I’m a t-shirt and cargo shorts kinda guy. Have been for quite a while. No, I’m never going to be fashionable. I’m all about the comfort and utilitarian thing.

I recently had to go clothes shopping, though, which I detest. There’s no way I’m going to be able to button my shorts with one hand post-surgery in September. So I went to Walmart (which I also detest) and Big Lots to find some cheap elastic waist-banded shorts. I thought about going with some large sizes to make getting dressed a bit easier, but they just about fell off of me. So I stuck with mediums.

Here’s a little sample of what I found. Again, I’m no fashion hound, which is evident.

Even in a medium, I’m not going to be able to load up the pockets without risking showing everyone my underwear. Oh, well. I’ll be practicing dressing with one hand a lot between now and my surgery. Now I need to find shirts. T-shirts will be too difficult to maneuver, I’m afraid. So I’m thinking of getting button-ups.

Yeah, that’s gonna make me look fantastic.

The final space shuttle, Atlantis, landed pre-dawn this morning. It’s a sad thing to see the shuttle program end. I still remember watching the very first shuttle take off when I was in grade school. One of those special occasions, where a TV was wheeled into the classroom. I’m also sad that, for the foreseeable future, we’ll be relying on Russian spacecrafts to get back and forth to the International Space Station. The U.S. has led space travel for decades…kind of feels like a huge step backward.

Is privatizing space flight the way to go? Only time will tell. But as a little boy, I used to watch the Apollo missions fly into space from my driveway. Nobody will be walking the moon again any time soon.

The NFL owners and players are still negotiating to see if there’ll be an upcoming football season. I couldn’t care less. In fact, it’d be great not to have football clogging up the airwaves.

I got Google+ and so far, so good.

It’s crisp and clean and works well. I’m not exactly sure what to do with it, and have yet to do any group video chats, but I think I like it. My only real bitch at the moment is that for many Twitter followers who add me on Google+, I don’t know their real names. Thus, I have a circle called “People I Don’t Know,” which also serves useful when a friend of a friend adds me.

Most of what I post is Public, but I like the ability to post things only to select circles.

I’m still in love with my new iPhone 4 and have become re-addicted to Uno.

It plays well and I win often. Sure, I play on Easy mode most of the time, but I like winning.

I saw the movie “Horrible Bosses.” It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t fantastic, either. The screenplay was meh, but the performances were good. I spent most of the movie wondering what the girl behind me looked like, since she was laughing throughout. She had a nice laugh, but I knew I couldn’t date her because the movie wasn’t that funny. What? Like you don’t ever wonder if someone is dateable or attractive from their laugh?

And in good news, I got a new writing gig. I can’t say much about it at the moment, but it’s for a soon-to-be-launched website. It’s nice to feel semi-productive again.

There…this post is all over the board, I know, but that’s what’s going on with me. How are you?

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

So in two days, I go back to Bay Pines VA to see the orthopedic doctor, where I’ll get the results of last week’s MRI. I’ll find out just how fucked up my shoulder is, as well as what my options are. Surgery? Probably. The question is what kind of surgery? Totally open-shoulder or arthroscopic? And what about physical therapy? Will they allow for home therapy, or at least local therapy? How long will I be one-handed? What is the recovery time for such a surgery/injury?

So many questions, all making me more apprehensive than I really need to be, I’m sure. But hey, that’s my middle name, Apprehension.

No worries, only two more days to mull all this over, and then I’ll have answers.

I’m sick and tired of hearing about the Casey Anthony trial. I like to watch the news, whether it be on CNN or MSNBC or whatever…but this morning, every single news station (including Fox News, which I don’t really like) was covering the trial live. As if there’s no other news story to cover!

Michelle Bachman, who scares the ever-loving shit out of me – more so than even Sarah Palin ever did – announced her candidacy for President. There’s one thing, at least, that she has in common with Palin: her ability to stick her foot in her mouth. A favorite amongst Tea Partiers, I can assure you she won’t be getting my vote. Should it come down to that, I mean. Let’s hope a viable candidate pops into the arena. So far, I’m not very happy with any of the people up for grabs.

This has been a hell of a year for natural disasters…earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, and now wildfires, one of which threatens the biggest nuclear weapons lab we’ve got. Yeah, Casey Anthony should totally take precedence over that one. Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico is closed for a second day, the fire is that close. The town of Los Alamos – over 12,000 people – has been evacuated.

The Supreme Court ruled that kids can buy violent video games. Free speech, and all that jazz. I say they got the ruling right. Not that I advocate kids buying violent games, but come on, let parents do their job. If we banned all violence from kids, they’d never get to see classics like Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Or read “The Lord of the Flies.” Or play Cowboys and Indians. Sorry, that’s not very PC. Cowboys and Native Americans. It’s not like the video games aren’t already labeled, just like music is these days. If parents can’t control what their kids are buying, well, they’re not scoring very high in the Greatest Parents of the Year category.

Thankfully, there’s the Internet to turn to for news. Otherwise, we might never hear about protests in Greece, the ongoing nuclear threat in Japan following the tsunami, Libya, the ever-rising national debt…none of it.

I’m kinda news’d out, and that’s when I turn to either something on my DVR or music. A few of the albums I’m listening to right now:

Weird Al – Alpocalypse. I’ve been listening to Weird Al since I was 13 years old. He’s a brilliant parody writer and performer. This album is chock full of weird goodness. From the Doors’ish “Craigslist” to the parody of Lady Gaga, “Perform This Way,” you can’t go wrong if you’re looking for a big dose of silliness. Love the song “Stop Forwarding that Crap to Me,” too. Check out his Lady Gaga parody video. Fantastic.

Matt Nathanson – Modern Love. Yeah, I’m a guy with pop sensibilities, so sue me. I dug his song “Come On Get Higher” a couple years back, and “Modern Love” doesn’t disappoint. Lots of strong tracks here…Modern Love, Room @ the End of the World, and Run to name a few. This is one of my favorite new summer albums. Here’s the first single from the album: “Faster.”

And an album I first heard about from Dave at Blogography:

Matt and Kim, Sidewalks. Another great album with strong grooves. I don’t know what took me so long to download it, Dave and I share a lot of musical tastes. My favorite track is “AM/FM Sound,” but I love the whole collection of songs. Here’s their latest video, “Block After Block:”

There you have it. I’m still a tad miffed that there aren’t any Florida tour dates for The Cars, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

I know, you’re all excited about the Casey Anthony trial and the probable announcement by Congressman Weiner that he’s gonna step down, but I have my own shit going on. Shit that doesn’t involve me sexting or Tweeting photos of my penis.

