Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.
I forgot I had a blog.
Sorry about that. Sometimes the Internet is just a really, really distracting place. I’ll be back soon, and you’ll be happy about it. 
Quick Razer Arctosa Review
I got a new keyboard today, and I’m really kind of just testing it out. If you’re interested, it’s a Razer Arctosa that I scored for cheap from woot.com recently. It’s not the flashiest of keyboards — and I should know, I’ve got a Logitech G19 — but it’s pretty nice to type on. A bit louder than I would like, though. For some reason the lock lights (you know, caps, scroll, and num) are obnoxiously bright. I mean they’re very much like 3 tiny flashlights. I can already tell that I’ll need to dot them with electrical tape to dim them. The keyboard is also incredibly light. It’s almost light enough to feel flimsy, but it’s just heavy enough to avoid it. The palm rest is also screwed on instead of being snapped on, which is a bit different from most keyboards.
There’s not a lot of travel distance to the keys, and they’re all pretty slim but are also very responsive. I can see this keyboard being a little polarizing if you’re picky about what you type on. You’ll either like the way it feels or you’ll be unable to use it. Personally, I like it.
This keyboard is $49.99 at Amazon.com, but at Woot I was able to get it for $25. It’s definitely worth what I paid for it, but it’s definitely not worth its full retail price. As my first Razer product, I’ve been happy with the purchase so far.
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Has it been a year already?
Today Small Boy became a 1-year-old. I’ve spent a large part of the day almost in shock, because I’ve lost a year of my life. Not lost in the sense that it was somehow taken from me, but lost in the sense that I can’t find it.
I know it happened. I have a couple thousand tweets to prove that I did, in fact, exist for the majority of the past year; I just don’t remember it, particularly when it comes to the fact that it seems weird to call Small Boy a baby. He’s not a baby anymore, is he? I mean, he walks around the corner and strolls into the room to see what I’m doing like it’s no big thing. He’s a third person that’s living here. Gone are the days of having a small crying lump to tend to… we’ve got a full-on little dude.
I mean, really… how did that happen?
Instagram, if you’re unfamiliar, is an iPhone app that lets you take pictures, apply effects, and share. It’s a dead simple concept, but Instagram has the benefit of having its own social network baked right in, so it’s become extremely popular, despite the fact that version 2 of the app basically destroyed the coolness of the filters.
I like using Instagram, but I rarely do anymore… I got tired of people doing what I feel is cheating. “What are you talking about, you moron? How can you cheat at taking pictures?”, I hear you asking. Let me explain.
In Instagram you’re given the ability to import pictures, filter them or not, and share them. I don’t think that should be an option, honestly. To me, the point of the app is to take the pictures with your iPhone. That showcases your creativity both in composition as well as the filter you use serving the shot. If you can set up your $3,000 camera and take an absolutely stunning photograph, that’s awesome… but it doesn’t belong on Instagram. That’s not to discount the hundreds of beautiful photos that I’ve seen on Instagram that were taken exactly like that, but I don’t think it’s really following the spirit of the app. In my mind, anyway.
There’s something to be said for having a photographic eye. There’s also something to be said for being able to take a great picture with nothing but your iPhone. When I started messing around with Instagram, the photos that I liked weren’t breathtaking or anything, they were just cool. They were photos that someone took with their iPhone because that was what they had with them to capture a moment. There was a certain level of candidness to them, and I enjoy that. I like photos of life as it happens as much if not more than photos that are set up.
What do you think? Is Instagram an app that lets you share photos, or an app that lets you take them? If you use it, what do you find yourself doing with it most often?
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I Officially Love Pinterest.
Sorry ladies, the secret is out!
I arrived a stranger in a strange land. Was I the only male, adrift in a sea of estrogen? Possibly. I knew, though… I knew there had to be more to this than pictures of shoes and manicures, and I was determined to find it.
About 15 minutes later, I was hooked.
Pinterest, if you’ve never heard of it, is a lot like Tumblr but without the stupid teenage hipster bullshit. (Sorry to be blunt, but… I mean, it is what it is.) I had never heard of it myself until I saw my wife using it, and I didn’t think much of it at first. It’s a site that functions as a virtual pin board… any picture you see online can be “pinned”, and in doing so you create a link back to the site you found the image at. At the very core of it all, Pinterest is really nothing more than visual social bookmarking, but that makes it sound like it’s a lot less fun than it really is.
