Attack of the Chris!!

I'm a square. Can you dig that?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:04:00 +0000

When it comes to photography, I love the square. I don't know what it is about square images but personally I've always preferred the 1:1 format over the various rectangular formats provided by digital and film. Years ago with 120 or 126 people happily snapped dozens of square images and pasted them into albums. What makes the ratio of the Hassleblad and Rolleiflex inferior to today's standard of 4:3?

So why are there so few modern cameras that can shoot this format? I really don't know. Most of the classic oil on canvas paintings are rectangular. I guess it could be that our eyes do see at a slightly panoramic image but why should we blindly go around copying nature? I thought part of the point of art was to break from what is natural and common and create something pleasing. Since I am not a documentary photographer I don't want to merely make a copy of what I see, I want to express how I feel about what I see.

Perhaps the square is just too unnatural to our eyes. Do we see its symmetry and gawk? I can't claim to be smart enough to know the answer to that. but I know I want to compose more square images. Is that so bad?

Personal Notes, What-nots and Etceteras

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:03:00 +0000

Yeah, I know I've been neglecting this blog and for that I am truly sorry. I have been quite busy and I've only modestly kept up the DVD site. Life is just too incredibly busy at the moment so this post will be something of a recap of my life as of recent so pardon my random-ness.

* I'm really enjoying typewriter style fonts. I'm typing this up in AbiWord using the Prestige Elite font. It really makes me feel as though I'm typing on an old IBM Selectric typewriter.

* I recently lost my little pocket notepad and I feel utterly LOST without it. I have no idea where it is and I really hope I can find it soon as it had a lot of important things written on it.

* I am joining the cult of KR Haters. I just don't understand why a guy can have his head so far up his ass that he can see his breakfast just after he ate it. What ticked me off was when someone asked about buying film and processing locally and he then proceeded to make it seem as though the asker was an idiot. No one cares that you, the great god of Nikon has been ordering from your sponsored links for years. Just try and be nice for once.

* Work is becoming a bit of a drudge to get through every day. Unfortunately this job is not like my previous ones where downtime could be spent goofing off. Here I have to work for 8 hours and wear my brain out to mush.

* I'm planning on moving out of my parents' house after Anime Boston (so essentially June. I know with the economy as it is many are saying I should just wait and save more towards a house but I confess it's getting rather tiresome living at home with my parents. I just want some independence.

* I need to take inventory of everything that I own. This will help my Spring Cleaning as well as the eventual move.

* I am getting back into photography in a big way. I took a sabbatical of sorts for a few years with only sporadic trips into the field. This needs to change. Masterpieces won't create themselves, ya know.

I Love Vintage

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:37:00 +0000

It seems that right now retro and vintage are one of the "in" styles for the youth crowd of high school and college age kids. I find this incredibly ironic as I was retro back in high school in the late 90s when it certainly wasn't cool. I loved Space Invaders and the NES back when it wasn't cool at all. I'm not trying to claim to be a trend setter or anything like that, but I do find it ironic that what I once thought was my own thing has quite a much bigger following than I ever knew.

As a child I had a few vintage toys belonging to my parents. My brother and I played with my dad's wagon train set while my sisters played with mom's doll house. We had plenty of our own brand new toys but we were exposed to some older items early on teaching us that indeed there was a world before us.

Now when I grew older we had some poor financial times with my dad losing his job and being handicapped for a while. So we never had all the newest and greatest things but we did do a lot of shopping at yard sales. When all my friends had Playstations and Nintendo 64 I was rocking with a used NES and an Atari 2600. They weren't just used items to me, they were now mine and something special. Special because they were unique and something that had survived and through the hunt of it all, I was able to find.

I also am a big fan of quality items. While much of our furniture is perhaps out of date and I know my mom would llike to update the style of much of it, we have much better quality items than the average run of the mill Ikea/Target styles that many families buy today. Likewise many of my items for my home office are of great quality. For example I have an antique box holding my pens and pencils which is much more asthetically pleasing than your run of the mill Rubbermaid pencil box and I only paid $5 for it at a barn sale. Don't even get me started on some of my vintage medium format folder and TLR cameras.

