You can play lots of videogames that are not internet connected. No single player game has the kind of crap they are describing.
Indeed there are. The last game I played was Rogue. No really, last week I was bored and found it online. I played it about 30 minutes before I was bored again.
I usually play much newer, but still single-player games.
I do play one MMORPG, but it's kind of a joke. Only about a dozen people still play down from a total membership (not active all at once) of about 12,000. I'm the highest level, but my rival has better stats. There's no point in me attacking any other active players (not worth my effort) and there's no point in them trying to attack me either (they can't beat me).
I guess that's an MORPG...nothing "massive" about it at all.
But it barely takes any time. It's really boring. It's all about not letting the other guy "win" now. We don't bother trash-talking. We just slog on.
The funny thing is if either of us quit the other one would enjoy a moment somewhat like Montresor did in The Cask of Amontillado.
I said, "for the love of God!" But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud -- "Fortunato!" No answer. I called again -- "Fortunato!" No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so.
Or rather the heart grows sick at the realization that you're now alone in the game and so what? Now you can have both the best stats and the highest level! Was it worth it? I'm sure the only reason he has better stats is because he pays for them.
But to really make that work, I would have to quit and NEVER login again, not even just to see if the other guy was still playing. Or he would.
I was hoping someone here would address just how that info was obtained and those seem like very real possibilities.
The only other possibilities I can think of are that they took your IP address and managed to get past your poorly secured network and just found all that info...or they already knew the person in real life. Or they have access to Microsoft's XBox User database?
Getting an anonymous death threat from some idiot on the internet wouldn't disturb me that much. Getting the death threat and then their proving that they know who I am, where I live and calling my phone would.
I would definitely call the cops. I'd start with local and work my way up to the FBI until someone took it seriously. Or maybe I should try that in reverse order. At the very least there would be a record of it so if I did turn up dead they might have a clue as to where to start.
Good thing I don't have an XBox...
This isn't limited to gaming. This happens in online forums as well.
I think Steve Jobs was an asshole, but I also consider him a hero and more importantly a genius.
And I think Elon Musk is an idiot, but he's also a genius...and a hero. Okay, maybe not a hero, but I'm jealous of his success and I really do wish I had a Tesla and also a rocket that could launch me to Mars.
I'll get a Tesla sooner or later. As soon as the transmission falls out of my 20 year old Detroit garbage which the "Check Engine" light tells me is due to happen any mile now.
I do keep hearing horror stories about Teslas, but most of them sound overblown and I've been hearing horror stories about cars all my life. Did you ever hear the one about the Pinto?
I only say Musk is an idiot because he sometimes blurts out stupid stuff that he probably wouldn't say if he weren't so stoned (kind of like me). All the problems with Tesla...quality control, production numbers, whatever...those are all expected from a relatively new car manufacturer and when was the last time a new car manufacturer ramped up to the level of Ford or GM?
Tesla still has a long way to go, but when Ford recalls nearly 2 million vehicles.... I dunno...I guess when Ford recalls 2 million vehicles I'm glad I drive a Chrysler.
So Ford just recalled 1.8 million vehicles which nearly equals their annual production of 1.9 million vehicles. Holy shit! Can you imagine the bad press that would ensue if Tesla had to do that? But with Ford, hardly anyone blinks an eye.
But if everyone has our data shouldn't that devalue it?
I'd like to think so, but we keep generating new data. It's getting harder and harder to convince businesses who demand an e-mail address that I really don't have one. Or I have to make one up. I wonder if I ever made up a valid e-mail address that belonged to someone else. Sorry about the spam if I did.
I know better than to get political on slashdot because no good can come from it, but I've had a few drinks and I'll say this about Kavanaugh.
While Republicans were screaming their heads off about him being innocent until proven guilty, that's not what it was about at all. He was never on trial. He was being considered for a job promotion. And while you might have felt the accusations against him were BS and politically motivated, would you hire a babysitter who was accused, but never convicted, of being a child molester?
The guy still got on the Supreme Court and right-wingers are still claiming liberals ruined his life.
But even if you were sure all the accusations were bogus, he was still a drunk in high school and he DID lie about that. And he also lied about "boofing". I'm about Kavanaugh's age and I remember that slang word. It did NOT mean "farting".
The fact that a Supreme Court nominee could testify under oath during his nomination and say that with a straight face is enough for me not to want him on the Supreme Court. Of course, "boof" is a slang word for "butt fucking".
