Tag: anecdotes

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The Washington Times published a well-sourced and humorous report headlined Universities help students cope with Trump win with canceled classes, milk and cookies. We wind through stories of canceled classes, quizzes not being counted, and even therapy animals. However, I was most curious about one part of the headline:

Meanwhile, Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy provided a ‘Self-Care Suite’ that included ‘Milk and Cookies,’ ‘a Legos Station’ and ‘Coloring and Mindfulness Exercises,’ according to a memo obtained by The Free Press.

I voted for John McCain in 2008 and went to class (Brooklyn College) the day after his heavily foreshadowed landslide defeat was confirmed by election results. I did not think to run around wailing or tell my professors about my feelings. The former would have been unseemly and the latter deeply weird. But had someone offered me a cookie, I would have taken the cookie. I read this now and think that there should have been cookies. I would have settled for Dunkin Donuts. If people today with outstanding student loan debt can demand that the majority of Americans with no such debt pay their debt, I think I can demand retroactive cookies from Brooklyn College. I am not picky but white chocolate macadamia, ginger, or oatmeal raisin would be very welcome.

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I was walking in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, on the evening of October 23, 2024. A little girl (probably about 9 years old) was lagging behind her father. She asked him to slow down. When he did not slow down, she dropped the following line:

You’re like in the Olympics for walking.

That is a good line for a kid. Imagine what she will be able to put together when she learns about Olympic racewalking.

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Over on The New Leaf Journal, I wrote about (with photos and a GIF) being treated to an unexpected fireworks show on September 14, 2024, while sitting on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade with a friend. We left the Promenade about an hour after the fireworks show. I should say we almost left because just as we were almost in the clear, I realized that I was missing my BLUPOND Knight Vision Driving Glasses, which I reviewed on The New Leaf Journal all the way back in 2021. We retraced our steps and eventually found the glasses on the bench we had seen the fireworks from. All’s well that ends well.

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I had my corded vacuum in the back right corner of my room. I was pulling it out in order to plug it in so I could vacuum. In the process of pulling the vacuum out, the cord (mostly coiled) got caught on my zz plant and I tipped over the plant, spilling some dirt. The plant is fine now. The spill would have been annoying but for the fact that I could clean the spill with what I created the spill with. Almost as convenient as my recent good typo.

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I published The New Leaf Journal’s 999th and 1,000th articles back in May. However, not all of those articles were mine. I published a few articles under the New Leaf Journal Editors byline and my friend and colleague Victor V. Gurbo has a good selection of posts on a number of mostly (but not entirely) music subjects. Today, I finally hit publish on my own 1,000th article: A stream of consciousness from someone who played EA Sports games back in the 90s about EA pontificating about shoving ads into its upcoming AAA offerings. I take readers from my memories of NBA Live 98 for Sega Genesis to a story from visiting my high school classmate’s man cave (it was a legit man cave, big TV, leather sofa, sports memorabilia, et cetera) where I witnessed the birth of a new phrase inspired by a game of Madden.

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I wrote a New Leaf Journal article about installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 tablet back in July 2021. That turned out to be one of our all-time most-read articles, and it has been one of our most-read articles of 2023 despite the fact that the Ubuntu Touch project discontinued support for it in April 2023. It may seem odd that I never wrote a follow-up, but there were two reasons. Firstly, while installing it was fun, I never found a specific use for the Ubuntu Touch Nexus 7 (I did end up using a second Nexus 7 that I installed LineageOS on and I have a new project in the works about that one). Secondly, I did not know where my Ubuntu Touch Nexus 7 was for a while. I just found it and am installing the last updates for it. Better late than never?

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I recently published a short post on overhearing a woman abusing the word like in an atrocious sentence. On the same day I published that post, I overheard something more articulate, but nevertheless unusual. This was a gentleman in Brooklyn Heights: “They’re not kidding when they say you shouldn’t put pressure on the artery where they went in.” Duly noted. According to my doctor friend, they went with radial access on the man. At least he is on top of things!

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Review: IPS 16Bit Pocket MD HD - A Genesis / Mega Drive Handheld That Plays Carts by Damien McFerran (Time Extension)
Back in 1995, Sega released the Nomad, a portable Genesis / Mega Drive which, for many fans, felt like the stuff of a madman's dreams. It offered the ability to play your 16-bit library on the move, as well as connect up to your TV for more traditional play. It was like the Nintendo Switch 20 years ahead of its time – and it was also something of a commercial dud, sadly.