One other thing I should mention is that for those into enviromentalism (I'm not, really) vintage also has that neat credential of saving stuff from landfills and preventing new crap in China being made. For the latter reason I try to buy used and vintage whenever possible or at the very least a high quality Made in the USA item but this could spark its own post in general.

Basically to sum up I'm glad that retro is really picking up. When I see a high school age kid wearing a shirt he got at Hot Topic with Tanooki Mario on it I smile and hope that they don't just wear the shirt but actually play the game sometime. While they are at it they could play some records and use a fountain pen. Vintage never goes out of style; it's always cool.

My constant struggles

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:56:00 +0000

There are times in my life where I feel that I have zero control over my actions. This is especially true in regards to finances. I know many of my close friends and family will disagree with me and point out how I am often going out of my way to save a dollar here and there but there are times when I just give in. Usually I am alright when left alone but whether influenced by family, friends or simply the urge to "treat" myself I tend to find myself giving in to purchases I never intended to buy.

As I stated earlier, many of my friends and family feel that I'm "lucky" to have a nice job and get quite annoyed that I don't just go around and buy every little impulse purchase that I want. They also seem to have little sympathy when I feel guilty for buying things I don't necessarily want.

While I do try to be good I am, of course, imperfect and I do give in to purchases that amount to either status symbols or to clutter. They tend to break down into two major categories:

Impulse Buys: These are small and on their own aren't really all that bad. For example I spent $10 on this last weekend at a yard sale on a box full of collector's glasses with various characters on them. When I first checked them out I wanted to just get the two Pacman ones for my vintage gaming collection. Yet the allure of having a whole pile of McDonalds glasses and my dad talking to the lady to get a huge discount. While some collectors may say I got them at a good price, I really have no use for them and quite frankly are going out at our next tag sale.

Status Symbols: A year ago I bought a new car. My 98 Cavalier needed serious repairs and it was frankly starting to fall apart. While I suppose I could've fixed it I was afraid of it being a money sink. So I replaced one bad money put with another. I bought a brand new car when I could've bought a perfectly reliable used car for a third of what my "econo" Elantra cost. Yet I felt that with my new job I deserved a brand new car. Because of that, I'm keeping this car until the wheels fall off.

New Toys: A week or so ago I bought a digital SLR. Once upon a time I was seriously considering a career in photography. Since unfortunately the market of photographers is so flooded and I didn't want to be a portrait photographer I ended up back in the tech world. In my college days I would choot at least one 36 exposure roll of slides a week. Now I'm lucky if I get a roll shot every month or so. Besides, I prefer my folding and twin lens cameras so buying a digital SLR was simply a new toy that would collect dust. Luckily the day after receiving it I realized my folly and sent it back for a refund. Now I can buy a digicam for when I want a quick digital or something to carry in my pocket.

So as you can see it's a constant struggle to keep my spending under control. I guess all I can say is that I just need to watch myself a bit more.

Old computer memories ...

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:06:00 +0000

My history with computers goes back as far as the Apple II. From kindergarten to middle school I happily typed away at school on those classics and since my parents were too poor to afford a computer for the home, I never really realized how tech had jumped up.

The first computer I owned was in 1995 or so and it was a ten year old Commodore 64 hand me down. I admit that by then I knew there were things like the internet and actual processing power that it couldn't handle but at least it was mine, much to the ridicule of many classmates.

Once I got to high school things did change. Thanks to my electronics shop and some friends I was able to slowly piece together from found parts some various PCs. I went from an 8086 to a 386 or a 486 to by graduation time a Pentium 75 running Windows 95 and using free internet from NetZero. Through four years and at least a half dozen computers (most of which I found some way of breaking) and then after NetZero decided to kick off heavy users I actually coughed up the money and got Adelphia cable internet.

