bad breaking the news to her that I would not be going this year.
Initially upset, I quickly handed her my phone and she started getting me
Windows Phone cheevos which always calms her down. I explained how the flight and
hotel simply weren't worth the hours of standing in line while everyone back home learned the exact same news as me at the exact same time. Once was enough for me, and the payoff isn't worth the hassle.
Now that
Minecaft for Xbox 360 has finally released, Team Awesome Sauce immediately purchased and began playing it. I've heard rumors the game existed before this Xbox version, but since I can safely assume there were no Xbox Achievements associated with it I don't bother confirming or denying such things. Having never played the game before, I mindlessly did whatever Marco told me, Steve and TomTom built a secret lair and Pyro was stuck in a hole the entire time. With over half the achievements completed in one session, it will be interesting to see how long it holds our attention.
Lastnight as I was putting Lila to sleep, she laid down with her butt in the air as usual ready to fall asleep. As I was about to leave she stood up and grabbed her blanket and looked at me
as if to say "You forgot to put the blanket on me idiot!" I rectified the situation and she resumed her sleeping. Can't beat being corrected by a 1.2 year old; I of course immediately cried like a happy tween girl for 15 minutes afterwards.
I'm now 9/10 of the way to my ultimate goal of 100,000 gamerscore. It's been over 4 years since
my first achievement sucked me into this madness, and now a Pac Man game for Windows Phone
achievement has put me 10 full retail games away from a milestone worth quitting for. I'm hoping Lila will finally break me of this addiction, but in reality I know it will always haunt me, well beyond the 100k score. I just wanted the Xbox for a simple media center extender, playing that first game doomed me to a life of servitude under the great banner of gamerscore.
Today is the day I finally order my
Focus ST. My
13 year old Cougar has been showing it's age for some time, but I refused to buy a naturally aspirated car and the current forced induction vehicles on the market did nothing for me. Enter the Focus ST rumors almost a year ago to which I clung desperately. While a huge fan of the new Focus when it launched last year, I knew I'd need more than the 160hp the standard engine produced, and I wasn't keen on another
aftermarket option, so the ST became my new fanboy obsession. After spotty reports of vehicle testing, tuning, and engineering sign off I'm finally on the precipice of greatness.
UPDATE: It's official, I'm all ordered up and
in the queueMy love of benchmarking, which has given me so much nerd ego boosting over the years, was at an impasse with my
Windows Phones. While web-based benchmarks assure me my browser is sub-par, I was at an impasse for deeper hardware comparisons. Today,
AnTuTu benchmark (yes, also hilarious) launched on Windows Phone, and it allows me to compare with fandroids (albeit not EXACTLY as they mention WP7 doesn't support all the same procedures for testing). Regardless, I can now get crushed by all kinds of dual-core wielding phones that should easily
outdo my numbers. The built-in "different algorithim than you" excuse has me covered if I lose.
UPDATE: Excuse has already been used, Marco
kicked my ass.
Driving home from work today, I decided it was time to start documenting the burned out buildings I enjoy on my motorcycle commute. The motorcycle is uniquely suited to this task since I could pull up onto a sidwalk, take my shot, and get away before the homeless zombies had a chance to react to my presence. As usual during my odd projects, first John then Tom passed me while I was taking the shots, with Tom pulling off the road and waiting to make sure I wasn't in any trouble (because what kind of nut takes photos of burned out buildings). Despite giving the impression I'm mentally divergent, I think the end result is a good perusal.
With the AIM team
being laid off, and the fact that I only actively talk with 3 people on the service it's time to switch to Google Talk. It already tries to muscle it's way into my Gmail, G+ and Google search so I might as well just bend over and take it willingly instead of search for another alternative.
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