Category: Cooking With Code

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Cooking With Code Music

Just a little regeneration

Scribblings version......whatever version it is nowAfter a little bit of tinkering with a woefully crippled but otherwise very attractive theme (I think the idea was, though I didn’t see this explicitly stated anywhere, that you’d pay for an uncrippled version), I’m happy to unveil the latest regeneration of Scribblings Of The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods.

If you’re reading this on Livejournal or Myspace…this won’t affect you a bit. Carry on. (My wayward son.) Those who do occasionally drop in on the point of origin of all of this blithering that I do, go have a look – I think it’s pretty cool, and I’m happy with the job I did of excising the not-quite-expert job of hobbling the original theme. I can live with the results. There are still a few very minor bugs to work out, but not game-killers.

I’m still picking out stuff for the end-of-year favorite-music podcast-o-rama. How’s three hours sound to you? No?… Read more

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Cooking With Code Critters

Kitten of the future

So, about three business days ago, I called eBoundhost to cancel the hosting there. Today they refunded the full amount I’d paid them. Good as their word. Still no sign of a refund from Globat. Heh.

Other good news: Phosphor Dot Fossils is nearing completion in database form! The entire arcade section – 200+ entries – is now in the database, and I have deleted the old HTML files. I’ve got fewer than 100 entries left to move over, and most of them are in the 2600 section. I figured, since I’m stuck with Globat for a little bit longer, I’d use the time to get more stuff moved over before we try to migrate again.

I fell in love with a kitten this weekend. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code

Big booma

Friday was a fun day. A really, really fun day. Where to begin?

Just the fact that people have been responding to the blog again is an indicator that the site’s been a bit more cooperative lately, especially on the database end, so I’ve been taking the opportunity to convert more HTML stuff to database entries while I can, as fast as possible, before I migrate the site to a new hosting service. The past two or three days have seen some really good progress on the Phosphor Dot Fossils front – I’m coming down the home stretch on getting all arcade game entries moved over, and I’m making good progress through the dauntingly large number of Atari 2600 reviews.

And then, all of a sudden, that whole portion of the site…just…stopped…working. Period. … Read more

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Cooking With Code Home Base Television & Movies

Random rumblage

The good news on the spider bite tonight is that it doesn’t seem to be spreading – well, okay, just a little, but not upward. The foot is reddish and tender, and I can see veins pretty clearly, which is really unusual for feet. Or at least my feet. I’m due back at the doctor’s office on Tuesday to see where this is going – though if my follow-up is 48 hours after my initial visit, I’m guessing that there’s Cause For Concern. Either that or they just like taking my money. Probably a little bit of both.

I found and fixed a couple of bugs in “Doctor Who in 35 minutes“, as well as chopping it up into segments about 3 to 3 1/2 minutes long to cut back on the insane load times. This also had a beneficial side-effect of sharply increasing resolution – now you can tell which clips I sourced from crap-o-licious 20+ year old VHS tapes recorded off of AETN and OETA when I was in high school! Yay! 😆

Speaking of video projects, I think I may have mentioned redoing the PDF DVD ordering page as an old fashioned hand-coded HTML page – basically in theLogBook’s old, pre-Wordpress look – so that orders wouldn’t be tripped up by Globat’s endless database server errors. Lo and behold, I’ve had more orders in the past 24 hours than I have just about the entire rest of the month. Can’t ditch Globat soon enough. Incidentally, we’re now coming down the home stretch of the second edition – and that means there are about a hundred of these puppies floating around out there. Guess it’s not over yet after all. The proceeds from this round of DVD sales will go toward getting us moved to a hosting company that can actually keep a site up. If you think I’m overreacting, check this out. Or this. Or this. Or this hosting review page which has apparently accumulated so many complaints that they’ve closed the comments down. 😯 I have a hard time believing that these jokers haven’t gotten some class action lovin’.

I’ll bitch some more later. But you knew that, right?… Read more

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Cooking With Code Home Base Television & Movies

It’s the bite of the spider, it’s the thrill of the fight!

So I’ve had this wickedly itchy thing on the back of my right ankle for about a week now. I’ve soaked it in hot water, wrapped it in cold washcloths that spent a little bit of time in the freezer, I’ve done my level damned best to leave it alone and not scratch it. This morning when I got up, took Evan to his grandparents and got ready to feed horses, it was pure agony trying to put my muck boots on. Then I noticed it was about the size of a half-dollar (for those of you old enough to remember the 50-cent coin, a.k.a. the JFK half-dollar, a currency that I sorely miss) , and varied in color from purple to brown, and did I mention it hurting like hell? It hurt like hell. So after horse feeding time, I went to the doctor, who said he was pretty sure it was some sort of insect bite, and really nasty too. He hesitated to guess as to what kind of insect, but when I went to pick up my prescription and the stuff I’d need to wrap the ankle to keep a pad over the hugely ugly and painful open blister that’s there, the pharmacist basically confirmed that what I had on paper was a pretty stiff cocktail designed for someone who’s waited too long to treat a brown recluse bite that was pretty nasty to begin with. Joy. So I’m pretty much an inside-dweller until cleared: no yard work, definitely no horse feeding, keep it as antiseptic clean as possible until further notice. I’m hoping I’m not staring down the barrel of any lasting damage, but the whole foot is bright red and you can see veins sticking out. Between that and the drugs I’ve been prescribed, I’m just feeling woozy about the whole thing. First various farm injuries, then mutant monkey toes with more joints than a toe should have unless it happens to be a finger, and now this…what gives? Has someone got it in for my right foot?

