Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Best Buy Support Questionnaire Backlash
December 17, 2008

I recently signed up for Reward Zone membership at Best Buy. Ever since they opened the nearby store, I’ve been shopping there more, rather than going to Circuit City. Could this be related to Circuit City’s economic problems? I buy a lot of electronic stuff. Anyway…

I was trying to log in to my Reward Zone account, and I failed. I think the reason was that I had given my old Verizon phone number when I opened the account. I sometimes do this to keep from getting sales calls. Anyway, I couldn’t log in, and I hadn’t thought to try that number to process the log in, so I filled out their support form and explained my issue.

Imbalance
December 17, 2008

Skippy recently wrote a post about internet celebrity, personality types, and life balance in which he makes several great points about folks that live and breathe technology and the intarweb.

I’ve noticed people in my local circles who, even though they’re not A-list bloggers, have a mass in terms of their presence in the IT community. Recently, and renewed again as a result of Skippy’s post, I’ve asked myself whether these folks are really worthy of such adoration or reputation. For the most part, my local friends are also content producers of significance, although I think some of them have brushed up against fame enough to think they’d enjoy it, even if they don’t actively pursue it. Still, I think there is a serious problem in the way celebrity and popularity works on the internet, perhaps mirroring the real world.

Top 10 Board or Box Games Christmas Gift Guide
December 15, 2008

We stopped at Target this evening to look for something completely unrelated (a cake pan, if you must know - yes, a new shaped cake is incoming), and while passing through the toy section, I looked over their selection of board games. It was pretty poor.

I know I’ve mentioned that I’m a game junkie. I buy, uh, everything game related. I’ve come across a few pretty darn good games in my time, certainly enough to bother writing about here. And since I’ve noticed that my visitors are looking for such things, I thought I would take a little time to answer some questions and point to some real winners.

Before we get started, I’ll answer the main question posed that leads people to my site: Is it ok to buy your boyfriend a boardgame? The answer is yes. There is a catch, though. Either you must know that he plays them already, or you must play them with him. If not, don’t bother, or he’ll end up with a really cool game he’ll never get to play. Or maybe it would inspire him to find a group to play with. Who knows?!

Now, on with the games!

Where's the Spirit?
December 15, 2008

Berta’s sister, Mary Ann, and her husband, Ryan, visited over the weekend. With them, we went to select our Christmas tree.

What bothers me about this year, and last year, is that we’ve been trying to go out for a “cut your own tree” experience. I mean, what’s the point of going out to get a tree form a tree farm if you aren’t cutting down your own tree? You might as well buy a tree from one of the stands on the side of the road.

Peanut Butter Programming
December 13, 2008

On a mailing list to which I still subscribe (registered users only), a message was recently posted about pre-testing programming aptitude. Being a programmer myself, these topics always amuse me, and will no doubt be the focus of at least 10 minutes of our next work lunch.

In particular, the ensuing discussion focused on whether it’s easy or difficult to teach programming. The focus was perhaps more concerned with whether programming skills are important at all in comparison to problem solving skills, and the difficulty of teaching those. Being that one of the better sessions I attended at BarCamp Philly revolved around the curriculum required for community college computer classes to produce employable programmers, and the difficulty of finding programmers in the marketplace with any skill, I have much interest in this topic.