Category: ECommerce

New at 123ish: My top kitchen gadget tips

Wait, what? After all the blogging for all these years about science fiction, horror, paranormal, Linux, all this geeky freaky stuff, I’m going to write… KITCHEN TIPS???

Yeah, just once. See, Mrs. Penguin and I raised four kids, who are now experiencing adultness in various degrees. So that’s some 20-something years feeding a household of six (not counting live-in chums, visiting relatives, couch critters, and the occasional cat) on a freelancer’s budget. And nobody complained! At least, not to my face. I must have done something right.

It’s so shockingly out of character for me, I might just try it again some time.

 

MTG Arena has the worst ad for anything, ever

Well, I’m more than on-record as a long-standing Magic: the Gathering geek. But that’s the paper cards. When it comes to the electronic offerings of Wizards of the Coast trying to replicate their paper game in video media, there’s no point in trying to be nice about it: They all stink on ice. After a token attempt to get MTG Arena to run on ANY device I own by ANY means necessary, I lost interest, as I have so many times before. So dismissed has been the video game interpretations of MTG from my consideration, that this is my first time talking about them at all, anywhere.

But have you seen this new MTGArena ad? I saw it on YouTube and was too paralyzed with horror to hit the ‘skip’ button. Good GAWD, people, what the WTF were you THINKING???

There’s so much gone so wrong to unpack here, I barely know where to start…

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New at 123ish: Amazon Prime Day, your corporate overlord report

Yes, I know, worshiping the temple of e-Commerce is a bit far out of my usual wheelhouse, where I’m typically frolicking with Cthulhu or posting unhinged rants against palm trees. But guess what, chicken butt: Your humble author has to eat too, and articles about Amazon Prime Day brings in the bacon.

It’s funny, too, because for all the vitriol Amazon draws, it’s really just the online version of Sears-Roebuck. Present your case, John Oliver:

Now my case:

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New at 123ish: Unique Desktop Toys For Office Fun

I don’t miss much about the corporate 9-to-5 (cubicle slave #X197532), but one thing I do get nostalgic for is all the dumb things people would do to amuse themselves to alleviate office tedium. I did a whole review of unique recommendations for office desktop toys. These are all non-electronic diversions too, so you can rest your bloodshot eyes from glowing screens too.

The pic is, of course, from Terry Gilliam’s epic 1985 film Brazil. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) twiddles with this decision toy with ‘yes’ on one side and ‘no’ on the other, with a weight that drops onto a wedge to randomly fall on either side. It’s a perfect metaphor for the movie’s dystopian universe, where everybody endures only having the illusion of free will. It’s where, for all the good anything does you, you might as well go through life making random decisions.

Always wanted to find this toy in real life, but probably not looking in the right place. In the meantime, check out my recommended list, you’ll find many surprises!

 

You know what I haven’t blogged about in awhile? LINUX!

Anybody out there remember the elder days of yore on the web, when I was one of the few bloggers to talk about Linux and FOSS? I figured it’s time to update distro recommends for a new generation. So here’s the top five Linux distros for every kind of user.
As usual, I dodged the trendy meme distros in favor of time-honored practical systems for anybody from the most clueless newbie to the salty veteran power user. Wow, it has been a long time!

Follow on for one of my classic Linux essays, the final battle report of the Microsoft vs. Linux wars:

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Geek Gifts Lists: Valentine’s Ideas

So it’s almost Valentine’s Day here, and you know we’re all about the geek love at Penguin Pete’s! I don’t usually do this kind of thing, but conveniently one of my gigs is at Krononaut, which curates lists of cool stuff we find on Amazon.

What’s the difference between that and the zillion other Amazon list blogs out there? Well, we make sure the product is in stock, has a price range in the median of ~$40 for a comfortable disposable income budget, and we organize things by theme. If you happened to be looking for a certain niche item, you can search Amazon and wade through pages of irrelevant results, or grab one of our lists and have a concise assortment between six and ten items long that’s targeted exactly at what you were shopping for. Sound nifty? You’ve no idea!

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New 123ish Post: The International ECommerce Guide To American Holidays

Every year during the holidays, when dealing with clients from all over the world and having to explain to my fifth Australian what Thanksgiving is and why my whole family’s visiting for it, I vow to write this guide someday. Thanks to the marvelous venue that 123ish.com has turned into, I finally got it done!

So: The International ECommerce Guide To American Holidays. Find out why Groundhog Day is so weird, why we can’t predict when Easter will strike, and why your American team-mates might even need October 30th off. Even if you’re native, you’ll still learn something because I’ve tucked away some little-known chestnuts about the origins of the colored-in days on the United States calendar.

If anybody else has a similar guide for another country, I’d love to find out about it. In fact, if you’re not from the United States, why not write an international guide for your country’s holidays? I, myself, would like more insight on what, for example, a “boxing day” is.