In one week, I’ll be entering an MRI unit for my first time. They screened me like I was rejoining the military. Do you have metal fragments in your eyes? Do you have a pacemaker? Stents? Infusion pumps? Are you claustrophobic? Do you believe in God?

OK, maybe not that last question, but they asked all the other ones, and more.

All so I can get inside this contraption that is going to make me FEEL claustrophobic (even though I’m not), so they can get a good look at my fucked up shoulder. The rotator cuff is torn – the orthopedist said he’s fairly certain – but we have to be sure.

According to the Matrix Therapist, who I saw yesterday, they give you headphones to wear because it’s so freaking loud with the clanging of the magnets. And there’s a magic button that, when pressed, says, “GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE NOW!” She explained the process to me, which was somewhat comforting, though I’m still hoping I can bring a teddy bear or something to soothe me while I’m in the MRI. Or perhaps someone will be kind enough to rub my feet. Yeah, probably not. Nothing to be afraid about. Right?

Yet I have a lot of apprehension about the whole thing, particularly the (likely) surgery to follow. I’m allergic to pain, though the Matrix Therapist was quick to point out that I’ve been living with this pain now for a long time. I neglected the needs of my body.

MT: “Do you think you’re worth surgery?”

Um, what? I answered “yes,” but inside I’m not sure of the answer. I don’t FEEL worthy much of the time.

MT: “The post-surgery pain may be less than what you’re experiencing now.”

Me: “I’m thinking more about the physical therapy, where some sadomasochist is gonna put my poor shoulder through hell and back.”

MT: “Well, you don’t HAVE to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Me: “I do if I want to recover fully.”

Then we talked more about the physical therapy, and how I can’t possibly be expected to drive to Tampa and back three times a week for P.T. She reassured me – as she did on my blog (yes, my therapist reads my blog!) – that they could set up something local for me. “Taxing circumstances,” they call it.

Then there’s the whole gimp factor, where I’ll likely be one-handed for a while post surgery. I’m a touch typist, that’s gonna be a bitch. How will I play my beloved Tiny Wings on my iPhone, or text? One finger at a time? That’s crazy talk. But hey, I’m all about the crazy, apparently.

More topics we covered in therapy: my blog, getting out of the house, connecting with friends, and naturally, my relationship with my mother. Paging Dr. Freud.

Onto a couple of apps I recently downloaded for my iPhone that I thought I’d share with you.

Tiny Wings is my current game addiction. It’s simple, beautiful to look at, requires only one finger to play, and yet I can’t put it down. The trailer below is best at showing the gameplay.

Basically, you use the hills as jumps so you can soar through the air, collecting coins along the way, touching clouds, and island jumping. I finally was able to complete my first nest by getting to the damned fourth island. The graphics are always evolving and changing, so it always looks fresh. A few screenshots below, but it’s hard to grab shots while playing this game.

99 cents is a steal for this game. Go now…download. And curse me later for getting you hooked.

Another game I’m currently playing is Hangman RSS. It pulls in current news story headlines and makes puzzles out of them for you to solve. It’s free, but there’s a 99-cent version that’s ad-free.

You get one hint letter per puzzle, so if you get stuck, you can click it and it’ll show you one of the letters. And at the bottom of the screen, there’s a brief glimpse at the redacted news story Hangman RSS is pulling the headline from.

Since Hangman is only limited by the number of news stories out there, which is, like, infinite, there’s a lot of playability. Whenever you’re connected via wifi or 3G or whatever, Hangman pulls news stories and headlines.

The cool part is when you finish a puzzle, you can press DIG and see the actual story, clicking through to read the entire article, all within the app.

Highly recommended if you like playing Hangman. It’s a refreshing spin on the game, and you might just learn something in the process.

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

This is Movember, where I grow a moustache for prostate health. Prostate cancer is the #1 cancer affecting men. You can donate or just watch me grow a cheesy moustache all month. (Proceeds go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Livestrong.) To date, I’ve helped raise $60. If you’ve got a dollar or two to spare, please throw it into the hat.

I’m also doing a 30-day meme, the whole of which can be found here.

Today’s photo of the ’stache:

Day 24 – A letter to your parents

Dear Parents,

You’ve been asking what I want for Christmas, so here you go. Please tell Santa that I want a Kindle with 3G for Christmas. Also, a Blu-Ray player with built-in wifi. And an Apple MacBook Pro. Maybe an iPhone 4. The Beatles Mono box set (thanks to Dave for pointing out the need). I know, my tastes are more expensive these days.

On the cheap, though, since I lost weight, I could use some new jeans. The Price is Right for Wii, or maybe the new Donkey Kong. And the Back to the Future trilogy on Blu-Ray. An Amazon gift card could help me pick out books and music I want…or just about anything. Or an iTunes card would work, too. ThinkGeek has a great holiday section this year. In fact, right now, they’re offering a free t-shirt with any $25 purchase. Maybe some scratch-off lottery tickets. See? I’m easy. Kinda.

I hope this makes for an easier experience for Santa. I still miss the original Sears Wishbook, but this will have to do.

Love,

Karl

PS: If Santa wants to get me a girlfriend instead, that’d rock.

PPS: I don’t really like brussels sprouts. I keep feeding them to my imaginary dog.

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

I’m often asked what apps are on my iPhone, and love turning people onto new ones. This time, I think I’ll do a quick rundown on 5 games I’m currently playing. These are some of my faves right now, though I have many others.

1. Plants vs. Zombies. Currently $2.99.

Popcap, responsible for other great games such as Bookworm, Peggle, and Bejeweled 2, comes out with their version of the tower defense game. Better yet, it involves zombies, one of my favorite game themes.

You start slow, of course. You’re defending your house from the zombie apocalypse and it begins in your front yard, which is divided into a grid. In each patch of lawn you can plant a, well, plant. Different plants have different abilities…some offensive, some defensive. After each successful level, you earn a new plant (ability).

For instance, the peashooter – that green plant in the top left of the screenshot above – shoots one pea in a straight line. You’ll need it to take down the zombies. A sunflower generates extra sunlight, which you need to purchase new plants. There are cherry bombs, which blow up all the zombies in a good-sized radius. Or there are magic mushrooms…when a zombie touches one, it becomes hypnotized to fight FOR you and attacks other zombies. LOTS of different plants.

When you build up enough plants in your arsenal, you’ll be asked to choose which 6 (or more) varieties you want to use for the upcoming level. Like so. This is where the real strategy starts to come into play. You don’t get access to ALL the plants you’ve earned, you have to pick the ones you can use each level.

