Category: Culture & Entertainment

  • August 2012 Games Report

    Team Fortress 2 (5 hrs) – a lot of this time was spent testing out my new private server which I described setting up in this post. Civilization V (1 hr) – played a little bit in the game I’m documenting at onemoreturn.ericsbinaryworld.com .  Been too busy to play much more than that. Saints Row:…

  • The Easiest Server Setups: ownCloud, Team Fortress 2, and Piwigo

    I first heard about virtual machines about six to seven years ago.  I couldn’t see a point in wanting to run another computer inside your computer.  A few years ago I used VMs to test and blog about Linux distros.  In the past year I’ve used it to preview new features in Fedora while the…

  • July 2012 Games Report

    The Walking Dead  (7 hrs) – I had no reason to play this game.  I like point and click adventure games, but I don’t read The Walking Dead or watch the TV show.  I don’t really care much for zombie games although I’m not opposed to them.  But the same was on sale during the…

  • Last.fm Listening Habits 2012 Q2

    I started off this quarter using a smart playlist that only played songs I hadn’t heard in the last quarter in an attempt to listen to even more great music, but Amarok lost my library which clears out the last played field and so I ended up with lots of repeats again.  Oh well!  It’s…

  • June 2012 Video Game Report

    Civ V (11 Hrs) – talk of the expansion pack made me want to play some more Civ.  I played a scenario and then I played a regular game.  I had a blast and I can’t wait to buy the expansion pack. Peggle Deluxe (5 hrs) – Worked on some of the challenge puzzles Team…

  • May Video Games

    Just one game while waiting to feed my daughter Portal 2  (1 hour) – Just played some commentary levels.  It was fun, but the inability to save in that mode kept me from doing it more

  • April Video Games

    Got a little bit of time to play games while waiting to do midnight feeds.  I’ve already spoken about these games a bunch of times, so it’s going to be a short post. Civilization V (2 hrs) Team Fortress 2 (2 hrs) Cities XL (1 hr) – fun, but I can’t wait for Sim City…

  • Last.fm Listening Habits 2012 Q1

    This quarter my listens were a bit lower than they would otherwise have been because a lot of time I would have spent in front of the computer was spent with my new daughter. But, as she grew and now spends time in her “baby gym”, I sometimes put on music for her both so…

  • February Video Games Report

    Mass Effect 2 (19 hrs) – I knew my wife was getting close to delivering our first child, so I was rushing as quickly as I could to save the galaxy.  I got to it with one week to spare.  Phew!  I didn’t enjoy the story as much as Mass Effect 1, but the gameplay…

  • How Best to Rip and Manage Your Own (legally purchased) DVDs to create your own Netflix Instant

    I had two reasons for starting this project: 1) my wife and I like to collect Disney movies from our youth.  These movies are most likely to be watched by kids and kids are likely to damage DVDs.  I’ve heard lots of anecdotes on the net from parents who are on their fourth purchase of…

  • Jan 2012 Video Games

    There aren’t any new games on here, so I’m only going to mention some quick comments on each. Plants vs Zombies (29  hrs) – threw a bunch of hours into this game because I just had a handful of achievements left and for some reason I wanted to finish it off.  2 or 3 to…

  • Review: Bastion

    While I’m not some video game hipster that doesn’t enjoy the Triple-A games, I have found myself increasingly having my most compelling game experiences on games created by indie or small studios. I think this is because indie studios are no different from starups, indie bands, and indie film makers in their willingness and ability…

  • 2011 in Video Games (and my 2011 Game of the Year)

    Civilization V (75 hrs) – What can I say about this game that I haven’t said already?  This is the series that made “One More More Turn…” famous and it still works today.  If I were to start a game tonight, I would not go to bed at a reasonable time. Team Fortress 2 (70…

  • Last.fm My Top Artists for 2011

    So here’s my top listened artists for 2011.  Some of these entries are a surprise and others are expected.  I can’t wait to see how many of these artists are on this list next year.  Well, let’s take a look. 1. The Beatles (492) – No surprises here; the ancestors of nearly all pop and…

  • Dec 2011 Video Games

    With school over I had plenty of time to get back into video games last month.  I had a blast! Team Fortress 2 (6 hrs) – Got back into this game because my brother-in-law wanted to play it.  I’d forgotten how awesomely fun it is to play this game! Plants vs Zombies (5 hrs) –…