Not so soon after all

While I ponder the point of continuing the camp post at this late date, I would like to say that I think I may be an OSU fan now. 😎

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What’s old is new

Isn’t that a common statement for fads and fashion?  Well in this case I am referring to something else.  Once upon a time, one Nolan Bushnell founded a gaming company that would become big- very big.  In 1977 they would put out not the first, but the most popular video gaming system of the time with interchangeable games.  The same company also produced popular arcade machines and computers.  Well, sort of- there was a split at one point into Atari Games and Atari Corp, but I am not sure which company did what- I believe Atari Games was strictly the arcade division while Atari Corp was everything else.  In any event, following the dreaded video game crash of 1984 (1983?), Atari was never quite the same.  The 16-bit successor to their 400/800/XL line of computers, the Atari ST, was fairly successful, but that would be pretty much be the last of the computers, aside from the short-lived 32-bit TT.  As for the consoles, they would never again achieve the success of the VCS/2600 though they would try all the way through the Jaguar in 1993.  Of course, these failing years, and many of the successful ones too, were not run by Bushnell himself as he “left” the company (read: fired) in December of 1978 according to Wikipedia.  The failing years were in fact with the infamous Jack Tramiel in the hot seat, who not only oversaw the failing of Atari but Commodore as well, but that is beside the point.  The point being Nolan Bushnell, who is now in fact on the board of directors of the current company that calls itself Atari.  Make no mistake, this is not the same company that Bushnell founded, but rather the French company formerly known as Infogrames who found itself with Atari’s assets when they purchased Hasbro Interactive in late 2000.  However, it is nevertheless interesting to find Bushnell on the board of directors for Atari for the first time in over 30 years.  Will anything come of this?  I don’t know, but here is a link to an interview with him.  It has some mistakes, like dating the 2600 to 1984 instead of 1977, but is an interesting read:

Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell “Returns”

(added quotation marks mine)

A couple of old Atari commercials on Youtube:

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Gaming for an Award

Cub scout award for… video games??  Where was this award when I was in Cub scouts?  I would have aced this one easily.  Okay, there is some work involved, but still- video games?  Here’s the text from the official site:


Requirements

Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, and Webelos Scouts may complete requirements in a family, den, pack, school, or community environment. Tiger Cubs must work with their parents or adult partners. Parents and partners do not earn loops or pins.

Belt Loop

Complete these three requirements:

  1. Explain why it is important to have a rating system for video games. Check your video games to be sure they are right for your age.
  2. With an adult, create a schedule for you to do things that includes your chores, homework, and video gaming. Do your best to follow this schedule.
  3. Learn to play a new video game that is approved by your parent, guardian, or teacher.

Academics Pin

Earn the Video Games belt loop and complete five of the following requirements:

  1. With your parents, create a plan to buy a video game that is right for your age group.
  2. Compare two game systems (for example, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and so on). Explain some of the differences between the two. List good reasons to purchase or use a game system.
  3. Play a video game with family members in a family tournament.
  4. Teach an adult or a friend how to play a video game.
  5. List at least five tips that would help someone who was learning how to play your favorite video game.
  6. Play an appropriate video game with a friend for one hour.
  7. Play a video game that will help you practice your math, spelling, or another skill that helps you in your schoolwork.
  8. Choose a game you might like to purchase. Compare the price for this game at three different stores. Decide which store has the best deal. In your decision, be sure to consider things like the store return policy and manufacturer’s warranty.
  9. With an adult’s supervision, install a gaming system.

As most of you know, I was really into gaming back in the day. I spent hours at arcades and played my Atari and Colecovision systems to death. Ah, the days…  Speaking of scouting, JustJ would be pleased to know that the boy scouts are embracing modern technology in Geocaching.  One article mentioned a merit badge, but so far what I read on their site talks more of the activity than earning a badge.  Click here and here.  Scratch what I just wrote- merit badge information can be had by clicking here.

