MaximumRD

Glad you and Gianna made it, Justin. Thanks for checking in. :O)

Very glad you guys are safe!  And I hope your Ataris managed to keep the fort down for you with much loss or damage.

That was suppose to say without much damage.  Stupid tablet.

Yeah, I figured it must still be crunching, because I don't have my blog award yet.

@- Ω - Part of the "crunch" appears to be awarding Atari I/O Members their Badges for existing achievements - once a new achievement has been reached for that action. So for example, it appears you will receive your "First Blog Entry" Badge (which you would've earned in the Spring, had our achievements system existed back then) upon completion of your next Blog entry.

Another example is users who are no longer active in our forums have not been awarded their Badges yet. It appears that the "crunching" begins for each member upon logging into the forums and engaging in these activities.

Achievements are still being "crunched" and will continue to reward past actions for loyal Members who have been active in our site for years. Most all Badges for new achievements will be awarded in real time. Also, more Badges are still baking in our Imagineering oven and will be ready soon!

I like them!

Happy Birthday!

THANKS GUYS! Thanks for thinking of me on my bday!

Happy Birthday Justin!

Pretty sure it is an Ikea chair Rick! We bought it many years ago when we still lived in Toronto. 

Thanks Justin, very comfy! 

@MaximumRD Maybe we need new topic in the "retro" forum where we can show off all of our retro-themed clothes like what you're wearing here. Star Wars shirts, flannel pants, etc ☺️

That's a good idea.

Funny story:  One time I was getting a haircut, and the 20-something stylist said "I love that shirt.  Where did you get it, a vintage shop?"
Me:  My closet. 

Never make fun of my cabana-wear.  Never.  🙂 

Happy birthday :-)

Thanks guys!

Happy birthday MaxRD!

What shows are you and Melissa enjoying this weekend? 📺

Oh, we watch a variety, many are UK based, detective shows, things like that. I think one is based in Finland called Arctic Circle (aka Ivalo) It is mostly English with subtitles when needed.  - summary "Arctic Circle (aka Ivalo) is set in the unforgiving polar region, amidst the icy landscapes of Finnish Lapland. After Nina Kautsalo, a Finnish police officer, finds a dying prostitute in an old cabin in the wilderness, the ensuing criminal investigation takes a surprise twist when a deadly virus is discovered in the prostitute's blood. However, when Thomas Lorenz, a German virologist, travels to Lapland to investigate the virus, he and Nina suddenly find themselves in the middle of an exceedingly unusual criminal investigation."  - HONESTLY most of the shows and series, even various talk shows and comedy specials etc, I would say the majority of what we watch are based outside of USA / Hollywood etc.

Nordic Noir is quite interesting as well 😎 Every so often a new "network" or american show or series catches our eye, we cannot resist checking it out but usually we are reminded how drawn out and overly dramatic that stuff is especially once you have experienced shows outside of Hollywood / USA. Typically american series, say a TV crime drama for example that run 23 episodes in a season gets like half that in a UK series, just needlessly drawn out. That said, we still watch specific Hollywood films and even more specific TV series and shows, there is so much variety of what to watch now that we tend to be pickier than ever because there is always a backlog of shows. We STREAM a LOT as well, off various, let's just say hosting sites that one would be wise to use Ad Blockers on 😛 Not a problem 🦜🏴‍☠️For some time we have a nice setup, the main desktop GPU hooked up to the main desktop monitor as well our SHARP 43' 4k Roku TV, for streaming full screen, even Melissa has gotten into Youtube big time, it is AMAZING the content you can find from those foreign shows I mentioned to stuff she watches for her gardening tips to highlights of talent shows etc.

Endless content. There is always something playing / streaming on the big TV, often I am half watching whatever she is watching while simultaneously I am multitasking sitting in front of the desktop monitor with a earbud on one ear as I also still browsing forums, Facebook and sites 😆There are very few shows where I will "unplug" and give it my full undecided attention. So much to watch and so little time I have even found myself dropping shows and series I had been watching religiously for years because again, it's just the same thing over and over and over. Instead, enjoy checking out new shows and series I'd have never considered or even known about before stumbling onto streaming and hosting sites. Sometimes it can be tricky finding roper subtitles for a show that looks promising but the majority of the time, mostly because I am a persistent and stubborn SOB I find it. Then on top of all that, I have a folder full of movies ready to pick from whenever we want a break from shows. IT IS AMAZING how much our habits and viewing has changed even in the past 10 years. Back in the day I had a library of VHS, THAN DVD's and skipped the whole BluRay going straight to streaming, DOWNLOADING - AHEM - and now everything is viewed either off a streaming site or off the hard drive and I still have literally binders of movies / tv shows on DVD copies I will likely dispose of at some point, never envisioned that. 

