The ortho said it was a non-articulated fracture of the radial head. I have a hairline fracture of the elbow-end of my radius. He left me in the splint with instructions to take it off at least twice a day and do range of motion exercises with my elbow and wrist.
It's doing pretty well so far. I did go in yesterday to have my wrist double-checked because it hurt really bad on Friday. No damage there but the swelling and inflammation are putting pressure on the wrist causing the pain.
Sleeping has certainly been a challenge but the worst has to be typing. I type a LOT for my job and doing it with only one hand is inefficient and tedious. Plus, I have to look at the keyboard and that doesn't do my neck any good. Mousing with my left hand is a little shaky and inaccurate but it's relatively easy.
800mg Motrin tablets help with the pain but they've started upsetting my stomach so I've had to cut back on those. I'm avoiding the Lortabs unless I REALLY need them.
The big bummer is that MS had a free XBox Gold weekend this weekend and I wasn't able to participate. :(
that's enough typing for now.
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Rule Of Acquisition Number 168,894*: Garage Sales Are Good
On almost any Saturday morning you can usually find me cruising by at least one or two garage sales. Hey, I gotta do something since they got rid of Saturday morning cartoons.
I tend to find the sales I want to check out by using iGarageSale or Garage Sale Rover on my iPhone. Both of these apps parse the Craigslist database and display pins on a map representing the sales near your current location. You can tap the pins and view the listing details.
Today, I found two. A garden variety garage sale and a pawn shop that was selling everything except guns and ammunition at 50% off Friday and Saturday to make room for a U-Haul center. I thought it was rather clever of them to advertise in the garage sale section of Craigslist.
After enjoying our traditional Saturday morning breakfast at Hardee's/Carl's Jr. we popped in at the first garage sale. Not much there, really, but I managed to snag a copy of the original Halo for the XBox. We gassed up my car then stopped by the pawn shop. Given their location, lack of inventory and minimal variety, it's no surprise they need to bring in another business type to stay afloat. We learned they will also be selling scooters and ATVs as well as used cars. They have the lot space for all of that but can you say, "all in?"
Anyway, the pawn shop sells DVDs for $2 each, making them $1 each on sale and I picked up The Man With One Red Shoe and 300. Not on the top of my must-have list but worth a buck to have them in my collection. I also spotted a copy of Left 4 Dead for the XBox 360. While I was meandering about looking at other things I didn't need or already owned, the wife asked me, "Did you see this?"
She handed me a white box. It was The Star Trek Original Motion Picture collection. It has the first 6 movies plus a bonus disk. It was still in its original shrink wrap with an $89.96 Wal-Mart sticker on it and a $60 pawn shop sticker on it. Today, it would be $30. Now, I've never been a big fan of the odd-numbered films so I took a look at the spines to remind me of the titles. They're in thin cases so I start squinting at The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for... "Ooh! These are Blu-Rays! I want." So, that's another one of my Christmas presents I already know about.
The wife had mentioned during our morning planning session that she wanted to go to Tulsa to return some items to K-Mart and redeem her "Turkey Bucks," which garnered us an $11 coupon for a Butterball turkey. I had a small pile of items I had decluttered from my office, including an inkjet printer, a stereo received and a 6-disc CD changer I haven't used in six years, and decided it would be a good time to take them over to Goodwill. Finally, we wanted to swing by a Kohls to look at a waffle maker they had on sale - she's been into waffles lately for some reason.
We made the trek to Tulsa and got everything squared away at K-Mart and dropped off our items at Goodwill. As is our habit, we popped in to see if there were any goodies worth taking back with us. The wife picked up a blouse and I walked out with a Sister Hazel CD and the Barenaked Ladies greatest hits disc one.
The big score of the day, however, was at Kohls. Many years ago my wife gave me a nice leather wallet as a gift. It is a tri-fold wallet with an extra pocket in the back of the middle section of the cash area. Over the years I have found this space invaluable for storing FSA cards, corporate credit cards and other items I don't want to accidentally utilize.
About a year ago we noticed the wallet was starting to look a little past its prime. The black dye had faded from the corners-in so that the wallet now looks to be black with green highlights. I started looking for a replacement, even from the same company, but never found one that had anything like that extra convenience of that separate pocket.
It being (almost) holiday season, Kohls had their wallets prominently displayed. I started looking at them and, as usual, was getting disappointed with what I was finding. Around the back side of the display there were wallets from the company who made my wonderful extra-pocketed model. Wouldn't you know it, the very first one I picked up was exactly like the one I carry - extra pocket and all. Joy filled my heart and I was more than willing to pay the $20 to obtain this gem. I looked around a bit more and found one in a deep brown that eventually made it home with me.
