As I was driving home last week, I heard something interesting on NPR. I knew that people had been selling their MMORG characters on Ebay. They would spend a few sleepless nights getting their character up to a really high level and then sell the character on Ebay to the highest bidder. I’ve heard stories of people making thousands of dollars! But this story on NPR took the cake! People were buying in-game money with their own real money. Of course, as the point was made in the story, our money is no more eral than the money in the game, if people have faith in its redemption value. Apparently there are websites which peg the US dollar to the Everquest Gold Piece! But that’s not all!

Started playing Final Fantasy 8 once I finished up 7. I’ve played for about 3 hours and have already found the obligatory Wedge, Biggs, and Cid. In case you’ve never played the Final Fantasy Series, ever since 4 (I think - but definitely 6) there have always been some characters named Biggs, Wedge, and Cid. Cid is usually a mechanic or inventor or something scientific. In 8 he’s the headmaster of a training school for mercenaries. Biggs and Wedge (after who my brother names a lot of his online personas) are like the people who wear the red shirts in Star Trek, they show up for a little while and then are killed. They usually provide some comic relief, although it’s not a requirement.

Work begins later; Thank you white snow for falling. But why the ice too?

I was surprised that, by only raising the level of difficulty by one, the computer opponents in civ4 began to fight each other. In this instance, it was to my advantage because Washington of the Americans attacked Peter of the Russians, who I was planning to attack anyway. I think I will play my fourth game also at this difficulty level or I fear they may annihilate me. I’m not quite ready for that yet.

What does DSL mean to you? If you’re a technological person, it might mean Digital Subscriber Line, a way to access the internet. If you’re not a technological person….well, just ask my sister-in-law what it means to her. But to Linux users, DSL has even a third meaning, Damn Small Linux. What is Damn Small Linux? It is an entire Linux distrobution that fits on a 50 MB “business card” CD-ROM. It’s based on the Live CD technology devised by Klaus Knopper of Knoppix fame. He has created a phenomenon by perfecting the idea of having an operating system running entirely in the user’s RAM. This allows you to use Linux wherever you go, no matter what computers are available, and you won’t be touching the underlying system!

I finally beat Final Fantasy 7, it’s what has been occupying all of my time this weekend. I never had a Playstation until College, but I really loved Final Fantasy 6, so as soon as I could, I bought a Playstation. Later my brother-in-law got me a PS2 so that I could play FFX and X-2. I wanted to play the games in order, so I started 7, but then came my wedding, the move, and a bunch of other things. So it dragged out for months. Frankly, I don’t recommend doing that for Final Fantasy or any story-based game. What I usually love about Square RPGs is the bond you feel with the characters. But with so much time between playing, I barely could remember what was going on, much less bond with them. However, as there was still a lot to do in the part I’ve been playing for the past week, I was able to get back into the game.

Galaxy Song - Monty Python Whenever life get you down, Mrs. Brown, And things seem hard or tough. And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft, And you feel that you’ve had quite enu-hu-hu-huuuuff! Just - re-member that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour, It’s orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it’s reckoned, the sun that is the source of all our power. The Sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, are moving at a million miles a day, In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour, of the Galaxy we call the Milky Way. Our Galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars, it’s 100,000 light-years side-to-side, It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light-years thick, but out by us it’s just 3000 light-years wide. We’re 30,000 light-years from galactic central point, we go round every 200 million years, And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, in all of the directions it can whizz, As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know, twelve million miles a minute, and that’s the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure, how amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space, because there’s bugger all down here on Earth.

a post will be posted shortly….

I was watching ABC Family a few nights ago when I discovered that Who’s Line is It Anyway? was on right before I went to bed. Right after the second episode of Who’s Line, ABC family became CBN. I am not sure, but I think that stands for the Christian Broadcasting Network. I guess that meaning for the acronym because the show that appeared on my Tv was some 700 Club news program Co-hosted by Pat Robinson. We all know that Pat gives quite a bad name to televangelists everywhere, as if it were possible to give them a worse reputation. He calls for absurd things like taking down Hugo Chavez from power. But they were talking that night about myths involving the War in Iraq and I was intrigued to see what they would say. Some fellow was on who had written a book on the subject and basically made a bunch of claims contrary to what we’ve been hearing in the news. He claims we haven’t been hearing about it because of an agenda that news organizations have to discredit Bush.

Do you think you know your keyboard? Then read Techn0manc3r’s “Tour of Your Keyboard” post. He covers in depth the meaning behind many keys. Like wtf is Scroll Lock for? Why are there other keys you almost never use like “Pause/Break”? He does an excellent job presenting the keyboard and even veteran computer users will learn a thing or two. Also, it’ll make up for my lack of a good post today.