Too many games

I've been playing video games since the arcade days of Space Invaders and Asteroids. I spent hundreds of dollars in quarters and tokens. I had the Atari 2600 and finished every game I owned. I'll never forget my finest moment: completing Raiders of the Lost Ark where you had to use BOTH joysticks to win. On my Commodore 64, I finished most of the classic Infocom text adventures: Zork I, II, III, Planetfall, Deadline, etc. And, like everyone else, I patiently waited for the next game to come out so I could play and finish it.
Today, I'm convinced that you can never really FINISH a game. I finished the single player campaign on Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4, but with multiplayer and achievements, I'll never complete everything. And as I make a list of all my 360 and DS games, I get depressed because there are so few that I'll ever finish. But then I remember when I played those old games I was a teenager and had a lot of free time to play. Today, I work and have a family, so time is limited. Sure I have the money for tons of games, but little time to play them. So it seems that I'm more of a game collector than a game player. Today, it's not a question of IF there are any good games out. It's a question of which ones do you play and which ones do you, as my friend Darrell says, "Let slide on by."
It's the cruel joke that applies to so many things: when you have to the time, you don't have the money; when you have the money, you don't have the time.

Religion and Politics: Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

In my experience, when it comes to religion and politics, most people cannot have objective conversions. I include myself in this group as well. I grew up in the panhandle of Florida, traditionally a very conservative part of the country due to its proximity to Alabama. I heard all the racist jokes and got screamed at by Baptist preachers all the time. I know the drill. Sin on Saturday, Pray on Sunday. To this day, my hometown of Pensacola is know for three things: white beaches, hurricanes, and abortion clinic killings. All the 23 years that I lived there I was counting the minutes until I could leave and go to a more forward-thinking city. Well, I finally did it. After college, I moved to Tampa and married my wife, who is Asian. I vowed to try new experiences and cultures. Over the years, I've changed from a conservative to not-quite-a-liberal. I've visited several countries, ate food I never thought I would, and now work in an inner city school. I've seen and experienced things that I never would have if I had stayed in Pensacola. And the more I experience, the more liberal I become. So when it comes to politics, I have very strong opinions. Unfortunately, I now live in a city that is very conservative, both in religion and politics. Expressing my views openly has gotten me into many ugly arguments with conservatives. For that reason, I am very reluctant to discuss religion and politics with anyone. The main reason is that tempers and emotions tend to cloud the discussions. In my experience, too many people scorn you when you do not agree with their religious or political beliefs. I think that is very wrong. In this county, we have more freedoms than anywhere on earth. I do no understand why people are constantly trying to change my mind about religion and politics. To me, these are personal and private choices that are no one else's business. If I'm interested in your candidate, I will go to one of his/her speeches and listen. If I'm curious about your church, I will come visit on Sunday. Do not knock on my door or call me on the phone unannounced and try to sway me. I find that insulting and an invasion of my privacy.
Part of what makes this country great is the enormous diversity of culture and thought. We need to recognize just because we disagree with someone on a political or religious basis, that doesn't mean they are the enemy. We have so many intelligent, caring people in this country who have great ideas, no matter where they come from. Let's work together instead of tearing each other down.

Apple and Nintendo: Saving Us From Technology?

At the Apple store in my city, it was a sea of people. Grabbing the latest iPod accessory, marveling at the slick, giant widescreen monitors, they were enthralled by the sleek sexiness of everything around them. Waiting to checkout, I was reminded of the way things used to be for Apple.

Circa 1984: I was a sophomore in high school. In my geometry class, we had an Apple IIe in the corner of the room. We were impressed by everything the green monochrome-screened machine could do. Over the years, Apple had a strong presence in schools with their user-friendly computers and quirky style. When I graduated, I went on to get a degree in computer science, where nerdy elitist reigns supreme. If you didn't know every Unix or DOS command line tool, you were unworthy. And when Windows arrived, we scoffed at it's cutesy interface. Who needs fancy graphical interfaces for programming in C as long as you have VI and a command reference a mile long? I was big into PC gaming where DOS was king. My friends and I would spend hours creating boot disks that loaded just the right hardware drivers to get that buggy demo to work. It was complicated and messy....and we loved it. Apple and their cute Mac were the butt of our jokes. PCs rule, Macs were a niche at best.

