Anticipation: DS Lite

I am anxiously anticipating the US release of the Nintendo DS Lite!

I have always had some affection for portable gaming. As a boy, I remember I was completely fascinated with having a watch that had a game on it. It just seemed so James Bond or Dick Tracy, just cool! I remember one Christmas I got a PacMan watch that I went nuts for. Unfortunately, my wee little frail arm was too thin. The watch band didn't have enough holes for me to fit it snugly, and by the time I added a hole with an icepick and trimmed the rest of the band, the pins broke holding the band to the watch.


I recall another Christmas after that I got a little portable Frogger arcade game. Very cool! I remember I played the heck out of this thing.


Some other hand-held portables were available, new ones came out, but they were all so.. ech..

Then that fateful day in junior college when I bought a Nintendo Gameboy. Wow! A REAL cartridge based portable gaming system! I was hooked. Of course, other portables came out that had backlit (and even color) screens. I destroyed several Gameboys trying to figure out how to get mine to do that, not realizing it wasn't designed to be backlit at all.



I eventually wanted to get another portable system that had a backlit screen and color. Gameboy Color had come out, but it still wasn't backlit. I sold my Gameboy and games to purchase a Sega Gamegear. I liked it very much, it had a much better screen than the Gameboy.


I eventually sold my Gamegear and games to purchase a Sega Nomad. WOW! YES! Finally, a REAL 16bit gaming system that was totally portable, had a great fully backlit color screen, plus it used NORMAL SEGA GENESIS CARTS (which were available everywhere for very cheap) and could even be hooked up to a television like a normal gaming system! It even came with a second joystick port for two player games! I loved this system, it had everything I thought I would ever want in a portable gaming system. I would take it with me to work at the TV station and me and my friends would play games on one of the monitors at the news desk set. I still have it today.


Then I happened upon the new Gameboy Advanced SP. Woah. I loved the retro "classic nintendo" scheme. The screen looked good and the games were awesome (and plentiful). I picked one up and was back to my roots with a Gameboy decendent. Once I picked up a flashable cart that allowed me to play NES, Sega, Gamegear, Gameboy, and Gameboy Color games, I was in heaven! What had really changed technologically since the Nomad was the portability. I mean, this thing was SMALL compared to anything I had ever had. All my other systems required you to carry a little briefcase of equipment to power/service/accessorize the device. The GBASp needed none of that. Easily slips into your pocket, battery life is great, gameplay is excellent, a definite winner in my book. I still have it today, and Ian (and Emily) play with it.



Then Nintendo knocked my socks off with the DS (Dual Screen). Very shortly after the DS release, Sony came out with their portable handheld, the PSP (Play Station Portable). Although it looked nice, I went with the DS because of it's innovative lower touch screen. Amazing! Gameplay will never be the same. It comes with a built-in stylus, so just touch and drag to control characters direction of travel, aim your weapon, or pull back sling-shots to hit objects on the top screen. VERY fun and addictive, truly innovative. Plus, this is a serious gaming system, with full 3D worlds to explore and lots of great graphics and interaction. No more wired portable-to-portable two-person gaming, it even has built-in WiFi! You can even play with other people via WiFi over the internet.


What few drawbacks the DS has should be remedied with the DS Lite. The main things are it's smaller, it has brighter screens, and it has a better stylus. Other niceties are a flush-edged clamshell Ipod-esque design and a cover for the Gameboy cart port when not in use. It is fully backward compatible with all previous Gameboy, GameboyColor, GameboyAdvanced, and GameboyAdvancedSP games, and already has over 400 DS games available. The future is bright (and fun)!

The DS Lite is released in the US on June 11th.

The Weird Al Experience

Several years ago, Weird Al came to the Grand Casino's Pavilion in Gulfport (now destroyed by Katrina). I was lucky enough to get some free tickets to his show since I worked on many of the casino's commercials. The tickets turned out to be much better than I could have ever expected, six rows back dead center! I'm not much of a party animal (hard to believe, eh?), but what a great concert! Here is a pic of Al wrapping up his opening number with a big leap off of some speakers, his hair flying, while he tears it up on his accordian!


As if the concert wasn't enough, I was very fortunate to meet Al backstage! He was very friendly and miraculously composed (what a workout!). The other two with me are Virginia Smith and Jon Ratliff. Jon and I tried to wear as close to Weird-Al-style shirts as we could! I even wore my checkerboard Vans shoes!

January Pics

Some random pics from January (we're still waiting to get a new camera, so I'll catch up on older stuff).

Here, my older brother Joe(y) shows off his towel that comes with instructions.










While culling some old hardware, I had to take a picture of how far technology has come. On the left is an 18 Gig hard drive. On the right is a 100 Gig hard drive.






Emily surfing the net. Or, doing something she shouldn't. Or, KNOWINGLY doing something she shouldn't. Or, all three.







Emily discovers the blue marker!









Emily with Thing hands. Photo by Ian.








Ian in 3D! I believe he's watching Shark Boy and Lava Girl.







Keighly with a bandage on her upper lip. Not sure why, but it is interesting since there is a elementary school picture of me with a large bandage on my chin, very similar to this. I'll see if I can dig it up. It has been constant entertainment to the rest of my family for years!






