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Who’s working who, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

Been working more than usual, and Ruby’s fed up. That girl needs some attention, and I caught this disruption with my web cam as I was working away on my laptop.

Ruby and Michael, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

Erin and I have been talking not so seriously about getting a Nintendo Wii.  I’ll let you know if that ever happens.  

But today, a couple of things have surfaced that got me thinking about my video game past.  I haven’t played regularly for the past 8 years or so (since college), and so much has changed.  But, prior to that, I spent a lot of time in front of the gaming console.

Today on The Ticket Sportsradio (1310 AM Dallas), Davey was talking about his Intellivision growing up.  That was also my entre into the gaming circuit, circa 1982.  My big sis would know – I think she drove this X-Mas present idea.

You can see two of our family favorites in this cluster: Snafu and Skiing.  I particularly enjoyed some car racing.  This was some pretty archaic stuff compared to games now.

Then I got into Nintendo. Like really into it.  At my peak in the late 80’s, my elementary school friends and I would play constantly.  One of my fondest memories of my dorkdom was competing in the Nintendo Championships in Dallas (I may have blogged about this before…), where I made it to the final seven only to crash my Rad Racer in front of what seemed like thousands of spectators in the auditorium.  As I was surfing my Feedreader today, Tech Blog posted a video about the event which brought back memories.  You have to check it out – click on the link below and scroll down the page to the video:

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/nintendo-world-championship

Then, in college I graduated into the Sega Genesis, mostly because of its awesome hockey game with the unstoppable Chicago Blackhawks and Jeremy Roenick, made famous by this clip from Swingers (be warned: colorful language included)

Later in college, PlayStation was where it was at.  We had some mega late-night duels on EA College Football.  Good times.

Beijing Hutong Rickshaws, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

(Texas Mike here)

Well, the countdown is almost over. The Summer Olympics are about to start, and China can have its calculated re-emergence to the world. But will we be seeing the new and improved China, or just a beauty pageant?

From cleaning up the air (temporarily) to controlling summer weather with rockets, and more notably, hiding it’s neighborhood eye-sores with walls, will the world really see a true China?

This article from the New York Times talks about the massive number of walls recently erected to cover up poverty-stricken neighborhoods and nastiness. I guess it’s easier than cleaning it up, right?

As we traveled Beijing, the locals talked of the trees planted along the highway from the airport, which were meant to hide the shanties from Olympic visiting eyes. I feel lucky to have traveled there and off the beaten path to get a real glimpse of this fascinating culture and contributor to the world. I hope the media exposure to the country over the next few weeks gets past the make-up and smiles too.

GO USA!

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Top Golf – Dallas, TX, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

(Texas Mike) Went to the driving range last night with Mike and Rich. I’ve been attempting to play a little more often to get somewhat decent. You probably know the driving range experience is usually no frills. Get a bucket of balls, find a driving mat, and start hitting. If you find some shade you feel pretty lucky.

Well, we decided to see what all the hype was about at Top Golf (www.topgolfusa.com). And it’s pretty cool. They combined the driving range experience with the fun of the bowling alley. Yes, you get a bucket. Yes, you swing the club. But it’s a competition between your friends. Each shot is scored by how accurately you hit those targets (see above). Each player has balls that are coded with your name and automatically tabulate with the computer. Pretty cool. Plus, there’s food and beer and music and mayhem. Not your usual driving range ambiance.

Introducing our first family dog, Ruby.  She’s a 1.5-year-old Basset Hound/Beagle mix (a “Bagel”) about knee-high and 35 lbs.  She’s awesome.  We picked her up at the McKinney pound last Tuesday (referenced in the pic above), and it’s already like she’s at home with us.  Her many talents already include joining me on my 3-mile runs, relieving herself outside and an amazing stop-drop-and-roll for belly rubs.

More pictures and stories to come in this pet adventure.

We babysat our niece Bree on Saturday. She’s about one and a half. Fed her too. When her mom Julie dropped her off she said (I think?) something about how Bree sometimes likes to use the utensils herself. We took that literally and just let her go for it. See below…

Hopefully you’ve been exposed to Dancing Matt before – I’m not sure how you could have missed his quirky viral videos showing his treks across the world over the past few years.  This is his most recent video, and thanks to Stride Gum, he gets to keep on trekking.  I’m jealous.

As the Beijing Summer Olympics get closer, the media coverage of life in the country is in full effect.  It provides us great recollection of how foreign the culture is in every sense of the word.  We experienced some very memorable and strange things as we traveled through, which we chronicled right here (just click on the China category).

One of the main sources for adventure was eating in China.  From hot pot to hello banana to tea houses to what-the-heck-is-that-and-is-it-cooked.  Well, this article from Trend Hunter illustrates the (sad) trend and often overlooked elements of an Olympics effect on the host country: the watering down and smoothing over of culture shock.  In this case the food.

In the interest of feeding the incoming hordes, the organizing committee for the Beijing Olympics have had to deal with the translation of restaurant menus into English. The process was contentious, requiring many rounds of discussions in order to come up with an official translation list for restaurants in book form. Nationalistic ire has already erupted over the bland linguistic makeovers. One internet commenter said “I don’t like this new naming method, it’s abandoning Chinese tradition. There are many stories in the names of these dishes.” Indeed.

If they were going to spend some effort here, I’d rather see them dial up the quality of things like, you know, running water – which even the citizens of the country can’t drink without boiling.  Yeah tea!

Ran across this video called Sounds of Chinatown on Rocketboom while surfing my Feed Reader.  Reminded me how great it is to simply listen to the sounds of life around you, especially when you’re traveling.