Yesterday, Mason officially turned seven-years-old. I had pseudo-planned to take Mason out for breakfast Friday morning, but that got cancelled as I woke up sick. It hit me Thursday night, right around dinner time. My stomach was feeling funny which I misinterpreted as being hungry. After eating, it didn't go away. In fact, it got worse. I went to bed early Thursday night but woke up around midnight and tossed and turned in bed (in between trips to the bathroom) and didn't fall back asleep until
My apologies for the barrage of Christmas videos; last year Morgan was a wide-eyed doe at Christmas time. This year, she's totally into it. Today at the auditorium at work, she (along with her class) sang "I'm Getting' Nuttin' for Christmas" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." We're not sure why all the kids were hopping, but apparently Morgan started it.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?d...mp;hl=undefined
Immediately after the performance, Morgan's class (once again) got to me
While there certainly were first-person maze games that preceded it, Wolfenstein 3D will always be remembered as the game that introduced the "first person shooter" genre to the masses. Even though the game has been copied hundreds if not thousands of times, Wolfenstein laid the ground rules for the genre. Likewise, while musical rhythm games have existed in one fashion or another for some time (Guitar Freaks predates it), it was Guitar Hero that took plastic bongos and maracas out of players' h
Even though Mason's birthday isn't until next Friday, we decided to have his birthday party this past weekend. Historically we've found two things about Mason's birthday parties: the closer to Christmas it gets, the fewer people show up (due to holiday obligations) and the worse the weather gets. Unless Mason's birthday falls directly on a weekend, we've been trying to get a jump on the date and have his party the prior weekend.
Mason had half a dozen places in mind for his party, but the on
Yesterday was Mason's School Christmas play. Mason played a tree, and it was his first year to have a speaking part. ("Come come, my friends, we should be in a row. You really have to BRANCH out if you expect to grow!") To hear him say that line I had to sit through about half an hour of stuff before that and twenty minutes after it -- not once, but twice (morning program and evening program). I'm in the process of dumping the video off the camcorder right now, so it'll end up on Youtube or Goog
I knew McDonald's wouldn't fail me. Just 24 hours later ...
For those who don't know (like whoever put this sign up), it's a McRib -- not a MacRib. They got it right on the other side of the sign, so customers are welcome to choose the spelling of their choosing.
December Third will always be a special day for me.
Ten years ago today, I was hit by a truck while walking down the side of the interstate. If you have not heard the story, here it is, complete with pictures.
One year ago today, I had lapband surgery.
Regarding the accident, in some ways it seems like forever ago and in other ways it seems like yesterday. What makes it seem so recent for me are the memories. I can still vividly recall the smell of gasoline on my clothes, the face of
This'll teach me never to leave the house without my camera again! Yesterday morning while going through the McDonald's drive thru, Susan and I noticed a new sign hanging next to the drive-thru speaker announcing the arrival of a new burger: the McDoble. They managed to misspell the word double four times in only seven lines -- a new record! Unfortunately all I had with me was my cell phone, and despite what you may see on television cop shows, blowing up a tiny picture into a larger one simply
They say in comedy that timing is everything. Sometimes when telling a joke, just a split second added at the right moment can turn something slightly humorous into something completely hilarious.
However that's not the kind of timing I'm talking about. Today I'm talking about things that used to be funny, but due to a passage of time, are no longer.
The most obvious example of this is racist cartoons. You would be surprised at how many cartoons have been "swept under the rug" so-to-spe
(This is a long entry that talks about videogames. You have been warned.)
I started collecting Sega Genesis games back in 2003, shortly after stumbling across the Digital Press website and attending the first Oklahoma Videogame Expo. Those two events drug me into the world of what people refer to as "retrogaming." By definition a retrogamer is a person who plays, enjoys and typically collects "old" games. There are two basic groups of retrogamers -- those who discover old games and systems,
Watching Susan dig through old recipes and spending hours upon hours shopping for ingredients (ordering many of the sugar free ones online) and whipping up desserts in the kitchen, I got inspired. I wanted to make something for Thanksgiving, too. The only problem was, what?
Susan found this online and forwarded it to me.
It's a turkey, and no, this picture has not been reduced in size. This is the actual picture that I had to work with, along with a paragraph or so of instructions t
Off the top of my head I know of three recipes that are named after people my family knows. The first, Philpot Chili, is a delicious chili concoction created by my Uncle Buddy's best friend, Bill Philpot. (We've had Philpot Chili a few times, but never made by Philpot himself). The second is a Klineburger, made famous by my Uncle Joe's friend, Steve Kline. (Updated -- Kline is my uncle's friend, not my dad's.) To make a Klineburger you take two uncooked hamburger patties, put cheese, onions, pep
Jeff came over this past Saturday and the two of us spent several hours looking at my arcade games -- specifically, monitors in need of repair. Regardless of how much (or how little) we accomplished, you would not believe how much I enjoyed our time together.
