Eclective Time

I know I've been horribly absent in blogging as of late, but, this is part of the reason.

My band, "Eclective" is performing this evening (Friday, November 19th) at Prime Time Sports Bar in Burnsville, MN. We will start playing around 11:30 and close out the night. There are also two acts before us that are fantastic - check it all out on our Facebook page!

Hometown Animal Shelter

Have been lax on the blogging with everything going on, but had to share this one. I recently reconnected with my 6th grade teacher on Facebook (she was one of my favorite teachers growing up) and found out she is heading up an animal shelter/care group, "Happy Paws". It was great to be able to make a donation to an animal shelter in my hometown.

http://plattsmouthanimalshelter.com/

And in related news, we'll be getting a third cat sometime soon (hopefully very soon!) - she was found with a broken leg and has had a fairly long road to recovery and had to have one of her front legs amputated. She is fine now (runs around just like any cat) but we're waiting on the last traces of ringworm to disappear before we bring her home (our cats had ringworm when we got them and we don't want to repeat that one).

Rethinks on the keyboard

Neat stuff for mobile devices...I can see myself using this, my fat fingers are prone to error on autocorrect.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/11/01/1515236/8pen-Reinvents-the-Keyboard-For-Mobile-Devices?from=rss

It Gets Better campaign - Google

I already like Google from a technology standpoint, but this is very commendable from a humanity standpoint...

It Gets Better campaign

This has been a fantastic story to see unfolding (and I love the power of the internet).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101015/pl_yblog_upshot/surprising-new-it-gets-better-videos

(the "It Gets Better" campaign was started by columnist Dan Savage in response to the recent rash of gay teen suicides - article here)

I was fairly lucky that I never got harassed or beaten up or anything like that in school, I guess I was big enough and did enough "non-gay" stuff to get by. I don't know what my home town high school is like in 2010, but I'm sure in 1990 I would not have been able to have been openly gay in high school without being beaten up (or worse).

No kid should have to go through this, regardless of what anyone's personal beliefs on the subject are, and it's the responsibility of ALL adults, parents, teachers, leaders, etc. to make sure that a kid never gets to the point of feeling like they have to take their own life.

This is why sci-fi is fun...

Thanks to friend Ryan for this one:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/yesterdays-enterprisethe-offspring,45195/

"Yesterday's Enterprise" was by far my favorite Star Trek:The Next Generation episode, mostly because it was just good, but also that it was a single, "non-epic" episode that still affected and connected entire series story arcs. This is one of those that really makes you think about the significance of a single decision or event, and how it can affect so much of the future. Good stuff....

Video Game memories...

A few fun video game nostalgia links....

First, to make all of you 80s kids feel old, Happy 25th Birthday Mario!

Second, also probably for the 80s kids, The Greatest 100 NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) games of all time. Even before reading it, I guessed (correctly) Super Mario Bros 3 was #1....but this has sparked a lively debate between myself and some other friends. It all depends on what you define as "greatest" - largely it's probably a subjective and personal choice, but you might factor in things like how many were sold, how much of an "impact" a game had, how many hours you spent playing it, if it's still being played, etc. If I had to choose #1's in categories for myself....

Favorite NES game overall - Super Mario Bros 3

NES game I spent the most hours playing -Tecmo Super Bowl (by far, an insane amount probably)

NES game I was most "intrigued" by - The Legend of Zelda

The ones I still play today - Super Mario Bros [1], The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II

NES game that I thought had the most "impact" on video games - Super Mario Bros [1] - without that game, Nintendo probably never would have existed, it was HUGE leap forward in video games (from single-screen, never-ending games to scrolling games with a "goal") and has spawned off the most succesful game series in history.

So...there you have it. The debate rolls on. Just remember, if you're still playing NES games, up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-start

:)