After a few discussions with people in the office this little conspiracy theory just popped up in my head.

What if the Colts release Manning today merely to avoid the required $28M bonus payment due to him on Friday. It’s my understanding that would make him a free agent and available to sign for any team he wanted to (that will afford him).

But, what if Peyton still wants to be a Colt and remain loyal to Indianapolis and the city and retire with the team he helped make great. He’s been tremendous for this city and fans of the Colts. What if, instead, he resigns with the Colts with a new contract that works in some kind of give and take for the $28M he just “lost”, but stays with the team in a fashion that works for him, Irsay, the Colts, the city and even Andrew Luck?

What do you think? Possibility? Or am I just Positively Dreaming?!

Here’s the deal. Back in the day (let’s say, 1981-1982), when I was an impressionable 5 years old, my parents bought me my first computer, a Commodore Vic-20. I had to literally copy and type line after line of text from a BOOK onto the computer screen to MAKE a game to play. A single keystroke error meant the game wouldn’t play. Of course, “game” meant something like “draw a blue line”. When I shut the computer off, the game disappeared. After a while, we got a peripheral CASSETTE TAPE DECK that contained a SINGLE game already programmed on it, and took a good 3-5 minutes to load. WAY better than half an hour of typing!

Fast-forward to 1987-1988 (Living On A Prayer!) and my middle school, progressive for its time, had a room full of green-texted black screened monster PC’s that ran Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego off 5 1/4″ disks, and had an afterschool club for tiny elementary-school aged Dungeons and Dragons players (I never did understand the appeal of that game).

When high school came, I got my first desktop computer of my very own. It was a second-from-top-of-the-line, 486 SX 33MHz (yes I said MHz, not GHz, – and no, we couldn’t afford the DX2 66MHz) but it had a FULL COLOR 15″ VGA monitor. It cost my parents almost $3,000 in 1989 dollars, they considered it an investment in my future.

Oh, my desktop was badass and I was a geeky little 9th-grade dynamo. I traded files and played text-based games via BBS’s. I once even connected a microphone and had a very crackly, laggy phone conversation with a friend one town away VIA COMPUTER RUNNING THROUGH DIAL-UP. Yes, I had a perfectly good phone right beside me, that I had to unplug to use the computer, but long-distance calls, even to the next town, were expensive, yo! A free local call to the local modem farm was free! (except for the monthly access fee, of course) I dabbled in ANSI artwork, I twiddled with autoexec.bat and config.sys, I pirated my first copy of Windows 3.11 from the kid down the street.

Essentially, I learned a new language and literally grew up with computers. Friends traded disks to share programs, non-telephone conversations developed via caveman-esque online forums, one-color monitors turned to 16-color. My first laptop had DUAL 3 1/4″ floppies (no hard drive, of course).

Then, one of my very best friends parents bought him an Apple Macintosh Classic II 16MHz and everything went to hell in a handbasket. Here’s how typical conversations went between me (486SX owner) and him (Mac owner):

• 486SX: Your computer has a nice compact form! You need to borrow some disks?
• Mac: Nope, none of your programs work on my computer.
• 486SX: Oh, weird. Hey, doesn’t your screen have color?
• Mac: Nope.
• 486SX: I’m confused. Is that seriously a 9″ black and white screen?
• Mac: Yup.
• 486SX: Oh. Ok, whatever. That’s a neat drawing program you have, can I steal it?
• Mac: Nope, none of my programs work on your computer either.
• 486SX: Are you sure? That can’t be right. Just gimme the disk and I’ll… wait… where’s the eject button?
• Mac: There is no eject button.
• 486SX: Are you sure? That can’t be right. Just right-click and choose “eject”.
• Mac: There’s only one button on my mouse.
• 486SX: Your computer doesn’t play nice with other computers, has a 9″ black and white screen, and is too cheap to include an eject button or a second mouse button? Your parents paid HOW much for that?
• Mac: Shut up man, Macs are cool. Macs are the future.

———————

Let’s extrapolate to future products, shall we?