Very addicting game that ramps up in difficulty at a decent pace. Some levels are in the day time, some are at night (which provides a whole new playing dynamic, since there’s no sunlight but what you generate with plants).

This one will have you playing at least 15 minutes longer than you planned on. I’ve played a lot of tower defense games (Fieldrunners and StarDefense both rock), and this is my current fave. Brings new life to tower games, in fact.

2. Moxie. Currently on sale for 99 cents.

There’s a free version you can try before you buy, but if you like word games, I think you’re gonna find it a worthy $1 to spend.

It’s a very simple game. You make words, placing one letter tile at a time. And you make new words by altering words you’ve already played. For instance, the word “pig” above…it WAS “pin,” then I got a “G” and made “pig.” On and on the game goes.

You score points for each word you play. Like in Scrabble or Words With Friends, different letters score different points. The “V” has a 5-point value, whereas an “A” only has a value of 1. And the longer the word, the more points you score. If I got an “S” above, I could make “pigs” by placing the “S” after the “G.”

You’re thinking it’s too easy, right? Heh. Well, if you place a letter and do NOT form a legit word, you get a Twaddle, which LOSES you points. Plus, you can get Moxies, which happen when you make a word that happens to be on the Moxie Word List. I’m playing the Animal list in the above game, so “hen” and “pig” both scored me Moxies, worth an extra 100 points.

You start looking for possible chains. I could make the word “dog” and get 100 points…then, if I get an “H,” form the word “hog,” that’s another 100 points. Course, if you make a 5-letter Moxie, that’s 300 points.

The one thing Moxie lacks is the ability to challenge friends. But no matter, this is one of my favorite games, anyway. It’s casual, there’s no time pressure, and you can save your game at any point and come back where you left off.

Awesome.

3. Paradise Quest. Currently $1.99.

Free version available here, too. And again, I’m pretty sure you’ll want to buy the full version after playing.

This is a match-3 game like you haven’t played before. Far more addicting than Bejeweled, Paradise Quest adds a new twist: as you make matches, the board moves up, down, left, or right, depending on where you match the 3 tiles. It’s hard to describe.

Let’s say I match three tiles near the top of the board. Then the whole board scrolls down and I can match tiles that were out of view a moment before. This means you’re making matches in certain areas of the board in order to navigate toward the “frozen” tiles and amulet pieces you’re trying to get to.

That square sun tile in the center of those dark brown tiles, that’s one of the goal pieces. You have to make matches to break up the dirt surrounding that amulet piece…then you free the amulet, and can move on to the next piece elsewhere on the board.

There are power ups, and a map you need to navigate (which also helps show you where the amulet pieces are).

See that little gold dot on the map, in the lower right of the rectangle? That’s an amulet piece. The 1/5 in the lower right of the screenshot shows that I’ve got 1 out of the 5 amulet pieces on this level. You can jump around to different portions of the map to expedite grabbing those amulets. There is a time clock, but I have yet to grab all the matches before the clock runs out. And no worries, the game keeps playing if you don’t beat the clock.

You also earn resources as you make matches. Those resources (water, plants, vegetables, etc.) allow you to add new lakes and plants, which in turn brings new wildlife back to the island.

There’s a lot going on in this game, and I think after one level, you’ll be hooked.

4. Flight Control. Currently 99 cents.

Some of the best 99 cents you’ll spend on a game in the iTunes store.

You’re an air traffic controller and the goal is to land as many aircraft as possible. Starts out slowly and ramps up to crazy difficulty levels.

Flight Control is a game that wouldn’t work without the touch-screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch. You tap an aircraft, then trace a path between it and the appropriate runway. Once you do, the aircraft turns white and you’ll see the thin white path it’s flying along to its runway.

There are red planes, yellow planes, and blue helicopters, each with different traits and speeds. Match the red planes to the red runway, etc. And you’ve got to make sure that all the flight paths don’t criss-cross into planes colliding…because that’s GAME OVER.

You can select from four different airfields…the aircraft carrier is a real bitch. Highly addicting, great fun. And you can play your own music while playing, too. I’ve lost a lot of hours on this game.

5. Air Assault. Currently FREE.

This one is from Snakehead Software, run by a friend of mine from high school. Fun shoot-em-up game that gets pretty hairy and keeps you coming back for more.

You’re defending against enemy troops in Afghanistan, both in the air and on the ground. Two different weapon types – machine guns (for aircraft and parachuting troops) and mortars (for those ground troops trying to blow you away).

Wherever you place your finger is where you shoot. But don’t think it’s an easy game just because the game mechanics are simple. You have to switch back and forth between machine gun and mortar, sometimes rapidly. Timing is everything.

One of the newer games on my iPhone, I keep coming back to this one because I can play a few levels in pretty short order. Give it a shot, it’s FREE, and last I checked, it was ranked #2 in the iTunes store for free games.

There you have it…five games to check out for your iPhone and iPod Touch. And if you lose track of time, and family and friends are bitching at you for disappearing, don’t come blaming me.

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

Tonight, my guest on SecondHand Radio is none other than the beautiful ChurchPunkMom, who sometimes goes by the odd name Megan. I met Megan at BlogHer ‘09 in Chicago, but we’ve been friends on Twitter for a while now. She claims to be married to some dude named OnlyAman. I’m pretty sure she’s faking, though. It’s because she’s terrified of this all-consuming love she has for me, I think.

She’s a mom of FIVE kids, home schools them all. She’s geeky and cool and funny. And wears specs, which is hotness x10.

And she’ll be talking to me tonight, live, at 10 PM EST. Don’t miss it. Go check out the 2HRadio info page, download the Talkshoe client, and prepare yourself for fun chatroom action mixed with live conversation…where YOU can call in and talk to Megan and me.

GIVEAWAY!

Plus, tonight I’ll be giving away a free copy of the new iPhone/iPod Touch game, Texas Tea! Thanks to my buddy Gerald at Snakehead Software, I have a free game code to give away for iTunes that’ll automatically have you downloading Texas Tea. That’s a 99-cent value!

I don’t know how long he’ll keep it at 99 cents, but I just downloaded it myself and I can see messing with this game a lot. It’s pretty addictive. Hope you’ll try it out and support one of my old high school friends. Y’know, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch. It’s only 99 cents! Did I mention that?

From the press release: “If you like games such as Bejeweled, Jewel Quest II, Trism, Yahtzee and Poker, you’ll love Texas Tea™.  It’s an addictive game!”

