dauber

Shinto -- did I hear you say you've been doing the podcast for five years??? That can't be right...I only really started listening to video game podcasts a little over five years ago, and for a LONG time I'd hear your audio contributions to Ferg and NSG and wonder, "Why in the world does this guy not have a podcast?" I think I might have mentioned this somewhere before, but I don't have a Jag. Never played a game on one. But I do love me this podcast.

FWIW, the show did not pin the crash on E.T. and Pac-Man -- the narration certainly did up-play them as causes, but the narrator said something like "along with a flood of low-quality third-party games" or something. I watched the rest of the series. Personally, I think it was highly enjoyable. I was disappointed that there aren't more episodes than there are. BTW, those of you who haven't seen it yet...it's not something you can watch unless you plan to keep your eyes on the screen at all times: in almost every episode, there are talking heads with Japanese creators who speak in their native tongue, subtitled in English. Unless you speak Japanese, you'll miss out if you're multitasking. 🙂

BTW, it's a week past my original deadline of August 19. To be totally honest with you, I haven't done a durned thing to prepare for the episode other than play the game, so I'm still open to taking feedback -- either textual or audio. (To be totally DIShonest, I'm COMPLETELY finished with the episode!)

In this installment, we take a look at a beloved part of American pop culture...AND a beloved part of British pop culture! You're a Schnook, Charlie Brown! - but aren't we all? Music for Schnooks - my first compact disc https://schnookpodcast.com/2020/08/25/chapter-24/

Well, not for nothin', historically, SPLHCB was a seriously mind-blowing album. (Then again, it was The Beatles' answer to Pet Sounds; which in turn was Brian Wilson's answer to [the US version of] Rubber Soul...) There's a lot of game-changing stuff on there, both musically and technologically.

Yep. Both versions have "Wait," which was recorded during the Help! sessions. I think if anything, they overdubbed percussion for Rubber Soul to get it to sound like the other songs on the album. The U.S. version has "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love," both from the U.K. Help! album.

It changes. For a while it was Abbey Road. Such greatness. My wife and I often describe how important it was as their final recorded album, and how it's basically their thesis: it shows how they grew over the years and demonstrates all the styles they did: raw rock'n'roll ("Come Together," "Oh! Darlin'"), orchestral ("Something," "The End"), psychedelic to a degree (the use of the Moog on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Because"), etc. For a time it was Magical Mystery Tour because...well, all the great songs on it..."The Fool on the Hill," "Blue Jay Way" (took me a long time to appreciate it!), "I Am The Walrus," "All You Need Is Love," "Strawberry Fields Forever"... Currently it's Rubber Soul. When I first heard it -- the U.S. version, specifically -- I felt it was the most unusual sounding Beatles album. Still feel that way, actually. Nothing else sounds like it. It sounds so unlike the Beatles, yet it's also unquestionably The Beatles, know what I mean? So much brilliance. For the past couple of years I've been dealing with an internal struggle over whether I prefer the U.S. version or the U.K. version. On one hand, the U.S. version has an overall better flow, but on the other hand, the U.K. version has "Nowhere Man" and "If I Needed Someone." (And the dropping of "Nowhere Man" on the U.S. version breaks the continuity of the "Ooooooh la la la" backing vocals it shares with "You Won't See Me.") I've actually played with trying to put together my own Rubber Soul lineup that incorporates some of the U.S. lineup, some of the U.K. lineup, and "Day Tripper." But I haven't perfected it. (Yet?)

BTW, wanna hear me talk Fab Four related? 🙂 [PROMO MODE] Every episode of my podcast Autobiography of a Schnook has a segment in which I talk about my musical interests. Several are Beatles-centric, including the one that's coming out some time this month. 🙂

Beatles are my all-time faves, easily. Been a major fan since the summer of 1987!

Should be able to find it on all major podcast catchers - iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. As for the Easy 78, can't say from personal experience, but my understanding is that Ed actually uses that in all his controllers, so...heck, yes, consider that thing!

