Black History Month Concludes

Since I spent the last four weeks writing fake essays, maybe I should share my experiences with a Black History Month that took place when I was about 10 or 11.

This particular grade seemed to always devoted the entire month to Black History. Things were kicked off with long list of fill-in-the-blank questions. Some of these were easy but many were hard, like the one question about the North Pole. I asked my mom for help and we did our best, but I think I still did poorly on this.

The big event was that we were all suppose to pick one character, do a small report, and make a poster. This was all in preparation for our video report, all done on one day. We were to dress like the person we chose and do interviews as if we were that person.

I chose Frederick Douglass, mostly because my mom convinced me that he would be a good choice. When I told the teacher who I would be, one of my classmates was dismayed when he heard me. However, he was also allowed to be Frederick Douglass. I let the report sit for a few weeks because I'm lazy and like to wait till the last minute. When I finally sat down to do it, I had not read the book I got. I skimmed through the first chapter and wrote my first paragraph about that first chapter, which was basically about Frederick's childhood. My mom saw that paragraph and convinced me that wasn't the way to go. I eventually just went to the back of the book and wrote a report based on a list of dates and accomplishments. At that poin it was the best I could do.

On the day of the "interviews", we all had to change first. I only had to put on some sort of tie and whatever combo, but I went to the bathroom with the other boys as they changed because I wanted to put off this whole thing. When I returned I learned that my interview was towards the end. The interviews were split into four parts, and they couldn't decide if I would be in part three or part four. I was in the intro for both parts! In part one, I sat in the back next to the video camera. Of course, I would just have to start sneezing. They eventually had to move me away.

Finally my turn came. Sadly, as you can tell, my research was kind of lacking. I don't think I got a terrible grade, but I basically played Frederick Douglass as myself. Usually he isn't portrayed as a smiley guy. I also said "I forget" more times than I should have. In hindsight the other guy who did Frederick did a much better job since he played it seriously.

The tape was finished and was supposed to be passed from student to student. I'm sure you could see the problems this could lead to, so it may not be surprising that I never got a chance to see the tape myself. (Actually, we may not have even had a VHS VCR yet, but we had relatives who did.) It's probably for the best. I probably looked as silly as anyone who would have copied one of my silly essays and turned it in as their own.

England Quickie

Prince Charles believes the key to health is to ban McDonald's food.


Maybe they'll finally put the Hamburglar behind bars.

Harry Potter Rumor (2/27/07)

Harry Potter and his friends will be derailed in their quest to kill Voldemort due to the release of Final Fantasy VII. Several chapters will be about the kids writing really bad fan fiction about who should end up with Cloud. There will also be a chapter where they all discuss their favorite RPGs.

You heard it here first!

Black History Month Essay #4

My essay is about Vanessa Williams. Vanessa Williams is best known for her role in Eraser, but she's also done one or two other things in her career.

Vanessa Williams was an attractive young gal when she was young, and she later went on to win a beauty contest to prove that. However, she made a terrible mistake. She posed nude BEFORE she became a famous actress. She ended up losing her crown to a whiny know-it-all.

This didn't kill her career, but I would avoid using google image if I were you. Damn perverts.

Her next step was a music career. This led to her biggest hit, Colors of the Wind, which was played on the radio every ten minutes when Disney released Pocahontas. Vanessa taught us all that white people were brutes that were not able to tell that the wind is blue. Yes, it's blue, dammit! This song won an Oscar, a Grammy, a Golden Globe, but no important awards.

Vanessa also had an acting career. While nobody can deny the importance of Eraser, her biggest role to this date has to be opposite of Samuel L. Jackson in Shaft. She played... I don't know. But isn't Samuel L. awesome? His lightsaber was purple and had MF carved into it!

According to her bio, she played the Queen of Trash in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. I guess she played the character that kept giving advice to fraggles.

Her biggest contribution to television was in a pivotal episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Here she got to lesbian it up with Terry Farrell, who is the one with spots on her body. DS9 fans recall her role with fondness. When you ask them about it, they'll at first say, "She was on the show?" Later, they'll recall, "Oh no, not that terrible episode!"

In summary, isn't this world a crazy place?

This Week In Entertainment (2/26/07)

My Pick of the Week is Captain N: The Complete Series. Captain N is basically a Mary Sue of the mid NES days when the system was at the height of its popularity. He got to hang out with Mega Man, Pit, Simon Belmont, and a talking Game Boy. His enemies include a blue King Hippo and a gross Mother Brain. The first time I saw this show my parents were trying to show me how there was another video game based show. I skipped the first season because I was so grossed out by Mother Brain, but watched the rest of it when it was paired with Super Mario Bros. 3/World cartoons. Some of the best episodes are the ones where they brought the voice actors from The Legend of Zelda cartoons to do a sort of crossover a few times.

(Of course, I wish they would put out the Super Mario Bros. 3 on DVD. I would love to own the episode where Princess Toadstool just LUVED Milli Vanilli. Besides the later Mario Bros. cartoons, I hope they release Earthworm Jim: The Complete Series to DVD. Come on, people!)

In theaters this week is the rather offensive looking Black Snake Moan. It has Samuel L Jackson putting Christina Ricci in chains for some damn reason. Let's quickly move on.

Out on DVD is The Best of The Flip Wilson Show. Sigh. Why do studios release these before releasing full season sets? Why do they force us to double dip? Anyway, I've only seen a few episodes shown during a TV Land marathon, but it was a funny show.

Season Five of The Brady Bunch introduces Cousin Oliver! I would say that this lowered the quality of the show if I cared for it.

Here's a Laurel and Hardy DVD featuring five hours of most likely public domain stuff for five bucks.

Speaking of public domain, here's another Three Stooges DVD, also five bucks. I wonder which four shorts I can expect to see. Hmmm.

The Passion Trilogy? They'll make a trilogy out of anything nowadays.

NCAA 2006 Women Finals - Because the Terps won it that year.

In video game news, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is being released for the Virtual Console. This is good for those of you who are too lazy to go to the store and buy The Ocarina of Time Master Quest for the GC for less then 20 dollars.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (2/25/07)

It's Oscar night! You know what that means? Simpsons repeats.

I had no idea what was up for awards for tonight, and I was shocked when I saw the list. Shocked in how little I gave a damn. I've only seen Superman Returns and Cars, and Superman is only up for some technical award. Cars was simply an ok movie, so I don't think it deserves best animated feature. Other then that, this list only got a reaction from me once. Take a look at those documentary features. Yikes! Three are about religion and two have to do with Iraq. Good thing I don't care about the Oscars.

Just when the weather was starting to get better, it snowed today. My dad is working late so I'm not even sure if he's coming home. My mom said he may actually sleep on company property. I hope he's ok.

Kid Icarus is a really tough game. I've only gotten to level 1-3.

Turns out I was wrong about Jabootu updating at the end of this month. Doh!

I saw the latest Simpsons episode a couple days ago. It wasn't great, but ok by post season 15 standards. I did laugh really loud at Moe and his scrambled "porn" channel.

I've made it through one month of daily material for my blog! Whoo!

Demo Fun #5

Today's demo is called Future World. It's the usual length for the demos I've done so far.

We have a picture of an astronaut in space. Of course, he's a future astronaut, which means that he's equiped with grenades and a lazer gun. He looks rather surprised that his gun is firing at something. It actually looks like the lazer is cracking a whole in the screen. His helmet has a purple circle with two triangles poining downwards. I can't tell what that thing is to his left, but it's probably big freaken gun. This guy was really prepared for something spooky. "Future World" is on the screen and so is "United Style Crackers", the makers of this demo. Ritz, unite! The text scrolls by on the bottom.

"Hello, everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the text starts. ARGH! My ears! Our author, Izeman, brags that he's from the world famous USC. He describes himself as jumping on the keyboard, which is a great euphemism for a lot of the work done for the internet. He follows this with a very long ellipse. He's the silent kind, I see.

Izeman informs us that USC is now down to two crackers, the other being Devil Fox. I think he went on to make an internet browser. But USC is looking for more good hackers and crackers. (We can see that grammar is no problem because he omits auxilary verbs.) Anyone who wants to join can call his Swedish phone number. He tells us that if we didn't catch the number, don't hurry! It'll appear again after the greetings. More ellipses.

Hey, what a coincidence! The greetings soon follow. Well, not that soon. We have more ellipses. Here's a list for people who like lists: The Game Masters, Azyx, Fairlight, Swedish Cracking Institute, The Atomic Society, Alpha Special Force, TWR, XL Crackers, The Shield, and New Generation. Great ellipses.

