(no subject)

[Poll #668871]

Please discuss the reasons behind your selection in comments.

I would have included Guybrush Threepwood, but I don't think he has a cereal, so he's out.

Computers while I grew up (continued from a comment)

I was lucky there were always computers in the house in my early childhood. Though the first one I was allowed to touch was the Apple II my dad bought in 1978. I wrote my first program on that machine.

My parents seperated, and I didn't have a computer in my house again until I was 20! Another Apple II that someone donated to my school, but they had no use for. Ofcourse in those 13 years, I managed to get lots of computer time, anyway I could.

Most of my computer time was at my best friend, aikiwombat's house. His dad was a teacher, and would bring home this Sanyo Luggable PC with a 5 inch screen built in. Five inches of pure CGA goodness. The thing could only display four colors at a time (counting black) and only had two pallettes, but it was GOOD. It had BASIC, so we could program.

I remember another time, we went to Radio Shack and use the display computer. I went there just to get some computer time. We had a little program that could make the PC speaker "talk". I remember when we started that up, the salesman hurried over and asked, "how did you do that?" I don't know how long we were there, hacking away on a radio shack computer before we got kicked out.

Then there was the time when Sears started selling computers. We thought that sears had no business selling these things, so we went and wrote a quick basic program that endlessly displayed "GO BUY A LAWNMOWER!" aikiwombat improved this program by disabling the keyboard. I improved the prank by making it be the first program the computers would run when they booted. I think we went back later, and the computers were turned off. So we turned one on, and sure enough, our program was still there.

When I was in High School, I would stay for hours and hours after school using the computer. They trusted me, and sometimes they would literally leave me alone in the building. I would be the only one there, happily hacking away. The would lock up, and leave me unsupervised until I decided to go home. Usually around 5:00 -- and school got out at noon. I even got a modem somewhere, and would run a long phone line from the computer to a phone plug in an unused office. We used this plug, because it was one of the only jacks in the school that could dial long distance, as it used to belong to the principal.

So I was lucky growing up. Even though I didn't have a computer at home, I found access to computers and continued to learn.

I would be depressed if I had to start doing that again. Haha. I'm glad I have been fortunate enough the past several years to own a computer of my own.

You can skip this one. Its a silly Web Quiz

My pirate name is:

Mad Tom Rackham

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.