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Oh, you probably want an update on that quiz.  Of the three that garnered the most guesses, one of them is correct.  The one with no guesses?  You are correct in that it is not us.  The other video was among the two with a single affirmative response.  So without further delay, the two videos featuring our choir (at least in audio in the case of one) are:

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1. They Didn’t Know

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/10678741 [/vimeo]

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6. Rise and Sing

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/10677420 [/vimeo]

Check out what the junior high kids do toward the end of the video-

I can name most of the boys from their time in 4th/5th grade, including

one who was in my cabin at camp two years ago.

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So, how did you do? 🙂




Putting The Fun Into Labor…

Well, it was a last-minute attempt at a Labor Day outing with friends, and even though we strayed from our original idea of going to a Lake Erie-area haunted house and drive-thru zoo, we had LOTS of fun!

We went to the Toledo Zoo, always a great zoo, even if this Labor Day Saturday of 2009  equated to being one of the most crowded we’ve ever seen that zoo.  It was just over 80°, so the animals weren’t all that active, but we did get to see Louie, the “baby” elephant (who is now 6 years old and awaiting the completion of construction of his very own zoo exhibit area) lying down and taking a break, which was cool.  We also saw one of their huge hippos swimming in the underwater hippo-quarium, which is always a treat because you can see a humongous hippo swim right past up close.  After the zoo, we ate at one of our favorite places in the Toledo area – Nick’s Cafe on Reynolds (not sure if it’s actually Toledo or the suburb of Maumee).  But the place is just north of Ohio’s turnpike, I 80/90, and they have great food and almost unimaginable portion sizes – are they used to feeding GIANTS?!?  Unfortunately for Nick’s, the place was empty, but this is (just) one of the reasons we go to Nick’s when  we’re in the area – they have GREAT food.  Besides, you try withstanding the crowds to get a table at the Olive Garden on a Saturday evening, especially with 4 starving kids!

After dinner, we were going to head to another nearby Toledo suburb for a free exotic animal / magic show, something right up our alley.  But the combination of the big weekend, crabby kids and crowds at the zoo caused our driver and his wife to veto that great idea, so luckily we hadn’t told the kids since it sounded like fun and they would have been disappointed (no matter their exhaustive state) to miss it.  But we’ve learned that over-doing it with little kids along is always regretful, and so we happily prepared for our journey home after we gorged ourselves and piled leftovers into boxes at Nick’s.  But we grew distracted by a strip-mall across Reynolds from Nick’s Cafe, and that’s how we finally discovered what Nickel World of Toledo really is…

We had seen it in the strip-mall before, but we had always busily assumed that it was the 2009 incarnate of the early 20th century 5 and dime store.  On Saturday night, we discovered that Nickel World is actually a family entertainment place, filled with many arcade, skill, and video games!  They have a unique business model – they charge an entrance fee of $2.50 per person, and then they sell $5 bags of nickels for use on the games.  Most of the games are just one nickel to play, some are two, and there’s even a large selection of FREE games!  The place is so cool; what a great concept!  For about $25, our party of 4 adults and 5 kids were easily entertained for at least an hour, PLUS the kids took home quite a bounty of prizes with the 5,000 tickets they were able to rack up in just that hour!  Nickel World has just about every type of video game you can think of – two  types of Skeeball, multiple Crane Games, ball-roller games, basketball shooting games, racing games, Bozo Buckets, even air hockey as well as FREE! vintage arcade games like X-Men, Bust-A-Move, Dueling Dragons, and many more…  We had a GREAT time, and Hubby and I are dying to return on a date night to fight, race and out-shoot each other without distraction from the kids!  The only thing is that they are closed on Tuesday nights when we have our date nights…  oh well, perhaps we can reschedule.  If you are in the Toledo area, you have to check out Nickel World on Reynolds (US 20) – a rarity for an awesome value in family entertainment in this day and age of recession!  And while I’m on the topic, Nickel World reminded me of another cool arcade-type place in South Bend, Indiana.  Megaplay has two indoor mini-golf courses, as well as lots of video games (some of the classics are free) and even an inflatable  jousting area where they hold tournaments.  I’ve never had the pleasure of participating in something like this, but it looks like lots of fun.  If only I had discovered this sport before my sense of balance expired…  I did see an indoor inflatable jousting space at another place in Toledo that we visited a few months ago.  This place was pretty cool – they had adult-sized bouncy slides and ladders to climb, and my husband and I bounced down the slides and ran around like little kids until the unfortunate voices of reality (muscle strain and fatigue) made it loud and clear that we had better take it easy…  But I can’t remember the name of that place or where exactly it is, and I can’t find it on the internet.  Probably a bad sign that we were the only ones there at the time, I hope it hasn’t closed down, but that’s a lot of why it was so much fun – my kids weren’t getting run over by eager older kids, and hubby and I weren’t laughed out of the place by nasty teenagers…

