Where's My Cloud ?

Videos Of The Week

This week's videos are about: The Bible, America, & And The Face Of Evil !

Tuesday TimeWasters

Ten days ago (July 15th) I put a couple of links to games I came upon in my trips through cyberspace. Basically they were just ways for me to waste time....so I decided to make it a regular feature. And "Tuesday Timewasters" sounded like a good title for it, so here it is!
Sometimes it may only be one game, other time it may be two, depending on what I come across in my travels, or how lazy I am that week.

I enjoyed this little puzzle cube game in which you have to link up the colors on the cube. The first few rounds are pretty easy, but it gets a lot trickier as you progress to higher levels. I'm just doing one game this week because I got it up kinda late in the day. Next week, I'll try to post my "TimeWaster" earlier in the day so you can waste even more time.

Have fun !


Insane Central Arcade

Rescued !

Luckily, after exploring some more of the island I was stranded on (see previous post) I found these paddle boats on the opposite shore and "borrowed" one to return home in.

Right now I'm going to pack up my laptop and a small lunch and go sit outside somewhere and enjoy the nice weather.

Later today I may post another item--a new feature I will probably do once a week.

Bye for now...

A Three Hour Tour

What a day it's been! I went down to sit near the river early this morning and took my laptop with me to watch some webcasts I'd downloaded. While there I noticed a rowboat sitting near the shore with just a couple of oars in it. Now normally I would never think of doing anything like this, but for some reason I was feeling adventurous. I sat down in the rowboat just to see how it felt. I noticed a snorkel and set of flippers in the bottom of the boat. It was very warm out and I hadn't slept much last night so I became kind of drowsy.

Well, I ended up falling asleep and when I awoke a few hours later, I was adrift at sea !! Looking around, I saw nothing but water in all directions....not a sight of land, or other boats, or anything. Not knowing which way shore was, I grabbed the oars and started to row in a direction I hoped was landward. After a couple of hours, I gave up from exhaustion and just drifted with the current.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep again, until I felt a bump which woke me up. I had washed up on the shore of this small island. Below is a picture of me on the island, along with a friendly dog who came sniffing up to me about an hour after I had landed there.

Still don't know where I am, or how far from civilization this island is located. But from a little exploration, I discovered the island does have plenty of fruit growing here so I won't go hungry, at least. It's also quite warm, sort of tropical I guess you'd call it. I'm going to go off to do a bit more exploration of this place, so I'll place this post in a bottle I found and throw it into the ocean, where hopefully someone will find it and send help.

Videos Of The Week

This week's videos are devoted to politicians who would be funny if not for the fact that they are being completely serious.
First up is Representative Lincoln Davis(Democrat) of Tennessee speaking about the Federal Marriage Amendment which would ban gay marriage. He thinks the amendment doesn't go far enough. It may sound as if he's using satire to criticize the amendment, but in fact he voted for it. Rep. Davis gets high marks from conservative religious groups for his voting record.


Next up is Senator Ted Stevens (Republican) of Alaska, explaining how the internet works. He opposes "Net Neutrality" which keeps the internet on an equal basis for everyone. And instead would allow large companies, like AT&T, to create "tiered" services, charging more for higher bandwidth or restricting certain services altogether.



Ok, so maybe some members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are a bit on the loony side, but at least we have someone in the White House who knows what he's doing!


Uhhh....never mind...

(Do you think there's something in the air over Washington, D.C. that causes such odd behavior?)

It's Getting Hot....Out There!

Well--I guess Al Gore was right after all ! It is getting warmer ! As these headlines show:
Oppressive heat grips most areas--USA Today
No let-up in Europe heatwave--BBC News
Heat Wave Broils Much of the Nation--Newsvine

But I like it hot, so it doesn't bother me too much. In fact today I didn't even know it was that hot out until late this evening when I saw some of these headlines. Of course, I was inside most of the day as I stayed up so late last night that I woke up real late today--about 11 AM. Spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the computer and didn't venture outside until after 6PM in the evening. I did have a small fan going (don't have air-conditioning), but I really never noticed that it was all that hot. Then I spent a few hours sitting outside watching a webcast on my computer. Yes--I had to take it with me--I'm that much in love with it !

Maybe a cool shower will help beat the heat....

TimeWasters

I called this blog entry "TimeWasters" because that's what I'm been doing the past few days.
Just sort of surfing the 'net, finding ways to waste time. I probably should be doing more important things--like curing cancer, solving the problem of world hunger, or bringing world peace.
But I decided to let someone else work on those problems this week.

At least I did do my laundry yesterday--that's something, right?

Anyway, since I haven't been able to drag myself away from my computer, here's a couple of "Time Wasting" little games I came across in my travels through cyberspace.


