the fever that has lasted 45 years
Near my computer, I have a little mini Ms. Pac-Man game. Mine is the one that looks like a little arcade cabinet. I remember many years ago back in the '80s when those things were at Toys 'R' Us and I wanted one so bad. Back then, I wanted a set of three. A Pac-Man, a Donkey Kong and a Frogger. The set I want now has changed. I have the Ms. Pac-Man, but I also want a Q*Bert and a Galaga.
There is another one however that's much bigger to truly satisfy my Pac-Man fever.
A cocktail table arcade version of Ms. Pac-Man. This is the only full sized arcade machine I'd even consider buying, and only because it can serve as furniture when not in use. It is, after all, an actual table that you can put stuff on.
The first time I looked up the price of a cocktail table Ms. Pac-Man was close to 20 years ago. The price back then for a newly constructed full system with all-new parts was four grand. And you did not order this online. You called a shop, arranged an order, made a down payment, waited a while (anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks), the shop called when the build was complete and said the machine was ready, you paid the rest, and picked it up.
And that was your only choice other than buying vintage and restoring it yourself. You had no other choices.
Today, there are both consumer and commercial grade options made new. The four grand version is still available, and that's obviously for something commercial grade. But there are also home versions priced well south of a thousand. True, home versions may not have the wood grain paneling or the real glass top, but the fact it's even available is fantastic. No need to call a shop and wait six weeks anymore.
Pac-Man is middle aged
The original Pac-Man is from 1980, and Ms. Pac-Man from 1982. That makes Pac-Man 45 years old and Ms. Pac-Man 43.
Pac and Ms. Pac are old enough to have decent credit scores.
It's not the age of the video games that bothers me. What's amazing is how the '80s continues to live on. Just when you think the '80s are finally put to rest, you find something still keeping it alive.
A cocktail table arcade version of Ms. Pac-Man made new even existing is weird. I can understand miniature arcade and handheld versions of the game existing. Small and cheap to make. Totally understandable. I can also understand new-retro versions for modern gaming consoles existing. Again, easy to make and sell. But the cocktail table version?
If there wasn't demand for that very specific version of the game, even to only a moderate degree, nobody would even bother making it. It's made because it sells.
The more you think about it, the more crazy it gets, because a cocktail table arcade game isn't just a game. It's a physically big thing. It's a table. This isn't some little box you put on a shelf. Owning one of these takes up legitimate space.
ONLY games like Ms. Pac-Man can sell in a new cocktail table version today. And by that I mean popular arcade games made in the '80s, and just from that decade alone. Nobody is buying games made new as actual furniture from any other decade. That's just amazing.
Will I ever buy a cocktail table Ms. Pac-Man?
Part of of me says no, don't ever buy that...
...but another part of me wants it. And I don't have a single good reason to own one other than just to have it.
This doesn't mean I'll be buying one any time soon, but it also doesn't mean I won't buy it at some point.
expensive and classy is a tall order for a digital watch
Just for grins, I looked up expensive digital watches since I prefer digital over analog. There were two things that immediately stuck out.
First, with little exception, everything was either too big or too goofy.
Second, it turns out I already own the second classiest digital timepiece, and it's not expensive at all.
At the very top of the heap for an expensive, classy digital watch is the Hamilton PSR. Best case finishing, best bracelet, best everything...
...but you have to like 1970s styling to appreciate it; that's the catch. Does it look good? Yes, but at the same time you're only going to have one of two reactions to it. Love it or hate it. I'll talk more about this in a moment.
After that Hamilton, it's all Casio from there. Yeah, sure, there are nixie tube watches, but that's not exactly what one would call classy. Expensive, yes. Looks cool? Yes. Classy? No.
Even in Casio world, G-SHOCK has the same problem where some are expensive but don't quite cut it as a classy timepiece. An example of that is any G-SHOCK 5000 series in metal. Cost is high, but classy? Not really. It's not exactly something that would work with a suit.
Oddly enough, it's two well-under-$100 regular Casio models that truly do look classy. And I own both of them.
