In the late 90’s I wrote a program called lazy.exe. This was Windows 95/98 days way before all your fancy tabbed browser windows. When I was busy surfing the world wide web, I found it bothersome to have to minimize my browser and switch over to winamp to advance to the next mp3 song. So I wrote lazy.exe in VB.
It basically just hooked into the winamp API and ran in the background waiting for the mouse cursor to get to position 0,0. At that point it would talk to winamp and tell it to move on to the next song. I didn’t have to stop reading whatever it was my ADHD was focused on, just had to move the mouse up and left. Boom. New song.
@Wollyhop Well, my fursona is an inflatable wolf whose colors are that of the CSX railroad, which combines two hobbies of mine (inflatable animals and trains/railroading), and inflatable Balto was something the world needed and as of 2013 didn’t have, so I grew tired of waiting and created him myself! (I ran a preorder and sold around 100 of them.)
@PooltoyWolf Are you planning to make an inflatable of your fursona?
(Sidebar: Today I learned that PVC was a fancy name for vinyl lol. It makes a lot more sense now.)
@PooltoyWolf Okay
Also, I realized that a character in my book is named Balto and also is a husky. BUT I never seen the movie and had no idea it existed until today. Oddly, I thought about him a few months ago.
Eh, the human mind is weird.
@Wollyhop Current project is TazzyToy the inflatable thylacine/Tasmanian tiger, with partial proceeds going to the TIGRR Lab in Melbourne, who are working with Colossal Biosciences to eventually bring the real thylacine back from extinction!
@PooltoyWolf Honestly really cool what you are doing. Un-extincting a species can help science learn about how it would survive in the day to day environment. I am a HUGE science/pop culture nerd.
My favorite has to be the main protagonist/antagonist of my book series, The Chronicles of Marx. It is Marx.Not the Kirby Marx, though. I get that a lot. The only way for me to describe Marx is to show you chapter three, which pretty much captures his whole being in a couple of paragraphs:
3.
Marx walked back to his abandoned home in the rain. He lived in the old Miller house on Hawthorne Street, where the previous occupants died within a few months of each other. To this day, no one knows what happened to them. (Cough Cough Marx Cough Cough) It was an old, derelict, four-story mansion with peeling paint and broken green roof tiles. He was walking up his driveway when his Nokia vibrated. A text appeared on its broken screen:
Marx! DON'T 4GET THE MEAT!
FOR THE PREY! >:(
He sighed and walked back around into town. Shortly after, he got to Bob’s Butchery, his go-to place for any meat, be it legally or illegally bought meat. Bob the butcher has it. (It is said that Bob butchered the health inspector after giving him a poor grade at the store. The beef was lumpy after that.) Marx walked into the shop. “Hey Bob, got my usual?” He asked. Bob stopped chopping the meat with his bloody cleaver and looked at him. His beady eyes stared out from his burlap sack over his face. He handed Marx a cut of bleeding prime rib and returned to hacking apart the flesh on his cutting board. Marx shoved his meat gingerly into a plastic bag.
“Thanks for the meat, Bob!” Marx said as he walked out of the door, taking extra care to hit everyone in the head with his bag and showering them with blood. One person screamed: “HEY! APOLOGIZE!”. Marx flipped them off, walked away, and said: “No.” Marx walked outside and got drenched by a car speeding through a puddle.“Damn it. My suit is now SOAKED!” He reached into his pocket and drew out a firearm. A red and gold pistol, the Blood Drunk pistol. (Yes, this is the gun from FARCRY 6; deal with it.) He got so angry that the next person he saw would end up with a bullet in their skull. Luckily for Marx/Unluckily for the person, he saw a man wearing a red bandana duck into a dark alley. Marx followed him like a shadow in the darkness, swift and silent. Eventually, the bandana man stopped and pulled out a switchblade. He hid behind an overturned dumpster. Marx stood up and cocked his gun, and pulled the trigger. Then two things happened:
1: A furry dressed up like a husky came around the corner. (If you need to know what a furry is, then ??? What rock have you been living under?)