This first one is a little strategy game called "Dice Wars" the object of which is to take over more territory than your computer opponent(s). It's not as simple or easy as it may look at first. OK--it's not as graphically advanced as today's best computer games, but I liked it because it is simpler and you can play an entire game fairly quickly. You don't have to devote hours or days to it like you night with more complicated strategy games.

Now this next little game is a little bit on the "sick" or "gory" side. But it's only stick figure men so it's not that realistic. But I have to admit I spent hours playing it. It took a few games to get the hang of it, but then I becaqme addicted to it.
It's called "Bowman" and involves shooting arrows at your opponent in an attempt to kill him. You have to set the strength and angle of your shot to hit your opponent. There are also options to add wind or a wall between the two bowmen to make it more difficult.

UPDATE: Wow--that was a surprise to me when I posted this. I had tried to copy & paste a picture of the stickmen in this game but it turned out the entire game came along with it! I didn't even know I could do that....so you can try it out here if you want. If you would like to have a larger version, click on the "Bowman" link above to go to the site.

So now you see what an exciting life I have....please don't be too jealous of me! Spending hours "wasting time" when I could be solving all of the world's problems.

Actually I have gotten out of the house a few times this past week. I saw a musical performance in the park--"Beauty And The Beast", and spent time outdoors enjoying the warm weather, which won't last long, at least not long enough for me. Although I did take my laptop along a couple times and watched some episodes of "DiggNation" I had downloaded. And I listened to several podcasts of Feasts Of Fools I'd loaded onto my MP3 player (a 1 gigabyte Creative Zen Nano).

Well , maybe next week I'll get off up my butt and do something worthwhile....or then again, maybe not. After all there are still millions of web sites I haven't seen yet.

Videos Of The Week

Been so busy the past few days playing with my new computer I've forgotten to eat or sleep a couple of times. And almost forgot to post my videos this week, but here they are:

Usually my videos have a common theme, and at first I thought these didn't have one (I picked them 'cause they were funny), but after seeing them together I realized the theme was...SEX !

(Ha--that got your attention, didn't it? )







I'm not sure where that last video came from--I think possibly England--but despite that warning at the end ....I'd like to know where I can order a couple 6-packs of those cans !!

Before

Okay, as I promised, here are my "Before & After" photos of my computers. To the left is my old system. The computer itself I found sitting on the curb waiting to be picked up by the trash collectors. I "rescued" it and have been using it for about a year. The monitor is one a friend gave me, the keyboard and optical mouse I bought at a computer show before I had even found the computer. I was using them on an even older computer my friend had given me with the monitor. I needed a new mouse and liked the black & grey colors. When I found the computer tower, I thought it was pretty cool, 'cause it was black like my new keyboard/mouse and the blue lights on the tower front matched the blue light on the mouse! It seemed like fate had brought them together! Actually the computer in the pic was faster and had a larger hard drive than the one my friend had given me....so it was a step up for me. I plan on keeping it even though it has been acting weird lately. I think all it needs is to have the operating system re-installed and all the crap on the hard drive erased. I held off doing that because I was afraid if I screwed it up I wouldn't be able to get online at all!
Those items on top of the monitor are my wireless router, and 2 little plastic 'robots'--a cat & a dog that meow or bark if you press the buttons on their backs. To the left of the keyboard is a wireless Playstation controller (yes, I still have the original Playstation, but may buy the Playstation3 when it comes out and if I can afford it). If you look close, towards the left side of the keyboard, under the monitor, you'll see the other little 'robot' man I have. He also makes a weird sound when you press his button.

After

Here it Is ! My new Gateway laptop....which is the first brand new computer I've had since I bought a Commodore Amiga 500 back in 1990 ! That little silver thing in front of it is a trackball I bought at Wal-Mart's last year. It's perfect for a laptop 'cause you don't need any desk space-it fits comfortably in your hand and the left mouse button is a trigger button inside.
(works well for either right-or-left-handed people as well).
And believe it or not, this great new machine actually cost less than that Amiga 500 did back then. Not that the Amiga 500 wasn't a great computer also--it was better than most of the computers on the market then--especially in terms of graphics ! As I mentioned earlier, a friend gave me an old computer back in November of 2005 so I could get on the internet, then I found the one in the 'before' pics above. This now makes the seventh computer I've owned. Here's the list of the ones I had:
Nov. 1982....Commodore VIC-20
Dec. 1985....Commodore 128 (upgraded version of the Commodore 64)
Jan. 1990....Commodore Amiga 500
Nov. 2004....An old IBM my friend gave me.
Jan. 2005....Another older Dell model my friend gave me (they were throwing it out where he worked).
Apr. 2006....Found the computer on the curb...don't know who manufactured it, there's no name on the case (that I can find).
July 2006....Gateway laptop

Now for the geeks out there, here are the specs for both computers:

Before (Desktop)....................................After (Laptop)

Processor....AMD Duron...................... AMD Athlon64 mobile
Proc. speed..900MegaHertz.................2.2 Gigahertz
Screen..........14" CRT............................15.4" Widescreen LCD
Memory.......256MB DDR.....................512MB DDR
HardDrive....40 GB, 5400RPM...........100GB, 4200RPM
OpticalDrive..DVDRom,CD-RW (combo)..DVD RW+-Double layer
Video Card.....G-ForceMX4000............ ATI Radeon Xpress200M

And the laptop has a 6-in-1 media card reader and 802.11g wireless network card.

