The Meandering Blog

Up until recently, my free time (such that it is with twin three year olds) was consumed by World of Warcraft.  Its a fun game, but it became no fun for me.  So I quit.   Now admittedly this is the second time I quit, but I really don’t want to play again, so maybe I’ll stay away for good.

So what have I been doing?  Well lets see, organizing my 8000 photo collection in lightroom (once again, great product from Adobe, highly recommend it), learning guitar hero on the xbox (its hard) and in general relaxing with my family.

Now I probably could have found a way to do all those things and play wow, but I didn’t.  Wow has that great carrot and stick thing.   Oh, look over here,  shiny,  sure you can get it but you have to work at it.  And often times that work will occupy dozens of hours.  I slowly came to realize it wasn’t for me anymore.

So I’m thinking now that my free time will also let me post more here.   I think its a good thing.

See ya soon

When as a consumer did I lose the ability to buy something and not be able to use it the way I want?

The other day, I bought the 3 part Dr Horrible series off iTunes. Its a very funny series, but I’m limited to watching it on an Apple device. I want to watch it on my TV but I can’t until they come out with a DVD. So I pay for it, and can’t use it except on my computer. The 20 inch screen on the max is nice size and all, but pales when compared to the 50 some inch TV and the stereo connected to it.

DRM basically gets in my way. I’d pay a few dollars more to not DRM the damn things. Embed my name in it, I don’t care, not like I share anything. So now instead of me going, that was a good show, I should buy a dvd or 2, now I complain about DRM.

And while I’m on it, why do software companies make me have a cd in the machine to play a game. Again they get in my way. And why do I need to go to a store to buy software? Just let me download it. New game is out, great, download it while I’m at work. New movie I want, let me download a DRM free version I can play anywhere in my house. The days of tying an asset to a specific piece or brand of hardware should be over.

Right now, I have 2 xbox 360’s, a PC or 2, my mac and an ipod.  Lets get the open exchange going.  Stop punishing the consumer,  its just greed.

Bah

Seriously, Its July almost and this blog is wasting away.   Well hopefully I’ll have more pictures to put up soon and who knows what my foggy brain will decide to type.

I’m currently on vacation (it actually started last Thursday and goes through the 4th) and I’m attempting to relax.   Relaxing is not one of those things that comes natural to me.

This coming week will include trips to the various parks surrounding the lovely Geauga County and we’re planning on going down to my mother in laws for a trip to the Akron zoo.

Cleveland’s zoo is really top notch, but a) its huge, hard for little ones to stay interested for more than 2 hours and b) I swear the thing is built on the side of a mountain.  To many hills for hauling kids in a wagon.

Akron’s a lot smaller, the whole thing can be seen in about 2 hours, and instead of bars and distance between you and the animals, its a thick piece of plexy.  makes for nice viewing.

I’ve been playing a lot of warcraft lately.   My mage is in a raiding guild, for which I am still woefully unprepared.   They seem to be good folks, time will tell.  I sometimes think I play to much, which could be a reason I don’t post more.  Eh.  I don’t know.

Work as always is work.  Working on some new entity framework stuff, but I frankly don’t have a firm grasp on it yet.  I also find my self working on a 3rd party app in which I add fields to a form.  To put it bluntly, it thrills me not.  Seventeen years of development work and I get to drag and drop to build a form.  Boring it is.

But its work, so….

I’ll post more this week at least.  Some photos hopefully if nothing else.