After that good but not great list, Izeman tells us that a number is coming. Oh, it's just his phone number. I already forgot. There it goes by. Oh, there's Devil Fox's number too. Wow! And there's the longest pause yet! We must be almost done.

Izeman tells us bye for now. Bye. This is followed by the date this was made and the time, which was 1:45am. The copyright is Everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, really. That's how it ends. I guess this was a short one.



Stats:

Date - May 12th, 1987
Scrolling text - There's an effect that makes the text look bent on both sides of the screen.
Font - Blue, and the Rs have dots over them for some reason.
Europeans - Yep.
Bragging about Accomplishments - Yep.
Putting other hackers down - Nope.
Listing a ton of other nerds - Yep.
Harsh language - Nope.
Song - 4/10 - Tries to be fun, but try thinking of the most annoying tune you've heard during a crummy 8-bit side scrolling game. Make sure it's really loud. That's what this reminds me of.

The Fisher Price Tape Recorder!

My family usually see relatives on Christmas Eve. We were even allowed to open presents that night, which made it really exciting. During a really early Christmas Eve, I got a Fisher Price Tape Recorder, which my sister and I had a lot of fun with.

This tape recorder comes as you see and has a microphone in the front next to the eject button. It came with a yellow cassette tape. On one side was a fun instructional recording that tells kids how they could use the recorder. It had people singing songs, explaining radio plays, and so forth. The other side was blank so you can get started. I wish I could find an audio file containing that first side just so I could hear it once more. (We lost this tape because my sister and I at one poin started making so many fart jokes that when my dad listened to it he cut the tape.)

With this tape and a couple more tapes we either got or stole from our parents, my sister and I had a lot of fun with this. We at one poin invented a show called "Totally Hidden Recorder", based on the FOX show of the similar name. Don't blame us. We never heard of Candid Camera. We invented fake pranks that weren't all that clever. One prank was just turning on the sink and pretending to get splashed in the face, and the joke was that the victim - I forget who - turned the tables and also turned on the sink. I also remember asking my cousin to say something, ANYTHING, and when she said, "what?", I told her she was on Totally Hidden Recorder. It was the only thing I could get her to say.

More memories include the time we were at our trailer in Delaware playing Bowling for the Atari 2600. Uncle Buddy and I were playing, and there was a memorable frame where we both messed up. The tape recorder caught the scratchy bowling noise, and my uncle Buddy yelling, "Aww, man!!" Then it caught more bowling noises, and me saying "Awwww, maaan." This was very funny, but part of it later got erased. I actually tried to record my part of that exchange by making up all the sound effects, and saying "Awww, maaan" again.

Another time at Delaware, my parents were watching some R rated firemen movie in the living room so my sister, our favorite cousin and I were in the backroom playing the NES game, "Bart Vs the Space Mutants." (Side note: I remember that at one poin our parents yelled, "That's it!", referring to why the movie was rated R.) I was playing vs the Baby Sitter Bandit at the end of level two. It was at this poin I learned just how big a ham our cousin was, as he stopped cheering for me and became this character announcing what a big deal everything I just did was. I also wish I had a clip of that.

One time I was really sick on a Sunday, so my sister and dad went to Uncle Buddy's while mom and I stayed home. My sister brought the tape recorder, and I'm glad she did, because my dad, ever the aggitator, bugged the heck out of Uncle Buddy as he was playing Tetris for the NES. This was at the time where Tetris and "Your MAMA!" were both huge in the mainstream media. Dad was apparently told to not talk at one poin, because he started making high pitched noises that eventually distracted Uncle Buddy. My sister was laughing the entire time. After Uncle Buddy whined, "Everytime I (unintellgible)", my dad came up with the comeback that my sister and I laughed at for a long time. It's funny how much mileage you can get with two words.

I mentioned the Simpsons earlier. Probably one of the biggest uses we had for the tape recorder was taping a couple Simpsons episodes. We did have a Beta machine, but my sister and I couldn't convince our parents to tape too many shows. We ended up taping an episode called The War of the Simpsons, and it became a favorite of mine. I listened to that tape many, many times. I still laugh at the belt joke which introduced the famous "Haw haw!" We taped a couple more episodes: Brother from the Same Planet, Duffless, and Bart Vs. Austrailia. These are all great episodes and probably had our laughted mixed in with the recordings. We even did brief one minute comments after episodes, and if I could find these it'll be the only place where you'll hear me do a terrible attempt at a Arsenio Hall audience impersonation. (My sister thought I was making monkey noises.) Also, you'll hear my sister say "Shwack!", which was a catchphrase of a local sports radio host named Rich "The Coach" Gilgallon. (The Redskins used to do that to their opponents.)

Of course, the biggest recordings we did was Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1 (and eventually 2). We must have worned that tape out, but you can't solve that mystery by listening to it. I still have that complete tape somewhere.

Later on when we were teams we started making a couple recordings. One memorable instance was when my sister asked me to say something funny. However, I pretended to be annoyed that she said my name wrong, and currected her. She pretended that I didn't follow instructions.

"That is not a joke, stupid. Rewind. Go back and make another joke."

What made this memorable was that the tape recorder, for some reason, recorded this at a slow speed. So we laughed at this and the above quote became a running joke. I bet if I repeated it to her today she would start laughing. Another time she started singing, introducing herself and prompting me. I, for some stupid reason, sang what she said verbatim, instead of using my name. As we were laughing, I threw in a, "That is not a joke, stupid!" reference.

That was the last hurrah for the tape recorder. Soon my sister had a karaoke player, but we never got into recording after that. I guess we were just too old. The Fisher Price Tape Recorder ended up in the basement where it got dirty. The door for the batteries broke off and the inside started to rust a little. We probably still have it somewhere but I'm not sure where to look.

A possible hat trick

Greenpeace is telling India to ban the incandecent lightbulb.


I guess old lightbulbs are the new CFCs.

Projects I Will Complete Someday #2

This is another video game related project I've been working on. I want to program an Atari 2600 game, and maybe even sell a copy or two. I started this a couple years ago and my interest has been renewed recently.

A few years ago I discovered a website called Atari Age.com This was a great site to find out stuff about Atari, especially the earlier years. It had many old catalogs and a big database for Atari roms and instruction manuals. It also has a couple tutorials for programming.

I thought it would be really cool if I could make an Atari game, but I put it off for a while. It wasn't until the beginning of 2005 where I had too much free time. I found a pdf file with a tutorial for programming and it included 24 steps. I skimmed it and thought it would be perfect. I downloaded the tutorial and DASM, a program that converts Atari 2600 code to roms.

I enjoyed reading the tutorial for the first several chapters. It helped me learn about how televisions work and it gave me an opportunity to apply some of the stuff I've learned about binary numbers.

Sadly, I eventually learned that the tutorial wasn't complete. Further more, even though the Atari is primitive enough that one programmer is enough to do everything, it's also really difficult. You have to program every single horizontal line on the television, and you also can do only so much on one line before you need to move on to the next. The Atari 2600 was originally designed with Pong in mind, and nobody at the time (probably) could foresee all the classic games that Activision made in the early eighties. You only have a ball, a couple sprites, and a couple missiles to work with, and manipulating those so you can make it appear that you have more was way beyond me. So it looked like my dreams of making an Atari 2600 game was over.

I bounced around a couple other projects. I tried to learn to program for the Atari 800, which was a computer I played with as a kid, and the NES, which used the same machine language that the Atari did. Then, during the summer of 2005, someone released something that could solve the problems I had before. A guy named Fred Quimby - if that's his real name! - released Batari BASIC, which allowed people to program for the Atari 2600 with a much easier to use language. This thing was incredibly exciting, and I downloaded it immediately.

I spend several weeks trying to make my first game. I had a decent idea in mind when I started learning how Batari BASIC worked. The first release of Batari BASIC was very primitive, in that it expected you to space everything properly and it required line numbers. Which I didn't care about because I just wanted to be one of the first people to release a game on a forum that was created for this. It was one of the few times where I started a project and saw it through to the end without quitting.

My game was "Homsar" which was based on the Strong Bad email of the same name. The basic idea I had was a reverse Kaboom!, where you had to dodge something instead of catching it. Instead of a paddle I let the joystick control Homsar as he dodges back and forth avoiding heavy weights (actually just blocks that are part of the playfield.) I threw in a missile that had to be avoided, because I could. It took me a long time just to get the timing of the weights right.

Of course, just dodging back and forth wasn't enough, even if it had a funny Internet character. I had to throw in as much gimmicks as I could. I created a title screen and included all the email text from the cartoon. Since Batari BASIC lets you have a 6 digit score, I threw in three short intervals. You could see Homestar, The Cheat, and Trogdor, but I made the necessary scores very high. I even added some sound, but mostly a death sound and the song that Strong Bad sings at the beginning of the email. I eventually released it to the forum.