I’ll be randomly selecting a winner from the chatroom tonight. Not sure how yet, but I’ll probably ask who amongst you has an iPhone or iPod Touch and then randomly select someone to win the game code.

Hope to see you there. Tell all your friends.

Showtime: 10PM EST, 9PM Central, 7PM Pacific

Show Link: http://talkshoe.com/tc/23738

Call-In Number: (724) 444-7444, Call ID 23738

Subscribe to 2HRadio in iTunes!

Shedule of Future Guests available on Info page

ALSO, we start Monday episodes next week! My first guest is Shauna Glenn, 10 PM EST this Monday night.

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

I know, I know, I need to write a recap for Confab last weekend. Just been feeling extremely sluggish ever since I got back home. And now it’s been so long, it seems a recap is too late.

In short, for me, there were lots of great people there and a few new faves. Karaoke, projectile vomiting, amazing hosts in Brad and Turnbaby, top notch food and drinks, beautiful Kentucky scenery, panic attacks, possible dildo sightings, intriguing overheard conversations that you only seem to hear when you’re sober, lots of laughs, Kentucky moonshine, a little drama that I was thankfully not part of, and delightful long road trip conversations with Jill. By the way, she definitely won out on the pee count on the way home. I have the bladder of a 4-year-old, apparently. But all that coffee!

You can see my photos here.

Skipped last week’s radio show because Jill and I were driving all night to Kentucky. But tonight, we’re back with SecondHand Radio!

My guest is an old high school buddy of mine, Gerald Bailey, president of Snakehead Software. Got to hook up with Gerald again a few times when I was in Alamogordo, NM, last month post TequilaCon. He just happened to be in town at the same time and it was great to see him.

Snakehead Software makes iPhone/iPod Touch games, by the way. There’s Flying Aces and iBop and more on the way, which I got to see demos of last month. Cool stuff.

Gerald also makes a mean salsa, from what I hear. And I loves me some salsa!

So please join us tonight live at 10pm Eastern, 9pm Central (Gerald’s time), 7pm Pacific. There’s a live chatroom, everyone is welcome to call in and ask questions, and we’ll have a good time.

Showtime: 10PM Eastern

Show Link

Call-In Number: 724-444-7444, Call ID is 23738

Hope to see you there!

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

It’s no secret that I’m heavily addicted to my iPhone. Come this month or next month – whenever Apple brings out the next generation iPhone with 32GB of storage – I’ll likely be getting it.

I have a lot of apps and I’m addicted to trying out new ones, too. Thought I’d share some of my current faves. I thought about doing a post with apps you should NEVER download (free or not), but what would be the point, really? (Thanks to @iphoneness for the promo code to Black Book, but it sucks.)

You can look at the end of this post for Related Posts, where I review other fave apps. But here’s a list of 14 apps that will likely never get deleted from my iPhone. Some are utilities, some are games. It’s a veritable cornucopia potpourri, if you will.

1. AppSniper. 99 cents. Sure, I regularly scope out the App Store on the iPhone, but those lists leave a lot to be desired. You get the featured apps, What’s Hot, the top 50 paid and free apps. But what about all the other apps that slip through the cracks?

AppSniper is your answer. Not only does it sync with the App server and show you ALL the new apps on a daily basis, it also shows you all the apps that are on sale. AND you can Snipe apps you’re interested in, but aren’t willing to pay full price for. Set it so that it alerts you whenever your “watched” apps drop down to a price point you can live with. I’ve found some great apps using AppSniper, and new apps often show up in AppSniper before they show up on the App Store.

There are similar apps, to be sure, but I say AppSniper is the best. Others don’t allow you to view all of the screenshots for apps.

2. IGN. FREE. IGN is one of the big boys when it comes to reviewing video games of all sorts. The IGN app lets you see their reviews, which are regularly updated. You can set your preferences to only show the platforms you’re interested in: XBox, Playstation, Wii, and most importantly for me, the iPhone.

I check it every other day or so to see if there are any cool iPhone games I haven’t discovered yet. The reviews are very detailed, and there are also quick-glance reviews with a numerical rating…with a top (theoretical) rating of 10.0.

My only gripe is that there are no screenshots, but I can live with it.

3. Glucose Buddy. Currently FREE. OK, maybe you’re not diabetic like I am. But if you ARE, this is a great app to track your blood sugar and insulin dosages. Very simple to use and it keeps me from having to write all my glucose readings down in a notebook.

Dial in your blood sugar, whether your reading is taken before breakfast or after dinner, etc., and also how much insulin you’re taking. Glucose Buddy automatically adds a timestamp (though you can edit the date and time if you’re adding older entries).

There’s a tab to view a graph of your sugar readings. You can also automatically sync all your data with GlucoseBuddy.com. Very cool. There are buttons to take screen grabs and email your data to your doctor.

It’s an early release, but again, it’s free and I look forward to updates. Very cool app for diabetics.

4. Twittelator Pro. $4.99. In the battle of the Twitter apps, Twittelator Pro is currently winning for me, and is the only Twitter app on my home screen. Tweetie used to be my favorite, and it’s still on my iPhone (because I’m waiting for a super-duper upgrade).

But as far as features go, my opinion is that Twittelator and Twitterrific are the current champs. Naturally, this is subject to change at a moment’s notice. What I’m really looking for is an iPhone equivalent of Tweetdeck, which allows me to create my own groups. (Yes, I’ve tried TweetStack, but it falls flat for me.)

If you like free and don’t mind ads, then there is a FREE version of Twittelator, too.

You’ve got your 3 basic “tabs” on the bottom toolbar: one for Friends, which shows all the people you follow, one for Mentions, which show all the tweets that @ your name, and one for Messages, which are DM’s. Then there’s a Settings tab (the only app that makes the Settings so accessible, by the way).

And the More tab, which gives you access to a ton of shit. From there you can sign into multiple Twitter accounts, Search (with saved previous searches), Subgroups (close to the group function on Tweetdeck), Trends (showing the most popular Tweet subjects at the moment), Favorites, etc.

Lots of features in this little app, plus “unread” numbers on the toolbar to show you how far behind you are on reading your Tweets. Well worth the money, if you ask me.

5. Tap Tap Revenge 2. FREE. No screenshots for this one because it’s a bitch to try to catch a screen grab when you’re playing this game. I’m new to the Tap Tap crowd, but am already highly addicted.

Basically? It’s Guitar Hero for your thumbs. Comes with a lot of tunes already, but you can download many more from within the game. Songs by a lot of unknowns (for me, anyway), but also big artists like Dave Matthews, Nine Inch Nails, All American Rejects, Coldplay, and more.

