socrates63

It finally feels like summer in Seattle -- sunny and mid 70s yesterday and 80 today. What better way to kick off summer the American 🇺🇸 way than firing up the grill? I hosted a burger party for about a doze teens and their leaders from my church on Friday. It's always fun to see young people have a good time, but it can tire you out 🙂

A funny side note, my grilling set off the smoke alarm in the house behind us 😂 They had the door to their backyard open, and closed it once they figured out what was going on. Houses are built so close to one another.

Last Saturday, I went to PAX West with my son. I wasn't planning to go this year, but when I found out that there was a panel featuring Ken and Roberta Williams, I had to go. The panel was titled Adventure Games: Heroes and Legends. The Williams were joined by Jane Jensen, Al Lowe, Ron Gilbert, and Dave Gilbert. I took this photo before the panel started. They all masked up once they started speaking. The lady on the far left is the local gamer who organized the panel.

To be honest, I've never played a King's Quest game. However, I remember seeing it on my friend's PC Jr. back in the day. I have played the first Gabriel Knight and first Leisure Suit Larry games. Besides those, I have not (yet) played any of the other games made by these legends of adventure gaming.

It was a fanboy thrill to see these folks. I got in line about 90 minutes before the panel started in order to ensure myself a good seat. It was a good thing I did that because the place was packed.

These gaming industry legends and their works are an inseparable part of my childhood, and I cherish them for that alone. I wish I could have gotten a photo with them, but oh well. This will have to do (for now).

Life is good! I’m still in the hospital for rehab, but I’m receiving care and support from friends, church, and family. I have a great job and awesome co-workers and managers. Today is an off day, so no therapy sessions (my quads were beat up bad yesterday from the intensive sessions).

I’m just feeling happy and giddy chilling, watching videos, surfing the forums… what more could I ask for? 🙂 

My wife has been visiting daily, and yesterday, she chided(?) me. Here’s a photo of me taken two days before I had my ER visit that led to surgery. I was still under lots of pain. I had to ask my son to drive me around town that day. We went to church to attend the youth group fundraiser for lunch and then headed to a retro computing society meeting in hopes of meeting Joe Decuir and then followed that up with a visit to this nice man to get the 5200 controllers for free.

How can you smile so big under all that pain is basically what she asked me 😂 She answered her own question saying to the effect that when you love something that much, it can’t be suppressed. Yeah, I’ve been fascinated with video games ever since I first laid my eyes on it as a kid back in the early 80s.

I hope everyone is doing as well as I am minus the hospital stuff.

Living large, living fancy 😄 Finally, after sitting in several boxes in the foyer since last October, I spent the Fourth assembling this motorized standing desk by Uplink. The Steelcase office chair is still in the box (I'll probably get to that this weekend).

The equipment was provided gratis by HBO Benefits since my chiropractor wrote a note explaining my back condition. HR lady gave me carte blanche and told me to order whatever I wanted and insisted that I order a nice standing pad as well. I see it as my "parting gift" from the company.

After getting the pink slip last November though, I had lost all interest in assembling it, but now that I have a new job, I had a reason to get it up and working pronto 😄 It's very nice. I can now open the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch that I got to use as my desk clock.

Life is slowly but surely returning to a sense of normalcy.

Merry Christmas, all!

I'm kinda ending 2021 the same way I started it -- covid infection. Back in January, my entire family got it, and this was before vaccination. This time, my second son got it again (test confirmed two days ago). The rest of us will get tested next week. I had a mild sore throat and headache yesterday and felt like I was coming down with a cold but it was gone when I woke up today.

First half of 2021 was a very challenging time and gave me a different perspective on life, family, and friends. Looking forward to 2022 and making memories with all of you in the I/O.

Merry Christmas, everyone🎄 I hope you enjoy Christmas Day with your family and friends. 