It now has almost 250 downloads, and I've even gotten a couple emails about it. There's just one problem with it that stops me from releasing it as a game. Well, two, if you count the fact that I don't own the copyright to the characters. The problem with the game is that it's not what I would call complete. The blocks always fall at the same speed. The missile never gets faster. The game should get more and more frantic while staying fair to the player, but instead it just stays the same. Part of the reason is that the first primitive version of bB made it really difficult to update code. Also, I had moved on to other bB projects that ultimately went nowhere.

After I released Homsar, bB 0.2 and 0.3 were released, which removed annoying stuff like whitespace issues and line numbers. Despite that I struggled making a second game, my ambitions way bigger then my skills as a programmer. The only successful thing I did afterwards was make a "video" for Lita on her 25th birthday. I would show it at youtube but it uses her real name and it tells a lot of jokes that only a dozen or so people would get.

So that stop my dream for a while. Quimby eventually released a .99 version of bB, which included the ability to have more then two sprites on the screen, but I never got far with that. I guess my heart wasn't into it. I had a notebook filled with a couple ideas, but I haven't touched it in a while. Plus, I had recently gotten a job, so my too much free time became just a lot of free time. I moved on to other stuff, like the portable NES project I WILL SOMEDAY DO, REALLY!.

Yesterday, I saw what resurrected my interest in making a game. I was looking at my rss feeds at My Yahoo and saw an update for Atari Age. Quimby had just released bB 1.0. I haven't kept up on the features of Batari BASIC, but hopefully I can eventually find the time to sit down and write a few programs. Maybe one day I can advertise a game cartridge that was programmed by me. Then I could make like five bucks and travel to retro game expos begging people to buy my game. My friends will buy a copy of my game just to shut me up! It'll be great!

Ash Wednesday

It's Lent-O-Rama today! If you see anybody with a dirty forehead today, please give them a hug, or at least don't kick them.

I have to admit that I'm always a bit stressed by this time of year. Masses that take place in the middle of the week are always a pain to attend. In fact, I've missed going to Ash Wednesday several times, but at least I'm not as bad as missing this yearly mass as some other masses. On a couple occasions, my dad and I have had to attend a Spanish mass.

The thing that annoys me about Ash Wednesday is how crowded the mass is. It seems like more Catholics attend this mass then any other mass, including Christmas and Easter. I've always found this so weird. Maybe people just like to show off their foreheads. Anyway, masses are always packed and it last far longer then an hour.

Anyway, I get to have the double fun of fasting (only one meal) and abstaining from meat. This usually means that my family has a cheese pizza or macaroni and cheese. We also have to abstain from meat on Fridays, and I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten and broke that. I'm not the world's best Catholic.

Lent is a time of repentance. It's also a time of sacrificing something you like. Our teacher in the third or fourth grade explained this, and we actually made paper footprints with what we were giving up for Lent (Sunday excluded, Thank God.) I was the only one to give up video games, and I even drew an Atari 800 on my footprint. Up until high school I traditional gave up video games, and would spend most of my time waiting for Sunday to come. One of the most memorable Lents was where my parents told me that we wouldn't be able to play video games during Easter. They decided to give me a new NES game (I can't remember why they bought it) and told me to enjoy it on either the Friday or Saturday before Easter.

Since high school or even around that time, I stopped giving up video games for Lent. I'd like to say there's something else I've done that has made up for this, but I'll just admit it's a moral weakness. I just can't justify it because I play way too many video games in the first place. I could give up something like snacking, but that's something I should already not do.

We'll see how this Lent goes. Maybe I'll have something to add later on.

Australia Quickie

Australia is considering banning the old kind of lightbulbs in favor of new ones.



Apparently, something big is going to happen in 2012!

Black History Month Essay #3

My essay is about TV's Fat Albert, Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby is most known for his Jello and Kodak commercials, but he's done other stuff besides that.

Bill Cosby was once a spy in the sixties, but that's long behind him. He became a comic and later made his first attempt at a tv show with his name in the title, but it only lasted two years. He vowed to resurrect the idea later.

After teaching America the coolness of "Hey, hey, hey!", Cosby made one of his most memorable contributations to American TV. I'm referring to, of course, Picture Pages. Bill Cosby and that pen thingie would draw lines from left to right, and kids, like a young Tork for example, would learn how to beg their parents to buy the books and pens and whatever the hell else came with Picture Pages. Sadly, I was forced to just sit and watch. I'm not bitter.

Later in the eighties, Cosby made Leonard Part 6, the turning poin in that series. (This was the highlight of Joe Don Baker's career, by the way.) Of course, The Cosby Show was the number one show at the time, but I've never seen it. I don't know why. Probably cause I hate jazz or film or something.

Later in the nineties Cosby made another Cosby show with the same wife. However, it was on CBS, so it focused on how old they were. There was a show about Cosby solving mysteries, and a show about Cosby stealing from Groucho Marx, but ... I don't feel like ending that sentence. Cosby is now known for being afraid of what he ate.

In conclusion, nothing is funnier then a Cosby impersonation. (Except for those SNL Mr. T cartoons.)

This Week In Entertainment (2/19/07)

My Pick of the Week is a book! Wow! This book is based on the high-concept of making Dante Alighieri into a detective. I love The Inferno, so maybe I'll take a look at this book someday.

Opening in theaters this week is a Jim Carrey movie called Number 23. I used to be a big fan of Carrey until he started making serious movies, so I'll most likely pass on this one. Whoa! It's directed by Joel Schumacher. And it's not a comedy?! I guess it's funnier as a drama. Anyway, the poster has a picture of Jim Carrey with the number 23 written all over his face, and it somehow reminds me of that guy from the Lord of the Rings movies. You know, the hero guy who wasn't short?

Coming to consoles is Sonic and the Secret Rings. For those who haven't followed Sonic's career, he had a good 3d start in Sonic Adventure, but each game afterwards has gotten worst. And it's probably not a good sign that you're crying, "This is the worst camera ever!" in three straight games. This may be Sonic's last chance at a respectable 3d game for a while, and even so it's probably time to hand him over to another company. This happened to Lara Croft and her last game was a step in the right direction. Anyway, this game is played by tilting the Wii Remote back and forth, and the levels seem to be fixed to avoid exploration. I'm a Sonic fan so we'll see how this game turned out.


For portables, Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is out for the Nintendo DS. I only list this because I think adventure games should make a comeback, and the Nintendo DS and/or the Wii would make a great place to do so.

On to DVDs:

Penn & Teller - Bullsh*t - The Complete Fourth Season - I only list this because I saw a couple episodes where they made fun of enviromentalists. A quick look at wiki tells me that I probably wouldn't like a few episodes on this list, but I did enjoy the two episodes I saw despite the cussing. I wish there were more shows that took a critical look at things like enviromentalism and conspiracy theories.

The Three Stooges - Hapless Half-wits - I may have automatically given this my Pick of the Week if the shorts they selected (only four!) weren't so bad. They used to release about seven shorts to dvd but at one poin, they started releasing colorized Three Stooges shorts. I don't know what happened but I wish it would stop. They should have released all the Three Stooges shorts on one or two sets by now. Anyway, the shorts are: I’ll Never Heil Again, Beer Barrel Polecats, Dopey Dicks and Brideless Grooms. (Brideless Groom is one of the four public domain shorts that you can find anywhere!)

Gandhi - Known for winning out over the more popular ET and Tootsie.

For nerds, a special limited addition of Final Fantasy 7: Advent's Children. I dare you to watch this movie and see if you can explain the plot.

Also out is a movie made about three trolls and their unique take on the Bill of Rights.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (2/18/07)

I have to go to work tomorrow. BLAH!

Lent is coming soon. I may have something to say about it on Ash Wednesday, but maybe not.

I'm hoping the ice goes away soon. It's a pain.

I have a Wii! Finally, I can play Zelda. Anybody who wants my Wii code can email me.

World Exclusive!: By the end of the month, Ken Begg of Jabootu.net will do one of his long reviews of Rocky IV. You've heard it here first!

Geez, this must be my laziest Sunday yet.

I've been thinking about topics for future entries. Last week, I struggled for new topics, despite the fact that I only had four days to fill. The other three are reoccuring, so I don't have to worry about Saturday through Monday. I still have some good ideas that may show up this week. I could talk about other toys that were big in my childhood like the View Master. I could talk about other amusement parks, or even other trips. I could give up and talk about video games, but I've been trying to avoid that for the most part. We'll see.

