Category: Gaming

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Gaming Television & Movies

Vworp speed ahead

I’ve decided to go ahead and nail down an initial release date for the first edition of VWORP!, and it’s a pretty unlikely date indeed. This is subject to change, of course, but as I’ve already put quite a bit of work in on it, I’m aiming to have the book out in time for OVGE on October 23rd of this year.

Wait, OVGE? What? Here’s my thought process. The only science fiction convention I’d have a shot at hitting from this particular location is Tulsa Trek Expo, which is this weekend. (The book will not be ready this weekend.) There’s also OKC’s SoonerCon, which has already happened this year – and which I had never heard of until after it had happened this year.

OVGE isn’t exactly a science fiction con, but it is an event that I have been a long-standing exhibitor at (it started in 2003 and I’ve only missed one year of it), and let’s face it: with a retro-skewing video game convention, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to have some spill-over into other areas of geek magnificence, such as science fiction. OVGE’s probably a pretty safe bet, actually. 😆 … Read more

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Gaming Toiling In The Pixel Mines

The one about the gaming expos

This was originally part of my previous post, but on going back and re-reading that post, I thought maybe it’d be a tasteful thing to split the two topics apart.

As I’ve got a funeral to attend on April 10th, I’m obviously not going to Oklahoma City for the OEGE (Oklahoma Electronic Gaming Expo) show on the same day, which I had been planning on doing. As an admittedly slightly weak way of compensating for that, I’ve revived the Christmas special pricing – and the amusingly Christmas-y graphics! – on my documentary DVDs; the special ordering page can be found here. Feel free to spread that link around anywhere you think it might be welcome and relevant (i.e. don’t spam the world with it). These bundles are actually a hell of a price break on these if you’re looking to get the whole collection(s) in one short, sharp shot.

At this point I’m uncertain if I’ll be able to make it to CGE in July/August or not. I put in for the time off from work months ago, but still haven’t heard back on that request. Given the recent string of bad luck at home, not the least of which is an entire heating/air conditioning unit which has to be completely replaced, and my wife replacing the car she wrecked in January with a similar car that, ahem, Needs A Little Work, I’m just not sure that funds can be freed up for something as relatively “frivolous” as CGE. Sales of the existing DVDs haven’t been spectacular for several months. One might think “Hey, taking a chance on shooting material for a new DVD will result in a new product that everyone’ll want to buy,” but given the relatively low adoption rate of the CGE ’03 and ’05 DVDs (neither of which has been out for a full year), I’m not sure I can afford a blind gamble on going in the hopes that a new CGE DVD would sell. I’m also still waiting to hear back on whether or not I have a machine on which I could theoretically edit a new DVD project; I may not have gotten out of that incident as unscathed as I thought. (While I’m at it, let me give a huge shout-out to Karl Luedke for sending me a new power supply for the aforementioned editing system; I’m biting my nails and hoping that’s the only thing that needs replacing.)

Everyone take lotsa pics at OEGE this weekend. Oh, and tell Ralph Baer I said hi. For the record, the inventor of home video games remains awesome, and I heartily recommend going to see his presentation via Skype at the show.… Read more

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Gaming Television & Movies

Who are Wii [or, Be still my heart(s)]

The announcement has hit the UK tabloids: supposedly Nintendo has signed on the dotted line with the BBC’s merchandising wing to make Doctor Who video games for the Wii and DS. I’ll blither on endlessly about why this has been a long time coming – and why it’s always been bad news before now – after the jump. … Read more

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Gaming

OVGE Update from the floor

All is going well so far – I uess I shouldn’t have worried so much about the “everyone’s selling, but nbodys buying” phenomenon. I’ve even sod some soundtracks and action figures (somewhat to to my surprise). Hooray for fellow geeks with more money than me!

I’m taking copious amounts of photos and video, will post later. TV Death Squad is playing right now – cool stuff, but I can barely hear myself think. 😆… Read more

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Gaming

OVGE ’09 status report

OVGE is less than 48 hours away, and I’ve finally got the legendary OVGE price list ready for all the stuff I’ll be selling; you can read or download the PDF version of it here. Hey, it’s a PDF .pdf!

I’ve also gotten confirmation that the DVDs have arrived in Ohio for CCAG; if you’re going to be in Cleveland this Saturday, go see everyone at CCAG. There’ll be old video games aplenty, up and running (and for sale too, of course!).

I’ve spent this week and much of last week getting ready for OVGE full-time; literally all that’s left to do on my end is print the above price lists for folks to pick up from my table, pack up the car, pick up Kent at some ungodly hour of the morning, and head west. I guarantee plenty of fun for those who head west at a marginally more godly hour to visit the show. 😆

Leave your troubles and your swine flu paranoia behind, and catch some Pac-Man fever. See you there!… Read more

