A year or so ago when I first decided to install a PC-based DVR or PVR in our living room (since dubbed "Pivo"), it was running Windows XP and GB-PVR. At the time I had several people question me why I didn't put up a Linux box. The fact of the matter was, I didn't know Linux well enough to even attempt it. Fast forward a year -- I've been playing with Ubuntu Linux for a few months now, and while I am no expert, I can get around the system's GUI well enough and am just starting to familiarize my
A couple of weeks ago while on vacation, Mason and I snuck away to catch the latest Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I haven't brought myself to write a full review of the film for Review-o-Matic.com yet and I'm not sure I will. I'm not sure what to say about it -- if you liked the previous three movies and don't mind a greater than normal suspension of belief (even for an Indy film), then this one's a no-brainer. There were a few parts that seemed more of
Last night Susan and I went to the Civic Center to catch the final Oklahoma City performance of Spamalot, a musical version the classic 1975 film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Spamalot was written by Eric Idle, on of the original members of Monty Python, and debuted on Broadway in 2005.
I'm a pretty big Holy Grail fan and I wasn't sure how much I would like a musical based on the film. Turns out, it was pretty good. Spamalot is a pretty even mix of old comedy bits from the film mixed wi
Two and a half years ago I purchased a new 2006 Chevy Avalanche, a truck that came with pretty much every option but one -- a crystal ball showing me the future price of gas.
Back in the summer of 2005 (when Susan and I first began talking about buying a new vehicle), gas cost $2.20/gallon. Prices climbed to $3/gallon that fall due to Hurricane Katrina, but we (and everybody, I think) hoped that gas hike was temporary. Prices did settle a bit after that, but have been steadily (and sometimes
You wanted it (doubtful), you asked for it (even more doubtful), you got it (true) -- 258 pictures from our vacation to Galveston, Texas!
http://www.robohara.com/albums/galveston
On day four of our trip, we headed into Galveston -- which is funny, as I have been referring to this entire trip as the Galveston Trip. Turns out we've been 70 miles southwest of Galveston. My apologies to any would-be assassins who have been wandering around Galveston looking for me.
There comes a point in every vacation where you realize you've had enough. For us, that time was approximately 7:04am, Thursday morning. Our original plan involved getting up Thursday morning, driving 70 miles
Sorry about the Spanish numbers -- we have seen so many restaurant names and road signs in Spanish, it's hard not to get your mind stuck in Espanol mode. The gulf is a multi-cultural place. Breakfast today was served by a Chinese guy with a thick Spanish accent selling kolaches. Dos doughnuts, por favor!
Today's adventure took us north (relatively speaking), to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Mason is really into outer space things right now, so he was in love -- and, as a guy who used
The majority of day two was spend on the beach. Actually, day two went a lot like this: breakfast, beach, lunch, nap, beach, dinner, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (hey, it's my vacation too!).
Because the cabin is so small, we have things stacked on the kitchen table, the stove, and the bench next to the table. When we eat, we have to move the piles around and move them back afterwards. Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs and pancakes. The kids helped cook and the foo
Susan, the kids and I hit the road this morning, headed for the Gulf of Mexico -- Galveston, Texas to be exact. We had planned on hitting the road around 4am or so but, as usual, we got a late start due to my fiddling. Laptop? Check. DVD player? Check. Second DVD player? Check. Handheld GPS? Check. Laptop GPS? Check. We plan on touring the Kennedy Space Center later this week, but I'm not sure why. The front of our van already resembles the Space Shuttle's cockpit.
The 500 mile trip took app
Friday was Mason's last day of kindergarten. Friday was also the date of the Shedeck Talent Show, in which Mason and his (girl)friend Sadie performed "Bet on It" from High School Musical II. High School Musical is, so I'm told, "this generation's Grease." Personally I think this generation's Grease should be "Grease", but whatever.
Mason was scheduled to perform 26th out of 28 acts. Before the show started, Susan was saying things like, "I'm just so excited he signed up to perform," and I wa
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial debuted in theaters on June 11, 1982, two months prior to my ninth birthday. E.T. mania exploded during the summer of '82 and the marketing machine churned at full speed. By the time I started fourth grade later that fall, our school was flooded with E.T. t-shirts, E.T. pencil toppers, E.T. backpacks and E.T. lunchboxes (I was the lone dissenter, clinging to my Return of the Jedi lunchbox). For my birthday that August I got an E.T. t-shirt; for Christmas that year, I g
The second most important part of writing any computer program or script is planning out your program's "path". You can do this in a number of ways; flowcharting is one common method. A program's flow can also be referred to as its "logic".
(Incidently, and completely unrelated to this post, the single most important part of writing any computer program is coming up with a good name before you start. My old pal Leperkhan taught me that, and it's true. Come up with a good name for your progr
For as long as I can remember I have associated specific songs with specific memories, and for me, an arcade wouldn't be an arcade without the music. All of my old arcade memories including a backing soundtrack of 80s music. Different arcades had different playlists: family friendly arcades like Le Mans and Tilt pumped in 80s pop music, while seedier arcades like Cactus Jack's and the Bowling Alley delivered a constant stream of 70s arena rock and 80s hair metal.