Demo Fun #4

Today's demo is titled, "Mad Intro." Once again, it can be found in the demo section of c64.com.

Like the previous two demos, we start with an impressive looking picture. There's a giant demon in the background with the letters "PCS" above it. To the right of it is a castle, and there is a wizard in the foreground to the left. The wizard is poining at the demon and is about to blast it with some magic. There are two stairways that lead down into the ground. There are nice little details here and there.

Now on to the reliable text scroll. "Hello fans!!," it starts. Hi. The author identifies himself as Mr. Mad of the "Famous" Proceeding Crackers, aka PCS. Interesting that they put the word famous in quotes. "I was a member of KGB," he adds, this being presumably before the Soviets ran out of money. Actually, KGB is another hacking group, but Mr. Mad left and joined OCS, which then became PCS. Isn't that just fascinating!?

We learn the members of PCS (he thinks.) Teebo was formerly known as Spirit. There was Bee, Mr. Mad, Mr. Disk, Mandrake, Coca Cola Kid. Awww, one more Mr., and we would have had a group of hackers where the majority took their names from Mr. Men books.

The date that this was made is 22/6, or June 22nd to us non-Europeans. The time is 22:30. You know what that means? Mr. Mad tells us it's time for the greetings! Here we go: Swedish Frontline (Some guy named Booster is offered good luck with his Amiga), International Softwarespreading Association (Try fitting that on a Scrabble board.), The Disciples, The Dutch-USA Team (possible disk swapping friends for PCS), The Technocrats Worldwide (But mostly someone named Bonny. Mr. Mad hopes he/she remembers him.), and the rest of PCS. Phew!

Then we get a poorly formed sentence. "Today is a person from Swedish Frontline visiting Teebo, and I hope that he gets some new stuff!!" If I ever find out if Teebo was successful, I'll let you all know. Mr. Mad then asks if we have ever seen PCSs' other demos. Sorry, but I hope to. Oh! He meant KGB or OCS. Nope. Sorry. He says they are quite good. I would believe his two exclamation poins that end this sentence, but he uses two exclamation poins like a period. I'll just have to see the demos for myself one day.

Mr. Mad then addresses a group named Fairlight. Mr. Mad wishes to know if Fairlight has made any good demos lately, and wants to get his hand on all of them. I'm chuckling at the thought of Fairlight responding directly to the demo. Anyway, Mr. Mad thinks Fairlight is great. I'm sure Firelight brags about this to this very day.

Suddenly, the demo turns cruel. Or in Mr. Mad's words, "I almost forgot the F***ings!" Apparently this is the list of people that Mr. Mad doesn't like, so here we go with another list: Jonas Herdstrom (who seems to be an enemy of Mr. Mad. Jonas is described as a "bloody ass!!"), Hakan Bergli, Fupria Mitra, Mr. Good, and Mr. Best. Having let this out, Mr. Mad lets out a giggle and hopes that his audience enjoyed the F***ings. I guess this is his way of living up to his name.

Mr. Mad moves onto a more polite topic: games he likes. He likes Barbarian, Superstar Ice Hockey, Musketeers because it's an adventure, Storming Party, Ikari, Nemesis the Warlock. And he didn't have to pay a cent for any of them!

If you want to contact Mr. Mad, then write to someplace in Sweden. He also gives a number, which I'm sure if I posted would lead to an annoyed European wondering why he or she was getting phonecalls for no apparent reason. Still, Mr. Mad doesn't want me to hesitate, so maybe I should think it over.

The picture is from an old game named, "Druid." The song is Zoolook by Jean Michel Jarre. Awwww! Mr. Mad ends on a sweet note by saying he loves Sonja Maurer. Actually, I'm just hoping it's sweet, and not the sign of some sick guy who's stalking this poor gal. He then repeats her name two more times, removing the idea that it's sweet from my mind. He tells me not to forget this, but I'm going to as soon as possible. I really hope.

He asks me that the music is good, isn't it? It's ok, I guess. Mr. Mad has the original record. Phew!! Carry on, then. Have I heard the group Nitzer Ebb? Can't say I have. They are quite good, which makes them as good as Jarre in Mr. Mad's opinion. However, the best group is Front 242. Well, duh. They earn a marvelous rating. "All Disco and heavy metal can go to hell!! Synth is best!! I'm looking through Sonja's mail!!" Oh wait, I added that last part. Heavy metal made Mr. Mad doubt his ears. That's how crappy it was. Wow! We learn that it drove him crazy. I'm so glad to know the secret origins of Mr. Mad. Heavy metal? More like gossip!

Enough of that. He wants to know our opinion of his first demo. Well, it's long, even with one screen. Mad thinks that the text scrolls too fast, but I've seen worst offenders of that rule. Since Mr. Mad is a dork, he tells us the byte address to find his real life address. PCS really wants a lot of pen pals.

Mr. Mad still isn't finished. He doesn't intend to stop, and informs us that it's now 22:58. Isn't it way past his bedtime? We are next informed that Bee has ripped some tunes out of a couple games, which I'm sure we'll here in a future demo. (Actually, I just assumed that, but when I resumed the demo, Mad confirmed that very fact. Huh.) Bee is really good at ripping. He's ripped five tunes already. There's a list of the games he's taken those from but I'm not typing it.

Finally, finally Mr. Mad says good bye. The demo ends with some random text and finally an infinite number of dots scrolling by.

Next week, I think I'll do a number of shorter demos.


Stats:

Date - June 22, 1987
Scrolling text - standard.
Font - It seems to be the same font used by ESI in Demo Fun #1.
Europeans - Yep.
Bragging about Accomplishments - Yep.
Putting other hackers down - Yep.
Listing a ton of other nerds - Yep.
Harsh language - yes, two instances of one word of the f variety
Song - 6/10 - not bad but I've already forgotten it

Harry Potter Rumor (2/16/07)

In the final Harry Potter novel, Harry will learn the Leafius Peepius spell, which will be very important to the plot. You heard it here first!

The 3D View Master!

I'd hate to use a cliche like the "you kids today with your blah blah blah" gag, but I can't think of a better way to start a blog about the View Master. The View Master is a fun toy that seems to be really outdated. You don't see 3D iPods or HD plasma screens. And we're still using the same reels from the fourties. Still, I had one or two as a kid, and I want to share a few memories.

I had a red, plastic 3d View Master, most likely like the one in the picture I posted here. My sister and I had several packs of reels, and we mostly had ones based on whatever cartoons we watched as kids.

I can't remember too many, but the one that stick out in my mind was one from a Pink Panther cartoon. It had the inspector, and his partner was drinking a potion that turned him into a Mr. Hyde monster. The cartoon was a couple minutes long, but the reel compressed the story down to, "Inspector's sidekick drinks potion. Sidekick becomes monster. Inspector gets punched. Inspector runs away." It's really interesting watching someone tell a story with seven pictures.

Sadly, my memory isn't being too helpful, but I'm sure I also had reels starring He-Man, Loony Tunes, and Winnie the Pooh. I wouldn't be surprised if I also had a ton of Disney related ones. Like kids books, I stuck with more fun, comedic reels instead of reels that were more serious. (In fact, I remember a Black Hole pack, which I never cared for. I don't think I've even seen the movie, and my parents seem to like it.)

The reason why I may not remember too many is because I think that after a while, you kind of get bored of the same reels. We had several packs, but I think we got them all at once, so without fresh packs I probably burnt out before too long. Still, even if you get bored of the content, I do remember spending a lot of time just playing with the stereo effect. I would often close one eye, and then the switch eyes just to see what would happen, and to see what the heck was the poin of using both eyes. I would also play with the handle just to mess with the stereo effect. Sometimes I would view an image, and then view an image really close to a lightbulb just to see what the difference would be.

Eventually, the reels started to fall apart. You basically stored your reels in paper wrappings, and the reels were also flimsy, so it was easy to bend them. Several of the pictures would get scratched, too. I remember one time I was looking at a stereo image and I had to different scratches competing with each other. Another thing about View Masters is that they're more fun too look at if you don't wear glasses. You really need to be able to almost poke your eyes out to enjoy those things. I think at least one of our View Masters broke, and we probably lost or threw away several reels.

Later on, after the View Master was kind of forgotten, one of our aunt's died in 1990. We had to spend several years going through her house. One of the things we found just happened to be a View Master, and this was a much sturdier model. We also found several old reels from the fifties, when the View Master was meant to show people sites from around the world. As primitive as it seems now, and probably as primitive as it was in the eighties, I learned how big it was back then. I didn't look at too many of the reels because there weren't too many sites that interested me, but it was nice that I could experience the fun of a View Master again. I'm sure I still have at least the View Master somewhere.