So…  back from my tangents.  We had a really nice and safe Labor Day weekend free from any of the speed traps we encountered in previous years.  Hope yours was safe and fun also!  God Bless!




For Those Born Between 1930-1979

The following words of wisdom came to me in an email forward.  However, I have to disagree with some of it since I was born near the end of the window and I did have some of the things growing up that the email says I would not have had.  So, I put my personal comments about this email forward in italics.

THOSE BORN 1930-1979

READ TO THE BOTTOM FOR QUOTE OF THE MONTH BY JAY LENO . IF YOU DON’T READ ANYTHING ELSE—VERY WELL STATED

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s!!  (I can barely get credit for surviving the 70’s.  After all, I only experienced the 70’s for a year and a half!)

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.  (Well, ok, maybe everyone reading this survived some of that, but that doesn’t make it right, of course!)

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes .

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no child- proof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when  we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.  Not to mention the risks we took  hitchhiking.  (that is definitely before my time.  I’ve never hitchhiked.  And the only people I know who have are either deceased or over the age of 50!)

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats , seat belts or air bags.  (Ok, I remember this – every kid I knew whose parents had a station wagon would ride in the back of it for long trips, no seatbelts.  I think kids should be buckled up, but I think the whole booster / car seat until they’re 8 years old is just plain ridiculous!  Ah, the effects those lobbyists have on Congress is purely amazing, isn’t it?)

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!  (Well, a few people I went to school with DO have heart problems, but…)

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were OK.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo ‘s, X-boxes, no video games at all (umm, I beg to differ.  My generation had Atari, Intellivision, the Commodore, the Tandy, the original Nintendo, and even some hand-held electronic games), no 150 channels on cable, no video movies (again, not true.  I remember the day my family got our VCR.  I was worried my big sister would be mad because she was at a sleepover when we got it and the whole event was so exciting.  We rushed right out to the video store to rent a video.  But all the good ones seemed to be in BETA, not VHS…) or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s (but we had records, casette tapes, and walkmans!), no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chatrooms…….

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.  (Nor did the gum we swallowed stay in our tummies for seven years – hehe)

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.  Imagine that!!  (Nowadays, we’d be lucky to get enough kids to have to turn them away, not that we would, but the point is, many kids are busy playing video games or causing trouble…  or their parents are just too busy to let them commit to anything extracurricular)

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!  (Nowadays kids are charged as adults, so parents aren’t often given the option to decide what’s best for their own child!)

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:

‘With hurricanes, tornadoes, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding,severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another,and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?’

For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us…go ahead and delete this.

For the rest of us…pass this ON!

Ok, I’m not a big fan of passing on email forwards…  But this one entertained me, so do with it what you will, and remember that my contributions are the ones in italics, so thanks for reading my commentary!




Farm Frenzy

You might have noticed a decrease in the frequency of my blogging.  I am still super-busy with my 4 kids, but now that the horrible months-long-lasting illness has run its course through our house, I have more energy and time than I’ve had in a long time…  so why am I posting less?  Because I’ve gone and gotten myself addicted to a video game, of all things!

It’s called Farm Frenzy Pizza Party, and it’s addicting to play!  Basically, you get this little plot of land where you choose what animals to buy and manage.  Each different kind of animal drops a type of product, and you can either use these products to make other products, or you can sell them.  You can upgrade your warehouse to make it store more products, you can upgrade your factories to produce products more quickly, and you can upgrade your vehicles to make them faster.  The game is surprisingly complicated, yet easy to learn.  Ultimately, the more difficult levels consist of making pizzas, and each pizza is made up of five types of product.  Complicating the game player’s goals is the fact that some of the pizza components are made up of two different products themselves, so you have to choose which animals and factories to buy and it what order to make the products with the funds you have.  There are also bears that drop down from the sky that eat your animals and even trample your factories!  It’s really fast-paced (you get rewarded for completing the levels in a timely fashion also), and like I said, it’s very addicting.

I was looking for a hobby, but this is ridiculous.  I could have chosen something a little more productive than sitting on my butt and playing a video game.  But this is  fun.  And I haven’t let myself indulge in a hobby that’s non-productive in a long time…  Usually in my spare time I organize our family photos or work on our kids’ school memory books or things like that…  What’s that you ask?  What about my blogging?  Well, ok, I see your point.  So I have a few hobbies now; they’ll have to compete for my time.  And right now, Farm Frenzy is winning!  Here is a screen shot:

farmfrenzy




Practice, practice, practice

I’ve often been told practice makes perfect. I’ve also been told that nobody is perfect. Does that mean nobody practices enough?

Well for one 14 year old young man, I guess he practiced enough. A new world record on Guitar Hero. I’m not much of a video game player, (not since Centipede and Q-Bert left the arcades) so I never had a world record. I did have a record for a time on the arcade games. It was a thrill to see your initials whenever you visited the arcade. I wonder how it feels to be all over the news. Must really be a thrill. It was good to see on the local news that he actually plays a few real instruments, but they didn’t say anything about his grades.




Back in the day…

There was a time, when I was in college that I wanted to be a teacher. Specifically, I wanted to teach High School Math. While in college, I did specialize in computers, I took the exact same classes for a teaching position. For the first 2.5 years of college, I was sure I would either program video games, or teach High School Math. I don’t do either of those. I’m not sure why I never tried the video game programming, but I do know why I didn’t go into teaching.

It started with an introduction to student teaching. Not the full fledged student teaching, just 1 week in a 9th grade general math course. These were not troubled kids, just your normal everyday kids in small town Ohio. The problem is that they didn’t know basic math. Things I remember learning very early in grade school. Other things I learned in 6th, 7th and 8th grade. Not any really advanced stuff. Things like 33 + __ = 72. They were struggling. By the end of the first class, I was frazzled. The second day in I was in charge of a lesson. The teacher prepared it for me, and I just had to study in the previous evening. I stood in front of a class of dazed faces. The day before, I was helping individual students during their study period, today I saw the same faces on every one of the students. They didn’t want to be there. They had no interest in math. My lesson went as well as could be expected and the teacher was impressed by the way I handled myself. I was to observe the next two days, and design my own lesson for Friday. We would talk about it after the Thursday class.

The next two days were just really getting to me. I found that my patience grew less as the week went on. Everyday I needed a few hours just to unwind from 1 class period. I wasn’t sure what was causing this reaction. In talking with the teacher, he thought I just had nerves from a public speaking encounter. I thought that could have been the problem. My lesson on Friday when Ok, I developed a ‘fun’ review of the weeks lessons. The teacher gave me the thumbs up to go ahead, he seemed to think his students would like it. If they did, I couldn’t tell. Stuff they were giving earlier in the week was forgotten on Friday. Stuff drilled over and over again the day before was missing from their memory. If it had been a quiz, they would have had some very poor grades. My nerves were worse that Friday afternoon. Yes, maybe it was speaking in front of so many people, I did have that problem with theater just a year earlier.

Then I got a job as a college tutor. Getting other college students ready for tests, quizzes and just helping with their assignments. 1 on 1 stuff, some of these kids were friends of mine. Trying to give them a heads up on some basic math. Same thing with my patience. It was all I could do to not throw the math books at a head or two. Why didn’t they know this stuff? It is all so basic. Why didn’t they learn this earlier? What happened to math instruction in the High Schools? What happened to basic logic? Hmm. No easy answers. But that was one of my longest semesters at school. I needed the job to help pay for school, but I really hated the job I had. I’d rather wash the uniforms of the various sport teams (did that as a freshman).

To relax I started spending a lot of time in the computer center. Computers didn’t argue that they were right. They did exactly what they were instructed to do. The computer never questioned the rules. At the end of that semester, teaching was out and computers were it. I didn’t apply for my senior year of student teaching and I knew that I never would.

And what was the straw that broke this camel’s back? One of the kids I tutored had a section on some of the basic Algebra rules. The very stuff that makes Algebra work. It was the “Commutative Property of Addition”. That old A + B = B + A. I tried telling this person that it was a rule. It was one of the things that made Algebra work. I remember explaining that there were just a very few rules that made math work. We spent a good two hours going over this again and again. At the end of the time, I was asked how I knew all this worked. My reply was simple. It works because it was designed that way. The answer back was, “Oh, Ok”. I thought that was the end of it. The next session, the student brought back sheets upon sheets of paper with many, many math equations written on it..

1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 1 = 3, 3 = 3, 1 + 2 = 2 + 1 …. 999,999 + 1 = 1,000,000 .. 1 + 999,999 = 1,000,000 .. 1,000,000 = 1,000,000 .. 1 + 999,999 = 999,999 + 1 …. and so on. I don’t know how long this was worked on, but was a lot of paper and pencil lead wasted. All to say “I guess it works, I couldn’t find anything that didn’t. I didn’t have the nerve to say, that this could go on to infinity and never give you an incorrect answer unless you added wrong. All I said was, “Yep its a rule, and you can’t break it.” I just shook my head. I guess I could have had fun and changed a rule or two. Can you say Abstract Algebra or Non-Euclidean Geometry?




Old video game in the news…

Yes, that’s right the old video game of Pong, OK, actually it was the first video game, not quite Pong.

I’m old enough to remember the first Pong games in the city of Toledo. They was one located in the entry of a K-mart store. At least I think it was a K-Mart. I remember the game, not really the store local. 1 quarter allowed you to play the game. My older brother would let me play it on his cash. Well, he was 12 years older and had a job, I was around 12 when they first came out. I remember those few games with my brother. I looked up to him, and he had time for a jerky little kid.

Fast forward a few years, and there were video arcades, games in bars, and of course home game systems. They all really started because of Pong. If you read the links, you will have found out that Pong was not the first video game. It was the first game to really take the home market. The same game you had to pay a quarter for, you could play for free at home whenever you wanted.

Back in the 80’s there was PacMan, Ms PacMan, DigDug, Q*bert, Centipede and many others. These also came to the home market. Soon the home market was bigger than the Arcade business, so much so that you are hard pressed to find any independent arcades anymore. There are some arcades in a few restaurants, or in Family activity centers that deal with things you just can’t fit in your home. Me I grew up in the age of the arcade. There was an arcade in almost every mall. There were arcades set out by themselves or in strip malls. Turn a corner and you could find a place to play a video game. I liked these games, and was very good at a few of them.

Then came the home consoles. I never did get the hang of those games. Quirky joy sticks that didn’t work quite the same as the arcade. No heavy duty track balls. No big red firing buttons. Then the games started to use game pads. Tiny buttons that you had to know exactly which one to push and when. Nope, never got into those. At first I said it was because the graphics were so poor on the home games, then of course it was the poor joy sticks. But of course the graphics got better than anything we saw in the arcades, but the interface was still not quite right.

A reader of this blog, and a friend pointed the way to arcade style controls in his blog. It would be interesting to have my own arcade style game, but for me not really needed. I have enough to fill my time right now, I don’t need to add an additional hobby. Sounds like fun, if someone wants to invite me to play on their home arcade, well I’d be willing to give it a whirl, but I won’t be putting in my own. Has to be someone with lots of room though. Those arcade games can take up a bit of space….

Does anyone remember the old Atari game console? What were your favorites? I found a list here. My favorite, was Pong at the arcade machine with my brother…




The Nerd

Since my friend C is in the play called The Nerd (hopefully still is, considering his medical troubles as of late) I thought I would share something I embarrassingly have enjoyed watching on the internet.  Embarrassing because it’s not exactly family friendly.  In fact, if you have young ones around, do not watch any of these shows.  In fact, don’t even go to the link I am going to provide.  You have been warned.  What does this have to do with The Nerd?  Well, the one I write about is James Rolfe, otherwise known as the angry video game nerd.  He unfortunately reminds me a little about myself playing video games sometimes.  I can get really angry after playing a tough game for awhile.  This is probably one of the reasons I don’t play them much anymore, and when I do they are often easy ones made for kids.  Anyway, Rolfe plays really bad video games on purpose just to show us all how bad they are, and to have a little fun with it.  Unfortunately, his reviews are laced with profanity during the “angry” moments (just an act I’m sure) which is why I only grudgingly admit to watching them.  Besides reminding me a little bit about myself, I am entertained watching video games which is probably why I continue to watch them.  I download video game movies from World of Longplays, Speed Demos Archive, Recorded Amiga Games, TAS Videos, and more.  This form of voyeurism, watching others play games, comes from when I was a young teen.  I enjoyed arcades a little too much.  When I would run out of money, I would stay and just watch others play.  As far as I remember, I didn’t get much strategy tips from this, just enjoyment.

Well, back to AVGN.  Rolfe often has themes for the reviews he does.  When a popular movie comes out, he will do a series of games based on that movie.  Yep, he has recently done Indiana Jones and Batman games.  He also does some holiday themes, like halloween and Christmas.  From a technical standpoint, they are really pretty good.  I have watched nearly all of them (I skipped just one I think- a certain type of Atari game theme which makes his page pretty much not safe for family…).  This guy is quite popular too as he has had some knock-off reviewers.  One did I think just one video calling himself the Christian Video Game Nerd.  He just mimiced one of Rolfe’s videos substituting “nicer” words for profanity in places, but the “anger” is still there.  There is also a Happy Video Game Nerd, who reviews some of the better games.  He stole the AVGN theme song, substituting his own lyrics.  Anyway, if you haven’t done a search yet by now, the Angry Video Game Nerd site is at… Hmm.  I talked of one page, but it seems the page has moved.  The reviews are now categorized by year so they are not all family unsafe, but still be careful.  The site is at Cinemassacre.com.

Another review favorite of mine is a bit more family friendly.  Someone took it on himself to review all Nintendo (NES) games from day one of its Japanese release in the early eighties.  He calls his series Chrontendo (click for link).  He as also just started chronicling Sega’s SMS system from the same time.  I am in the process of downloading episode two of ChronSega right now.  If you have broadband, do yourself a favor and download the larger DIVX videos.  The quality is much better than the MP4 streams.

Anyway, that’s it for now for this look into the psyche of this substitute teacher.  I wonder if I should get a job with Comcast.  Still bad pay, but If I work eight hours daily I will start with what I am getting as a sub, plus I will have benefits and plenty of opportunity for overtime pay too…