When my backyard shed begin
Took the boy to go see Iron Man yesterday after school at the local theater. $10 for two tickets, which (I guess) isn't bad these days. Personally I'd rather watch it at home, but the boy's getting wise to me. "How come everybody else gets to see new movies at the theater and we have to watch them at home? And why do all our movies have words at the bottom in other languages and why are people always walking in front of the camera?" I think the real reason he likes to go to the theater is that t
This is the last Photon-related post for a while - I promise.
It's been twenty years since my buddy Jeff and I have seen a Photon arena. We were Oklahoma City regulars, "weekend warriors" as it were, tearing up the arena with the attitudes (and vigor) of fifteen year olds. We're twenty years older now; both of us have jobs, wives, and kids ... and yet from time to time we still talk about "the good ol' days of Photon." We've even taken our own sons to play lazer tag with us at a new local ar
While talking about our upcoming Photon adventure, Jeff brought up an interesting point. Photon, unlike most laser tag arenas of today, had culture.
As I mentioned the other day, the idea for Photon was born out of Star Wars -- and while specific Star Wars references were hard to find (and, I'm guessing, intentionally avoided), Photon had a definite theme. Players weren't referred to as "players" -- they were Photon Warriors (and greeted as such upon entering the arena). Photon arenas were c
Last night after the kids went to bed I was able to skip out for a couple of hours and take a quick tour of Liberty City. As my gamer friends already know, Liberty City (the pseudonym for New York City) is the town where Grand Theft Auto 4 takes place.
Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2 were drawn in a top-down perspective, and while they were fun for their time, neither made much of a lasting impression. It wasn't until Grand Theft Auto 3 hit shelves that the series really began to make waves. Grand
Episode 4 of You Don't Know Flack is now online. Episode 4 is all about Console Copiers, those black market devices used to dump (and play) cartridge ROMs on videogame consoles.
Link: http://www.robohara.com/tech/?p=43
In the very near future (probably next week) I'm going to close down tech.robohara.com and roll those posts over into my regular blog at robohara.com. My tech buddies may have to skip over some of the family-related posts and my friends may have to skip some of the deeper
I couldn’t tell you exactly when Oklahoma’s Photon Laser Tag Arena opened. The first franchise Photon opened in Toronto in June of 1985, and the company folded in 1989 – so, it was definitely somewhere between those two points in time.
It has been said (on Wikipedia) that George Carter III (the inventor of Photon) got the idea for the sport while watching Star Wars. That, I do not doubt. While playing Photon, I felt like I was on an alien planet; like I was really in Star Wars. A transforma
It's a vicious trend -- the older I get and the more games I collect, the less time I have to play them -- especially with others. I have piles of new games, old games, and arcade games that collect dust on a day-to-day basis. A couple of times throughout the year, some friends of mine and I organize "game nights" -- a time and place where "big kids" can get together, forget about school/work/kids for a while and spend some time talking about, trading, and most importantly, playing games.
A
Last Saturday (April 26th, 2008) marked the debut of the Oklahoma Electronic Game Expo (OEGE). Unrelated to the already established Oklahoma Videogame Expo (OVGE), OEGE is a new show that took place at Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC). The show was sponsored by OCCC's Computer Arts & Technology Society (CATS), and was spearheaded by student and club member Drew Stone. The first draft of this post was well over five pages long; I've since removed 90% of the details, and decided to go wi
I fly down the stairs, feet moving so quickly I almost trip over them. Rounding the corner I dodge Morgan, pop into my office, and remove my workstation from the domain. As that machine begins to reboot I jog back to the living room and begin moving downloaded utilities from my laptop to a memory stick. Once the copy begins it's back upstairs to try and pull more data out of backups. No, this isn't some new sort of nerd Olympics -- unforunately, it was my Monday night.
We've become so relian
From 1985-1991, I competed in Odyssey of the Mind. (Side rant: Odyssey of the Mind was originally known as Olympics of the Mind back when I began participating. Apparently the aggressive and somewhat litigious International Olympic Committee forced the name change -- not that there was any chance of people confusing a bunch of underaged geeks building crap out of cardboard, paper mache' and poster paints with a gathering of international atheletes, but whatever. The O in OM (which is all we ever
Came home the other day, found a note on the front door. "Your gas has been turned off due to a suspected leak. Call us to arrange an inspection. Love, Oklahoma Natural Gas." Turns out, ONG has a courtesy service where they automatically shut your gas off when your bill hits a certain number. Apparently that number is around $500.
ONG was called and the night shift fellow (who was quite friendly) stopped by. He checked our meter and found a tiny leak -- so small, it may be costing us $2/mon
I'm a regular member of several online forums, one of which is the Oklahoma Coin-Op Collectors Forum. The demographics are fairly obvious; most of the users are people who live in Oklahoma, and who collect coin-operated games. The main focus of the forum is arcade games and pinball machines, although conversation about coin changers, vending machines, slot machines and other coin-operated items occasionally come up.
Next Saturday, April 26th, is the debut of the Oklahoma Electronic Gaming Ex
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