I'm talking about the gold A500WGA and silver version A500WA. These are both World Time models, with 5 alarms, stopwatch, countdown timer and a whole bunch of world time features. It even has a cool looking map of the world at top right of the panel. And the night light is even decent.
It is funny to me that such a giant gap exists between those Casio models and the Hamilton, but that is what's out there for truly classy digitals.
Some more info on the Hamilton
With the Hamilton PSR, yes it totally has the 2001: A Space Odyssey vibe with it, and that's not a bad thing. There are a few other things about the PSR that are quite nice.
The battery can actually last for 5 years, which is absolutely better than how things were in the '70s where back then you'd barely get a year out of it.
Screw-down case back, which makes it easy to get to the battery to change it.
The PSR does have a legitimate 100m water resistance, provided you don't press the button while underwater with it (and that can be said for any digital watch).
Crystal is AR coated, which minimizes nasty harsh reflections.
Lastly I'll say the PSR appears chunky in photos, but that's a bit of an optical illusion just because it's square-ish with a thick bezel surrounding the panel.
I think the PSR look works. The case surface is brushed, which is good because it would look terrible were it shiny like a mirror. And of course, a luxurious brushing technique was used. The bracelet on it is also top tier stuff.
I'm happy to own the Casio A500 models I have, but I know the PSR is many levels better. For a high class digital, that Hamilton is as good as it gets.
windows 10 will be dead in a week
Under a week, actually. The doomsday date official support ends for Windows 10 is 14-Oct-2025.
Even though I have Windows 11 installed on my other computer, I still have an SSD that I kept with a full install of Win10 on it.
Why?
Just in case I needed it, that's why.
Have I needed it? No. Win11 works. But I could go back to 10 if I wanted to. All it takes is popping out the SSD with Win11 on it and popping in the one with 10 and it boots right up.
SSDs are certainly cheap enough to where you can do this. The process is that in addition to getting an SSD, you buy two cheap flash drives, copy all the crap you want to save to one flash drive, put in the other flash drive, download Win11 from Microsoft and use their utility to make a Win11 install stick, pop in the new SSD, boot from the Win11 stick and you're off to the races. Once done, pop in the flash drive with all your saved crap, copy it over and it's a done deal.
Confession: For the second computer, I actually have 3 SSDs for it. One Win10, one Win11, and one Kubuntu. For whatever OS I feel like running, I just pop in the SSD I want, boot, and go. However, it's probably true that before January '26 rolls around, I will wipe the Win10 SSD and install a different Linux on it just to try a different distribution. I've been meaning to try Debian for a while now.
I know exactly what would happen if I kept Win10 on the second computer for the long haul. Windows itself actually wouldn't be the problem. There would come a day where some program has an update, and uh-oh, not supported on 10. Or, the program would run but act wonky because it's expecting something Win11 has that Win10 doesn't.
My guess as to the first program that will start getting wonky on 10 would be the web browser. Doesn't matter which one it is. Chrome, Firefox, whatever. The experience of that will probably be similar to what I used to do in Windows 7.
In Win7, what I used to do is purposely run an ESR version of Firefox with all updates disabled, including add-on updates. I locked that browser down as much as I possibly could. This worked... for a while. At some point, be it months or even up to a year later, I'd start getting wonky problems that I'd have to find workarounds for, which I did. That bought me maybe about 3 more months until some add-on broke and/or some web site I used regularly had a change to where I couldn't even load it properly anymore. Begrudgingly, I would update, but not to the latest ESR. Rather, only up to the bare minimum version I needed to get to so everything still worked.
This is a song and dance I did until the browser got so jacked up with crap that I threw my hands up in the air and just installed the latest version. Sure enough, some add-ons I was using broke or were outright not offered in the latest browser version. I'd have to find workarounds, fixes and whatever. All of it was just annoying.
I do browsers different now. In Linux, I have several browsers installed. I have one "wide open" for sites that absolutely won't work with anything otherwise, others that I can turn off/on things at whim with add-ons and whatnot, and even a Terminal text-based browser. I just use whatever works. And I keep them updated.