And if you buy the “themed” versions of Tap Tap (which currently include Coldplay, Dave Matthews, NIN) you can import those songs/themes into Tap Tap Revenge 2. 

There are various difficulty levels: Kids, Easy, Medium, Hard, and Extreme. I’m still on Easy, which is plenty challenging for me at the moment. GREAT fucking game. A must-download.

6. Trivial Pursuit. $4.99. If you’re hooked on trivia, this is a great version of the classic board game. 

When you open up the app, you get several options to play.

There’s a WiFi Multiplayer mode (haven’t tried it because you have to be on the same wifi network to play this way), Classic Mode (which emulates the classic wagon wheel game board), Pass ‘N Play mode (where you play the game with multiple players and literally pass the game back and forth between players).

Then there’s my favorite mode, which is Pursuit Mode. This is essentially the only mode worth playing solo. 25 levels of different game boards where you try to answer as many trivia questions as possible as you travel from one end of the board to the other.

You’ve got your 6 basic Trivial Pursuit categories: Entertainment, History, Science, Arts & Literature, Geography, and Sports & Leisure. Then there’s the Random category. Land on that and you get – surprise – a random category.

There are also STAR squares, which provide for some unique “power-ups.” One power-up gives you an extra 2 on your next die roll, another gives you a little extra time to answer the question. Very cool.

My only wish for this game is that they’d let you turn off the music, which gets kind of grating after, oh, 10 minutes or so.

7. Who Wants to be a Millionaire? $4.99. Another fun trivia game, this time based on a TV game show. It’s a fast play, fun when you have a few minutes available, and it’s complete with the lifelines we all know and love.

There’s also a LITE free version you can try before you buy. It’s really more a demo that lets you play up to the $2,000 question, but it gives you a taste of the game.

The full version boasts over 1,000 questions. 

Most of us are familiar with the game. Start out at the easy $100 question and work your way up the ladder by successfully answering questions until you get to the $1 Million question. To help you out, you get some lifelines.

One is Phone-A-Friend, which actually pulls random people from your phone contacts list and lets you “call them” for help. One is Ask-the-Audience, where you see what most of the invisible audience members say. Then there’s the Double-Dip, which lets you choose 2 out of the 4 possible answers for a question. And there’s the Ask-the-Expert lifeline, which unlocks when you successfully answer the $1,000 question.

All this help aside, I have yet to get to the $1 Million question, but I won’t stop trying.

8. PhotoGene. $2.99. By far, the best photo app in the App Store right now. It’s like having Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro for the photos on your iPhone.

Let’s face it, the iPhone (as is the case with most every cell phone) takes crappy photos. They’re fine in a pinch and don’t get me wrong, I use the camera all the time for uploading pointless pics to Twitpic. But PhotoGene makes those photos much better.

Many options here. The one I use most is the “Colors” tool, shown on the left-hand toolbar as a color wheel. Here you can auto-fix the contrast and brightness in photos, manually make adjustments, colorize, etc.

There’s also a Crop tool, a Rotate tool, an Effects tool, a Frame tool, etc. 

The cool thing is that you can either pull a photo from your iPhone’s Photo Album roll OR take a photo within PhotoGene itself and then edit that photo directly. After you’re finished doctoring your photo, you click the checkmark in the lower-left to save your photo to the photo roll (a new version, Photogene automatically maintains the original image).

VERY COOL APP and easily worth the $3.

9. Parking Lot. 99 cents. This is a classic game, more commonly known as Rush Hour. It’s a puzzle game. You start with your yellow car stuck in the middle of a parking lot and the object is to slide cars up and down and left and right until the EXIT is accessible for you to drive through.

That’s it. Lots of puzzles of varying difficulty. See if you can escape each parking lot with a minimum number of moves.

The two screenshots below show the same puzzle, at the beginning and the end.

10. Peggle. $4.99. PopCap games has been making amazing games for years. Bejeweled ring a bell? Yeah, they were the first to come up with the match-3 game, of which there are now about a bajillion versions on computers and mobile devices.

Peggle is another addicting game, yet very simple to play. Lots of levels and play options, but the gist of the game is that you try to eliminate all the orange pegs in the game, using only 10 balls.

Yeah, there are power-ups and chances to earn free balls. It’s kind of like Plinko on the Price is Right. You shoot a ball from the top and watch it bounce and ricochet off other balls, all the while gravity bringing the ball down, down, down, until it either escapes into the void at the bottom or your play bucket catches it (thus earning you another ball).

After every shot, all of the pegs you hit disappear to set the stage for your NEXT shot. If you eliminate all the orange pegs during the game, you win. If not, you have to try again in order to unlock the next level. It’s maddeningly fun.

Different colored pegs (such as purple and green) bring their own effects upon being hit. I’ll leave the surprises for you to find. But the built-in tutorial is great and shows you everything you need to know. And I LOVE what happens when your ball hits that last orange peg on the board.

11. Scrabble. $4.99. Another classic board game brought to the iPhone, and it’s a goodie. If you’ve played Scrabble on Facebook, you’re already very familiar with the UI.

In fact, you can play Scrabble with your Facebook friends, thanks to Facebook Connect.

Different modes and versions to play, along with a Best Word “cheat” at the bottom of your screen, which automatically calculates and places the best possible scoring word based on the current board.

12. Kindle. FREE, but the books cost money, of course. I don’t own a Kindle and it’ll be a long time before I decide to plop down over $300 for something I can already do with my iPhone. Thankfully, there’s no need, provided you can deal with reading on a relatively small screen. I’ve adapted quite well and have already read several novels on the Kindle app. (Right now, I’m reading Terry Brooks’ “Elves of Cintra”)

All sorts of options let you change the size of the text, even different color schemes so you can choose the one that’s easiest on your eyes. The text is very readable, though looking at pictures kind of sucks. And you can read either in portrait or landscape mode simply by turning the iPhone.

You still can’t purchase books WITHIN the app itself, but I expect that’ll change when OS 3.0 comes out for the iPhone in the next month or so. Instead you can either purchase books from the iPhone-friendly Kindle site on Amazon’s site, OR through Amazon.com on your computer. Tell Amazon you want it sent to your iPhone and the next time you fire up the Kindle app, your purchases are automatically downloaded.

The good thing is that if you DO have an actual Kindle you can sync between the two devices. Plus, the Kindle versions of books are tons cheaper than the physical hard copy versions. And if you ever decide to REdownload a book you’ve already purchased, you can do so free of charge. Amazon keeps track of everything you’ve bought already.

