Will Guitar Hero take over my life?!

So, I received a PS2 and Guitar Hero for my birthday. It didn't take long for me to accept that I won't be leaving the library to join a rock band anytime soon.

I just started practicing at the very beginner levels this weekend. One of the songs I'm tackling is Cheap Trick's hit Surrender. The good news is that I have been improving slightly each time that I play it. Now I find myself this morning, listening to the radio during my long commute, hearing that today's pick me up song in the morning is what? You guessed it - Surrender. That's when the first signs show themselves. Without realizing it, I am concentrating on Rick Nielsen's lead rather than my usual focus on singing badly with Robin Zander. I'm visualizing the strumming on the guitar controller. What's happening to me?!

I won't even get into my experience with beginning DDR. Let's just leave it at, "Um, I don't think my feet can move that fast!"

If you have any pointers for a true beginner with either of these games, please share. Let's be honest - I need all the help that I can get!

April 19th History & Tombstone Memories

So I was looking for “this day in history” information about April 19th beyond my getting yet another year older and tragedies like the Oklahoma City bombing. Here are just a few of the interesting facts I ended up finding:

• 1987 - In Phoenix, AZ, skydiver Gregory Robertson went into a 200-mph free-fall to save an unconscious colleague 3,500 feet from the ground.
• 1986 - Prince became only the 5th songwriter to have two top ten hits at the same time. The songs were "Kiss" (Prince and the Revolution) and "Manic Monday" (Bangles).
• 1960 - Baseball uniforms began displaying player's names on their backs.
• 1876 - Wyatt Earp dropped from Wichita police force after he beats up a candidate for county sheriff. After losing his job in Wichita, Earp moved to Dodge City and then eventually on to Tombstone.

I picked the Tombstone entry because I’ve actually been there. While living in Phoenix, my family came to visit and decided that they wanted to see Tombstone. It seems that the trip was a little too long for the parents because when we got there they were in a bad mood and dad was ready to just turn around and head home after we used the restrooms. Well this didn’t go over well with my sister and I. We suddenly channeled our parents from many a family vacation and said, “We are going to walk around Tombstone, we are going to do touristy stuff, and we are all going to have a good time dagnabit!!”

A woman with 2 pre-teen children was close by as my sister and I had this tirade and we’ve never seen a woman laugh so hard. Ah – memories. Yes, the tables were turned that day and the best part is that we all had a great time. You had to keep reminding yourself that the artifacts were not just movie props. I mean actually walking through the OK Corral and Boot Hill realizing that the Wild West was real. The Birdcage Theater Museum was especially interesting. It's full of history and many say it's haunted. You know come to think of it, it was kinda creepy...

The Power of a Blog

If you ever questioned the power of a blog, one just needs to read this article to realize the potential it can possess. "Midnight blogger exposes a scandal", from the Canadian National Post, tells the story of a history professor who blogged about the Duke lacrosse team case. His blog is credited with helping the defense build their case and ultimately breaking the prosecution's case.

Ruth

Ruth at 14
Originally uploaded by jsnole85249.

Ruth, beloved pet and faithful companion for 15 years, has passed on. This picture is from December 2005 when she turned 14. It was so hard to say goodbye after so many years.

We got Ruth from the Humane Society in Charleston, SC when she was just a teeny tiny puppy. She still had the blue eyes of a newborn. Harry, fiance at the time, was busy playing with a young energetic puppy when I spotted Ruth in a cage with two larger puppies playing wishpuppy with her - one had the front left leg and the other the back right leg and they were pulling. I immediately had to take her out of the cage. As soon as I had her in my hand and she looked up at me I knew that there was no way that she was going back in that cage. Thus began our 15 year journey.

I Conquered Yahoo Pipes!

Well it was a bit of a battle but I finally understand a bare minimum of Yahoo Pipes :-)
First big help - finding where to get to the Yahoo Pipes interface! They provide some documentation there and links to other tutorials.

I actually ended up using a tutorial provided by ZDNet at http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/?p=280. This tutorial had great screen shots that took you step by step through creating a basic feed for compiling many rss feeds into one.

I created two pipes:
J's Library (all library related news) Take a look
J's Entertainment (all entertainment related news) Take a look

Grokker Searching

Hey there again! I just tried out a search on Grokker and it was pretty cool. My search term was "text messaging". Going through the links I saw that the majority dealt with cell phone companies selling or giving user information for text messaging. What I was really looking for was information on how people are using it. I finally found a few links near the bottom of the list.

What was great about Grokker was trying out the "Map View". It clustered the items into groups and there was one specifically for "News" that had the links that I really wanted. Much faster than going through an entire list. Yea! So now I'm going to read about what the UK is doing. Do wanna read about it too? Well come on - Text.it

I'm going to try out Yahoo Pipes eventually too. Just read through a tutorial and had a full blown HUH? moment. Reading doesn't seem to be the best learning style for me with this one. I'll have to try something else. Luckily, in previous learning style assessments I've come out fairly balanced although lean more toward watching and doing. Guess I have some experimenting ahead of me...

Welcome!

Welcome to Sampsynposium - A place for me to post things that make me go hmmm, huh, and "You've got to be kidding?!" Today's topic is the weather. Yeah, that's a nice safe topic to start with ;-)

Central Florida is experiencing a cold front that is making the temperatures FANTASTIC! I just love the cool air with the beautiful sunshine. Don't you? It's going to be a great weekend fellow Floridians. Enjoy it!