Forty-eight years ago today, Atari released Pong. Someone gave my dad the game several years later, I think when he quit Baldor to open a garage, and my brothers and I played it a lot for a while before we realized how monotonous it was. (You can play versions of it here.) Regardless, it was my introduction to video games. In high school, I spent a lot of time in the grocery store’s game room or at the Dixie Belle playing PacMan, Galaga and a few other games. We never had a game system other than that Pong game, but through the years, I moved on to a few hand-held games as well as game apps on my computer and tablet. Nowadays I spend too much time on my iPad playing Angry Birds and a few other games. When Luke was alive, he’d come and put a paw on my arm to let me know I’d been playing too long and that he wanted entertainment and food, or he’d lay on top of the tablet. He was never all that interested in any of those games for cats, and he didn’t want me playing either, hence the plopping on the tablet. Pretty hard to play through all that fur.
Some animals, though, well, you may have to pull the game controller out of their paws. Luke is rolling his eyes at them in heaven.
Serenity is a fuzzy belly 
I played Tank and Pong for awhile and then discovered COMPUTERS for real. Working in a time-share environment, I discovered “coding,” which has remained my main hobby for about fifty years so far. Mostly, I write time-management apps, just for myself. I haven’t tried to sell them, since I do not want to become tech support for users. I’m satisfied with “I wonder how I could make it . . .”
I recently said I was pleased not to have heard whining about a “War on Thanksgiving.” However, I didn’t take Ted Cruz into account.
LikeLike
Other than coding a very simple trivia game in BASIC in high school for computer science, I haven’t tried to create any apps. If I’d had a computer of my own before 2004, I might have been more interested in doing that.
Never, ever, underestimate Ted Cruz’s capacity to whine. If it were an Olympic event, the only way he wouldn’t win gold is if Trump were in the competition.
LikeLike
According to my youngest sister the Democrat who lives in Austin, Texas, there is no accounting for Ted Cruz.
LikeLike
Pong and an Atari were the beginning of my son’s interest/career in computer programming and he’s now a senior IT architect. He got me into RPGs and shooters when he left for college (so I could play with him long-distance) and I’ve been gaming ever since — currently on my brand new Xbox Series X.
My cat loves cat games on my phone, but when he picked the whole thing up and left teeth marks in the case, I had to stop.
LikeLike
Luke was just never interested. He’d rub his scent all over the tablet or phone, but that was the extent.
LikeLike
I prefer to play music instead of games. Many, many years ago, I did take one semester of computer programming in college trying to learn how to use BASIC but I did so poorly that I gave up on programming computers. I almost failed the class and decided to leave the programming to others.
LikeLike
I can’t blame you.
LikeLike