Dimensioneer

What a cool post to see. I would've never believed it possible.

Nanny-nanny-boo-boo! I'm posting even though B6 locked my topic! Ha-ha!

Yeah, that dude would probably never bother to come on the site and read any kind birthday wishes. You're likely just wasting your time.

Ha! I never went anywhere.

I came across this flyer for a local band today and something caught my eye. The guitarist on the left bore more than a passing resemblance to our own Binkmeister, and then I spotted the name label (I swear, this is an un-doctored scan)..... Yep, apparently Binky, though he lives in the midwest, is in a small Florida band doing gigs that must promote themselves through spam faxes to our office!

Being the old man that I am (born in 1969 -- you do the math), I burned through many, many, many rolls of quarters in my mall's Barrel of Fun arcade in the early 80's and have owned my fair share of home computers (way back when they weren't common appliances and only had 8 bits) and a good number of gaming consoles. For the record, my gaming lineage goes something like this: Sears Pong/TennisSears Telegames (aka Atari 2600)Genuine Atari 2600Atari 400 ComputerAtari 800 ComputerAtari 800XL ComputerAtari 130XE ComputerAtari Lynx HandheldAmiga 500Super NintendoNintendo 64First IBM Compatible PC (200Mhz circa 1995)Nintendo GamecubePlaystation 2Sony PSPXBox 360 You'll note a few glaring omissions: No NES, no Commodore 64, and no XBox. Never wanted one, never needed one, and never missed having one. But I have become a Microsoft fanboy over the latest generation of XBox; the XBox 360. In my opinion, they've simply done so very many things right, I just couldn't resist getting on their bandwagon. The first things that grabbed me months before the platform was ever released were the set of baseline requirements for all titles: must be HD (my TV is), must be widescreen (my TV is), must have surround (my system does), must be online-aware. My interest was sparked right away. And then the more I learned about the XBox Live Arcade (cheap downloadable games with relatively simplistic graphics but with great gameplay harkening back to the days of the classic arcade games), the whole integrated online experience (I love getting gamerscore points for game achievements) that make everything you do a cohesive experience, and the media expander capabilities (I play games while streaming music from my PC elsewhere in the house on the same wireless network), the more sure I was that this was a box I had to own. I didn't get one on launch day, but within a few weeks I finally scored mine and have never regretted plunking down the green. It's good stuff, even for an old man like me. If you're on XBox Live, go ahead & look me up:

Since Bink is so often the default target of adoration, I'm going to stand up, beat on my chest, and proclaim that "I did it!" this time. (Although, I suppose I did it because of Binky's suggestion... Sheesh, even in victory I'm lame. :angry: ) Can I still be genius anyhow?

Vader, you are so, so right; and on so many levels. I remember my first summer home from college and how hollow it seemed. My hometown used to be my personal stomping ground & arena for fun, but somehow it had grayed & lost its luster in the months I'd been away. (Not to mention that my first summer home from college was the summer I lost my dad in an automobile accident.) (To follow up on that last sentence: You never would have convinced me on that fateful day that some fifteen years later that event would ever be relegated as a parenthetical comment to a larger idea, but there it is.) But I experienced the same phenomenon. Friends who were even still in town and hadn't already moved on were hard to get ahold of. The bright ones went to college like me and many didn't come home for the summer, and the dim ones had skipped college and had gotten jobs at the local hardware store or restaurants and just weren't available for hang-out time. What happened to my youth? But I can offer this ray of hope, Vader. I learned some years later, that those friends were just passing acquaintances. The true friends (of which I have a precious collection) don't require constant maintenance or care to flourish. Even though life and time seem be driving a wedge between you and your childhood playmates, when the smoke clears there will be a select few figures still standing. Those friends, you'll find, can be apart from you for years on end, and when there is time, you'll meet up and pick up right where you left off as if no time had passed. For me, those are the friendships I cherish most. In fact, I think I might take a minute and call some of those guys this afternoon. I guess what I'm saying, Vader, is your fear isn't without tangible merit, but that trip to college will be a cleansing for your social life. People it washes away were flotsam, and those who remain you can be assured were your truest friends. You can go ahead and put their names in your address book in ink, not pencil.

Me too, Binky. I've been browsing the General Discussion forum but haven't seen a blip yet. But our members are pretty sharp, and I'm guessing they'll spot it before it's officially announced.

I've had my own rarely-used and even more rarely-read blog for quite some time over at CONTRADICTION.INFO, and despite its only occasional use, I'm still a firm believer in the value of a blog. I've always felt like the most interesting thing on the internet is the people who populate it and what makes them tick. Before the days of blogging, a personal homepage consisted of photos of your cat, your preferred football team logo and some animated GIFs of your then-favorite TV show (long-since cancelled but the page some how never got updated). But blogs have become something of a public diary -- a glimpse into the daily routine thoughts, hopes & fears of a collective populace. It's held up a mirror (granted, often a self-aggrandizing & somewhat skewed mirror) to the very humanity of the internet's inhabitants. And I think that's cool. So it's in that spirit that I post this, the very first post on the very first BZPower hosted community blog. This will be an option available to all Premier Members of BZPower as an additional "thank you" for their continuted support of this little corner of the 'net. We've always thought it was a special place, and from the feedback we get, I don't think we're alone in that sentiment. Enjoy!