It’s pretty crazy to think Michael Jackson is dead. Even though he was pretty strange, he did create some amazing music.

In his moving presentation, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals:

In Memoriam: Randy Pausch (1960-2008). For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture

As time passed and I was no longer a kid, my Lego’s got passed down to my younger brother and I found new things to do with my time. Computers and girls

Even though I didn’t have my Lego’s anymore, I still had Monty Python. My VHS tapes are pretty much toast now but they’ve since been replaced with modern DVD’s.

This morning I went on a quest… a quest for the Holy Grail… hehe… run away! run away! and I found this awesome nugget of two of my fondest memories as a little geek:

Yeah. My day will now be complete that I’ve had my fill of both Lego’s and Monty Python.

Side note, for those who care, today is also my birthday. Feel free to send Lego’s or back up copies of Monty Python videos.

I knew IBM “clones” existed, but I knew I had it made with my trusty C64. If you weren’t around then or if you were a Commodore hater, you missed some really cool years of computing.

Early Macintosh snobs were always cracking on C64 users, granted I learned on Apple II computers in 2nd grade elementary school.

Yes, the Macintosh had better graphics, a mouse, a user interface, etc but, the C64 world had something even better: game/program trading galore or as some would call rampant piracy.

Now, I know people have always copied this and that, but I remember C64 trade fairs where you’d leave with a shoe box full of 5.25 floppies packed full of goodies.

It would take weeks to go through all of it. Ah the memories.

If I had seen this commercial back then, it would have probably driven me to IBM clones much sooner.

Fortunately this is (or was) a TV commercial for the Commodore 64 home computer that aired in 1985 on Australian television and well, I’m from the USA.

Although the answer turned out to be “no,” and the so-called Y2K crisis never materialized, the potential for disaster seemed real enough in the days and weeks leading up to the final day of the 1900s. Fears within the computer industry and the resulting media frenzy it produced certainly helped to fan the flames.

The problem, as some saw it, was that older computers still being used for critical functions might break down when the date switched from 99 to 00, since the numeric progression convention, programmed to store data using only the last two digits of any given year, wouldn’t recognize the logic of a century change.

As far as these computers were concerned, it would be 1900, not 2000. How much data might be lost as the result of this 100-year miscalculation was the great, unanswered question.

Y2K fears were real enough to make governments around the world take remedial action before the event, which had the unintended benefit of actually strengthening the existing computer infrastructure.

Systems were upgraded or, when they couldn’t be replaced, were given additional backup. Billions of dollars were spent fixing the original source code in older computers.

If the threat was real — and there are still plenty of people around who say it was — then the precautions paid off. If Y2K was a form of mass paranoia — and plenty of people believe that, too — then a lot of money was wasted.

As for the midnight switchover itself, 1999 passed into history with barely a whimper. A few glitches were reported here and there, but nothing catastrophic occurred.

The industry would be in crisis soon enough, but as January 1, 2000, dawned, nobody saw that one coming yet.

Source: CNN

The animated spots featured Timer, an anthropomorphic block of cheese cartoon character, usually wearing a bow tie and top hat, who promoted healthy eating and personal hygiene using clever songs and animation.

The most well known segment is probably when Timer became a cowboy in “Hanker for a Hunka Cheese”.

This should bring back memories for a few of my readers:

“Time for Timer” ran concurrently and interchangeably for many years with ABC’s other educational spot Schoolhouse Rock!

They generally appeared between cartoon programs on the hour and half hour marks interspersed with regular commercials.

Yay for being a child of the 1970′s.

I’ve been working many hours night and day including weekends, so today I’m taking a day for myself.

I share a birthday with a couple famous musicians:

• Elvis Presley – East Tupelo, Mississippi, USA
• David Bowie – Brixton, London, England, UK

I think it completely rocks that I share a birthday with “the king of rock and roll” and also David Bowie.

Speaking of David Bowie, what is he considered in the music world?

As an added bonus, there are also some World famous events that have taken place on this day in different years as well:

1790 – George Washington delivers the first “State of the Union Address” address in New York City.

1958 – Fourteen-year-old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship.

1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of placing bugs in Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.

1977 – Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.

1982 – AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.

1987 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 8.30 to close at 2,002.25 which was The Dow’s first close above 2,000.

So there you go, my annual “happy birthday to me” post with some added value for my trivia friends and readers… and now off to eat cake!

