It’s been a while since we’ve had a Book Club posting. I have recently received a swatch of new books over the holidays, so we’ll see if we can keep these posts coming on a regular basis.

The first book for the club this year is Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. This is my 2nd foray into Gaiman’s works, and picked this title because I have heard good things about it. Unfortunately, I don’t know what it is about, so I look forward to finding out.

Post your thoughts, if you decide to keep up with this book.

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I had the pleasure of trying a new drink today. My co-worker, Greg, gave me a packet of Royal Milk Tea. He was raving about the stuff and wanted me to try it. Apparently, he had given it a try when he was in Okinawa and got hooked on it. So I gladly obliged and went to make my cup of tea.

What I discovered was a lightly flavored tea, flowery, and easy on the tongue. I’d highly recommend giving this tea a try, that is if you can get yoru hands on it. Apparently, it is difficult to find in the States.

Running a Google searching turns up several hits. Explore!

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Happy New Year everyone!

I say that with as much optimism as I can muster. The holidays as relaxing as they were hectic. We got to visit with our families, celebrate with friends, and spend some quality time with our daughter. As we closed out 2008, we realized that we ended it on a good note.

Entering 2009 has been a mixed bag. I, for one, am thankful to have a wonderful little girl who is, apparently, enamored with me. Thankful to have a loving wife and family. And, thanks to this morning, thankful to be working.

I am saddened that some of my friends have gotten laid-off. The poor economic times had not yet knocked on my door. Now, I am aware of the trying times. I don’t know what changes this will lead to, but I am sure that we will be hunkering down a bit. No more diamond-studded swimming pools for us. No more opulent dinners in Tahiti over the weekends.

Anyway, to our friends, good luck. To our families, we love you. To our pets, stop peeing on the carpet!

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I keep forgetting the application that allows me to configure how Windows XP boots. The application is MSCONFIG.exe.  To start, launch a run prompt and type:

MSCONFIG

Use this tool at your own risk, as you are directly modifying important system files.

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I was recently looking for a way to enjoy Divx-encoded videos on my Zune — you know for road trips and such. Apparently some work has been done in this field, yet I have had little success in duplicating the effort.

The folks over at Techmixer.com have suggested the following steps:

1. Copy and paste the following lines into a text edit program and save it under .reg extension.

   Windows Registry Editor Version5.00
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\Zune\Extensions\.avi]
   “Extension.Handler”=”Microsoft.Zune.1.AVI””MediaType.Description”=”Video Clip”
   “MediaType.Icon”=”C:\\Program Files\\Zune\\ZuneLoc.dll,-736?”Extension.MIME”=”video/avi””AlreadyRegistered”=”no”
   “Runtime”=dword:00000007?PerceivedType”=”video”
   “Permissions”=dword:0000000f
   “UserApprovedOwning”=”no”
   @=””

2. Double-click the newly .reg file and the register information will be added to your registry.
3. Restart Computer
4. After restart, you start dragging your divx movies using Zune software into your zune player. The files will synced with Zune devices and force the zune software to convert the files.

You may have to locate a file called “zuneloc.dll” for this to work too…

It is important to note that your mileage may vary with this and to proceed at your own risk. You will be mucking around in the registry, which can do serious harm to your computer. And, I’ve not tried this out yet, so be warned… I am just passing along what information I have found so far.

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I know many people haven’t heard of the group No More Kings and that’s really sad. They have some very clever music. I was first introduced to them through Pandora.com with the song “Zombie Me” — a song chock full of awesome. From there, I learned of a song called “Sweep The Leg”.

I have to admit this song captured fond memories of my childhood. A song with lyrics ripped right out of one of my favorite 80’s movies… “Karate Kid”. That’s right, Cobra Kai strikes back.

Here is the music video, care of http://www.sweeptheleg.com/youtube:

Make you message clear… check out No More Kings.

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… that she has to know who has made the stinky.

That is all.

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The Alabama Symphony Orchestra surprised me by inviting Video Games Live to play in Birmingham. The inner nerd in me shed a tear of joy, as I have been looking forward to seeing one of these performances for a long time.

I had no idea really what to expect when arriving at the BJCC. I had read that the pre-show events had costume contests, gaming competitions, meet and greets with game composers and all that. Needless to say, we were somewhat nonplussed by what was offered.

There was a Guitar Hero 3 competition, but you couldn’t hear the music… and it was displayed on two small LCD panels with a large mosh of adolescent boys attempting to achieve plastic guitar glory. However, the winner went on to play on stage with the Symphony as he attempted to break 175,000 points playing Expert level on Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion”. I have to admit, that was pretty cool. And the guy won too… handily.

The costume contest had a few entrants. What could you expect from Alabama? We had a Lar Umlaut from Guitar Hero, Ayane from Dead or Alive, Ness, Reno from Final Fantasy, and hand full of other lesser known characters… and we had the winning costume: a three person representation of Pong. I wish I had taken a picture. Simple, clever, effective.

The actual concert… well, it exceeded my expectations. It was an incredible night. The symphony was simply excellent. I will definitely return to see them perform again, whatever it is that may be playing. If it weren’t for some pesky union rules, I’d have shot some video clips to share from last night’s performance. Here is a sampling on what we were treated to last night:

• Mario™
• Zelda®
• Halo®
• Final Fantasy®
• Warcraft®
• StarCraft® II
• Sonic™
• Metal Gear Solid®
• Kingdom Hearts
• Castlevania®
• Metroid®
• Interactive Space Invaders
• Interactive Guitar Hero™
• God of War™
• Civilization IV
• Classic Arcade Medley featuring over 20+ games from Pong® to Donkey Kong® including such classics as Dragon’s Lair, Tetris, Duck Hunt, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Gauntlet, Punch-Out, OutRun and more…

If I had to pick my favorite sequence, it would be between the Classic Arcade Medley, the Final Fantasy Piano Medley, or the Metal Gear Solid suite.

The only complaint I had about the performance is the grandstanding done by Tommy Tallarico. No doubt the man is talented… but we were there to see the Symphony, not him galavanting around the stage.

If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend attending one fo these events. They are simply spectacular and brought back some very found childhood memories.

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I have always been one to learn new words - a logophile, if you would. Well, I have found myself faced with a list of obscure terms which I have not heard before. So obscure, in fact, that these terms face being delisted from the Collins dictionary.

Here are some of my favorites from the list:

• Compossible Possible in coexistence with something else
• Embrangle To confuse or entangle
• Fatidical Prophetic
• Fubsy Short and stout; squat
• Malison A curse
• Muliebrity The condition of being a woman
• Niddering Cowardly
• Nitid Bright; glistening
• Vaticinate To foretell; prophesy
• Vilipend To treat or regard with contempt

To vote for which words you’d like to save, hit the link. For me, “fubsy” should definitely make the cut.

How you can help to save some cherished words from oblivion - Times Online

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