Great app. And until Amazon decides to bring down their ridiculous pricing on the Kindles, this is the way I’ll go.

13. DirecTV. FREE. Kind of a specialized app meant only for customers of DirecTV satellite service, this is a marvelous app that lets you record stuff to your DVR from anywhere.

You forgot to record tonight’s episode of Medium or Jon & Kate Plus 8? No worries. Fire up this app, search for any show you want (either by name or time/date), and you can easily record the show with a couple of clicks. More than one DVR in the house? No prob there, either. The ones in my house are labeled “Family Room” and “Bedroom” and I can easily record to either one (or both).

If you’re a DirecTV customer, this app is a no-brainer must-have.

14. HowCast. FREE. Ever needed to know, well, anything? Like how to replace a kitchen faucet? Or how to ask a girl out on a date? Or how to pressure wash the outside of your house for painting? Get this app.

It’s chock full of videos, all free, from Howcast.com. They’re like mini instructional video podcasts. Another great app. Some videos are rather funny, such as the one that tells you how to be more appealing to women. Easy to waste a lot of time with this app…or to zero in on instructions you really need.

There you have it.

What are some of your must-have apps?

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

Thanks very much to Winter for her guest post yesterday. Couldn’t have picked a better person for wrapping up the Summer of Love. I’ve gotten so used to only writing four days a week, I may have shot myself in the foot here. But it’s back to seven a week for me now. I’m slowly getting the hang of my new job, so I hope that I’ll slowly be reclaiming some of my lost hours.

CONTEST

A reminder that the annual Birthday Dares Spectacular Contest is back underway. Leave me your birthday dares on THIS POST and I’ll pick five of them to perform on video for my birthday. Those five people will get prizes, which I’ll figure out soon.

Deadline: Friday, September 5th, end of day, Eastern time.

iTunes

SecondHand Radio is now available on iTunes. Now you won’t have to miss an episode. I put a button in the sidebar right underneath the 2H Radio badge. Just  click on it and head on over to subscribe.

My Favorite 12 iPhone Apps

Yeah, another iPhone post. Sue me, I love my iPhone. I’ve had it a couple/few weeks now and it just rocks the fucking house. Here now are my favorite applications for the iPhone, which I’m pretty sure also run on the iPod Touch, though don’t quote me on that.

These are the ones I come back to again and again. I’ve already tried tons of apps. Some are winners, most are meh. Fortunately, there are tons of free apps out there, though some of the good ones do cost a few bucks.

Click on any of the pictures for a full-size view.

1. Texas Hold’em - This is one of my favorite games. It’s not free ($4.99), but it’s awesome. I love playing poker and this is a really good game. You play tournament-style Hold’em and the graphics and controls all rock. You can view the game two different ways…in portrait (up and down) or landscape (sideways) and get two really different feels depending on which you play. You’ll be astounded in portrait mode, playing against 8 other opponents. They actually filmed real actors and digitized them into this game. But it’s a tad slow after you finish being awed and you’ll quickly want to “graduate” to landscape mode. That offers a top-down view (shown) and far quicker gameplay. Everything feels authentic, including doing a double-tap on the felt to check.

2. Showtimes – Incredibly simple app, but those are usually the best ones. This one does nothing but tell you movie times for your local movie theaters. You just type in your ZIP code and away you go. A full listing of all the movies in your town. Great app, and it’s free.

3. Trism – One of the most amazing games ever. If you’ve played Bejeweled, a great game for sure, then you’ll have the basics of Trism down in no time. But the basics just don’t begin to describe the game. It takes full advantage of the iPhones accelerometer direction-sensing thing. The object of the game is to knock out the tiles, known as Trisms. You do that by sliding Trisms around until you get at least 3 of the same color touching each other. You slide rows and columns sideways, up and down, diagonally…whatever. When three or more same-colored Trisms touch, POOF! They disappear and the ones above the empty holes slide down to take their place. BUT…turn the game in any direction and gravity takes effect. This changes which trisms will slide down. Hard to explain, maybe but it’s a very addicting game. Costs $4.99.

4. Twitterrific – I’ve tried several Twitter apps for the iPhone and none of them does EVERYTHING I want. Twittelator is pretty damn cool, but the print is a tad small for my old eyes. Twitterrific comes the closest to what I need in a Twitter app. The print is easy to read, the user interface is friendly and easy to grasp. There are four “buttons” on the bottom of the screen. From left to right: Refresh, Twitter, Info, and Settings. Like most apps for the iPhone, you scroll down the list of tweets with your finger. When you find one that you want to reply to, double-tap on it (the iPhone equivalent of double-clicking) and you’re taken to that person’s tweet and profile, where you can do your @ reply thing. Very simple. Works great, and it’s free. Course, you have to put up with some relatively unobtrusive ads in the free version, but that’s fine with me. You can get the paid version for $10 and that gets rid of the ads.

5. Solitaire City - Yeah, another game. There are tons of solitaire games for the iPhone because, let’s face it, it’s got the platform that just screams for something as touch-friendly as solitaire. Drag and drop cards with your fingers, etc. Some of these apps are free, some aren’t. I’ve tried a lot of them already and I like Solitaire City the best. It’s $7.99, but comes with a bunch of different games: Klondike, Demon Pyramid, Golf, FreeCell, Spider, and more. Lots of fun, really intuitive and you can compete against yourself and also see the high scores from around the globe. Plus, you can play it in portrait or landscape. The touch that really made it for me is that there’s a left-handed option, where it places the stockpile on the left-hand portion of the screen instead of the right. Thoughtful details like that make this the solitaire game to beat.

6. NetNewsWire – This is my feedreader of choice for the iPhone. Yes, there is absolutely no problem using Google Reader in the iPhone’s Safari web browser. I’m sure it works just fine. Only thing is, I don’t USE Google Reader. I use FeedDemon, the offline equivalent of Newsgator.com. I’ve talked about FeedDemon before here and I love it because it automatically syncs up with my Newsgator account. That way, if I’m using someone else’s computer I can log in and still see my feeds. Yeah, you can do that with Google Reader, too, or any other web-based reader. It’s a matter of personal preference. I like being able to read feeds offline, just in case the Net is down. At any rate, NetNewsWire syncs up with your Newsgator account, downloads all the stories to your iPhone in a very simple, easy-to-read app. Love it.