The problem staying with Win10, even on a secondary computer I don't use often, is that the "your Windows is too old" crap would rear its ugly head at any time. I'm certain it would be the web browser first that spits that message at me. Or maybe Garmin Express (I use that to update my DriveSmart 76) will stop supporting 10. Or it could be something as stupid as a printer driver update that won't work on 10, and happen exactly at the time when I need to print, because you know it would happen that way.
In my particular situation, it is best to keep a second computer with Windows on it for whenever I need that trash. Whenever the need arises, I jump in the trash bucket that is Windows, get whatever I need to get done, get out, dust myself off (probably along with a shower), then go back to Linux.
I think I've said this before but will say it again: I'm not telling anybody to switch over to Linux. That's something I did over 2 years ago for my main computer and it works for me.
I'd tell anybody else just to buy a cheap mini PC with Win11 on it since that's a stupidly easy solution. Plop a little box on the desk, plug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor, boot, set it up, whatever, done. The only "hard" part would be using a flash drive to copy files from the old PC box to the new mini box.
What are the gamers saying about this?
I honestly believe the worst possible PC experience you can have is to use one made for gaming.
Why?
It's not the fact you're going to drop over a grand for a "gamer PC", as that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's the control software where things go stupid and stay there.
Control software for video cards, monitors, mice is ridiculously bloated, poorly programmed, and it's honestly amazing any of it even works. It's also especially true that companies who make the control software get the jump on dumping support for an "old" OS early.
A few months ago, gamers were screaming loudly "I'M STAYING ON 10 FOREVERRRRRR!!1!1!!"
But then control software updates started getting deployed (automatically, of course). Shortly afterward, things started breaking in Win10 left and right. Yep.
And that's when gamers started dumping 10 for 11.
At this point, most gamers have already switched over to 11 just to have a Windows PC that actually works with the latest control software.
This does not mean gamers won't "debloat" their Win11 installations to eke out faster gaming performance, because of course they will since that's what they do. Gamers have a longstanding history of wrecking Windows installations with "tweaks", and 11 will be no different...
...but at least they're wise enough to know the control software is the main reason to dump 10 and go 11. That software isn't made by Microsoft, but rather by whatever company made the video card, mouse, monitor or whatever. To game and keep on gaming, that software absolutely has to work for the best gaming experience, and that's the way it is.
For the rest of us non-gamers, it's like I said, either get some cheap SSDs and flash drives for a Win11 install, or just buy a cheap mini PC with 11 on it. Not the end of the world.
everything i use is old style
I think this is either due to either my upbringing, being middle aged, being set in my ways, having a general annoyance with useless modern "features", or a combination of all of that.
I drive a car that's over 15 years old that has a manual transmission. My main computer is over a decade old and runs Linux. I wear basic LCD panel digital watches (I'm favoring the WS1600H as of late). I use a Garmin for navigation and not my phone. I shave with a safety razor.
Is there anything I use that's current?
I thought about that.
My web browsers on my computer are current. Yes, plural, because I keep a few installed because some load certain sites better than others...
...and that's it.
I struggle to think of anything else I use that would be considered modern, never mind cutting edge.
This isn't to say I never use anything new, because of course I do. But when I do, given the choice between modern and old style, it's a safe bet I'll gravitate towards the old style first.
For example, a microwave. I have one like everybody else does. It's just a cheap thing. When that thing finally gives up the ghost, I would seriously consider getting a two knob microwave. It has no buttons and no digital display. For the two and only two knobs it has, one is for power and the other for cooking time. No other "features" whatsoever. It doesn't even have a button to open the door. All you have to do is pull the handle. I love everything about that. Brilliant.
Want to know what's great about a microwave like that? No clock to set. On the microwave I have now, every time the power flickers even a little bit, the microwave's clock needs to be reset. At least for the stove, I can turn the clock display off, which I do. Can't do that on the microwave, so it must be set, else it drives me nuts seeing the wrong time on it every time I go in the kitchen.
