Keeping Long Distance Health - Technology Bridge
kingmetal
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
DISCLAIMER: My long distance relationship is (by my standards) quite healthy, this is not a fix-it thread.
Background (boring, SKIPPABLE): My girlfriend and I have been in a serious relationship for about 6 months - 4 of those months have been long distance. She currently lives in Seattle, WA and I live in San Francisco, CA. We see each other about 2 times a month (usually 6-8 days a month). I'm 22 and she's 23, she's working (at Microsoft) and I'm working and going to school (at Lucasfilm and San Francisco State, respectively). We're both busy, but we keep is good contact. Our relationship is healthy and loving, and we are quite adept at communicating and solving problems quickly and effectively. We are both very techno-savvy, and currently employ a range of technology-related methods for keeping in touch including:
E-mail
Phone
SMS messaging
Facebook
Jabber/AIM/Skype (Yes, all three!)
We both bough cell phone plans with unlimited data/voice calls (to each other, at least) and that has proven to be an absolutely fantastic way to keep in touch (e-mail, taking and sending random pictures, texting and voice are all used many times throughout any given day). Things are going well and I'm already satisfied - but there's no hurt in trying to further improve things!
The Point: Last night, while I was flying home from our latest and greatest visit, my girl installed a Scrabble Facebook plugin and challenged me to a game. We had talked about doing more collaborative activities online together, and I had promised to look into it but never managed to get around to it; but after she made the first move I was hooked. I really can see the benefit in maintaining activities/routines via the internet and I'm really interested in exploring this concept.
Specifics: I am looking for games/software/anything we can use to collaborate and entertain ourselves online. I'd like as many possible tools at my disposal as possible. Turn-based stuff would be really great, as we get busy during the day and often only have quick spurts of availability, but anything would be great. She's not much of a gamer, but things like Scrabble or puzzles would be fantastic.
I'm also really interested in figuring out a way for us to watch TV shows together - the issue being that I don't have cable (nor do I plan on ever getting it). Are there are video playing solutions that support synchronization over the internet? I realize that we can just load up the same video, say "1...2...3...PLAY!" and be reasonably synced up, but I'd like a slicker solution (I just got her into Firefly and Top Gear recently and I'd LOVE to watch them with her at our respective homes).
Music would also be cool to listen to together, while we work or just mill around our houses - as it stands I'm pushing for her to get Rhapsody so I can at least beam her playlists quickly and easily, but I'm also interested in setting up some kind of streaming media server. Is there any kind of collaborative internet-radio solution that we could both have control over?
Platforms:
We can utilize software/technology via:
Laptops (Windows XP and Windows Vista, both machines extremely modern)
Cell phones (Samsung Blackjack and Cingular 8525 - both running Windows Mobile 5)
I am also open to purchasing new hardware/software if I really feel it will be beneficial. Neither of us are particularly low on money and we're more than willing to invest financially in this relationship (it has already paid off in spades!). We plan on purchasing webcams next, for more face-to-face time (we're fairly against webcams as a sexual tools at this point) and I bought a bluetooth headset to make phonecalls easier.
ANY help would be much appreciated. Anything collaborative/cool you run into that two tech-minded youngsters could use to strengthen our bond is welcome. Please also share similar experiences, if you've got any!
Background (boring, SKIPPABLE): My girlfriend and I have been in a serious relationship for about 6 months - 4 of those months have been long distance. She currently lives in Seattle, WA and I live in San Francisco, CA. We see each other about 2 times a month (usually 6-8 days a month). I'm 22 and she's 23, she's working (at Microsoft) and I'm working and going to school (at Lucasfilm and San Francisco State, respectively). We're both busy, but we keep is good contact. Our relationship is healthy and loving, and we are quite adept at communicating and solving problems quickly and effectively. We are both very techno-savvy, and currently employ a range of technology-related methods for keeping in touch including:
Phone
SMS messaging
Jabber/AIM/Skype (Yes, all three!)
We both bough cell phone plans with unlimited data/voice calls (to each other, at least) and that has proven to be an absolutely fantastic way to keep in touch (e-mail, taking and sending random pictures, texting and voice are all used many times throughout any given day). Things are going well and I'm already satisfied - but there's no hurt in trying to further improve things!
The Point: Last night, while I was flying home from our latest and greatest visit, my girl installed a Scrabble Facebook plugin and challenged me to a game. We had talked about doing more collaborative activities online together, and I had promised to look into it but never managed to get around to it; but after she made the first move I was hooked. I really can see the benefit in maintaining activities/routines via the internet and I'm really interested in exploring this concept.
Specifics: I am looking for games/software/anything we can use to collaborate and entertain ourselves online. I'd like as many possible tools at my disposal as possible. Turn-based stuff would be really great, as we get busy during the day and often only have quick spurts of availability, but anything would be great. She's not much of a gamer, but things like Scrabble or puzzles would be fantastic.
I'm also really interested in figuring out a way for us to watch TV shows together - the issue being that I don't have cable (nor do I plan on ever getting it). Are there are video playing solutions that support synchronization over the internet? I realize that we can just load up the same video, say "1...2...3...PLAY!" and be reasonably synced up, but I'd like a slicker solution (I just got her into Firefly and Top Gear recently and I'd LOVE to watch them with her at our respective homes).
Music would also be cool to listen to together, while we work or just mill around our houses - as it stands I'm pushing for her to get Rhapsody so I can at least beam her playlists quickly and easily, but I'm also interested in setting up some kind of streaming media server. Is there any kind of collaborative internet-radio solution that we could both have control over?
Platforms:
We can utilize software/technology via:
Laptops (Windows XP and Windows Vista, both machines extremely modern)
Cell phones (Samsung Blackjack and Cingular 8525 - both running Windows Mobile 5)
I am also open to purchasing new hardware/software if I really feel it will be beneficial. Neither of us are particularly low on money and we're more than willing to invest financially in this relationship (it has already paid off in spades!). We plan on purchasing webcams next, for more face-to-face time (we're fairly against webcams as a sexual tools at this point) and I bought a bluetooth headset to make phonecalls easier.
ANY help would be much appreciated. Anything collaborative/cool you run into that two tech-minded youngsters could use to strengthen our bond is welcome. Please also share similar experiences, if you've got any!
kingmetal on
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Posts
Pretty much every board/card game is online, and either cheap or free. You might want to consider doing the console thing too. Drop a few hundred for some matching PS2s and find some decent games to play with voice chat.
I don't believe it - I'm on my THIRD PS3, and my FIRST XBOX360. What the heck?
You can play games like chess, pool etc online with each other.