I got myself a Virtual Boy. The games that came with it are Galactic Pinball, Wario Land, Red Alarm, Mario Tennis and Mario Clash. I've only had a chance to play Galactic Pinball so far. It's a very cool game. The reason I haven't played it for very long is because I was figuring out how to put the cartridge in. Apparently, some idiot put a cart in with the cover on and the cover got stuck. Fortunately I was able to shake it out. No dreaded red lines on the screen either. Now I have every Ninten
OK, this is a very weird dream. I dreamt I was about to play my Atari 2600. I put in the 2005 Minigame Multicart and turned it on. It went crazy. So I quickly turned it off and blew on it and put it in again and turned it on. This time, nothing but the number 4 against a pink background. And then the dream ended. I probably had this dream for two reasons: #1 - Testing my 5200 with no game inside caused the TV in the den to go crazy, and #2 - The last 2600 game I played was my 2005 Minigame Multi
The next chapter in the ongoing soap opera that is my life.
Grandpa is still in the hospital. After he gets a heart bypass operation (we still don't know when that will be), he'll have to stay in the ICU unit for 48 hours, and then another 4-7 days in the hospital. Mom is still being with him some of the time (she's been taking off a lot of work lately because of this. Fortunately, her boss is very understanding.) And because of Mom having a heavy burden, that means anyone looking for the DTV V
OK, update time. Apparently, it's amazing Grandpa isn't dead now. He has to have open heart surgery and apparently something was clogged up. If mom has to stay at the hospital, my sister said she'd take me to my dentist appointment tomorrow, but I have to ride the bus downtown and meet her at work. Ulgh. And, it's a good thing I didn't set the house on fire with my 5200. Geez. So you can see why I'm having a tough time right now.
Well, I spent around $50 on my MP3 player. Found out it has a built-in microphone. So I tested it by holding the thing up to a record player while it was playing a record. I chose Procol Harum's "In Held 'Twas In I" performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, because I'll probably never find a CD of it anywhere. It works pretty good, but it records in WAV format. So right now I'm downloading a program that converts WAV to WMV. And when I'm done with that, I hope to convert it and then put it
I admit it, I am a Mario Kart nut. I just got the box for Super Mario Kart in the mail today (thanks, Eric), and it looks pristine! My crappy N64 box pales in comparison to this wonderful box. Normally, I wouldn't put an ad in the wanted section looking for a box for a game I got about 15 years ago, but this is a special occassion. I'm wanting to build a Mario Kart museum. Why? Just cuz I love Mario Kart so much. Well, anyway, here's what I have in it so far:
Super Mario Kart box and cartrid
I got four Atari 2600 games in the mail today. They were Eggomania, Entombed, Gopher, and No Escape!, along with Medieval Mayhem brings my total to 213. That is if you count my repros of Elk Attack and Ixion. The only other thing I'm getting this month is Mario Kart Wii which comes out a week from tomorrow. Next month, I plan on getting some more Atari 2600 games via a wanted post. I'd post right now, but I hardly have any money, and god forbid Wii games cost $40 instead of $50.
It was snowing
I've been working on making a 25x25 crossword off and on since the last one I did wasn't very good. I need a second pair of eyes to make sure I haven't used a word twice, or make any misspellings, or put in a word that doesn't exist. By the way, "NGC" stands for National Geographic Channel. Thank goodness the good folks at National Geographic made a channel, or else making this puzzle would have been even harder. So here it is for your perusal.
I just got the game today, and already I see three things that inspired me to make my own version:
#1 - The control is way too jittery, especially on the title screen. A change to the joystick would fix this.
#2 - The "paddles" are way too short. I think I'll make them the same length as in Alleyway or Arkanoid.