Later on I found a projector when we were moving. I always thought those things were neat when I was a kid. This projector was probably also rescued from my aunt's house, because it was really old. It was a dumb thing to do, but I plugged and used one of the old reels. Instead of seeing some far off place of old on the wall, I saw a blurry picture. Worst yet, the projector started to smoke, and I immediately unplugged the projector and threw it into a sink. I probably would have started a fire if I had left it on a tiny bit longer.

Of course, one of the most famous contributions of the View Master was that it allowed people to make fun of Nintendo when it released the ill-received Virtual Boy. But I really enjoyed it as a kid and I they'll continue selling it for a long time.

Musical CDs that I own

In case you don't know who I am, I have to make a confession. I have never really gotten into the music industry. I never had any favorite genre, and I don't listen to the radio for music.

Now, I'm not completely ignorant about music. My mom and dad used to listen to the oldies station when I was a kid, and they still listen to adult contemporary when we carpool. Still, I know very little about artists, bands, song titles, and albums. I may know a popular song if you sing a little bit of it, but that doesn't mean I know which band performed it or even what the song's name is.

It was kind of odd when I realized that I stood out. One year it wasn't a big deal who liked what, then the next year there were cliques based solely around it. Especially in the eighth grade, where my class seemed to be divided between rap and alternative rock. (Kurt Cobain was still alive at the time, but dies before we graduated.)

I'm being honest when I say that I feel awkward and uncomfortable in a music store. Still, that doesn't mean I don't have music CDs. I just don't have that many. So here's the majority if not all the CDs I own.


Clowns in the Sky - This is the album made up of many songs that were sung on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's got many of the classic songs from seasons 1-7, from both the Joel and early Mike eras. I wish there were a few more songs, like the Sidehackers song from the movie of the same name, but it's still a great collection. Unlike...

Clowns in the Sky II - This album is ok, but they released it too early in the shows history. They really should have waited until after the show was over so they could have a few more choice entries.

Dr. Demento 25th Anniversary - Boy, is this nerdy. I originally got this cd only because it had The Curly Shuffle on it since I'm such a Stooge fan. I did eventually listen to the other songs, and there are some fun ones. This cd introduced me to Weird Al (I wish I had heard of Smell Like Teen Spirit when those alternative rock kids were gushing about Cobain.) It also introduced me to Benny Bell, who wrote two songs in the fifty that are kind of dirty and are very funny. It's nice to own a TMBG song, even if it's not Istanbul. Not all the songs are great, but I think it's hard to listen to several novelty songs back to back without becoming numb to them.

Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits - I had to get this cd since I'm such a big fan of Homestar Runner. Songs like the long version of Trogdor, The Cheat is Not Dead, and Everybody to the Limit definitely make the CD worth it. However, since the CD is sorta based on an old cartoon making fun of album commercials, this cd does come with quite a few filler songs based on that cartoon. I like the cheap look of the CD, and the CD contains a hidden cartoon.

Joshua Tree - This is the only "real" album that I own. I got it partially because my friends enjoy U2, especially Lita. I was actually shocked to learn that I actually heard of one of these songs before. (I Still Haven't Found...) Besides that song I also really enjoy With Or Without You. I have the Joshua Tree DVD around here somewhere. I should get more U2 albums.


That's it for my collection. As for my parents collection of records, I was only interested in a handful when I was a kid. I liked the two albums we had that contained songs from all of Jim Hensons shows and movies. My parents had the aforementioned Curly Shuffle which I really liked. And the song I probably liked most as a kid? GHOSTBUSTERS!

God, I'm glad I use a pseudonym for this blog.

Women Who I've Had a Crush On. #1

I've had an idea for another reoccuring, short blog entries about women I've had crushes on. (These would be about actresses and dancers, because I don't want to have any real life people find this blog.)





Louise English was an actress who is most known for being on the Benny Hill show. She was a member of his Hill's Angels, which were women who played a part in his acts and generally wore skimpy clothing. Louise stood out among these women due to her comedic timing and her voice, and she became a semi-regular in the later years of the show.

One of my favorite skits was when she was singing, and Benny Hill started daydreaming about getting married to her character. They're in their honeymoon suite, and Louise is generally being sweet but also teasing. She feeds him just before grabbing some lingerie and walking off screeen. She returns, however, wearing black clothes and a veil. Benny is confused until he looks down and sees that the mushrooms that he's eating look a little funny. His imagined scene ends with Louise and some guy laughing at his corpse.

Another scene I liked her in was when she was a ballerina dancing with Benny. Let's just say the scene ends with a quick kick from her to him.

She was a wonderful singer, and I wish I could remember the name of the song where she sang with a cockney accent. I have the Benny Hill DVD sets but I'll have to look for it.

Valentine Day

Ok, I don't think I have a topic. I was thinking about posting what I think the perfect woman for me is, but as I was thinking that topic out, I realized I was spending too much time on unimportant stuff. In fact, I think I can sum it up by saying that the perfect woman for me would have to be extremely patient. You know those legends of some woman who was seperated from a man and waited so long that she turned into stone or a penguin or something? A little less patient then that.

So I started to think of other Valentine's Day topics. I could have described my experiences, but that would have led to bitter, depressing stuff, and I want my blog to avoid that. I don't think I've ever given or received a Valentine's Day card. I did send a Valentine's Day email to a friend, and I still get occasional emails from Hallmark because of that. So that's no help.

I thought about doing an entry about candy, but other then lousy chocolates and chalky hearts, candy is more of a Halloween thing.

Then it occured to me! Who is often associated with Valentine's Day? Cupid! And who sorta looks like Cupid? Kid Icarus! A video game character! But sadly, I've never owned that game. So I can't make a fake topic out of that. Dangit.

I started thinking about other Valentine's things. Roses? Nah, I know nothing about flowers. Hearts? Nah, I'm not a doctor. The heart symbol? Heh heh, it's shaped like a butt.

Hey, wait! I think I've got it! I was just typing random words, but I could start an entry for another reoccuring feature. I should have thought of that first. Oh well. Better post this and start on that.

Another Snow Day

I got a day off from work today due to snow. In fact, it was so bad that my dad took the day off, and he's gone to work on worst days. Maybe there aren't any Metro Buses close enough.

I would have had something up sooner but our cable was out. Our interet service is connected to that, so no cable meant no internet. So now I have about 2 and a half hours for the update of the day. And it's a holiday. Hmmm...

The Day the Blogger Cried

Someone is actually considering making a movie similar to the legendary "The Day the Clown Cried", a movie that was suppose to be so bad that it was thankfully tied up in litigation and never released. Only a handful of people have ever seen that movie about a clown who leads a bunch of children to be gassed in a Nazi concentration camp.

Here's a link to Adam Resurrected.

Black History Month Essay #2

My essay is about Ice-Cube. Mr. Cube's name comes from the term for frozen water, which he uses because he's so cool. He's known for rapping, but I didn't bother to do any research about that part of his career.

Ice Cube later became an actor. His break out roll was in Boyz in the Hood, a movie that shockingly replaced the s with a z. Later, he had a part in Higher Learning, a movie that taught us that at any poin in your time at college, you can run into white supermacists having battles with black militants. I think I might have tripped over a few bodies getting to work today.

Later, Ice Cube hit a low when the success of Friday helped launched the career of Chris Tucker. Thankfully, he was able to bounce back with the success of Anaconda. Despite the color of his skin, his character survived the movie.

Other hit movies he's been in include Barbershop, where he tried to mix rapping with a barbershop quartet. It was revolutionary but ahead of its time. Other rolls include XXX 2, as the guy who took over the series when Van Deisel left, and a roll in Are We There Yet?

His most famous roll, of course, is in the movie Torque. And if yahoo would work, I would put up the poster for the film.



Ice Cube is in no way the same guy as Ice-T, star of Johnny Mnemonic and Tank Girl. Get your notes straight.

Marty Fired

Marty Schottenheimer was fired by the Chargers today.

I wonder if the Redskins fans who thought Marty could have brought the team back to it's glory before Dan went with Norv Turner Jr. are happy to hear this.

Kitty Picture #2

Here is a picture of Dribbles, aka The Queen. This picture was taken with a cell phone.

In time for Valentine's Day

My favorite cartoon has updated. It's sooooooooo good!

This Week In Entertainment (2/12/07)

My pick of the week is Wii Play for the Nintendo Wii. I really liked Wii Sports and I'm hoping this game is better then the foreign word of mouth. I hope that at least the billiard games is fun. I'm sure this game will be popular just because it comes with a free Wii Remote.

