Category: Home Base

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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code Home Base ToyBox

All quiet on and/or near the western front

Nothing big to report. Did some more minor housecleaning today, and ran a lot of errands. One thing I utterly failed to get done was get the infant seat installed in the Mommymobile – the guy who does that for folks at the Van Buren PD was out of pocket when I got there. I’ll try again Monday.

There are few things as certain in life as death, taxes, and the fact that sooner or later, your Avid user settings will be corrupted. @#$%. (And this is without two other dudes using it – I don’t know what this machine’s excuse is.)

I’ve also been doing some WordPress-style remodeling on Phosphor Dot Fossils, getting the first few test entries into the system. I’m really, really happy with how that’s shaping up; basically, I’m categorizing every entry in a zillion different ways, so you’ve got a huge number of ways to sort through the database: by year, by platform, by the first letter of the title, by control scheme, even by game play elements. You want to look at baseball games only? Maze games only? Games by a certain manufacturer? No sweat. I think there’s a lot of value to the existing library of PDF reviews that has perhaps been buried without having some kind of sorting mechanism; this should redress the balance a bit. (Oh, and I’m gonna drop my customary anti-cut-and-paste code into place too, because let’s not forget that there are other folks who think that PDF is quite a valuable resource too. 😛 ) Head over there, try out the sorting options on the right-hand sidebar, and let me know what you think. It’s a beautiful thing.

Speaking of which, I have found a new use for one of the display cases I used to haul to OVGE every year:
Not the droids you're looking for
I figured I might just need to keep these little guys under glass (or in this case plastic) from here on out. (By the way, the giant droid god on the left isn’t Andrew’s – I found my own large-scale R2 while cleaning house.)

Move along, move along
I know these are a stupid vice to have, but they’re at least harmless. Yes, I know it’s just the same thing repainted in about a dozen different ways. That doesn’t make me like ’em any less.

By the way, speaking of geeky stuff, I thought I’d post my wife’s score from that Nerd Test a few days ago. If you’re reading this, you’ll probably be impressed:
Jan's nerd test score
Read it and weep, gentlemen. 😆… Read more

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Funny Stuff Home Base

Royal flush

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Some time earlier this year, the shower/bath in the master bathroom stopped working. All bathing activity now has to take place in the bathroom right behind the game room (something which will only make sense to the 2-3 people who have actually visited my house). Now the toilet in that bathroom has stopped working, meaning that one must now go to the master bathroom. Or step outside and hope no one’s looking. (Hey, I have a pregnant woman in the house. I’ve actually done this to avoid waking her. Someone’s gotta fertilize the yard and leave a mystery for future archaeologists, and one dog ain’t gettin’ the job done. And we live way the hell out in the country.) Sometimes I think to myself that there’s a reason we got a good deal on this house…

From the “all the cool kids are doing it” department:
NerdTests.com says I'm a Cool High Nerd. What are you? Click here!
I think I’m actually pleased with that rating. I’m disappointed with my history/lit score there, but I just woke up and it’s three in the morning. (Simple equation explains why: nesting instinct resting instinct.) I must however take the authors of this test to task for not including more obscure sci-fi, video game, anime and prog rock questions, and not one word about 20 sided dice? The authors of this test were clearly non-nerds operating from a set of stereotypes. I need to get together with someone who’s actually capable of coding something similar and do a nerd test for my own site, and let me tell you, this one would separate the men from the boys in short order.

I’m going to go back to bed now and hopefully occupy myself more with getting back to sleep than with being cranky.… Read more

Categories
Home Base

For the record(s)

So Gapporin was the latest member of the DP forums to converge on the ol’ Greenhouse, all for a good cause – I was desperate to get rid of a good chunk of the ol’ record collection. The thing was, I had two rather sizeable boxes full of LPs, and a few singles, that I had been hauling around with me since I moved out of my parents’ house. These boxes basically encompassed my record collection, my brother’s, and my mom’s. So there’s quite a bizarre mix of stuff – Disney educational records, soundtracks (ranging from the Star Wars movies to a musical production of Cromwell with Alec Guinness [!!]), and any number of things in between, including Foghat Live (SLOW RIDE!), Kiss, and the Concert for Bangladesh. There’s probably some good stuff in there, but I’m already scrambling to archive VHS tapes to DVDs so I can toss the tapes to save space; I’m just not going to have the time to also do records-to-CDs at the same time, and the records were taking up a hell of a lot of space. So I hope he likes his haul – at the very least, for him, I hope it was worth ten bucks and the drive from Joplin and back. A lot of it may be trade bait for something much cooler, and I’m okay with that. The stuff I couldn’t part with, I kept, in a larger-than-I-really-wanted-it-to-be pile outside the ridiculously heavy box I handed off to him; I’m sure I’ll hear about that pile in due course.

