Stuck for an original Mother’s Day card? Here you go: me and Little E made this. I printed it out, he colored it, and we’re good to go. Cost: ink, paper, crayons!
This is the “uncolored” version – get your own crayons! We can’t do all the work for you!
8-Bit Mother’s Day Card (PDF, 72K)
Fold it into quarters and you’re good to go. Thank Mom for helping you navigate the warp zones of life.… Read more
It’s the end of an era here at der Greenhaus: the rope lights are coming down from the game room shelves. We’re talking about a lighting scheme that I’ve leaned on pretty hard since the last house I lived in, 
so… nine years exactly. And the funny thing is, a lot of these rope lights have been around since then, so at the very least it was time to look at replacing some of them.
But that’s not what the plan is. As with every other room in the house, the carpet has to come out of my room, so everything has to be disconnected, moved elsewhere in the house temporarily, and then moved back in when it’s torn down to a smooth concrete floor. Even that is temporary – at some point when we can afford it, we’ll get flooring put in (but not carpet – never again), so it’s kinda like all the fun of moving repeatedly, minus the fun of actually moving it to someplace new and exciting. … Read more
A completely true story. And this time it has nothing to do with broadcasting.
It was the summer of 2003, and I had just flown into Las Vegas for the first time. Wide-eyed, but mainly jet-lagged, I took the complimentary shuttle bus from the airport to the Plaza Hotel and started the whole “trying to check into my room” process. It should be noted that, at this point in the story, I was meeting with very limited success, and by very limited, I mean “none.” … Read more
Once you see this, it cannot be unseen. … Read more
I’ve made little secret of the fact that I’ve pretty much bred a duplicate of myself. Little E loves daddy’s video game collection. He’s inherited my GBA and many of its cartridges. But sometimes this isn’t such a great thing: what do I do when he’s not interested in his homeschool lessons because he’s got Super Mario on the brain? … Read more
For many moons I have been searching for a decent arcade emulator for my Android tablet, and there just wasn’t one. There was a Neo-Geo-only emulator that I tried and couldn’t get to run on my little flat friend (not surprising, as it’s a budget model rather than a luxury model), and besides… Neo-Geo only? Really? Nah. But now the folks who made MAME available for the iPad right around Christmas last year – and managed to keep it in the Apple App Store for all of about 72 hours before it got yanked for being a dirty filthy emulator – have also given the world a magical thing: MAME4droid. Behold.
Over on the book o’ the face, a hint has been dropped that the date for OVGE 2012 will be announced soon. That’s the good news.
The bad news is… I have no idea what to do/bring this year. … Read more
One of Little E’s favorite games on his Leapster 2 is Star Wars: Clone Wars Jedi Math. From just listening to it (and, okay, playing it just a little bit), it’s a pretty fun little math game (I would’ve gone over to the Dark Side just to have a Jedi Math cartridge back when I was a kid; instead, I had… Math-A-Magic!). He plays it a lot, even if he’s not exactly memorizing the names of the Jedi Council.
Tonight, he played a pretty good game, rescued some Republic prisoners from the Trade Federation, and just before plunging into a new level of the game, held up his new R2-D2 figure and said “LET’S DO THIS, ARTOO!” That’s my boy. 😆
And if you think that’s impressive, check out the age/grade bracket that the game falls under on the label. God and/or the Force willing, he might just be better at all things numerically-oriented than his daddy was.… Read more
You need a countdown timer on your Wii to tell when Santa will be here?
Many years ago, I gained a kind of momentary internet fame (if you want to call it that) for my elaborate (and yet, on reflection, kinda cheap) game room setup, originally erected in a room of our old rental house. Rob O’Hara even covered certain parts of the game room (and asked me for a few pictures too!) in his book Invading Spaces, a guide to collecting arcade games and building the perfect game room.
The idea was to create an approximation of the stand-up arcade experience without spending stand-up arcade collecting money (and without taking up stand-up arcade space). Two things drove this idea: this magnificent arcade joystick (made for the Playstation 1), and one Playstation 1 each from the U.S. and Japan. The latter allowed me to play the wealth of arcade game collections released in Japan that never came out here.
This also entailed collecting a large number of retro arcade games for the PS1, both domestic and import. Come to think of it, I made a name in video game collecting circles for that too. The game room setup was really neat – actually, it’s still set up that way in my current house, and has been since 2004 when we bought the place.
It’s in the interests of keeping the aforementioned place we’ve occupied since 2004 that I’m now in the process of selling almost all of the above. I’ve been out of work for nearly two months at this point, and we’re definitely on the pain train as a result. I’ve tried getting on as seasonal retail help, but I’ve spent my entire adult life in one industry and I’ve never worked retail before because, well, I’ve never had to. At a time of the year when they’re hoping to hire folks to can get up to speed very quickly, I’m pretty damned useless.
Anyway, here’s what’s up for grabs: anything that’s not nailed to the wall or on fire! Well, okay, maybe that’s an overgeneralization. All of my PS1 games will be up for grabs – domestic and foreign. My Japanese PS1 will be on sale soon. I’ve even got a small handful of PS2 imports that I picked up years ago in anticipation of modding my PS2… which I’ve never had done, and don’t really care to now.
I’m selling my 30-year-old Kick arcade machine as well, but only to any interested parties who want to drop by and pick it up in person and transport it themselves. Also on the block, and again preferably only to local folkels who can pick it up themselves: my Vectrex and its paraphenalia.
I’ll probably be selling some action figures and other fannish items soon, non-video-game-related.
Am I keeping anything? Yes.
As I mentioned above, the centerpiece of the original game room setup was this glorious joystick that beautifully recreates the feel of ’80s arcade games. I have USB PC adapters for PS1 controllers, and as such I’ll be keeping this joystick for future emulator use. It’s kinda what started me down this road, and I still love it. I’d like for my son to know a little something of the “feel” for these old games I used to spend so much of my income on.
But I don’t want him to know what it’s like to not be able to keep the lights on, so here ends that thing that used to get a lot of people looking in my direction. I’ve said for many years that, as I’ve gotten older, I’m more interested in playing games than in playing the (money) losing game known as collecting. Now it’s time to put up or shut up on that claim. Sacrifices have to be made, and anymore, in the day of near-perfect emulation on a computer or a tablet or the Wii, these games haven’t been opened up and put in an actual Playstation in a long time. If you’re looking to pick up some pieces of a much-loved, well-cared-for collection that are nearly impossible to find outside of Japan, please proceed to eBay with all deliberate speed and level up. I’ll be adding more items through the weekend.… Read more
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