#3 - Waiting to get to the end. Because the control is way too jittery and the paddles are way too short, I always get my castle hit first, then have to wait for the others t
If there's one thing I can't stand in video games, it's difficulty (which is one of the reasons I like the Atari 2600). Unfortunately, Mario's latest game falls into this category. Mario has been slipping in quality ever since he entered the 3D era with Super Mario 64. While SM64 and Super Mario Sunshine were great games, they could never compare to Super Mario World or Super Mario Bros. 3. But, I digress. Anyway, if I were given one word to review this game, it would be "HARD!" Even New Mario B
I was one of the unbelievers, thinking that this thing everyone kept talking about didn't exist. Well, I was at the store and I saw two of them left. And I got one of them. So some other lucky guy or girl will luck out like I did and get one. I didn't get anything for it yet, but it came with Wii Sports. And I tried bowling, but no matter what I did, the ball always seemed to curve left. I tried holding the wiimote at different angles, "hitting" the sensor bars at different places, but it always
This poem I wrote is about my experience in a kind-of-mental-hospital when I was in my early teens, thus beginning my "depression" and "need" to take drugs like Abilify. I was fortunately good enough not to go into the "padded room." I got more than just bread and water. I never have worn a straitjacket, I didn't hear voices in my head, either, but i did slit my wrists. Kind of silly now that I think about it. I mean, if I really wanted to die, I'd just take a whole bottle of tylenol with a jug
It's a show I'm making. Every month, I'll delve into the world of Atari 2600 homebrew gaming and review it. Each show will be about 10 minutes, and for the first one, I attempted to play Strat-O-Gems Deluxe with one hand while videotaping me playing it with the other one. The view is somewhat good, although sometimes, I take the camcorder down off the screen to tape the VCR (It's hard camcordering with one hand!) Well, if you want episode 1, PM me and I'll burn you a copy for free. Why would you
I now have a Jaguar and a 5200. The Jaguar was nicely equipped while I have no way to test the 5200 to see if it works because it was missing the thing that connects the console to the TV. So if anyone has one they'd like to sell me along with games, please PM me. I'll take anything, even commons because it didn't come with any. My mom and the clerk were a little puzzled that I bought a huge "hunk of junk", but they don't understand me. The Jaguar came with two games, unfortunately, I don't like
Well, I bought one. I think RCA is a dependable brand, so that's what I went with. It holds up to 680 songs it says. It says to charge it up for three hours before using it for the first time, so that's what it's doing right now. If you want to get technical, the product number is M4002. I was hoping for a black one, but this one is dark blue and white, which I can live with. So now I finally have one of these things. Now, once it's done charging, the real fun begins: Trying to put songs on to t
I bought the latest Nine Inch Nails album. (That's right, bought, as opposed to download, which would take me forever using a dial-up modem.) Trent doesn't sing at all in this 2-disc set of instrumental songs. I think it's money well spent. I like the songs. Just imagine "With Teeth" or the album after that with no lyrics and you get Ghosts. Hopefully, enough people will buy/download it to warrant another Ghosts set.
Would anyone be interested in a monthly magazine made by me of 15 7x7 crosswor
Still no new words about the Didj, except the April Fools' Day joke I put up. My website will have its own print magazine, a black & white quarterly called "the Didjest". It'll have news, reviews, previews, etc. The first issue will have pictures of what comes in with the box, pics of cartridges and stuff, possibly next to rulers to show the size of the stuff. Here's a sneak peek of the covers of issues 1 and 2. I've just gotten started on issue 1 (two pages, and waiting for the handheld to
My mom got me 5 blank tapes yesterday (I'm surprised they still make them. I guess it's to support people like me who just got a new tape recorder. They sell those new, too.) Well, anyway, I was wondering what to do with ten hour-long tapes, and then it hit me: One ten-hour-long song. But what could I call a ten-hour-long song? "Fred", of course. The idea of a ten-hour-long song isn't as new as you might think. The longest song ever released is "Somnium" by Robert Rich. Released in 2001, this ma
Well, most of the family got together to celebrate my Dad's 64th birthday last night. Amazingly, nobody sang "When I'm 64" to him. We went to McGrath's, a popular seafood place based in Salem, but has locations all over the West coast. We all sat around trying to think of names for my sister's second child. There were a whole bunch of crazy ideas, none taken seriously, although she does like the name Nolan. I also suggested Shigeru after Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario. Shigeru Miller doesn'
Also the last year for NES games. The last NES game was Wario's Woods, released in December. Since there seems to be a lot of disagreement over which games were released in 1994, I'm going by what Nintendo themselves say in their pdf file on their website, which means this:
Alfred Chicken - February
Bonk's Adventure - January
Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers 2 - January
Flinstones: Surprise at Dinosaur's Peak - August
Incredible Crash Dummies - August
Jungle Book - August
Mega Man 6 - M
Does anyone ever read Luann? Well, I have a bone to pick about that one. The guy who draws it sometimes goes weeks without showing her. This is one of those times. He's been spending the last two weeks on a story about Luann's brother and his girlfriend. And the last few Sundays, it's been gags involving Luann's parents. Mind you, the comic is named "Luann", but we haven't seen hide nor hair of her since sometime in March. You know, I have a comic named "Jessica," and she's been in EVERY comic s
...apparently. I went downtown and bought an Incredible String Band CD. It's called "Hard Rope and Silken Twine." What attracted me was the song 'Ithkos' which is 19 minutes long. I added it to my long song collection. I'm thinking of buying an iPod-like thing to store all these long songs on. Of course, I couldn't put the ones I have on vinyl on it, but still, I think it's a pretty cool idea. I like the song. When I was researching the CD, Wikipedia said they were a "Scottish psychedelic folk b
Does anyone ever do these? I won't quit making them because I enjoy it, but am just wondering. C'mon, there must be at least a few people who do crosswords on this forum. And I made a mistake in yesterday's blog. My dad is turning 64 on April 1, not 65. Sorry, Dad!
As i've told in previous blogs around this time, I don't like this time of year. Yes, April Fools' Day is coming up. It's not that I don't have a sense of humor, but I tend to take things too seriously and get really mad as to finding out it is only an April Fools' Day joke. That, and I think it's a stupid holiday. But at least there's one good thing about it, it's my Dad's birthday. He turns 65 on April 1. So, I'll give him a call, and on the weekend after that, I think we're taking him out to
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