Good Game

IT COMPUTES: Despite high wind warnings, we took our chances and headed to the Living Computer Museum during rush hour in order to attend their monthly movie night.

Turns out the wind wasn't any trouble. The biggest hitch was getting rear ended a few blocks away from our destination. 

We were stopped in a long line of traffic on First Avenue, just north of Safeco Field when BAM! I honestly didn't know what happened until Annabelle said, "Did he just hit us?"

Yes, he did. 

I put the flashers on, hopped out of the car into the rain and nearly dark and quickly snapped a photo of the other car's license plate. A young man immediately got out of the car behind me and asked if everyone was OK, I said I wasn't sure yet, and that I didn't want to hold up traffic. I asked him if he'd follow me into a parking lot a half block away, and he did. He got out of the car, along with another guy, apologized again, and said he was driving his friend's mom's car (ugh) and they were looking for insurance info. I looked at my car, looked at his, checked with the kids and told him not to worry about finding his insurance papers. I just took a photo of his driver's license and asked him to text me just in case, but that I didn't anticipate there would be anything to worry about. 

Here's what he texted. ...

Rather incriminating, LOL. No doubt some would try to take that to the bank, but we won't. No harm, no foul. Plus, karma. :)

He and his friend said they (and their two friends in the car) were on their way to a concert, just a block or so away. I told them I hoped they enjoyed their show. They were greatly relieved.

Just a tad bit worse for the wear, we arrived at the Living Computer Museum in time to snag front row seats for screening of  "Gameplay." It was super entertaining and informative. You can expect a full report from CJ and Annabelle tomorrow. 

We had 20 minutes or so to kill before the show, so we headed out to the museum collection and had fun playing with some of their 'living' vintage computers.

Here's an "action" shot of Annabelle playing a text-based game, Adventure 2: Pirate Cove for the Commodore VIC-20. 

Meanwhile, I had a date - more like a grudge match - with E.T. Phone Home for the Atari 400.

Last time I played it it took 10 minutes of my life away and I didn't score a SINGLE DAMN POINT the entire game. I was not going to be denied like that again. In preparation, I watched a YouTube video run through of the game today. 


While I didn't exactly dominate, I am happy to report I scored 20,000 points this go 'round. 

In fact, I have the game's high score! (OK, so I'm pretty sure I'm the only one whose score was saved for today, but still. ...) Go me! 

Christian kept busy playing Zork I. Text based, it's one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games.  

LET ME SEE YOU SWEAT:  This afternoon the sleepies struck around 3 p.m., and I declared it  time to get up and move. I asked the kids if they wanted to do "Just Dance" with their Wii or XBox. CJ countered with a request for Richard Simmons and "Sweating to the Oldies." Fine by me.

So, we Chromecast that from my computer to the big screen and pranced around with Richard for a bit. Big fun.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love our little Chromecast tool? It's just a couple of clicks to make what's on my computer screen appear on our TV. We all watch so many lectures and educational videos online together, it's nice to make it easily hop from computer to big screen.