YDKJ DoD: Aquaman Left Spyware on My Harddrive
Topic: YDKJ Classic

This YDKJ DOD Classic came from December 19, 2006.

Daily Drip: The Summer of Emotion
Topic: Daily Drip

Welcome back to NESpresso. I know I've been pretty quiet last week as the web activities are conserned, but I have a good reason.

At 12:29 PM CDT Sunday (June 21st), my grandmother died & pretty much took the week off for bereavement. Her funeral was Wednesday with the family, but the major fireworks haven't really gone off yet (as far as I'm conserned) since there's still the issue of her will & the settlement of her estate to deal with. As much as I'm trying to stay OUT of the matter, I have a bad feeling that there will be some bloodshed (figuratively speaking... hopefully) before everything is settled.

In light of all the events this week, I hereby dub the summer of 2009 as "The Summer of Emotion" as emotions seem to be running high in my family as well as the rest of the world. On top of my personal loss, there's been some major losses in the world... Ed McMahon (Johnny Carson's side-kick), Fara Fawcet (70's supermodel, original "Charlie's Angel"... pardon the possible misspelling) & Michael Jackson (If you have never heard of him, you're either 5, living a hole since 1965 or dead). Michael Jackson's death is the only major one that's received major media coverage... so far 2 days worth of coverage now between NBC (Thursday for an hour) & ABC (Friday for 2 hours). There's also another local death nearby of a person that I'm unfamiliar with, but my parents are more likely familiar with who died on Wednesday... I know it just seems depressing this week, but it's more of a coincidence than anything.

On more optimistic news for "The Summer of Emotion", this Saturday marks the 2-week warning for my younger bro's wedding... not to mention that next Saturday is the 4th of July. However you consider a wedding (bad or good), you're probably right to some point. My younger bro & his soon-to-be wife have been seeing each other for about 5-6 years now (that I can remember)... so it's about time they've finally tied the knot. While there are some things that my (soon-to-be) sister-in-law that I don't agree with, but I can get along with her with little problems.

The only major update online with me is the release of Puzzle Pirates Unofficial Omnibus version 0.503 Silver, which includes about 2 months worth of updates & new features in the game that were introduced since version 0.402 Bronze. You can pick it up from Game FAQ's, Super Cheats or Neoseeker (as they're the ones who are actively hosting the guide... considering it's pretty much the ONLY MODERN guide for Puzzle Pirates right now). Feel free to grab a copy of it for your personal use or even use it as a reference for your own Puzzle Pirates guide as the Creative Commons license I use allows derivative works... as long as your work is non-commercial. You can even steal a copy & post to your website, but I like to know who's hosting my guides so that I can add you to my update lists.

As for my Twitter activity, it's still a bit hampered since my Twitter Plugin for Pidgin(MBPurple) took a hit with the "Tweetpocolyspe" with version 0.2.1 (portable) that has been noted. Version 0.2.2 has fixed the major issues that would make Pidgin crash, but it's still has some bugs that are making it extremely annoying that I still have it disabled... so I'm only using the website for my tweets until they get MBPurple fixed well enough to use it again. It has crossed my mind to switch back to Trillian... but that program hasn't received any major updates & Trillian Astra is still stuck in alpha / beta testing & the plugins that I want to use may not work as well as I want them too (or at least without having to cough up the cash for "Pro Version"). That's pretty much the main reason why I'm sticking with Pidgin... more networks, likable features (like tabbed IM windows), free plugins (some assembly / installation work required) & it's completely free since it's open source.

That's all for this issue of the Daily Drip... I'll try to have something more interesting, but don't count on it.

Kyobi (from Whirled.com)
Topic: Weekend Timewaster

For those who want something that'll waste more than just 30 minutes of your time, I present Kyobi.

 

Launch the full version of Whirled

Pardon the disappropiate flash window, that's Whirled's doing...  not mine.

The game is pretty simple, make 3 or more of the same tile touch to clear them.  Just drag the pieces around the playfield, that's all there is to it!  Throw them, slam them...  whatever you have to do to get three or more to touch.