Oh, and speaking of the doctor, or actually, speaking of the Doctor, here are 45 years of house calls in 35 minutes. If you don’t know your Doctor Who mythology, I’d suggest that sometime in the next week or three might be an outstanding time to catch up. Or so I’ve heard. 😉

For those whose efforts to get a PDF DVD have been frustrated by the constant downtime courtesy of Globat, I have replaced the PDF ordering page with a hand-coded HTML page that doesn’t have to have their SQL database server up and running. Orders for the DVD have taken a nose dive since the beginning of this month…right about the same time these constant server issues cropped up. But now that won’t be an issue any longer, at least for that portion of PDF. Never mind “baby needs a new pair of shoes” – at this rate I’m gonna need a new pair of feet!… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code Gadgetology

Thanks for the memories

The memory card snafu has been solved! Pantech pointed me in the direction of an incredibly useful piece of software called Easy Photo Recovery which recovered – get this – all but two of the photos that had vanished from the offending memory stick. (The two casualties were from this week’s ToyBox piece, and since that’s already posted the originals aren’t needed anymore.) This program is just amazing, and I had no idea anything like it existed – and I’ll probably be calling on its services in the future, since this isn’t the first oddball disappearance of memory stick photos I’ve ever experienced, and because I take a lot of pictures. (I don’t know anyone with kids who doesn’t, actually.) … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code Critters

The case of the users who weren’t

Baby needs a new parachute!I’ve recently had a flood of new users sign up here at the old blawg (meaning my WordPress blog, for those on Livejournal or Myspace who are wondering what in the world I’m going on about), all of them with very strange and phonetically improbable usernames and Gmail addresses. After googling the usernames to see if there was any history with any of them, I found that there is indeed history…usually stretching back all of 39 minutes or so as the Google crow flies. I’m going to make it a habit to delete these as they pop up (actually, at first I typed “poop up”, and on further reflection this may be entirely more accurate). For anyone legit whose new ID I might have just nixed: sorry. There’s really nothing exclusive to signed-on users anyway, and they still have to use the dreaded captcha – it just makes life slightly easier for frequent-flyer commenters. You’re welcome to try to sign on again, be you boy or bot.

The PDF DVD is selling frighteningly well, and preparations are already underway to start the second print run (!!). I fired off a second round of publicity to sites such as Retroblast, Armchair Arcade, etc. last night before going to bed (well, last night…it may actually qualify as “this morning” if you’re going by what time it was), and reviews have started appearing on DP, so I’ve been hit with a new wave of orders. I’m hoping against hope to get new copies in the works this weekend, because I’m about outta the OEGE limited edition. (Fun fact: I have some clear address labels that I was thinking of using to very cheaply turn the OEGE limited edition into the OVGE limited edition, because I actually wasn’t sure that the first 50 copies would be out the door before August. Looks like I needn’t have worried! 😆 ) Now I guess the real test is to see if PDF:DVD gets Slashdotted. (This isn’t me asking one of my buddies to do this, by the way – as with the reviews, I’m waiting to see if anyone does it of their own accord.) Here in a little bit, Evan and I need to saddle up and go get more bubble mailers, because I have more orders than I have mailers – and I just picked up a bunch of the bloody things on Sunday night!

Also, a little advance publicity here: I’ll be sharing a table at OVGE this August with Brett Weiss, author of the incredibly detailed and massive tome “Classic Home Video Games, 1972-1984: A Complete Reference Guide”, so if you’re looking for two exhaustive works on video game history, hit him up for the book and hit me up for the DVD in one visit. (If you can’t make it to OVGE, I’ve also added Brett’s book to theLogBook.com Store – check it out!) I’ll also have some other DVDs for sale and – odd as it may seem at a video game show – some loose and carded Doctor Who action figures up for grabs too. (Maybe it’s just because all of my friends with similar tastes show up for this shindig, but I never have any problem moving Doctor Who swag at OVGE.) I’m really looking forward to this year’s show.

In other news, I’m getting really good at inducing hysterical giggles in the boy. Two things really seem to set him off: my rubbing my bald head on his belly (don’t ask me why, but he laughs until he’s almost ready to wet himself), and me making a puffer fish face and blowing on him. Perhaps not surprisingly, I never get tired of doing these things because I never get tired of hearing that little guy laugh. It’s enough to make me think I’m almost getting this daddy thing down.

Othello is doing better and is easing back toward eating dry cat food, with no apparent complications. Slowly but surely he’s regaining his body mass; he’s certainly regained his old attitude. 😆 … Read more

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Cooking With Code Serious Stuff

Arrrgh

My apologies for not getting theLogBook updated on time – I’ve literally spent most of my weekend filling PDF DVD orders (!!). Hopefully everyone who’s gotten one has liked ’em. So help me God, I’m going to go get a new office chair in the next couple of days, so I thank everyone from the bottom of my…well…bottom. It’s a little unnerving to sit down and feel the seat start to slide down to its lowest altitude like someone’s let the air out of the tires. I look forward to not experiencing that anymore very soon! Seriously though, the response to the PDF DVD has blown me away. At this point, my biggest fear is that I’m not going to have duplication nailed down for the second run while the orders keep coming in. I honestly was not expecting it to blast off like it has. I’ve also learned a few things (the hard way) along the way, including how to generate Paypal links that actually do something helpful. I think you guys would be stunned to know just how much I’m making this whole thing up as I go.

Turbo Turtle, a.k.a. Gamera, has disappeared from the yard – hopefully to go kick back in a body of water somewhere. Turns out he was a humongous snapping turtle…not good for Zathras. I really don’t need to step out my door and have one of my toes eaten by a cranky and huge turtle.

Another thing that’s occurred to me today is that everything I’ve been doing pales in significance next to the loss of life in China and Myanmar. I can barely even begin to process the kind of numbers of dead we’re talking about there, much less what can be done about it. Perhaps it’s just as well that I’ve got all these distractions.… Read more