"Crackdown" means you can even put Crack down.

For my Birthday, Vicki got me a new Xbox 360 game, Crackdown. The critics are giving it "decent" reviews, so maybe I'm alone in this. But I haven't been so addicted to a game in quite a long time. Most likely since I first discovered Halo on the original Xbox. And if anybody knows how much I like Halo, that's saying a lot. (And for the people who've known me for a long time, Halo was the biggest thing since Doom - which was the biggest thing since Ultima III. Pretty impressive company, those games.) (An aside for Mom - Ultima III was the game that made those annoying beeps that drove you crazy every time I booted it up!)

So if anyone who is reading this (who is reading this, by the way?) gets a chance to play Crackdown, I only recommend it if you really have some time to kill.

Ahh, Spring, and the sounds of Geese...

Last Friday, we got a fairly decent snowfall. Therefore, Saturday morning I found myself out shoveling the driveway. While I was plugging away, hoping to myself that it would be the last time this winter, I heard some geese flying overhead.

I looked up, and to my great surprise, saw a huge flock flying in V formation... heading South. Shouldn't they be headed North? Then remembered why I was outside and sort of chuckled to myself.

Then I swear I heard a female sounding goose saying, "I don't care Frank! Next year I'm going to decide when it's time to head North. I don't care if you're worried that the tributaries may have frozen and what damage may be waiting for you at the waterhole! Every year it's the same thing, We Need to Head North, We Need to Head North! I tell you, next year we're waiting until I hear from my second cousin Robin that Spring is really here!"

Mobile Time-Waster

The other day I put together some facts I was aware of, but hadn't really put them together for some reason.

I've been aware of Stella for a long time. Stella is an Atari 2600 emulator that is available on many different modern computing platforms. I recently downloaded the Windows version and put it on my laptop. It was a lot of fun playing these games from my childhood. I discovered I still love them as much as I did in the Eighties. But I really didn't get much chance to boot up the laptop and play them. (Ok, so one night on the way home from work I played the entire bus trip.)

So I was thinking to myself, if only I could load Stella on some small, portable device. Well, duh. I have a Pocket PC! I immediately went to the Stella website and checked if they had a version for my Pocket PC (Windows CE/Pocket PC/Smartphone/Mobile/whatever MS wants to call it today).

Of course they did. So now I have access to all my favorite 2600 games whereever I go as long as I remember to bring my PDA. And they're perfect for the platform: 10 minute time killers wherever I'm sitting around waiting for something else.

So now I'm seriously addicted to Mario Bros. (Notice no "Super" in the name there.) And the worst thing is I'll be sitting there with the PDA right there and have to tell myself, "No, you really should be doing this instead..."