7. Jott – Jott is another very simple application, but what it does, it does very well. In short, Jott is a way to record your thoughts and put them into lists. But you do it with your VOICE. The speech-to-text engine with Jott is nothing short of amazing. Speak whatever you want to convert to text…you have up to 15 seconds to do it. When you’re done, Jott automatically sends your recording off to the Jott site, where it does all the conversion and crunching. Takes a few minutes, but the next time you come back to Jott you’ll find that all those words you spoke into your phone are now easy to use text in your iPhone. You can use Jott to send emails to friends by simply talking into your phone, create to-do lists, whatever. Very useful app that I use almost every day.

8. Yelp - Yelp.com is a very recent discovery for me, but I love it. To put it simply, Yelp is a review site. You’ll find reviews for everything from restaurants to mechanics to theaters. Whatever. It’s very helpful, especially in a big city, to be able to search for the nearest mail center or Jewish restaurant. REALLY useful when you’re visiting an unfamiliar place. Yelp makes this happen and the iPhone app is incredibly useful. Let Yelp use your iPhone’s GPS locator to find your location, then search for the nearest barber or pedicurist and – BING! – little pins drop down and show you where the places are. Tap on any of them and the establishment’s name pops up on-screen. Tap the name and get whisked away to the place’s review page. You’ll see a familiar five-star rating system, the place’s name, address, AND phone number. Tap the phone number and you’re instantly calling the place on your phone. Amazing functionality. You can also read the full list of reviews, left by everyday people just like you and me. Yelp isn’t very handy for small towns…yet. But that’s only because there are far fewer people to review places in small towns. I’ve started reviewing restaurants here in Sebring and I hope more people follow suit. Love this app. Free.

9. Stanza – It’s an electronic book reader for your iPhone and it is incredible. Fairly new to the App Store on iTunes, this free app allows you to find and download a TON of free classic books to your phone and read them at your leisure. Yes, I prefer the paper books and always will, but you’d be very surprised to learn just how easy Stanza is on the eyes. I’ve downloaded a few books to start with, like “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells and “1984″ by George Orwell. Many books are in the public domain, though most of them are classic works. You’ll find all of Shakespeare. You’ll find many books in the online catalog, as well as a group of newspapers and magazines like “The New York Times,” “Wall Street Journal,” BBC News, and “Wired Magazine,” among others. The reader is really user-friendly. Tap on the right side of a page and turn the page. Tap on the left and move to the previous page. Or simply slide your finger from right-to-left to physically “slide” to the next page. You can also customize the font, the font size, and the page background colors. I find the white too blinding for reading in bed, so I changed the background to a nice grey that’s a lot easier on the eyes. One really nice feature is the auto-save. If you have to exit Stanza to answer a call or use another app, fine. Next time you start Stanza it remembers what you were reading and takes you right back to where you left off. Fantastic app, and it’s free.

10. Wordpress – Maybe you don’t use Wordpress for your blog, but lots of people do, including me. This app is great. You can do most anything you need to do when it comes to posting to your blog. And it’s a free app. Great for writing posts when you’re away from your computer. Write posts, manage photos…it rocks.

11. Quordy – This is my current fave. Come back to it over and over again. Ever play Boggle? It’s one of my favorite games. It’s like doing a word search on steroids. The object is to find as many words as possible in two minutes. You get 16 letters in a 4-by-4 grid. Your form words by linking letters together. The letters have to be adjoining, either up-and-down, left-and-right, or diagonally in any direction. You literally trace your finger along the letter path you want, creating words. When you lift your finger off the screen, the word is dropped down into your word list and you move on to make another word as quickly as you can. You score points for each word…the more letters the word has, the more points you get for that word. In the screenshot here you see that the person spelled “hotes.” I can see a bunch of words here, including reef, beef, bots, store, and west. How many can you find? Oh, and plurals count, so in this case, “bot” and “bots” count as two separate words. This one costs a few bucks, but it’s highly addictive. And you can challenge your friends to a game online, too. Provided they also have the app.

12. MotionX Poker Dice – My other current fave. Another great game that is nearly flawless and it’s a really fast play if you’re looking for something to do for a few minutes while waiting on a train or something. The goal is to make the best poker hand with five dice in three rolls. Similar to a really short version of Yahtzee, you have to beat whatever hand the dealer gets. If he has a pair of Queens, you need at least a pair of Kings to beat him. So on and so forth. Highly addictive, plus there are many different sets of dice to unlock along the way. And you get “gems” for passing certain milestones. For example, you get a gem for getting a five of a kind with every possible dice combination. (There are 12.) Love, love, LOVE this game. There’s a free version, but this game is so good it’s well worth the $5 price for the full version. The ONE thing I don’t like about it is rather nitpicky. When a text message comes through your phone, the game pauses. That’s normal with most iPhone apps. However, when you dismiss the text message, the game doesn’t go right back to playing. You have to click a “RESUME” button. Yeah, I know, nitpicky, but if they’d get rid of that, it would be the perfect game.

And there you have it. Hope you find a few new ones here that you’ll like as much as I do.

What are your favorite apps?

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan

Don’t think I’ve forgotten about quitting smoking. I haven’t. The quit date is coming up rapidly, August 15. When I first mentioned that Britt and I were gonna quit smoking a few weeks back, I had quite a few of you say that you’re interested in joining us. The goal is this: quit smoking at midnight on Friday, August 15, wherever you are. I  kind of wish I was in Hawaii now so I could quit a few hours later, but oh well. What’s done is done. For now, I’m chain smoking like a motherfucker.

If you’re interested in quitting smoking with us, I’ve made a little button banner thingie for you to use on your site. Here ya go.

Put it on your blog’s sidebar and if you use it, please link to the following page: http://secondhandkarl.com/2008/07/i-quit/

Don’t say I never gave you nuthin’.

Well, we’re down to the final two days of Karlifornia. It’s been a blast this year visiting with Hilly and TONS of other blog friends, and even some offline friends who I hadn’t seen in many years. But everything must come to an end at some point. By now, Hilary is likely sick of me taking up space in Hillywood and I’m looking forward to heading home, too. Funny, at home I’m nearly hermit-like, but when I come out to California each year, I’m forced out of my turtle shell and have to be somewhat “on” for a few weeks.

Not ALL the way “on,” of course. Hilly and I are very much like brother and sister so we really can let it all (mostly) hang out when it’s just the two of us. But I do appreciate my alone time and I know she does, too. That’s human nature.

I purposefully set my flight up on Wednesday for a stopover in Las Vegas because I’ve never been there before. And really, hanging out in the Vegas airport isn’t the same as getting out INTO Vegas, but it’s still better than nothing. And I’m sure they have slot machines in the airport, so I’ll be sure to bring a few dollars in quarters so I can watch them vanish into the ether. If I, however, happen to hit it big then I’ll be flying home first class. And buying a purple velvet fedora so I can be all rich and tacky and shit. Maybe a few thick gold chains, too, so I can wear my shirt buttoned open to my belly. That’s what they do in Vegas, isn’t it?