Even though I'm of a similar age as Kavanaugh, there's no way in hell that would have gotten into my private school's yearbook. Our teachers may not have been hip to all of our slang, but they weren't stupid. They also weren't Catholic priests.
And all this was glossed over for the more scandalous stories which could never be proven true or false. Ford and others accusing him was just a wicked game of he said/she said and everyone knew nobody could prove anything from the start.
But given Kavanaugh's big lie about wondering if his best male friend in high school had ever had anal sex and his propensity for drinking, I'd say he's not fit for the Supreme Court whether or not he ever even looked at Christine Blasey Ford with lust in his eyes.
Brett Kavanaugh was the kind of person who got expelled from the school I went to. In fact they did expel several students for drinking even though it was not during school and not on campus. Apparently at Bart O'Kavanaugh's school that kind of thing was overlooked and maybe even expected. Mark Judge's book "Wasted" should have been enough to sink Kavanaugh's nomination, but in this day and age it seems Republicans were willing to overlook how much of a piece of shit Kavanaugh was just to stick it to the libs..
One HUGE difference between the private school I went to and the one BK went to? Mine wasn't religious. If I had been a Senator I think I just would have asked BK 3 questions:
1: (I deleted this question because it wasn't really appropriate) 2: Do you really think we don't know what that word really means?. 3: (and I deleted the first part of this question too because it also was inappropriate, but I'm leaving the last bit). WTF is wrong with you?
Okay, maybe it's not actually fair to bring up a Supreme Court nominee's homosexual tendencies when considering him for the court, but the fact that he lies should be enough to reject him. (But if Republicans thought he was having anal sex with the other boys in his high school they never would have considered him)
But Republicans LOVE liars. Trump has surrounded himself with them and before you say he didn't know they were liars when he hired them, I would point out he just made Elliot Abrams special envoy to Venezuela - a guy who was convicted in a court of law for lying to Congress about his DEEP STATE dealings in Central America.
Much like Kavanaugh, I like beer and while I'd like to be on the Supreme Court, to be honest I think there are much better candidates than me or Bart O'Kavanaugh.
* And one final word. I kind of expect to be modded flamebait, but before you do that, read the post I'm responding to. ** Yeah, I was the one who totally took that flamebait. *** To be fair, I think it's at least theoretically possible for a drunk POS to make fair decisions on the Supreme Court. Theoretically, anyway.
I think it's a myth that anyone can become "very rich" although by 3rd world standards even I could be considered "very rich". Granted, I started off being born to parents of at least above average wealth.
I recognize that I could have been richer if I had made different choices in life, but I once turned down 2 job offers that paid more money to take a job that I thought I would like more and I still think that was the right decision. But maybe that was a failure on my part for not negotiating harder.
Of course, it's not just that. I could have studied harder in school but there are only so many "very rich" slots available. If everyone becomes "very rich" because it's possible then being "very rich" becomes "middle class".
But in a way, the average American is very rich not only compared to many other (not all) people, but also compared to our great grandparents....
To get "very rich" though sometimes doesn't require hard work or honesty at all. In fact, dishonesty seems to pay off quite nicely for some people. And hard work and honesty are no guarantee of becoming rich, let alone "very rich" compared to other Americans.
I'm much older than 19 and the only reason I don't play with Legos is I can't afford them.
Okay, I wrote that and then went and browsed their site for a few minutes and maybe that's unfair to say. I mean I sort of want that Saturn V rocket and $120 isn't really unreasonable for what you get. I'm actually having to restrain myself from making an impulse buy.
But if I start buying Legos that will be less money for my other hobbies sucking up my disposable income which are arguably just as childish.
if only I had bought it when everyone (including me) believed it was a crazy, stupid idea.
I'm not bitter. Anyone could make a killing in numerous investments if they knew beforehand when they would reach their peak and when was the right time to buy and sell. HIndsight is 20/20.
And just to be clear, I still think it's a crazy,stupid idea.
too young to remember Street Fighter IV a decade ago, let alone Missile Command in the Reagan years.
I have to wonder how old the author is. I'm too old to remember Street Fighter IV, but I do remember Missile Command. I like to think I grew up in the golden age of arcade games. My father liked pinball and used to take us out to the pinball parlor somewhere until the police busted it because people were dealing drugs there. My father wasn't into drugs and that was basically the last I got to play pinball except for the odd quarter I managed to beg off my parents here and there.