Also coming out is Police Story 2 (Special Collector's Edition) on dvd. I have no idea which movie this one is, but it has Jackie Chan from 1988, so it should be good. (Even bad Jackie Chan movies at his peak are worth watching. I remember one - it may have been a Police Story in fact - where I realized that I thought the movie was stupid or lame or boring or something. Still, I realized that every single piece of glass was being broken, so I poined it out to my sister, and for the rest of the movie, we were cheering whenever some glass broke. The movie ended with a ton of glass being broke from three different angles.)

Just in time for Valentine's Day, two very frightening movies I'm glad I've never seen. Deadly Weapons/Double Agent 73 (1974) starring Chesty Morgan, two movies that should be seen by no one if this Jabootu review is to be believed.

For Hercules fans, Hercules and the Captive Women/Hercules, Prisoner of Evil (1961).

For fans of crap, Zoom got a perfect 0% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.com.

And for fans of cuss words, they're releasing a movie called F***, which is a documentary of that particular word. Wiki said that the movie used it over 600 times, if my memory serves me correct.

Update: I have just found out that they're finally releasing Kid Icarus to the Wii's virtual console. I've been wanting to get my hands on this game and it'll be my first VC game for that system. It's 500 Wii Poins.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (2/11/07)

I was going to give my prediction for the Pro Bowl right now, but apparently it already happened. I'm glad I didn't bet money, because I was going to say NFC all the way.

As useless as the NFL Pro Bowl is, I would have watched the game just to see how many times they mentioned Romo's botched field goal attempt.

Today I brought out my parents' copy of Disneyland USA. This dvd set contains a live broadcast of the opening of Disneyland. I first watched this a few years ago and it was one of the things that made me real nostalgic for King's Dominion. I really liked it and saw it several times. I may have to do a Ken Beggian style review of it someday.

I'm taping the Simpsons today. I may give really brief thoughts later this week.

Demo Fun #3

Today's demo is "Unbeliever." Once again, this demo can be found at c64.com

This demo has one screen, which is a picture of a lightning bolt striking a mountain. There are some grassy hills in the background and even more mountains farther out. There's something about this that reminds me of Altered Beast, only made by an 8-bit system.

"Credits:" is the first word that scrolls by. Despite this, it's followed by a sentence telling us that the cover of the book "Lord Fouls Bane" was painted by someone named Inferno. I'm not sure that they get what the word credits mean. Anyway, this is apparently referring to the above picture and was done for the Swedish Cracking Crew.

The music is from W.A.R. and made by someone named Rob Hubbard, and as a treat, you can choose between 8 different songs by pressing a number key. I wish more demos had that option. Without ending the sentence to move to a new thought, we are informed that all programming, snatching, and scrolltext was done by someone named Covenant. After an ellipse, we're disappoined to learn that there will be no greetings to all the other hackers. Well, there is a salute to a magic music wizard named yip. This person is so important that his or her name is surrounded by several tildes. Anyway, yip is a part of purebyte. Yip is encouraged to keep on progressing.

Next, we learn that SCC is sorry for the last scrolltext. Aww, it was just an off day for you guys. The author tells us that he or she was mad at something political. DAMN CROOKED SWEDISH POLITICIANS! That's ok, because we're now told to look out for the next intro called Input. This will be the biggest intro ever seen on a C64. I can't wait to see it.

SCC quotes Obi Won Kenobi (you know the line) before giving it's copyright. SCC brags that it's still the best software dealer. Yeah, that's it. "Dealer." I can see the air quotes now.

We get a p.s. It's a message to someone who's apparently small, stupid, and ugly. OUCH! SCC calls them a cracking group, but they include a question mark. That's got to hurt. The small, stupid, ugly group is called computerbrains, and I wouldn't want to be them right now. They are told that they had nice animation in "f***games", and cp-brains is asked if they been practicing. I don't know what f***games is, but I can tell that this is a cutting remark somehow.


Stats:
Date - 1986
Scrolling text - standard. Capital letters not allowed.
Font - Flashes between white, blue, and yellow.
Europeans - Yep.
Bragging about Accomplishments - Yep.
Putting other hackers down - Yep.
Listing a ton of other nerds - Nope.
Harsh language - yes, one word of the f variety
Song - 9/10. Just for having so many options. I like 8 the most.

Kitty Pictures! #1

Here is a picture of Hazel, one of my cats. Nice glowing eyes!

King's Dominion

My friend showed me a link last night to a website called Theme Park Review, and I started thinking about the theme park I used to go to as a kid and want to go back to this year. So let me share a few memories of this place.

King's Dominion (which became Paramount King's Dominion by the last year I went there) is an amusement park in Virginia. Since I live in Maryland, it's quite a long trip there, probably three or more hours. My parents used to bring me there once a year up till 1993, and I went there in 1994 with my eighth grade class. My dad used to get half price tickets from his union, while my eighth grade class were involved in several things that raised money for a trip.

Before it was taking over by Paramount, King's Dominion mostly had Hanna Barbara mascots. When you parked, you could park at the Yogi parking lot or the Boo Boo parking lot or so on. Some of the sites I would visit every year was the Yogi cave (sadly, no longer there) and the Scooby Doo roller coaster. The Scooby Doo roller coaster was a kiddy coaster which was probably the only one I could get on. I'm kind of a chicken when it comes to heights.

One of the most famous rides (also no longer there, sadly) was Smurf Mountain. This was the King's Dominion version of the Small World Ride. I don't know if it would drive me crazy as an adult, but I was sad to hear that it was replaced by some volcano ride. The lines for Smurf Mountain used to be terribly wrong and I'm sure it would have been worth seeing the Smurfs one last time.

A couple of my favorite rides involved riding on the water. Neither of these involved bathing suits, so my dad and I would go them every year. The first involved riding a raft through a twisting tube. One time we went to King's Dominion with Uncle Buddy, and he had the video camera waiting for us to come out of the tube. He got half a dozen other people and missed us. I hope to find that video.

The other ride was riding on a big round boat shaped like a tire. This was called the White Water Canyon ride. It could carry about eight people and would float around. The river would generally push you along in the right direction and you would eventually get splashed by short squirts of water from random places. Even though you don't need a bathing suit, the ride will always end with you going into a cave where water may pour freely on the walls. You can get really soaked if your tire boat tilted you towards the walls. I loved this ride and when my eighth grade class went there I ran towards it first. I'll be really sad if I go back to the park one day and find this ride missing. (The last time I went there, a new water park had opened and several of my classmates brought bathing suits.)

King's Dominion used to have a gondola ride. Again, I'm a chicken when it comes to heights, but this was a great way to get to and fro in the park. I think the gondola ride was big enough to sit four people, but I may be wrong. According to my sister, this is also no longer around.

The central part of King's Dominion is the Eiffel Tower. The elevator operator would give the history about the tower. My sister and I would fight over the pay telescope and my parents would take several pictures. This was always a good idea for middle of the day when we've gotten on several rides and needed a break.

We actually went to a couple shows a few times. One restaurant had a show for kids followed by a show for everyone. The kids part had this animontronic thing which had a genie. He would wish something and some other animatronic thing would come to life, tell jokes, and probably sang a song. My mind is rather hazy here. Then after this part was done, three women would come out and sing songs. During one of the songs they would run out into the audience and flirt with some single men. I kind of feel sorry for them, having to do that every twenty-thirty minutes. We stayed at that restaurant long enough to see both acts twice.

There was another theater we would pass by several times, and we went into more then once. The one time I can remember going in was after Paramount took over the park, so we saw stuff like "The Naked Gun...On Ice!" It was rather funny as the guy with the Leslie Neilson mask tripped over a stage light that fell from the ceiling, and when the skating was done he was in the background and fell. (Yes, I know I'm not doing any justice to the act.) There were many more movies on ice after that, but I can't remember them. They were probably more serious after that.

Towards the early ninties the park opened up a theater where the seats tilted around. My dad and I saw Days of Thunder, the movie ride!, there once. It was basically you as a driver driving around, with a narrator helpfully telling you whether you're winning or not. Every single gear shift made the seats tilt.

I believe that one year, and this may have been late eighties when I was still a kid but when my memory was starting to work, we went on a tour ride on a monorail where the rider would tell you to look left or right to see the animals. (However, I may be remembering another park, so I may have to delete this. I'll ask someone later.) I know for sure we went on a ride that was similar but the train was open. I think it was raining that day and there weren't many animals around. I think my parents and Uncle Buddy just wanted a rest at that poin.