Hope I didn't bore everyone with my computer geekiness, but you know how it is when you're in love....you just gotta talk about your new "love".

I'm In Love ! ! !

Maybe I'm rushing things a bit seeing as he only came into my life earlier this afternoon, about 1 PM, but I think it was love at first sight. We spent all afternoon and most of the evening together. In fact, he's right here in front of me as I type this, and I can't keep my hands off of him!

Oh, and did I mention he's got a 15.4 inch....





Widescreen display !

Yes....my new Gateway laptop computer arrived today....and I couldn't be more satisfied ! It's so great to finally have a computer that doesn't constantly pop up error messages, slow down to a crawl or lock up completely, and make me so frustrated I want to throw it out the window !
After using it for just a brief time I realized how bad my old computer actually operated. Windows and webpages pop right up, programs load quickly, and the screen is so crisp & clear and much easier on my eyes than that old monitor I'd been using. The text on the old monitor actually looked blurry to me after I'd used the laptop for only a few minutes and glanced back to check the old system.
I've installed some of my favorite programs, such as Firefox, AVG antivirus, ZoneAlarm firewall, etc. and removed a few pre-installed items that I didn't want--like AOL's free trial. Still got some more things to configure to get it as I want, but I guess that will have to wait for tomorrow. Getting kinda late, so I should get some sleep if I can tear myself away from my new "friend".

Yes, I know--I am such a geek ! And if you think that's bad, wait until tomorrow when I'll post pics of both my old & new computers and compare their specs!

Bet you all just can't wait for that, can you ?

It's Meez !

UPDATED: I changed my Meez to show what I'll look like tomorrow after my new laptop arrives ! Too bad the rest of the pic doesn't really look like my apartment & I don't have a big screen TV.




This is my avatar I created at Meez to represent me. And yes, I do look kinda goofy like that !
Actually those clothes are pretty close to what I'm wearing right now, except I don't have a "SuperSoaker" water gun. And I'm not in a park, but I will be later most likely.

This is the larger, animated version of the Meez I have on my sidebar. If you like my Meez, you can go to the site by clicking on the pic and even rate it there! Or set up an account & get your own Meez. I had fun making mine and will no doubt change my "look" occasionally.

Hey, I might even try on some looks I'd never have the nerve to actually do in 'real life'.

Just checked UPS tracking of my new computer and it says it is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow !!! Woo-Hoo! Can't wait to get my new 'toy' to play with! Will post some pics of it when it arrives, along with one or two of my old "clunker" I'm currently using.

Videos Of The Week

And now, this important news report!


Ohhh...So that's what they were singing about!


I too, have this same terrible addiction!

***** HAPPY 4TH OF JULY ! *****

Happy Independence Day, Everyone !

Just wanted to quickly mention 2 things:

1....My search for a new computer has finally ended. I ended up ordering a laptop from BestBuy. It's being shipped, so I don't have it yet. I'll give more details later.

2....Found this cool site earlier: Meez, where you can create your own 3-d (sort of) avatar to use on your blog or in e-mails. Mine is over to the right, celebrating the 4th ! You can use a smaller version as well, I chose the larger animated one to show it off.

Soon I'm heading out to see some local 4th celebrations...and later...FIREWORKS ! ! !

A Poem Of My Sunday

To bid on a laptop computer,
I paid a visit to eBay.
The price went too high,
More than I was willing to pay.

Then went off to a website,
Where a test I soon took.
The results are on the right,
Under my profile please look.

Went out to a park because my home it is near,
While sitting there, some comic books I read.
A series based on a story whose title is "Neverhere",
But soon I decided to take a walk instead.

I wandered through the park,
And circled the lake.
Then just on a lark,
A longer walk I did take.

My stroll quickly lead me quite far away,
Then before long a theater came into my sight.
A movie I should see--to myself I did say,
The sun had gone down....it had become night.

As I stood outside the theater I thought,
What film is playing that I have yet to see?
At the box office the ticket I bought,
Was for the blockbuster movie "X-Men III" !

The movie was great....I enjoyed it a lot,
Now I had to begin to make the trip home.
Outside of the theater....it seemed a bit hot,
But now I'm here and writing this poem.

So by now I'm certain you're all quite aware,
One thing I'll never be is a good poet.
And maybe you really don't even care,
But as least now you know it!