Present day 2008: After 12 years of writing forgettable software for greedy companies, I quit to become a special education teacher in an inner city school. In that time, I've gotten married, gained weight, and became a father. Technology has gotten even more powerful and complicated. Since my time and energy levels are more limited, I do anything I can to simplify. Instead of upgrading my PC every year to play the latest and greatest games, I bought an Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS so I can just slap in a game and play with no headaches. I used to be the only one at home who could program the VCR correctly. Now, I get mad when my DVR doesn't automatically pick up the time change to get the latest episode of Heroes. My parents got a new plasma TV and I couldn't help them program the remote. I used to spend hours ripping my CDs and searching through Napster clients to discover new music. Now I'm updating my son's iPod playlist with lullabies, listening to an audiobook on my Shuffle on the way to work, and watching video podcasts on my Touch every night before bed.

We live in a complicated, time-crunched society where our time is extremely valuable and limited. We want our entertainment when we have time for it, not when the media giants say when prime time is. In all of this, I've noticed that even in the face of more powerful technology, the user interface is king. People want simple and easy over powerful and complicated. We don't have time to read through manuels, download drivers, and searching through help forums. We want to turn it on and getting it working in the easiest way possible. Apple and Nintendo have known this for years and the rest of us are finally figuring it out too. Those PC vs. Mac commercials are brilliant. My wife loves them and I laugh too even though I used to be just like that PC guy. Microsoft has billions and makes powerful software. But after working in the software industry for a long time, I learned the term "feature creep." It means that you keep adding things to software until it becomes bloated and complicated. Windows Vista is the culmination of this problem and Apple is capitalizing on it. After being left for dead, the Mac is making a comeback and they owe it mostly to the iPod. We love the simple and smooth interface with it's sleek lines in minimalist style. I got an iPod Touch for Christmas and it's almost become like a little laptop for me. I love being able to get RSS feeds from my favorite sites, check the weather, map stuff, listen and watch podcasts...without having even turn on my computer. The interface is an organic experience with the flicking and pinching and tapping.

I won a Mac when I was in college and sold it a couple of month later, vowing never to own an Apple product again. Now my next computer will be a Macbook Pro. Well done, Apple...you've converted another PC geek.

Nintendo is doing almost the same thing. Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 are very powerful and fantastic game consoles. As a diehard gamer, I bought a 360 last year and love it to pieces. But I have to admit that I long to own a Nintendo Wii. Nintendo has paralled Apple in going a different route from it's competitors by focusing on the interface. Even before the Wii, let's look at the best-selling console system....it's the Nintendo DS. The DS and Gameboy lines have continually fended off every portable system for years. Why? The are simple and have great games. The PSP is powerful and sleek but the duel screens and touch sensitive DS is still the king. As for the Wii, even though it came out a year later, has far less power than the 360 or the PS3, it's whipping them both in sales. Why? The interface of course. Simple, different, and fun. No controller with a million buttons...just one that looks like a TV remote. There is no better gaming system for a group of people than the Wii. The only time I've seen anything like it was when I had a party with Guitar Hero as the centerpiece. It was a huge hit...why? The INTERFACE.

I guess my point here is that we need companies like Apple and Nintendo to keep the complication of technology in check. They've both shown that you don't need the most powerful hardware to be successful. In the end, the user wants an enjoyable experience from their technology and the interface is a big reason.

One Size Does Not Fit All

As a special education teacher, I meet with my student's parents each year to discuss how their child is doing and the plans for the following year. For student's in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, the subject of mandatory state testing always comes up. Usually special ed students are at least one grade level below where they should be, sometimes even lower. Invariably, parents will ask if their child will be tested on the grade level they are reading on. I explain to them that even if their 5th grade child reads on 2nd grade level, he will still have to take the 5th grade state test. Unfair? Yes, but there is nothing teachers can do about it..it's the law.
I understand that children need to be challenged in school in order to grow but situations like these do nothing but crush a struggling child's confidence. Our government has taken the one-size-fits-all model of business and is trying to force it on children. Everyone knows that every child is different and we must meet their needs at their level before challenging them. Special education students and English language learners need to have some confidence in their ability and be able to show growth in their own way....not with a generic test assumes that every child learns the same material at the same pace.

What's in a name?

I tried to have a clever name but frankly I'm just not that clever myself. I remember the Toys R Us jingle: "I don't want to grow up, I'm a Toys R Us kid!"
I think that's pretty much how I see life. To me, growing up means getting boring and preparing to die.

Never grow up!