Recent Comments

1. 2 days ago on Sherman's Lagoon

   Oooo… and it’s Grunion Run season. I wonder if our favorite sharks will be participating!

2. 4 days ago on Crabgrass

   Bill Gates was more than just lucky, but yes, it was a case of “right time, right place” but also “right skills, right connections, and right vision”. Bill Gates and Paul Allen didn’t just stumble into their billions of dollars; luck favored them because they were prepared. What happened to them is what most of us dream would happen to them.

   You can take a sour grapes attitude, but it would better suit you to look not just at what the world gave Bill Gates but at what Bill Gates has given back. And will continue to give back long after he’s gone and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other funded charities are still helping the world. Saint? No, neither demon.

3. 5 days ago on Crabgrass

   Just to set it straight: It wasn’t Bill Gates. It was IBM. They contracted the then small company of Microsoft to build a disk operating system (DOS) program to manage IBM’s new personal computer, called the IBM-PC. When writing DOS 1.0, Gates recommended a 16-bit system, which would be capable of addressing 16MB rather than the 1MB limit of 8-bit.

   IBM said no. They anticipated the IBM PC would sell no more than 250,000 units lifetime and didn’t want to spend the money, so they went with 8-bit DOS. They also went with the Intel 8088 processor, which was inferior to the eventual 8086 processor family they adopted. (And back then, the 1978 version of the 8088 didn’t even see a hard drive. You had to buy an ‘81 version of the 8088 to see a hard drive.) Oh, and they also didn’t want to buy DOS; they let Microsoft keep it.

   Oops…

4. 7 days ago on JumpStart

   If Crunchy had done that on Roosevelt Blvd, he’d have had a few speeding tickets sent to him electronically.

5. 7 days ago on Crabgrass

   Like twin brother, like twin sister. I enjoy seeing Krystal. She has a lot of the characteristics of her brothers, only with an extra ‘X’ chromosome thrown in for a more layered version of goofy mayhem.

6. 10 days ago on Sherman's Lagoon

   If ever a shark did sleep, it’d be Sherman.

7. 10 days ago on Crabgrass

   LOL! By the late 80s, I had been playing D&D since the mid-70s, written my own gaming code, owned our own comic book store where we were the primary gaming location for BattleTech (and D&D, Warhammer 40K, and Marvel Superheroes), had a figure painting shop, and had our first of five sons. I gamed with them online and off as they grew up. The three older boys and I were original version WoW (vanilla) players, but my sci-fi novels were becoming popular by the mid-90s (ten or so of my novels are still available on Amazon), so my spouse and I switched from taking the kids to Otakon where we were senior staff and started taking them to SciFi literary cons where I was an author guest. Now, I have to to get to the immunotherapy clinical research labs where I’m a senior support digital analyst. I promised a couple of the new hires to show them my Disneyland ID, where I was a Cast Member in the early 80s.

   Yeah… always be wary when assuming ANYTHING about old people like us. You’d be surprised what we’ve done. ;-)

8. 11 days ago on Sherman's Lagoon

   A big corporation I worked for had us down for an IT conference in Florida once to wine and dine us. Since our corporation owned SeaWorld at the time, they had us there for drinks and hor’dourves in the shark tunnels, which was cool. Then they served us dinner in the penguin house. It was awful! Hard to tell which was worse: The deafening sound of the penguins or their stomach-churning stench.

   PRO TIP: If you ever find yourself owning SeaWorld and wanting to through a party, just stick to the shark tunnel and skip serving dinner.

9. 11 days ago on Crabgrass

   You can also banish them by uttering this most powerful spell:“The new expansion just released!”

10. 14 days ago on Crabgrass

    Huh… I guess I did. Ah, well, “pranksters” like you I should be used to by now. After all, our kids were nine years old once, too. I DO like that you seem be able to spell beyond your ability to be funny. Keep at it! I have faith that you can succeed as an adult some day!