The NE Technology Coordinator’s Fall meeting (or as I like to call it,
“The day all the computers in Nebraska schools stop working.”) Is
happening in Grand Island today. If you need me, that’s where I’ll
be.
–Lloyd

About an hour later I received a flurry of text messages, phone calls and e-mails, including this one:

So – as long as it doesn’t end up being a super headache for you, I am amused that the server crashed the day you were at a tech conference. I think the server read your email.
–Jared

Well, it turned out to be a very good conference. Really, “conference” is probably too strong a word for it. It was a bunch of technology coordinators from across Nebraska getting together. Some were from schools smaller than Lincoln Lutheran and some were from districts with 48,000 students. Someone would complain about something and a dozen other people would commiserate that the same thing happened to them and then 3 or 4 people would offer some really good ways to deal with that problem. (lather, rinse, repeat)

It was free, and I even bummed a ride with a group of people coming from Omaha. But I’m not really looking forward to going back to school tomorrow. To keep my mind off of it, I bought this game:

It’s called World of Goo, and it’s a sort of puzzle/physics simulation type game. It’s the 1st anniversary of the game, and they are currently selling it for “Whatever you want to pay for it.” If you decide to buy it (and at that price, why wouldn’t you?) I would be interested in knowing what you paid for it. There are versions for Windows, Macs, Linux and Wii. The music is cool, and I played about 5 levels tonight before watching the movie Rounders.

Dear Brad,

You have been way too productive lately. There is a new version of Desktop Tower Defense.

Love, Lloyd

Secondly:

In other gaming news, The Pesters and Curt came over last night to join us (us currently includes my little brothers) for pizza and Settles of Catan. We all agreed that it was an odd game with strange roles and perhaps equally strange play, but in the end I was victorious. I owe my victory to Curt, who was scrupulously honest.

We thought we might break out the other games but decided that it was too late in the evening to learn new rules.

“Do you have a red or a seven?
That’s a seven, use that.
Do you have a seven or a green?
That’s a 2. Do you have a green?
How about that green one?
Do you have a green or a five?
No? Try this one from the pile.
Do you have a green or a five?
Yep. Do you have a green or an eight?
No, eight. That’s a three. Use that eight –
the one that looks like a snowman.
My turn! I think I’ll use this red four.
Do you have a red or a four?
Get a tissue, please. I’ll watch your cards. Get two.
Do you have a red or a four?
etc. etc. etc.”

That’s just once around the table.

Note: Lauren is still in bed, so I thought I’d better post something.

I got home and installed the memory in the computer (3 Gig, can you believe it?) and tried to install the game. Not only did it not work, it completely shut down the computer. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m not like normal men. Computers bow to my every whim. But my computer was having no part of it. Nothing I did made the slightest difference. Here are the steps if you want to try trouble shooting: (1) put the Bioshock disc in the computer (2) the computer shuts down.

Well, I was having trouble with my video card anyway, and I thought that it just wasn’t cutting it even for the autorun program for the game. For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to decide what kind of video card to get. I’ve even called cousin Sam twice, but I couldn’t catch him at home, and it seems like he’s too good to return my calls now.

Eventually I decided to buy a really shiny video card. It’s one that would normally be out of my price range, but it was an open box special. It’s at least 4 times as shiny as my last video card, and it came in the mail today. I got home at 5:10 and was disappointed that it wasn’t here, but it pulled in about 5:30. Thanks UPS.

I put in the new video card and everything seemed good. I (1) put the Bioshock disc in the computer (2) the computer shut down. Once again, let me state for the record that this sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen to me. So… hmmm… what happens if I put another game in the computer? Nope, everything is fine. So… hmmm… what happens if I (1) put another DVD in the computer (2) the computer shuts down. Okay, that seems like the problem. It doesn’t seem to matter what the DVD is. Bioshock or Searching for Bobby Fischer – either way.

Well, now I need a new DVD player and I’ve wasted (game cost x 5) on the new video card. But I’m not really sad about that, because I’ve got a shiny new video card. I think I’ve got a DVD drive sitting around at school that I can use until I get around to buying a new one. So I’m looking up what a new drive will cost when blammo, the shiny new video card wigs out. Fluke? Restart and 30 minutes later, blammo. So now I have to return the shiny new video card (15% restocking fee).

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I hate that dumb stupid game.

The people who play it aren’t lame,

Just foolish and silly,

and I ask them, “Really?

You’re going to play it agaim?”

We order from www.wholesalechess.com, and this year our order was over $500.00. They have great prices. This stuff would have cost well over $1000.00 anywhere else that I’ve found. At the bottom of the order form is a blurb asking them to consider giving a little bit to help buy some chess equipment for the school, and every year our parents are more generous than I expect. Last year, in addition to listing the price of a set ($6.90), I also said that chess clocks cost about $20.00 each. A parent sent in enough to buy three. This year I mentioned that a giant chess set costs $110.00 and a parent sent in $110.00.

It takes up both of my tables, but they were mostly used for playing smaller games of chess anyway. Interestingly enough, about the same number of people participate. Instead of having 8 people playing 4 games of chess, there are 2 people and a host of spectators. I’m training up a bunch of geeks.

The king is a little over a foot tall. So, my question for you is: Where am I going to store these?