When Good Game Stores Go Good: Endgame

Well, the game store I blogged about in a previous post has closed its doors after 15 years of serving Atlanta. I wonder if it is the current state of the economy or the fact that when they moved locations they lost clientèle. I'm not sure. I'm sure I'll run into a gaming bud at some point that can offer some insight. My guess is the price of a gallon of gas and disposable income to spend on games are inversely proportional to each other.

I quit going after visiting the new location. It was harder to get to and didn't have the same appeal. Plus the gaming space was severely reduced. The noise coming from the ample back area that ranged from conversations about dwarfs, wizards, all things Warhammer and the occasional dialogs in Klingon was part of the appeal of the place.

I'm a bit disappointed in the fact that getting new games or hard to find models is now a little more difficult now that the store has gone. But alas, there is still eBay and BoardGameGeek.

What does that License Plate Say?

So I'm driving into work today. My office has moved so my drive is shorter and at times slower since I'm not on any of the major interstates. I see a car in the next lane with a license tag that reads SNSKDNY.

I'm usually pretty good at figuring things like that out. This one has me stumped though. the only thing I could come up with is Son's Kidney. So am I to assume that you sold your son's kidney to buy that car? I don't know what kidneys are going for these days but the driver could have gotten a nice certified pre-owned BMW or Audi or something like that.

Another good one I saw a few years a go was a hot blond driving a red corvette. The tag read WAS HIS. Ha!

Pest Exclusion

Sometimes the little things I see just crack me up. Here is a case in point.

I was driving into work with my wife today. She was driving so that gives me time to look around or daydream or whatever. I saw a truck next to me that had door magnets that read so and so's Pest Exclusion. I thought to myself hmm, is that some kind of kindler, gentler extermination? How would that exactly go down?

I could picture the exterminator, no, excluder walking onto the scene:

"Listen up critters. We've had some complaints for your sector and I'm here to set things straight. You there. Squirrels, Rabbits, Little Birds just step right over there. That's right everybody but the Opossum and Raccoon. We don't serve your kind here. You've been excluded. So you just get on out of here and don't make me come back. Yeah call animal rights. See if I care."

Just because an animal plays dead or wears a mask doesn't make them any less of an animal does it? But still, what a novel idea. Non-lethal extermination by exclusion. Brilliant.

Farewell to the Woblin' Goblin

The original stealth fighter is being retired. It's being replaced by the more stealthy and stable F-22. The F-117 has been around since the 1970's in one form or another. It's being moth balled so it could possibly see service again if needed.

Perhaps the incident in Europe during the Kosovo conflict lead to the decision for such an early retirement. Early considering the F-14 is pushing 40 years. Once the plane was shot down and different governments were able to get a good look at the wreckage, I would surmise the USAF decided to send it to an early retirement due to the fact that these other governments, so called, could develop technologies to detect its presence early enough to kick up the attrition rates of the fighter.

The trade off, I think, is a good one. The F-22 is much more stable in flight and the cool thing is it can go almost Mach 2 without going on afterburner. Sure it's expensive but there is nothing else out there (that we know of) that can touch it. The plane basically flies itself. A friend of mine works on the F-22 program and says the pilots will ask the civilian engineers "How can I get the plane to do such and such and so and so." The engineers basically say "Don't touch anything."


F-117 R.I.P. April 22, 2008

File under Ummmm yeah. okay.

Right. So all I need is those ultra hip goggles with the camera, a swank-ass white coat and I can find that Star Wars figure I lost when I was a kid? Only if you were wearing the goggles when you lost it.

Apparently the goggles are hooked into a computer that you wear on your back. It uses image recognition software and you tell the goggles (or more appropriately the software) what stuff is and remembers the last place you looked at it with the goggles on.

I assume you can eventually pick up some terrabyte sized storage accessories to add to it since you are going to be making your own reality show called "Where's that damn thing I had yesterday" recording everything you touch and see for days on end.

I wonder if it could find my virginity? No. You sold that car. Remember?

Here's your link...

Music Rig Update:

Desk cleared -- Check
Sound Card re-installed -- Check
Side Panel Back On -- Check
Just have to get my MIDI rig going.

I've hemmed and hawed over what software to use and I've finally settled on Sonar. I like the fact that you can use ACID loops natively and it has very robust MIDI support. The coolest thing is the active controller technology or ACT that is built into it. No switching patches on your control surface. Basically you make a Sonar component active, map your controls then save. Then you move on to the next component. So when you have a component active like the mixer, your controls control only the mixer. If you switch to a soft synth or effect the controller is "re mapped" by Sonar. Very cool for speeding up work flow.

I also have an independent record label in the works. More on that later.