TMoney

Finished The Amber Spyglass, the final book of the Golden Compass series. Overall the series was an enjoyable read. Not something I'd necessarily recommend, but enjoyable nevertheless. The third book went in a religious/cosmological direction I think the author maybe though was profound, but the themes and implications didn't really hit for me. I think I'm going to skip the HBO series. To do this series justice you'd need an insane budget for CG and production, and even then I'm not sure it would add much to my enjoyment after having read through the books.

Happy birthday, Colin!

Happy birthday, Steve! 🎂🥳

Happy birthday!

Detroit: Become Human I've been saying for a while that the storytelling in games rivals almost anything being done in TV or film. I didn't think this one would get its hooks in to me. It starts with fairly simple mundane stories of mechanical people and ends up being this gripping civil rights tale that really had me questioning my core beliefs. It has been an absolute pleasure to play the three Quantic Dreams produced games over the past year on PC. Detroit, Beyond: Two Souls, and Heavy Rain are all magnificent narrative experiences that push the boundaries of interactive writing. They certainly aren't for everybody, but if they resonate with you they really are something special. David Cage, the writer/game director/founder at Quantic Dreams is someone on my short-list of people who I think are so bright that I will consume anything he produces in any genre.

Met my former college roommate and his kids for breakfast this morning before work. In my memory college doesn't seem that long ago but it has already been 13 years since we graduated in '07. Time sure does fly!

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Madonna I've been all in on these guys lately.

Happy birthday!

A very cute little bonded-pair!

I am Spartacus! RIP, Kirk! 103 a hell of a run!

It is all about what features you need. The free solutions like Libre Office, MS Office Online or the Google Apps are great for basic editing and some intermediate level features. Where Microsoft hooks you in to paying for 365 is when you need advanced stuff. My experience is mostly in Word and Excel and my firm could not go without the paid versions. We use the advanced stuff every day.

Vinyl!!! - A story in two pictures. #1 #2

FWIW the crippled version of Office isn't the Mac or Windows versions, its the iOS and Android ones. Good for data entry and text editing, not so great for much else.

Some touching words about Kobe from Jerry West and Shaq. Jerry is just one of the classiest guys.

We use office for mac at work and I also use it on my PC at home when I'm doing work on the weekends. The features ARE NOT the same. They are more than 95% the same, but that last 5ish% can vary between the two platforms as the Mac version usually gets new features a bit later than the windows version. It is hard to say for sure whether she would or would not mind the platform switch because the Office apps have so many features that what really matters is if the if ones she specifically uses are or aren't there. There are thousands of features in these office apps and every user tends to use a specific set of them. Unless she is an extreme power user and macro god though, I bet she'd be fine on the mac version.

Jesus Christ. ?

...And You Will Know Us by The Trail Of Dead - X: The Godless Void and Other Stories

RIP Jim Lehrer, longtime PBS anchor and lifelong news-man. "He was an oasis of civility in a news media that thrived on excited headlines, gotcha questions and noisy confrontations." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/business/media/jim-lehrer-dead.html

Tijuana-style quesotacos!

Celebrating the one-year anniversary of Asante's adoption already! When she first came home she was so scared she hid in the corner behind the bookcase and refused to come out other than to eat or drink. Now she follows me around like my shadow, at least when she isn't playing or resting on her heated pad.

Happy birthday, Mike! ?

Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! I have a big birthday dinner in San Francisco planned but had to postpone it until March as everyone around here has been struck down by the flu/cold bug that has been going around. We still had to celebrate a little with family so broke out some Cris!

https://www.pbs.org/video/mccarthy-9wui76/ Caught the American Experience on Joe McCarthy over the weekend. Very good, highly recommended! I never knew McCarthy's full story so I found it very enlightening. Not really a war hero, not much of a judge, not much of a senator either until he got the evil idea to throw others directly under the bus to raise his own profile. Like a current politician we all know, McCarthy was a corner-cutting fraud who had no trouble making up his own "alternative facts" whenever he dug himself in to a hole. Also like that certain someone the man lived on the attention of the media. While the Heart people might have been complicit in helping him finger suspected "reds," they all share somewhat in the blame of sensationalizing the man. Once people stopped paying attention to him McCarthy drank himself to death shortly thereafter.

Finally went back and read the WaPo's "Afganistan Papers" series from a few months ago. The first of the 6 can be found here: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/&sa=D&source=hangouts&ust=1579547061878000&usg=AFQjCNGSIbHsOFSr6LkfTRmw0_UJWxkRyA Very sad to read it. What a waste. The blunders by both the Bush and Obama administrations look terrible in hindsight. Governing, particularly in a place like Afghanistan, is really, really hard. Lots of lessons to learn though, #1 being to not start things unless you have a realistic plan on how to finish them.

Got your favorite singer to sing you a special birthday song!