Friday 5 for December 3: The work of the child

"Hello, and welcome to this week’s Friday 5! Please copy these questions to your webspace. Answer the questions there; then leave a comment below so we’ll all know where to check out your responses. Please don’t forget to link us from your website!"

1. What musical instruments have you played?

- Played trumpet in middle and high school band.

- Play ukulele... have played since I was around 9... not very good at it.

- Dabbled in piano. Can get by... but not good and I don't have a piano at this time though the electric keyboard I have at my place, I don't know if it works. Belongs to my friend Lisa.

- Dabbled in some percussion type instruments... maracas, tamborine, kalimba

- Mac Plus computer: translated a song I wrote in college to the Mac using a very crude software in 1990. Converted that to mp3 and you can listen to it here.

2. When do you play with your food?

I made pancakes several years ago shaped like some of the Hawaiian islands.

3. What’s your favorite stage play?

I haven't seen many stage plays. That said, back in 2017 I won tickets to see Diamond Head Theater's production of Mamma Mia... I thought it was good and I like the music of ABBA... so that had a lot going for it. 

Saw South Pacific and Bye, Bye Birdie as college productions. Loaned the Birdie cast an old camera for a scene with the press in it.

In 1974 when I went to New York City for a few days, we got to see a relatively unknown Broadway musical called GREASE. I still have the souvenir booklet for that. Some of the photos are included at the top of this post. The musical is different from the movie that came after as new songs were added to the film version in 1978.

4. What games do you play on your phone?

I don't consider myself a hardcore gamer since I don't play any of those big games that seem to last forever and asks you for more money. Ugh! However I like simple casual games that I can play for a few minutes, die and then play again later.

I have four functioning cell phones of which only two have official service. The other two are wifi only and are used only at home. The Samsung can still make wifi phone calls but the Alcatel with its very aged Android 2.7 can only do rudimentary internet, play simple games and of course doubles as a music player.

Android Phone #1 Pixel 4a (Android 11) - None

Android Phone #2 Samsung Galaxy J7 (Android 7) - None

Android Phone #3 Alcatel 960 - Solitaire, Block Puzzle, Mahjong, Tick Tack Toe, Old Mac Plus System 6 games using MiniVMac emulator for Android 2.7 - Stratego, Accordian, Box Em, Brickles, Cairo Shootout, Shufflepuck Cafe, Star Roids, Surgery, Mac Pork Barrell, Mombasa, MacBugs, Wheel 1.0, Stuntcopter, Battleship, Roe, Hangman 5.0, Artillery 1.5, Balloon, Shuttle 88, Tetris

Kai OS Basic Phone - Alcatel Smartflip - There are a ton of games on the Kai OS ecosystem, all simple game apps geared toward basic phones. I have a handful of them including Snake, Mahjong, Tetris-X, Endless Aliens (Galaxian clone), Fart, Fart Pads

Non-Phones:

Apple iOS iPad Mini - Someone gave this to me in 2019. It's a 2012 iPad Mini that has been largely marginalized by Apple with very little app support. I hate Apple for making things obsolete so fast, especially when devices still work. 

On my iPad I have the following game apps: 

Airplane Fly Hawaii - used to be my favorite game until I conquered all of the levels acquiring every plane they have in the fleet after many successful flights and landings. Sadly the game is no longer supported by the publisher, so there are no updates for any system. I used to run this on my Samsung J7 phone, but since it only has limited space for apps, I deleted that and all other games and just went with core apps that I needed.

Otherwise the usual suspects - Mahjong, Solitaire, Checkers and 94 Seconds, the latter of which is a timed trivia letter matching game. I used to do that one on my old iPod Touch that has since died (I hate non-removable batteries).

Nintendo DSi - This is one of my favorite gaming devices, not because I am a hardcore gamer. Way back before I owned a cell phone, I used this as a portable internet device. You could access websites with the built in Opera web browser on open wifi networks, including my own at home. Over the years as the web became more secure, the Opera browser which was built in was not supported after Nintendo deprecated the platform around 2016. I bought this device brand new back in 2009. I don't appreciate the short term shelf life of official support.

