The GE FM/AM Electronic Digital Clock Radio 7-4612B has officially become the meme clock, the one everyone from my generation owned. When it crossed my social feed recently, most people mentioned the alarm sound or the plastic wood grain. But I had a different memory lane to dive down.

Everyone used these to wake up in the morning. Long before we had Alexa and smartphones by our beds, clock radios were essential. You didn’t dare go to sleep without setting that alarm. But mine had the opposite effect. It kept me up. At 14, I’d scan the AM dial late at night and discover all kinds of signals: music, conversations, whatever I might find. That’s how I stumbled into the world of Larry King and Art Bell. When you’re 14, you’re always looking to speed-run to adulthood, and talk radio felt sophisticated. Larry King’s “Open Phone America” segment was like public access TV on the radio, with people calling in to discuss the most random topics. Art Bell came on so late that his strange stories and crazy callers would carry me off to sleep. Sunday nights were special. AM 740 played old-time radio shows like The Whistler and Dragnet. I felt like I was part of some underground scene, listening to shows from the 1940s.

Reflecting back, I knew I wasn’t the target audience. It was truckers and night shift workers calling in, grown-ups with real lives and strange opinions. But I listened anyway, like I’d found a secret channel into the adult world.

The nostalgia hit hard enough that I grabbed one off eBay. Some things I’d forgotten, that I only remembered once I had the device back in my hand, finding myself scrolling through the same dial I did when I was 14, looking for a signal: the static, lightning crashing through the sound, signals fading in and out, the sleep timer so you could fall asleep listening. Now the world of audio entertainment is back, bigger than before, with podcasts. I was an early podcast adopter, and these days I still fall asleep to voices, usually some crazy murder stories from true crime shows. Same ritual, different decade. It turns out that this old clock radio was giving me a preview of how we’d all be consuming content 30 years later.

I found this 1990 episode of Larry King’s radio show where he interviews Joan Benny, Jack Benny’s daughter. You get the full experience. Live callers. Larry reading the ads himself. All of it.
https://archive.org/details/jbi-joan-benny-1990-12-05-larry-king-show

krrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkkkk… ssshhhhHHHHHHhh… bweeee-OOO-bweeee-OOO… KKKKSHHHHHHHHHHH-eeeeeeeeeee…

I remember getting excited about that modem connection noise. I knew that sound meant I was about to be online. It felt like stepping into something bigger. I was connecting with smart people, other geeks and nerds, pushing boundaries, learning, and doing cool stuff. (Ok, maybe it wasnt that cool)

Today, everyone’s connected, and the internet doesn’t feel like an exciting place to escape anymore.

I need to start seeking out those corners of the internet where geeks are having geeky conversations and building and creating things.

I’m going to admin, this image that chatGPT made, was so good, I’m going to have to come back and write more about this topic, just to make it worth the cycles it used to create it.

I haven’t been excited about a full tower PC case launch in maybe 20 years, and it’s funny that this one has me paying attention. Turns out I’m not the only one.

SilverStone is releasing the FLP-02, and it looks just like the PC cases from the late 90s that we all used to hate. Those boring beige boxes with the turbo button. Back then they were everywhere. Now that nothing looks like that anymore, nostalgia has kicked in and made them desirable. So desirable, in fact, SilverStone thinks theres a market for them. 

This new ‘sleeper’ style offers modern GPU support, power supplies, proper cable management, and of course, airflow. While I’m sure the target audience is mostly gamers, I’ve been searching for a full tower to build a server with plenty of space for spinning hard drives. This might be the one.

Back in the day, I used to take those boring beige cases and mod them myself. I’d cut out windows, add lights and extra fans. Eventually those started being sold in stores and we called them “pre-modded” cases. Did that take away some of the fun? Yeah, maybe. But being able to buy a case that looked cool and was designed for modular builds? That changed everything.

Heres a link to a youtube video about it Silverstone FLP-02 launch

I’ve been doing my daily walks, listening to the history of people creating shareware games (see previous post), and the way my brain works, I thought, “Hey, I want to make a game…” So I did. Honestly, today there’s almost no reason you can’t learn to create whatever you want.

Here’s where we are in life right now: I went to ChatGPT, told it what I wanted to build, and it was ready to roll. I didn’t just type “make me a helicopter game” (though you probably could). I started with an idea, mapped out a plan, and started creating the project with AI as my co-pilot. Along the way, I learned a ton about game design, building environments, creating graphics, setting up collision logic, debugging, and working on playability. Most importantly, I gained a whole new respect for the original teams behind games like Choplifter and Chopper Strike — they were doing amazing things with way less tech.