Jeff has long been the Wozniak to my Jobs -- that is, I dream up wacky projects and he somehow makes them happen. These projects go back many years. In fact, twenty years ago Jeff, Andy and I were already working on similar projects. Ba
My wife Susan and I bought our first "real" house together back in 1998, after moving back home to Oklahoma from Spokane, Washington.
(We don't really count our first house, the $30,000 El Reno Money Pit built in the 1880's, as a "real" house per se. It predated Oklahoma's statehood by 25 years, used hay and newspaper for wall insulation, and still had gas lines hanging on the walls that had once been connected to lanterns for indoor lighting. It was a house, but barely.)
Like many youn
Actually the Thunder are now 1-10, but in games I've seen live in person, we're 0-4.
I've run out of witty headlines and humorous ways to say we stink. To be honest the Thunder hung in there much longer than most people expected against the 9th ranked 6-4 Houston Rockets. With names like Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest, defeating the Rockets proved to be too difficult -- even though Ming, McGrady and Artest all left the game at different times due to injuries.
The Thunder kept it
Susan called me yesterday and posed an interesting challenge. Susan had found a local online phonebook that listed contact information for local businesses, but the website limited you to viewing one category at a time. You could click the word "Automobile Repair" and it would show all the entries in that category, and you could click the word "Dentist" and it would show all the dentistry-related entries, but the website was lacking a button that would display the entire list all at once.
He
Mason and I attended another Thunder game last night, where we (the Oklahoma City Thunder) received the butt-kicking most of us were expecting. Last night we played the Orlando Magic. Orlando brought superstar Dwight Howard, who scored the first triple double of his career, while the Thunder's best player, Kevin Durant, sat out due to a "sore left ankle" (aww).
The Thunder looked like a high school team trying to keep up with the Orlando Magic. The announcers begged the crowd to shout "DE-FE
You know that crazy old lady that lives down the street that takes in stray cats? I'm that guy except instead of cats its arcade games. And I'm not that old (the crazy part is still up for debate).
The weekend before last, Mason and I repaired dad's trailer. From sitting outside, the wooden planks had rotted. I briefly considered converting the 8'x16' trailer's wooden planks to metal, but the $1,200+ estimate quickly changed my mind. What I would like to do some day is convert the trailer's
Last night Mason and I attended the OKC Thunder/Atlanta Hawks game. The Hawks went into the game undefeated (four wins, no losses); the Thunder, 1-4. I know I (and probably most others watching the game) was expecting a good old-fashioned ass kicking, and while we did lose, the beating wasn't as bad as I was expecting.
The Hawks jumped out to an early lead, leaving the Thunder in the dust at 0-7. The Thunder scored a couple of baskets but the Hawks stayed out in front, leading 5-16 early on
I've owned my Q*Bert cabinet for three or four years now. When I bought it the cabinet looked great and the game itself fired up, but it had a few minor problems that I never got around to fixing. One, the bottom 1/3 of the monitor was blurry. Two, the coin slots didn't seem to work, so dropping a quarter into the machine didn't start the game. And three, the front of the cabinet was locked, so I couldn't open the coin door
I've read about drilling locks before, I've watched people do it be
We've had guests in from out of town this week at work. When this happens my blogging tends to drop to a crawl, and this week was no exception. Apologies for the lull …
Jason Scott, director of The BBS Documentary and proprietor of textfiles.com has become an authorized reseller of my book Commodork. Jason is offering autographed copies of Commodork (by me, not him) in a couple of different bundles: one packaged with the BBS Documentary (over six hours of interviews packed onto three double-
I'm not into politics much (a quick search of this site turns up one instance each of the words "Obama" and "McCain", an entry last week mentioning political signs), but I guess an obligatory presidential entry is probably expected. So, here it is.
With as little as I know about politics, I have the distinct advantage of viewing each presidential election through the eyes of a complete idiot, or at least those of a naïve child. That being said, once Obama received the Democratic nomination I
The most interesting thing so far about NaNoWriMo is how many other things it will make you want to do. This weekend I drove to Tulsa, repaired a trailer, cleaned a room, foxed two arcade games, and did a bunch of other things instead of writing. I'm about a day's worth of words behind right now, but things are flowing and I'm getting into the groove. I'm excited to see where my story goes and anxious about it going somewhere interesting.
It is 11:30pm, Halloween Night, and I am writing to you from my desk at work. No, I haven't been here all evening. After the kids went to bed I hopped on my laptop and managed to destroy my e-mail directory. I am up at work trying to recover files from my last backup. We'll see how things go.
Tonight's trick-or-treating wrapped up a week-long Halloween celebration that began last weekend. Last Saturday, Susan and the kids attended the Yukon Community Center's Halloween festival. Monday night
During last week's road trip I got a little excited in Alabama when, after topping a hill, I saw a big sign that read "ARCADE". I was ready for a break from driving anyway, I decided to pull over and check it out.
Unfortunately, all I found was a vacant building where an arcade used to be. With my face pressed hard against the building's tinted windows I could tell that the room was empty. On the off chance that the arcade had relocated somewhere else in town, I searched the GPS for ot
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