That all said, the games that I did buy online as well as a handful of cartridge games all work fine to this very day. Plus the thing has a rudimentary camera system, can play music files and supports SD card external storage. It makes a good music player and cheap ass camera with weird and goofy effects that still work via software.

The games I have for this thing range from something called Club Games, which a suite of many, simple games such as checkers, chess, mahjong, bowling, darts and too many card games to remember. Other cartridge games I own include Cats, a Las Vegas suite of games and one of old Atari games. Plus the few titles I did download from Nintendo when the platform was still supported: Stratego, Sudoku, a better Mahjong with good graphics, Absolute Brickbuster, Aura-Aura Climber, Pictobits, and Zelda Four Star edition which is the closest I get to one of those never ending role playing games... ugh.

The nice thing about the Nintendo DSi is that it still works. I can still do some web browsing with it as long as the site is text only... think a lot of old Gopher servers. Heh.

Bottom line is that I am not good in any of the games save for a very few. But they end up as being fun, short-term distractions.

If you have an old, out of commission cell phone just sitting around in a drawer, it is a good idea to put it into a secondary use, such as a games platform or a music player.

5. When did you recently play it by ear?

There have been a few times when I had to "play it by ear"... a few times at my seasonal workplace in the State Capitol comes to mind. Other times when I had to improvise something and wasn't sure if anything would work re: see if that old PC laptop works. Junk like that.

Games on my Nintendo DSi and the Mac emulator on my old 3G Alcatel 960C smartphone.

Friday 5 for March 2: Games People Play

POSTED ON

Friday 5 for March 2: Games People Play

"Hello!  And welcome to this week’s Friday 5!  Please copy these questions to your webspace.  Answer the questions there; then leave a comment below so we’ll all know where to check out your responses.  Please don’t forget to link us from your website!"

Here are the questions and my answers....

1. How good are you at word games, and what’s a word game you really enjoy?

I don't know. I rarely play Scrabble or do a crossword puzzle. I am ok at crosswords but far from great.

2. How good are you at trivia games, and what’s your strongest category?

I am a little better at trivia games. I have been playing Trivia Crack a lot on my Android phone. It's a good way to pass idle time. I  have 110,975 points accumulated in the trivia rush games within the app. I guess that is good. You play against people in a quick round of trivia questions. It's been ages since I played Trivial Pursuit.

I generally do good in the history, arts, geography, and entertainment questions on older movies, TV shows and music. I suck at sports questions.

3. How good are you at spot-the-difference or what’s-wrong-with-this-picture games?

Not a fan of those types of games. Reminds me too much of work. What's wrong with the photo.... what's wrong with the sentence.... ugh.

4. How good are you at memory games, and have you ever played Simon?

I used to do good on Concentration.... card game as well as with an old app on my Mac Plus.  Never owned a Simon device. Never played with one. My sister had a Merlin device which was similar. Played with that.

5. What’s your favorite party game of all time?

I generally shy away from all party games. Not a big fan of parties.

Bonus Questions: I'll just answer it here since I cut and paste the entire thing to this blog.

How do we feel about the new A Wrinkle in Time film?  

I heard of the book. Never read it. There was a Wrinkle in Time photo shoot many years ago. I remember that. Probably has nothing to do with the book. The chances of I going out to see the movie is slim since I find $13 too steep a price to pay for movies these days. The last movie I saw in the theater was Star Wars: The Last Jedi and before that Star Wars Rouge 1..... Except for Star Wars movies, I can't justify the high costs these days. Will add this on movies to watch someday if I can find it on a free stream or a cheap DVD.

Has your favorite book been made into a movie? How did that work out for you?

As a kid I always loved the book, The Little House. It is about a house out in the country upon which the city and all its associated development invade its space and how the house went from happy to sad to happy again. There is no movie that I know of made from the book.