If you’re a visual person like me, there’s a lot to like about Pinterest. Even just looking through other people’s pins can be a rewarding experience. Art, architecture, photography… if it can be presented in a visual format, you’ll find it there, often times neatly categorized and begging to be looked through. That’s right, folks… it’s not all hair braids and outfits. Ideas and inspiration flow freely, and while it’s true there’s a bit of an emphasis on cooking and crafts, the site certainly isn’t limited to just those things. Yes, the site is primarily used by women, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why it’s not more universally accepted. There’s something there for everyone, and if you’re not finding material to suit you, all you have to do is pin your own images and see if anyone responds in kind. People can also repin your pins, which is the equivalent of Tumblr’s “reblog”. Want to see more pictures of torn down Dodge Charger engines? Pin ‘em!
I keep comparing Pinterest to Tumblr, but it’s important to note that they’re not interchangeable. Unlike Tumblr, Pinterest is for visual media only, which means that pure text posts aren’t possible, and as such it can’t be used as a true blog. One thing that I find somewhat refreshing however is the fact that Pinterest doesn’t allow nudity. There are times when I’m at work or just sitting around killing time with Small Boy in my lap, and at those times I don’t feel that Tumblr is a place I can go. You never know what might show up there. Pinterest is pretty family friendly, and that’s cool to me.
At first, I didn’t “get” Pinterest. I didn’t see the point, and I wanted nothing to do with it. That’s changed, however, and I absolutely love it now. If you’d like to follow me on Pinterest, please feel free. I don’t have much up as I just got started, but I’m sure once I get going it’ll be hard for me to stop! I’m thinking about abandoning my Tumblr in favor of this more mature and refined option. Do you or anyone you know use Pinterest? Do you like it, or do you just not see the point? Leave me a comment and let me know!
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Blogsy?
I’m trying out an iPad app that I just got called Blogsy. So far, I’m not sure what to make of it. I have to admit that I was initially a bit hesitant to try typing… well, much of anything on an iPad. I’ve said numerous times in the past that iPads, while awesome, are for consumption and not creation.
I may have been wrong.
This is going to be a short post, as I’m not really posting about anything, but am really just trying to put this app through its paces. So far, I’m pleasantly surprised. I’m going to try adding a picture from my Flickr account.
It’s very easy to add pictures, but without knowing a little bit of code it seems impossible to type after adding one. You have to flip over to the HTML view and add a div, in case you’re wondering. At any rate, I definitely see myself playing with this more in the future but currently don’t see it being worth the price of admission, which was $4.99 in the app store.
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Like this:
Coffee and/or Keurig.
Image by suendercafe via Flickr
One of the things my wife got me for Christmas was a new Keurig coffee maker. She got me a Mini Plus to replace my old one, which was a Platinum Plus that died a horrible, painful death. I loved the PP for the time that I had it, but unfortunately I had an experience that it seems a lot of people have… the thing just refused to do its assigned task, which is to produce hot brown water that prevents me from bringing harm to the people around me.
The PP isn’t really meant for a one or two person household, I don’t think. It kept water hot at all times, and had a healthy reservoir. Once the machine was first filled with water, it would never be empty again. No matter what you do, you can’t get the water out of it. You can cycle more through, but you can’t drain it out. Now, to me, that seems like a really incredibly stupid way to design a thing, but I’m a computer tech and not a coffee maker… maker. So I’ll let that go. The problem that developed with it was that it simply wouldn’t spit any of that water into a cup. It wanted to keep it all for itself, and in the meantime, my patience with it waned. I unplugged it, as though I had decided that would teach it a lesson. That’s something I’m guilty of, by the way… I try to reason with (and sometimes threaten) inanimate objects. After trying to reason with (and threaten) the coffee maker that I had loved so dearly, it became obvious that I had a decision to make. And so, with a heavy heart and a final cry of “Fuck this shit, man” I threw it away. The warranty had expired, and so had my dear friend, Captain Keurig.
Until…
I was completely surprised when I unwrapped the new Mini Plus that my wife had chosen for me. Undoubtedly moved by my outpouring of sorrow during the mourning period (which manifested itself as various strings of profanity) she had purchased a replacement! It’s not as fancy as the Platinum, and quite frankly, I love that about it.
“The more shit a thing does, the more ways it has to break.” – Me.
This little guy does not have a bizarrely sequestered water chamber, it has what industry professionals call a top part. You pour water in there. You lift the lever thing and you wait for the water to gurgle down into the machine. You put the little K-Cup in the little K-Cup holder, slam that handle down, press the living hell out of the brew button, and you wait. You stare at it, hoping that it’s not going to break, because you’ve basically lost all faith in Keurig, and you wait. Then, two minutes or so later, you drink coffee. Every time you make a cup of coffee, you have that same fear. I hope that maybe this simpler model will be a longer-lasting inhabitant in our kitchen. So far, so good!
But how does the coffee taste, I hear you asking.