Add another good Saturday to the list.
*Can anyone tell me where my Rule of Acquisition number comes from?
I tend to find the sales I want to check out by using iGarageSale or Garage Sale Rover on my iPhone. Both of these apps parse the Craigslist database and display pins on a map representing the sales near your current location. You can tap the pins and view the listing details.
Today, I found two. A garden variety garage sale and a pawn shop that was selling everything except guns and ammunition at 50% off Friday and Saturday to make room for a U-Haul center. I thought it was rather clever of them to advertise in the garage sale section of Craigslist.
After enjoying our traditional Saturday morning breakfast at Hardee's/Carl's Jr. we popped in at the first garage sale. Not much there, really, but I managed to snag a copy of the original Halo for the XBox. We gassed up my car then stopped by the pawn shop. Given their location, lack of inventory and minimal variety, it's no surprise they need to bring in another business type to stay afloat. We learned they will also be selling scooters and ATVs as well as used cars. They have the lot space for all of that but can you say, "all in?"
Anyway, the pawn shop sells DVDs for $2 each, making them $1 each on sale and I picked up The Man With One Red Shoe and 300. Not on the top of my must-have list but worth a buck to have them in my collection. I also spotted a copy of Left 4 Dead for the XBox 360. While I was meandering about looking at other things I didn't need or already owned, the wife asked me, "Did you see this?"
She handed me a white box. It was The Star Trek Original Motion Picture collection. It has the first 6 movies plus a bonus disk. It was still in its original shrink wrap with an $89.96 Wal-Mart sticker on it and a $60 pawn shop sticker on it. Today, it would be $30. Now, I've never been a big fan of the odd-numbered films so I took a look at the spines to remind me of the titles. They're in thin cases so I start squinting at The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for... "Ooh! These are Blu-Rays! I want." So, that's another one of my Christmas presents I already know about.
The wife had mentioned during our morning planning session that she wanted to go to Tulsa to return some items to K-Mart and redeem her "Turkey Bucks," which garnered us an $11 coupon for a Butterball turkey. I had a small pile of items I had decluttered from my office, including an inkjet printer, a stereo received and a 6-disc CD changer I haven't used in six years, and decided it would be a good time to take them over to Goodwill. Finally, we wanted to swing by a Kohls to look at a waffle maker they had on sale - she's been into waffles lately for some reason.
We made the trek to Tulsa and got everything squared away at K-Mart and dropped off our items at Goodwill. As is our habit, we popped in to see if there were any goodies worth taking back with us. The wife picked up a blouse and I walked out with a Sister Hazel CD and the Barenaked Ladies greatest hits disc one.
The big score of the day, however, was at Kohls. Many years ago my wife gave me a nice leather wallet as a gift. It is a tri-fold wallet with an extra pocket in the back of the middle section of the cash area. Over the years I have found this space invaluable for storing FSA cards, corporate credit cards and other items I don't want to accidentally utilize.
About a year ago we noticed the wallet was starting to look a little past its prime. The black dye had faded from the corners-in so that the wallet now looks to be black with green highlights. I started looking for a replacement, even from the same company, but never found one that had anything like that extra convenience of that separate pocket.
It being (almost) holiday season, Kohls had their wallets prominently displayed. I started looking at them and, as usual, was getting disappointed with what I was finding. Around the back side of the display there were wallets from the company who made my wonderful extra-pocketed model. Wouldn't you know it, the very first one I picked up was exactly like the one I carry - extra pocket and all. Joy filled my heart and I was more than willing to pay the $20 to obtain this gem. I looked around a bit more and found one in a deep brown that eventually made it home with me.
Add another good Saturday to the list.
*Can anyone tell me where my Rule of Acquisition number comes from?
Saturday, May 09, 2009
FINALLY!
When I came home with the Wii, the wife was none too happy. See, her mother had thought that we were both interested in having one for the health benefits. She had it wrong. I wanted a Wii, the wife specifically didn't want one. Whoops. I thought she'd expressed an interest as well.
For years I have wished the wife was into video games so we could play things like Starcraft or other multiplayer games together. She won't go near them. She doesn't mind certain types of games. She bought a Nintendo DS and Brain Age just to play Brain Age. Since then, she's gotten Big Brain Academy, Brain Age 2, and Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? See a pattern? No aiming or button trickery involved.
The day I hooked up the Wii, I prompted her to give it a try. I was feeling guilty because it was purchased as a birthday present for me and an anniversary present for us. If she wasn't going to ever use it, that meant it was a really expensive gift for me and she got gipped. She refused. And it was one of those refusals where husbands can tell that "no" means "Not a chance in hell I'm letting you off the hook that easy."