More games leaving my collection -- tonight, these are going to the same two ladies who bought a bunch of my PS1 and PS2 games. I had no intentions of selling Xbox 360 games, but I know these ladies will give them a good home, so I decided to let them go. I love Xbox 360 and PS3 games. From a graphics perspective, I think it's perfect and the games have aged very well for the most part. I still play Halo Reach.

I did pull one game that was on their list -- Blue Dragon. I had to keep it as a keepsake. I bought it from the company store when I worked at Microsoft. The do not sell sticker on the game box has my employee number on it.

I really need to stop dragging my feet and just take my stuff to Pink Gorilla.

My 10 seconds of fame and in the limelight! 😎😆🤣

At the end of Metal Jesus Rocks' video that came out today, I got a shout out because I lent him two games that he needed to make the video.

Last Saturday, he posted his request in the local gamer Facebook group. I met him an hour later and gave him the games. We chatted a bit, and I asked him to sign his album that I brought with me. He was shocked and honored (his word) that I had it. I guess it didn't sell well? I forgot to get a photo with him, so will do that when we meet up again to get my games back.

I'm a big fan of MJR because it was his videos that got me started in retro gaming. One day, the YouTube gods put his video in my feed. I didn't even know that there was this thing called retro gaming back in 2015 (or was that 2016?). Always came off as a nice dude in the videos and in person.

OG Doom, how I have missed thee ❤️ 

I recently picked up Doom from the eShop because it was on sale, and I’ve been playing it the past couple of days. I have the various Doom releases on multi-gen Xbox and Playstation consoles, but it was this release for the Switch that got me to play the original Doom once more. I hadn’t touched it since I played it during my college days thirty years ago (with the lights on, of course).

Still fun as I remembered it. Still gets me once in a while with a jump scare 😂 It feels a little weird playing with the Hori split pad pro on the Switch. I think it’s the thumb sticks being so far apart. Maybe I should open the Pro controller still in the box. I heard recently that the Switch now supports keyboard and mouse? I probably won’t go that far to replicate the original controller experience, but it was just a passing thought.

Graphics look good with none of the slow downs like when I played on my Northgate 386/33 and later the Cassiopeia Pocket PC. Sound effects sound right, but the music? Maybe it’s just my memory or I’m confusing the music from later Doom games.

No matter — hail to the King, baby! Oops, wrong game, but this is The One that got us super stoked about graphic card upgrades and defined a whole new genre of games called FPS.

Passing on some good prices on cartridges of 2600, 7800, and Genesis prototypes, reproductions and hacks at AtariAge by Shawn. I've bought Genesis reproductions from him before, and the cartridge labels and such were of great quality. I'd snatch up all the 2600 and 7800 cartridges if I didn't have them already. Great prices--much cheaper than GoodDealGames which is where I bought mine.

Personal update — I’ve been dealing with back pain for more than a year. Late Monday, I went to the ER and Tuesday morning, I underwent a surgery for a herniated disc. It was diagnosed as a medical emergency. Surgery went well, but I will be in the hospital for another week. I’ve lost some function of my left leg and will be rehabbing in the hospital, and after I’m discharged, I will be returning for more intensive rehab. I am expected to make a full recovery.

In the meantime, should I be worried about my 7800 Asteroids score in the high score challenge? 😂 Game on 🕹️

Pluto TV

Ever hear of it? I didn't until I applied for a job. It's an ad-supported free streaming service. I've been watching a lot of shows that I grew up with as a kid (Family Ties, Facts of Life, and more). This week, I started my new job as TPM for international. I'm working with folks to bring Pluto TV to markets outside the US. I'm working for the first time in seven months, so my head is spinning a bit.

Recovering from heart surgery took a few months. I don't think I'm 100% but pretty close and certainly well enough now to work.

