Jay McGavren’s Journal

Lenny’s playing Zelda - The Minish cap on an emulator window in the background as I type this… Not that he knows what he’s doing, but he advances through the conversation dialogs like a pro. :)

Haven’t played that far, but the graphics are ultra-slick. This might be a rival to Link to the Past…

Who the hell taught Lenny the word “why”? He now uses that one word for whole conversations.

Last night the winning bidder for one of my eBay auctions who happens to live in the area came to pick up and pay for his Super Nintendo game. This one was for the Starfox Super Weekend cartridge (a special three-level version of the game Nintendo made for a competition back in ‘93 or ‘94). The price - a cool $220, paid in cash. I think I originally paid $20 for this thing. That’s not all; Earthbound and Mega Man X2 each brought in about $50, and I raked in almost $400 in all. Not a bad haul.

Looks like a friend of Diana’s can keep him for the 6 months until our lease is up, at which point we’re out of here like a rocket.

Just got informed today that we have until next Friday to get rid of the dog (the $1,000 dog) or be evicted. Apparently our senile neighbors have been complaining to the housing association about his barking (which we’ve kept to a more-than-reasonable level), and the landlord got fined. I thought all he could do for an unauthorized pet was refuse to return our deposit, but evidently that’s not the case.

As much as he annoys me, I’m really going to miss Max if we have to give him away. And I have no doubts about his attachment to us. I hope he’ll be all right…

Strap on your VR goggles (and inertial sensors and GPS tracker), kids! It’s time to play Pac-Man!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/16/explorers.pacman/

While this particular application is pretty dorky, I like the whole “enhanced-reality” approach these folks have taken. The dots are merely overlays on visuals of the real world. This proof of concept is cumbersome at best, but when all this technology gets integrated into our cell phones, games like this might actually go mainstream. And there are real-world applications (like giving directions to an address), as well. (Directional beacons, here I come!)

On my way back from picking up lunch, I saw a guy going down the street with a cell phone cradled on his shoulder… That wouldn’t be so bad, except that he was riding a motorcycle.

Heh, just turned babble.pl loose on a transcript of the State of the Union speech… Here are some excerpts…

Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished citizens and fellow citizens, every year, by law and by the will of free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, who know that freedom is not an option.
–
And this year, for the first time, we are beginning to go through endless lawsuits or command-and-control regulations, but through technology and innovation.
–
I thank the Congress and the American people must act before the State of the Union.
–
In Afghanistan, we helped to liberate an oppressed people, and we should do it now.
–
The North Korean regime will find respect in the world and idealism and faith of the American people.
–
The American system of medicine is a model of skill and innovation, with a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out friendship, ambition, moral conviction, and reduces all the richness of violence in the affairs of men; free people will set the course of history.
–
We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We will work for a prosperity that is broadly shared, and a focus on essential priorities will be crucial to the future of Social Security. As we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror.
–
I thank the Congress for supporting these measures. I ask you tonight to ourselves.

Thank you.

I just posted a bunch of eBay auctions in an effort to boost my feedback rating before I make a big sale… I went through completed auctions to determine which drew the most bids, and wound up determining that it was important to use lots of bold, underlines, and really BIG text with a smattering of ALL CAPS and obnoxious colors. I didn’t go so far as to use the BLINK tag, but maybe I should’ve. :P

How is it I failed to notice that Mozilla Thunderbird can read RSS feeds and handle them almost identically to e-mail?

Items in each feed are stored in a separate folder, and like e-mail, the number of new items in each folder are displayed after they’re retrieved. You can delete posts once you read them, and they’ll be stored in a trash bin. You can also forward them just as easily as a regular e-mail. (You all thought I was spamming you with random articles before? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! :)