Another book I loved as a kid was Where The Wild Things Are. I saw the movie on DVD. It sucked. Totally lacked the magic of the book.

As I got older books that I enjoyed after watching the movies were:

War of the Worlds (HG Wells) - Several movies made. The 1953 adaptation is the best. The Speilberg 2005 version was lame. There was a British version that was supposed to be fairly close to the book. I saw that and it was too long, and too low budget for what it was trying to do.

The Time Machine (H.G. Wells) - Read the book some years later than the classic 1960 movie which is fairly accurate to the movie up to a point. The book goes a bit beyond the movie's timeline. Love both.

2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke) - When I first saw this movie as a kid, I thought it was really neat and trippy. Very futuristic for the time I saw it which was in 1968. Did not understand everything I saw in the movie even after a few repeated viewings. After I read the book, everything was made much more clearer.

I read the following 2 books before the movies were made:

Dune (Frank Herbert) & several sequels afterward. Loved the first 3 books. The 1984 movie movie was a mess as far as the story went. Too much was crammed into 2 hours which missed a lot of details. Ugh. Disaster. Around 2003 a mini series was made... that was a little better but not as good as the books.

The Martian (Andy Weir):  Listened to the entire audio book several months before the movie came out. It played out more like a daily blog entry and it was great. The movie was very good too but a bit different. A couple of things from the book was cut but in all, I enjoyed both the book and movie. They are essentially the same but still different.

I like science fiction.

Friday 5 for December 4: The Middle

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Friday 5! Please copy these questions to your webspace. Answer the questions there, then leave a comment below so we all know where to check out your responses! Please don’t forget to link us from your website!

1. What film have you seen in the past year that’s completely average?

The only movie I paid to see at the theater this year was way above average. That leaves me with DVD movies that I have. The most mediocre that I saw this year is one called The Virgin Chronicles which I bought for $5 as part of a double DVD in WalMart coupled with American Beauty. Not a bad movie, but not very good either. Mediocre at best.

2. Who’s the most average-looking person you know?

There are plenty, too numerous to pick only one.

3. In what area of your life are you performing just well enough?

My whole life is mostly average.



4. A new radio station features music you neither like nor dislike! What are three songs you’re likely to hear on it?

I don't know about "new" radio stations. Mostly our old ones get an occasionally makeover (format change). That said the current makeover of KPOI 105.9 FM (The Ride) has sunken to further mediocrity by playing predictable but average hits such as REO Speedwagon's "Time for Me to Fly", John Cougar Mellencamp's "Pink Houses" and "Roseanna" by Toto. They were good songs in the day, but today they are just part of a bigger, bland mix typical of most classic rock, oldies, 80s and AC formatted stations.

Most music radio stations are pretty bland overall because a lot of them opt to run computerized, voice tracked programming or syndicated content that sounds the same everywhere else in the U.S. Hardly any real time local DJs in many timeslots except for morning drive... usually.

Another bunch of bland radio stations in our market include KSSK AM & FM, KRTR 96.3 FM and KUMU 94.7 FM. They all feature an adult contemporary format and play mediocre tracks by artists such as Michael Buble, Celine Dion, Barry Manilow, Mariah Carey, Billy Joel, Michael Bolton, Kenny G, Leona Lewis, Alicia Keys, Whitney Houston, and Kelly Clarkson to name a few. A mix of the average to mediocre old stuff and new hits. Yawn.

KSSK is also very difficult to listen to during the holidays as they only play Christmas music for the entire season up to December 25. While I like Christmas music, I can't stand hearing it around the clock 24-7.

5. What game or sport are you just okay in?

I am a mediocre to terrible chess player. I like Stratego and Checkers but am rusty in both today. I don't do very well with some of the games I have on my Nintendo DSi or the various Macintosh computers I own.

I totally suck at all sports, which means I don't play any.