Happy birthday to Flack, by the way – I’ve been talking to him quite a bit lately because I’ve been bitten by the book-writing bug. Actually I’m bitten by the book-writing bug fairly regularly, but I enjoyed “Commodork” so much that I’ve found myself asking “Is there a book I could write that Rob couldn’t just write himself?”, because Rob and I could each write a bunch of books on the same topics. Someone appeared out of the blue recently and suggested something to me that would indeed be a book that practically requires me to be the one to write it. I’m not going to tell you what it is just yet, because for pete’s sake, I need to research and write the thing, and then I need to get it published. But once you know what it’s about, you too will say “Yeah, that’s a book that only Earl would bother to write.” I know it’s a great idea to say “Hey! You know what? I think I’m suddenly going to start a major undertaking right before I have a baby to take care of!”, but this is something that will take some time. Like some time next year. But for all those who think I need to write a book, I’m working on it. Now it’ll just be a question of who in the world will want to read it.… Read more

Categories
...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

Some people’s kids

We went to visit with an old friend of both of ours this weekend, who neither of us had seen since…I think it had to be my 10-year class reunion for Jan, and about five years ago for me. (She doesn’t live around here, thus the long gap.) She now has a five-year-old son (the last time I saw her, the kid was t-i-n-y!), and once he was finally coaxed out of bed with the promise of ice cream and Doritos 😆 , I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. We’re about to have one of those. Holy cow. What’s really funny is that Jan didn’t meet this friend of ours until around college age; I’d known her since second grade and she was one of my best friends all the way through graduation. She stuck with me even when I went through a phase in high school where I was being incredibly stupid, selfish and hurtful to those around me. It just all reminded me of how much I want to make sure Evan has better, happier childhood than I had, and that he grows up to be a better person than I was at that age. My primary impulse anytime I run into someone from my high school days is, quite frankly, to apologize. I know teenagers are a hormonal mess as a rule, but I was a “special case”, with all that that phrase implies. Even what I was going through at home didn’t cover it and didn’t excuse it. I wouldn’t go back to those years for anything.

Speaking of hormonal messes, I was asked this morning if my wife had rounded the corner from Miserable and if she was now headed toward Really Miserable. Without really thinking about it long enough to censor myself, I said “She’s past Miserable and she’s well on her way to Make Everyone Around Her Miserable.” ‘Nuff said.… Read more

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Cooking With Code Gaming Home Base Music ToyBox

Random, irregularly-shaped chunks of thoughts

Burchuss. Now compatible with your Atari VCS.Oh man. I love the Atari 2600 Labelmaker site, but it’s gonna put label fetishists like me out of business. Doesn’t even pay to think about what it’ll do to the next AtariAge label contest to come down the pike. Just between you, me, and the entirely metaphorical lamppost, I had to resist a momentary (and utterly mad) geeky urge to do “Atari cartridges” for, oh, everyfreakinthing on the whole site. I’ll keep that option in my back pocket if the site ever undergoes some kind of radical rethink. 😆 Anyway, it’s an awesome idea, a neat (and rather alarmingly versatile and powerful) site to have some fun with, and I sincerely hope that its maker will consider expanding the repertoire to include such things as the “silver label” style, 5200 cartridges, and so on.

The DVD review section of theLogBook has now been rolled out, WordPress-style, and I think it’s lookin’ mighty sleek ‘n’ foxy. But then I guess I would, wouldn’t I? If anyone thinks they’re detecting a mad dash to get as much of the WordPress-ification of theLogBook done before the baby gets here, they are about 1000% right on the money. There are only three sections left to be WP’ed, and we’re already deep into the work on one of those, so perhaps we can whittle that down to two sections remaining by the end of the year.

