I’ll be honest: I take the stars for granted. To be fair, I live in the city and it can be sort of difficult to see the stars most nights, but I can’t deny the incredible awe I feel when I get away enough from the city lights and noise and am able to stare up at the boundless evening sky.  My best friend, Brian, was always fascinated with space. He loved the stars and the idea of exploration and mystery. He was constantly following the exploits of NASA and was e...

Image Credit: Shutterstock If you’ve spent any amount of time on the Internet at all, you’re probably no stranger to the loads of online s cams circling around out there. From Nigerian princes offering you a part of their fortune to a misleading link that plunks you in the middle of dangerous territory, there’s a lot of caution and vigilance required for having an online presence these days. No corner of the Internet is truly safe, and that’s especially t...

I’ve been thinking a lot about video games that have lots of puzzles in them lately. Maybe it’s because we’re approaching Father’s Day in a couple of weeks and I have fond recollections of playing things like Monkey Island and Myst in the den with my grandfather, or maybe it’s because the long days in quarantine are starting to force me into comfort through nostalgia. Either way, today we’re talking about puzzle games! Honestly, “puzzle game”...

I have a confession to make: I have cheated at video games. I mean, not “ professional racer hires gamer to drive virtual race for him ” or “ Fortnite player loses $15,000 in winnings ” kind of cheater - just a regular kind of cheater! You know, like “old school Konami codes” or “‘It is a good day to die’ in Warcraft II” cheater. The kinds of single player cheats that make a game a little easier for the (at the time)...

I’ve been spending the last several weeks in isolation (like most people), and because I have no coworkers around me to inconvenience, this means taking off the headset and blasting my music of choice out of my computer speakers.  What I listen to usually depends on what I’m writing (for example, I have a different set of music for writing stories than I do for writing, say, software press releases). While my tastes vary widely anywhere from metal to musicals, one musical ...

Ever stop and think to yourself, “Gee, I spend too much time gaming”? ...Yeah, me neither. Back in January, TrueAchievements.com debuted a tool for XBox users called MyDecadeonXBox that will let users see their stats (time logged, achievements earned, etc.) from the past 10 years. Now, since I don’t own an XBox, I’ve dodged this uncomfortable reality, but there are plenty of other things like this that certainly call attention to how much time I spe...