But then came the video games. By then I earned a whole dollar for a chore like washing the family car and that was 4 games of Asteroids or Space Invaders. I'm not sure when I last saw Space Invaders, but I think I remember being frustrated by it. WHY do I miss so often?
I prefer Galaga. I just bought a Galaga/Galaxian machine about a month ago ($299 + $49 for the base - that was sneaky of them. Oh sure, $299 sounds fair, but wait there's more. You HAVE to buy this stand for another $50. And you really do have to buy the base if you want it at a reasonable height.
One thing I really dig about Galaga is it tells you your hit percentage after you lose. You can take comfort in your 70% hit percentage even though you only lasted 15 waves or whatever. Conversely if you have a really bad game you can see how terrible your hit percentage is.
I've been tempted to try to put together a MAME cabinet for years, but I never did.
I have visions of filling my basement up with video games and maybe a few pinball machines as well, but would I really play them enough to be worth it? Probably not. I sort of wish the Galaga machine I bought had a coin slot just so I'd be able to keep track of how many times I've played it. So I spent $350 (plus tax). That's about 1400 quarters. Galaga was a good investment, but I think I have to draw the line somewhere.
I still might buy a Centipede, but I don't think I have room for Missile Command or Joust or Dragon's Lair. I could maybe see getting Phoenix or Spy Hunter though. And Pole Position and Stargate or at least Defender too.
Amazing since I saw a few days ago on the PBS NewsHour that some jazz club went out of business in NYC. IIRC it opened in 1977 and paid $499 a month for its lease. When it closed, they were paying $30,000 a month.
It seems impossible that a place where people pump quarters into games that could last 10-15 minutes if they're decent could ever stay in business in that atmosphere.
I did look up the location of the 2nd PBS station...the one transmitter that I really wished I got better and pointed it as best as I could by just eyeballing the map and general direction.
And you're right, it's not in the city, it's on a reasonably tall mountain (3500 meters) a few miles outside of it. But most of the time I can't get it at all and when I do it's heavily pixelated.
According to Wikipedia:
It is the highest full-power television transmitting antenna in the United States
I''m about 60 miles outside of the nearest big city where most of the transmitters are and picked up a $25 antenna at Walmart recently.
If it's just right I can get just about any channel, but not all at once and it's not easily adjusted at the end of a 25 foot cable snaking up a vaulted ceiling to the window. I'm really just happy to get PBS and a couple of other stations, but I can just almost get the 2nd PBS station and most of the others if the stars are aligned just right.
I'm reminded of Married With Children when they had to "assume Fox viewing positions" in order to watch Fox on their TV.
QVC and the religious stuff come in just fine of course.
. Expect to see "Office Toilet Paper Fee", ""CEO Wants A Yacht Fee", and "Electricity To Power Our Stores Fee."
But expect to see them disguised as "Environmental Fees", "Executive Transportation Subsidy" and "Energy Reclamation Fee" or something even more subtle.
(eg. embaraçada and embarazada are not the same thing).
But if I were to become pregnant I imagine it would be quite " tangled (messily intertwined), confusing or complicated" which is what some website tells me embaraçada means.
I've joked before that Portuguese just sounds like drunken Spanish.
Which IMO are the 2 most useless things to air on the news. I don't care about sports and I check the weather on the internet. I imagine anyone who does care about sports already has checked the scores and highlights of anything they care about. There are websites and even networks entirely devoted to weather and sports.
What's worse is when international networks carry news and weather. Every half hour there's a weather update letting me know it's 43C in Alice Springs, Australia or something. And then there's the sports updates. Cricket, football, basketball, tennis, etc...I don't care. Why the hell is a network in Doha reporting about the Baltimore Colts? I don't know, but they are...but first the weather "brought to you by Qatar Airlines." Why would an airline want to bring you the weather? Some of it's always bad. And I just remembered it's not the Baltimore Colts anymore...that's how long it's been since I cared about the NFL.
Is it just filler? But they hire people for these jobs...Well, I can think of one network that just shows weather maps with temperatures and music but presumably someone still has to produce it...or could it be automated?
And that's my middle-of-the-night rant. I woke up way too early today. It's a terrible thing.
