The first StarCraft computer game was released by Blizzard Entertainment in 1998. StarCraft was a real time strategy game, wherein players controlled troops and buildings from an isometric “god-like” perspective. Units and buildings were purchased from resources mined by workers. In the multi-player modes, every player started out with one home base and a few workers. How the game progressed from that point was up to the different strategies of the players.

The object of the game was to eliminate your enemies’s forces. Multiplayer games could range from one human player vs one computer player to up to eight players duking it out. You could play in teams, in a giant free for all, or set up teams and switch in the middle of the game to screw over one of your pals at random.

There were three main races to choose from, which was an innovation at the time. Most RTS games offered two sides; StarCraft offered a rock-paper-scissors approach that demanded different tactics depending on what race you were facing. Players could choose from the zerg, which were a hive-mind alien species that used cheap soldiers to swarm their enemies; the protoss, a high-tech and highly-evolved alien species that featured expensive, high-quality soldiers; or the terrans, humans-in-space that were stuck right in the middle of the quality vs quantity spectrum. These core differences plus the flexibility of unit selection and army composition added a variety to the game that allowed it to survive way beyond its expected prime.

The game became a major success, particularly in South Korea, where it became a professional sport with paid championships. While I never got close to that level of skill, I played StarCraft for about four straight years. I would reinstall the game every year or two and play for a few months. It was a great break from the massive multiplayer online role playing games that ate up a lot of my time back then.

Rumors of a sequel took off in 2002 when Blizzard released WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. There was a secret demo mode wherein players could control units from StarCraft as rendered by the WarCraft III game engine. Talk flew about StarCraft II being released. Little did we know we’d have to wait another eight years after WarCraft III for a true StarCraft sequel.

It was worth the wait.
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I really like my HTC Incredible mobile device. It runs (for now) the Android 2.1 operating system, and I really like a lot of the hardware and software features on my phone.

One of the things I missed the most about my old HTC Touch (Windows 6.1) was Spb Software’s “Spb Phone Suite” that let me set my ring tones and notification sounds to different things depending on the time of day (my review) .

I transitioned to a nice phone in between the HTC Touch and the HTC Incredible, but being a “dumb phone” I didn’t have the option to change my settings automatically. I really missed the time-based switching of Spb Phone Suite, and I also missed the ability to whitelist certain callers, who would ring through no matter what time of day.

Setting Profiles, a program made by Probeez, handles the profile switching that Spb Phone Suite did, except it adds a really useful twist: it adjusts the profiles by a multitude of criteria, including my location — all automatically.
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While a lot of the people I knew got drunk when they turned 21, I bought my first hand gun and applied for a concealed carry permit. I still have that Glock 27, but as the years have passed I have acquired a few more pistols. Some I loved, some I hated, and some I wanted to love but wound up hating anyway.

I liked the simple operation of the Glock, and its basic design. Disassembly and reassembly were easy, and my 27 has been super reliable. I have probably put 8000 rounds through it without a single issue.

However, it was hard for me to shoot. I have a few ergonomic issues with the grip. The most important one is that the frame rubs on the top joint of my thumb, and after about 200 rounds it wears through my skin. I also found the recoil of the .40 S&W cartridge to be a bit too much for me to shoot at a faster speed.

Fast forward to last year. I acquired a Rock Island Arms 1911 Government pistol and fell in love. I became very accurate with the pistol, partly because the ergonomics of the 1911 were better for my particular hand, and partly because the metal frame and slide absorbed a lot of the recoil from the .45ACP the RIA belched towards my targets.

There were two problems, though: the Government was quite large and heavy in comparison to my other CCW pistols, and the magazine capacity was much lower than I’d desired. Sure, you can carry extra magazines but that adds weight and reloading under pressure could be an issue for some.

I purchased a 1911 Rock Island Arms Officer’s model a few months later, but after about a 1000 rounds the handgun suffered a catastrophic magazine latch failure that scared me off from using it as an every day carry (EDC) piece.

I wanted something that had the dependability and ease of maintenance like a Glock, but the ergonomics of a 1911. I started doing some research. If a Glock 27 and a 1911 met up at a block party and made passionate love, their baby would be the Springfield Armory XD45 Compact. Would the polymer-framed handgun be the answer I was looking for?

Sort of.
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Normally when I review something I love it or hate it. I can recommend it, or not recommend it. There might be things that I like about a product I dislike, or things that I wish were different about products I otherwise care for.

So when something like Bump Patrol’s aftershave anti-razor shaving product comes along, I don’t know what to do. I am so neutral on the product that I think I may have trained myself out of needing Bump Patrol’s offerings.
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My house has three bay windows in it. When I bought my home I thought they were great: they let in a lot of light and looked nice from the outside. Figuring out how to drape them properly was a pain. The windows were too close together to allow for a standard curtain rod installation. Standard curtain rods were too long to fit. Shorter curtain rods fit, but then I couldn’t cover the windows properly and light spilled in around the edges. I tried getting curtains that were too wide and forcing them to billow out, but that looked odd. I eventually gave up and let light creep in through the windows.

That is, until Sedagive? suggested the Bayview flexible curtain rod by Umbra Solutions.
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My Waring Pro waffle maker finally gave up the ghost about two months ago. I used the Waring extensively in the nearly five years that I owned it. In fact, it died because I used it so much The metal hinge screws completely stripped the plastic mounting holes.

I wanted a replacement, but I wasn’t willing to spend $70 to get another one online, or about $100 if I found one locally.

Amazon.com was there with the rescue, and in two days I had a Presto Flip Side for less than $40 delivered.
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Every once in awhile I buy a weird doo-dad that I don’t otherwise need. I never know if the widget is going to be awesome or a total piece of garbage, but either way it will make for a good Gibberish entry.

The Squeezeit! is a classic example of a random purchase that turned out to be pretty damn good.
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We drink a lot of coffee at Gibberish. My coffee must be hot, ideally just right below the “omg this burned my mouth” hot. Coffee becomes bitter as it cools, so I want my Joe as hot as possible.

I had been using my caffeine molecule stainless steel mug from Think Geek before a visitor “borrowed” it and put spicy, flavored tea in it. This wrecked the mug, as the lid was tainted by the spice flavor despite repeated washings.

We started searching for a replacement, and Sedagive? returned with the Thermos King. Boy did it live up to its name.
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True confessions, Gibberish-style:

I love organizational gadgets.

I like containers, drawer spacers, crazy ass universal knife blocks, can racks, magnetic spice holder doo-dads and stackable bins. I love all that stuff.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise to me that I really liked the idea of the Rubbermaid 1H42 pan organizer. What was a surprise was how effective it was, for so little scratch.
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I love flashlights. Like pocket knives, they are a tool that when you need it, you really need it. I used to carry around a “Mini” MagLite and the MagLite Solitaire but those were too big for pockets and I hated wearing a flashlight on my belt. Fast forward several years and I started buying LED flashlights for the house. They were still too big for my tastes until I stumbled upon the 9-LED flashlight from Harbor Freight Tools (see my review).

Even with such a small design, I sometimes forgot the flashlight or left it at home. I was walking through Harbor Freight not too long ago and found a single LED keychain flashlight for $0.99. I had avoided these before because they always seemed too underpowered to be of much use. However, I figured for a buck it was worth it. Cheap Gibberish entry, at least.

Then I found TEN similiar LED keychain lights on Meritline.com for $5.99 (they are now $5.39 as of this writing). That’s including shipping! I had to wait about a week for my order to arrive.

All of a sudden we went from a quirky one-off review to a full-on cheap ass key chain flashlight shootout.
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