Gamer Mom & Other Wacky Quirks

Via: Online MBA

There are gamers of every sort and style. With each of them comes the stigma attached by society. Well I’ve got some stigmas to attach of my own. Let’s whip out the ole soap box and cover Top 10 gamers in real life. Since lists are better as a countdown, we will rank these in order of how well they stand out as gamers and how deep they are into their madness.

I've got to find a way to buy merchandise with this guy's designs. His stuff is rad.

My son has a Disney DVD player (specifically, the DVD2000C) that was a gift. It's totally cute, but doesn't work well at all. I finally got sick of it and I brought it in to work to take a look and see what the problem was. I couldn't find anything specific and so I'm left with a sort of junky dvd player. I took a few pictures while I had it open and found it sort of interesting. No wonder it doesn't work well, it's kind of flimsy. So, if you've ever wanted to see what these look like opened up, here you go. [Oh, and yes, I know my desk is a disaster...it's just how I roll]

Taking the feet off (not sure why I did that)...


Taking a little panel off the drawer (not my hands)...


The backside of the faceplate...


An overview...


And looking inside...


Finally, a little trick I learned. A second problem with the unit is that I can't find a remote control that works for it. I've purchased 2 Disney dvd player remotes and neither works. I'm guessing either the remotes aren't compatible or the infrared reader on the unit itself doesn't work. Either way, I'm over it. At first I thought the remotes were broken, but I learned a trick on how to check. Because neither remote has any lights, the only way to see if it works is to aim it at a camera, press a button and look at it through the camera. Wow, a light! You can't see it with the naked eye. At least I know that the remotes aren't the problem now.

According to New Scientist, a study was done that asked Everquest II players some questions pertaining to their physical and mental fitness. It would appear that gamers are slightly more fit (physically) than the average American. The downside of that study shows that there are slightly higher incidents of depression and substance abuse. Pretty interesting stuff!

Found here...I have nothing more to say.

So I have one of the coolest toys for my kids. It's the Fun n' Foam Factory by Buzz Bee Toys. I bought it last year on a clearance and I LOVE it. The thing is hilarious. Every time I fire that thing up, I wish that I had one when I was little. Here's a "review" video of it...



Now, I've found a new gizmo that I NEED. It's a bubble fogger! It fills bubble with fog. I'm not sure why I need it, but I do. The video below is kind of grainy, but you get the picture.

2. Female ninjas
No offense to Leia and Padme, but on the scale of princess to ninja they were pretty far to the princess end of things. In Clone Wars, we're going to get some seriously kickass female ninjas mixing it up with the Jedi Knights. Anakin's padawan Ahsoka is fearless and strong, and Obi Wan Kenobi will meet his nemesis, the powerful assassin Asajj Ventress.

See the rest at io9.com.

50 Skills That Every Gamer Should Master

1. Give a game a review score without ever actually playing the game
A cursory glance from 20 paces of a grainy postage stamp-sized super lo-res scanned-in screenshot pinned to the ass-feathers of a headless chicken in a sandstorm should be all you need to confidently attribute an authoritative and infallible review score to any game. It's how professional reviewers have been doing it for years.

2. Be able to spot whether a game is running in 720p
Just by looking at it.

Gallery: Tainted Tie-Ins — Worst Movie Games Ever

Well, I think I've made a decision. Rather than pay for 2 MMO's and only play one, I realized I need to decide on just one. For now, the winner seems to be Star Wars Galaxies. Vanguard was fun while it lasted, but I've basically maxed out my character and was finding the whole thing to be getting a little boring. I am by no means dogging the game. It's a lot of fun with a loyal, if not small, community. Even though I was bitterly disappointed by SWG in the past, it's made a bit of a resurgence. The devs have tried very hard to make the game more appealing and while the game I once loved is gone forever, what they've done to "fix" it has earned a second chance from me. It's with a heavy heart that I lay Vanguard to rest, but I'm afraid I must. I love ALL the friends I've made there and I'll miss each and every one of them. I'm lucky to have crossed their paths and hopefully, we'll all reunite again. Maybe I can convince one or two to join me in the Star Wars universe. This may be a tough task as some of the friends I met in VG were SWG refugees like myself. Who knows, maybe in a year or two I'll get bored with SWG and I'll try Vanguard again (if it's still around). Time will tell.
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MMO Armageddon: What do you do when they nuke your home?
I know the feeling.
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Video games activate reward regions of brain more in men than in women
What does this say about me?
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Harrison Ford Vows Never To Return To "Star Wars"
whatev...

