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Gaming Episode III: Han Shot First
Summer 1977, I’m five years old and my Dad takes me to the theater for the single most significant event in cinematic history… Star Wars. There just are not enough words to express the impact that movie had on a young boy in the late 70′s. It was like nothing we had ever seen before. We had Lost in Space, Space 1999, Star trek, things like that, but Star Wars was on a completely different level. It was action and adventure, lasers and space ships and the ultimate weapon… the lightsaber. I watched the movies, bought the merchandise, got into lengthy arguments about why Star Wars is better than Star…
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Gaming Part II: The PC Years
Enter my first PC. A generic clone PC running a 386DX-40. It was a monster (to me at the time), that could do anything from running Windows 3.1 to connecting to the Internet to Wolfenstein 3D. Wolfenstein was a game-changer, it revolutionized PC gaming in so many ways. Graphics, gameplay design, even the ability to modify the game and share your own levels with others. It ushered in the age of the First Person Shooter, a genre which has dominated the gaming landscape ever since. Battlefield, Call of Duty, the list goes on, they all owe their existence to Wolfenstein. And I played it, I played it a lot… but…
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Gaming
Okay, so I guess I could be called a recreational gamer. I like playing video games, I’m not good at it, but I like it none the less. I guess it all started back in the late 70′s. Like many other GenX’ers, I started out with Pong. It wasn’t really a great game, but it was the game. Pong opened the door to other video games to follow, it was my gateway-drug. Next came the ubiquitous Atari 2600 (which actually had Pong as well) and the plethora of games for it, all full of beeps and boops and bright colors. In hindsight, they really were not that good. Sure, Pole…
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Smart Cars
Okay, so I’m driving to work one morning, and traffic is moving at maybe 20 to 40 miles per hour, accordion fashion. There was this lady behind me in a Lincoln LE that I was half watching in the rear view mirror. She kept swerving back and forth from the left lane (behind me) to the right lane without signaling, presumably choosing whichever lane appeared to be moving fractionally faster at any given moment. I tend to leave a reasonable amount of space between myself and the car in front of me (at those speeds, 2 maybe 3 car lengths) to allow for stopping distance, especially given the number of…
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The Top 10 Best Albums of All-Time
I’ve been reading through some lists lately and while I can recognize the artistic contributions of the albums that tend to top the “Best of All-Time” lists, they typically are not representative of the ones that I would choose. So with that said, here is my own list of “The Top Ten Best Albums of All-Time”. Fleetwood Mac – Rumors The seminal Fleetwood Mac album. Their 11th studio album and recorded during a period when the band was basically imploding due to their failed relationships with each other. It contained such instant and timeless classics as Second Hand News, Dreams, Don’t Stop, Go Your Own Way, Songbird, The Chain…
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Must-See Christmas Movies
It’s that time of year again, it’s getting dark earlier and what can we do with all these extra-long evenings? Watch Christmas movies of course! But with the plethora of holiday cinema to choose from, how do we decide which films are worth our limited viewing time? To aid in this decision, I have composed the following list of Christmas movies that should have a little something for everybody. We start with the classics, you shouldn’t have any problems finding several of these airing on any given night in the week or two leading up to Christmas Day. It’s a Wonderful Life – Possibly the most beloved and acclaimed…
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Most Badass Action Movies Ever
Okay, just finished watching The Replacement Killers and was trying to decide if it is in fact one of the best action movies ever made. It is. Off the top of my head, I’ve compiled a semi-short list of what I consider to be some of the most badass action movies of all time. Some may be lacking in certain areas like budget, plot, acting, etc. But hey, they’re about the action, the rest is mostly optional. Dr. No – 1962 James Bond’s investigation of a missing colleague in Jamaica leads him to the island of the mysterious Dr. No and a scheme to end the US space program. What…
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Greatest Films of All-time
So we’re sitting around the office the other day discussing films we like and since I could not agree with somebody else’s assertion that Ghostbusters is the best movie of all time, I figured I’d make my own list. Of course The Godfather Saga as a whole is going to be number 1, the rest are in no particular order. The Godfather Trilogy Star Wars (Original Trilogy) In the Heat of the Night On the Waterfront Yojimbo (The Bodyguard) The Good, The Bad and the Ugly 2001: A Space Odessey Goodfellas Unforgiven M*A*S*H Akira Blade Runner Chinatown Jaws Raiders of the Lost Ark A Clockwork Orange The Dark Knight 12…
