A bit of a back story:  My father and I have similar likes and dislikes when it comes to music.  I.E. classic rock, 80s hair bands, metal, you get the idea.

On Sunday whilst on the way to the bowling alley, we were in my car flipping through the stations trying to find something decent to listen to.  As always I became frustrated at the horrible amount of CRAP radio that has saturated modern radio stations lately.  Every station that claims to be “THE” Classic Rock station, is nothing more than a carbon copy of the next one, playing the same 3-4 songs from The Eagles, 38 Special, Molly Hatchet, Ozzy, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the like. Here and there they will mix in some Led Zep, or Metallica to try and appeal to the “heavier” crowd.

Sickening, because the classic rock stations around here are essentially “southern” rock with a dash of decent music thrown in.  Yeah… I may be ranting but I absolutely hate it.  

So people say: “Go buy an XM radio!” well I can’t justify that being that I only drive about 8 miles to work and don’t really travel all that much.  

But I found an alternative!!  Some time ago I was searching around for some Internet Radio, originally I was using Shoutcast stations via Winamp, but I found a similar trend, the stations played the SAME songs over and over, just like broadcast radio.  

Someone told me to try out Pandora.

All I can say is WOWZERS! The premise is:  you think of an artist, or song that you like, create a “station” using that information, and Pandora does the rest!  For example, I created a station with the band Cinderella (80s hair band), the first song it plays is a Cinderella song, then it starts playing songs from artists that are similar (Slaughter, Skid Row, Scorpions, Ratt) AND more Cinderella songs.  

The true beauty of Pandora is the ability to make your stations even better via the ability to tell the station whether you like or dislike a song on the fly. So if a song that you don’t want to hear comes up, you simply hit the thumbs down button, and Pandora will never play that song on that station again!  Vise versa, if you DO like the song, you hit the thumbs up button, and it will play more frequently. 

The simplicity of it really is what makes it so enjoyable.  I have the Pandora app on my Iphone and love it as well.  There are some advertisements on the interface, but nothing imposing or annoying.  

Go give it a shot!

Most people don’t know but I had a Cornea Transplant in January 2007, since then the vision in my left eye has been about 20/2000 (yes 2 thousand) with glasses. I recently went back to the eye doctor and got a new perscription.

After trying on like 100 pairs of frames, I finally decided on one made by Levi’s of all things. Anywho, I can see about 20/40 in my left eye now with these new specs, and am having a hell of a time actually focusing on anything. The Dr. said I’d have to retrain my brain to use my left eye and I can already tell it’s going to be hard.

Well here is a pic I took with my iPhone:

So TempleCon was a great first experience for us convention virgins. We learned some new games, met some cool people and overall had a great time. If you ever find yourself in Warwick R.I. make sure to get off at exit 10, take 117 East and ask someone where Nick’s Diner is… there’s no sign. Nick makes some awesome food and his one man operation makes the costs just as great. 

The Biltmore Hotel was neat. It has some great architecture and really nice Valet drivers. Overall though, for being as historical, expensive, and famous as it is, it felt rundown. The Convention pretty much dominated the entire hotel. Some of the cool vendors were Rivendell Games, Heather V. Kreiter; C.J. Henderson to name a few. There were also some really cool guys working a place called the Tomb, they make custom fangs all kinds of art, and sold games. 

A quick look at some of the games we played (because Blindman LOVES his lists):

Munchkins- always a classic!

ZombieFluxx- this was really really fun and I recomend the Fluxx games for anyone.

Gloom- Ever wanted to kill your whole family? Gloom lets you do just that! In fact, you have to kill them if you want to win.

Shadows Over Camelot- One we were already familiar with but was great to join in on and play with a full cast. Fckin traitors won.

In order to avoid the hell that was NYC, we drove an extra hour out of the way and went west on I84 and cut down home from Scranton, PA. As a side note: Scranton is a really pretty area once you get past the city and back into the mountainous countryside.

Coastal Beach in Warwick, Rhode Island

So we left at around 6pm EST Thursday night to head out on the 8hr drive to Warwick, RI. The route took us up through Maryland, over and east through Pennsylvania, on to New Jersey and then… well then we entered the twilight zone, the seventh level of hell and Abadon all in one- also know as New York. 

Now for those of you who have never had the pleasure, the thrill, the glory of risking their life by driving around New York City… don’t. We got on I78 and dumped on to I95. The list of things that are horrible:

1. Horribly riddled road system- the exits appear and disappear at the drop of a hat.

2. 8 dollars to go over a gddam bridge!- Why in the F Scott Fitzgerald anyone should pay 8 dollars to go over a bridge is freaking beyond me, it’s unfathomable. 

3. NY drivers WANT TO KILL YOU- They refuse to use blinkers, they go 80mph in a 45mph zone, they cut you off, they don’t move over on merge lanes EVEN THE FREAKING TRACTOR TRAILERS SWERVE AROUND LIKE A FLAG IN THE WIND!!

4. Hope you get gas before you get to the city- the only real gas stations take you off the interstate and into the city, yeah… you have fun with that.

Then there is Connecticut… in mind’s eye Connecticut is always with pristine and beautiful state with glorious countryside… until you get into a bathroom that tells you to beware the sanitation due to hookers. The other problem with Connecticut is THEY DRIVE LIKE FCKING NEW YORKERS!

Rhode Island is kind of refreshing, it seems rather sprawling. However, like the rest of the region known as New England the roads make no sense whatsoever and they refuse to say words with an AR combination correctly. It’s a MART not a MAWT.

More to follow as I post up pictures and information about the gaming!