WOW that's a lot of interesting stuff to watch! Sounds very interesting and High I.Q.. Foreign shows and British documentaries are always interesting to me. I'll have to check Ivalo out, thanks for the recommendation 😎

B.B. King is receiving hospice care and about to pass too

Thanks for sharing MaxRD, sad to hear though.

I just read that Yo-Yo. Sad times to see so many legends slip away.

Happy Birthday, Justin! I hope you find time to celebrate!

Happy belated birthday @Justin 🎂🥳

THANKS GUYS!!! 🥳 🎈 @RickR @DegasElite @Sabertooth @socrates63 @MaximumRD

How do you like it?  The big question will be, is it fully compatible with Windows 10 & drivers, etc... I am going to wait and see how well it is received...

Well, on a consumer level you are best to wait until it’s officially released rolled out as an update, it is an early release not meant for consumer use, nobody is advised to install this as their daily driver let alone update to it at this time. It’s for tinkerers like me to fiddle with but that said everything seems fine so far, no hiccups, it is really just the look/design/layout so far, literally Windows 10 with a new skin. Still, seems snappy, using little resources, personally I like it so far. I think it will be a while before anyone sees any real new features or changes to the core. 

Already got it looking and behaving more the way I prefer.

I think I will always keep 1 VCR, I don't know, I have this worry for some reason I will want to record on it specifically to create something with that VCR effect, though I plan to get rid of most tapes, which seems difficult here for some reason, I don't want to pay and I don't want to end up in landfill, not sure allowed to throw in garbage? Nobody seems to want to accept used recording tapes 😜But anyway, as I was saying, yeah keep one VCR and oddly I have a few multi-packs of UNUSED and SEALED Fuji and Maxwell tapes because they were left downstairs (we have an "area" downstairs where fellow residents just leave things they think others might want) so if I DO want to record something on VHS I have nice unused tapes. I am always torn letting things go but also can never resist items that meet two criteria 1. Free 2. New. 

I know those feelings so well!

On the pre-recorded tapes, my local library took them to sell in their little store.  A thrift store took the sealed blank tapes.  And sadly, the tapes with my recordings on them all went in the trash (I did recycle the cardboard sleeves). 

Funny story:  Just yesterday, my son was in a panic because the power cord to his laptop was broken.  No problem, I pulled out a shoebox full of power bricks and cords and found an exact match.  So it's good to keep some things sometimes, as long as there is room to store them.

Yes! I LOVE that feeling, the SONY VAIO laptop I found, it is ancient and slow but beautiful, the only thing was, no PSU sitting in the electronics bin with it, no problem, I had one that I snagged ages ago, the exact spec model, I was pretty damn happy about that! 

I no longer own a Amiga CD32, but would love to own ANYTHING AMIGA,however that is unlikely at this point as well. 😢Oddly, I DO own 3DO and CD-i consoles...because the world is cruel. 🤔😜

So why CD32, 3DO and CD-i but no room for Jaguar?

Not about room, well not just about room, it just turned out that way while I was still actively collecting, at this point I could say the same about many consoles / handhelds / computers. 😉When I still HAD a CD32 it was because of my love for Commodore /Amiga, CD-i & 3DO because I happened upon great deals and I was curious since I never had much exposure to them. I never came upon a Jaguar let alone a good deal on one while I was actively collecting so at this point with no funds left for my hobby while out of space long ago (lately I am contributing more to our electronics recycling bin 😜) it just seems so unlikely, on top of the fact Jag stuff seems to go for a premium now, the few games I might be interested in just don't warrant it. To be clear, I am not "hating" on the Jag, I just literally come to terms with he fact I will likely never own one and I have accepted that, which is all I was trying to convey with my original comment 🍺

That's incredible. Why would somebody just throw that out? You know that might be good just for doing MAME and other stuff.

Considering the timing I suspect someone got a nice new powerful laptop for Xmas 😛 Ah well, fine by me, they literally sat it gently on top with the power supply right beside it. Guess they figured nobody could log in anyway but hey in the wrong hands....fortunately for them instead of bothering to access the hard drive by various methods to bypass the login password or hook up to an externally to look at the files, I just looked up how to access HP RECOVERY and after setting it to original stock install of WIn 8 since it is a valid license I was able to update free to Win 10. Not the fastest CPU but it is still better than the previous old HP laptop I found a few years back (I use that with Linux MINT). There are a lot of older retirees here as well so who knows? Maybe someone bought gramps a new laptop and he just placed the old one in the bin. I figure better I got it than someone else or having it actually end up at the recycle depot 😛 

Let's see.  AMD architecture, Radeon GPU, and 4 GB of RAM?  That sounds like a basic gaming laptop setup.  Would be perfect for some Steam games and definitely MAME.  Amazing what you find in that recycle bin.  Just goes to show you that good things come to those that wait.

