Category: …And Little E Makes 3

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...And Little E Makes 3 Gaming ToyBox Write, Write, You Bloody Well Write

Conventional thinking: Darkon & ComiCon-Way after-action report

What a long, strange couple of weekends it’s been.

VWORP!1 + PDF

Last weekend I went to Darkon in Tulsa (a first-year horror-themed event put on by the folks behind Tulsa Trek Expo), and this weekend I was at another first-time event, ComiCon-Way in Conway, Arkansas. But more than just the latest stops on my tour of nearby conventions to promote VWORP!1, these were Little E’s first conventions. Whereas previous conventions were “daddy is gone this weekend,” now he wonders what we’re going to do, and what we’re going to see, next weekend. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters

A checkered history

Little E got a Super Mario Bros. checkers set for his birthday. We play it a lot. He’s gotten frighteningly good. He plays a pretty mean game – enough that his old man sits there, scratching his head, and mutters “How do I get out of this one?”

Checkers

Here we see Olivia conferring with the boy on strategy. Donkey Kong and Blue Toad are impartial observers.

Puckers

So is Puck.

A good time was had by all!… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Gaming ToyBox

Birthday time! Let’s do this thing!

Super MarioOn this day five years ago, my life changed. I had a brand new, huge responsibility. These days, I have a huge responsibility, a gaming buddy, a Star Wars-watching buddy, a music-listening buddy, a reading buddy, and just the best kiddo in the world.

I’ve mentioned before that my mom used to make my birthdays a blowout extravaganza of stuff. I can’t really afford to work on the sheer scale of present-procuring awesomeness that she used to, but here’s the thing: I know the boy’s interests, they’re pretty close to my interests, and I know… well… everyone else in the world who collects this stuff. That helped in swelling the ranks of his game collection a bit. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Gaming

The Mario Project: an update

Bowser and SonicA while back I asked for help in rounding up some classic Mario and Zelda related carts for the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance for my own game boy, who’s turning five in less than a month. I want to thank everyone who responded and had stuff on the list that they were willing to part with – the list really got whittled down significantly, much faster than I was expecting, and with much less expenditure on my part than expected. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Funny Stuff

A lamentable lack of caffiene

You can see it in almost every picture here. More caffiene is required!

Little E and the O B
From the boy who didn’t want to stop wallowing all over his cat to get dressed…

Gabby
…to the dog who couldn’t be bothered to wake up in the guard shack…

Sonic
…to …this. For some strange reason I decided to pay in cash today. If the little PIN pad thing is so sleepy that it shows us this, I’m worried that it’s going to try to charge me elebenty zillion quatloos*.

Phoneticmobile
You know we’re going downhill when the car manufacturers give up on poetic names for their products and just put phonetic spellings on them instead. (But I kid the owner of this unfortunate Mountaineer…)

* again.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Funny Stuff Gadgetology

Any other answer and we would’ve had to have a long talk

WiringOne of my beloved Samsung LCD monitors bit the dust today: dead lamp. This is the first dead lamp I’ve had in over 10 years of not doing CRTs (except as TVs that sit across the room – still haven’t made the leap to HD yet, despite the whole forced-obsolescence thing – my brother’s 23″ Zenith color TV that went to college with him and back is still working, thank you very much). This is a pain-in-the-butt loss because the Samsung screens had baseband (RCA) video and audio inputs as well as VGA – they were pretty dandy for hauling to OVGE and hooking old video games up to.

Also, it was a pain in the butt to unplug everything and grab another monitor to put in its place. The cable leading to the monitor’s AC adapted fell behind my desk into the veritable Sargasso Sea of wires and cables, and I needed to retrieve it somehow. My son has a “grabber” (the same thing they market to old folks and disabled people) that he inherited from my wife, who uses it at work (but not because she’s old or disabled). He inherited it because it didn’t quite work the way she needed it to for work purposes. I asked him if I could borrow it.

ME: Can I borrow your grabber?
E: I lost it. [he says this a lot]
ME: Can you find a stick that I can get this cable with?
E: A stick?
ME: Yeah. Even better if it has something on the end so I can hook this cable.
E: I don’t have a hooker, dad.

Good thing too, son. You wouldn’t be getting an allowance for chores anymore if you did.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3

Little E’s hit list

The listgiverLast week, Little E decided that we needed to head to the grocery store, so I asked him to take some paper and make a list of things we needed to get. (This is a sneaky-daddy way of making him practice writing and spelling without it seeming like “schoolwork”.) The results were mostly legible, bearing in mind that the list was written on several pieces of unruled paper by a four-year-old. And for the most part, the list was surprisingly practical… mostly. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Gaming

The Mario Project (or, “Excuse me, Princess, but that other princess is in another castle”)

It'sa me, Mario!As we say in Arkansas, I need y’all’s help with something.