Just make sure that none of the tiles reach the top of the playfield or you'll run into trouble.  You'll only have a limited amount of time (see the bar at the top) to fix it or it's game over for you!

If you like what you see here, check out Whirled!

Don't Shit Your Pants
Topic: Weekend Timewaster

For those who want to waste a few minutes this weekend check out...

- Don't Shit Your Pants

It's a very simple, retro-based game where you type in commands to complete the game...  There's pretty much 2 objectives here.

1) Don't Shit Your Pants

2) Use the toilet

 There's other objectives as well, but play the game to find them out.

Not-so-brief History of Video Games
Topic: Weekend Timewaster

For those who are more interested in reading than playing a game, check out the "Not-so-brief History of Video Games" at http://kidicarus222.blogspot.com/2009/06/its-secret-to-everybody.html

It's chalk full of Video Game trivia & useless information that you might enjoy

YDKJ Classic: Episode 7
Topic: YDKJ Classic

Weird Al Yankovic - Craigslist
Topic: Brain Waster

Weird Al's Latest music Video from his newest CD by the same name.  Enjoy!

YDKJ Classic DoD: I Can Count to at Least Two
Topic: YDKJ Classic

Time for a sobriety check!  If you can't get a perfect on this, you're either a little buzzed OR you can't temporarily reprogram you brain for this little task.

Anyways, Enjoy!

Daily Drip: Debugging in Progress
Topic: Daily Drip

Welcome back to NESpresso.  Things are still in production here, but it seems that my Twacker has developed a nasty bug of going places it shouldn't be going.  While I try to fix it, just be aware of the problem.

As for the soul-crushing mentioned on Twitter...  it's still in progress, although my Tweeting is going to be a little more limited because my mobile Twitter plugin for Pidgin hasn't been released for all platforms, so I still have to go manual with my tweets (via the website).

I'm still having agression issues with the server, mostly because I have to wade through a long list of items just to find the one I really want as there's practically no rhyme or reason to the list...

If the Forresters really wanted to rule the world, they should have gone with very remedial work instead of bad movies (which I actually use to un-crush my soul).

That's all for now...

Time Travel: NOT Impossible... Just Very Improbable
Topic: Brain Waster

This is more of an anti-Brain Waster, but there are some proof (albeit, theortical) that Time Travel is possible.  However,  the energy requirements to do so is pretty massive as well... which makes it improbable to do & practically impossible to do with today's technology.

Strangely, this also makes the Dr. Who series more probable as well (since the TARDIS uses a "time vortex" (which is like a black hole) as the engine).

Sorry that I can't post the video here (as Discovery doesn't support independant blogs), but please visit http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/2057-time-travel.html for the details.

Too Damn Late - Episode 1.0: Farewell Analog Television!
Topic: Too Damn Late

It's 12:12 AM CDT & it's time for Too Damn Late!

WARNING: Too Damn Late is written after midnight, so if you're one of those oversensitive people who can't handle swearing & other objectionable content SHOULD STOP READING NOW! The only reason why this warning is placed at the top of each episode of Too Damn Late is to protect myself from idiots like you. Needless to say "VIEWER'S DISCRETION IS ADVISED"

As it's now June 12, 2009... All TV stations (excluding low power, local stations) have to kill their analog signals & broadcast purely in digital... if they chose not to kill their analog signals beforehand. For me, all the major broadcast stations decided to make the jump to digital on the original deadline (of February 17th). HOWEVER, my local PBS station keep their analog broadcast going until 12:01 AM CDT today & the local NBC station was designated as the "nightlight station" until April 19th (60 days after the jump) to serve as the "helpline" for those who didn't make the jump earlier, as part of the FCC rules with the transition.

Myself, I made the jump to digital back in March, 2008 as I was one of the first people to sign up for the DTV converter boxes. While the TV stations were still tweaking things a bit, you have to wonder WHY you didn't to it earlier! The claims with DTV were fairly accurate: More Channels & Better Quality. HOWEVER, things weren't completely perfect.

First of all, reception comes in 3 varieties: Good, Garbled & No Reception. There's practically NO GREY REGIONS here, unlike analog TV. Most of the stations are either good or not, but there a few stations that fall into the garbled catagory, where you get enough signal to find the station during a scan, but not enough to make it really viewable. There's only one station around me that falls into this catagory & it's extremely annoying when attempting to view it.