I entered college under the computer science program and soon discovered that while using the lab computers was alright I really needed a home computer of my own. Enter the AMD TBird 750. Now there was a computer I had loads of fun with. It was my first real modern computer and since then I've had at least fairly modern ones and I'm actually typing on a two month old PC right now.

Strangely the further forward I go, sometimes I want to pick up those things I've left behind. In future blog posts I plan on talking about how I now use old outdated word processors and RTF files. I type on a 20 year old keyboard and take my notes on index cards. It should be lots of fun to talk about.

Gas and the silly things we do to save a penny

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:32:00 +0000

So as I just get back from gassing up on my lunch break I realized something. My trip odometer read 1.0 miles from the Sunoco station where I get my gas. This morning I drove by a Shell station priced at 4.059 for regular unleaded which I decided to pass on by opting to instead make a separate trip on my lunch break to the local Sunoco to fuel up at 4.029

So I filled my tank with about 7 gallons of unleaded which will last me for about 4-5 days on the road average at an average of around 32-34mpg depending on various factors. I started to think about this and realized that my cost per mile isn't all that much, all things considered, at around 12 and a half cents per mile. That means my little trip to Sunoco cost me a quarter. Had I bought the gas at Shell on my way home I would have paid about 21 cents more (3 cents per gallon for 7 gallons) meaning a net savings of $0.03!

Granted, this is all anecdotal of course but it does remind me of how my grandmother used to say that people spend dimes to save pennies or something like that. It's still a wash as even if I bought gas 100 times a year it would still be less than a case of soda or a coffee at Starbucks but it is something to make you think.

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:25:00 +0000

So I forgot to mention that my Wii came back from Nintendo about 5 days after I sent it to them. Now that's FANTASTIC service.

In the meantime I've been playing many videogames (mostly Smash Bros. Brawl) but otherwise keeping busy with wrestling and what not.

Wii is FUBAR

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:07:00 +0000

Yeah, as the title says, my Wii is down for the count due to some weird artifacts showing up on the screen. Once I get my UPS return ship label from Nintendo I will be mailing it back for a repair/replacement.

Sad, but what can you do?

Maybe now would be a good time to start Ribbit King or play more Ikaruga on my Gamecube.

Zelda lives on

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:44:00 +0000

Just a note to say that while I haven't played Zelda in the last few days, I have gotten all the way up to the Wind Temple.

Dear Nintendo: What the Hell?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:25:00 +0000

Most people know that I am an unashamed Nintendo fanboy. It was a love affair which, like for many, started back in the days of the NES. While I did not have the console until the days of the SNES I still adored playing the Nintendo PlayChoice-10 at my local Price Chopper back when every store needed to have a video game and I always had to be pried away from the NES at Sears.

For some reason this love affair never really stopped. Perhaps it was the nostalgia for the characters of Mario, Luigi, Link and Zelda et. all which had me rooting for the SNES above the Genesis even though I did appreciate Sonic for what he was. I stuck it out through the grim N64 years yet eventually strayed away from Nintendo when I bought a used Dreamcast which is the only non-Nintendo console for which I held the same level of acclaim. I eventually came back buying my first new console, an Indigo Gamecube.

The Gamecube was and still is a crown jewel in terms of Nintendo innovation and game design. While the Wii captures in casual gamers to play Wii Sports and reaching a mass appeal not seen really since the days of the Atari 2600 I feel the Gamecube really personified why many of us stuck with the big N when others were switching to Sony or Microsoft.

Of course this is all sentimental prologue to the topic at hand which is the Gamecube controller. I love this controller. While the NES, SNES, Genesis and Saturn (non dinner plate version) are all fine controllers the Gamecube really was the best. I never really loved the Dual Shock but I appreciate that it is functional while the X-Box controllers just sucked. If the Cube had anything going for it, it was the fact that they had the best controller on the market. So naturally I was delighted when Nintendo said of Smash Brothers on the Wii that we should not throw out our Gamecube controllers just yet.

