Saturday 12-23-23 New Stuff, Games & Having Fun

 

Fun Day

The day started out with a thick fog and in the evening the rain came back. It drizzled on and off all evening. It's suppose to still be around all day tomorrow.

We started the day out by going to town. First stop was Walmart to pick up groceries for our Christmas lunch celebration. We got there early to beat the crown. While there were picked up seven layer bites for breakfast. They were squares of coconut, chocolate chips and gram-cracker crust. They were good. Next we went to The UPS Store for our mail. We were early so we ate breakfast while we waited. We were a little surprised to see the UPS Store wasn't open early considering it's a couple of days before Christmas. It opened at 9:00.

I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event today was Event: Two Game Tango Mini of 10 games (5 Pyramid and 5 Tri Peaks). It took me 1 hour, 17 minutes and 9 seconds, which put me in 17th place in my group. Then I moved onto playing Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds and Friends.

In the afternoon I played pinball games on the pinball cabinet. They were Mustang, Fast Break, Rock n Roll Diner, Scared Stiff and Doctor Who. I had fun playing games I hadn't played in a long time. 

Mustang

Fast Break

Rock n Roll Diner

 

 

Scared Stiff

Then I moved to the arcade cabinet, where I played three arcade games (Mappy, Mortal Kombat and Moon Patrol) and one fruit/slot game called Bat Outta Hell. Mortal Kombat is a bloody game so I didn't like it too well. Moon Patrol was fun and you play on the moon. Bat Outta Hell was a game I hadn't played before and it was fun and very pretty.

Mappy

Mortal Kombat

Moon Patrol

Bat Outta Hell

It was an exciting day for Larry because he received a new Raspberry Pi. This is the newest version, the Pi 5, it just started shipping last week. 

For those who don't know what a Raspberry Pi is, it's a very small and inexpensive computer. This version sells for $60, of course you need a few other things for it to work, a power supply, some kind of case and an SD card. Everything including the Pi 5 added up to about $85. You also might need a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Larry already had these and once it is setup you can access it from another computer so depending on your project you might not need them. 

Larry already had two Raspberry Pi's. He has been using one for years running a piece of software called Pi-Hole, it blocks lots of online commercials. It is hooked into our router and runs headless (doesn't have a keyboard, mouse or keyboard). If Larry needs to do anything to it he can access it via our daily computer. The second PI is running the jukebox and also runs headless.

The Raspberry Pi

Ports for cables

I also received a package today, a case for my new cell phone. It's purple and has sparkles in it. Before putting the cover on the phone Larry put a screen protector on it.

Cell phone case

Installing screen protector

Cell phone with the case and screen protector

Larry has been working on designing a new skin for the jukebox. A skin is the graphic that is displayed to choose and play music. There are quite a few to choose from. Larry found one he really likes for playing individual songs and another for albums but there are none that are specifically designed for streaming. He is using one that works but he wants to see if he can improve upon it. Creating a skin involves creating and manipulating graphic images, not something Larry has a lot of experience with so it is very slow going. He was working on the new skin when the new Raspberry Pi arrived. He is off of skin skin designing and on to the new Pi.

In the evening we watched Mission Impossible 4. When Larry went to bed I watched the first X-Men movie. Then I finished watching the third season of The Last Detective and started the fourth season. I ended up doing 17,000 steps, which kept me in 3rd place in my group.