Second, antenna placement is more critical now! If you can afford it, get an outdoor antenna as it'll give you the best reception potential. Indoor antennas are OK, but they can be pretty fickle as placement of the antenna in the room as well as the occupants can affect reception. It is possible for someone's fat ass in the wrong spot in the room can totally fuck up your reception! Therefore, you'll want to take extra time during set up to maximize signal strength across your known channels.

Third, weather CAN AFFECT reception... sometimes in a big way! For me, the signal strength for one channel dips around 10-20% during the daytime, which can make throw it into the "Garbled Range". However, once the sun starts to set (around 6:00 / 7:00 PM), it works just fine. Rain doesn't hurt as much, but real extreme weather could spell disaster for your reception. You would be royally pissed off if a blizzard between you & your broadcast station fucks up your Superbowl party... however, if such an event happens, having a good party would be the least of your concerns.

Finally, not all DTV's & converter boxes are created equally. Sure, the all do the job, but some just do a better job than others... so try to test out stuff before you buy it, that way you don't get screwed when you get a crappy item.

With DTV, my channel offerings have practically doubled. Back on analog, I was only getting about 6-8 channels. On Digital, I'm getting 15-16 channels from the same sources, most of them are broadcasting 2 subchannels. My local PBS station has went a bit further with 3. Now have the CW, MyNetwork TV, America One, Create (PBS), World (PBS), Universal Sports & 24/7 weather.

Analog TV (with monochrome & color) has had a good run with roughly 60 years over the air... but it's time to evolve into Digital TV. May Digital TV have a good life before the next big thing appears. It reminds me of the song, "Video Killed the Radio Star" & the short-live parody "Internet Killed the Video Star", while it's fair to mourn the death of one format... it's time to move on to it's successor.

That's all for this episode of Too Damn Late for now...

YDKJ: Episode 1
Topic: YDKJ Classic

I thought it was only suitable to post the first full episode of You Don't Know Jack with the start of NESlog!

Daily Drip: NESpresso - The Relaunch
Mood:  happy
Topic: Daily Drip
Welcome back to the new home of NESpresso.  The main reason why I moved over to Tripod is that Yahoo! is closing Geocities, which was NESpresso's original home practically 10 years.  I still want to host NESpresso on my owner server, but ISP issues & restrictions have put those plans on hold (as I don't want to enrage them for breaking their policy).

For those who have been with NESpresso for some time will notice that things been striped down a bit.  This is mostly because things are still being remade & streamlined for the current age.  Some things may not be returning while other items will take some time to return, sometimes in a different format than what others prefer.

One thing that will be changing is that the "Daily Drip" & the archives will not be returning in the traditional sense as the NESlog (my blog, which you're reading now) will be taking over that duty as it automates the process.  However, I'll likely use "Daily Drip" for standard website updates or general ramblings.  All downloads available here (the foremetioned "NESdrive", coming soon) will be handled by <a href="http://www.mediafire.com">MediaFire</a> as it allows me to host files without having to worry about file sizes (to a point), bandwidth or other restrictions that Tripod may enforce.  Otherwise, I'll just provide a direct link to the files as most major sites tend to have load balancing links that cover all their mirrors.

As for NESlog, "Too Damn Late" will be returning...  I'll be starting back at Episode 1.0 again with (somewhat) new stuff to rant about.  HOWEVER, the "Classics" (aka Old) episodes will occasionally pop up, but they will get updated to fit more modern times.  As always, "Too Damn Late" is always written after midnight, so the same <B><font color="red">VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED</FONT></B> for them.  There'll be a few features on NESlog will be the "Weekend Timewaster" where I post about some stupid web game or toy to blow your time with.  "YDKJ Classics", as the same states, will be classic episode (or Daily Dis-or-Dat) from the You Don't Know Jack: the Webisodes collection (May last for about 2 years or so, depending on how frequently I post these).  "Brain Wasters" will be a group of videos available online to rot your brains with.

There'll likely be more stuff to talk about...  but that's for another time.