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About this blog

Mostly Atari-related projects, and other ramblings. Home of the Artie the Atari comic strip.

Entries in this blog

 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - Spoiler-free review

I really enjoyed the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Probably in part because I had absolutely no preconceived idea of what it would be about, or who the characters were, or anything about it, really. But now, they've actually got something to live up to, since the movie's been on TV a dozen times (and I've watched it besides that on Blu-ray and iTunes), the characters are well-established personalities (having their own animated TV series and ), and there's been a huge build-up to the
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

15
 

Guardians of the Galaxy - Spoiler-free review

Currently waiting in line at the theater with my peeps (okay... I don't actually have any "peeps"... but I am saving seats for a couple of friends...) to see Guardians of the Galaxy. I'll admit I was surprised to hear Marvel was making this into a movie. I was a comic book collector and Marvel fan-boy in the 80's, and even I had never read the GotG comic book. I seem to recall something about it, but had just dismissed it as some weird, obscure title involving their "cosmic" characters, which I
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

8
 

Great... now both thumbs hurt

After some time away from it, I'm playing in the 2600 High Score Club again (not to be confused with the 2600 Mile High Club), and this week's game is Activision's Robot Tank. Not sure why I never bought this one back in the day. It's much better than Atari's 2600 version of Battlezone (yes... I know people disagree with me about that), since to me - it's closer to the arcade version of Battlezone. The tank is first-person perspective, instead of sitting above and behind it, and you're only deal
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

3
 

Gravity - Spoiler-free review

From the trailers, Gravity looked sort-of interesting. In the way that Moon looked sort-of interesting. I went and saw Moon, and really liked it.   A lot of people have been seeing Gravity, and according to Rotten Tomatoes anyway, they've really liked it.   So I ponied up twenty bucks, and saw it in IMAX 3D. I figured that way I'd get the best experience out of it.   Am I missing something?   Okay... the movie looks amazing. Really amazing. The 3D works as well as I've ever seen in a fea
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

12
 

Goodbye, Maynard

Maynard Ferguson passed away yesterday at the age of 78.   I won't try to recap his life or career. You can read all about that here.   Maynard wasn't the reason I started playing trumpet originally, but he was certainly the spark that ignited my interest in playing jazz, and in fact, kicked off my love of jazz in the first place.   He toured pretty much his entire life, right up until the end. I hope that I can find something that I love to do that much, and be able to leave something of
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

2
 

Good riddance to bad rubbish... Platinum Edition

I've ranted about Sallie Mae before.   I'd even mentioned how I had come to personify the company as some crotchety, cantankerous, vindictive old geezer, sitting on a rocking chair (next to her sister Fannie and her inbred idiot cousin Freddie) on the porch of an old house packed to the rafters with cash stolen from bankrupt college students, taking pot-shots at passersby with a shotgun, screaming, "Git away from mah MONEY!" BLAM!!   Something pretty-much like this:     That's Freddie i
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

6
 

Good riddance to bad rubbish... Part 3

So long, Domino's!   I've tolerated Domino's pizza for years. Sometimes it's pretty good, but more often than not, it's flavorless and bland. The only way it's halfway decent is to get extra sauce dumped on it (which then turns it into a soggy mess). Even after their so-called "improved" recipe, nothing really changed my opinion of them. The only reason I stuck with them as long as I did, was because there was one close enough to where I live so they could deliver. And when you're lazy and hun
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

8
 

Good riddance to bad rubbish... Part 2

So today I got rid of something else that had worn out its welcome. I promised you an ode (although perhaps not in the strictest sense), so here we go...   Oh Cable Company. How I hate you. Sure, when you were new, you were special. With more channels and better quality than a roof antenna. Or rabbit ears. But you took advantage of me. Raising your prices, and returning nothing. Making me pay for channels I never watched, and taking away ones I did. Offering yourself up for less money to
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

18
 

Good riddance to bad rubbish... Part 1

Time to start the next 100 Stupid Blog Entries.   Well, I got rid of my old printer this weekend. I had an Epson ColorStylus R200*. When (if) it worked, it printed very nice colors. The problem with Epsons, is they have awful problems with the print heads clogging up. Frequently. So you have to run a cleaning cycle, which spews ink through the heads to try and clean them out. Usually, I'd have to run the cycle several times, wasting more and more ink. Sometimes it would never clear the clog
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

15
 

Good riddance to bad rubbish... Flash in the pan

Adobe finally concedes that Flash is rubbish. At least on mobile devices. And that HTML5 is the way to go.   Funny. Where have we heard that before?   I've long been using ClickToFlash (and now ClickToPlugIn) on my Mac. I can't wait for the day when Flash dies its death on the desktop, too.
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