I’ve got a big Stack Of Stuff piled up at the house that needs to be sold, mainly Star Trek and Babylon 5 and other sci-fi related stuff – action figures, models, Christmas ornaments, magazines by the truckload, and so on – and I’d really like to avoid eBay. If anyone out there would like some of this stuff, please drop me a line. I’m not inflating prices or charging the gross national debt for shipping – I just need the stuff out of here. I’m still drawing up a list, but I can tell you that there’s a collection of Starlog’s dedicated Star Trek: The Next Generation magazine that, if it isn’t the complete run, it’s damn close. I also have binders full of Cinefantastique’s annual ST:TNG wrap-ups – I remember around 1990-94 when Robert and I would descend upon the bookstores to find those every summer, and we’d study Mark Altman’s well-observed comments and reviews like devout Bible scholars. 😆

Over at NotNews, Dave has an in-depth after-action report from the Philadelphia Crowded House concert with Pete Yorn and Liam Finn (i.e. son of Neil) as the opening acts. Dave has also gotten to see R.E.M. live without having to venture to another state. Have I mentioned Dave lives in a real city? Heck, I bet Danny Boyle’s Sunshine is even playing in a theater up there somewhere. 😛 … Read more

Categories
Gadgetology Home Base ToyBox

Tales of the Tape(s)

It seems as though the universe is conspiring to raise my blood pressure enough to make me sick before I can make it to CGE this weekend. Let’s see…

  • The baby room – still not finished. Probably won’t be by the time I go, though I had set that as a goal for myself to get done before I leave.
  • Right foot – still killing me. Now my heel is causing me an incredible amount of pain, which makes a certain amount of sense because I’ve been keeping the weight off my toes, but what doesn’t make sense is this amount of pain suddenly hitting me overnight – literally. I went to bed and the heel felt fine. I woke up this morning and I could barely walk. I have serious concerns about getting around like this in Vegas.
  • Tapes for CGE. I won two eBay auctions for 10 tapes each on July 8th & 9th from the same seller. Paid promptly by Paypal on the 12th. They hadn’t gotten here by Monday of this week, and I have to leave for CGE on Friday morning, so I started raising hell – first by e-mail, then by messages through eBay, with no response. Finally I filed a Paypal dispute requesting a refend and suddenly the guy starts talking (amazing, innit?). I requested a refund specifically because it’ll take me more than $54 to purchase 20 blank miniDV tapes at retail locally by Friday morning. And so naturally, the guy shipped by USPS, today, and sent a tracking number, at last. Guess what, jack? They’re still not going to get here in time. Avoid “daytrading1” on eBay at all costs. By contrast, a step-up ring I ordered on Monday of this week is already here.
  • The “honey do” list. I know I’ve got a lot of stuff to do, but there’s this sudden bum rush of things to do right before I go, and there’s a not-so-little voice in the back of my head that’s just screaming BACK OFF.

I guess I’m getting just a little bit cranky. I know I have lots of stuff I need to accomplish, and as I used to tell a certain TV station owner back in the days when he used to call me up at the station and go on endless tirades about changing luma and chroma settings on the time base corrector, “Bill, I can either do something about it, or I can talk to you about it. Pick one.” (That right there happens to be the kind of quality people skills that keep you in broadcasting for 17 years; if you get even crankier than that, you can escape sooner! 😆 )

By the way, I got pictures this morning of the litter of kittens that our little grey house guest had a while back, and they’re just adorable. I want them all, snuggled up on my pillow, stat. Lucky for them, my niece has already fallen in love with two of them, and I may have found a home for another one or two of them. They’re adorable. I’ll try to post the pictures here before I go to Vegas.

