100 commodore 64 games in 10 minutes, that’s the promise of the youtube video below. So many memories brought back by this, it surprised me how well I can remember the games in these clips. I’d say I recognized more than half of the games they run through in this thing. I do think they missed several classics from that era, at least for my friends and I – Rocketball isn’t there, nor is Spelunker, aka the greatest and toughest C64 game (which I solved!) of all time, and only one of the Ultima games is shown. Still, this is fun to watch if you played games in that era.
I’m back
Home. Also, never made it on my ambitious hike. Met a beautiful woman for a hike in Lenox MA, had a great time, spent more time than I expected, and then my Mom preferred to do dinner Saturday instead of breakfast or lunch on Sunday, so I never made it up to the Siamese ponds. A trip for another day I guess. The blind date was great, which probably means I’ll never hear from her again based on how the other connections I’ve made have played out. We did go on a nice hike though in Lenox, MA in Kennedy Park.
Hard to track down, but worth watching: Zwartboek
Wow, what great fun this movie is. Paul Verhoeven’s Zwartboek (Black Book) is a great little spy thriller of a type you so rarely see these days. The plot follows the mostly unfortunate but always thrilling escapades of a young jewish singer in the Netherlands during the latter days of WWII. The pacing is fantastic, the plot has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing right up to the end, the heroine is beautiful, knows it, and shows it, and the acting and directing are both above average. Definitely check this out if you like spy thrillers. It’s subtitled though there is occasional english dialog, but look past that because if you don’t you’re missing out on a real treat.
Headed to a remote region for the weekend
A breadcrumb trail just in case – I’m headed here, to a trailhead just south of Persnns road on route 8, to hike back in along the Sacandaga and eventually to the Siamese Ponds.
Just in case no one hears from me by monday, that’s where I was headed, after a blind date in Lenox MA mid-morning on Saturday.
New google maps feature rocks
In case you didn’t notice, google added a new feature to google maps this week, and it’s excellent. If you use the driving directions feature, you can now drag the route line around to rearrange your route, and can add new waypoints to the map to help with the printed output and to highlight important road/highway changes. It’s superb. Here’s a sample to illustrate: my handcrafted route for part of this weekend’s plans. I have a match.com blind date on saturday in Lenox, MA, and this route is how I’m getting from there to the rest of my weekend’s plans. I’ll post about those after they’ve actually happened, since I’m going to play part of it by ear based on the weather.
fraxy is awesome
I agree with tigsource.com: fraxy is indeed awesome. You can get your own copy over on the developer’s page for the game. This is fast paced arcade action at its finest, basically a series of boss battles strung together with not much purpose beyond getting your blastem on. A couple of things to be aware of: first, don’t neglect the use of speed boost, it’s critical to success against many of the bosses. Second, be sure to grab both the .exe and the english text translation file, and read the readme on how to install the language file. The download links are right at the top of the screen on an otherwise completely asian language website. Also check out places like this, and this (you’ll have to dig around a bit) for more enemies to install.
This is free, windows only, and a pure adrenaline blast of arcade fun.
So much for making it through the summer with no AC
So I decided this spring I would try and make it through the year with no AC, the idea being I would try and be a responsible citizen and not use energy I don’t really need to be using. I lived my entire life without AC until I moved to Saratoga Springs some years ago and the place I lived in came with it, and somehow I made it through super muggy summers in OH and NY when I was younger without too much trouble.
I’d made it through several hot spells already this spring without too much trouble, simply by sealing down the house in the mornings and then opening the windows after sundown and using fans to draw in the cooler air. All was well until now. We hit 98 and humid Tuesday and A) I discovered my computer couldn’t handle the heat – even regular web browsing was causing heat warnings, and forget about games – they would kick off the heat protection and dump me out of the games. I also got no sleep Tuesday night, Soolin and I both tossing and turning my my muggy bedroom, leaving me grouchy and dull witted at work on Wednesday.
So…so much for that experiment. A little work on the PC and an AC unit in the window above it with a cardboard duct to bring the cool air to the PC and I can use it again, and an AC set to low in my bedroom and I can sleep again.
I don’t know how to explain how I handled this so much better when I was younger but certainly I can’t handle it now. I could sleep in the basement but my basement is dirt floored and disgusting so that’s out. I could sleep outside under a mosquito net but I live on a busy and noisy road so that’s out too. Instead I’ll live on a lightly used AC system and remain a bit of a hypocrite.
An accountant makes my day
…and it wasn’t about money. So I made a mistake and forgot to turn in a timecard for a student who works for me. It was due a little over a month ago and she sent me a reminder about it via email. I head over to the treasurer’s office to turn the card in and they have to consult on the issue because the student has graduated and there is a problem with the way payroll works. A different accountant comes out to discuss the issue with me and says ‘so, you’ve graduated and this is causing a problem…’
She thought I was the student!
Never mind made my day, it made my whole week. Me, recently turned 40, passing for a 21 year old. I must be doing something right.
😉
An almost perfect weekend
First let me get the bad out of the way. I lost my digital camera, a waterproof Pentax Optio W20, that I liked and more importantly that had pictures of my last two hikes plus a bunch of other stuff on it. That’s the less than perfect angle to my otherwise excellent weekend. My best guess is I must have left it on the roof of my car as I pulled away from a trail head.
We had great weather. Saturday I took back roads and the cobbled together state highway system in MA up to Watatic Mountain, ~1800 feet, where Soolin and I made a roughly 3 mile hike. The views from the summit were great, encompassing a clear view of about 220 degrees of the surrounding area and with exposed granite rock to clamber around on. The trail itself was a decent cardio buster for a stretch and most of it worked its way through beautiful old pine forest. It was a bit shorter than I had expected and there were a lot of folks around, which surprised me since it’s in a relatively remote area. I guess it’s easier to get to from Worcester than I imagined when I was scoping it out on the map.
Anyway I decided to take a leisurely back roads cruise home, starting with 119 which wends its way through several small New Hampshire towns. I cut south on 10 and from there back onto 91. All in all this took most of the day – I left home around 10 and got home around 5. Had a nice dinner, watched the mediocre The Killers (I’d read that it was one of the movies that inspired pulp fiction and that Hemingway had written it. As to the former, I guess I can see the connection, as to the latter….the script didn’t really impress) and an even more mediocre boxing match which I fell asleep to.
Sunday I mowed, ran errands, and took Soolin for a swim. Nothing exciting really but a pleasant end cap to a great weekend.
Allow me to spend $2.50 of your hard earned cash
If you’re on a pc and grew up on a healthy diet of quarter-fueled arcade games in the 80’s, fire up your steam account, or go to steampowered.com, make an account, and download the steam client if you don’t already have it. Once you’re logged in, buy Geometry Wars for a measly $2.50. There has never, in the history of videogames, been a deal this good. I’ve talked endlessly about Geometry Wars and the various clones of it that have come out over the last couple of years, and the original is better than any of them. It’s an 8-way shooter, a genre of action arcade game inspired by Robotron, one of the seminal arcade games from the height of arcade era.
The $2.50 price only lasts until June 22nd, after which you’ll have to lay down a whopping $3.99 to acquire your copy, so hop on this now.
Dave's Place/Metamusing 