I ended up having three Cube controllers during the console's regular lifespan. Multi-player never seemed to top three at a time for me and rarely above two. I am relatively careful with my video game controllers so they lasted me well for the life of the system. I figured that when the time came I'd simply have to buy maybe one or two new controllers from Nintendo and have enough for a four player Smash Bros. Brawl match and then some.

Of course, what happens? Well everything, really. My indigo controller develops an unresponsive analog stick, the black one gets its cable nicked and repaired with electrical tape and the orange one ended up having a twisted up cable due to the cables being improperly wound by my sisters. While the latter two aren't a huge deal, I was at least down a controller, at least for games where tight analog control is needed.

So, about a month before Christmas off I went to the store in search of a new Gamecube controller. I figured since I had a Wii I may as well get a Wavebird to keep with the wireless setup I had going in the living room. To my surprise while Wal*Mart, Target and Gamestop all had Gamecube related items in stock with the former stocking new consoles and the latter stocking used there were no Wavebirds or even new Nintendo brand controllers in sight. Figuring it was just a holiday stocking issue I took my ventures online only to find that not only was the Wavebird canceled but Nintendo decided to cut production of Gamecube Controllers down to just one color, Platinum.

What discourages me is the fact that Nintendo decided to require Gamecube controllers for Gamecube games on the Wii and offer support it for Virtual Console games as well as many new Wii games such as Mario Kart Wii and Smash Bros and they pull something like this. So I decided that I may as well give a third party controller a shot. My first choice was Gamestop branded Mad Catz wireless Micro controller which I found to be more than adequate for most games. Of course, after one day I was back to Gamestop exchanging it for a working one. I ended up with one that worked and after buying my second one the first one (the exchanged one) ended up dying on me as well.

So I figured, what the heck, I'll get a Nintendo branded one. Well after firing up my search engine and checking eBay I found that there are many Chinese made controllers from unknown companies with controllers that look exactly the same as the Nintendo ones for $10! Granted they are probably made by eight year olds and may crap out on me long before the Gamecube does, I'm sold for now.

Plus upon opening them up I see they are pretty darn close to the originals as spare parts. Looks like that Spice controller may get a new cord sooner than later. Also, as luck would have it, I found a fully functional used Wavebird with an analog stick (just the rubber part) in need of replacement and 10 minutes with a screwdriver and a $10 Chinese pad and it's good as new. Now I just gotta see if I can transfer the cords as easily. That might require some soldering.

One other note, upon opening them up I noticed they had PCB points for Turbo and Slow functions so these may be the same boards as another style of Third party pad. Perhaps one day I will probe into these functions more.

So I'll see how these go for now. I do plan on buying a Platinum Gamecube controller one of these days but I also have that plan of doing a fully modded Cube with a region switch and a custom color scheme so a couple Chinese controllers might just be what I'm looking for for now.

Mid-Core?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:47:00 +0000

Well, if labels are your thing there appears to be a new one out there: Mid-core gamers. Apparently fed up with the thirteen year old wankers playing Halo 3 et. all a group of people, lead by Jeff Fulton over at 8BitRocket.com. they decided that the labels of casual gamer and hardcore gamer didn't apply to them and that they were somewhat in the middle. While I found his blog post insightful and certainly very interesting, I'm not sure that it really applies to me either.

The video game world, much like any other hobby has its stereotypes. They have the "hardcore" gamer who owns an XBox 360 or PS3. He buys titles on release day and spends untold amounts of time trying to get to perfection in Halo or some other such FPS or they level up in Warcraft or some other MMORPG working their magic.

Casual gamers, on the other hand are viewed as people who buy games for the novelty of it and are more apt to play games such as Boogie or Wii Sports. The hardcore gamers seem to show disgust at them and their choice in games.

