StormSurge

Thanks kazi! No worries if you can’t make it tonight. We play at a minimum, six nights a week. 🤪

I'm going to start streaming my evening rounds. We usually play around 8:30 PM to 11:00 PM, Eastern time. https://mixer.com/StormSurge You may only hear myself talking, as I think my buddies will have to authorize their voice to be streamed as well and I'm sure they won't want to have to deal with that. 🙄 Tune in if you can & I'll be happy to answer any questions here while I play (action on screen permitting).

Maybe if we had enough interest, we could start an Atari.IO league?? 😃

Awesome! I love pack breaks. Good stuff!

If I showed the rest of my desk/office, you wouldn’t be saying that. 😀

I updated my blog!

I thought it may be interesting to share what happens when my pager goes off for a fire call. Thankfully, I've only had false alarms to respond to, aside from two minor car accidents. (Since October 2017). We average one call per week. Thankfully, most of them are during the day, but there have been the occasional middle of the night calls. (The pager also goes off for any ambulance calls, which I only assist if the EMTs need help lifting the stretcher onto the ambulance boat.) Technically, I only need to respond to every call while officially on call (we're split into teams that are on call for two weeks at a time, eliminating the need for 20 people to show up for a false alarm), but because I live so close to the fire house and that I want the practice of putting my gear on & driving the truck, I make it a point to go to every call. (Again, there's not that many calls, so it's no big deal.) The pager tones don't sound like Station 51's tones but it's still pretty startling when it goes off. Anyway, here's the video. Let me know if you have any questions!

Update on my sweet modded Xbox. I had sent it back not long after I received it in 2017 to have a Star Wars theme installed. (Main menu background image & every song from seven soundtracks loaded that play randomly at the menu screen.) I would post another video however, it's on its way back to the modder. I fired it up to try out the current High Score Challenge and discovered that the colors were all off. (I initially thought there was something wrong with the TV I had it connected to, but I tried it with another TV & the same problems were present.) It could be any number of issues but the modder is going to take care of it for me. All I have to pay is the shipping. He's a good guy.

I’ve always been intrigued by this but have yet to try it out. Thanks for the review!!

Every Sunday morning, we take all the trucks out to road test them, check the air packs, generators & all kinds of other stuff. Every other Sunday, we empty the tanks & refill them to keep the water fresh & make sure the pumps are working. This morning was VERY cold (it was snowing when we headed out) & I didn’t put any of my gear on. I’m just starting to regain the feeling in my fingers. 😀 Just thought I’d share this with you guys. Maybe I’ll do a more detailed post about this process someday. (I was filling in for someone today, I only have to do this when my shift is active, which is six weeks in between my two weeks.)

It’s almost like Gillette has a interest in shortening the life of a razor blade. 🤔🙃😜

A headset is necessary but I may have some Gold trial codes laying around for you.

Awesome kazi! I still have my 360 hooked up too, with a plethora of games in my backlog. If ever want to give PUBG a shot, let me know. I’d be happy to play with you.

This little gadget is pretty cool!

I saw this thread on Reddit & thought it was relevant to my comments. I'm not the only one, although my heart races a lot earlier than the Top 2. 😬

Update the Stella Creep & don't bother inserting carts! I bought it to be able to use my carts with it, but I'm sticking with the ROMs & using it for my HDMI 2600 fix.

Thanks for the review! The controller that came with my Retron 77 is still plugging away, but I may have to look into this. (In case you missed one of my earlier comments, the R77 loaded with the latest Stella build is a wonderful little machine. It just needs better paddle compatibility & apparently that is in the works.)

Oh man, that’s horrible about your maintenance guy. Hopefully he recovers soon.

Thanks Rick! It was just released on the PS4 fairly recently. The post rambled a bit more than I had originally planned, but I think I covered most of what I was trying to convey. One other point is that I have NEVER played a game that has caused such a visceral reaction like this one does. When I'm in a building looking for loot and hear footsteps nearby that aren't mine or a teammate, my heart rate immediately picks up. And when I happen to be one of the remaining 10 people left alive and the circle is shrinking, it's like I'm on a treadmill. I've been playing video games for almost 40 years now and no game has ever done that to me. Maybe I'll stream on a Wednesday during the chat session. 🤔