I've never had any delusions that I'm the only mom in the world who plays video games. In fact, I'm actually surprised there aren't more of us out there promoting the fact that we are "Gamer Moms". Fact is, I grew up in the perfect time to be absorbed into video gaming and so did a lot of other moms. I had an Atari 2600 (actually, I still have it), then NES (also still have it) and so forth and so on. Gaming was a huge part of my life. I'd go to school, go to dance lessons, come home and play Mario. One of the funniest photos of me as a kid is one my mom took of me playing Nintendo while still wearing my dance outfit (no I won't post it...ugh...how embarrassing). So, today I thought I'd share with you links to other "Gamer Mom" websites. We're all a little different, but there's a kinship for sure.



Gamermom.com got the best url and she's been blogging for a few years now...at least that's what I can tell from her archives.



This Gamer Mom is the "mother of all news, views and casual game reviews". While not updated recently, there is still a ton of good stuff there.



There was a nice little article on WomenGamers.com called "Confessions of a Gamer mom". At the end there are a couple of links to more Gamer mom articles as well.


Now on to your regularly scheduled geeky links...


An ex-Jack Sparrow spills on his life at the Magic Kingdom
Read the above article. It's pretty cool. I may or may not have mentioned that way-back-when, I worked at Disney World. While I wasn't a character, I had an unusual job and I performed all day long. Granted, I got to be myself, but still, I was in my own mini-spotlight. The oddest thing about the article is when he talks about the Annual Passholders. It's odd because I had almost forgotten about them. It's so true though, these people would come to the parks day after day and they quickly became regulars. I didn't like or dislike them more than any other guests, but I always found it a bit odd that they came to the same attraction so ofter and regularly.



Did you know there's a Pac-Man movie in development? Apparently, it's true.


And finally, 25 Ways to Tell You're Grown Up.

How did I miss the fact that I have been floating at 99 posts for so long?!? This better be a good entry full of entertainment and special guest star appearances...

...

...

Um, well, you see the thing is, I hadn't really thought this through. I was just going to throw up a random post about the state of my video gaming life. Now, it just seems lame. Well, here are your celebrities, then you have to suffer and hear about me :)



Great! Soooo, onto gaming. I've been playing Vanguard: Saga of Heroes for over a year now. I've maxed out my main character and decided to start a new one. That's all well and good. But, it's getting a little boring. I think I've made a decision. I'm going to add Star Wars Galaxies back into the mix. I know, I know, it sucks, they ruined the game, blah blah blah. I can't help it. A good friend of mine has never given up on the game and still plays PLUS hubby would like to give it another shot. I think that now is the time to start all over with it and see what it's all about now. It's been so long since I've played that it'll be like playing a new game. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. I'm actually a little excited to give it another whirl.

Oh! And on a personal(ish) note. THE RED WINGS ARE IN THE STANLEY CUP FINALS!!! And, I'll be getting paid to go to the games...I love my job.

A cool photo project at various locations using souvenirs as the subjects.

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Green Team!

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OMG! I WANT THIS!!!


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The Most Inappropriately Named Sports Teams

White Men Can't Dance
From: My 2 Second Shelf Life


Trapped in an Elevator...With Diarrhea

Geeks vs Nerds

Top 10 Sexually Suggestive Lines in
the Original Star Wars Trilogy

Am I geek because I understand the humor in this?

I was having a good old time on the web today and came across a few things to share, enjoy!

The Top 7... Stereotypical gamers we hate

6. RPG snobs

Usually plays: Any RPG and/or "something you wouldn't understand"
Favorite snacks: Dhalmel pie, Bland grilled shark fin (STA +1)

We relish any chance to talk shop about our favorite hobby with fellow gamers, except when we're confronted by one of these - a hyperventilating nerdlinger who looks at us like we're farting Philistines for wanting to pull off the occasional headshot or kickflip. With so much time spent indoors, they don't understand how low on the social ladder they rank, and how little the cultural impact of a spell-casting cat-person in a buckled leotard matters to anyone. We'd rather hang out with the ghost of Adolf Hitler then hear about the finer nuances of Lady Yuna's Tickle Summon.