"One-in-a-million risks"? I don't think so. I've had my home broken into twice. The first time might have been with a sledgehammer, but probably didn't require such a large device. A friend of mine had his apartment broken into by a guy who broke into his neighbor's apartment and then proceeded to take a sledgehammer to go through the wall to break into his apartment.
And over the years, I've had guests who pilfered things from me. Just things that they thought I wouldn't notice were missing right away, but things that I did notice were missing and I'm pretty sure I knew who stole them too, but what could I do?
So it's far from a one in a million chance even if you want to blame me for being a poor judge of character for inviting those guests into my home.
But I live in a nicer neighborhood now and crime is not nearly as prevalent where those break-ins I mentioned happened. I'm not cowering in the corner at all. I'm not even sure if my backdoor is locked right now. But I am more careful about who I allow into my home because I have figuratve "Ming vases" all over the place.
It's probably because it isn't really a home he can afford. If I had a mansion and needed a little extra money and my mother had an apartment down the street, why wouldn't I just give my mother one of my spare bedrooms and rent her apartment out to someone else?
Say what you will about living under the same roof as your parents when you're an adult, but at least if you're going to do that shouldn't you invite them to stay with you in your nicer house rather than renting out your house to some stranger and being a burden on your parents?
That's funny because even before I finished reading your post I was thinking you sounded like that old bum from A Clockwork Orange.
It's a stinking world because there's no law and order anymore! It's a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old, like you done. Oh, it's no world for an old man any longer. What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon, and men spinning around the earth, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law and order no more.
Slashdot Mirror
You can play lots of videogames that are not internet connected. No single player game has the kind of crap they are describing.
Indeed there are. The last game I played was Rogue. No really, last week I was bored and found it online. I played it about 30 minutes before I was bored again.
I usually play much newer, but still single-player games.
I do play one MMORPG, but it's kind of a joke. Only about a dozen people still play down from a total membership (not active all at once) of about 12,000. I'm the highest level, but my rival has better stats. There's no point in me attacking any other active players (not worth my effort) and there's no point in them trying to attack me either (they can't beat me).
I guess that's an MORPG...nothing "massive" about it at all.
But it barely takes any time. It's really boring. It's all about not letting the other guy "win" now. We don't bother trash-talking. We just slog on.
The funny thing is if either of us quit the other one would enjoy a moment somewhat like Montresor did in The Cask of Amontillado.
I said, "for the love of God!" But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud -- "Fortunato!" No answer. I called again -- "Fortunato!" No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so.
Or rather the heart grows sick at the realization that you're now alone in the game and so what? Now you can have both the best stats and the highest level! Was it worth it? I'm sure the only reason he has better stats is because he pays for them.
But to really make that work, I would have to quit and NEVER login again, not even just to see if the other guy was still playing. Or he would.
I was hoping someone here would address just how that info was obtained and those seem like very real possibilities.
The only other possibilities I can think of are that they took your IP address and managed to get past your poorly secured network and just found all that info...or they already knew the person in real life. Or they have access to Microsoft's XBox User database?
Getting an anonymous death threat from some idiot on the internet wouldn't disturb me that much. Getting the death threat and then their proving that they know who I am, where I live and calling my phone would.
I would definitely call the cops. I'd start with local and work my way up to the FBI until someone took it seriously. Or maybe I should try that in reverse order. At the very least there would be a record of it so if I did turn up dead they might have a clue as to where to start.
Good thing I don't have an XBox...
This isn't limited to gaming. This happens in online forums as well.
You're absolutely right.
Don't care that Chrysler ranks low. Mine has been good to me. That was sort of a tongue-in-cheek remark anyway.
And I did get the Ford production number wrong..I could have sworn I lifted it out of an article reporting on that, but I must have misread something.
DAMMIT!
I wanted to make some snarky comments and I accidentally hit submit before I was done!
From the link in my previous post:
a transmission flaw that could cause the vehicles to downshift to first gear with no warning.
Fortunately I drive a Chrysler so it's like I'm always in first gear anyway.
Also impacted— by separate issues—were select Lincoln Continentals made between 2017 and
Did Fortune REALLY say "impacted" when referring to certain car models?
This is how words like "phrasing" come into common speech. At least my car hasn't been impacted.
I think Steve Jobs was an asshole, but I also consider him a hero and more importantly a genius.
And I think Elon Musk is an idiot, but he's also a genius...and a hero. Okay, maybe not a hero, but I'm jealous of his success and I really do wish I had a Tesla and also a rocket that could launch me to Mars.
