Playing with Wordle

Ran the lyrics to “Walk thru the Fire” through Wordle. I like it.

Never Thought I’d Call Gene Simmons Classy, But…

Image via Wikipedia

Just watched, “Are You Smarter than A Fifth Grader?” with my family. I’m not a Kiss fan, in fact, my favorite Kiss moment is from the Band Candy episode of Buffy. Upon seeing graffiti spray-painted on the lockers at Sunnydale High saying, “Kiss Rocks!”, Willow Rosenberg looks at it confusedly and asks, “Kiss rocks? Why would anyone want to kiss rocks?”

Tonight, Mr. Simmons won $500,000 for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The next level was $1,000,000, but a wrong answer would have dropped him back to $25,000. When given the opportunity to go for the big prize, he announced he was a gambler with his own money but he wasn’t going to risk what he had won for this cause.

Mr. Simmons, you may not be smarter than a fifth grader, but great job, sir! Now, marry the woman you spent the last 25 years with, okay?

A Personal Note and a Test of the Zemanta Add-in

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This is really a test of the Zemanta add-in for Firefox. I’m looking for something to help me with my blogging.

I’m wondering whether to jump into Zelda – Twilight Princess. I didn’t get very far the first time, as it’s muy time-consuming.

Chess and the Mountain King

Now, this is cool: (h/t to Jonah Goldberg at The Corner)

Geeky Goodness

I got a phone call yesterday from the love of my life, telling me she had killed the computer.  Now, to her, “the computer” is the Gateway PC running Windows Vista that she and my son use.  My Mac is some arcane devil-machine that she prefers not to touch.

I got the Mac hoping that the family would use it, and I might be able to retire as the house’s IT guru.  This hasn’t happened.  I still get sucked in to any PC problems that develop.  This time, upon hitting an e-mail icon the PC had flirted briefly with a BSOD message, then shut down entirely.  All attempts by my wife, my son, and (sad to say) me to power up the machine failed.

I removed the battery and replaced it.  Took the power cord off, and plugged it back in.  Hit every “F” key on the machine.  Nothin’, nada, zip.  The only signs of life were the blue light ring around the power button and the pinkish light on the front that indicated the PC was connected to a power source.

Having exhausted my knowledge, I offered to take the machine to Best Buy’s Geek Squad after lunch.  There, the ridiculous machine proceeded to humiliate me by powering up for the young lady Geek on the first try.  She checked it for viruses and found nothing.  An older gentleman, one of the few computer repair types I’ve ever seen older than me, took over and he, too, found no major problems.  “The disk is about 33% fragmented, and I’ve seen that do strange things.  If I were you, I’d run the disk defragmenter two or three times.”

We discussed virus protection, as I haven’t updated the Trend PC-Cillin on the machine since late last year.  Oxy provided it to employees, and when I left Oxy I lost that privilege.  While no viruses were found, the older Geek felt like something should be installed.  He highly recommended something called Kaspersky, which Best Buy didn’t have in stock.

I tried to get the Geek to run a more comprehensive diagnostic, not wanting to get home and have the PC stubbornly refuse to start again.  He said, “I could take your money, but I’d really recommend you just try the defragmentation first.”  I offered money, he turned it down.

So, here I sit with the PC defragging at my side.  I assume it’s defragging, as it says it is, but all Vista does is show a spinning blue circle next to the “Defragmenting hard disks…” message, so I really don’t know if anything is happening.  The circle has been spinning for about three hours now.  Anyway, we’ll see if this does the trick, and I’ll load Kaspersky once it arrives.  Then, I hope I can ignore the PC for a good, long, time.

My Current Obsession

For my birthday last week, I received several games. The first one I’ve played at any length is Final Fantasy IV DS.

There have been quite a few exports of older video games that have hit the DS over the last few years. FFIV is one of the better ones, and has been updated from the original game. When it was released for the old SNES system back in ‘91, it was known as Final Fantasy II. This is one of those confusing issues with video games, as there are often versions released in Japan that don’t make it to the U.S.. I have to rely on my son, also released in ‘91, to keep me straight on these issues.

I really enjoy the music in the Final Fantasy series. Written by Nobue Uematsu, it ranges from peaceful to martial. Much of it is available in iTunes or on YouTube, with my personal favorite being Terra’s Theme, a nice version of which is here:

This isn’t an easy game, and my characters have died more than Buffy Summers. I’m getting quite good at starting from the latest save.

I’ll admit, I’m a failure at gaming. I enjoy most games for awhile, but usually not enough to push through some of the incredibly difficult (and, hence, repetitive) parts to get to the end. At the moment, I’ve made it to the second boss – the Octomammoth. If you want to see what this looks like, here’s a YouTube clip:

Will I survive? Eventually…

It’s Not Live, But This Would Have Been Interesting

 

I’d have watched it.  An animated Buffy could have been great fun.