This is the first year we’re not with other family members and it’s actually ok with us… nice and relaxing without all the “family fun” and bah humbugs

In the picture, you can see I’m wearing my WordCamp 2006 shirt and yes before you comment, I know that I’m not smiling in the picture… I was barely awake and I’m sporting my Don King morning hair. At least I’m upright and have a shirt on.

Ok, on with the post… for gifts I received the following (not in any special order):

• Handmade scarf (gray in color)
• 2007 Ford Mustang wall calendar
• Tripod for my camera and video recorder
• Trivial Pursuit DVD Pop Culture Board Game
• RC car parts (tires, chrome rims, alignment tools, foam inserts)
• 2007 “Far Side” comic desk calendar
• Black & Decker Auto Wrench
• 2 shot glasses for my ever growing collection
• Duracell Pen Light (with batteries included)
• A wide variety of boxer shorts with fun messages on them
• Woppers candy
• Reeces Pieces candy
• $100.00 USD Visa gift card (w00t. time to buy some clothes)
• Lubriderm Daily Moisture Lotion (perfect for cold weather)

One of the shot glasses says “Hawaii” on it and the other one has a sexy girl posed on it. Hubba hubba.

A couple of the fun messages on the boxer shorts are:

“You shook me all night long” and “I’m smart but I work with nuts”.

Good times. I’m looking forward to wearing them around the house.

Around 1:00 PM we finally made some food for breakfast… ok, a late lunch… we made scrambled eggs with shredded cheese, an entire pound of bacon (I love bacon) and toast with butter and jelly.

All and all it’s been a pretty nice and relaxing low stress day. I plan on taking it easy over the next couple of days as well. I put in a ton of hours for work and personal projects, so now I’m taking some time for myself and my lady… and the dog too

I hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday.

For those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you’re having a good day as well.

I’ve done a lot of good and I’ve done my share of bad… yes folks, I am human and have made my share of mistakes and bad choices… as Albert Einstein once said “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

The title of my post is Alphaville “Forever Young” and that’s what you’re about to experience… a grand piece of music from my youth and days gone by… I’ve even included the lyrics after the video if you care to sing along. Enjoy.

Let’s dance in style, lets dance for a while. Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst – are you going to drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or let us live forever. We don’t have the power but we never say never. Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip. The music’s for the sad men.

Can you imagine when this race is won. Turn our golden faces into the sun. Praising our leaders we’re getting in tune. The music’s played by the madmen.

Forever young, I want to be forever young. Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever.

Some are like water, some are like the heat. Some are a melody and some are the beat. Sooner or later they all will be gone. Why don’t they stay young?

It’s so hard to get old without a cause. I don’t want to perish like a fading horse. Youth is like diamonds in the sun and diamonds are forever.

So many adventures couldn’t happen today. So many songs we forgot to play. So many dreams are swinging out of the blue. We let them come true.

Forever young, I want to be forever young. Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever.

Lyrics and Music Copyright © 1982/83
Alphaville: Marian Gold, Bernhard Lloyd and Frank Mertens

Most of the video arcade games from back then actually had some entertainment value and didn’t involve being a gangster or a car thief. Amazing.

The sad thing is almost all of my favorites are virtually impossible to find in a modern arcade but thanks to projects like MAME and my personal video game collection, I can play them any time I want.

Ok, moving on to the reason for this post… last night I was talking with a few of my classic video game collecting friends about what we felt were our personal top 20 games that we actually own either the full upright or cocktail table version in our collections, so without any further delay, here is my personal top 20 list:

1. Ms. Pac-Man
2. Tempest
3. Pac-Man
4. Centipede
5. Galaga
6. Asteroids
7. Star Wars
8. Donkey Kong
9. Tron
10. Joust
11. Donkey Kong Junior
12. Robotron: 2084
13. Defender
14. Space Invaders
15. Frogger
16. Battlezone
17. Galaxian
18. Space Duel
19. Q*bert
20. Dig Dug

It’s great having my own personal arcade. Everything is set to free play. No quarters required. I’ve spent many years and 1,000′s of dollars to restore and revive my childhood memories of the local arcade.

I’m a hero to the kids in my neighborhood when the garage door is open but sometimes I have to be a bully and kick them out. I’m not a baby sitter… but it is nice to let the youth of today see what real arcade fun and entertainment is all about.

It does take up a lot of room having full size games in my garage but it’s so cool when I have friends over for a BBQ or just to hang out and remember the days of playing Galaga as a kid.