Way
I must have no more shame left, considering. Guily of all of the above (including the ever-dirty cup), plus the nasty admission to being hooked on Yahoo's tedious and nap-enticing Alchemy. Please don't weep for me, however. My greatest fear is that of drowning. I have to run, now. I have mail.
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Hannah
Try www.kaser.com. He has a ton of logic type games, with visual clues. All his games are downloadable as shareware, and each one is 20 bucks for the full version. I especially recommend Sherlock as the first game to try.
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Way
Hannah! Bite yer beak! The poor chameleon has enough to contend with.
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Gone Away
Way: We all have our strategies... ;) And ROFLOL to your second comment. :D
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Gone Away
Hannah: Thank you indeed. I might well have a look, if I can get through all this mountain of time-wasting strategies I already have... ;)
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Ned
Pogo is one of my favorite sites, they have a wide variety of games, it is absolutely free and you can actually win money playing. Shockwave also has a variety of types of games as well, including Mah Jong and Jigsaw Puzzles. You can play online for free or download for a fee. For the nostalgic, there is a site with all the old Atari games. Just a note: always email registration numbers and serial numbers to yourself at a web-based email address. That way, even if you change ISPs, close accounts or move to another country, the info is safely stored up on someone's server.
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Mad
Why did I never think of that! Great idea, thanks Ned :D
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Gone Away
Doh! I feel really dumb now. Thanks, Ned. ;)
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Ned
Well if you had ever lost software manuals, CD cases with the serial numbers on them, had to pack up in a hurry, if you had ever been on the lam or simply been too poor to replace a power supply that overheats and wipes out everything on your hard drive five times, then you would have thought of this simple survival tip.
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Gone Away
*Reacts slightly defensively* Now, now, young lady, don't lecture me. I have plenty of backup and survival strategies for things that really matter - I've had my disasters in the past and learned from them too. ;) It's a matter of priorities, you see, and games don't really figure that high in my thinking. As many have pointed out, they are easily replaced; there being plenty available for free on the net. Oh, and I've been poor (am now, in fact), too poor to replace things that break. In fact I've been so poor that... :D
Date Added: 22/01/2005

Way
But I must agree with Ned. Living under bridges makes ya scheme. Say Ned. Did you once have a beard? Or maybe you were the one that called me Dude a lot? You still owe me two dollars.
Date Added: 22/01/2005

w
I dropped by to weep since I broke my bloggy.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Ned
I shaved the beard after the pictures went up in the Post Office. I look a lot younger without it. I would like to point out that I wasn't just talking about game registration codes, I plan on storing all important information on the net, such as those pesky social security numbers for the children that the tax preparer always asks for. That way I can just have them look it up on a website instead of trying to remember which calendar I wrote them on and then remembering that I tossed out the 2001 Dunkin Donuts calendar assuming I wasn't going to use any of the expired coupons for coffee. And Way, Blogger has been very difficult all day. I will send you the URL for my accountant's blog and you can inquire after your two dollars. I had some wiseacre remark for that Gone dude, but he kinda threw me with the "young lady" remark. Like I said, I look a lot younger without the beard.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

w
*sniff* It's beddah now, mommy.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Gone Away
A narrow escape... But Gmail seems to be down at the moment, folks. Will get to your emails as soon as it becomes available again.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

keeef
Aaaahhhh Slay, love the game, used to play it at work to relieve the boredom of playing risk to relieve the boredom of work. If you want a time sapping basic RPG try DragonCourt from Fiends.com http://wild.fiends.com/DCourt/Game.stm They do a few other games to....basic but addictive stuff. Clive, i reckon you would also get on well with stardart another Fiends game......sorry Way
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Gone Away
Sheesh, everyone's a game expert... Thanks Keef. You never know, I might have a look sometime. :D
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Way
Not me, man. I hang here just for the coffee. Say, whose bongos are those?
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Gone Away
I wonder if Starbucks would let me set up a branch on this blog....?
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Way
( now where is that old thermos of mine?)
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Mad
Hey!? Where'd my bongo's go? I put 'em down here last night and now they're gone?
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Josh
Games, Games Games.

I am almost thirty - yet I grew up with a nintendo stuck to my face. Hard to believe that video games have been around so long, isn't it?

I am working on a little side project to interface an old nintendo controller (the oldschool blockish one) with the serial port of my laptop, so I can spend hours and hours playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out -- reliving my youth, wasting my time, or maybe just reliving the wasting of my youth. :>
Date Added: 23/01/2005

josh
Bongos?

Two types of guys play the bongos: The ones who can play them so well you don't even need melody . . . and then there's the guy who can't pick up a guitar, but he wants to show the hippie chicks he's "into it".

