To my friends...

I have made the jump into the 21st century of gaming. Dear reader, add me....

With All the Speed of a Dead Turtle!

It is the equivalent to using a chisel and rock to write a letter instead of a pen and paper.

It’s like riding a bike to your prom instead of a limo.

It’s like listening to 48 straight hours of commentary by Don West.

I am cursed with a portion of technology that should have died a long time ago with the cassette Walkman, the calculator watch, and the Flowbee.

Ladies and gentlemen...

...I still have dial-up.

I’m going to wait for you all to rise from your faint or close your mouth, which no doubt dropped out of sheer terror. It’s taken me a long time to admit this. I don’t like telling people this because they always pity me and generally feel sorry for me.

Either that or they make fun of me.

Dial-up must be the largest piece of insanity ever to hit this country. Let me get this straight: we have all this technology on Earth. It’s possible for you to get on the telephone while listening to “Love in this Club” as you check your e-mail and get directions to the nearest restaurant so you can watch video of the skateboarding bulldog while you eat...

...but we can’t make high-speed available for everyone?

Given where I live right now, two out of the three high-speed carriers that I’ve checked don’t service this area. What kind of messed up stuff is that? You mean to tell me that because I live in the boonies, I can’t have fast internet? I live in the middle of nowhere, between a town with barely 1400 people in it and a town with barely 160! Not only should I have fast internet, but it should be free!

Everything in this town closes at 8:00 pm or before, except for the video store, which closes at 9:00. You see why I need fast internet.

Unless you have dial-up right now, you have no idea how strenuous it is to sit there and wait for a video to load on Youtube or check out sports highlights on ESPN’s website. It’s hard enough as it is to even go on Facebook when everyone now has 3-4756 applications on their profile. The wait is horrible. There’s really no reason for it to take over 5 minutes to load a page.

Let me put it to you in sheer numbers:

Average time it takes to download a file roughly 1 MB in size: 10 minutes

Average time it takes to upload a file roughly 1 MB in size: 15 minutes

I was once sent the link to a Youtube video that was over 8 minutes long. After 20 minutes, I’d only gotten to see 35 seconds of it.

That’s not all. Uploading a 20 MB file over dial-up takes nearly THREE hours. Trust me, I know. I’ve done it. Downloading it...well, I’ve never stayed awake long enough to do that.

All those numbers are if your internet doesn’t crash, as is normal with dial-up. There are times when it will just stop, you’ll be disconnected and be left cursing your dial-up provider, the goof who came up with the idea of dial-up, and yourself for not getting something...ANYTHING...better. Remember back in the early 90s when the internet was just getting popular and we all thought this was a good idea? Looking back on those days, how insane were we? Then again, we were just happy to chat with the people we knew and even more with the people we didn’t.

So, when you’re thinking about all that you’re happy with and thankful for, send some well-wishes towards those of us still stuck in the past.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to chisel a letter to Barney Rubble while eating a brontosaurus burger.

(As if it weren’t bad enough that I uploaded this over dial-up, I had to do it twice because I got kicked off. How’s that for irony?)

Technology of the world, Craig, of the world! (part I)

Modern technology is a wonderful thing. It has enabled us to enjoy stuff like porn without having to shamefully walk into a smut store and hand the disgusted cashier your purchases and money, knowing full well what you are about to go home and do you filthy pervert.

It has also enabled us to do wholesome things like make payphones obsolete, not having to fumble through your cds in order to find that one song that you have to listen to at that right, exact moment. It even allows me the to be able to program my coffee machine to brew my java whenever I want it to!

In my younger years, I did everything to shun modern technology. I scoffed when my high school got the internet on their computers. I guffawed at the mere mention of a cellular telephone. However, when I first started to notice I was getting old, I decided to embrace change. I no longer scowled at the kids who preferred a word processor to good ol' fashion writing with a pen and paper! I fell in love with spell check, thus ending a 19 year marriage to scratch marks, editing notes, and strike through lines. I was happenin' baby!

During the Summer of 2001, I went to Sears and picked up a dvd player. They were fairly new at the time, and this thing cost me a pretty penny. Here it is in 2006, getting ready for the rocking chair.
It had lasted me a good while, but in the end it was time to go. It had started to not read discs anymore. It would pop dvds out like Mrs. Wayans popped out kids. Also, it wouldn't read bootleg dvds. That was suuuch a no-no. I loved its many features, like 8x zoom, bookmarking capability, and that cool blue light that only a Fisher DVD player could have. It was a sad day.


And then there was the case of the iPod and my immense cd collection. For years I carried away a bulky walkman with a carrying case I paid twenty dollars for. It was big, it hung around your neck, and because it was leather it would make your neck sweat like none other. Yes, something had to be done. I had been growing the collection since maybe 1993, when I got my hands on a Boys in the hood cd soundtrack at a yard sale for 3 dollars American. That along with copies of Poor Righteous Teachers, Gang Starr, and Smoothe Tha Hustla, started something special. By 2003, things began to get out of hand.

That right there is just a small portion of the CD empire that was at my disposal. I even had it all cataloged in that green folder.

Enter the 2004 iPod mini. It was my savior. All the songs I love in the palm of my hands. It was one hell of a steal. Then they discontinued it, Craig, discontinued it! The iPod nano eventually came along and made short work of the memory of the old mini. Some claim that the mini was a myth. Others claim that it was one of nature's enigmas, like the bigfoot, or a justifiable reason for Don West being on TNA for so damn long. Really, Don, it's time to go. You suck!

Once again, time and technological advances stick their grubby hands in our poor wittle defenseless pockets. Yes, Virginia, there is a reason to shell out 249 American dollars.
Friends, allow me to introduce to you, the motherfucking 6th generation iPod Classic! I love using it. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly suggest picking one up. I don't have to tell you what this machine does. You should already know.

Continued in part II...

Who the hell are you?

Greetings earth creatures. Our website is currently in limbo, so for now please bear with us and stick around for our temporary home here on blogger. We are geeks with color. So far there are two of us.

They look something like this. Not much. Just a little bit.

Sam

Quint

Now that the introductions are out of the way, let me tell you a little more about us GWC's. I, Sam Colunga am a huge comic book geek, star trek/star wars fanatic, film buff, nostalgia nerd, music junkie, and a walking hip hop encyclopedia. I also love sports...and video games...and hot models...and pepsi. But that's it.

Quint on the other hand loves sports, video games, random TV, random trivia, cooking shows, and hot Asian chicks.

Stick around. Until our website is summoned from the negative zone this will be the place we lay down the smack. Take care til next time, kiddos.

Deuces!