As the week has progressed, I noticed her warming up to the idea. On Monday, my birthday, she gave me some cash to go buy some games so I wouldn't be stuck with just Wii Fit and Wii Sports. When we went shopping, she was taking an interest in the games and what was available. I only bought one (the jury is still out on whether or not I like it) so I still had some money left.
Fast forward to tonight. We went to Wal-Mart on advice of a friend who said they often have a selection of Wii games for $10. I bought Monster 4x4 and Rayman Raving Rabbids (you can throw COWS!). Neither is on the $10 rack but Rayman came highly recommended and Monster 4x4 came with a steering wheel. Later, we went to the other WM in town and looked to see what their $10 selection was. As we were wandering around, the wife asked me, "aren't those games you just bought multi player?"
"Yes, I believe they are."
"Why don't we get an extra controller so we can play together because I don't think I would play by myself."
We came home and played Monster 4x4 a while (she actually started to get the hang of it... and I was getting worse for some reason) and we just finished our third game of Wii Bowling.
Thanks, mom-in-law, we finally got her hooked.
For years I have wished the wife was into video games so we could play things like Starcraft or other multiplayer games together. She won't go near them. She doesn't mind certain types of games. She bought a Nintendo DS and Brain Age just to play Brain Age. Since then, she's gotten Big Brain Academy, Brain Age 2, and Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? See a pattern? No aiming or button trickery involved.
The day I hooked up the Wii, I prompted her to give it a try. I was feeling guilty because it was purchased as a birthday present for me and an anniversary present for us. If she wasn't going to ever use it, that meant it was a really expensive gift for me and she got gipped. She refused. And it was one of those refusals where husbands can tell that "no" means "Not a chance in hell I'm letting you off the hook that easy."
As the week has progressed, I noticed her warming up to the idea. On Monday, my birthday, she gave me some cash to go buy some games so I wouldn't be stuck with just Wii Fit and Wii Sports. When we went shopping, she was taking an interest in the games and what was available. I only bought one (the jury is still out on whether or not I like it) so I still had some money left.
Fast forward to tonight. We went to Wal-Mart on advice of a friend who said they often have a selection of Wii games for $10. I bought Monster 4x4 and Rayman Raving Rabbids (you can throw COWS!). Neither is on the $10 rack but Rayman came highly recommended and Monster 4x4 came with a steering wheel. Later, we went to the other WM in town and looked to see what their $10 selection was. As we were wandering around, the wife asked me, "aren't those games you just bought multi player?"
"Yes, I believe they are."
"Why don't we get an extra controller so we can play together because I don't think I would play by myself."
We came home and played Monster 4x4 a while (she actually started to get the hang of it... and I was getting worse for some reason) and we just finished our third game of Wii Bowling.
Thanks, mom-in-law, we finally got her hooked.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
PC Gaming Is Dying - Well, Duh!
I was reading an article yesterday over at gamershell.com entitled "PC Gaming is Dying" by Anthony R Brock. I'm not sure when the article was actually posted since it doesn't have a date on it. I found it by clicking through a link on a comment on a slashdot article.
Anyway, Mr. Brock's basic assertion is that game programmers are shying away from the PC as a primary development platform in favor of consoles (Playstation, X-Box, et.al.). While PC games used to be ported to the consoles, the console games are now being ported to the PC.
Brock proclaims that the decision is completely profit driven. "...it is the sole reason the PC is getting crap title after crap title while the console market is seeing record development." I agree with his statement with the singular exception of money being the sole reason.
I say it's also because consoles are a far far easier platform to program for. I guess this could be profit-driven but it's also sanity-driven. Let me explain using Brock's own words. When talking about the reasons there is such an imbalance in console game sales vs PC game sales, he states, "The first [reason] is impatience, and this is partially the fault of PC game developers, who rush their titles out the door without the necessary polish and development time, and thus often take up hours of the end-user's time to even get running at all, to say nothing of the title running properly. I recently sat for three hours troubleshooting Knights of the Old Republic II on my expensive gaming rig, and that was a port of an XBOX game!" No, that's not a fault of the developers at all. That is an inherent flaw in the platform.
Which brings me to my point. I am not a software developer, although I have done some coding in the past, but it doesn't take a developer to see the issue here. When you are developing on a console platform, whichever it may be, you have a fixed set of hardware on which your game must run. You know exactly which BIOS is installed and how to interact with it, you know exactly which CPU is installed, you know exactly which graphics processor is installed and what its capabilities are, you know exactly how much memory the unit has (at least a base level), you know exactly how much memory is allocated to the graphics, you know exactly how the game will be controlled, and you know exactly how many and which output options you have.
