Kurt's Thoughts

My dad sent this to me and for some reason I find it quite meaningful.  I don’t think I have to say anything else to say about it.

A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to

Leave the examination room and said,  

‘Doctor, I am afraid to die.  

Tell me what lies on the other side.’  

Very quietly, the doctor said, ‘I don’t know.’  

‘You don’t know?  You’re, a Christian man,  

and don’t know what’s on the other side?’  

The doctor was holding the handle of the door;  

On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining,  

And as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room  

And leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.  

Turning to the patient, the doctor said,  

‘Did you notice my dog?  

He’s never been in this room before.  

He didn’t know what was inside.  

He knew nothing except that his master was here,  

And when the door opened, he sprang in without fear.  

I know little of what is on the other side of death,  

But I do know one thing…  

I know my Master is there and that is enough.’ 

This is one of the reasons I love Craig Ferguson.

Craig Ferguson on himself: “I don’t have a drinking problem, I have a thinking problem.”

Just another reason why I’m liking Texas more and more by the day.  Whoever it was that was controlling the Dallas Cowboys Stadium LED screen played some Gears of War 2 and as you can see in the video, Halo 3.

More from Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/20/giant-cowboys-stadium-led-wall-caught-playing-xbox-360-during-do/

I just became a fan a Shia LaBeouf. 

I think you can tell a lot about someone based on the video games they play.  Check out this interview he does with BigDownload about video gaming, growing up with a video game-hating father, the kinds of games he likes and most interestingly, his opinion about the the Nintendo Wii.

Some choice quotes from the interview:

• “Last night I spent all night playing The Godfather II game. It’s solid. I like that game because I like Godfather. I really like the map. My problem with Grand Theft Auto is the map is too large. It takes too much transit time to get into action. Godfather, it’s large enough to be interesting and have variety, but not too large to where you feel like you’re driving the whole game.”
• Responding to the question: “What’s the last game that really impressed you?”
  Sid Meier’s Civilization.
• Responding to the question: ‘You play everything including real-time strategy?’
  Buddy, I’m a gamer. Not just the fake ones you read about.
• “I don’t mess with the Wii, to be honest with you. It’s kind of an amateur console. I’m not into the Wii thing.”
• “This is how in a simple way you can find out if it’s a gamer you want to play with. Ask them if they have a Wii. If they say yes, get the f*** out of there.”

LINK: http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/06/18/interview-transformers-shia-labeouf-loves-civilization-iv/

In case anyone is looking for a convenient, high fidelity, low-cost, WIRELESS, black & white laser printer, may I make a recommendation?

• Brother HL-2170W Wireless Laser Printer ($109.00)
  http://amzn.to/3SCGR6

For basically only a hundred bucks, you get a blazing fast 23 ppm, 2400×600 resolution black & white printer that connects to any wireless network. (Or wired)  Installing drivers on other machines in your home is totally cake and you can print to the printer locally even while you’re VPNed into work.  Install the driver, it auto-detects your printer on the wireless network, and you’re good to go in less than 30 seconds.  And with 32MB of memory, the printer does a great job of “print serving” on its lonesome even on larger Powerpoints.

And what about toner?

• Brother TN330 Black Toner Cartridge – 1500 pages ($32.00)
  http://amzn.to/arSp7b

It ain’t fancy but it’s the cheapest, most reliable hunk o’ junk I’ve ever bought in the past two years (since I ditched my ol’ HP printer) and the driver install/wireless capability is incredibly convenient.  It just sits off in the corner of my home office (remember… no cables needed!) and has never jammed, never failed, and only beeped when it’s out of paper for 2 years now.  It’s faster than the printers at work and it’s so cheap it’s practically disposable. 

Perfect for when you need a printout on the way to customer or a paper copy of a map/email/directions on your way out the door.

Adam Sessler couldn’t be more right about Metacritic.

OH.  MY.  GOD.  BEST.  VIDEO.  EVER.

I’m going to write a blog dissertation on the research I did around the topic of “why fathers have children”.  I really did ask a hundred plus men over a period of two years or so why they decided to originally have a kid, if they still agreed with their rationale, and what they feel they got out of it.  I think the reasons might be very interesting to you… and they’re often very different from what women say.

