Memoirs of a Board Gamer

Did you know that there are 76,646 unique city/state/zip-code combinations in the United States of America? Did ya?!

Bet you wish you had my job today...

I am a child of the 70's. I was born in 1965 but my brain wasn't fried crisp until it was dredged and slopped into the smoking, cast-iron skillet we called Saturday morning T.V. You couldn't make it any better than getting up early, heading downstairs, flipping on the tube to watch Jonny Quest, Scooby Doo, Land of the Lost, and Hong Kong Phooey while eating your favorite cereal in a bowl three times the size of your head.

This was back when advertisers told the truth and named their cereals for what they really were. Super Sugar Crisp for cripes sakes rather than Free Range Honey Fiber Blow (now with Graham Twigs!). My favorite cereal was Quisp.

Quisp is a baked paste of corn meal and syrup, identical in overall taste and texture to its sister brand Cap'n Crunch but shaped like flying saucers.

By the late 70's you stopped seeing it in stores but I was pleased to learn that Quisp is actually still available but only over this new fangled internets thingy at Quisp.com. I might just pick up a box and take a trip down memory lane...if I could just remember what else is back there...oh and I'd have to buy a T.V.

You probably noticed the Google Ads on the bottom right. I know it won't make me any money but I thought I'd try out the technology just to see what the capabilities are.

Here's a shot from Google Earth of the Midway Airport Crash site. Shift-Click on the image to see a larger image.

They must have used pictures from the security camera.

Thank goodness these people don't live next to me.

(Snopes Listing)

A friend of mine just started a new software contract. He's currently sitting in a conference room with 6 other developers at long tables. That's pretty much expected but...but...there's no free coffee. No free coffee! That's not right. Somebody should complain...or not.

...in my dreams and then I woke up.

I filled up my F-150 pickup this morning and it only (!!) cost $32 at $1.99/gal. I suppose that's better than the $50/tank it was costing a few weeks ago.

I just want a mini...

I registered for Google's Analytics program and for yucks, instrumented Marquand.net. Here are the first week's statistics in the Executive Summary with 'Geo Map Overlay'. The overlay uses Macromedia so you can zoom in and move the map around to get a clearer picture of where your hits are coming from. There's really not much to look at for a site like this but it is an interesting geeky diversion.

Analytics supports numerous views of the data and all kinds of ways to slice and dice it by returning members, unique visitors, time spent, entry/exit pages, domain listings, etc.

The interface is very AJAX-y with lots of DHTML and things like clickable pie charts with exploding pie segments, moving histograms, etc. So far, I've been happy with it but like most things, my interest in it will wane with the possible exception of the Geo Map Overlay which I find interesting. I'm somewhat surprised that they used a Macromedia implementation instead of their Google-Maps/Google-Earth codebase. Maybe that will come in a future revision.