Another example is the drip coffee maker I have, bought for the princely sum of just 9 bucks. Yes, it was in fact that cheap, but it's perfect. No digital anything, no auto-timer junk. Just one light-up rocker switch that turns it on or off and that's it. I like it so much that I have a spare since it was so cheap to buy.
I think the only slightly-modern-but-just-barely thing I use is that I do use my smartphone as my alarm clock instead of a clock radio. It is convenient I can set alarms by date. That I like. But then again, my phone is a model over 7 years old, so... not exactly hot-off-the-presses stuff.
When I look up what's modern these days for just doing life stuff, everything revolves around phones (don't care), streaming (don't care), gaming (really don't care), and "smart home" stuff (absolutely don't care).
And if it's not about that stuff, it's about pushing crap that nobody needs, like 85" televisions. Who the hell actually needs a seven-foot TV? If I needed to buy a TV, I'd just get a 43" 4K since several are well south of 200 bucks now.
Maybe it's not my upbringing, age, or being set in my ways that's the problem. Maybe the problem is that a ridiculous amount of modern stuff just plain sucks.
traffic reporting is busted
For a good long time, I used GPS navigation with no traffic reporting whatsoever. Something like 13 or 14 years. It was in the late 2010s that I started using it due to a goof.
At that time, that older Garmins started getting cheap. What was hundreds of dollars when new could now be had for under $30, so I started collecting them. One of the used Garmin nuvis that I bought came with a GTM60 cable, which is a highfalutin charge cord with traffic antenna built-in. I got a chuckle when I saw it, because the cord was (and still is) actually worth significantly more than the screen itself. The seller simply didn't know how valuable that cord was.
After updating the nuvi, I got it all set up, plugged in the GTM60 in the car and took it out on the road.
It was lovely. Now I had traffic reporting, and it worked well.
However, when I really think about it, for the total amount of times traffic reporting with auto-recalculation of routes has saved my ass, it's been damned few.
I use a DriveSmart 76 that has more or less the same over-the-air FM traffic reporting the GTM60 had, along with the same auto-recalculation route feature. And what I can say now is this:
Traffic reporting isn't what it used to be. Not just for Garmins but also for nav apps on the phone too.
As automated as things are these days, traffic reporting is still very largely human-powered. Reports come in either from the government (as in from state or county employee reports, not federal), or from crowdsourcing.
From my understanding, automation of reporting only happens on the phone side of things, and only partially. If the network system for a particular app like Waze or Google Maps sees a bunch of active drivers all slowing in the same general area, the system guesses there must be slow traffic there and spit out an alert if you're headed that way. Or at least it's supposed to do that.
On the over-the-air FM side of things with a Garmin, that only works for an area with active coverage (mostly large metros), and is mainly limited to interstate roads. The biggest problem I've encountered is when the system reports phantom traffic, as in traffic that did exist a half-hour ago but has cleared. The problem there is that if the Garmin thinks traffic exists and auto-recalculation of route (which it calls "Optimize" in Traffic menu settings) is enabled, it will auto-recalculate around that phantom traffic and add time to the trip.
There are two saving graces to using a Garmin if the traffic reporting gets flaky. You can set it to ask first if you want to take a different route instead of auto-recalculate, or you can outright turn off traffic reporting altogether.
On the phone, and I'm talking about Waze in particular here, if that app decides to reroute you while driving, even if you were happy with the route given before and haven't missed any turns, well.. more often than not you just have to deal with it. And that's something you absolutely should not have to deal with while driving.
On a Garmin, you can set a prompt for rerouting, or outright disable the traffic reporting entirely and customize your route easily. And what that means is that at no point will the route be changed whatsoever while driving. The only time the route would change is if you missed a turn, in which the Garmin would have to recalculate the route to get you back on track.
If the traffic reporting is flaky (and it is) no matter which device you use, at least with the Garmin you can set it so the route won't change.
Is that a big deal? Yeah, it is.