But until then, I thought I’d introduce you to my new little buddy.  Meet “Kyle”.

I call him our little ‘sleeping burrito’.  He’s the reason there will likely be a complete slowdown/halt of posts to this blog over the next month or so.

You can read about Kyle’s Saga on my Twitter page at http://twitter.com/kurtsh.

So awesome.

Steve Wiebe is the Redmond, WA gentleman that one day decided that he’d try to beat the world record for points in Donkey Kong, a game that is largely considered by many arcade game enthusiasts as the most difficult and notorious arcade game to master.  Unbeknownst to him, neither the current world record holder at the time, a Floridian named Billy Mitchell, nor the “video game world record community” was willing to exactly welcome him with open arms.

THE KING OF KONG
He found himself in a battle almost based on principle alone.  When he was denied the world record under somewhat sketchy circumstances, he became embroiled in a fight that spanned several years to be recognized as the best Donkey Kong player in the world.

THE DOCUMENTARY… AVAILABLE ON DVD, G4, & E3!
The subject of a documentary, “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”, Steve Wiebe has found sudden fame.  Having his quiet effort documented by video cameras has made him a recognizable face arcade gaming circles.  After having taken the Donkey Kong world record, then losing it, Steve was asked to make the attempt to win it back on live TV on G4, during the E3 Video Gaming Conference in front of a live audience.

Unfortunately, he didn’t accomplish his goal.  After making 3 attempts (and having lost the power on one attempt) Steve managed to get ~980,000 points and show the audience an actual “kill screen”, or the screen at which point the video game will no longer function due to “a lack of memory”. (256th level, if I remember correctly, which sounds like a problem with enumeration in a register)

ALL IS NOT LOST… DONKEY KONG JUNIOR TO THE RESCUE!
It turns out that earlier in the month, Steve had taken the Donkey Kong JUNIOR high score record and was recognized publicly for that accomplishment on stage at E3.

And what’s amazing is that he seems to be the nicest guy in the world.  Nary a egotistical statement, never a bad word.  It’s hard to believe someone could fake “nice” for this long a period which leads me to believe that the guy’s a real gentleman.

So he might not be the World Record holder in Donkey Kong… but I think the smiles and cheers he gets from the E3 & G4 crowd on live television this month are a bit more important.

And hopefully he gets a cut of the DVD revenue, ‘eh?

• Steve Wiebe’s World Record Attempt at E3 2009
  http://e3.g4tv.com/videos/38750/Steve-Wiebes-World-Record-Attempt-/
• G4TV’s Facetime interview with Steve Wiebe
  http://e3.g4tv.com/videos/26109/Facetime-Steve-Wiebe/
• Twin Galaxies conversation with Steve Wiebe
  http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=43&id=1743

Y’know, I know they’re the big bad ass of eCommerce sales online to consumers, but I never expected Amazon to beat the crap out of every other Pet Medicine e-Store online.

Check this out:  I needed to buy a bottle of 120 count SynoviCre 500mg tablets for my dogs joints and arthritis.  Easy enough.  I typed “synovicre dog” into our beloved new “BING” search engine and this is what turned up:

* 1800PetMeds doesn’t sell 120 count bottles of Synovicre for some reason and only sells 90 count.  Hypothetically, the 120 count bottle would sell for around 79.93 based on ratio.

What’s even better is I have Amazon Prime so not only would the shipping have been free even if I didn’t have Prime, but since I do, it arrives in 2 days at no extra charge. 

Yes, I’ll be buying from Amazon.com for my dog’s meds from now on, but additionally…

• CHEERS for MyPetDrugStore.com.  Not the best price because of the shipping but at least they’re reasonable relative to everyone else.  I’ll definitely check them out first from now on for things I can’t get on Amazon being that they seem to at LEAST be in the ballpark with prices and they focus on pet medication.
• JEERS to 1800PetMeds.  What a ripoff!  Even comparing apples to apples, Amazon lists the 90 count bottle at $31.99, again leaving 1800PetMed’s price of $59.99 in the dust by $28!  No wonder those guys can afford those national TV commercials – their additional margin is a ludicrous ~60%-90% over Amazon.com!  People buying from 1800PetMeds are conceivably paying close to TWICE than what they would pay at Amazon or MyPetDrugStore.com!