6
 

Good riddance to bad rubbish... Bonus Round

Citibank.   Need I say more?   Well, I'll say a little more.   Several weeks ago, I got a letter from them, saying that my (formerly free) checking would now be incurring a $15/month fee.   Unless I kept a balance of $6000 in the account.   Six-grand.   In a non-interest-earning account.   Ummm.... no.   So I planned to bail on Citibank, and instead get a checking account through my credit union, which not only doesn't charge fees, but also pays interest.   Then a little while
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1
 

Golf

Seems to me I probably posted something about golf somewhere in this blog. Let me check...   Ah yes. I mentioned getting an Atari golf hat, and made a couple of mentions of golf games for the Wii. Also, I mentioned I picked up Tiger Woods' golf for the iPhone.   Here's the title screen...     Today was the final round in the Masters golf tournament - Tiger's first tournament since he flushed his private life right down the toilet.   And he didn't win. He played alternating holes of
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

9
 

Going slightly Mads

So, remember this?   No?   Well, I didn't expect you to.   Anyway, so here's the entry.   And sorry Dave... it's not about "Top Gear".   However, it is about cars driving really fast. Just without the wacky British humor.   It's about rallying.   Oops... okay, before you leave - those of you in the United States - stick with me a minute. Yes, rallying is pretty-much a non-entity in the U.S., but unlike say... soccer... rallying is actually interesting.   (And before soccer footba
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

60
 

Go Speed, Go!

In case you didn't know, the Wachowski brothers (of the Matrix films) are making a live-action version of Speed Racer.   So... okay then.   This project has kicked around Hollywood for years (once rumored to have Tom Cruise attached to it as Speed, to give you an idea of how long ago this was), and although I've been a Speed Racer fan since I was a little kid, neither of the two series' revivals were any good (although the Japanese one wasn't nearly as bad as the American one), so I've alwa
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

3
 

Getting the Scoop on animation

A few weeks back, I wrote about the death of animation news/opinion site Cartoon Brew, as one of its founders - Jerry Beck - left the site.   Jerry returned to working on his own site - Cartoon Research - with several long-time contributors. Posting cool articles, oddities and rarities relating to animation history.   But news? Not so much. I really didn't want to return to the smoldering corpse of Cartoon Brew, either.   But now, Jerry & company have launched a new animation news and
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

2
 

Getting Squished

When coming up with a label for Bob's port of Squish 'Em, I ran into the artist's equivalent of writer's block.   Y'see, I thought it would be funny to send Bob this for a label design: Just as a joke, of course.   Unfortunately - that idea stuck in my head, and I couldn't get it out! But what I wanted, was something that implied some of the ideas in the classic Popeye cartoon A Dream Walking.   So, as is often the case, I pestered Dave Dries for some ideas. We'd been planning to colla
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

15
 

Getting Mooned

I haven't seen a whole lot of movies this summer, including most of the big action blockbusters. Maybe I'm just tired of having my senses (or sensibilities) assaulted, but I really haven't missed them any.   That said, me and a couple of friends wanted to go see something, so we looked through the listings and found Moon.   Moon has kind of fallen under the radar this summer since it's not a big-budget, well-advertised, mainstream-audience movie. But it is well-reviewed, and looked like it w
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

0
 

Get a CLU

Tron: Uprising debuts in June on Disney XD. Looks stylish!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ds_ukdV7Kw   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K17aH76uNv8   Not quite sure about the lead character, Beck, though...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPfmNxKLDG4
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

20
 

George, Walt. Walt, George.

So Disney bought Lucasfilm today for $4 billion. Lock, stock and Jar-Jar.   I'll admit this took me by surprise, even though Disney and Lucas have teamed up in the past: Indiana Jones (the ride), Star Tours and all of its related merchandise, plus other more questionable crossovers like this:     As a friend of mine who works for the Big D pointed out, Leia is now a "Disney Princess". (shudder)   Anyway... the question is - is this acquisition a good thing or a bad thing?   Well, let'
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

3
 

George never did explain that

Disclaimer: No cartoon 2600s were harmed in the making of this episode. However, we did burn up a bunch of real ones just to see what it looked like.   98 < PreviousIndexNext >
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1
 

George ! ! !

So, it turns out that George Lucas has decided to release the original versions of the Star Wars Trilogy after all.   Now, this is very cool news, because I'm a fan of the original Star Wars.   "Episode IV - A New Hope"? Phooey! Ever since I first saw that appear in the opening crawl in 1981 it's looked out-of-place to me.   The original "Star Wars" opening crawl synced better with the opening music, and well... it was Star Wars! The movie I grew up with, having seen it a dozen times durin
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1
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