2: As the bullet was speeding towards the man’s head, he launched himself at the furry, wielding the knife like a psycho over his head.
BANG! The red bandana man lay crumpled at their feet, body sizzling in the rain. The furry looked at Marx. “Christ. That… was something. Thank you for saving me!” Marx frowned. “No, I didn’t!” “Yes, you did! The person had a knife in his hand! He was trying to hurt me!” The husky lifted Marx into the air and hugged him. “Put me down!” Marx said. He put him down. “Now, mind holding the bag open for me…Uh, What’s your name?” “Robert. And you are…?” “Marx. Don’t forget it. Someday, the name will be written in history books.” Marx grabbed the dead man’s knife and gutted the corpse, cutting and pulling out the organs and putting them in the plastic bag, which now began to bulge and leak blood. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” Screamed Robert in horror. “Waste not want not.” “Isn’t that cannibalism?” “I’m not human.” “WHAT?” Marx grabbed the bag and walked away. He turned around and tossed a knife to Robert. “People are dicks, so defend yourself. Shed some blood for me, okay? Also, the suit is good. Make it yourself?” “Well…” “See ya.” Marx turned the corner, returned to his mansion, and opened the door. “Man, killing is fun. No wonder why Death likes to do it so much!” He got a phone call. “Eh, Hello? Yeah, So what? Sure, I killed him. A target? What do you take me for? How much? Sure. Bye.” He walked inside and shut the door.
My 4 kids (but to be fair, my wife did most of the early work).
@macromeh lol
@macromeh My wife doesn’t appreciate it when I joke she half-slept through her labor because of the drugs.
Not sure why… oh well, live and learn.
In the late 90’s I wrote a program called lazy.exe. This was Windows 95/98 days way before all your fancy tabbed browser windows. When I was busy surfing the world wide web, I found it bothersome to have to minimize my browser and switch over to winamp to advance to the next mp3 song. So I wrote lazy.exe in VB.
It basically just hooked into the winamp API and ran in the background waiting for the mouse cursor to get to position 0,0. At that point it would talk to winamp and tell it to move on to the next song. I didn’t have to stop reading whatever it was my ADHD was focused on, just had to move the mouse up and left. Boom. New song.
That’s right… I created ‘swipe left’.
@capnjb Cool
Same, I have ADHD and I can’t even finish asong before I click to a new one. That is why my Spotify playlist is 105 songs and counting.
@Wollyhop Getting a fancy turntable and a big pile of vinyl helped me with that
There is no ‘next’ button. Only ‘turn that down’ from my wife 
@Wollyhop Also, currently spinning:
Either my fursona or my inflatable Balto!
I’ve made (and am making) other inflatable critters too, but Balto remains my favorite.
@PooltoyWolf What is the story of both?
@Wollyhop Well, my fursona is an inflatable wolf whose colors are that of the CSX railroad, which combines two hobbies of mine (inflatable animals and trains/railroading), and inflatable Balto was something the world needed and as of 2013 didn’t have, so I grew tired of waiting and created him myself! (I ran a preorder and sold around 100 of them.)
@PooltoyWolf Cool!
@PooltoyWolf Are you planning to make an inflatable of your fursona?
(Sidebar: Today I learned that PVC was a fancy name for vinyl lol. It makes a lot more sense now.)
@Wollyhop Funny you should ask.
@PooltoyWolf Looks very huggable! Could I see some more pictures?
@Wollyhop He’s very huggable!
You should get back to posting about inflatables!
It would be really cool.
@PooltoyWolf How much does it cost?
Might want to buy one.
@Wollyhop Was a preorder, now closed, but they cost about $250.
@PooltoyWolf Okay
Also, I realized that a character in my book is named Balto and also is a husky. BUT I never seen the movie and had no idea it existed until today. Oddly, I thought about him a few months ago.
Eh, the human mind is weird.
@PooltoyWolf You said you have made/making more inflatables, could I please see them?