Little E’s fifth birthday is coming up in September, and as I think I may have mentioned once or twice, he’s an uber-Mario-fan. (Actually, he’s picked up a Zelda fixation too, so he’s more of an uber-Miyamoto-fan – I’d need to get Pikmin to verify that theory with any degree of certainty.) He has also inherited my GBA SP, which he loves to play, whether it’s in the car, in the house, or wherever he happens to be. He has precisely two Mario games for the GBA (Super Mario Bros. 3 and the GBC Super Mario Deluxe cart), three if you count the Game Boy Donkey Kong cart from around 1994 or so, and he’s expressed a desire for more.

He and I went to Game Exchange some time back, with his accumulated ten bucks of chore money, and discovered that the words “Mario,” “Yoshi” or “Zelda” immediately jack up the price of any given Game Boy cartridge – even if it’s one of the old monochrome games – by at least ten bucks. That’s a pretty easy way to break a little kid’s heart. Do you have any idea how many times he had to feed kitties and doggies to come up with ten bucks?

So here’s where I’m hoping my game collecting friends might be able to come to the rescue. I’m on the lookout for any Game Boy Mario games that the boy doesn’t have. Even back to the three Super Mario Land games (he loves those), Dr. Mario, Wario Ware… the whole shebang.

I am not expecting to land any freebies; I’m hoping that I’ll have just a little bit of spare change to throw at this in the next month or so (it takes a looooong time for the book money to come in).

He fixates on Mario to a great degree (and Zelda too), and I take some flack within the family for enabling that. But he has gained an appreciation and fascination with music from the Mario games (my MP3 player has a pretty extensive Mario/Zelda playlist on it for road trips), he loves reading and re-reading his Mario book, and he’s turning into quite the artist with his own interpretations of the characters. He wanted a Princess Peach to go with the rest of his toys so badly that he did chores to earn money and saved up to get one. This has gradually translated into a fascination with music in general, reading in general, and drawing all sorts of things. If Miyamoto’s creation was his “gateway drug” into discovering a larger world of expression and self-expression (and hey, how about that hand-eye coordination?), then I probably owe Shigeru a beer or two by now. It’s helped to bring my son out of his shell.

Anyway, here’s the “wish list.” We’ve test-driven these in emulation, but he’s really wanting to add the cartridges to his collection. I can’t say I blame him for wanting to have them on the original platform so he can take them anywhere. That’s my boy.

Must Haves – he adores these.
Legend Of Zelda (GBA – NES Classics version)
Mario vs. Donkey Kong (GBA)
Super Mario Advance 1: Super Mario Bros. 2 (GBA)
Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World (GBA)
Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island (GBA)
Super Mario Land (GB)
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land

These Would Be Dandy
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA)
Wario Land 2
Wario Land 3
Wario Land 4 (GBA)

These Would Be OK Too
Dr. Mario (NES Classics or Puzzle League version – GBA)
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX (GBC)
Mario Party Advance (GBA)
Mario Pinball Land (GBA)
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! (GBA)
Yoshi (GB)
Yoshi’s Cookie (GB)

I’d put the Famicom Classics version of Wrecking Crew for the GBA on the list, but that’s in its own category, i.e. “pie in the sky.”

I realize the above list represents a series of games with perennial popularity, regardless of how outdated the original platforms may be (we have no plans, nor do we have the disposable cash right now, to step up to a DS), and therefore represents a decent chunk of change. I’m not expecting to be able to track down the whole list, or to be able to get any significant number of the games by his birthday (great thing is, Christmas hits about three months later!). And again, I can’t stress enough that I’m not looking for freebies. I’m looking for folks who have gotten their enjoyment out of these and just have them sitting around. Part of me wants to say that a GBA flash cart would be an awesome escape hatch for this whole project, but I’ve got a kiddo who loves the artwork on even the tiniest cartridge labels.

I have no idea where he gets that.

As always, how to get in touch with me is not exactly a state secret. You can also hit me up on Facebook or Twitter.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Funny Stuff Television & Movies

I never asked this question in ’77

Little E and I were watching Star Wars (again) on Friday night; toward the end, when the Imperial Flunkie asks Tarkin if he wants his escape pod fired up and ready, my son suddenly blurts out “ARE THEY TRYING TO TEXT EACH OTHER?”

I have no. idea. where. that. came. from. I don’t have a plan that allows for a lot of texting. Texting is something that really doesn’t go on in this house. I’m old and unhip. But, you know, if George is going to keep reinventing Star Wars for a new generation, then I guess this road only leads to one place…

TEXT WARS … Read more