I want see what everyone here thinks of the latest flavor of the month, battle royale games. I get that they're not for everyone and I've tried many, but only like one. To me, as someone who enjoys shooters, it is the ideal game mode. Allow me to explain. I suppose I've been playing multiplayer shooters since I first controlled a tank in Combat. However, I really came to enjoy that genre when my buddies turned me onto SOCOM on the PS2. We'd play almost seven nights a week, logging on around 9 PM and via the magic of the internet, be in completely different states, yet playing the same game, with & against each other. The matches were always a best of 7 games (or 9, I can't remember), with teams of 3 or 4 squaring off against the other. When you were killed, you had to wait until the round ended to start another one. Since SOCOM, we've played countless shooters on the OG Xbox, Xbox 360 & now Xbox One. However, all of those games (Rainbow 6, Ghost Recon, every CoD game, Battlefield, etc.) had respawns. You'd jump into a game, run around, kill someone, get killed, wait 5 seconds and jump back in the game. The game continued until the timer ran out or the objective had been reached. Rinse, repeat. I certainly had fun playing those games but I would inevitably become bored with them after a few months. Every now & then, we'd stumble across a game mode that didn't have respawns, but the games never clicked for whatever reason. Then Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) came out. I don't game on computers, just consoles. But I had heard about PUBG before it arrived on the Xbox. 100 players start a game in plane, jump out of the plane as it flies over the map and you and you land on the ground with just the clothes on your back. You have to search buildings to find weapons, ammo & armor. The game forces you to move to specific areas on the map and if you're outside the safe zone for too long, you'll take damage and die. The last player standing wins. I was intrigued! Before PUBG hit, Fortnite was a free download. I heard it was the same style (battle royale!) as PUBG, so I gave it a shot. It was okay, but I found it too cartoony & Fortnite also has a building aspect to it. I had enough to deal with trying to stay alive than worrying about deconstructing & constructing. So PUBG launches & my buddies try it. We play it for months. I become obsessed with it. Some of my buddies love it too, others find it too boring/difficult. Here's what I LOVE about it. The strategy. To me, it's like a chess match. I like the slow build-up (it can be fast at times as well), figuring out how to work the map, listening for distant gunshots, remembering the flight path of the initial landing and trying to figure out where enemies are, etc. The game never plays the same way twice. There are four different maps now of varying sizes. The initial flight path is random, the initial safe zones are always different, sometimes other players land in the same area as you, sometimes you're alone. Do you engage those players, run away or try to find a vehicle and drive far away from the flight path? Some rounds you find great weapons. Other rounds are struggle to find good weapons. The game is not easy. You have a 99% chance of failure every game. There's no aim assist like a CoD game. The rare times I've ended up winning a match is almost euphoric. It feels like such an accomplishment to pull off a win. It's very rewarding. Every round teaches a lesson. I've been playing for over a year & I'm still learning different tactics to try to improve. It's flat out fun. Sure, it can be frustrating at times (VERY). But my buddies and I have had countless games that end in laughter because of something we did. For example, my buddy & I were playing Duos (50 teams of 2 players) and we landed next to another team. Neither of us had weapons, so instead of trying to punch each other out, we all sprinted to two different vehicles. The other team beat us to the vehicles, but we jumped in as passengers in each one. That had a hilarious ending. 😂 Anyway, those are some of the reasons why I love PUBG and battle royale games. I mentioned I played Fortnite, the top-choice for the younger generation. I've also tried the recently released Apex Legends (free!) & while that had some unique features I hope make their way to PUBG, it didn't grab me the way PUBG has. I know many of you don't partake in modern gaming, but if anyone is interested in watching me play, I'm happy to stream our sessions one of these nights. (FYI, I play EVERY night. 😀) Fair warning, there may be a lot of NSFW language. In the meantime, I'll be on the hunt for the ever elusive Chicken Dinner. (Photo from Saturday night, here's a replay of the round: Storm's Last Win on PUBG. This was only my 17th win in over 1,500 matches.)

Awesome NSG! Related, here's my buddy opening some 1987 Sportflics I sent him. (He's always opening old packs) https://www.pscp.tv/w/1jMJgOQOyqAJL

☝️ Exactly. I get that things change & whatever pulls in advertising dollars is what these companies have to show. However, it's easier than ever to access the libraries of the "classics" (or at least what we deem the classics to be), so hopefully the rights holders, streaming services & carriers can find creative ways to deliver that content to the viewer. I'd GLADLY pay to have all of that consolidated. (And how lazy do I sound? Sure, I can watch Seinfeld anytime I want via Hulu or the DVDs, yet here I am whining that TBS doesn't show it anymore during the evenings. Like it's soooooo difficult to push a couple of extra buttons on my remote to pull them up.)

That would be great!