The Intellivision was a home video game console released nationwide by the toy giant Mattel in 1980. The name was a contraction of “Intelligent Television,” and the system was built specifically to challenge the Atari 2600’s strong grip on the home gaming market. Mattel’s ambition went beyond simply offering a competing game machine. The plan…
Things I Like: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010 Film)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was actually the very first Harry Potter film I saw in theaters. I’d already watched all the previous movies on Blu-ray just a few months earlier, so I went in genuinely excited. Ironically, it also ended up being the last movie I saw before finally starting the…
Fun Facts and Trivia About Clothing Buttons
The English word button comes from the Old French bouton, meaning a bud or a round knob that pushes out, which traces back to bouter, meaning to thrust or push, so a button is literally something that sticks out. English adopted the word around 1300 as a term for a clothing fastener, and the same…
Things I Like: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 (Xbox 360)
Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 was the long-awaited follow-up to Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, surprisingly dropping “volleyball” from the title entirely. I suspect the developers realized most fans saw volleyball as more of a minor side activity than the actual draw of the game, so renaming the sequel accordingly made sense. I’d been…
Fun Facts and Trivia About Cash Registers
The cash register was invented by James Ritty, a saloon owner from Dayton, Ohio, who received a patent for the device in 1879. He suspected his bartenders were stealing money, and while traveling by steamship in 1878 he studied a device that counted a propeller’s revolutions, which gave him the idea that a similar mechanism…