As someone who's been a 2600 owner since December 25, 1982, I say...YES, GET A 7800. Got mine in 2006 after being envious of a friend's 7800 for 14 years. 🙂 Get the 7800. Your first priority is to make sure you have the following games, in order of priority, absolutely most important first: Food Fight Centipede Ball Blazer Asteroids Robotron 2084 Heck, buying a 7800 is worth it just for Food Fight. (And I was never a fan of the 7800 Ms. Pac-Man. The colors are a bit off, you don't slow down as you eat dots, and you get 40 points for energizers instead of 50.) One cool thing about the games I mentioned -- you don't need the PainLine controllers, because they're only single-button games. When you do build up your collection and get some two-button games (there are surprisingly few), you'll want to invest in one of the many homebrew 7800 controllers out there. There are ones that are basically built like NES controllers, or you can get the Seagull 78 that NSG mentioned before, or if you really don't mind splurging and want some really awesome controller action, anything Edladdin makes is just famazing. I personally own the All Play 4/8 Supreme 78 and the Twin Super 78, and love 'em both. Ed can also customize your controllers so that the buttons are CORRECTLY PLACED TO THE LEFT OF THE JOYSTICK, or if you're one of those new-fangled players who likes the joystick on the left, he can do that too. 🙂 And for guidance, listen to NSG's Atari 7800 Game By Game Podcast. It's long over (he covered all the games), but it's a great unbiased guide to the games, and it's one of the most fun video game podcasts out there. If you want to dig into the homebrews (YOU DO), check out the podcast that came about literally right after NSG's finished, The Atari 7800 Homebrew Podcast. (I hear the host is a jerk, though.)

Ha! Your dad used my logic -- I thought (to this day, IMHO, CORRECTLY!) that the C64 was better than an NES. 🙂 (And I'm now a software engineer!)

Heh....gee, I wonder why. 🙂

I'm looking for feedback for a future episode of the Atari 7800 Homebrew Podcast (you can find it on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or use this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/homebrew78) What are your thoughts on Putt 18 Miniature Golf? Deadline for feedback is 11:59pm CDT on Wednesday, August 19. You can also e-mail text or audio to homebrew78 -at- fab4it -dot- com. Comments are welcome any time, including after the deadlines; any feedback from after the deadlines will simply be addressed during a later episode. Thanks!

What'd REALLY be interesting is if it includes compatibility with PowerPC-based apps!

Wonder how much software will be rendered obsolete from this upgrade. I'm not even upgrading my MBP to Catalina because there are several 32-bit apps that I use religiously that aren't available in 64-bit versions. 😕

A schnook hits the road and shows a rather…annoying side of himself in chapter 23 of this ongoing as-read-by-the-author pseudo-book in podcast form. (But in the actual episode, he refers to himself in the first person.) A Schnook on the Road – It’s road trip season! Music for Schnooks – Adventures of an ***hole https://schnookpodcast.com/audio/Schnook_Chapter023.mp3

I seldom went in the first place. If they want me to go to the movies, they have to give me reason to go. So sick of remakes, superhero movies, and sequels.

In this new episode we talk about the arcade classics 720º and Congo Bongo. Yep, that's how hot it gets in the summer, so break out your percussion instruments and play along with episode 114! Satisfaction guaranteed! (Note: satisfaction not guaranteed.) http://fab4it.com/piefactory/audio/PFP_Episode114C.mp3

Ordered mine yesterday. 🙂

What? Time for another episode ALREADY?! Well, Bob DeCrescenzo has DONE IT AGAIN. This time, with some help from Kurt Woloch. In this episode we explore the latest addition to the 7800 homebrew library, the only home conversion of an arcade classic. https://homebrew78.fab4it.com/media/hbh_episode_0501.mp3

From either 1997 or 1998. I despise Windows and always have. A friend took a picture of me and photoshopped a Windows cloud background behind me and put the logo on my t-shirt.

(BTW, an addendum, in case anybody's concerned about my travels...my wife and I both consulted with our doctors and ran our travel plans by them. Both said they sound safe.)