Time Extension reviewed a new handheld device designed to play Sega Genesis carts. My first thought when I saw a modern Sega Genesis handled was the Sega Genesis Nomad, a 1995 handheld device created by Sega to play Genesis games. Time Extension, which is a game history site, unsurprisingly led with the Nomad, noting that it had many neat features but was ultimately a “commercial dud.” I actually had a Nomad back in the day to play my Genesis library on the go and I distinctly remember bringing it on a trip to Texas in 1998. It worked well and I must note for the benefit of kids these days who grow up with the Nintendo Switch and powerful phones that being able to play consoles on a handheld device was novel back in the 90s. But the first thing I think of when I remember the Nomad is not any specific gaming experience, but the batteries. As the Wikipedia entry for the device notes, the thing burned through six AA batteries in about 4 hours. One can chalk up many reasons the cool device was not commercially successful, but the battery life was unfortunately atrocious even by the standards of when it was released.

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I watched the second season of The Dangers in My Heart (“BokuYaba”) as a simulcast after watching and reviewing the first season. While I do not want to fully spoil my upcoming New Leaf Journal review of season two, I’ll note that the second season is was the strongest anime of winter 2024 and a very early anime of the year candidate (impressive in light of the fact the first season came in outside of my 2023 top six series). The second season finale aired on Saturday, March 30 and I watched it a little bit after midnight on Easter the 31st. It was an excellent final episode that ended on a very sweet note. But maybe it was too sweet. I was satisfied with the way the season concluded but I needed a change before a checked out for the night (or morning). I have been watching Initial D for the first time after being inspired to try it by MF Ghost (which aired in fall 2023). For those not in the know, Initial D mostly consists of street car racing against a Eurobeat sound-track. It is not at all sweet. It has some awful anime romance writing but the races are great fun. I watched the first two episodes of Fourth Stage right after the Dangers in My Heart finale. Just the contrast I was looking for — very satisfying.

Introducing Pokémon Red Novel Project by Nicholas A. Ferrell (thenewleafjournal.com)
I introduce a project to turn a new play-through of Pokémon Red into a serialized novel and quasi-strategy guide with helpful tips and strategies.

I am making progress in my Pokémon Red play-through novel project. I am perfect. But what fun would it be to write a serialized Pokémon play-through novel of me being perfect? To make things more interesting, I decided to pretend to not be perfect on occasion. After I pretended to lose to Misty twice, I reached the entrance to Rock Tunnel and realized that I forgot to exchange my bike voucher for a bike in Cerulean City. Of course, there is absolutely no possible way that I could forget to get the bicycle before leaving Cerulean City behind. I only “forgot” to make for a more exciting story and show my future readers how quickly you can obtain Fly after making it through the tunnel.

(Or so I like to tell myself…)

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I read that Microsoft is discontinuing Microsoft Publisher in October 2026 (see report). This made me feel nostalgic in the same way that seeing a Ti-89 Titanium graphing calculator does. I worked on my high school newspaper for two years, one as an assistant to my friend and New Leaf Journal colleague Victor V. Gurbo, and second as the senior editor after he graduated. We used Publisher to make the paper and I created a new template for it when I was senior editor. In light of the fact that I had never done anything like that before (mind that I had only had a modern PC at home for about 1.5 years before becoming senior editor), Publisher was intuitive and easy to work with. I have not worked with Publisher since high school and have not used Microsoft Office at all since switching to Linux in 2020 (I do most of my writing in markdown and use LibreOffice when I need an MS Office equivalent), but it is still nostalgic.

I had a second non-nostalgia thought when I read that Publisher is being retired: “I thought Microsoft killed Publisher a long time ago.”

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I decided to request an invite to Bluesky a couple of weeks ago when I saw that it allowed for using one’s own domain as a handle and had RSS support. I finally received my invite on February 4. I made my account, set it up with my domain, and added my Bluesky RSS feed to my feed aggregator site. Two days after I received my invite and made my account, Bluesky announced invite-free sign-ups.

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I maintain two emails over at The New Leaf Journal. My site administrator email is info [at] newleafjournal. It largely exists to receive spam emails. A certain gentleman purportedly from Qatar Energy sent me the following email:

Dearest  info,

I am [REDACTED], Manager of Finance and Accounts, at Qatar Energy. I have 
$100m for Investment.

Contact me if you are interested, I have all it will take to move the fund to 
you as a contract fund to avoid every query.

I will give you more details upon receipt of your response.

Regards,
[REDACTED].
Finance and Account,
Qatar Energy.

This email bothers me. Why did he not capitalize “Info”?  If my name is Info now, he ought to capitalize it. The spammer also spammed my naferrell at newleafjournal email. That one led with Dearest naferrell.  I respect creative spam. This is just trash.