I’m looking forward to the Expo in a big way – this is kind of like my last hurrah with the gang, with Rob, Brian, Paul, Charles and, geez, just about everyone else going. Mat’s bringing me a Face of Boe (everybody should have one!), and I secretly hope he catches video of the TSA screeners puzzling over that one once he’s in the country. 😆 Many years ago, coming back from Promax ’98 in Toronto, I learned that declaring a squeeze toy to customs is a one-way ticket to getting oneself questioned for at least 30 seconds (and keep in mind, this was pre-9/11), so I’m going to enjoy this far too much. It’s a disembodied head from the distant future, and it’s got a recommended retail price of about 15 quid, more or less. (And the great thing is, technically, I already have cats hanging around to tend to it, no additional action figures required. Or maybe not so much tend to it as bat at the little dangly bits.) I’m going to set him up on a shelf in the game room where he can sit and have a conversation with the Ambassador Kosh figure all day.

Hopefully everybody dug the video feature and gobs of pictures I took for this week’s toy review. I’ll admit, I couldn’t help but mess with everyone’s minds by putting the old ’80s TARDIS console off in the background in some shots. And Homsar. (Actually, for anyone who’s been reading the toy reviews since the beginning of this year, Homsar’s gotten to be something of a recurring in-joke. Admit it, he just looks cool riding shotgun in a twin-pod cloud car.)

I’ll try to do some blogging from the Expo this weekend, though it may be pretty brief; I did a “test run” of everything this past weekend when I set up cameras for the baby shower, and it all worked just fine, so we’re set. Even though it’s going to be a working vacation…I’m still more than ready for it to begin, provided my head hasn’t exploded before I can pack my suitcase and make my escape.… Read more

Categories
Critters Gadgetology Home Base

Step up to the plate

It was a busy weekend this weekend, what with the baby shower and all, so I haven’t had much time for bloggage lately. I’ve also been preparing for the CGE trip, which is…this weekend! I can hardly wait. I’ve got a couple dozen blank tapes on order that should arrive any day now, and I’ve also procured a fisheye lens, which I’ve wanted for about, oh, 20 years, ever since my grandfather let me try out the one he was using. I just wanted to take that thing home then and there. 😆 But…there’s just one catch. I had to put a step-up ring on one of my cameras to try it out…and now the damned step-up ring is stuck. You cannot get that thing to budge at all. Apparently the threads misaligned or something, and now it’s on there. Which means I’ll have to put a step-down ring on it at some point to make it compatible with the other stuff I have (telephoto, wide-angle, etc.). As a result, that camera is also now incompatible with its own lens cover. Go figure. Worse yet, I have to get another step-up ring to use the fisheye on anything else. (The fisheye isn’t stuck, just the adapter ring.)

No problem, right? I’ll just call Bedford Camera & Video, literally the only thing in the local phone book for photography supplies, right? I mean, a step-up ring is just about the most common thing in the world, short of film or tape or batteries, that I could possibly be after……right?

Wrong. Fine upstanding pillars of the community they may be, they don’t have any step-up rings that are “that small”, and they don’t carry any cameras with filter threads that small. But they do carry a full line of Nikon™® accessories compatible with their full range of Nikon™® digital and film cameras, so would I be interested in one of those? “No,” I responded, “because I’m not using a Nikon.” Then it sunk in – they were trying to tack the sale of a multi-hundred dollar camera on to a customer’s call about a two-buck step-up ring. 🙄 I mean, I’m sure the person on the other end of the phone was just doing his job, but the conversation wound up revolving so much around their line of Nikon™® equipment that the whole point of me calling was lost. Pffffft. I ordered the step-up ring I needed from an online distributor with second-day shipping. Because there’s literally nowhere else to go in this area for anything more than the most basic photography/video supplies…and if you go there, you’d better be ready to talk about Nikon™®’s fine products.

Sheer desperation has set in at home as far as where to put boxes of stuff that are coming out of the baby room:
Pac-Boxes
That’s a bunch of boxes, stacked on the slanted back/top of the Kick machine, covered in a Pac-Man bedsheet. 😆 Well, hey, it kinda fits the game room decor…I thought I had found a new home for the machine itself, but that prospect appears to have evaporated as quickly as it appeared.

Here’s Xena through the fisheye lens:
Xena
Xena

I love the fisheye lens. I promise that I won’t shoot absolutely everything with it, but it’s really handy to have the option of getting that wide an angle, even if it makes my dog look a little weird.

Today’s entry has been brought to you by Nikon™® and your friendly local Nikon™® dealer. 😛… Read more