A couple more rides I remember going on multiple times: One was a pirate theme water boat ride inside part of Smurf Mountain. This ended with the boat poining straight downward, so I became sort of a chicken. Sometimes my dad could convince me to get on, sometimes I couldn't. Another ride was the Shanadoan River, which was a boat ride with two parts where you were lifted up and dropped like a roller coaster. I remember going on this one twice during my last trip.

That's it for the rides I remember going on. Now for a few memories of individual trips.

One year, on one of the nineties trips, we went on a day where it rained most of the day. I don't think it messed up our plans too badly, but I think we spent most of the morning finding ways to avoid the light rain. The most memorable part of the trip was some poor guy who had an Indian act. Part of his act was doing a rain dance, and that drew many threats from passer-bys.

Another year I remember just the end where my dad had to get on a roller coaster that involved going upside down at one poin. I don't even think I was tall enough to get on it, so the rest of us just waited for him. The park usually closes at 8pm but we had to wait thirty minutes past that before he was done. It might have been The Grizzly, but I'm not sure. My parents promised that we would one day stay in a hotel for a day or so, but that never happened.

The trip I remember most was my last trip with my eighth grade class. I quickly ditched everybody and went to the White Water Canyon ride first. Afterwards, I made sure to go to all my favorite rides, including the water slides, Smurf Mountain, and the Eiffel Tower. I got yelled at by the teacher because I was late for one of the class check-ins.

However, this day became infamous because of the way I spent the money my parents gave me. They gave me thirty dollars, in three wrappers full of quarters. I was too spend this on food, but after I went on all my favorite rides, and found myself with a lot of free time. I ended up going to a couple arcades and spent everything I had. Mortal Kombat 2 was huge at the time, and I must have spent a sixth of what I had on that game alone. I never got past the fourth battle. I also played Super Street Fighter 2, and probably whatever else was in the first arcade I was in. A second arcade I went to was found at the exit of the Days of Thunder theater. Here I played a few racing games, including a rather primitive one made my Midway. I forget the name, but it featured early polygons and the best part of the race was failing to make a loop-de-loop.

I didn't eat anything that day. It was kind of awkward telling my parents that I had spent all the money at the arcade. I had a sandwich at home after 8.

That's all I can remember for now. Hopefully I'll go this year and see if my nostalgia holds or bitter disappoinment will smack me in the face. I'll be sure to bring a camcorder and camera.

Projects I Will Complete Someday #1

I love video games. Sadly, I've had very little luck making my own games. I've actually bounced from one video game project to another with very little results. Still, I'm a programmer, so one day I should make a game that could be distributed among nerds.

I like to program, but I know very little about engineering. I barely know how to put stuff together, and I barely know how cars work. So the oddest side project I've been working on is building my own portable NES. I got the idea after finding the website of Ben Heckendorn, a well known hacker who has built several portable game systems. He released a book that shows you how to make a portable NES, Atari VCS, SNES, or PlayStation. After looking through the book, I decided to make my own portable NES.

I have an old NES that we got during the Christmas of 88. It stopped working, but the book shows you how to fix it. I also got an old controller and a PSOne LCD screen, the last two major ingredients that I need. I also bought a soldering and desoldering iron from Radio Shack.

I started this project last year during March or May. Around that time, I was moving from my own house to a temporary home. So I didn't start anything at the time. I did open the NES a few times to look at the circuit board. (Those screws are murder!) If I knew how to desolder, I would have already removed a few things from the main board. I also spent most of May finding that elusive PSOne LCD 5' Screen, which I could only find on eBay. That's when I learned about the concept of a "sniper", but sometime in June when I was in the temporary house I finally lucked out and was able to buy one for fifty dollars without having to bid. In June I had all the main ingredients and a few minor parts from Radio Shack, but I was expecting to move, so I put the project on hold.

Finally, we moved into the house I now live in. We have a table in the basement that would be a great place to work, but I had a problem. The book said that I needed "engraving plastic" used in trophy stores, and I never understood what this referred to. I kept putting this off, partly because I wasn't sure what to get, partly because I wasn't sure how many trophy stores were around, and partly because I was starting to get money from my job and I could spend it on any distracting thing I wanted. Engraving plastic stood in the back of my mind for half a year or so, until I finally went to a shop to get some. I think. I actually think I spent 15 dollars for the wrong material, but I still don't know.

I meant to start working on this project sometime before Christmas, since the summer was long gone. Now it's February, and I still haven't sat down and figured out the rest of the parts I need. Also, I still have no experience soldering stuff, and I should do that before I crack open a fifty dollar PSOne LCD screen.

I will start this project one day. And if successful, I plan to make a portable Atari VCS. Sadly, I no longer have access to all the VCS games my dad and Uncle Buddy shared: They were given away after we closed up the trailer we had in Delaware. But it's on my list!

"Why Does Everything Have to Have a Remote Now?"

It's probably not a good sign that I've run out of ideas during week two, but thankfully my good friend Lita has come up with a topic idea for today.

So why does everything have to have a remote now? I think we have to look at the fifties when television was becoming big. People were starting to realize that those things worked by looking at them. However, people were so use to huddling up to the radio, they got terrible eye strain and radiation burns from being so close to the picture, according to their moms anyway. However, how do you change between the twos or threes of channels without having to get back up and down? The remote control was born by some engineer who had a lot of free time due to his blindness.

The early remote controls were crude. Then someone got the idea to design one to look like a raygun, but this caused many panics and several people were arrested. However, kids of the time seemed to like aliens and communism, so remote controls grew in popularity. This can be proven by the fact that Fred Flintstone used one.

Nowadays, you see remote controls for a lot of stuff. They can be found for vcr/dvd players, cd players, iPod players, toaster players, air conditioning players, and card shuffling players. So why so many remote controls? Because people have grimey fingers? Because it's a plot by BIG Universal Remote Control? Because of the phallic shape of the remote? Because nerds like to argue about whether it's control or controller? Because couch stores need couch potatoes? No. Or maybe a maybe, but here is what I think the evidence poins to.

The key to the remote control is the button. People like buttons. Go ahead, walk by a button. I dare you not to push it. Uh huh, I'll wait. Still waiting. Haw! You couldn't resist, could you? That's what the remote is like. As remotes matured, they got more buttons. Did you ever notice that there were buttons you never knew the meaning to? Well who cares! You pushed them anyway. Companies realized this and started making everything with a remote control. Soon, Americans were collecting these and even had trophy cases to show off their wealth. Admit it, you know some guy who has 100 button remote controls, and envy the bastard.

Of course, buttons are limited. In the future, we can expect to see bluetooth powered remote controls that allow for more sophisticated commands involving the simple flick of the wrist. Nintendo is an early pioneer in this field, but soon you will be changing the channel by breaking a mirror, or activating the sleep command by "remote whipping" someone in the face. Bluetooth will also allow remote controls to eat batteries at a faster rate, which will give people the excuse to go somewhere and buy more stuff that comes with remote controls. Clearly a win-win situation. Lastly, remote controls will have straps on them, because no matter how many buttons they have, they will always break easily when you drop them. This is an unfortunate constant.

To sum up, soccer would be popular if it was remote controllable. The end.

There's Snow Days like No Days

Or, something. Today I stayed home from work because I couldn't figure out if the school I work at was going to be open today. (It turned out that it was, despite the fact that the rest of the schools in the county closed. Way to not tell us that in the early hours when I needed to know that, guys.)

So that's why my post of the day is late. I want to at least update for a month before I get bored and try something else, so there's still going to be plenty of stuff at my blog! Whee.

Black History Month Essay #1

My essay is about Halle Berry. She is a great woman. My essay will show that. Let us begin.

Halle was born in 1966. As a young woman, Halle was a cheerleader. All cheerleaders are beauty queens, so she represented the US in the Miss World Pageant in 1986. This served her well for later.

She eventually moved on to acting. Her breakout role was that hot woman in The Flintstones Movie. She proved she was a great actress by singlehandedly saving the movie. She also showed courage by not taking her name off the credits of BAPS and having a silly haircut in Bullworth.

Her most famous movie, and the won she won a Oscar for, was X-Men. No one could wear a white wig like her or stand around in the background. People are still quoting her famous line, "The same thing that happens to everything else!" Her character was notable for the stuff that could happen in front of her. Nobody but Halle could have turned on the waterworks like her.

Later, Halle went back to her cheerleading roots to be naughty enough to take the role for Swordfish. And she went back to her beauty queen origins for her role for Catwoman, or something.

This woman was no "Jinx" to good, quality films! Audiences are no "Perfect Stranger" to her, and she is definitely a "Class Act."

More Entertainment! Disney Milking Style.

I forgot to mention that they're going to release Cinderella III: A Twist In Time. Supposedly, the fairy godmother is going to carelessly toss away her wand, which allows the evil stepmother to rewind time and mess up Cinderella's stuff.

