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2015 in Books
This year I took ebooks and comics with me when visiting the in-laws and took advantage of having books on my phone to read in idle moments when listening to podcasts wouldn’t make sense – say I needed to be able to hear my name being called. So I was able to read 86 books…
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2015 Video Games Report and Game of the Year
2015 turned out to be an incredible year for videos games for me. That’s a good thing because I was playing for the Extra Life charity to raise money for Johns Hopkins. I’d heard about it when the Giant Bomb guys spoke about it, but this year I had a reason – Johns Hopkins had…
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Review: This is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death
This is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death by Ryan North My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book was more than just more stories in the Machine of Death world. It was also the Machine of Death in fantasy worlds and science fiction worlds and all kinds of…
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GOG vs Valve: Why competition is good
I still love the innovation coming out of Valve (like their VR and controller work), but today I listened to the Beastcast Episode 2 and saw that Steam is implementing game refunds. This is something GOG has offered for quite some time now. It appears that GOG is starting to eat Valve’s lunch as it’s…
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GOG Galaxy: A Good First Start
Yesterday I put in for the GOG Galaxy Beta and today I got my invite. I couldn’t wait to get home to see it in action. I did not bury the lead, it was exactly as I state in the title, A Good First Start. The settings are so minimal at this point that it…
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Why I think GOG Galaxy is a Good Thing
If I mentioned it on this site, I wasn’t able to find it in a search because of the generic word, but I was very annoyed and pretty upset about EA’s Origin store and platform. Part of what I enjoy so much about playing PC games is that the only limitations on what you can…
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Review: Gamers
Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter My rating: 3 of 5 stars For some reason, I’ve found myself reading a lot of YA fiction over the last couple years. On the negative side, it appears that Dystopias are the genre du jour. Nothing wrong with them, and I think something about them speaks to teens. When…
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February Video Games
Civilization V (30 minutes) – We got a few turns in our multiplayer games, but other important things (like planning weddings, perhaps) have kept my brothers from sending me new turns. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ (38 minutes) – I got it as part of a Humble Bundle because eventually my PS3 will die or be…
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Fedora Unleashed: My 2003 Gateway into Linux
I was happy to be interviewed for Fedora Magazine about How [I] Fedora and I mentioned that there was a Fedora book that led me to pick Fedora. (I also mentioned that on this blog here) Recently I’ve been cleaning up my bookshelves as I have run out of space for physical books. While I’ve…
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Is All About that Bass a net positive message?
This isn’t the first time I mention this song on here. But I’ve been thinking about the lyrics a lot recently as it continues to play on the radio at the gym. A conversation on twitter yesterday with @AprilTara spurred me to put my thoughts on the blog. At first blush, the lyrics seem to…
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2014 Video Games Report and Game of the Year
This year I did not play as many new games as in previous years. I was deep in my graduate degree and most of my free time was during work travel. Since I don’t have a powerful laptop (and Steam on Linux was just taking off early on this year anyway), most of that time…
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December 2014 Video Games
Poker Night 2 (2 hrs) – Played with Danielle thanks to Steam in-house streaming. Also played alone to unlock some more skins. Xenogears (1 hr) – After having wanted to play this for around 15 years, finally started. So far my best friend is getting married, I was raised by the Elder, and people fight…
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2014 in Books
I only have a bit of free time each day – usually no more than about two hours when you add it all up. So whichever of my hobbies tends to catch fire is the one that gets the majority of the attention. 2013 was a pretty good year for video games, but in 2014…
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Free Spotify Complicates Things
Technology continues to complicate the media landscape. The other day I learned on the Fedora Planet how to send Pulse Audio over the net – allowing one computer to listen to music (or other audio) from another. But, in the context of music, who cares? I have all my music on Google Music. I can…
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November Video Game Report
Civilization V (1 hr) – Dan, Dave, and I didn’t play too much because life got in the way and then the GMR servers went offline. We hope to play some more in the following month. Poker Night 2 (30 minutes) – Testing out Steam’s internal streaming from Windows to Linux.