So where do I fit in? Well, I really have no idea. I know a lot of my friends tell me I lean towards the hardcore side yet the label just doesn't fit for me. First, while I loved Starcraft in high school I never put the hours into honing my skills like some of my classmates did and thus I usually lost unless I was on their team. World of Warcraft and Halo are both a collosal waste of time in my view and I am looking forward to trying out Professor Layton and the Curious Village once I get a DS.

Yet I'm no casual either. While Wii Play is fun for parties and when some friends are over, I hardly ever play it. If I want pick up and play I fire up Kid Icarus or Super Mario Brothers 2 (the Japanese version.) While Wii sports is fantastic and I love boxing I could never see myself just owning games like that on my Wii.

So what do I like? Well on the casual side I did actually enjoy Furu Furu Park as a fun timewaster for $20. This week I picked up P.N.03 and Mega Man Network Transmission for a fiver each. I have plenty of puzzle games with Dr. Mario and Puyo Puyo being my absolute favorites. On the hardcore side of things my current favorite Wii game is Metroid Prime 3 and I'm currently working on playing through Wind Waker once again.

So I suppose to many I probably lean towards the casual side of things. If that's the way they want to label me, fine. Just don't expect me to buy those worthless Nerf attachments for Wii Sports. No, I'll be having fun with my Zelda games and biding my time until I get my mitts on Smash Bros Brawl, Baroque, Tales of Symphonia 2 etc.

Either way, labels suck.

A Link to the Past

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:51:00 +0000

More Zelda to report. I played a bunch of Wind Waker on Saturday working my way towards Valoo the Dragon. I got all the way to the boss and ended up dying. Seeing as how it was after 1 AM, I decided to call it quits.

Sunday I was on the go so I brought along my Gameboy with Zelda 3. Link to the Past is one of the best Zelda games out there and with the possible exception of Wind Waker, I'd say it's the best in the series.

Of course one of these days I need to start Ocarina of Time and actually finish it.

Zelda Project - days 2 and 3

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 02:54:00 +0000

So last night I ended up playing more Wind Waker and getting as far as Windfall Island. I really forgot how much I loved this game. I mean, I've always praised it but I will never regret preordering this game at Babbages (a full month before I bought a Gamecube.)

Zelda obcession ...

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:28:00 +0000

So it's no secret that my favorite video games are with few exceptions from Nintendo. It then comes as no surprise that I am a big fan of the Zelda series despite never finishing Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess.

Well, seeing as how the weather here doesn't look the hottest (and honestly I have some free time) I decided that I will work on rectifying that. In the next few days and weeks I will be working on not one, two or even three but FIVE Zelda games.

I started playing Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on Monday. So far I've beaten just the first Palace. For some reason I never really played this game and so far I can understand why many Zelda fans don't like it or reject it outright. The game is just so different from all the other incarnations that that when the series returned to its topdown roots.

I'll post more on this one as I play it more.

I also started a new game of Wind Waker. This game I absolutely love and have chalked up dozens of hours in it the first time it came out. Heck, this was the game I bought the Gamecube for!

So far I've just gone through the opening movies and got my green clothes. Darn dinner got in the way.

So that's what I've got so far. Next up will probably be Zelda 3: A Link to the Past. I'll be playing the Gameboy Advance version as that way I will have something to play on my lunch break at work.

The other games I'll plan to play are Twilight Princess for the Wii and Ocarina of Time for the Gamecube (the emulated disc that came with Wind Waker.) Definitely should be an interesting experience.

I is a Animes fan!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:58:00 +0000

Last night I started an interesting new anime, Nobody's Boy Remi. While I won't talk about the show (that's what my other blog is for) it did get me to thinking about the hobby itself and where it's come since I started into it a good 9 or so years ago.

I've always been a cartoon fan since I was little. Mickey Mouse, He-Man, Care Bears: you name it, I probably watched it. Being a child of the 80s I ate up plenty of Japanese imports without realizing it at the time. I watched many shows never realizing they were Japanese. Most notable of these were Speed Racer and Voltron.

