New Year, New Toys
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Been offline a while...the Holidays are dismal for online communication like blogs. Was all wrapped-up in the pure, unrestrained joy of an 18-month-old kid during Christmas. He was beside himself. Pix later. Never have I seen so much excitement over a wagon, a sled, and some noisy Elmo toys.
At any rate, I am getting used to my new toy too. Funny...my kid's toys are numerous (they take up a whole house) but relatively inexpensive. As you get older, excepting cars, toys get smaller and vastly more expensive.
Bck to my toys. Got a new laptop (Gateway, Centrino Duo, Windows Vista Premium capable, 2048 SDRAM, etc.) and a wireless router for the house. So now instead of being relegated to the den upstairs (which will become my kid's room as we consider adding another progeny), we can now update blogs and check email anywhere in the house. Welcome to the 21st century! I am sure we had some neighbors who enjoyed access to our network as well for the day it took me to figure out how to make it "secure."
So the past few nights have been full of watching football and downloading everything we had on the old tower computer that we liked onto the new one (iTunes, Microsoft Office 2003, etc.).
But no games?
No.
Got me an X Box. Since getting the X Box I have averaged maybe 3 hours of sleep a night.
Got any new toys for Christmas? Brag away!
7 comments:
Sounds like a pretty great Christmas. Nice computer, too. I need me one of them lap tops.
How did you justify the Xbox to the wife? Educational development for your boy?
Our kid's only 8 weeks old, so we were too pooped to bother shopping for each other. The wife got me a jacket from lands end, I got her some clothings that she sent me a link to.
all the presents we got from other people were really for the kid. lots of picture frames, lots of gift cards to kid stores, a cd player for the kid's room, etc. that danged girl has better stuff than I do.
The X-Box justification was a fine bit of lobbying if I do say so myself. I justified the laptop by pointing out what a massive hassle it is to run upstairs to the den, especially if our kid is still awake; too hard to watch him but bang out that quick emial or whatever. So she said all I wanted was a better computer to play games with. So I told her if we went wireless and got the lap top for internet and apps, and I got a gaming console, I wouldn't hog the computer with my silly games and she could use it too.
So in the end, I got a lap top, a wireless connection for the house, and an X-Box. Internet in front of the tv on which I am playing Heinous Screaming Death XII, all under the auspices of not hogging the computer to play games. Heh. I was given the cake and am eating it with gusto.
Well played. I refuse to get an Xbox because I know I'd end up unemployed. But more power to you.
I got a Nintendo Wii! Best game console I have EVER played! The newest Zelda is amazing too.
Golf games are the best so far. It just absolutely rocks to have to swing and make sure you swing through, and position the club right and everything to make sure you don't hook or slice!
I also got a pretty neat little item, a neoprene six-pack carrier! Pretty cool.
That 6-pack cooler is guaranteed to keep your beer ice cold (or perfect cellar temp) whilst you play the Wii.
I was curious about the Wii...it sounded interesting but I have never really been a Nintendo fan.
I went wireless at the house too. (I was tired of robbing the signal from across the street).
I had two Best buy gift certificates to buy the router, totaling $40. I found a linksys router on sale from $70, marked down to $50. I expected to pay my $10 bucks at the register when they let me know that that particular router also comes with a $20 gift card.
Sweetest deal I have received in a long time.
The wireless internet was easy to set up, but now I am trying to figure out what I need to do to share my desktop files and printer with the wireless laptop. If you set this up, let me know how to do it.
Oh, my kid had her first Christmas. I bought her a bunch of "boy stuff" she won't use for a while. A baseball mitt and hardball, a small football, a dodgeball that the dog promptly popped, plus a bunch of trucks.
I don't even like baseball, but the girl needs to know its an option. I'd also rather see her play football than become a damn cheerleader.
The wife got her the girly stuff.
Bob:
your desktop needs to be a part of the "network neighborhood." Your Linksys routr has between 4 and 6 ports in it. Hook your desktop into one of those ports with a network cable.
When you want to share files, your desktop should have the usual "My Documents" folder. It should also have a "Shared documents" folder. Put any files you want to share in that folder.
From your laptop, open your "my computer" icon. Hit "my network places." You'll see your desktop. Doubleclick it. Doubleclick the shared documents folder. Voila.
Your printer...they sell a neat little wireless gizmo. One end hooks into a USB port on your laptop. The other hooks into a port on your printer. Done.
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