Don't be that guy.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Gone Away
Wisdom from Josh, as usual...
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Gone Away
Pondering on Josh's project to resurrect his old Nintendo as a PC add-on, I realize that he has hit upon an important point about games. Some of the best are the old ones. IMHO the greatest of all was a Sega Megadrive (remember those?) game called Speedball 2. Not typical of the games I like, it used your reflexes to the utmost and the gameplay was perfect - difficult enough to be a challenge but not impossible. It forced you to live at the pace of a thirteen year old on amphetemine and driving afterwards was an experience...

Otherwise, the games I usually liked (and they were few) were strategy games. Populous (the first one - later versions destroyed the gameplay by being too complex) was so good that I wrote a book on the tactics to be used in each of its levels. And there were something like 900 levels...
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Hannah
We had the first home video game, Pong-- a line on either side of the screen (movable up and down only), and a square in the middle that moved back and forth. It was supposed to be tennis/raquetball. It cost 100 dollars, and my brother and I played the hell out of it.

We also got the Atari, which had amazingly good graphics-- some of the games actually resembled something besides lines. (They made several X rated games for the Atari, which they would not sell to children-- apparently there is something horribly wrong with children seeing naked purple blocks).

Then came Intellivision, which was so incredibly amazing-- the ball fields looked like ball fields, and had the correct number of players (as opposed to Atari's 3 or 4), and the people and things were distinguishable from each other.

After Intellivision came the Nintendo, which added better graphics, and an easier interface. And we all know where video games have gone since.

However, no video game, however realistic, can possibly beat the thrill of playing a REAL LIVE video game for the first time on your own television. Pong rules in my heart forever.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Gone Away
Way back in the early seventies, my friend Kim (who has been mentioned in these pages before) had a scientific calculator made by Texas Instruments. It had a game on it called Landing on the Moon. You were given a spacecraft and a certain amount of fuel, then had to land the vehicle without crashing. This was complicated by the number of things one had to take into account - speed of descent, increasing gravity from the moon as one approached, limited amount of fuel to burn, etc. Although it was a game of numbers without graphics of any kind, it gave us hours of pleasure, once again because it achieved the secret of all good gameplay: considerable difficulty without being impossible.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Ned
I agree totally Hannah. Pong was amazing, the whole concept was amazing. But of all games, I miss my Atari the most. I could still play several straight hours playing Demon Attack if I got the chance.

As for games that had no graphics, I had a Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy game for the Commodore 64 that was nothing more than text, the story was told, you were in a spot, and had to figure the way out by typing in the correct next move. At the risk of sounding like my parents, I think we had a lot more fun as kids with a lot less.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Madmin
Oi! You lot! Stop putting unclosed paragraph tags in comments. *grrr*
Instead use two line break tags: "<br /><br />". Thank you
Date Added: 23/01/2005

josh
sounds like someone needs a block-level element!
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Mad
Someone has a block level element. I just can't handle unclosed paragraph tags in my page and I don't want to have to explain closing paragraph tags. Of course the real answer is to disallow HTML in posts and implement some kind of formating system...
Date Added: 23/01/2005

josh
yes yes.

pardon my presumption.

I am thinking about adding a couple of js buttons that will write common elements to the textarea. . . like <br /> for instance.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Mad
Yeah, JavaScript. Good idea, I was going to handle it server side but it makes sense to do it client side...
Thanks Josh
*Wanders off muttering about JavaScript*
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Gone Away
Well well, it seems the techies have come to a consensus. No doubt we'll find out what it all means in due course. ;)

While I'm here, thanks for changing the Slay mention to a proper link, Mad. It's such a hassle doing that in HTML...
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Mad
No worries ;)
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Harry
Naked purple blocks?!? (anyone have a pirated site on that to share?)

A rare brag: Only I, out of a class of perhaps 24, beat the pants off a devious computer at Ma Bell (who can remember her?) during a field trip from school. I think this happened around the mid to late 1950's. The game?

Tic-tac-toe.

Later as a much-wiser adult, I became hooked on Pacman and Centipede. Yay! Then the more thoughful (?) Tiapa came along, where I transported goods across the South China Sea, dodging cannon-shots from a bevy of buccaneers.