I guess that's what happens when you have a powerful magic wand. Any moron could pick it up and do whatever they wanted.

This Week in Entertainment (February 5th)

My Pick of the Week is one of the greatest video game RPGs ever made. This is the second rerelease of this game, and it includes an extra dungeon. I may pick this up even though I own the original.

I know the Final Fantasy series seems bloated and overhyped nowadays, but people who haven't played this game should give it a try. It includes one of my all-time favorite scenes which occurs in an opera house.


Also coming out this week is Hollywoodland. My parents went to this movie because it had the perfect combination for them. It had old-timey stuff for my mom, and it had Superman for my dad. Specifically, George Reeves's television version of Superman. A pretty good movie, even if the star reminded me of Sean Penn. I especially liked the ending, where...I guess I would have to spoil it to reveal why I liked it. (Rated R for cuss-language and one sex scene.)

According to amazon it looks like MGM is now releasing some of the Bond movies seperately instead of in 4 different collections. The four collections together are being offered for 180 dollars.

And just in time for Black History Month: A Dr. Doolittle / Fat Albert DVD!

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (2/4/07)

It's half time of the Superbowl! Do you know where your kids are?

I wore my Redskins shirt today as a gag. I really should get one that fits me, because I've only owned 2-3 Redskins shirts in my life. I just saw Superbowl XX Highlights this morning and I'm worried that I may look like Refrigertor Perry right now.

I probably would have made a different prediction for the Superbowl if I knew it was going to be rainy. Oh well. I think both teams are lucky that the game is close. It could have been a blown out by now.

I'm still disgusted with the Hall of Fame. Here's a blog that sums up a Redskins fan's frustration better then I could have.

Puppy Bowl (III): Ingenius! I'm going to tape that tonight. It's the best Bowl thing since Bud Bowl. Hopefully, this won't suck after it's third iteration.

I just found this. I'm going to watch these tomorrow.

More like Hall of Suck

The Hall of Fame did not let Art Monk in again.


But you know who they let in the past and won't remove? Some guy who recently wrote a book about what he would have experienced IF he had cut his wife's throat. Good priorities, dudes.

Demo Fun #2

Since I've had a Superbowl theme for the past few days, what better way to continue it by having a demo about a soft drink? Now that's Super Sunday worthy.



This demo features a very well done rotating can of 7-Up. Any picture I post couldn't do this justice. I really wish I had the programming skills this guy/woman has.

That's it for compliments. Now on to the scrolling text underneath. We're greeted with, "Hello Starfrontiers!" Uh, hi? The programmers are The Seven-Up Crew. Then we're provided with evidence that the programmers are not Americans or are really stupid ones. "Here is now the rotate Seven-Up tin!" Tin?! Must have been a long forgotten marketing campaign. Or a bad translation. The SUC hopes I like the demo and wants me to call them. Well, I'm not a Starfrontier, so I don't have SUC's number.

And now for a list of other nerds! Quark, Pirx, Antibyte, Ming T.M., Ram and Eli. Starfrontier is apparently this whole group of hackers. By the way, Ming can "very good paint!" She's asked to paint a Seven-Up tin. Sadly, the text starts repeating before we learn more about the wisdom of the SUC.



Stats:
Date - None given.
Scrolling text - standard.
Font - green.
Europeans - I'm willing to bet they are.
Bragging about Accomplishments - yep.
Putting other hackers down - Nope.
Listing a ton of other nerds - Yep.
Harsh language - None.
Song - 6/10. Not bad.

Superbowl XLI Update

Well, I guess I'm an idiot. I was leaning towards the Colts, but this Bears fan showed me.

Some guy simulates 16 games, Bears win 11.


Well, there you go. Congratulations, Bears.

Coming Soon... (Dummies' Edition)

From the makers of all those profitable torture movies.



They're dummies. They'll probably put someone in a torture trap at some poin.

You scream. You die. And you better have ham!

March 2007.

SuperBowl XLI

I guess I should predict something, huh? Predictions are fun because you just laugh at how stupid they are several days, months, or even years later. So without further adieu...


I don't really know too much about these teams. I sorta know about this offense versus that defense, but I never followed either of them. I'm leaning towards the Colts, because they're in the better conference. And while I wouldn't bet money on Manning, I'm not going to jump on the Bear's bandwagon just because Grossman had a couple good playoff games. So did the Colts' defense, and they were just as bad as Grossman during the regular season.

I say the Colts will win, 38-21. I think this game will be close until the first team cries uncle, and then the other team will cruise. I'm willing to guess that the Bears give up the run first, and cause their fans heart attacks by putting the game into Grossman's hands. We'll see.

Football Games

I'm a fan of the NFL, but I'm not a fan of sports video games. I prefer arcade sports games to more "realistic" ones. Also, I've hated Madden since he started praising Dallas at every moment. So let's look at the threes or fours of football games that I've owned.



Joe Montana Sports Talk Football (Genesis) - This game was fun just to hear the announcer call plays. Of course, it was stiff and repetitive, but at the time it was huge. The game had a vertical view of the field which I thought was the standard until I played other football games. This game wasn't NFL licensed, so Joe was the only name player on a no-name San Francisco team. You continued the game by password, and I probably still have my perfect 19-0 Washington team passwords in the box.

There were few plays, but just enough that you had enough passing and rushing plays. My favorite play was the fake field goal. The computer would fall for it EVERY SINGLE TIME, and the announcer would be like, "It's first and ten, and I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! ... It's a fake!" Even more fun was playing the computer in easy mode. The computer would tell you what play it's calling, and then show you the exact poin where a ball was going to be thrown. I even found a glitch in the game that caused turnovers by having one of your defensive players stand on the ball before the center hiked it. Plus the game wasn't that hard when I played it on hard mode without using 3-4 back to back fake field goals.



NFL 95 (Genesis) - I was a fan of Montana, so I really rooted for him after he made his comeback in Kansas City. Sadly, we got a boring rematch of Dallas and Buffalo instead of a more interesting San Francisco vs Kansas City.

Anyway, this game had a horizontal field and faster game play. It also added taunting, which was repetitive, but some of the taunts were so goofy that I still smile when I think of them. (I wish I could take "HAW! CAN'T TAKE THE HEAT!" and remix it into a song.) There were far more plays, an NFL license, battery back-up, and the game had the ability to draft, trade, and make up players. Sadly, this last option was useless. My dad and I took Dallas's big three and sent them to other teams, yet when we let the computer simulate a season, Dallas still won everything. It never made any sense.

NFL 95 gave you a more sophisticated season then Sports Talk Football did. You can pick any game you wanted to do, and it saved stats and player of the game afterwards. (It's half time show wasn't as memorable as Sports Talk Football though.) I once made the dumb mistake of thinking that I could play every game in a season. I probably made it to week three before I gave up on that, and I was only playing 20 minute games.



Madden 94 (SNES) - This is my least favorite football game, and the only Madden game I ever got. This game was slow and defensive, not something I want in a football game. It was almost impossible to complete a throw, and I've never been a fan of the triple split screen on top of the screen. It's just way too much to keep track of before your sacked. Interceptions were plentiful. I don't remember if there was an option to trade players, but I doubted it mattered. Like NFL 95, this game was made in the middle of the Cowboy dynasty, so I'm sure that team would be impossible to beat. I played mostly by plugging in the second controller and having the opponents QB head for the wrong end zone.

This game had a horizontal field, long passwords, licensed teams (but only numbered players.) It had cheerleaders, but not very good looking ones. I think it had a better instant replay option then NFL 95, but I may be reaching for compliments. It had all-time teams, but the lack of names hurts it.

I later read in a magazine that the Genesis version of this game was faster and more offensive. This was around the time that EA released a Madden game that was filled with all-teams but was only available at Blockbuster. Either of those game would have probably been better then the SNES version of Madden 94. (The SNES has a slower clock then the Genesis. Hence the silly "Blast Processing" campaign Sega had.)


Football (Atari VCS) Primitive but fun game. Sadly, it's only a two player game, but I did enjoy it when I could play it. For some bizarre reason, throwing an incomplete pass seemed to result in a turnover.

Feature a small horizontal field, blocky football players, and only 4 players for each side. You only had five plays total, and I could never remember them. It was just easier, and more fun, to just snap the ball and run around avoiding the defenders.

This game is part of Atari Anthology.



Will I ever get another football game? Sure, but I have a rule. I'll get a new football/basketball/hockey/baseball game whenever a Washington team wins a championship. (Or make it to the finals, in the case of NHL Faceoff 99.)

Translation: Not for a long time.