Online Home of Derek Meister
According to Morgan Quitno Publishing, Cleveland, Ohio is the 12th most dangerous city in America, out of 369 cities with a population of 75,000 or more. The often mentioned city of Washington, DC actually comes in 13th on the list.
The listing comes, apparently, from 2004 FBI records based on six general categories of crimes: “murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.”
Today, of course, marked the release of Microsoft’s new XBox 360 videogame console. It also marked another explosive new item for online sales through eBay as thousands of people who stood in line for the $299 and $399 systems are now auctioning the units off for two to three times that amount.
At the store I was at this morning, a non-insignificant number of people were there solely due to the profit-making available anytime there’s a hot new product that combines large amounts of hype with very low amounts of retail availability.
Of course, the phenomenon also has a tendency to feed upon itself, as a good number of gamers who bought the system for themselves see the amounts of money being made through online auctions and decide to forgo their immediate pleasure for some quick cash made by selling their system.
No doubt we’ll continue to see this trend stretch through the holiday season as shoppers continue their push for every last gift option they can find.
“My Modem doesn’t work.”
“I think I can see why, Ma’am. Modems tend not to work when they’re not actually plugged into the motherboard.”
Today I celebrate the 5th anniversary of my 29th birthday.
Benjamin Heckendorn has a history of creating portable gaming devices out of older videogame consoles, such as handheld versions of the Nintendo NES and Atari 2600, but he’s very proud of his latest creation: a fully-functional Atari 800 XE Laptop.
Once again, mankind’s need to spend its creative talents on seemingly wasteful projects wins over all.