The case of the users who weren’t
I’ve recently had a flood of new users sign up here at the old blawg (meaning my WordPress blog, for those on Livejournal or Myspace who are wondering what in the world I’m going on about), all of them with very strange and phonetically improbable usernames and Gmail addresses. After googling the usernames to see if there was any history with any of them, I found that there is indeed history…usually stretching back all of 39 minutes or so as the Google crow flies. I’m going to make it a habit to delete these as they pop up (actually, at first I typed “poop up”, and on further reflection this may be entirely more accurate). For anyone legit whose new ID I might have just nixed: sorry. There’s really nothing exclusive to signed-on users anyway, and they still have to use the dreaded captcha – it just makes life slightly easier for frequent-flyer commenters. You’re welcome to try to sign on again, be you boy or bot.
The PDF DVD is selling frighteningly well, and preparations are already underway to start the second print run (!!). I fired off a second round of publicity to sites such as Retroblast, Armchair Arcade, etc. last night before going to bed (well, last night…it may actually qualify as “this morning” if you’re going by what time it was), and reviews have started appearing on DP, so I’ve been hit with a new wave of orders. I’m hoping against hope to get new copies in the works this weekend, because I’m about outta the OEGE limited edition. (Fun fact: I have some clear address labels that I was thinking of using to very cheaply turn the OEGE limited edition into the OVGE limited edition, because I actually wasn’t sure that the first 50 copies would be out the door before August. Looks like I needn’t have worried! 😆 ) Now I guess the real test is to see if PDF:DVD gets Slashdotted. (This isn’t me asking one of my buddies to do this, by the way – as with the reviews, I’m waiting to see if anyone does it of their own accord.) Here in a little bit, Evan and I need to saddle up and go get more bubble mailers, because I have more orders than I have mailers – and I just picked up a bunch of the bloody things on Sunday night!
Also, a little advance publicity here: I’ll be sharing a table at OVGE this August with Brett Weiss, author of the incredibly detailed and massive tome “Classic Home Video Games, 1972-1984: A Complete Reference Guide”, so if you’re looking for two exhaustive works on video game history, hit him up for the book and hit me up for the DVD in one visit. (If you can’t make it to OVGE, I’ve also added Brett’s book to theLogBook.com Store – check it out!) I’ll also have some other DVDs for sale and – odd as it may seem at a video game show – some loose and carded Doctor Who action figures up for grabs too. (Maybe it’s just because all of my friends with similar tastes show up for this shindig, but I never have any problem moving Doctor Who swag at OVGE.) I’m really looking forward to this year’s show.
In other news, I’m getting really good at inducing hysterical giggles in the boy. Two things really seem to set him off: my rubbing my bald head on his belly (don’t ask me why, but he laughs until he’s almost ready to wet himself), and me making a puffer fish face and blowing on him. Perhaps not surprisingly, I never get tired of doing these things because I never get tired of hearing that little guy laugh. It’s enough to make me think I’m almost getting this daddy thing down.
Othello is doing better and is easing back toward eating dry cat food, with no apparent complications. Slowly but surely he’s regaining his body mass; he’s certainly regained his old attitude. 😆 … Read more
I’m sitting here watching KTUL showing, at almost 3 in the morning, a live shot of a rotating wall cloud marching into Tulsa County, and I’m thinking “man, am I glad I don’t live in Tulsa County.” Still, pretty amazing stuff…to watch from a distance of two hours away. No disrespect intended toward any TV weather guys or gals I’ve ever worked with in the past, but the guys at KTUL know how to make a show out of this stuff. I love the Wall Cloud Channel…so long as it’s not in my back yard.
Two things tonight that have me going “argh.”
One word of caution, though…anyone expecting anything as elaborate as the Phosphor Dot Fossils displays seen at OVGEs and OKGEs past might not want to get their hopes too high. I’m still all for doing these shows, but with the kiddo on the scene now, the thought definitely occurs that unplugging and uprooting the entire room for these shindigs is getting a little old. As of 2006, I did have a few TVs and monitors gathered that were set aside for “expo use only,” though in the absence of a 2007 OVGE, I started giving those away, figuring they wouldn’t be needed. 😆 (The general feeling in 2007 was that OVGE wouldn’t be back anytime soon, and with a baby on the way too, it didn’t seem like an unreasonable assumption that my exhibiting days were over.) At any rate, with something like three weeks to prepare, I can’t guarantee a really elaborate display – I’d say expect some Coleco tabletop goodness and the PDF DVD, as always. (After doing this for a few years, I know what the crowd pleasers are.) Actually, did you know that the first year I brought the tabletop games to Tulsa, it was because there was a behind-the-scenes freak-out about whether or not there’d be enough power for every exhibitor? I started bringing the battery-powered Coleco games as a way to hedge my bets against the possibility of not having enough power for stuff with screens and power supply wall warts. They turned out to be incredibly popular items because one just doesn’t see a complete collection in decent shape everyday, and as popular as they were in their day, they just haven’t worked their way into the public retro-video-game subconscious the way that the Atari 2600 and NES have. But everytime someone sees my little stack of these puppies, they always go “Oh yeah! I remember those!” And that’s what makes it worth it for me to keep buying fresh batteries and bringing these guys out to play year after year.
The annual “Christmas tree” is getting to be something of a tradition at theLogBook; basically, it’s a “best of” collection of that year’s Toybox toy reviews and pictorials, all gathered under the tree. As they should be. It’s a very crudely programmed graphical menu that doesn’t really give you any explicit instructions – what you click on is (God and HTML willing) what you’ll see.