Of all the video game playing that I’ve ever done, I think some of the most interesting games I have ever played are those that I play in my head. I have two favorites: Super Mario Bros. 3 and Tetris. I’m quite good at Super Mario Bros. 3 in real-life, but I’m also good when I play in my head. It’s more difficult that you’d think, but actually quite enjoyable. The game plays at about the same speed and the physics are pretty similar. I even find myself dying every now and again. The trick to playing Super Mario Bros. 3 in your head is that you have to have the entire game memorized. Well, in my case I only need Worlds 1 and 8 memorized because I usually warp to the 8th level after getting the second warp whistle in the first castle in World 1. Tetris is another story. It is a much simpler game that Mario, but it is more difficult to play in you head than you’d think. The reason for this is that when your mind is trying to pick the next piece, it often gets stuck and you end up getting the same piece over and over again. That is sometimes beneficial when you only get the 2×2 block or the 4×1 block, but the t-pieces or the bendy-arm pieces over and over again can be deadly. It’s hard to stack a bunch of those together. So, the next time your sitting in the car, bus, or trying to fall asleep, play video games in your head.

Here is the second episode of the Morrise.com podcast.

 

 Episode 2 [16:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve never actually played “Guitar Hero” myself, but one thing that I do know about people who play “Guitar Hero” is that they hate it when people tell them that they should learn to play the real guitar.

Here is my bunch of random stuff:

I’ve been playing around with Ruby on Rails lately. It’s pretty cool stuff. I’m working on a simple application for it. Currently it will be put up on notadumbsite.com, which at the time of this writing is a generate Ruby on Rails application, but simply has a quote from a Star Trek movie as a placeholder. Rails seems to be a good way to develop web applications quickly and it’s a lot of fun. I’ll probably be doing a lot of web pages with Rails in the future.

NBC has an application they’ve released call NBC direct. What it does is allow you to download NBC shows to your computer and keep them for a week. I like this because I have a horrible internet connection so their streaming service doesn’t work so well. Also, it is nice because the quality is better than the streaming video. The downside is that it only runs on Windows and I own two Macs. Fortunately, I have bootcamp on my iMac so I run Windows on it just fine. I have watched a few episodes of “Heroes” this way and it seems to work out quite nicely.

Every day that passes I get closer and closer to the conclusion that I really need to start a business. I know that it won’t be in the near future, but it’s inevitable. I’ve got a bunch of ideas that will only be realized if I have my own business. Granted that business will probably involve others than just me so I won’t be the sole owner, but I’ll at least be one of the founders. I think that with a bit more experience in the industry I could excel at it.

Thanksgiving is the week and I think that we will probably finally do our first group podcast episode. We ended up not doing it last time because one of my children was sick and had to be taken to the doctor and unfortunately that was right during the time we were going to record last time. I’m more optimistic about it this time because we do have a long weekend.

That is the end of my random list of stuff.

Last week Google released an SDK (Software Development Kit) for it’s Android platform. Android is a cell phone platform that allows us programmer types to write programs for cell phones. On the release day I decided that a really good application for cell phone would be an MMOG or Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

As soon as I could, I created a Google Group for developers who want to build such a game. The response has been awesome. There are over 100 members of the group and about 20 who are actively working on the game itself. Quite amazing.

If you want to see what we are doing go here: http://groups.google.com/group/android-mmog

My week has been quite eventful. It is test time again at school, and before I am able to enjoy 3 free weekdays (no school or work) I have to take two tests. I have been given a lot at work lately, which shouldn’t prove too stressful, but it is always hard taking on new projects. I have also been in charge of organizing a Thanksgiving dinner for over 50 singles this Saturday night. All the plans are in place, and I have a feeling we will all have a good time. There will be a service auction during the dinner, the proceeds of which will go to buying presents for underprivileged children at Christmas. I am donating two services. The first is windshield repair. I owned my own windshield repair company for three years and I am still quite good at fixing them. I also signed up to give a half hour guitar serenade/concert. It is one of those things that I am not sure whether anyone will buy or not. It is funny to donate something like that, because if no one buys it it can be quite embarrassing. I sure hope no one buys it out of pity though. I was only thinking of the kids. I just hope that I can get some good practice in before I have to perform, because I don’t play guitar much these days.

I’ve only had Leopard for a couple days now and I’ve already had some problems with it. The first problem that I’ve had is that the iSight camera doesn’t work sometimes. I’ll open applications the require the camera such as iChat and Photo Booth and I’ll get the “no camera attached” warning. The second is that I can’t seem run movies without it getting choppy unless I close all other applications. I used to do this in Tiger all the time with no problem. I’ve even checked the memory usage when I run Quicktime and there seems to be plenty. Although, overall Leopard has been really great. It has some nice features that make things nice.

Wednesday. No work, all homework. Today I am looking at the competition I would have if I were to export shoes to the eastern bloc countries. I also have an accounting take-home test to do, and I need to study for business law test that I have tomorrow, and start studying for an international business test I have on Monday. I would also like to go talk to a school counselor, and get my oil changed. Things aren’t looking good.

I’ve had Hotmail and Yahoo Mail accounts as long as I can remember. I had a Hotmail account long before Microsoft owned it. I’ve used every iteration of this web email software. Yahoo mail looks pretty, doesn’t it? I’ve had a Yahoo mail account for several years now. However, I am here today to tell you that there is a much better web-based email service that blows these two out of the water. Yes, it’s Gmail. Why Gmail? It hasn’t been available as long. It doesn’t look as pretty. There is one feature that makes Gmail better than these two other services and it is the SPAM FILTER. I don’t know how many of you who have these various accounts have noticed how much spam you get in your Hotmail and Yahoo mail accounts. I get so many some times, I can’t even see the real email on the page. I rarely get spam in my Gmail account. And on top of that, when I submit something as spam to Gmail, I don’t get those types of emails ever again. I have been getting emails from joke-of-the-day to my Yahoo account for years now. I can’t seem to be removed from their list. Every day I submit it as spam and every day I go to my inbox and behold, there is another email from joke-of-the-day. It’s not even a joke. Wait, that was weird. Anyway, so all I am saying is that if you don’t have a Gmail account, get one. Move your contacts over slowly and then tell everyone your new address. I know the task seems daunting, but trust me, you’ll be glad you have switched.

The other day my brother Matt wrote about his rock opera being featured on Weasley Cast. This sorry excuse for a podcast not only didn’t mention the rock opera as promised, the entire thing was terribly unprofessional. During one segment one of the girls who produces the Cast got a phone call, and she took it during the segment. You could hear the phone ring, which was obviously not planned, as the cast and crew of the starship Weaslyprise just don’t have the kind of voice acting skills to make the phone call sound unplanned unless it really was. This high level of unprofessionalness (I had to make up a new word to describe it) inspired us, my brothers and I, to make our own podcast. This should be happening sometime today. All we have to do to be better than Weasley Cast is to record our podcast on a Mac book or similar, and not answer incoming phone calls. Fortunately one of my brothers (the rock opera one) has professional recording equipment and pro tools and other fun software. This means that if we can actually find something to talk about, we should have quite a polished production. There are two things that will probably not make this the best podcast out there: 1. All of our speaking voices sound semi-ridiculous and 2. We don’t have anything to talk about. So tune in, because I am sure that this podcast will make its debut on this fine weblog.