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Gadgetology Gaming

MAME a la MobilePro

Earl vs. MobilePro MAMEMost anyone who’s seen me in person in the past seven or eight years knows that I carry around with me, nearly everywhere, a slightly dated handheld PC that weighs in somewhere between the size of a modern netbook and what they used to call a “palmtop.” The NEC MobilePro, long out of production, was way, way the hell ahead of its time: it was a netbook, 5+ years before the concept of the netbook caught on with, if not the general public, then the general geek populace. It can get on the web via wi-fi with few problems. It has Word, Excel and Powerpoint on it, so I can write articles for my site while I’m away from my desktop, I can keep my inventory spreadsheets of my game collection on it, and so on. It reads PDFs, so I recently made it a bit of a personal crusade to figure out how to get it to play nice with my home LAN so it could access the huge number of ebooks I have on my home server. The MobilePros, at least the later ones, are touchscreen devices. You can use a stylus (provided with the unit), but you can also tap it with your fingers. I usually use my fingers, because how cool is that? To complete my journey to the dork side, I had a custom “DON’T PANIC” sticker made up for the “cover” (i.e. the reverse side of the flatscreen); admit it, if you had a portable device with a tiny screen that you could look stuff up on, you would do this too and you know it. The little machine has become something of a trademark of mine. … Read more

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Gadgetology Gaming

More randomness and shenanigans

This was e-mailed to me tonight via theLogBook.com Media’s contact form (hey, it works!), and while it’s just a little bit on the late side for me to even round up some DVDs to send there (what with the 10 days until the event and all…) I thought I’d pass it along for any retro-computing folks in New Jersey:

This year’s Vintage Computer Festival East will be held September 12-13 at the InfoAge Science Center located in Wall, New Jersey.

VCF is a public event celebrating the history of computers from the 1940s – 1980s. The morning schedule is for lectures and workshops; the afternoons are an open exhibit hall where everything is turned on and working.

Among this year’s highlights are the keynote address about RCA computers in the 1950s, an 8-bit musical concert, BASIC programming challenge, and the build-your-own terminal workshop.

Details are posted at https://www.vintage.org/2009/east/ where you’ll also find the latest VCF news. A 2-minute video montage of last year’s show is on YouTube. Or refer to the simple event brochure. Tickets are $10 for one day or $15 for both days; 17 and younger get in free.

The event benefits the InfoAge Science Center, which is a 501c3 non-profit.

RCA computers from the ’50s? Does that include the Studio II? Oh…wait. Studio II was the ’70s. Not that you could tell by looking.

I also wanted to draw everyone’s attention to the August edition of Le Geek – Ben may not get his site updated as often as he’d like, but it’s always worth the read. I also like the fact that the site is now in gamma – screw being in beta, we’re going straight to gamma! I look forward to the delta and epsilon editions.

With a not-even-remotely-heavy heart, I’ve decided to close my long-dormant MySpace account. I think tonight was the first time I’d logged into it in 2-3 months. Since almost everyone in my friend list over there is in my Facebook friends, I doubt anyone will be too disappointed (in fact, I’ll be surprised if anyone even noticed without me mentioning it here).

Still. No. Kittens.… Read more

Categories
Gaming Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Books and DVDs, DVDs and books…

A few announcements, since I’ve been asked…

  • I am planning on having copies of my DVDs available at the CCAG show in Cleveland this October. There won’t be a huge number of copies on hand, because frankly, CCAG falls on exactly the same day as OVGE in Tulsa, and I just don’t have it in my budget to do a build-up of a huge number of copies for two simultaneous shows, but there will be some there. These will be at Tim Snider’s table, and all of the DVDs I’ve done so far (PDF, CGE 2K7, Best of CGE ’03 and Best of CGE ’05) will be available there.
  • Did he say Best of CGE ’05? Yes he did. I’m editing Best of CGE ’05 right now, it’s looking good, and although it’s not true HD, it’ll filler yer HDTV with a great big widescreen picture. Best of CGE ’05 will be a two-disc set, however it’ll be a buck or two more than Best of CGE ’03 because one of those discs will need to be dual-layer, and dual-layer Lightscribe discs aren’t cheap (see also: CGE 2K7). This set will be ready in time for both OVGE and CCAG, with online ordering beginning after both shows.
  • What about that book? I had been crazily trying to get VWORP! together in time for October as well, but I have to announce that it’ll be delayed until the beginning of 2010 now. There are several reasons for this: with the OVGE/CCAG weekend being the target date for Best of CGE ’05, that’s the item that needs my attention most right now. Putting VWORP! out anytime before the end of 2009 is kind of like writing a book on everything you need to know about the New World in 1491. There’s a heap of interesting stuff happening right as VWORP! would have to cut off for an October publication date: the tenth Doctor’s final episodes, Sarah Jane season 3, the Hornet’s Nest audios with Tom Baker… it just seemed like the least desirable cut-off point possible. VWORP! will wait until January 2010, where it’ll make a hell of a lot more sense to release it.
  • And the next book after that? A little thing that we around here like to call Phosphor Dot Fossils. Like I was gonna leave that off the list! Hopefully no later than late summer 2010. After the book, I’d think that the next step for PDF – aside from it being the cool web archive that we all know and love – would either be as a TV project somewhat grander than the existing DVDs, or maybe as a brand name for a line of fine cat care products. Between you and me, I’m holding out for TV.

That’s all for now. Whether you’re in Cleveland or Tulsa on October 24th, in a way, I’ll see you there!

Oh, and one other thing – today is the absolute last day for Summer Byte Bundles! Those ordering links will stop working in the wee hours of the morning. Last call!… Read more