An Old Gamer's Dilemma

I've been thinking of getting rid of my old systems for many many moons now, but I've been perpetually caught in a swirl of conflicting issues.

I grew up with the idea of never selling my games, but over the years, the strength of this notion has waned. When I think about, say, my NES, I think of two things. On the one hand, I think of the great times I've had playing with it and how I pride that, to this day, my single-owned system still works because I take care of my stuff. But on the other hand, I think of how I'm too lazy to curate my collection, how I don't want to deal with old tech anymore, and how such a great system is just wasting away while someone else could be taking better care of it than I do.

The part I'm stuck on is how to get rid of all of the stuff. Part of me says "Let's get rid of the old shit before I have the opportunity to change my mind." but then it conflicts with the part of me that says, "I'd like to give it to someone I know, but shipping is so expensive and I have to work on cleaning up before shipping it off." And I don't even want to listen to the part of me that says, "You'll play with it again....eventually."

I guess I'm just writing this to just get all these random thoughts on the screen so I can try sorting them out in some kind of logical sequence. Despite breaking certain morals, I've turned to emulation to satisfy my retro-gaming needs for time, space, and financial reasons. By no means am I giving up on gaming, not by a long shot. However, gaming has taken a different priority in my life. That said, I've come to believe the notion that if you want new things in life, you have to make room for them. I'm still coming to terms, but I think that I must part with my old systems. It's for the best....there's always someone out there that would take better care of my systems. I wish that there was an easy way to give my old stuff to someone I know would take care of them. I live in an inconvenient area in terms of post-office drop-off or pick-up. I don't want to haul a box of stuff for less than two miles in my car just to send it out...it's not worth it. Inversely, I don't want to inconvenience anyone who would want to pick it up, either. I do have a retro game store in the local vicinity (less than 10 miles out) that takes great care of their hardware. I really don't care how much they want to give me for it all....I just want the stuff out. But, they close at inconvenient hours, and I really do feel bad about taking money away from them for it (but honestly, would like something to compensate for my efforts). My easiest option right now is to donate all my stuff to the Vietnam Veterans of America Household Goods Donation because they do pick up, but I'm not happy about not knowing who will receive my stuff, if it gets received at all. And I'm sure videogames are not necessarily something that they would want.

I guess I'm asking for help here. Does anyone know of any services that I would be able to use to get my stuff out of my house with total peace of mind?

Why Didn't T9 Get Popular Again???

So, after giving my phone's QWERTY keyboard (when oriented vertically) a chance for a few months, I decided to switch it back to T9 layout. Yeah, I'm stubborn like that, but I'm REALLY glad that my phone offers the T9 layout (iPhones don't offer that key layout readily). Aside from the touch buttons being a better size for my fat thumbs, I was one of those people that lived through the pre-iPhone text communication era using T9. Despite that most people I knew also used T9, I also knew people that didn't understand it. It's these people that make me think that's why T9 didn't have time to shine before mini QWERTY keyboards became the popular standard.

But, my question is...WHY did it become so popular? Here's what I don't get...I looked around the internet for a bit to find out why people prefer QWERTY over T9, and I found that a lot of people felt that QWERTY was more intuitive to use because it's like how a full-size keyboard is set up. Not to sound like a touch-typing elitist, but seriously....how do you equate typing with your two thumbs with typing with all ten fingers? I feel that this issue goes beyond a matter of preference....we live in the year 2013, where most modern households have at least one full-sized computer. We've used keyboards for work, play, and most importantly for this case, communication. Furthermore, even when I was going to high school in the 90's, taking a typing class was almost unavoidable...it's probably much more unavoidable these days. I don't see how people can possibly think that they can type faster with their two thumbs if they've learned how to type using home row.

How about convenience? With T9, I can type on the phone with one hand, and have been for years. Typing a message with one hand allowed me to do something else with the other hand. To be of a competent speed with QWERTY on your phone, you need to use two hands. That certainly doesn't work well when you need to send a message while holding the pole or an umbrella on a subway train. Even if you could type with one hand, having all those buttons, especially on a touch screen, makes it difficult to type accurately with one fat thumb, provided that your thumb can reach all of the buttons without cramping in the first place.

In the defense of non-T9 users, perhaps it was a matter of confusion. Before T9 was ABC...remember that? It used the same 12-key phone layout, but to pick a letter, you would have to repeatedly press the designated number to cycle through the letters until you got the letter you wanted (i.e. to get 'O', you would have to press the 6 key three times). Admittedly, when I transitioned from ABC to T9, I was confused myself; before I realized T9 was predictive, I had no idea how to control it. But, with a little patience and a little research, I got the hang of it really easily; however, not everyone is so patient with technology. That's probably why T9 didn't take off.

While you can't type the same on a full-size keyboard as you would on a phone keyboard, QWERTY is more identifiable with typing than a number keypad. To be completely honest, the QWERTY keypad (especially those on Android phones) does have its advantages, especially when you consider finding punctuation marks (just hold the letter key marked with the desired punctuation mark for around a second to select the mark). When you hold the phone horizontally, using the QWERTY keyboard is perfectly fine, but since you hold the phone vertically more often than not, I choose T9 over QWERTY.

Remember This?: Speakers' Corner on Citytv

From time to time, a random thing from the past just hits me while I'm doing something completely related to that thought. This morning, while walking to work, a random quote crawled into my head:

"Get on with it!"

This quote specifically was spoken by an old man with a German accent, holding up a handwritten sign saying the same thing. I don't know what the guy was talking about, as it was just one of many clips shown in the commercial for a Canadian television show, Speakers' Corner. Back when it aired, I didn't care to watch it, because I thought it was boring drivel. In many cases, it really was drivel, but the one thing you couldn't deny was how the show was years ahead of its time.

Not to be confused with the British public-speaker event, Speakers' Corner was a Canadian television program that started in 1990 by the Citytv network (you can get more details on Wikipedia, here). It started in Toronto, but then panned out to the other major cities across the country. Anyone in the area would be able to go to the video booth, pop in their dollar, and get their two minutes in the spotlight (provided that their footage would be selected for the show). People could talk (or sing) about anything they wanted, provided it was suitable for the airwaves, and the Citytv editors would aggregate their picks for the week and make a 30-minute show.

Most of the people that showed up on this show were just regular people, but a few talented people would use the video booth to launch their careers, like the Barenaked Ladies. Even already-established stars, like Mike Myers, Will Ferrell or Weird Al Yankovic, would show up at the booth to say a few things or share a few laughs candidly.

After remembering this TV show this morning, I thought to myself that this show couldn't have possibly survived to this day, considering that we now have social networking at our disposal to whore ourselves out. Sure enough, the show was pulled off the network in 2008 for the same reason I thought about. After realizing when the show first came out, and how long it lasted, it blew my mind a bit. Just think about it...Speakers' Corner was YEARS ahead of both social media AND reality television. I wonder if Citytv even understood that what they were doing was so revolutionary.

At the same time, I wonder if the good ol' video booth would still be popular if instead of it being broadcast over the network, it'd be posted on the Citytv website somewhere. When you think about it, not everyone knows how to set up their smartphone to record and post a video....it's like the 2010's equivalent of programming your VCR to record a weekly show. Having someone do all the work to record and post might still appeal to a large enough crowd...

Ah, whatever....sometimes there are just some trends that aren't meant to be revived...like parachute pants. In any case, it was just a funny thought to remember something like Speakers' Corner.