(howzat, Mad?)
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Mad
*Runs up to Way and hugs him*
Yay! Perfect Way, thanks :D
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Gone Away
*Draws a discrete curtain over the naked purple blocks...*
Date Added: 23/01/2005

Way
Poop. I been both hugged and thwarted. And by men.
Date Added: 23/01/2005

josh
yeah, I know Ma Bell -- she's got the ill communication.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Hannah
Ned, that game was going around when I was an owlet, but I didn't know enough about computers then to know someone could have copied the damn thing for me. I STILL want to try my wing at it!
Date Added: 24/01/2005

keeef
I agree with Ned, Less can be more when it comes to gaming, look at the phenomena that is/was tetris. when that came out it was miles behind anything else in terms of graphics, sound etc. But what you had was a game that people couldnt put down. I had the HHGTTG game also....found it bloody frustrating myself. Today i spent 1 hr in a Singapore games arcade....it was heaven till the wife came and got me. And Hannah, back then you only needed a tape to tape tape deck and you could pirate any game. Aaaahhhh at times i miss my old spectrum 128k machine with such classics as operation wolf, Bruce Lee and bomberman
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
Shall I let him have the last word....? Nah. :D
Date Added: 24/01/2005

keeef
Is Nah a word or just bad language? shame on you Mr Allen your English teacher will be spinning in his grave
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
Wouldn't do Johnny Bridle any harm - probably the most exercise he's had in a long time. Here's to you Johnny! Best darn teacher I ever had...
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Ned
Hannah try this site http://www.atariland.com/main.cfm
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Mad
I was about to respond angrily that my English teacher never turned up to teach me and is probably alive and well, the git when I realised that you were addressing Mr Allen senior.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

keeef
Sheesh, its like asking for 'Smith' in an OAP home
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
.oO( Young whippersnappers... )
Date Added: 24/01/2005

bumpy_beth
still waiting IMPATIENTLY for the Starbucks coffee.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
Oh I had mine ages ago. Way said he'd take yours over to you...
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Ned
Hey, I've been reading this thing for ages, waaay back to the beginning and I never got any complimentary coffee. Is this like a new promotional gimmick? You'll do anything to raise your stats.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
Believe me, Ned, if I could do it, I would. ;)
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Way
(and all I ever raised was cain)
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
Oh, I don't know, Way. I heard you were pretty good with ruckuses too... Your Blogger commenter thingy's not working for me by the way. I tried to explain that the double comment was all Blogger's fault but it wouldn't let me.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Way
It's giving me fits too, Gone. But keep trying...I can use the numbers.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Way
(and should I "tip the can"?)
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
The numbers are looking pretty good to me, Way. How long have you had that thing up? "Tip the can" means nothing to me, I'm afraid. American expression? Pity me, I am but a poor foreigner. :D
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Way
Ali insisted that I start with 100. Trying to maintain the peace after all the effort she went through installing the device, I concurred.

Next to Comments, Blogger supplies us with a handy trash can icon. To click on it is to dump, tump, tip, purge, expell, dispell, disrupt, destroy, dismiss or defile disparging remarks, I would assume.

I tidied up by removing one other double post a fine friend left behind, which upset more than the can by the looks I got from those sitting close-by me.

But now, with the tell-tale digitometer, I am too afraid to meddle with facts.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Way
( know this yer way of tricking me to boost yer score...heh)

I missed a question...

One day, Gone. A installed it yesterday.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Way
(and I won't help boost by commenting on my own %$# typo...nosir)
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
Ahhh, tip the can.... All becomes clear. I've often wondered if the commenter can "tip the can"; perhaps I'll try it some day. But that's a pretty good score for a day, Way.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Way
These instructions Blogger uses to install things are as clear as mud. I'd blog abt that complaint, but what the hey. Here's a room full of those that need to hear stuff like this. Ha.

I'd really like to use whatever tools they have but I don't, for the reason above. And being both stubborn, old and not much of a joiner, I remain stuck.

Don't tell me it's easy to do. It isn't.

Don't say you will help me. You will find me huddling in a corner after a while, and you may find yerself in another, wondering, "What is wrong with this guy? Or is it me?"

Me and the wife, who 'knows stuff', go around all the time over this infernal language issue.

Here is my perfect computer world. I turn a switch. It hums and glows, and then the screen lights up. In seconds, too...no waiting around. In front of me I see a well-designed layout with options. From there I go, and anywhere I go, I find switches, or places to click, marked with plain and easy-to-understand instuctions.

I want familiar terms like Stop and Go; Cat and Dog. I don't want to see words like Feed and URL or Page. This is a damn screen. Pages are in frikkin' books.

I want options than an idiot can understand. I never went to school to get Radio. I tossed the manual on the new TV. And the car? I had to laugh to see a page written on How to Use the Ashtray Lighter. Damn. Please.

There. I feel relieved.
Date Added: 24/01/2005

Gone Away
Way, you speak the thoughts of the human race. We are totally with you and understand completely. I'll tell you a story.

