Remebering Our First Computer

It’s my second 25th in three days (my sister says the buck stops at 25) but I never really thought of what that meant until I had a conversation with my boyfriend about my family’s first personal computer. The thing is, people born past the 80’s will never know the wonder and amazement that comes with seeing and using your first personal computer when you’ve never even heard of it before.

I was 5 or 6 (or 7 or 8, I don’t quite remember, we’ve already established that I’m getting old right?) when my dad told us we were getting a personal computer and neither I nor my sisters had any notion of what a computer was supposed to be or do (or maybe I should just speak for me. In any case, I think I was half expecting something that resembled R2D2). When the delivery guys brought the computer to our house, it came in three baffling pieces. My sisters and I immediately laid claims to the three separate parts (we didn’t understand that you actually had to hook everything together); my eldest sister got first dibs on the monitor since it was very TV-like, my other sister took the keyboard since it had lots of clicky, pressy things, and, being the youngest, I got stuck with the most uninteresting piece, the CPU, with only two measly buttons to play with.

baby me, other faces have been changed to protect the innocent

We were all a bit sore when the computer guy took our parts away from us and put the computer together. We got over it though, when we realized that the sum was greater than the parts. You could play games (like galaxian, moonbugs and round42. I was too panicky to actually play the games by myself so my dad would take care of the controls while I just pressed the space bar as fast as I possibly could)! You got to feel like a super techie as you inserted the floppy disk after floppy disk to play your games (you had to put in the DOS boot disk at the right moment to boot the computer before you could do anything)! You could type stuff and make text drawings in the text editor! I even remember how excited we got when my dad showed us a personalized DOS boot disk he had made for us that displayed “Hello Tina, Karina and Tetaw! Please take care of this computer” for a few seconds after booting (it was like the computer knew who we were!!).

You crazy kids with your internets and applepods will probably roll your eyes at this. But the thing is, I don’t think you will ever experience the same level of awe and wonder at your digital picture-snappers, wireless telephone machines or any of your new-fangled gadgets as we did when we first laid eyes on our first personal computer.

Know Your Black Holes...

Phil Plaitt has a funny and easy to understand post about black holes on badastronomy.com.

See Stephen Hawking?? It can be done! Now get to work on your next book "A Not Necessarily Very Brief History of Time, But At Least One Where Your Brain Won't Begin To Hurt After The Third Chapter".

Frying An Egg With a CPU

Somebody fried eggs using their CPU...

Particularly interesting because the guy is from the physics department of the school I'm studying in right now.

R2 Fish Training School

Wow... this is... wow....



I've always thought fish were the most boring pets ever. All they ever do is eat, swim, poop and forget their owner after 7 seconds (then remember... then forget after another 7 seconds). But apparently they're trainable.. thinkgeek doesnt really say how the R2 Fish Training School Kit does it, but they do say that it's "used to train the fish trick world record holder - developed by a real Ph.D!".

Sold! If it's developed by a REAL Ph.D then its good enough for me! Now all I need is a fish....

Link

Whatever Happened to Alice Dixon?

Its TV ads like this that make me proud to be a child of the 80's...

Hope for the Halloweenies

This year, most prospects for Halloween are exceedingly bleak because of the US recession. Times are hard and money is scant (I have to survive on one 711 steamed bun a day just to afford my Vicodin and clay animation porn addiction [judge me if you want, but that Gumby is limber!]). People want to celebrate Halloween but are worried about costs. So, to help today’s frugal Hallowieners , I’ve compiled a list of cheap but distinctive Halloween costumes.

Lt. Mitch Buchannan

The thrifty halloweenie can go as Baywatch’s Lt. Mitch Buchannon, probably the hottest (well, arguably) male lifeguard in the show (not to mention the only male lifeguard that lasted throughout the whole series). This costume couldn’t get any cheaper, just throw on some bright orange shorts, leave some curlers on overnight, “borrow” a buoy from the community pool and draw on some chest hair and you’re good to go! Don’t have a pair of orange shorts? Just steal one from your gay neighbor’s clothes line, or spray paint any old shorts that you have lying around.

Johnny Quest

For those that want a costume that says “I crave adventure and excitement but am still really just a boy at heart”, why not go as Johnny Quest? The costume couldn’t be more inexpensive or easier to put together. Just grab your mother/sister/girlfriend’s black three-fourths sweater, put on a pair of jeans and white sneakers then soak your hair in peroxide for a few hours. Although, there is a risk that people might confuse you with Jared Leto’s character in Fight Club, but this will only happen if you’re good looking, so there’s not much risk of confusion is there?

The Blue Lagoon’s Richard and Em

Couples wanting low-cost matching costumes don’t have to look further than the classic 80’s movie, The Blue Lagoon, for inspiration. Now girls can share the experience of dressing like a slut on Halloween with their significant other at the cost of single, torn-up old white sheet. Shock your friends, relive Brooke Shields’ glory days and role play Richard and Em’s discovery of the birds and the bees as well as of the joys of incest without breaking the bank.

Mischa Barton

Female Halloweenies who are similarly cost-conscious could consider dressing up as Mischa Barton. The costume is easy! Just look through your closet and look for tops, bottoms, shoes and accessories that completely clash with each other and in no way form a cohesive ensemble. It’s a plus if you can find clothes that don’t flatter you as well. You already own everything needed to make this costume so it won’t cost you a penny! Make a statement at your Halloween costume party; show them that, like Mischa Barton, you are a free spirit! untethered by the basic rules of fashion and aesthetics. And isn’t that what Halloween is really about?? Just going nuts and throwing all good taste out the door.

Happy Halloween!!!

20081023 Today in my Taiwan Life

In the continuing effort to lose weight in order to fit into a too small jacket that I bought back home, I had naught but a pot of yogurt for lunch today. (I like believing that yogurt can add no fat to your body. Sure it has milk, and that thing that makes it really sweet is probably sugar, but I will continue to believe this till the day I die… or can afford to hire a real nutritionist who will tell me otherwise). Maybe the food deprivation is making me all pissy and ranty, but I was really annoyed to find that there was only one strawberry in my pot of Yoplait yogurt… Look at the packaging…

There is clearly more than one strawberry pictured in the pot and this is clearly false advertising! This is nothing but a pretentious yogurt pot feigning fruitiness. Or maybe all that Chinese writing on the package that I can’t read is saying “I’m a pot of yogurt with just one measly strawberry preserve even though my package has a picture of five fresh strawberries.”