Saturday Hilly graciously took me to Hollywood – about an hour away with traffic – so I could meet up with two friends of mine from high school. I hadn’t seen Michael or Chris in over 20 years, and was really jazzed to hook up with them after all that time.

I first met Michael when I was in 10th grade. I had just moved from New York to Alamogordo, New Mexico, a tiny little shithole of a town located in the southeast corner of NM, 83 miles from El Paso, Texas. My family moved down there over Christmas break in my 10th grade year. I hated that, moving, leaving my friends behind. Plus, I was really allergic to change of any kind at that time.

Residents of Alamogordo call it Alamoghetto, and not with any sense of affection, either. It’s a military town, located not far from Holloman Air Force Base, and is comprised of around 35,000 people. And it’s smack dab in the middle of a bunch of mountains. The Tularosa Basin is pure desert. It gets hot, but it’s about as dry a heat as you can get without hopping into a ceramics kiln.

So I knew absolutely NO ONE in this new town, a place where I was surprised to find they actually had indoor plumbing. Not everyone listened to Kenny Rogers, either. In fact, the very first song I heard upon my arrival in Alamo was “Shake it Up” by The Cars. I love The Cars, and I can’t help but think of Alamo whenever I hear that song.

And I dreaded going to school that first day. I was (am) a major nerd, socially awkward (inept), a fashion nightmare, and I signed up for your typical high school courses. Geometry, Algebra II, English, History, and some electives, including art class.

That’s where I met Michael, in art. He sat across from me at our table. He reminded me of this during our visit the other day…I was drawing a polar bear and he was drawing Gandalf the wizard. You know, before Gandalf was cool thanks to Peter Jackson’s trilogy of “Lord of the Rings.” I mean, yeah, he was cool to US, but then so were comic books and 20-sided dice.

He was a year behind me in school and this was back when Alamogordo had a Mid High (9th and 10th grades) and a Senior High (11th and 12th grades). They’ve since conglomerated. But we hit it off fairly quickly, cracking smartass jokes to each other while working on assorted art projects. And the moment I found out he played Dungeons and Dragons, I knew I had made a friend. My brother and I had started playing in New York, but we really had very little idea what we were doing. That was about to change.

Mike introduced me to Rob, another D&D player and another goofus like us. We were all smart kids, and none of us were in the “in crowd” by any stretch of the imagination. We weren’t exactly outcasts or anything, but none of the cool kids were asking us to sit at their lunch table, that’s for sure. Nerds, the lot of us. And that suited me just fine. We were social commentators, mocking those around us in the quad, all the while secretly wishing that we knew why WE weren’t the cool ones.

And we played Dungeons & Dragons. Oh Lord, did we play! Countless hours after school, even more time on weekends, it was pretty much all we did during our waking hours. That, and playing our Atari 2600s. More fun has never been had with a joystick and one red button. The games nowadays are way too complicated for me, unless we’re talking about the Nintendo Wii. But I digress. In case you haven’t already figured it out, I’m quite good at the digression game.

At any rate, Mike eventually introduced my brother and I to Chris. (That also happens to be my brother’s name so I won’t be confusing you by bringing TWO Chrises into the equation.) Chris was a very peculiar chap who was quite particular about who he let into his D&D sessions. It took some time for Mike to properly work Chris over to the point where he’d agree to meet us.

“His mother owns the Travelodge,” Mike told me.

“He lives in a motel?” I asked.

“Yes, and that’s where we play D&D.”

“Woooooow.” That’s so fucking cool! Living in a motel?!

We finally got to meet Chris, walking behind the motel’s front desk into the living area, and then back into Chris’ secret lair, a room lined with dark wood paneling and lots of D&D gear (including the lead figuringes that some people collected).

Fortunately, we passed whatever criteria Chris had for gaming buddies and from there on out, we were inseparable on occasion for a good four years. Once in a great while, Chris’ mom would let us take over a vacant motel room on weekends. It’d be Chris, Mike, my brother, Rob, *another* Rob, and me at a small card table loaded with character sheets and lots of different colored dice of all varieties…armed with chips and  pizza and lots and lots of soda and we’d play all freaking night long. It was divine. You know, for a bunch of guys who hadn’t been laid yet, anyway.

I got a job at the radio station when I was 16 and that cut into my playing time a little. And when I graduated high school, I started working there full-time, and that was kind of the end of my D&D career for the most part. But we had a great run. These guys were like more brothers for me. We talked about anything and everything, provided it involved science fiction, comic books, music, or D&D. We even attended a city council meeting once, when there was this nationwide scare about D&D being satanic and the schools were talking about banning D&D materials from the school grounds.

When I started dating, I lost even more touch with the guys. I don’t really remember the last time I saw either of them specifically, but we certainly lost touch until relatively recently. I’ve been in touch with Mike off and on over the years, thanks to the Internet. But Saturday was the first time I’d seen either of them since I left Alamoghetto.

That’s Mike on the left, me in the middle (of course), and Chris on the right…outside the Grauman Chinese Theater. I took a bunch of photos outside the theater…footprints of Douglas Fairbanks, Gregory Peck, and the like (you can find them on my Flickr).

Then we went to the California Pizza Kitchen for lunch, since we were all eyeing each other hungrily, thinking of maybe seeing if each other’s arms tasted like chicken. We caught up and laughed about old times. Michael is a graphic artist nowadays and has done a lot of comic book work. Even worked on “The Tick” for a while, the TV show! Chris is a television writer, working mostly on animated shows such as “Jimmy Neutron” and “Squirrel Boy,” among others.

And what the fuck is KARL doing? Um. Nothing. It was a little humbling to see my friends who have made their dreams come true, while I am sitting on my ass with several manuscripts in various stages of completion. Yeah, gotta work on that.

Anyway, after lunch, we set out on a quest to find a pack of Chesterfields for Chris to bring to Las Vegas. We went to a few smoke shops but found nothing, though we did find one smoke shop/sex toy shop. No shit.

Best of all? I found something I’ve been waiting to see my entire life:

Yep, it was a great day on Saturday. It won’t be nearly as long before I see Mike and Chris again, I assure you. They may not get the whole blogging thing, but I plan on emailing the hell out of them until they at LEAST join Twitter.

So Chris? Mike? Had a blast.

--- Thanks for reading! SecondHand Tryptophan