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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

The Day After Tomorrow - Spoiler-free review

So you may ask "Wait... why are you reviewing this film??"   Well, it's not the 2004 movie where the world is destroyed.   Nor is it the 1983 TV movie where the world is destroyed.   Nope. This is the 1975 TV special produced by Gerry Anderson of Space: 1999 and UFO fame. (And also Thunderbirds... but that never aired where I grew up, so I never watched that show.)   And the world isn't destroyed in this one. Although it does make reference to us having ru

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - Spoiler-free review

Ten pounds of Bantha poodoo in a five pound bag.   Okay, that's not quite the adage, but you get the idea.   Anyway, now you don't have to read the rest of the review! You're welcome!     But in case you're still here...   When I first heard JJ Abrams would be directing Star Wars: Episode IX, I cringed. JJ Abrams is a lazy writer who substitutes hare-brained McGuffins for coherent plots and character development, and who has a complete disregard and profou

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Rogue One - A Spoiler-free Movie Review

I got the chance to see Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on Thursday night (okay - technically Friday morning) thanks to a friend of mine who invited me to a screening at Disney Feature Animation. Nothing like seeing a Star Wars movie in a room full of nerds. I'll try to keep this brief, because it's 3 AM and I'm really, really tired. Oh, and so it doesn't get all wordy and boring. That too. I'd been looking forward to Rogue One (and avoiding spoilers) because the trailers looked really cool,

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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

19th Nervous Breakdown

So, for the 19th year now (not in a row... but that's another story) I've put together the end-of-year shows for the CalArts Character Animation Program. Last year's blog blurb about this can be found here. And if you poke around enough, you'll find blog entries for these going back to 2008 (with a brief mention in 2006). Maybe it's a form of therapy or something. In a weird sort-of way, I kind of wish I'd been blogging about this since the first one I did. A lot of lost memories along the way.

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Pentaclones

Well, my U-Verse DVR was too stupid to catch the season five premiere of The Clone Wars in its new time slot last weekend. The show has moved to Saturday morning - because nothing goes better with a big bowl of Cocoa Puffs than lightsaber decapitations! So I had to watch the episode - Revival - online.   The problem is that my internet is too sporadic to stream the whole episode without interruption. This despite it not even being in true 1080 HD. Time Warner is looking better all the time.  

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Homebreviews index - part 4

Another year, another update to the Homebreviews Index. There are now 109 reviews, arranged alphabetically, by score.   Reviews added since the last index are labeled New. 2600 Reviews are listed above, 7800 reviews are listed below. All reviews are for homebrew games, unless otherwise noted.   2600 Homebrews   5/5 2005 Holiday Cart: Reindeer Rescue 2005 MiniGame MultiCart 2007 Holiday Cart: Stella's Stocking Cave In - New Colony 7 Conquest of Mars Duck Attack! - New

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Wonder Woman - Spoiler-free review

Well, DC finally got one right! That's pretty-much all you wanted to know, right? We're done here? No? Okay. Fine... we'll do the review thing. By far, the best character in Batman v. Superman was Wonder Woman. She was the only one who looked like she was having any fun. Whether her limited screen time would translate well to a feature film was the big question. Fortunately, it did. Gal Gadot carries this movie. As she should, being Wonder Woman and all that. She does a great job

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

ATari Flashback Portable review

Out of curiosity more than anything, although maybe with a slight tinge of hope, I recently picked up an ATGames "Atari" Flashback Portable. I was given a Flashback 2 about ten years ago as a gift from a couple of friends who knew I was into Atari. I plugged it in once, played through some of the exclusive games on it (most of which were terrible), and stuck it on a shelf in the closet, where it's been ever since (although I have used the joystick that came with it, since it's pretty good). The

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Whatever Rally Championship

For each of the past several years, I've posted a blog entry about the WRC (World Rally Championship). But the series has gotten so predictably boring over the last several years, there's little point to it. Someone named Sebastien wins most of the races, then the championship, and everyone else sort of flails along behind.   This entry, more likely than not, will just sit here as a season-long placeholder, in case something interesting happens.   But so far, this year, it's more of the same

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

W(ogie)RC

And so… another year brings another season of the World Rally Championship.   Uh… is anyone watching this anymore?   Anyone?   It's been just one guy named Sebastien winning everything after another. First Loeb, now Ogier. Particularly impressive last year though was how dominant Ogier was in a brand new car, on a brand new team. Not just new to him, but VW was an all-new team, period. Admittedly, he had about a year of development time in the car beforehand, but that wasn't in competition

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

If everybody to-did it, would you to-do it too?