Retro TV shows! Three months ago in early October 2020, I ordered these DVD sets from ebay. For a month, the tracking number indicated that USPS hadn't received the package from the seller. I believed the seller when she said that she did ship, but what can you do? After I waited a month, and without fuss, she gave me a refund. Today, out of the blue, they showed up in my mail box. I already bought them from another seller on ebay couple of months ago. These are in better condition than my other new and sealed sets. Anyone want to trade DVD box sets of old TV shows? 🙂 

After re-acquiring a tube TV and appreciating how it does wonders with older games and media, I've re-embraced DVD content. Many old TV shows are only available on DVD, and I've purchased a several (Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie, Bionic Woman, 6M Dollar Man, My Living Doll, some Korean shows) during the past six months after holding out for Blu-ray releases. 

The MLB All-Star game returned to Seattle for only the second time (first time in 2001). I took the family to the fan fest, and while on our way to the stadium, we passed through Pioneer Square area which is adjacent to the stadium. In the middle of the square, there was an arcade set up, and it was free to play. We stopped and spent a bit of time playing the various games.

Check out my score on Missile Command. Is that a decent score? The shooting reticle (x) was slow to move so it got difficult in later stages. That Asteroids was hard! I couldn't even crack 10k. The joystick on Burger Time was horrible. My wife and kids had fun with Galaga.

The retro setup in my office is coming along--not quite as far as I had hoped to be but still made a lot of progress the past few days. I'm very happy that my Atari consoles are all hooked up for easy access. Only the Jaguar (inside a drawer), Dreamcast, and Core Grafx are not connected. I think I might be able to stack the Jag on top of the PS2.

I even set up the 1702 I picked up a few months ago from the same TV tech that I got my Sony TV from last month. The 800XL setup is in the same corner location where my consoles used to live. Now I need to set up the FujiNet and SD Max that I bought a while ago. I am so close to being able to start typing in code from Compute! and other magazines like I did as a kid.

Three more days left to go! I’m scheduled to be discharged this Wednesday. My rehab will continue into the coming weeks, and I will be traveling from home. Come tomorrow, I will have been in the hospital for two weeks. While I love the constant care and ease of rehab logistics, I’m looking forward to returning home and enjoying the comforts of home.

And I bought a bunch of stuff while being hospitalized, and it’ll be like early Christmas when I get home 😂 My wife didn’t sound too thrilled with the number of boxes stacked in my office at home.

Time just flies by. I can't believe it's already been a week since my birthday. This year, I celebrated it with gifts, family dinner, and lunch with former coworkers. It was a fun one, so I wanted to share.

Family dinner at the restaurant of my choosing. Son 2's girlfriend joined us.

My wife forgot to bring the cake to the dinner, so we had it when we returned home 😂 My family isn't much into cakes, so that's why it's small.

My former co-workers from my Amazon days. Mathias' (guy on the far left) birthday is in a couple of weeks. We had this thing going for a few years where I bought him lunch on his birthday and he bought me lunch on my birthday. This year, we broke tradition. Although he wanted to pay, I beat him to the machine with my card. It's been a few years since we got together, so I wanted to buy. He's going to buy me lunch later this month. These guys were my engineers when I managed the Fire tablet localization.

Gift from my son and his girlfriend. My son was very surprised when I told him that I didn't have the NES. Well, I fixed that a few days later. I bought a NES top loader. It's been sent to get the RGB mod, so I'll show it off when I get it back in a few weeks.

Home-made candles were gifted to me from a church friend. I don't think my photo does it justice--it's very beautiful and very fragrant.

While driving down to Portland to meet Rick last month, I made a slight detour to Vancouver, WA to drop off my Vectrex with another game in my local gaming group. He's going to spruce it up proper (no buzz mod) and give it the TLC it deserves. It's pretty clean looking for its age--not as much dust as I'd expected nor signs of leakage or corrosion. It's actually rather pretty 🌷🌷 looking for 40 year old electronics 😛 😄 I can only wish my innards look as good. 

You know how you don't appreciate something you have until it's gone? I didn't play much when I had it, but now that it's been out of the house for a couple of weeks, I miss my Vectrex ❤😄 Remember to give some love to those consoles that you haven't touched in a while.