Well… not great. Not horrible, but not great. It really depends on the K-Cup you use. So far the absolute worst one that I’ve had has been something that Emeril Lagasse put his name on for God knows why, and it was… rough. It was strong in a bitter way, and tasted like you had poured boiling water on the hell-roasted ashes of coffee beans. So, BAM and all that. The Folgers varieties are all pretty good. I’d love to be able to try the Dunkin Donuts variety, which is some of my favorite coffee to make at home, but last I checked they’d made a decision that I hope got someone in marketing fired and elected to only sell the K-Cups inside Dunkin Donuts. One, we don’t have one around here, and two, if I could go to the store and get a cup of coffee there, why in the hell would I buy K-Cups to take home? Surely I’m not the only person that finds that a bit silly. Still, the overall K-Cup experience is a pretty good one.
As long as this iteration of Keurig keeps putting out that calming ichor, I would recommend it. I like being able to grab a cup of coffee in a hurry (not because I’m so busy, but rather because I’m fucking impatient. Thanks for that, Internet.) and most of the time it’s a decent enough cup that I leave satisfied.
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Skyrim
It's all about carrying spoons.
I’ve been what I would consider a gamer for about 28 years now. Considering that I’m 33, that’s… well, that’s a lifetime of gaming. I’ve played all genres, enjoying something from all of them. I’m beginning to think I might be losing my patience for some games, though… and Skyrim is a prime example.
I rented Skyrim instead of buying it, because most games are at least $60 and it was no exception. I have far too many games that I’ve purchased, played for an hour, and then shelved. I don’t necessarily have a collection as much as I have a bunch of regrets that will fit neatly into green DVD cases. Skyrim is the reason I reactivated my GameFly account, too. See, I knew I wanted to play it, but I didn’t know if I’d want to keep playing it. I’ve never played Oblivion, so I wasn’t sure what I was getting into.
I popped the disc in, giddy that I got it so quickly after release. I first became bored as I was making a character. I honestly don’t remember a single thing about that section of the game, because I wanted to get right to the action. Loaded up, looked around, and I have to say – the game is amazingly beautiful. This is one stunningly gorgeous game.
That’s… pretty much the nicest thing I can say.
I played for about an hour that first time, until I finally quit out of boredom. I’d read to expect a somewhat slow start, and I did, but that didn’t help to soothe the pain I was feeling. An hour into the game, and I was not a hero. I wasn’t much of anything. I had passed my time in the game picking up everything that I could find. It’s a problem I have, I’ll admit… I never know when I might need something, you see. I did the same thing in Fallout 3 and apparently it’s just one of those OCD things that I do. I’ve never actually be diagnosed with OCD, but… come on, who else picked up everything they could? If you did, please let me know… we might need to start a support group.
I resolved after that first hour that I was done. No more Skyrim for me. It just wasn’t my kind of game. The internet had other plans, though; everything I read had something to do with what a great game everyone thought it was. If it wasn’t a legit news story it was a meme about getting an arrow to the knee. Skyrim was inescapable. I thought to myself that maybe I just didn’t give it enough time. I decided to try it again… to give it one more try.
It was no use.
I was no badass… I was running around with the contents of a pantry.
Fear the mighty warrior, armed with a massive array of vegetables, spoons, and bowls!
I never even killed a dragon, which I’m given to understand at some point becomes such a regular occurrence that it’s not even a big deal anymore, it’s just a thing you do - the Skyrim equivalent of checking your Twitter feed.
As bad as it sounds, I’m thinking that I might have to turn in my gamer card. I seem to be the person that didn’t think that the game was a shred of fun. I keep reading and being told “You have to wait! It gets really good!” Hmm. How can I put this? Fuck that. I play games to have entertaining experiences, and as a husband and father, I don’t have all weekend to play Skyrim and eat pizza rolls. I gots shit to do, you know? I can stand for a movie to take a little while to get started; we’re talking about a 2-3 hour experience, there. I played Skyrim for a total of just over 2 hours and managed to A) kill a chicken and have an entire village come down on me with the wrath of Old Testament God, and B) not give a single shit about anything they wanted me to do in the game.
Am I doing it wrong? I feel like I must have been. It seems to me that if every other gamer in the world is enamored with this game to the point that it must be something that I didn’t get. I’ve since returned the game and have been send Portal 2, which is — I’ll just ballpark this figure here — roughly 6,000 times more enjoyable. I still have that nagging feeling that I didn’t give it enough time. That I should have cheerfully waded through the boring as hell beginning, somehow earning the right to access content that was fun. I thought about it so much that I’ve considered ordering the game from Amazon, so that I’d force myself to play it.
So what am I missing here? If you’ve played Skyrim and enjoyed it, please feel free to key me in on what it is that you found fun about the game, and how long you had to play it to reach that point. If you’re like me and didn’t think it was fun in the slightest, let me know… because I think I’m the only person on Earth that feels that way!
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