Usurping the Throne of Snobbery from the once mighty record store employee, they've also donned themselves with some kind of omniscient Gate Keeper status, using their false sense of authority to talk unsubstantiated shit about anything you can't import from Japan.

"Do you have Grand Thef-"
"Pedestrian!"

Next time, kick him in his Forgotten Scepter before he can sneer at his own, barely ironic, aside. We promise - he won't fight back.

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What Life Will Be Like In The Future - November, 2008

IT’S 8 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008, and you are headed for a business appointment 300 mi. away. You slide into your sleek, two-passenger air-cushion car, press a sequence of buttons and the national traffic computer notes your destination, figures out the current traffic situation and signals your car to slide out of the garage. Hands free, you sit back and begin to read the morning paper—which is flashed on a flat TV screen over the car’s dashboard. Tapping a button changes the page. The car accelerates to 150 mph in the city’s suburbs, then hits 250 mph in less built-up areas, gliding over the smooth plastic road. You whizz past a string of cities, many of them covered by the new domes that keep them evenly climatized year round. Traffic is heavy, typically, but there’s no need to worry. The traffic computer, which feeds and receives signals to and from all cars in transit between cities, keeps vehicles at least 50 yds. apart. There hasn’t been an accident since the system was inaugurated. Suddenly your TV phone buzzes. A business associate wants a sketch of a new kind of impeller your firm is putting out for sports boats. You reach for your attache case and draw the diagram with a pencil-thin infrared flashlight on what looks like a TV screen lining the back of the case. The diagram is relayed to a similar screen in your associate’s office, 200 mi. away. He jabs a button and a fixed copy of the sketch rolls out of the device. He wishes you good luck at the coming meeting and signs off.

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The Top 10 Video Game Easter Eggs

The Egg: When you start the game type in “Zelda” as you character name to unlock the 2nd quest mode.
The System: NES
Don’t expect to breeze through this game these monsters are tougher and items are more difficult to get.

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Top 5 Botched PC Game Launches

4. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Books could be written about everything that went wrong with Vanguard, and that's before you do any real digging into the early development mess, where the money bled off to, what EverQuest co-creator and Sigil CEO Brad McQuaid was doing through all of it, and what happened in the parking lot afterward. Shoved out the door way too early for what were admitted to be financial reasons, the game was just plain half-baked, plagued by enough bugs, missing content, and instability to compete with the very best of the worst. From little things like a "display hoods/helmets" option that didn't do anything because none of the hoods or helmets in the game even had any graphics to frequently previewed back-of-the-box features like flying mounts that didn't make it into the game until long, long after release.

Vanguard staggered away from its absolute train wreck of a launch and slowly, steadily recovered. These days, it's pretty well healed up and finally living up to promises that were made and broken long before. But it's still hard to forget that, until lately, players were paying for the privilege of participating in a really, really long beta.

Cynical-C had a link to this today. The 2600 was my first system...and I still have it! Here's the entry for this system:

Atari VCS 2600
Released in 1977
The Atari 2600, released in 1977, is the first successful video game console to use plug-in cartridges instead of having one or more games built in. It was originally known as the Atari VCS, for Video Computer System, and the name "Atari 2600" (taken from the unit's Atari part number, CX2600) was first used in 1982, after the release of the more advanced Atari 5200.

The initial price was $199 with a library of 9 titles. In a play to compete directly with the Channel F, Atari named the machine the Video Computer System (or VCS for short), as the Channel F was at that point known as the VES, for Video Entertainment System. When Fairchild learned of Atari's naming they quickly changed the name of their system to become the Channel F.

Atari expanded the 2600 family with two other compatible consoles. The Atari 2700, a wireless version of the console was never released due to design flaws. The Sleek Atari 2800 released to the Japanese market in 1983 suffered from competition from the newly-released Nintendo Famicom.

There are tons of systems described, check it out and see how many you had!

I got started on consoles, but most of my gaming is limited to my PC now. I still love my Wii, though! I remember when I was young, I was SO jealous of my friends who had Intellivision, Colecovision, or any type of computer.

In order, I had/have:
Atari 2600 (still own it)
NES (still own it)
Sega Genesis (still own it)
Super NES (traded in to get N64)
Nintendo 64 (still own it)
Playstation2 (still own it)
Wii (of course, still own it)

How about you?

OMFG, you’ve gotta see this. There’s a whole blog about her. How did I miss this?