Saturday, March 24, 2012

Tinker Tailor Soldier Bore

We bought Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy thinking it might be a good movie. BORING however comes to mind. It kept me engaged for 15 minutes max! Maybe less. I remember reading the book many years ago and it was slow going but good. The movie is slow but not good.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Dowager Princesses

Our neighbor has a small flock of guinea fowl that I call the dowager princesses. These 4 birds waddle all over the land, gabbling constantly, while taking care of business. It's rare to see these birds fly. They seem to scurry everywhere like a bunch of busy-bodies.

That is why I was surprised to see them sitting on a fence this morning. The four little ladies were perched several feet above the ground inspecting their realm from on high. And they were telling all who would listen exactly what it was all about. You gotta love the dowagers.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Spring

It's the first day of spring. There should be blue skies. There should be mild temperatures. There should be lots of flowers in bloom. The hillsides should be covered in green.

We have two out of four. Here are a few pictures of the flowers and the greening hills. I'm sure you can see that the sky is gray.

Monday, March 19, 2012

The Game That Got Away

Many many years ago I had a Macintosh SE-30 computer. This was a cute little all in one unit that weighed about 20 pounds and sported a mouse. (Believe it or not it was considered "portable" then and we had a carry case for the little beast.) Other computers did not have mice in those days and they were far more bulky too. Well along with everything else that computer did, it was a pretty good game player.

We played Tetris and Welltris for hours. We also played Columns. These were fun, addictive games. For clearing the mind, Columns was the best! Well the computer was replaced by something better/newer and the game did not work on the replacement computer. I tried to buy it and could not find it. I've been without that game for twenty years.

Then, last night I was window shopping at the App Store and as a lark I searched for Columns and I found it! Better yet it was free! I read the blurb and it sounded like my old game so I downloaded it and sure enough it was the same game only in color. What a hoot!

A game from memory lane--from the far more simple days of computer games. There's no one to kill. There's no one to compete against. It's just a matter of clearing the columns. It's from the days of Pong and Pac-man. I love it a lot. So if you want an old fashioned computer game get Columns but I warn you--it can be addicting.

I copied this photo from Wikipedia -- computers have evolved quickly!

iPhoto app

The app that I'm recommending today is the new iPhoto app for iPad. At first glance it looks like iPhoto that is found on all Macintosh computers, but there are subtle changes that make it so much more. With better enhancements and easier cropping ability this is the photo organizer and enhancer app for your iPad. In the past I've used Photogene which is good, but iPhoto is better. At $4.99 it's more expensive than Photogene ($2.99--my old favorite) and worth two dollars more too. But if you want to splurge get both. Photogene has a neat line photo sub-routine that is sweet.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

New iPad

Today my new iPad arrived. I've had a first generation iPad since the beginning, so it did not take much to convince me that I wanted another iPad. The new iPad, or third generation model, is really slick. The display is incredibly sharp. It appears to be faster than the first-generation model. One treat is dictation. Push down the microphone button, dictate what you want to say, and text is generated. I still have to get used to the cameras, but other than that the transition will be easy.
In case you're wondering the other DrC is now using the other iPad. Lucky guy!