About 1995 I was unemployed and decided I needed to learn about computers if I was ever going to get another job. I found a training course and went on it. For once, I was lucky and found that the machine had been made for me - I understood it, saw its potential and loved every micro-circuit and chip of its blessed little heart. Soon I was so far ahead of the rest of the course that they just let me get into whatever I wanted. At the end of the course I wangled (English word meaning beg, borrow or steal) a computer of my own and continued my education. For five years I managed to stay ahead of my son, Mad, who discovered the machine later than I did but then proceeded to learn at a prodigious rate. He got into programming and web design and, although he tried very hard to drag me along with him, he passed me and began to accelerate away. I watched him go, proud of his achievements but satisfied with my small skills of tinkering and problem-solving. Now it's me who has to go to him, cap in hand, and mumble something like, "Ummm, Ma-a-ad, it's broken. Can you fix it for me pleeeease?"

But that's just computers. Remember VCRs? I never learned to use those darn things. They're so complicated and use such stupid symbols for every function that they've never made any sense to me. If I want to use the idiotic machine, I have to go to Kathy and bessech her to do it for me. And do I mind? Not a bit. I figure if God wanted me to use a VCR, He'd have made sure it was more like a computer...
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Way
VCR's? More gobbly%$@gook-speak!

Want to know something ironic? My dad repaired twpewriters. He made a fair living at it too, but when he made the suggestion that I load my trunk (bonnet) with ribbons, and then cruise by gas stations, grocery stores and the like to peddle my wares, I scoffed. You won't catch me doing that, dad.

Then a few years ago, I went to bid a decorating job for a new client. He invites me in; we sit and talk. Nice palatial place he had, so I asked him what he did for a living.

"I sell ribbons for office machines." He replied.
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Way
And a benison for Mad: May you become inspired to change the world, so us grumpy sorts may rest in peace while we compute with ease.
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Gone Away
Amen
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Ned
I don't think you should blog again until the comments reach 100. Ribbons, ah takes me back. I remember typewriters. Used to be every desk in the office was adorned with one. Most forms had to be filled out in triplicate with carbon paper inserts (remember carbon paper?) until most people and even state agencies realized that if you can fill out the form once on the computer, you can print it three times. These public employees are brilliant, let me tell you. We actually still have one typewriter, one for the whole branch office of almost 150 people. Why? Seems the only forms still needing to be typed in triplicate with carbon paper are those that have to be filed with the court. Now we see why the wheels of justice turn slowly, they are daisy wheels.
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Way
Then there were NCRs, Ned, which eleminated carbon paper forever.

Pap was a PR genuis, too. An adding machine, bolted to the roof, got him lots of biz, while it kept me from ever wanting to drive his car. These days, I sit and dream how to mount the blogsite on top of the wife's van.

My insurance would certainly decrease.
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Gone Away
Can't even take a short nap without you guys getting in and leaving scraps of notepaper all over the place. I have enough guilt about not blogging today, Ned, without you making remarks about comment records and such. As long as people are enjoying themselves, who cares about records?

I do remember typewriters; in fact my typing style is all thanks to my mother's old Imperial typewriter that I learned on. That was a blunderbuss of a machine and required a hefty thump to get each key moving - and I'm still a key-basher. As for carbon paper, it was a marvellous thing - especially when you put it in the wrong way roung and ended up with a page typed on both sides, the second side somehow unreadable.

As for you, Way, why not find an old defunct computer in a flea market and mount that on top of the van? When people ask, you can say you're into mobile computing...
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Way
See how grumptie the old gent becomes, Ned? Of course, no one sought my council when contemplating moving across the Pond. I was not asked my opinion of the negative effect tumbleweeds and endless prairies might have upon the poor soul.

But who would have imagined the dire implications of raisin-withdrawals?

Now I have forgotten why I came in here, which rings some bell. Was it to return a carriage?
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Gone Away
It's the bread withdrawal that's getting to me...
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Mad
MadTV in no way associates itself with Starbucks coffee. In fact MadTV loathes Starbucks and everything it stands for. The coffee you've been drinking is pure Madbucks ®.
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Ned
Which reminds me that I am still waiting for my free coffee. I don't believe men who say they can't operate VCRs or washing machines or other such household appliances having grown up with a brother who could rebuild a carburettor but claimed complete ignorance of how to turn on the oven so as to heat his own food. We all know you are faking.
Date Added: 25/01/2005

Gone Away
I dare not answer this one. Mad, can you take it? Just don't mention our policy of no refunds - be gentle with her...
Date Added: 25/01/2005

josh

Goggledog!

Date Added: 26/01/2005

Gone Away
.oO( How embarrassing. A link to that ridiculous blog in my comments... I shall disavow any responsibility. )
Date Added: 26/01/2005