@Wollyhop Current project is TazzyToy the inflatable thylacine/Tasmanian tiger, with partial proceeds going to the TIGRR Lab in Melbourne, who are working with Colossal Biosciences to eventually bring the real thylacine back from extinction!
@PooltoyWolf Honestly really cool what you are doing. Un-extincting a species can help science learn about how it would survive in the day to day environment. I am a HUGE science/pop culture nerd.
My favorite has to be the main protagonist/antagonist of my book series, The Chronicles of Marx. It is Marx.Not the Kirby Marx, though. I get that a lot. The only way for me to describe Marx is to show you chapter three, which pretty much captures his whole being in a couple of paragraphs:
3.
Marx walked back to his abandoned home in the rain. He lived in the old Miller house on Hawthorne Street, where the previous occupants died within a few months of each other. To this day, no one knows what happened to them. (Cough Cough Marx Cough Cough) It was an old, derelict, four-story mansion with peeling paint and broken green roof tiles. He was walking up his driveway when his Nokia vibrated. A text appeared on its broken screen:
He sighed and walked back around into town. Shortly after, he got to Bob’s Butchery, his go-to place for any meat, be it legally or illegally bought meat. Bob the butcher has it. (It is said that Bob butchered the health inspector after giving him a poor grade at the store. The beef was lumpy after that.) Marx walked into the shop. “Hey Bob, got my usual?” He asked. Bob stopped chopping the meat with his bloody cleaver and looked at him. His beady eyes stared out from his burlap sack over his face. He handed Marx a cut of bleeding prime rib and returned to hacking apart the flesh on his cutting board. Marx shoved his meat gingerly into a plastic bag.
“Thanks for the meat, Bob!” Marx said as he walked out of the door, taking extra care to hit everyone in the head with his bag and showering them with blood. One person screamed: “HEY! APOLOGIZE!”. Marx flipped them off, walked away, and said: “No.” Marx walked outside and got drenched by a car speeding through a puddle.“Damn it. My suit is now SOAKED!” He reached into his pocket and drew out a firearm. A red and gold pistol, the Blood Drunk pistol. (Yes, this is the gun from FARCRY 6; deal with it.) He got so angry that the next person he saw would end up with a bullet in their skull. Luckily for Marx/Unluckily for the person, he saw a man wearing a red bandana duck into a dark alley. Marx followed him like a shadow in the darkness, swift and silent. Eventually, the bandana man stopped and pulled out a switchblade. He hid behind an overturned dumpster. Marx stood up and cocked his gun, and pulled the trigger. Then two things happened:
1: A furry dressed up like a husky came around the corner. (If you need to know what a furry is, then ??? What rock have you been living under?)
2: As the bullet was speeding towards the man’s head, he launched himself at the furry, wielding the knife like a psycho over his head.
BANG! The red bandana man lay crumpled at their feet, body sizzling in the rain. The furry looked at Marx. “Christ. That… was something. Thank you for saving me!” Marx frowned. “No, I didn’t!” “Yes, you did! The person had a knife in his hand! He was trying to hurt me!” The husky lifted Marx into the air and hugged him. “Put me down!” Marx said. He put him down. “Now, mind holding the bag open for me…Uh, What’s your name?” “Robert. And you are…?” “Marx. Don’t forget it. Someday, the name will be written in history books.” Marx grabbed the dead man’s knife and gutted the corpse, cutting and pulling out the organs and putting them in the plastic bag, which now began to bulge and leak blood. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” Screamed Robert in horror. “Waste not want not.” “Isn’t that cannibalism?” “I’m not human.” “WHAT?” Marx grabbed the bag and walked away. He turned around and tossed a knife to Robert. “People are dicks, so defend yourself. Shed some blood for me, okay? Also, the suit is good. Make it yourself?” “Well…” “See ya.” Marx turned the corner, returned to his mansion, and opened the door. “Man, killing is fun. No wonder why Death likes to do it so much!” He got a phone call. “Eh, Hello? Yeah, So what? Sure, I killed him. A target? What do you take me for? How much? Sure. Bye.” He walked inside and shut the door.
Yeah, Marx is certainly something