I might be interested in purchasing or trading for one of those Dreamcasts if you ever consider letting one go. I bought one the day they came out but let it go many years ago. It's one of the few systems I don't currently have. I was living those VMU Dreams in the late '90s.

I love Dreamcast. Sadly mine is starting to get finicky about reading discs. It won't play half my games anymore.

The only Sega hardware I felt was a waste was the Sega CD and 32X add-ons.  Sonic CD was the only Sega CD game I could find in my area worth anything and Star Wars was fun on the 32X.  I never found any of the other games for these that were worth the purchase price.  Well I did find Sol-Fease on the Sega CD which was a fun shooter and had the six pack on CD as well but nothing spectacular.

Saturn I enjoyed with Daytona, Virtua Cop, Sonic Blast, WipeOut, Tomb Raider, D, Darius, and The Horde.  My only wish is that it could have got the same third party games that PlayStation got.  It might have too if Sega didn't shoot themselves in the foot releasing the system too early.

Dreamcast I absolutely love!  It was a game changer, underappreciated, undervalued, hardware.  It set standards and started the whole online gaming aspect.  I got a PS2 only after Sega left the hardware part of gaming.  And that was only to get Gran Turismo 3 A Spec.  I supported Dreamcast spiritually.  I wanted it to succeed.  It must have if Sega couldn't keep up with the demands and pre orders.

Thanks guys! 🍻

Happy birthday! 🎂

I will also be 51 in 2019, so cheers to us old farts. 

Happy anniversary, MaximumRD. I wish you the best.

Happy Anniversary!  The years fly by so enjoy every minute of it.

Congratulations Rob & Melissa ☺️

Eek…

Well, I think you will be OK. That does look painful. Take care. :O)

I hope it clears up soon! On the bright side, you have instant special effects for your next video!

Thats nasty 🤢

You have friends here, man! I hope you feel better soon, and game on!

It's important to feel good about yourself MaximumRD!!

Thanks all much appreciated!

Congrats!

Welcome, Rob

Congrats Rob, I'm sure it will be like being He-man, I've got the POWER!!!

Blood work is routine for me, too. I have a rare genetic condition from birth, called congenital factor S deficiency, which causes my my blood to clot too easily. So, I have to take blood thinners to survive.

Funny, I didn't find out about it until over four years ago. when I had a pulmonary embolism. Fortunately, I caught it in time with no damage anywhere in my body. So, I know medically how it is.

Wow Degas glad you caught it on time and are aware now! Yep all we can do is adjust our life style and try our best. 

Yeah. Only 400,000 people worldwide have the disorder. One in 20,000 people. I am lucky to be still alive. But, I am otherwise in very good health.

Happy Birthday, Sir! 🍻

Happy Birthday, MaximumRD!

Happy Birthday Rob! 🤴🏻

Cheers.  Stay thankful, my friend.  

That's a nice looking meal.  

Hope you had a great day, RD. That's a good looking Turducken. How was it?

Well it was delicious, went back for two more slices and poured some wine to wash it down! A great day indeed! 

Volkswagen got in trouble this morning for "attempting" to change their brand name to "Voltswagen" just to try to celebrate April's Fool Day.  Yea...they caught hell from it, from major networks, too.

I Rick rolled a lot of people today...

Aha~ I was wondering what VW was thinking with the new name 😆

The one that got me a little excited was seeing a post about a new mini console of the original Xbox. I have the actual console and a sizable library, so a mini version has little practical application for me but these mini consoles are all so cute.

I hope both of you are getting the rest you need. 

Got a solid 5 hours, then up again, we had a fire drill for our condo, it's yearly, timing is a bitch 😜Sure I will crash again at some point.

Yep, it's been a couple of nights and I'm falling asleep much easier now.

Wasn't it crowdfunded or something?

My daughter just started her first job at a theater so Im gonna see it for free tomorrow! Hearing good things.

@DeLorean I do not beleive so, it was brought to attention of the public with terrific viral marketing convincing the studio that fans wanted it and wanted a "proper" Deadpool movie and it worked out for all involved big time.

Thanks.

You always make great videos Rob! When you're feeling it, you'll know it and you'll know exactly what you want to do

I hope this website brings you lots of motivation :-)