I first heard about anime being a specific genre thanks to those "This ain't no Mickey Mouse" commercials during the mid-80's. At first I remember being a little put off and so I'm not sure what really got me to check out the genre further. Nonetheless one fateful night in 1998 I caught Venus Wars late night on the Sci-Fi channel. I don't know what it was just how cool it was or if I just had hormones raging for Apollo Smile (when you're 15, you rage over just about any female) but something just drew me in and has held onto me for a good 9 years straight.

The rest they say, is history.

I hate to sound like an old fuddy-duddy with an "I've been in this hobby since you were diapers" argument as there are plenty who could do the same to me. I guess in some ways I just feel that many of today's fans who can go to their local FYE or point their browsers to Amazon or Rightstuf and find literally hundreds of titles and thousands of DVD volumes don't quite understand what it was like for us.

For all that I say that anime fans have it pretty darn good. I am not bitter; on the contrary I am glad that in my small way of trading fansubbed VHS tapes that I helped someone get into a show and that they went on to buy and support and help build this little fandom that continues to grow.

Damn I'm old!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:21:00 +0000

A lot has happened since my last post. The biggest events would have to be that I am now in a relationship and the second being that I am now a quarter century old. It has been quite the month and in many ways, I guess, a lot of growing up has occurred.

At the end of August I was a bit down about the whole life change sequence. I was changing jobs and despite going up in the pay bracket I still felt like I was leaving my entire world behind. Yet here I am, two months later and getting back into living.

One of those big steps into adulthood is breaking me of one of my worst habits: clutter. I have always had an untidy streak in my past and this goes back to my childhood. In fact, somewhere my mom has a picture of me fast asleep in a pile of toys. It just never seemed to bother me all that much and when it did, I simply ignored it thinking it would get better when I had my own room (or my own house.) Yet after acquiring over 1,300 DVDs in the last 7 years and over 300 NES games, enough was enough.

So what is the next step. Well so far I've tossed a few things and sold some others. I have a long way to go before I can call the room clean. I'm sure Peter Walsh and Linda Koopersmith want to come over and kick my ass but I'm a work in progress and plan to change.

More to come.

Going HD

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:19:00 +0000

About a month ago I received my first paycheck at my new job. As it was considerably better than my old low paying job playing with silverware I decided it was time to cash in some savings and pick up the item that I have been saving for all summer: a new TV.

My last set (a 27" Panasonic CRT ) I picked up back in the fall of 2001. I still remember going to the store not long after 9/11 doing what I believed was my part to keep the economy going after a horrendous act of terror. It wasn't much but since I was unfit for military duty, I was at least helping to avoid a financial panic.

I paid around $330 for that set at Sears and I couldn't have been happier. At the time I bought it, I had the largest set in the house and mostly used it for watching DVDs and playing Dreamcast games. After six years of serving this function rather well, plus the addition of a Gamecube, an NES, a laserdisc player and other devices it racked up many hours of use as my DVD Blog can attest.

A few months ago while playing Punch Out, I noticed that the screen started to have a large red spot in the upper left hand corner. My guess was that it came from a magnet near by in the form of some really awful small speakers I used for rear surrounds once upon a time. Now to repair this is to simply use a degausser to demagnetize the area. Of course that would require removing the TV to another location as this can inadvertently erase anything from a VHS tape to a hard drive. Seeing as how I didn't want any data lost I lived with it and toyed with the idea of going HD, although I was still at my old job I could not afford it.

Fast forward to the end of August and I had just accepted a new position at a new job which paid a decent and regular salary. I decided the time was right to use some of the emergency money I had saved this summer. Since I was happily employed, I went out and got my new TV.

First thing I had to decide was on the size. As my bedroom isn't that large I decided to go with a 32" widescreen. This allows for a wider set than my current 27 but for a somewhat shorter picture. At first I felt it might be a bit small but I am quite pleased with it. Going with this size made it easy to immediately pick LCD over plasma although had I opted for a larger set, I believe I would have gone the same way.

