NASCAR 2012 – Season so far
Okay, time to dust off the blog again, start writing here, and then start writing again in general. What better to talk about than the NASCAR 2012 season.
Racing season again
With the sound of engines humming in the background, spring weather reminds me I need to finishing editing and start posting some more racing tales stories. I know the two fans in Oregon are about to lose patience and move on to other fiction. I promise, I will get to editing and posting soon.
Windows 7, Frame Rate increase
One noted benefit from upgrading my laptop from vista to windows 7 is an increase of 20 fps. My NVIDIA GeForce 8400M went from 36 FPS in bench market to 59 FPS after the upgrade. I had the latest drivers before and no other changes were made. Perhaps the drives for windows 7 are just better or maybe the OS is getting out-of-the-way. I don’t care. It is better and WoW looks better.
Note: Benchmark using Video Card Stability Test from The Freestone Group
Windows 7 Family 3-Packs
This is not a review of Windows 7. There are plenty of those. I am a gamer, and Vista is awful for gamers, and everyone else. I am just happy that Microsoft finally decided to do what Apple has done for years. Giving me a multiple license upgrade for a “reasonable” price. I think it should have been a 5-pack for $150 but a 3 pack for $150 is better than the old options.
I have upgraded most of my machines now, and had to pave my gaming systems since they were vista ultimate and I was “downgrading” to Home Premium, but gaming machines need to be wipe and reloaded every so often anyway. That aside, I wish I could have upgraded to 64-bit from 32-bit with the upgrade, but I am still satisfied with everything working.
ATT 3G Microcell
I have to admit that I am not like other people. Most people would change phone companies, or continuously register complaints about poor coverage, but after 15 years of dropped calls and delayed text messages in my own house, spending $150 to make that never happen again is an easy choice.
The 3G Microcell is finally available in my area, if you have an iPhone and have spotty coverage in your house and you have a good internet connection, you want this.
Setup was pretty straightforward. Took about 90 minutes from when I plugged it in until it was working. Just as the documentation said it would.
There is a deal with unlimited calling for $30 a month that will give you $100 back for purchasing, but I have enough minutes. I just do not want to miss a text or email again in my house.
Eternal Emperor Short Stories – An homage to Hammer’s Slammers
The once completed and pretty much unreadable eternal emperor novel I wrote 4 years ago is still locked safely away where no one can read it. My writing and editing is much better these days and will presumably only get better.
Rather than go and rewrite a novel that I have written at least 4 times in the past 2 decades, I chose to do something different. I was reading David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers collection recently and it struck me that I should just rewrite the story as a series of short stories in a style of Drake. Why write a long novel about a 6 events and leave the reader asking why you did it, when I could write 6 short stories in the style of Hammer’s Slammers and get the back story out-of-the-way.
The choice to create the “Arrested Development Collection” seems so natural once I realized that Drake was the author that inspired these stories in the first place. I love Military Science Fiction. When you read this collection I think you will see the Hammer’s Slammers style in these stories, and I am happy if you find it enjoyable.
I will be posting the stories when the editing completes. Once it is all done I will post another version with the entire collection.
NASCAR is in town, there must be a chance of rain.
With the first night race in Atlanta approaching, there is only one thing for certain on Sunday night. That would be a chance of a rain delay. I am starting to see these rain delays and rescheduling of races as a nice reminder of how out of control the real world is.
In our world we sit around happily in control of our lives and our environment, happily ignoring the things we have no control of. When it comes to racing the multi-million dollar operation that is a weekly televised race is as subject to the whims of the weather as any ancient hunter on the great plains. We are forced to live at the whims of nature.
I know other sporting events must do the same but really, who watches baseball. And football only stops the game when there is lightning. Something about not wanting to see millionaires being lightning rods on live TV.
So, when it comes to Sunday night and I settle back in my recliner ready to watch the first night race I will be ready for the hours of banter and explanations of how long it takes to dry the track. Even the 10 minute discussion about how the track dryers use jet engines and make the track slick due to the residue from the jet fuel. It is just part of being a race fan.
And oh, it is a 20% chance of rain right now.