I'll get a Tesla sooner or later. As soon as the transmission falls out of my 20 year old Detroit garbage which the "Check Engine" light tells me is due to happen any mile now.
I do keep hearing horror stories about Teslas, but most of them sound overblown and I've been hearing horror stories about cars all my life. Did you ever hear the one about the Pinto?
I only say Musk is an idiot because he sometimes blurts out stupid stuff that he probably wouldn't say if he weren't so stoned (kind of like me). All the problems with Tesla...quality control, production numbers, whatever...those are all expected from a relatively new car manufacturer and when was the last time a new car manufacturer ramped up to the level of Ford or GM?
Tesla still has a long way to go, but when Ford recalls nearly 2 million vehicles.... I dunno...I guess when Ford recalls 2 million vehicles I'm glad I drive a Chrysler.
So Ford just recalled 1.8 million vehicles which nearly equals their annual production of 1.9 million vehicles. Holy shit! Can you imagine the bad press that would ensue if Tesla had to do that? But with Ford, hardly anyone blinks an eye.
But if everyone has our data shouldn't that devalue it?
I'd like to think so, but we keep generating new data. It's getting harder and harder to convince businesses who demand an e-mail address that I really don't have one. Or I have to make one up. I wonder if I ever made up a valid e-mail address that belonged to someone else. Sorry about the spam if I did.
I know better than to get political on slashdot because no good can come from it, but I've had a few drinks and I'll say this about Kavanaugh.
While Republicans were screaming their heads off about him being innocent until proven guilty, that's not what it was about at all. He was never on trial. He was being considered for a job promotion. And while you might have felt the accusations against him were BS and politically motivated, would you hire a babysitter who was accused, but never convicted, of being a child molester?
The guy still got on the Supreme Court and right-wingers are still claiming liberals ruined his life.
But even if you were sure all the accusations were bogus, he was still a drunk in high school and he DID lie about that. And he also lied about "boofing". I'm about Kavanaugh's age and I remember that slang word. It did NOT mean "farting".
The fact that a Supreme Court nominee could testify under oath during his nomination and say that with a straight face is enough for me not to want him on the Supreme Court. Of course, "boof" is a slang word for "butt fucking".
Even though I'm of a similar age as Kavanaugh, there's no way in hell that would have gotten into my private school's yearbook. Our teachers may not have been hip to all of our slang, but they weren't stupid. They also weren't Catholic priests.
And all this was glossed over for the more scandalous stories which could never be proven true or false. Ford and others accusing him was just a wicked game of he said/she said and everyone knew nobody could prove anything from the start.
But given Kavanaugh's big lie about wondering if his best male friend in high school had ever had anal sex and his propensity for drinking, I'd say he's not fit for the Supreme Court whether or not he ever even looked at Christine Blasey Ford with lust in his eyes.
Brett Kavanaugh was the kind of person who got expelled from the school I went to. In fact they did expel several students for drinking even though it was not during school and not on campus. Apparently at Bart O'Kavanaugh's school that kind of thing was overlooked and maybe even expected. Mark Judge's book "Wasted" should have been enough to sink Kavanaugh's nomination, but in this day and age it seems Republicans were willing to overlook how much of a piece of shit Kavanaugh was just to stick it to the libs..
One HUGE difference between the private school I went to and the one BK went to? Mine wasn't religious. If I had been a Senator I think I just would have asked BK 3 questions:
1: (I deleted this question because it wasn't really appropriate)
2: Do you really think we don't know what that word really means?.
3: (and I deleted the first part of this question too because it also was inappropriate, but I'm leaving the last bit). WTF is wrong with you?
Okay, maybe it's not actually fair to bring up a Supreme Court nominee's homosexual tendencies when considering him for the court, but the fact that he lies should be enough to reject him. (But if Republicans thought he was having anal sex with the other boys in his high school they never would have considered him)
But Republicans LOVE liars. Trump has surrounded himself with them and before you say he didn't know they were liars when he hired them, I would point out he just made Elliot Abrams special envoy to Venezuela - a guy who was convicted in a court of law for lying to Congress about his DEEP STATE dealings in Central America.
Much like Kavanaugh, I like beer and while I'd like to be on the Supreme Court, to be honest I think there are much better candidates than me or Bart O'Kavanaugh.
* And one final word. I kind of expect to be modded flamebait, but before you do that, read the post I'm responding to.