When you are developing for the PC, you can use procedure calls in the Windows API to handle all of this for you... in theory. There are certain basic functions, such as making a particular tone squeak out of the sound card, that Windows will gladly handle for you. Unfortunately, there is such a variance in BIOS, CPU, graphics and sound cards and their individual capabilities and limitations, installed RAM, graphics RAM, game controllers (keyboard, mouse, gamepad, joystick, weapons control pad, etc.) and the variance among each of those particular devices, and output options (VGA, DVI, analog, PCM audio, optical audio, etc.) that even Windows can't keep up. This is the same reason so many people are having so much difficulty with Windows Vista (take a look, people are mostly bitching about driver issues and orphaned devices). I mean, which would you rather develop for? A platform that you plug in, test, and if it works your good or one that you have to test and tweak, reconfigure, test and tweak, reconfigure, test and tweak... lather, rinse, repeat? It is simply impossible to test every possible combination. Which is why the consumer might have to spend "three hours troubleshooting" their PC game no matter how much they laid out for their gaming rig.
Yeah, it's economics. Yeah, ports always suck to one degree or another. Get used to it and get over it. I don't think the PC will completely die as a gaming platform. There will always be hard-core enthusiasts like Brock who are also developers. I do think, however, that we are going to see a marked difference in the types of games natively available for the PC vs the console. I think we're already beginning to see it with the likes of Everquest, which Brock mentions in his article, and World of Warcraft.
------------------------------------
p.s. FYI - This is post 666. Just thought that was interesting when I went back to the blogger dashboard.
Anyway, Mr. Brock's basic assertion is that game programmers are shying away from the PC as a primary development platform in favor of consoles (Playstation, X-Box, et.al.). While PC games used to be ported to the consoles, the console games are now being ported to the PC.
Brock proclaims that the decision is completely profit driven. "...it is the sole reason the PC is getting crap title after crap title while the console market is seeing record development." I agree with his statement with the singular exception of money being the sole reason.
I say it's also because consoles are a far far easier platform to program for. I guess this could be profit-driven but it's also sanity-driven. Let me explain using Brock's own words. When talking about the reasons there is such an imbalance in console game sales vs PC game sales, he states, "The first [reason] is impatience, and this is partially the fault of PC game developers, who rush their titles out the door without the necessary polish and development time, and thus often take up hours of the end-user's time to even get running at all, to say nothing of the title running properly. I recently sat for three hours troubleshooting Knights of the Old Republic II on my expensive gaming rig, and that was a port of an XBOX game!" No, that's not a fault of the developers at all. That is an inherent flaw in the platform.
Which brings me to my point. I am not a software developer, although I have done some coding in the past, but it doesn't take a developer to see the issue here. When you are developing on a console platform, whichever it may be, you have a fixed set of hardware on which your game must run. You know exactly which BIOS is installed and how to interact with it, you know exactly which CPU is installed, you know exactly which graphics processor is installed and what its capabilities are, you know exactly how much memory the unit has (at least a base level), you know exactly how much memory is allocated to the graphics, you know exactly how the game will be controlled, and you know exactly how many and which output options you have.
When you are developing for the PC, you can use procedure calls in the Windows API to handle all of this for you... in theory. There are certain basic functions, such as making a particular tone squeak out of the sound card, that Windows will gladly handle for you. Unfortunately, there is such a variance in BIOS, CPU, graphics and sound cards and their individual capabilities and limitations, installed RAM, graphics RAM, game controllers (keyboard, mouse, gamepad, joystick, weapons control pad, etc.) and the variance among each of those particular devices, and output options (VGA, DVI, analog, PCM audio, optical audio, etc.) that even Windows can't keep up. This is the same reason so many people are having so much difficulty with Windows Vista (take a look, people are mostly bitching about driver issues and orphaned devices). I mean, which would you rather develop for? A platform that you plug in, test, and if it works your good or one that you have to test and tweak, reconfigure, test and tweak, reconfigure, test and tweak... lather, rinse, repeat? It is simply impossible to test every possible combination. Which is why the consumer might have to spend "three hours troubleshooting" their PC game no matter how much they laid out for their gaming rig.
Yeah, it's economics. Yeah, ports always suck to one degree or another. Get used to it and get over it. I don't think the PC will completely die as a gaming platform. There will always be hard-core enthusiasts like Brock who are also developers. I do think, however, that we are going to see a marked difference in the types of games natively available for the PC vs the console. I think we're already beginning to see it with the likes of Everquest, which Brock mentions in his article, and World of Warcraft.
------------------------------------
p.s. FYI - This is post 666. Just thought that was interesting when I went back to the blogger dashboard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