I'm lucky enough to live where cases took a nosedive, probably because a huge chunk of the population goes along with the face covering mandate, ergo reducing the spread. Wife and I just spent an extended weekend in New Buffalo, MI. We stopped off in Michigan City, Indiana, on the way, and...well....Indiana is a "facemask recommended" state rather than a "facemask mandatory" state. Thankfully, most people in the store were wearing masks, and the store was big enough with wide enough aisles that keeping away from people who weren't wearing masks was doable. Michigan is a "facemask mandatory if your medical conditions allow you to wear one" state...which begs the question: if you have a medical condition that makes wearing a facemask a hindrance to your well-being...then why are you outside during a nasty pandemic? We'll see if I made it through unscathed in a couple of weeks! We've been planning a trip to San Diego. We were supposed to go in April, but of course, that didn't happen, so we rescheduled it for August. Now we have an issue: there's a Chicago mandate now that Chicago residents who fly into O'Hare or Midway from one of 15 states on a list, you are legally required to quarantine yourself for two weeks. California is on the list (even though cases in San Diego County are pretty low). You get fined something like $700 - $1000 per day you're not quarantined. Of course, what exactly they mean by quarantine, they don't say. (Do they mean stay in your house 24/7, not even go out to walk the dog? Stay home unless you have to go out to get food? etc.) And how exactly they're going to enforce that, nobody knows. They did say the list will be modified over time, and we're hoping California will fall off the list, but we're prepared to change our plans. I know it's for the good of everybody, theoretically, but it still sucks. What doesn't make sense is that here, bars are allowed to be open, but beaches are not, despite the fact that 1) Dr. Fauci himself said that one of the most dangerous things you can do right now is go drink at a bar, and 2) I've heard more than one medical expert say that aside from keeping yourself isolated, the safest place to be is in the water at the beach. Mind you, there are strict bar rules: once you get your drink, you are to leave the bar and go to a table, and there's a strict limit on the number of people allowed to be in the building. The common belief is that the reason bars are allowed to be open is so the city can collect the sales tax. But the thing is, almost all of the beaches have busy concession stands that could very well be providing tax dollars, but no. The rule is that everything east of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago is closed (except for the bike / pedestrian trail), which means there are full-service restaurants that aren't allowed to be open in addition to concession stands, independent ice cream vendors who can't sell their stuff, and at least two bike shops that can't be open. On top of all that, that means there are no lifeguards on duty making summer money, most of whom are minorities who could really use it. (Our mayor is black and claims to be on the side of minorities.) And no lifeguards on duty means that if someone ignores the "beach closed" mandate, goes swimming, and gets caught up in a rip current, there's no lifeguard to rescue that person. All the other beaches along Lake Michigan are open, but nope, the mayor won't reopen Chicago's. (Yet I'm still paying taxes that are supposed to allow me to use those beaches.) My wife was practically raised on the beach, and she's REALLY cheesed off about the whole thing. Speaking of my wife, she's kind of stressed because she's a teacher and is worried about the fall. It seems that all those in charge want schools to be open. Now...where I work, the word is we probably won't be going back to our building until some time in 2021. Just to give you an idea of where I work...my company's Chicago site takes up nearly two complete floors of a skyscraper. We have about 60 employees on site on both of those floors. (If you want to see the building I'm in, watch the opening credits of the later seasons of The Bob Newhart Show -- my building can be seen briefly about 45 seconds in! So you have an idea of how large and wide the building is.) Both our office manager and our parent company headquartered in Texas will not allow anybody to be in our office for more than 30 minutes at a time, and only one person at a time. Now...compare that to, say, 32 kids in one classroom. And my wife is diabetic, so that puts her at an increased risk. I told her if she's forced to teach in person in a classroom, I will pay to have a large Plexiglass barrier installed in her room. Other than that, though...I guess I'm okay. Now that I'm working from home, I like that I don't have a commute. Down side though is that means I don't bike the 7-9 miles to work and back every day, but I don't seem to have gained any weight. (My shorts from last year still fit without a problem!) And I really liked the strict stay-at-home order we had before because I'm an indoorsman anyway. 🙂 So far my wife and I are both healthy otherwise. Each of us knows someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19. One of her old college roommates ended up in the hospital with a torturous case of pneumonia as a result, but she's fine now. Former classmate of mine had it, but I believe he was asymptomatic; his wife is a physician's assistant who flew out to New York to help with their overcrowded hospitals. And one of my coworkers had it, too; she thinks she got it from her husband, who's a social worker. Thankfully, she's okay now, although apparently she was pretty miserable. Yeah, on paper, this thing has a high survival rate...but that's just it: survival. How many of those who survived actually came out of it 100% intact, with no long-lasting or permanent damage? We gotta keep each other safe, everybody.

I saw the All in the Family theme posted. What many people don't know: there's a longer version of it, with an additional bridge and more verses. I don't think it was ever included in an episode, but I think studio audiences might have heard it. There were at least two record albums released that contained All in the Family audio clips (this was before VCRs were common and if you wanted to play your favorite shows, this was the only way!) -- one of those albums is at just about every flea market and used record store! The first one has the extended theme: