Misc
5 retro games I should have played
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 | Games, Misc, Tech-savvy | 3 Comments
I recently started a list of games that I played for record keeping and nostalgia reasons. Doing so I came across a few games that people used to talk about a lot or that seemed to be important in some way at their time in gaming history.
I tried to pick the top 5 retro games I should have played (High Fidelity anybody?).
1985 Bard’s Tale, The (C64)
I love RPGs (like Eye of the Beholder, Ultima) and I guess The Bard’s Tale series would have let me dive into a great fantasy world that I just missed by a few months of age – at the time I didn’t own a Commodore 64.
1985 Super Mario Bros. (NES)
My fist (non-handheld) Nintendo was a Super Nintendo. I already played Super Mario Land with great enjoyment, and loooved Super Mario World. I missed out on the “original” Super Mario Bros. though (I consider this the original, not the single screen arcade Mario titles).
1986 Metroid (NES)
One of my all time favourite game is Turrican (respectively Turrican 2). Well, this reminds me of Turrican AND I loved the Metroid Prime games on the GameCube.
1985 Elite (C64)
In fact I don’t know much about this one, except that it is some kind of space trading simulation, right? Anyway, one of the first games that everybody talked about and I didn’t have a clue what it was all about, it just seemed to be an unmissable game at the time.
1985 Thexder (PC)
Years after I madly fell in love with Turrican I realised that there used to be a title that reminded my of Turrican. So I guess I would have liked Thexder.
Writing this list I did not realize that almost all games I kinda missed out on were released around 1985. I guess this is due to my increased interests in computers at the time without owning one yet. I got into computing with an Commodore Amiga 500 in 1986 and into “consoling” with a Super Nintendo aka Super Famicon in 1992 (apart from the original GameBoy in 1989).
BTW: This is NOT me, just a fun 80′s picture. I would have never put up a Duck Tales poster (the rest is pretty close 
)
75 GB
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 | Misc, Tech-savvy | No Comments
Ever dl 75 GB of data to play with an emulator? I just did. Crazy times we live in …
Getting out of bed the right way
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 | Gadgets, Games, Misc | No Comments
I think I kinda found the perfect wake up sound – the Monkey Island Theme!
Apart from being a brilliant computer game’s tune it starts with a dingelingding that draws your attention (thus “wake up”) but gives you enough time to hit snooze or get up before the song really kicks in.
From a psychological point of view it is a also a good start into the day because it subconsciously reminds me of childhood memories that draw a faint smile on my face – even though I have to get up… try it yourself here.
May I introduce myself?
Sunday, August 8th, 2010 | Misc | 3 Comments
From now on I will be known as “The Animal”. Well, not literally, the avatar is just something that resembles me quite well in certain situations, tape recording for instance … whrock!!
Great Britain at a glance
Sunday, July 25th, 2010 | Misc, Reviews, Sites | 1 Comment
Here are some random impressions from our UK (well, England and Scotland) 2010 summer roadtrip. A few more words about the trip and what we learned from it can be found at Lisa’s blog. Enjoy!
Chiptune Madness
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 | Gadgets, Misc, Music, Reviews, Tech-savvy | 1 Comment
Thanks to my favourite emag Lotek64 I stumbled upon some really interesting music: Chiptune!
I like to listen to OSTs of games and films (favourite game OST: Turrican 1/2 by Chris Hülsbeck, favourite motion picture OST: Avalon by Kenji Kawai). Reading Lotek64 the absolutely stylish cover arose my initial interest, reading the review I decided to give it a try:
(Chip) Comptroller veröffentlicht mit seinem RPM2010-Album auch sein Debüt. Zwischen schnellen und wütenden Chipbeats kommen dabei auch immer nette kleine Melodien zum Vorschein.
Free Download @ http://comptrolleralpha.co.uk/album/comptroller
Listening to this artistic musical creation reminds me of endless GameBoy sessions and the time I connected my GameBoy to my home stereo to listen to the music of Super Mario Land and, naturally, Tetris. The sound of Comptroller is “great” in the sense of interesting/disturbing – sometimes even toothaching listened to at the right volume 
Lotek64 Issue 33 has more interesting musical reviews, such as an 8bit NES chiptune version of Pink Floyd‘s “The Dark Side of the Moon” called Moon8.
(Remake) … Wer das nur für einen musikalischen Scherz hält, irrt. Mit Moon8 tut Brad Smith Pink Floyd einen großen Gefallen, indem er die Stärken des Albums offenlegt und mit seiner klanglich zwangsläufig äußerst minimalistischen Auslegung der Kompositionen zu einer Entmystifizierung dieses überhöhten Werks beiträgt. Hier wird auf unerwartete Weise hörbar, wie The Dark Side of the Moon klingen könnte, wäre es nicht so hoffnungslos überproduziert und verkitscht worden. Moon8 ist die bessere Version des Albums, dessen Qualitäten endlich auf würdige Art hörbar werden.
Free download @ http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html
Crazy shit indeed! Thanks Lotek64 for providing these reviews!
Googleing I also found two blogs (The Chiptune Blog, Stadkind: Berlin), just in case you want to listen to some more chiptunes. So far, I like the idea a lot!
Bret and Jemaine in one person
Saturday, June 5th, 2010 | Misc | No Comments
You think Flight of the Conchords are kewl? Well, I’ve got a friend that resembles Bret and Jemaine at the same time! Ben, you whrock!
Germany is Beautiful – Aggertalsperre
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010 | Misc, Reviews, Sites | 3 Comments
As some of you might know I’ve been abroad for 7 month, visiting various places and getting to know a lot of interesting spots far far away countries have to offer. Though talking about Germany’s sites doesn’t ring a bell. This is quite a pity and about to change, because me and my wife a.) want to get to know local picturesque places (1-3h driving perimeter) and b.) we are test-driving our new camping gear.
First location: Aggertalsperre Oberbergisches Land, NRW
I “found” this location playing around with Google Earth. First I wanted to visit the Brucher Talsperre, but me and wify couldn’t find a suitable camping ground there. After trying a few more locations (Lingesetalsperre, Kerspetalsperre) I fell back to old habits and googled “kierspe camping”. On of the results was “Campingplatz Stubenrauch“, residing just at the shore of the Aggertalsperre. We decided to drive there, check it out and stay if it was okay, head back home otherwise. We decided to stay and had a fun afternoon, got visited by Rob and Myri, had a pretty good dinner, received great hospitality, used clean and working facilities and popped our tent’s cherry.
Now we are back, the tent is dry and clean, stowed away in the cellar and I can’t wait to get back couching to enjoy some quality PS3 time.
Building a 1337 Kitteh Loo
Monday, May 17th, 2010 | Gadgets, Misc, Tech-savvy | 3 Comments
I tend to like building stuff. Even though I never thought I was especially skilled my projects quite often succeed.
My latest home furniture improvement was a top notch luxury cat litter pan. First, I didn’t like the look of the old plastic boxes, second my kittens have big paws, big enough to carry quite some litter spreading it all over the bathroom floor. You can’t keep the area clean, even if you clean it on a daily basis – the evil cat will soil the floor just before your mother in law comes ’round for an unannounced visit. 
So I though of a way to keep them paws clean. Or at least assure that they are clean as soon as they touch the bathroom floor. The solution is quite simple: use a doormat 
The cheap green plastic mats would do just fine. Now I only had to convince my beloved fur bundles to use it. I thought of a box that has a single entrance and a designated path to the pan. This path had to be carpeted by cut doormat parts thus cleaning the cat’s paws on their way out of the contraption. I was sure I could build such a thing, even though I got quite some mockery along the way (“Yeah, right, a doormat.” “Your kittehs will use your laundry basket rather than accept a maze for a loo”) – but I proved them all wrong
First I tried to draw a sketch of the thing I wanted to build, but I just couldn’t get it done. Too many details, too many options that made me want to experiment on sizing and positioning I could not accomplish the task using only pen and paper (or whiteboard respectively). So I thought about a 3d modelling tool. Asked Google and found SketchUp – developed and provided by Google I like Google software, even if Google is becoming the big brother of modern times they provide frickin’ kewl software for free (remember the first time you played with Google Earth?). So I downloaded SketchUp and tried playing around with it. I miserably failed. It felt like the first time I opened Photoshop or Gimp. I just wasn’t able to handle the tool. I did so one more time before I actually decided to watch some tutorials. After watching only the 4 basic tutorial videos (~15min) I was good to go and create the first blueprint of my development proposal. Hmm, felt like the first time I used the brush tool to retouch a pimple in Photoshop – a convincing outcome with minimal effort
From here it was only a short way. I watched a few more tutorials, built the model, wrote down the shelves sizes, went to a big do-it-yourself store and put my 1337 Kitteh Loo together.
We were quite happy to hear the first scratching noises from inside the box. Jack and Lily used it right away and the litter-floor problem is pretty much solved as well. 
Om nom nom chomp
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 | Gadgets, Misc | No Comments
Ah, my kittehs just make my life so much more enjoyable. I recently ordered some sisal rope that arrived today to build more cat toys. Jack had to check it out immediately:
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