Ken Newquist As a Mac user, I get a fair amount of flack from PC folks. Some of it was about the toilet-seat design of the original colorful iBooks (hey, I agree – those things looked awful). Some of it was aimed at processor speed (I admit it – PCs have faster processors, although gap isn’t nearly … Read more
It’s that time of year again – time to research the candidates, step into the voting booth, and cast a vote and hopefully change Pennsylvania for the better.
Pennsylvania’s biggest race is for governor. From the major parties we’ve got Democrat Ed Rendell, former mayor of Philadelphia, and Republican Mike Fisher the state’s attorney general. The Libertarian candidate is Ken Krawchuk. I don’t know – and don’t care – who the Green candidate is.
At the start of the campaign, I didn’t have any particular strong feelings against Ed Rendell, aside from my typically moderate, knee-jerk dislike of Democratic policies. Since then I’ve had the chance to read up on Rendell’s history in Philadelphia, which isn’t quite as momentous as the Democratic party would like to be believe. He did some good work down there, but his refusal to deal with the public education crisis in the city and his failure to significantly cut taxes will insure that no matter how much time he bought the city, eventually the flight of the middle class from Philly to the suburbs will continue.
Jim Lee penciled the story that got me hooked on comics. Oh I’d read comics a few times before to be sure — I had a G.I. Joe subscription one year, and I remember my grandparents buying me a few when I’d stay with them during the summer, but I was never hooked until the … Read more
Mozilla is the open-source monster spun off by Netscape in a desperate attempt to harness the passion of thousands of Microsoft-hating geeks to build a better browser. It took years longer than anyone anticipated, but they finally got the code to the point where it could be released, thus spawning the lackluster Netscape 6.0 browser. … Read more
Wizards of the Coast’s original Star Wars role-playing game was launched along side The Phantom Menace in 1999 and was caught up in the hype storm surrounding the first wholly-new serial in nearly 20 years. Like the movie, the game wasn’t everything that fans had hoped for or wanted. The game — based on the same … Read more
“Mommy … it hurts!” Those words struck fear into the heart of Kevin Archer’s mother … but that fear was nothing compared to the horror she felt the next day when she found her son dead of a heroin overdose. The child had been playing in a McDonald’s ball pit when a heroin-filled syringe had … Read more
An e-mail claiming that a new patriotic Pepsi soda can had the words “Under God” striken from its design is a hoax. Date collected: 8/12/2002 Pepsi has a new patriotic can coming out with pictures of the Empire State Bldg. and the Pledge of Allegiance on them. But Pepsi forgot two little words on the … Read more
Enterprise is Paramount’s attempt to revitalize the Star Trek franchise by returning to the adventurous, thrill-seeking, curious days of the Federation’s youth. The series, which follows the crew of the original starship Enterprise on its maiden voyage, has been largely successful. The technobabble of Voyager has been exorcised, and – on average – the stories … Read more
“Something is going to happen.”– Dave Bowman. “What what’s going to happen?” — Dr. Heywood Floyd. “Something wonderful.” — Dave Bowman, 2010: Odyssey Two We did something wonderful yesterday. We listened to our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It was our second official visit to see the midwife, and it was part of the … Read more
Civilization III sucks. There … I’ve said it. It took me months, but I finally said it. I feel much better now. I’m a big fan of the Civilization series, starting with the original computer game back in college (around about 1993). Its sequel, Civilization II. represents a pinnacle in empire-building games, in which players … Read more