Arcade Cabinet, Paper Cutouts

I spent some time last night researching control schemes for a arcade cabinet. I came across a pretty detailed site that had almost exactly what I was planning. My intent is to make a four player arcade cabinet, similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or X-Men arcades that were popular in my youth. I was considering just a two player, and I think that will be the primary use, but I want more than two to play if possible. Maybe I'm dreaming/fantasizing, but I want to play this thing with my three sons some day.

Anyway, a gentleman by the name of LuSid's has some great designs, which turns out have proliferated quite weill on the internets. I took his design schematics, printed out a couple copies and built myself a paper arcade cabinet. I've learned a little in the process.


Regardless, my first step is to order and build a controller box. Then hook use that to play on the PC. Then design and build the cabinet and just mount the controller to it. Easy... ha, probably not.

Chillin' Amoxicillin

We're coming up on day 10 of our a Amoxacillin regiment. Three kids, three doses. Strep throats, bam. Ear infections, bam. Taken care of.

The green one is also amoxacillin, but with a little green dye. My second born was beaing a bear taking his, so his dose was made John Deere green! Tractor freak.

TV, where have ye gone?

Sunday was good TV. Two awesome shows had their season finalies. The Wire, an amazing show on HBO concluded in typical awesome The Wire fashion, not missing a beat and wrapping up a thousand loose ends in a complex storm of political ties and buys. Simply amazing through and through. It's too bad this show is over over. I mean, its the last season ever. What is HBO going to do now. I wonder if John Adams will be anygood. In Treatment is good too, but its just too much.

The other show that has impressed me to the extreme has been Breaking Bad. My wife says its crazy dramatic, to the point where she'll leave the room because its built in such a make or break teater totter fashion that you're seat edge gets plenty of use. Great show and its on AMC. They do swear on the show, but you can't hear it (cut away) but still obvious. Makes me think this show was beyond AMC fashion. All I can say is I need more BrBa.

IGDA meeting, March

After a couple days of sick in my house, I managed to drag myself to work on Thursday. Luckily the kids got medicine and showed drastic improvements. Amazing what a shot of Amoxicilon in the morning and before bed can do.

Anyway, feeling better, I went to another IGDA meeting and it was awesome. Ham in the Fridge, a local Flash production house that does work for Target Corp. and some online flash apps and games. They talked about Fairway to Hell, a game built for Adult Swim. Their presentation was inspiring and very eye opening to the process, and cost, of developing a game. A game that if I had seen it otherwise, I would think would be an easy effort. I was wrong of course, my naivety of the design process.

Interviewed... Butter City?

On Saturday, March 8th, Quantum Petshop (myself and co-filmmaker Bill Nagel) were interviewed on a PBS talk show called Butter City, a show about independent film in MN. It went quite well we think. It was weird and fun at the same time. Unfortunately the show wont air (state wide airing FYI, in Minnesota) until May.

Dan Orozco, the host, is a pretty good guy. He's fun and a supporter of our unique style and comedy.

Frustration Engine Rebuked

I finally got around to tearing the internals out of my expired Dell 420 and put them into a superior (note a degree of sarcasm here) Dell GX150. It took me most of the day, both because the OS freaked on being in new system, and because I was hold up sick, fighting runny noses and coughs across the house. I actually considered this part of my clean-up basement activities, getting these systems out of the way.

Anyway, in the end it equaled a working, Win 98, internet connected, 1.0 Gz 512 MB, MAME PC. I'm ready to rock some Donky Kong! Hopefully I'll plan and order the parts for my custom controller soon.

Camera Nap Mission

My wife and baby are sick with strep. My other two sons have ear infections. I'm not sure what's up with me, but I'm so tired. So tired that while wife and baby are resting this morning, I manage to get the older one playing some PS2 (Ratchet and Clank, one of his favorites) and the middle one playing sticker book, vehicles edition (he's got some intense tractor fetish).

Anyway, I'm sleeping away and things are piling up on me (literally, my second born is showering me with art projects) when my oldest son, Aidan, comes up really excited. It appears he's found an ice planet in game that has a mission we haven't completed yet. He requests my urgent attention, to which I reply that I will observe it later, Daddy's napping.

Aidan then takes it upon himself to grab his camera (actually my old Sony Mavica I bought back in 98, one of the original digital cameras, it uses disketts) and take a picture of the screen. He then brings the camera back to me to show me. Talk about easy.

Really good show, Brass Kings

On Friday night, my best friend Bill and I filmed the Brass Kings performance at the Cedar Cultural Center. If you're wondering, the Brass Kings are a kick ass folkish band. They provided most of the music in our documentary Bill's Big Pumpkins. It was an incredible show.

What's really amazing about the Brass Kings is that they are three men. One plays guitar and sings, one plays washboard, and the other plays a gut-bucket, essentially a metal tub with a broom stick and a rope. Unique to say the least, but it sounds awesome.

I may not have mentioned it much in my other posts, but I'm an amateur filmmaker. This was our biggest shoot to date, using 5 cameras simultaneously. It went quite well. The only problems we had (that we know of thus far) were lighting, some camera settings (some interlaced, some 4/3) but nothing we can't work around. Fingers crossed.