photo from Vancouver, Wa

We had a great time playing in Vancouver. Took this with iphone fron the back area of Westside Welding and Machine. Messed with it in gimp to give it the streaky look. I'm sick so keeping this brief will treport more later.

photos from Chapel show last Friday

Facebook games

So a few months back I decided to join Facebook. Much like my first foray into Myspace, I didn't really know much about the site. I knew it was a social networking site and it was started at Harvard for use by the Ivy league schools, which then expanded to college students and now seems to be taking over the whole world. Other than that I was not hip to its uses. But after a few notices from friends who had joined, I thought I would check it out.

At first I reconnected with some friends from high school, which was OK as I have never gone to any reunions, so it filled that void of curiosity, but after a week or so I had read every ones profiles, checked out recent photos and conversed with those that wanted to hear from me. Then I was bored.

What to do now.

I started to play the application games available. The first was poker which I could play on my phone as well as on any computer against real people all over the world. I didn't have to pay for chips, so it was a good way to pass the time in line at the store or on my lunch break or whenever. Then I tried Scramble and Word Twist. They pit you against your friends in a spelling war. Fun, but very frustrating if you aren't a good speller.

After that someone invited me to Mafia Wars. Now there are quite a few games on Facebook like Mafia Wars and they all function in a similar pyramid set up. You have to convince your friends to join you in playing the game to become a more powerful player. At first it is kind of fun, buying guns, buildings and vehicles. You fight against other players and win money and loot. But soon, like real life, the game get boring. I can only make a billion dollars and buy another 5 Mega Casinos so many times. In a game you can't die in that takes no skill, it is only a matter of time before it gets stale.

Poker has some interesting aspects to it as well. Players can give gifts and chips to other players. I don't really grasp the need for virtual drinks, cigars and joints/bongs. Why would I want someone to by me a virtual shot of tequila? Will I get virtually high/drunk and lose all my virtual chips like I would in real life? Players have also become virtual beggars. On more than one occasion I have had people ask the players at the table I was at to give them some chips and some people have obliged. Mind you these aren't people they know, they are asking for money from strangers, and getting it. Virtual panhandlers on the digital range.

I still play the poker game, but not very much. The other games not so often.

phase3 in Vancouver, Wa March 28th 11pm

Odd stuff on MSN Home Page

So MSN has started posting what it refers to as A-List Searches on the bottom of the MSN home page. Today the main search is "Sexting". If you click through to the follow up page, which is really just a Live Search of that topic, in addition to the news articles there are descriptions of acronyms used in texting. Check some of these out.

POS or PoS : According to Wikipedia stands for Parent over Shoulder, Poly cystic ovary syndrome or Point of Sale. I always thought it stood for Piece of Shit, but I'm out of the loop. I don't know why kids would need to text that, if a parent can read the tiny screen they are texting on then those kids have much more to worry about then them being over their shoulder because their parents are superheros.

DDML : Drunk Dial Me Later, self explanatory. Anyone who invites this behavior deserves what they get. if you catch your kids texting this, tell them friends don't let friends use the phone drunk, unless they are recording it.

TDTM : Talk Dirty To Me, self explanatory. If you need to refer to a Poison song as your digital courting ritual, I'm sorry that's just sad.

FOL : Fond Of Leather, self explanatory. Now its getting real fun this reminds me of when I was in high school and I saw the movie, "Cruising" with Al Pacino.

143 : I Love You, Urban Dictionary defines 143 as I love you. I think it is from a song. I haven't heard the song, so I haven't decyphered the code yet.

So look out if you see your kids texting and you can read the little screen on their phone watch out for these acronyms. Or don't worry about it because MSN just wants you to use Live Search over Google and scaring parents by putting POS right before DDML, TDTM, and r u FOL really makes me LOL.

Later......

Movies help me think

So when I got this morning before making breakfast for my honey I was watching "That Thing You Do!" and one of the scenes reminded me my old band Hell Upside Down . The scene when the band gets their first record. I remember when we made our first single. We all sat in our singer's living room with boxes of singles and the covers folding and stuffing them together. The feeling of satisfaction, of creating something real. Then later hearing the song on the radio, at work in the kitchen of a bagel restaurant on a beat up radio covered in flour dust. It doesn't get better than that, or maybe it does....

fragments

Watchmen

I was very pleased with the Watchmen movie. My wife who reads almost no comics liked it as well. I thought the content that they couldn't fit in to the almost 3 hour movie, wasn't needed. The changed ending was still good. It was a good movie, go see it on Imax if you can.

Sorry

For the lack of posting. I will try to write more.

Phase3 at the Chapel