So, with other people posting their to-do lists, I thought I'd post mine:   1) Make to-do list   This is going to be harder than I thought...   I'll start over.   1) Finish Colony 7 sprites. - Done! At least I think so. Manuel hasn't told me otherwise. Yet.   2) Finish sprites for LadyBug. The bugs are done, except for some tweaking. They turned out pretty well, I think, plus John really likes them. They capture the feel of the originals, which is what I was after. Up next I have to

Guest

Guest

(Insert stupid Blog software here)

Well after AtariAge's big transition over to Invision POWER!!!'s latest blog software, I think I've finally gone through and fixed all of the formatting and dates in my blog that got barfed on. A huge thanks to Albert for his help, and all of his hard work in dealing with all of the other problems that happened throughout the forums. If you happen to see anything else in my blog that still needs fixing, please let me know (note: bad writing, atrocious grammar and stupid ideas don't count as thin

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

(Insert stupid 3-D here)

(Addendum: The 3-D I'm referring to is stereoscopic 3-D, rather than 3-D computer graphics - although this is a CG film.)   About six weeks after its release, I finally managed to get out and see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs this week. Anymore, it's pretty surprising to still find a movie in the theaters after that length of time; more surprising was that the movie was still in a first-run, digital 3-D theater. Having largely avoided 3-D after that whole sordid Chicken Little affair, I decid

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Fog Blixed!

Thanks to Albert, my blog is fixed!   He was able to update the AA database to re-link all of my image files to their new server. Very cool.   This also fixes all of the linked images that I've left scattered throughout the rest of the forums as well. So it's nice to have all of that taken care of. Thanks Albert!   And, all of this is just in time to show a sneak-peek at the label I just finished for Batari's Gingerbread Man!   Enjoy!  

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Wheeee! We? Oui.

I had the chance to play with a Wii at a friend's house this weekend. We played Wii Sports and Wii Play, and I was blown away by how fun some of the mini-games were. Sure, not all of them were to my liking, but there were enough keepers in there that the Wii has moved onto my "must have" list.   The interactivity of the games is completely addictive. For example, Wii bowling really "feels" like bowling, except without having to put on the smelly rental shoes or trying to find a ball that fits

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Homebreviews - part 10

This time... no actual games! Just little black, plastic boxes that do other things. First though, for the Synthcart, I picked up a pair of Atari Keyboard controllers from Atari2600.com. Since the overlay that's available for the Synthcart isn't designed to fit these controllers, I ended up making my own. They're available as a PDF file, for anyone who wants to use them. (Yes, you have to cut out the little black circles by hand.) Then, for the AtariVox, I built a mixing circuit, so I could

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Ahhrrr... matey!

I just wrapped up working on the manual for Phantom II / Pirate (coming soon to the AtariAge store).   Dave Dries (who did the Wolfenstein VCS artwork) created the excellent artwork for Phantom II, while I worked on the art for Pirate, and laid out the manual (which covers both games).   Pirate is basically being included as a bonus game, so the focus of the cover and label is Phantom II. The Pirate stuff is inside the manual.   Since you probably won't get to see the Pirate art until you

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

The Olympics and stuff

I'm still tired from typing out that XBox/PS3 thing, so I'll make this short. ;)Late-night Olympics are much more interesting than the daytime stuff. I've seen enough downhill skiing and figure skating to last a lifetime.The sports they show late at night are usually the ones they figure nobody will watch. Like the biathlon and curling. Both are pretty interesting sports. But I guess neither is "flashy" enough for prime time.Right now I'm watching women's curling.I don't really understand curlin

Guest

Guest

I'm so old...

I was talking to someone about malfunctioning computers the other day, and eventually the conversation turned to "2001: A Space Odyssey". This other person (a college student) hadn't seen it yet, so I recommended it to him.   Then it dawned on me... that movie took place five years ago.   Five years ago!   What happened? It used to be the ultimate futuristic movie! I grew up with that film, marveling at its wonders, and would think of how old I would be when 2001 actually rolled around.  

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

Homebreviews - part 1

I always look for reviews before I buy something (especially games), so I can get some idea of what I'm going to plunk down my hard-earned money for. So, after my recent haul of homebrew games from AtariAge, I promised Albert I'd write up some reviews. Be careful what you ask for... The ratings (out of 5) have to do with how much I enjoy playing a game, and how likely it is the cartridge will see a lot of time in my 2600. Technical merit has a little to do with it, but not much. Gameplay and

Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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