This is our new (additional) dog MJ. Her real name is Mary, but we thought it might be confusing to our other dog, Murry. Mary, Murry. Murry! Mary! They sound the same. We expanded it to Mary Jane, then shortened it to MJ. She is a German Shepherd/Collie mix. She is VERY smart, very fast, and very agrivating. She DEMANDS attention and affection.









One day, Ian decided to spray paint Emily silver. Amazingly, no paint got in her eyes (or his).







More paint. Emily seems happy!








All over!







We finally got around to getting a new roof put on the little house.
(Oooo, real mexicans!)







We also finally got around to putting a washer/dryer combo in the little side of the middle house. Becky seems happy!







Ian plays hard, and if he ever actually gets still he can nap. Here, he shows how his Spiderman abilities keep him in the chair even when he's asleep.








Fun with clothespins!














NASA, we are go for launch..







Ignition...








Liftoff!









And a smooth landing by Ian..









Where's Ian?






Ian is very proud of something older people would also be proud of: a good bowel movement! Since we're in potty-training mode, we made a very bid deal out of his first.....er, 'deposit'..






We re-modeled our front bathroom with a new Jacuzzi tub, American standard mega-flush-thunder-bowl-champion-supreme toilet, lavitry, paint job, the works! Here, Ian and I enjoy the new jacuzzi tub after apparently working on something very dirty earlier in the day. The tub didn't fit exactly, and there is a gap on the left between the tub and wall that needs to be filled with what we call a "lip". Since I haven't fixed it yet, Janet's ace-in-the-hole is to always remind me I need to fix the tub's "lip".



Emily is ready for church!













For New Years we went to my older brother Joe(y) and wife Lori's house to shoot some fireworks! The Bealls are big into dangerous, Emergency-Room-ending events! Click the pic for a short movie of a mortar launch. (You'll need the Windows Media Player to view the movie)

The Clocktower

My good friend Philip used to work at the Lamar Life Building in Jackson, MS. Built in 1925, it is "A Capitol Street landmark for over 70 years and Jackson's first skyscraper. Its unusual gothic design complements the circa 1903 St. Andrews Episcopal Church, seen in the foreground."

At first he worked on the second floor, but eventually they moved to the top floor right under the clock tower. There was a door that allowed us access to the roof, which was a great place to sit and watch the downtown area, enjoy the weather, or do a little bagpipe practice.







We always wanted to see the inner workings of the clock tower. It is huge! I believe each clock face is about 15 feet across. The clock hands are counter-weighted. It is easily visible from anywhere downtown.

Useless trivia: I learned (from watching the making of Back to the Future) that clock towers have four 'I's for the 4, instead of the normal roman numeral 'IV'. Unless pointed out, I don't think anyone would ever notice.






Once inside, you immediately turn left and climb a flight of stairs to the level of the clock faces. What secrets lie ahead? Huge gears? Weights? Motors? Quasimodo?














Cool! All the clocks' hands come to a central gear-cube/box (sorry, don't know the technical term). From there they are all driven by a single shaft heading straight down. The wooden frames around the clock faces have banks of fluorescent lights to backlight them at night.





Here is a tighter shot of working assembly. Believe it or not, all the clock face hands are driven by a very small motor about the size of a sewing machine motor! You can see it there with the blue wires, it drives a screw gear to the left which eventually turns all the gears up top. A little dissapointing, we were hoping for swinging pendulums! Apparently there were pendulums at one time, because there were long slots cut out of the floor which would allow them to swing freely.

I left this pic high res so you could see the lubrication bottle down front by the rag. It says "Clock Oil". It's "nonhazardous" and comes from the "National Time" company. Of course! What else would you expect?



On the side you can see it was made by the Seth Thomas Clock company in Thomastonn, CN, on July 28, 1924. It is apparently the 2368th clock they made. There is a miniature clock (I'm not sure if thats just for reference or if thats how you set it) and a sweeping second hand on the mid-bar.













But wait! Thats not all!

In the corner there is a ladder going to the top of the tower where the flag pole is!












From the very top you have a great view of the whole downtown Jackson area. You can see the old capitol right by my hand, and the Coliseum in the background.







Here is a (not exactly seamless) Quicktime Panorama of your view from the flag pole! CLICK THE PIC FOR A PANORAMA (Note: You'll need the Quicktime player to view it)






Directly across from the Lamar Life building is the Governor's Mansion for the state of Mississippi.
It is the second oldest continuously occupied governor’s residence in the United States.

Note my old glasses, nicknamed the "Hubbles". They were quite large and heavy, and could burn objects if held right.








On our way out, we noticed several of these OLD glass-case batteries. I guess at one time they were used to run the clock, or at least run it if the power failed.

Butterbeans!

Our very nice Sony Cybershot camera has been destroyed through a collaboration of my kids doing something to it and myself trying to fix it. We do have our tried-and-true Fujifilm camera that we're using as a backup until we get another nice one.

In the meantime, I think I'll go over the pics I've taken this year just start posting.

But first, a movie! Here is some good old-fashioned home cooking: BUTTERBEANS!

(Click the picture for a movie)

Note the authentic pig ear for flavor. Mmmmm! This is at Janet's parents house, you can hear Janet and her mother discussing my brother Andrew's hair and handsome looks in the background. Ahhh, down home..

Spiderman!

Ian is BIG into Spiderman. He is also big into the Hulk, Batman, Superman, Captain America.. well, pretty much all the superheroes. Here, he is in full Spiderman mode with his Spiderman cap, shirt, sandals, and walkie-talkie.