• Mac: Check out my new iPod!
• 486SX: Cool! Where do you get your music from?
• Mac: I am forced to pay $1 for every song via iTunes.
• 486SX: Are you sure? That can’t be right. Oh, BTW, your battery’s running out, you probably need to switch out the AAA’s.
• Mac: I can’t. The battery isn’t replacable.
• 486SX: Your music player doesn’t play nice with other .mp3 players, MAKES you pay for songs, and is too cheap to include a replacable battery. You paid HOW much for that?

————————

• Mac: Check out my new iPhone!
• Android: It’s got a small screen, none of the apps work with other phones, you’re STILL forced to buy music from iTunes, it only has one button, and you STILL can’t replace the battery. You paid HOW much for that?

———————–

Fine, you get the idea. So what, after all these years has made me take a (brief) pause to consider buying an Apple product? In a word, Instagram.

I’ve got an ORIGINAL Motorola Droid, which really seems like a relic now that it’s been on the market for (gasp!) three whole years.

Apparently, or so I’ve learned, Apple engineers have managed to stuff the world’s ONLY good cell phone camera into the iPhone 4S. Then some dudes came up with a software program – Instagram – to showcase it, and their program went viral. Instagram photos are ALL over Twitter and Facebook, and it annoys me. That an Apple product has a truly superior piece of HARDWARE in one of their devices that, to date, has no equal – the camera.

Fine, it’s true. Neither Motorola, nor Samsung, nor LG, nor any of the other cell phone manufacturers can seem to make a GOOD camera that matches that inside the iPhone.

Am I going to get an iPhone because it has the best camera on the market?

Seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

Dr. Greg Magnusson is a Veterinarian in Indianapolis at Leo’s Pet Care and may or may not be a future iPhone owner.

Indianapolis Super Bowl Village from Paul D'Andrea on Vimeo.

Hat tip to @cjtheisen for sharing the link to this video on Facebook.

That’s not the case for Brian Alano who invested over three years and 30,000 pieces to build a replica of the home of the Indianapolis Colts.

Here’s a video of Leilan and Caleb shot as they were in their 46th hour of the competition.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can look back at their efforst, along with other participants by using the Twitter hashtag #RingItOn.

Way to go guys! You make me proud to be a Hoosier!

News Coverage on Fox59: Salvation Army bell ringers attempt to break world record

Recently Classic Cakes cakes were featured with 25 Amazing Custom Wedding Cakes, along side other national cake talents you may have heard of like Duff, from Charm City Cakes that you’ve seen on Ace of Cakes on The Food Network.

The two cakes from Classic Cakes in Carmel that are featured in this article on MSN’s Delish channel are #19 and #25. Great work!

I’ve been told the story that the owner of Classic Cakes used to enter a cake competition at the Indiana State Fair every year, after winning it a number of years in a row the judges came to her and asked her to stop entering because nobody was even coming close. I think they made her a judge instead.

Ryan doesn’t have the problem. In fact some of my favorite works of his have amazing contrast and clarity in the images. He has a very cubist style in my opinion, and puts that touch on a variety of familiar scenes around Indianapolis. The image included in this post is titled “120 E. Market”, and captures one of the city’s icons, Monument Circle.

Ryan’s work will be featured at the Johnson County Museum of History from September 2nd through January 6th, 2012. If you enjoy watercolor and great art, you’ll definitely want to make sure you take the time to go see his talents. The museum is located in the old Masonic Temple at 135 North Main Street, in Franklin, IN.

If you can’t make it to this show, be sure to visit his website at www.ryanpetrow.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

These guys have been around for awhile, but are currently going through a little bit of a phoenix-from-the-ashes activity and reactivating and rebranding their efforts.

If you haven’t already signed-up, go do it now. If you think you signed up a long time ago and have forgotten all about it, go read this post targeted to their existing members so you can find out what they’re wanting to do and accomplish with their recent changes.

There’s more to May than just the 500 and there’s more to Speedway, Indiana than just a race every may.

What many people may not realize outside of the city is that there’s more to Speedway than just a racetrack. Of course the town is tied to the race, but it’s a great little city inside The Circle City for the other 11 months of the year as well.

Here’s a very nicely done video about the city of Speedway, Indiana and the history behind it and it’s neighbors.

Click here to view the embedded video.