 "Photo: Molly Raskin")
I visited Dixon, Ill., last Friday. It is a sleepy little town, about two hours west of Chicago. People can reach Dixon via the I-88, but I just used Google Maps.
I did not expect to be going to Dixon when I woke up on Friday. At 8 p.m., I was still in Rogers Park, listening to Prince with Trevor Borg, last year’s Diversions Editor, and some of his friends. A laptop was connected to the television to amplify an Internet radio station we had just put together.
I didn’t know anyone there, so I called upon some basic journalistic skills to start a conversation.
“So uh ... where is everyone from?” I asked. The typical “how much Stan loves Skokie” conversation followed, until Borg told us about his home in Dixon, the town’s position on the Rock River and its claim to fame as Ronald Reagan’s hometown.
My eyes quickly shifted from Borg, to the television, to Borg, then back to the television. Suddenly, the possibilities dawned on me.
I ordered Borg to commandeer Google Maps and take everyone on a tour of his town. Within minutes, and with the help of Google Street View, I saw Borg’s home and took a stroll along the river. Everything was displayed on the TV. Borg’s friends were strangers to me 10 minutes ago, but now we were vacationing together.
We quickly got tired of Dixon (I don’t think this will surprise anyone from there) and decided to do some standard space/time traveling. The group took a ride down the Autobahn with Kraftwerk. Then we watched a pink elephant parade. We weren’t doing any serious drugs, but YouTube was involved.
Friday’s trip was spontaneous, but it made me want to attend other computer-oriented parties. They are so much more fulfilling than getting drunk while Lil’ Wayne butchers the English language.
With the right set of cables, almost any television can become a giant computer monitor. At that point the possibilities are endless.
YouTube, Hulu and even StumbleUpon.com can offer hours of entertainment in that awful way that only the Internet has made possible, but it’s less awful when you have friends around since you are probably already having fun to begin with.
People that have fun together can also learn together. Wikipedia and Google can transform any room into a museum or library. Just come up with some trivia questions to ask one another and you have homemade Jeopardy. If someone puts on a suit, you will even have a homemade Alex Trebek.
Using Grooveshark, groups of people can put together an online playlist. The Web site’s library is truly impressive and totally free to use.
The type of cords needed to connect a computer and TV vary somewhat. Generally, people will need a cord that transmits video and one that transmits audio. In most cases, people will need an S-Video cord to get images from their computer on their TV. If you don’t want to use computer speakers for sound, a Y-Audio cable will get sound to come from the TV.
Both products can be bought on Amazon for $10, or a single chord that does it all is available for about $17.
However, double-check what cords your computer will need because not all computers have an S-Video jack. Sometimes, a VGA or HDMI cable will be necessary, especially with HDTVs.
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