** Yeah, I was the one who totally took that flamebait.
*** To be fair, I think it's at least theoretically possible for a drunk POS to make fair decisions on the Supreme Court. Theoretically, anyway.
Although it doesn't fix it completely, there's a bit of positive news about civil forfeiture:
Supreme Court Limits Police Powers to Seize Private Property
I think it's a myth that anyone can become "very rich" although by 3rd world standards even I could be considered "very rich". Granted, I started off being born to parents of at least above average wealth.
I recognize that I could have been richer if I had made different choices in life, but I once turned down 2 job offers that paid more money to take a job that I thought I would like more and I still think that was the right decision. But maybe that was a failure on my part for not negotiating harder.
Of course, it's not just that. I could have studied harder in school but there are only so many "very rich" slots available. If everyone becomes "very rich" because it's possible then being "very rich" becomes "middle class".
But in a way, the average American is very rich not only compared to many other (not all) people, but also compared to our great grandparents....
To get "very rich" though sometimes doesn't require hard work or honesty at all. In fact, dishonesty seems to pay off quite nicely for some people. And hard work and honesty are no guarantee of becoming rich, let alone "very rich" compared to other Americans.
I'm much older than 19 and the only reason I don't play with Legos is I can't afford them.
Okay, I wrote that and then went and browsed their site for a few minutes and maybe that's unfair to say. I mean I sort of want that Saturn V rocket and $120 isn't really unreasonable for what you get. I'm actually having to restrain myself from making an impulse buy.
But if I start buying Legos that will be less money for my other hobbies sucking up my disposable income which are arguably just as childish.
I just found this video:
Adam Savage Builds the LEGO NASA Apollo Saturn V!
Okay, if I wait until tomorrow it won't be an impulse buy.
The fact that he was able too build those is very good evidence that he is indeed self-sufficient without them.
The fact that he uses them only occasionally is interesting. There's a balance of self-sufficiency and utility of these arms.
Have you ever been hit in the head with an aluminum baseball bat? Don't tell me aluminum isn't dangerous.
if only I had bought it when everyone (including me) believed it was a crazy, stupid idea.
I'm not bitter. Anyone could make a killing in numerous investments if they knew beforehand when they would reach their peak and when was the right time to buy and sell. HIndsight is 20/20.
And just to be clear, I still think it's a crazy,stupid idea.
too young to remember Street Fighter IV a decade ago, let alone Missile Command in the Reagan years.
I have to wonder how old the author is. I'm too old to remember Street Fighter IV, but I do remember Missile Command. I like to think I grew up in the golden age of arcade games. My father liked pinball and used to take us out to the pinball parlor somewhere until the police busted it because people were dealing drugs there. My father wasn't into drugs and that was basically the last I got to play pinball except for the odd quarter I managed to beg off my parents here and there.
But then came the video games. By then I earned a whole dollar for a chore like washing the family car and that was 4 games of Asteroids or Space Invaders. I'm not sure when I last saw Space Invaders, but I think I remember being frustrated by it. WHY do I miss so often?
I prefer Galaga. I just bought a Galaga/Galaxian machine about a month ago ($299 + $49 for the base - that was sneaky of them. Oh sure, $299 sounds fair, but wait there's more. You HAVE to buy this stand for another $50. And you really do have to buy the base if you want it at a reasonable height.
One thing I really dig about Galaga is it tells you your hit percentage after you lose. You can take comfort in your 70% hit percentage even though you only lasted 15 waves or whatever. Conversely if you have a really bad game you can see how terrible your hit percentage is.
I've been tempted to try to put together a MAME cabinet for years, but I never did.
I have visions of filling my basement up with video games and maybe a few pinball machines as well, but would I really play them enough to be worth it? Probably not. I sort of wish the Galaga machine I bought had a coin slot just so I'd be able to keep track of how many times I've played it. So I spent $350 (plus tax). That's about 1400 quarters. Galaga was a good investment, but I think I have to draw the line somewhere.
I still might buy a Centipede, but I don't think I have room for Missile Command or Joust or Dragon's Lair. I could maybe see getting Phoenix or Spy Hunter though. And Pole Position and Stargate or at least Defender too.
Damn, I'm showing my age.
Amazing since I saw a few days ago on the PBS NewsHour that some jazz club went out of business in NYC. IIRC it opened in 1977 and paid $499 a month for its lease. When it closed, they were paying $30,000 a month.