My goal was to create a working game demo, and after about 20 hours, it’s up and running. It’s my first real game under my belt, and now I’ve got a ton of ideas and the confidence to keep building whatever I want. It’s a fun place to be.

Could you do this too? Absolutely. Did my years of web development help? For sure.

Want to play it? eChopper 0.03 is here to play.

I’m going to continue to add a few game play features, and make it feel a little more complete, then I’m moving on to the next challenge.

Later, I’ll write more about how to actually learn while working alongside AI — not just getting answers, but breaking things down, asking why and how at every step.

I’m currently reading (okay, listening to) the audiobook of Shareware Heroes.

First off, I’m just glad someone documented this era of my youth, the days of dial-up bulletin boards, sharing games, pirating software, staying up late, and making sure my computer was always uploading or downloading something. I’ll probably write more about it once I finish.

Update: I originally thought it would just be cool to hear about the old shareware scene during my daily walks. But, man, this book has been way more than I expected. It’s got me so excited and so hyperfocused that I actually started building my own game, I’ll be ready to share that soon!

You can check out the Shareware Heroes site here, it’s also really cool.

So here we are, the first post on ericslog.com.

You’re either early, or you’re deeply invested in the blog and have scrolled all the way down to the beginning. Either way, appreciated.

Let’s start with the why behind ericslog.

I’ve really been enjoying sharing projects and lessons learned over on my oneprojecteveryday site. It’s been a solid outlet, but it’s also got some limitations:

1. It’s only project-focused, which boxes me in when I want to talk about other things.
2. It’s hard to keep up with doing projects and documenting them daily, so updates don’t happen as often as I’d like.
3. It didn’t allow comments or likes, which made it feel a little one-sided.

And then there’s a fourth thing, the word “daily.” Once you talk about a “daily” project online, it starts to carry this pressure. Like you’re letting someone down if it’s not updated. That kind of weight can suck the fun out of it.

I’ve been working on this site daily, I’ll go back to my One Project Everyday and catch up, and break this site launch down, and catch up on all the other things I’ve been working on.

So, enter ericslog.com.

This site’s just me posting ideas whenever I feel like it. Could be music, projects, AI stuff, learning notes, Jeeps, whatever’s rattling around in my head.

I once heard Merlin Mann say your personal blog should be like one of those nerdy basement model train sets. You go downstairs and tinker, not because anyone’s watching, but because you enjoy building your own little world. That idea stuck.

The design here is meant to handle short posts, longer posts, and everything in between. Sometimes it’ll feel like Twitter. Sometimes like a full blog. It’ll stay structured, no matter what I throw at it.

Will I use AI here? For images, yes. For copy, kind of. I’ll always write my own posts. Sometimes I’ll ask a prompt like “help me refine this and check grammar, but keep it in my voice,” but I’ll never say, “write me a blog post about fishing on a Thursday morning.” The world doesn’t need more AI slop.

I’ve got some AI predictions coming soon, by the way.

I like writing, I like sharing, and I like having a place to collect my thoughts and file them away on the internet. There’s no deeper meaning behind “ericslog.” I just needed a short URL, and it ended up sounding a little like Star Trek. Nerdy, but not that nerdy.

Anyway, that’s the intro. Nothing fancy. Just a new little corner of the internet I’m carving out for myself. Let’s see where it goes.

So I needed to test embedding a YouTube video, and I’m posting one of my favorite series: Ronald Finger’s Fiero Revival. It’s a multi-part series, and honestly, I loved it.

Ronald Finger is an amazing creator, but he’s also just a guy filming himself tackling big projects, making mistakes, and learning along the way. I’ve watched him rebuild his garage, restore cars, DIY frame repair and beautifully documenting the all the projects in an amazing package.

I finally learned to love learning, and heres why:

(update: this is an old article from my blog, that I’ve moved over)

It took me a while, but I’ve finally come around to loving learning.

Funny, considering how much information we’re surrounded by these days. But it’s more than just having access to knowledge. For me, it’s about curiosity and the drive to keep growing, personally and professionally.

At 46, I’ve hit this cool moment where personal and professional growth feel like they’re feeding off each other. It’s not about learning a new skill to check a box. It’s like tapping into this endless well of information and knowing it’s on me to make the most of it.