#236 - Chromebit, Bruno Melissa, April 30 Day Challenge, and some Dominion

Motto: Step 1 - wake up
Have you ever been in a mood for an extended period of time? I'm talking like days here. I have been lately.

Melissa is walking around dressed up like Bruno Mars right now.

Google announced the "Chromebit" earlier this week. It's basically an HDMI dongle that turns whatever TV you want into a Chrome OS computer. The device itself looks like this:


The tech blogs are not covering this in much detail. When they do talk about it, they generally talk about Google flooding the market with "devices for your TV". It is confusing, though. Should my TV have a Chromecast, an Android TV box, or a Chromebit plugged in to it?

Regardless of that question, I think this thing is just a really cool idea. Hulu Plus on Chromecast was giving me some trouble the other day, so I plugged my Chromebook into my TV and set it out of sight. At that point what I had was essentially what this thing will be... and it was pretty cool!

That's just my $0.02.

Speaking of Chrome - the new Chromebook Pixel looks so darn good. I wish I could justify spending $1000 on a new laptop. I'm really looking forward to the proliferation of the new USB Type-C standard as found on the new Chromebook Pixel and Apple Macbook.

Melissa is doing something for school involving a dance to "Uptown Funk". That's why she's dressed up like Bruno Mars. She's been dancing to the song on repeat since I started writing this. All to entertain her kids at school. She would be a good teacher. She's awesome to live with.


I mean, how can you not love that?

Alright, so last month's 30 Day Challenge wasn't formally defined at any point. I decided that last month's move was pretty challenging, so I'm retroactively calling March the month of the Move Challenge.

April's 30 Day Challenge:

Work out before work. Take lunch to work.

I spent a semester at college working out first thing in the morning before an 8AM class. That single change begat several other noticeable changes... moreso probably than any of the 30 Day Challenges I've taken on during the past year change. Discipline is a good thing.

 This morning I walked to the gym at our new place to exercise. During my 4 minute on-foot commute I walked by a garage door that was open. Inside it were 3 hardcore looking dudes doing squats in a power rack next to a Harley Davidson. I've never felt so immediately and instantly uncool by comparison.

Speaking of uncool - I tagged this post with the tag "nerdcred". If I haven't already justified that tag, let me clear up any doubt right now:

 Dominion is getting its 9th expansion. This expansion was never supposed to happen (but always posited as "a possibility"), thus my storage solution is no longer going to work. Regardless of whether or not it was expected, I'm excited for its rapidly approaching release. The first time I ever played the game I was hooked. I thought the possibilities for building interesting mechanics within the framework of the game were endless. After 8 very different expansions, it turned out I was about right. Each introduced some new concept or idea into the game... and almost all of them worked really well. I hadn't thought much about the game in the past couple of months, largely because I felt as though the space within the game available to explore was beginning to show its limitations. The 9th and soon-to-be released expansion seems to include not one new concept, but several. It's looking like a great addition that will add months of replayability to the already ridiculously replayable game.


Top 5: Things I'm Looking Forward to in the Next Month or So
5. 4/6 - The Dominion promo cards I ordered come in
4. 4/10 - "Daredevil" on Netflix
3. 4/18 - Dominion: Adventures
2. 5/1 - The Avengers: Age of Ultron
1. 5/3 - Melissa and my 1-year anniversary, the only non-nerdy thing on this list

Quote:
“It's hard to dance like a man.”
- Bruno Melissa -

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