My new TV is the 32" Panasonic TCLX70 which was on sale at CircuitCity.com for a fairly reasonable price and I decided to go ahead and take the plunge. So with the new in and the old on its way out, the question now turned to my aging TV stand and piles of electronics.

The old TV stand was something of an enigma. I purchased it back in 2000 for around $20 at the closing of our local Bradlees store to free up the coffee table my really old TV was occupying at the time. While this rickety piece of particle board could certainly hold my new TV's weight it just was a huge eyesore and lacked any reasonable method or storing components.

I first went searching for a stand as soon as I had decided on the television. I poked around the usual places of Best Buy, BJ's, Target et. all and seemed to find a very common trend of cheap materials for a high price. While I loved the glass shelf look of many fine stands, I just could not bring myself to pay the ridiculously high price of a stand. I may spend $150 on a DVD player or a short stack of video games, but I'd be dammed if I had spent that on some particle board.

Being the sort of creative fellow I am, I decided instead of spending all sorts of money on a stand, I'd just build one. I mean, how hard could it be, right? Well not completely out of my reach but a heck of a lot more work than I wanted. After measuring and drawing up plans and calculating the cost for everything the price still seemed too high. I was starting to believe I'd just have to cough up the money for a good stand or stick with my Bradlees special.

Instead I got a creative idea on my lunch break at work. While browsing WalMart.com I came across a black TV cart for around $18. While it wouldn't fit my TV, I thought that two adjacent to each other might just do the trick. So a few hours and less than $40 later and I had two cheap shelves together and waiting for the new TV.

Once that was done I had to plug in and charge my trusty electric screwdriver and get ready to put it all together. After an hour or so that evening, I had the new stands together and the next day when the TV arrived I got it all set up. Currently the shelves are home to a DVD player, VCR, Cable Box, an NES, an SNES, a Genesis and Dreamcast. I may add in my PS2 at some point as well but for now this is just fine.

I'll have to post photos some time when I get the rest of the room clean but I am more than satisfied with it.

Back to school no more

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:26:00 +0000

Here is a day that I always knew was coming and even after my graduation this last May just did not seem real. It wasn't until I walked through Target seeing all the kids with their parents buying pencils, pens and notebooks and college students buying toasters and hot plates that it all sank in. There will never againbe a "back to school" time for me.

Sure I may have kids some day and will have to trek out for all the back to school sales. Heck, I may even go to grad school at some point and yet even that won't be the same. Granted, I was never big on buying new notebooks and pens but it still feels as if almost the final nail in the childhood coffin has been nailed for me. The final nails, of course, be when I get married and have kids.

Perhaps it's because I spent so long at college getting myself straightened out that when I finally found what I want to do and made some friends it was all over. I did not waste my college years by any means. I would never trade them for anything and the friends that I have made I hope will continue on forever even though I know that most of them have moved far away, never to return to the little spot in the valley.

I think this is all because I am not getting the job here at the college but instead have moved on to a much bigger job. This of course means that I will not see certain people on a daily basis like I used to although I may stop down at the college for a visit now and then.

Actually using this thing

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 22:23:00 +0000

Howdy all! For those who really don't know me, I'm a little surprised that you would run across this website just as it is in some ways a personal blog that will reflect my views on some obscure topics in my life.

I am not out to "rock the boat" by any means and you won't see any ramblings about politics, or how much I dislike my old employer. I want to keep as far away from the negative side of blogging as well as the "axe to grind" mentality that many have.

So what can you expect here? Well probably stuff about my video game collection as well as photography and some DIY projects I've been cooking up.

I hope you all enjoy this and for those wondering I am not giving up my video blog but for when it's 90 degrees outside and I'm in no mood to be indoors and I'm doing something, here is where I can talk about it.

It should be a fun project. So let's get started!

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 02:03:00 +0000

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