It seems impossible that a place where people pump quarters into games that could last 10-15 minutes if they're decent could ever stay in business in that atmosphere.
I did look up the location of the 2nd PBS station...the one transmitter that I really wished I got better and pointed it as best as I could by just eyeballing the map and general direction.
And you're right, it's not in the city, it's on a reasonably tall mountain (3500 meters) a few miles outside of it. But most of the time I can't get it at all and when I do it's heavily pixelated.
According to Wikipedia:
It is the highest full-power television transmitting antenna in the United States
An attic antenna may be in my future.
I''m about 60 miles outside of the nearest big city where most of the transmitters are and picked up a $25 antenna at Walmart recently.
If it's just right I can get just about any channel, but not all at once and it's not easily adjusted at the end of a 25 foot cable snaking up a vaulted ceiling to the window. I'm really just happy to get PBS and a couple of other stations, but I can just almost get the 2nd PBS station and most of the others if the stars are aligned just right.
I'm reminded of Married With Children when they had to "assume Fox viewing positions" in order to watch Fox on their TV.
QVC and the religious stuff come in just fine of course.
. Expect to see "Office Toilet Paper Fee", ""CEO Wants A Yacht Fee", and "Electricity To Power Our Stores Fee."
But expect to see them disguised as "Environmental Fees", "Executive Transportation Subsidy" and "Energy Reclamation Fee" or something even more subtle.
(eg. embaraçada and embarazada are not the same thing).
But if I were to become pregnant I imagine it would be quite " tangled (messily intertwined), confusing or complicated" which is what some website tells me embaraçada means.
I've joked before that Portuguese just sounds like drunken Spanish.
Which IMO are the 2 most useless things to air on the news. I don't care about sports and I check the weather on the internet. I imagine anyone who does care about sports already has checked the scores and highlights of anything they care about. There are websites and even networks entirely devoted to weather and sports.
What's worse is when international networks carry news and weather. Every half hour there's a weather update letting me know it's 43C in Alice Springs, Australia or something. And then there's the sports updates. Cricket, football, basketball, tennis, etc...I don't care. Why the hell is a network in Doha reporting about the Baltimore Colts? I don't know, but they are...but first the weather "brought to you by Qatar Airlines." Why would an airline want to bring you the weather? Some of it's always bad. And I just remembered it's not the Baltimore Colts anymore...that's how long it's been since I cared about the NFL.
Is it just filler? But they hire people for these jobs...Well, I can think of one network that just shows weather maps with temperatures and music but presumably someone still has to produce it...or could it be automated?
And that's my middle-of-the-night rant. I woke up way too early today. It's a terrible thing.
C) Some college students make poor financial decisions especially when they have the munchies.
"One-in-a-million risks"? I don't think so. I've had my home broken into twice. The first time might have been with a sledgehammer, but probably didn't require such a large device. A friend of mine had his apartment broken into by a guy who broke into his neighbor's apartment and then proceeded to take a sledgehammer to go through the wall to break into his apartment.
And over the years, I've had guests who pilfered things from me. Just things that they thought I wouldn't notice were missing right away, but things that I did notice were missing and I'm pretty sure I knew who stole them too, but what could I do?
So it's far from a one in a million chance even if you want to blame me for being a poor judge of character for inviting those guests into my home.
But I live in a nicer neighborhood now and crime is not nearly as prevalent where those break-ins I mentioned happened. I'm not cowering in the corner at all. I'm not even sure if my backdoor is locked right now. But I am more careful about who I allow into my home because I have figuratve "Ming vases" all over the place.
Thanks for the link. That's an interesting looking neighborhood. Those are some narrow roads.
It's probably because it isn't really a home he can afford. If I had a mansion and needed a little extra money and my mother had an apartment down the street, why wouldn't I just give my mother one of my spare bedrooms and rent her apartment out to someone else?
Say what you will about living under the same roof as your parents when you're an adult, but at least if you're going to do that shouldn't you invite them to stay with you in your nicer house rather than renting out your house to some stranger and being a burden on your parents?
That's funny because even before I finished reading your post I was thinking you sounded like that old bum from A Clockwork Orange.
It's a stinking world because there's no law and order anymore! It's a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old, like you done. Oh, it's no world for an old man any longer. What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon, and men spinning around the earth, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law and order no more.