Weirdguy of Doom

Walmart once again proved that it is a giant retailer

2011-01-18T21:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday on Red Flag Deals (if you don't know about RFD, shame on you) a thread was started about Walmart discounting a huge amount of games at 1$. I thought I would miss on it since I could only go into a Walmart after work.

Boy was I wrong ! I was able to get about 27 games for the low price of 25$ + taxes.

And yes, I am keeping most of them for my collection and for playing.

My first ever Xbox 360 RROD fix or why you should RTFM !

2011-01-08T01:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you find weird stuff in thrift shops. Sometimes you find stuff that shouldn't be there... yet. I found a lonely Xbox 360...

And those saying "Man that thing was dead for sure !" are right. And maybe the title tipped off others. Yes, that 360 had the 3 red flashing lights, the infamous Red Ring of Death or RROD for short.

So fixing a RROD on a 360 must be hard, right ? If it was easy, people wouldn't pay other people to do it, everyone would do it themselves. On the contrary, it is easy ! You ca find plenty or tutorials on the intarweb on how to fix it and they are mostly the same. Then, why people don't do it themselves ? Because they're afraid they'll destroy their machine.

It's just like plumbing. People are afraid they will flood their house so they pay a guy an insane amount of money to do a job that might be as risky as if people did it themselves (everybody who saw a Mike Holmes show know what I'm talking about).

And know you're wondering what is the link between fixing an Xbox 360 and plumbing... It's simple : follow the goddamn instructions. If you can't do that, then you deserve to pay insane amount of money to a guy that has as much chance as you to screw things up.

I made one small mistake when I fixed that RROD. My local hardware shop didn't have the correct length of screws needed for the fix but I was sure I would be fine. I wasn't... One of the 360 heat sink is thin and the holes are just under the heat sink fins. A longer screw would bend the fin and might screw up (pun intended) the integrity of the heat sink. So with a metal saw and a couple of vice grips, I was able to cut the screws to the perfect length and did my fix. But I do have to remember that if I ever had to fix another console.

The 360 is held together really well and has many parts and screws. Be careful and don't loose anything ! If you follow instructions, you won't break anything as well. Also, use Torx screwdrivers, don't think you'll be fine with a couple of different size flat screwdrivers, you'd just strip them and make the Xbox impossible to disassemble.

The fixed Xbox 360 is now in the ground floor living room and will most likely be used as a DVD player and casual gaming. Overall, I'm happy my fix turned out so well even considering the 4 hours it took me (cutting screws takes time!) from start to finish. I'll be faster next time (if there is one).

To conclude, I never intended to provide instructions on how to fix a 360. There is plenty of tutorials on how to do it with nice, clear pictures and since I didn't take any pictures, my instructions would be useless. A quick search on Google, gave me plenty of tutorials to choose from and I almost choose randomly. However, I'll be more than happy to provide advice if someone wants to fix his own console (but won't be held responsible if it doesn't work).

P.S. : Before attempting a fix like this, verify that your console is still under warranty with Microsoft. They would either fix it or send you a refurbished console free of charge.

P.P.S. : RTFM means Read The Fucking Manual...

The Incantor and circuit bending, or the thing nobody really cared about.

2011-01-04T14:50:00.000-05:00

On the Internet, you can come across weird electronic stuff. I still can't remember how I came across the existence of circuit bending.

To make a long story short, circuit bending is a process by witch you modify the way a circuit should work, hoping for crazy or awesome results. To further your knowledge of circuit bending, check Wikipedia. The whole idea of making music using circuit bent devices was made more popular by Reed Ghazala.

The best candidate for circuit bending are electronic toys and small synthesizer. Ghazala cover a lot of them in his book (available on Amazon and other fine retailers) but the most well known are the Speak series of toys by Texas Instrument in the early 80's. These toys had synthesized voice and had a large vocabulary.

I was recently able to get my hand on a really minty Speak & Read toy (even with the slip case). I knew I had to "bend" it. Since the required parts are switches, push buttons and potentiometer, it was nothing my trusty local part store couldn't handle. I did feel cheated on the normally closed push button... They are not commonly stocked so the only one they had was 13$... I'll buy one online next time.

Finding the instruction for a basic Incantor (circuit bend Speak & Read, as named by Ghazala) was easy since it is covered in a makezine.com article. Since I wanted it to look really nice, I was extra careful when I made the holes for the parts. I'm proud of the way it looks since the reset button almost look like a factory one. Ghazala mention in the article that many version of the circuit board for the same game exist and he is right. Mine was not even covered by the article since one chip was totally different from the schematic (different number of pins).

I was lucky since everything worked out fine the first time. The reset button does it's job: since the results are almost always random, you might need to reset the machine after a while. The loop button and switch work together: you press the button to "test" your loop and when you find one suitable, you "lock it with the switch. The pitch dial is the best feature in my opinion. Slowing the pitch to the limit always makes it sound weirder.

As for the bending switches, their effects are random but sometimes insane. Turning them on in different combination can change the sound or crash the system. But since the game was well built, I don't think you can break it.

While this was a cool project to do, unless you're a musician, you won't find much interest in this. I have fun with it from time to time and I am always amazed at the sounds that comes out of this thing, but I'm pretty sure I was the only to find it interesting. That being said, I'll probably keep it, even if they sell for quite a bit on ebay.

Building a CMVS - Part 3

2011-01-01T02:55:00.000-05:00

While the previous part was more about the gathering of the parts, this part is about the making, and that part is easy too !

First is drilling holes. While any dumb guy can hold a drill (there should be a law for that), you have to be careful when makings the holes. You must carefully select your drill bit. In doubt, choose the smaller one. You can always make a holes bigger but not the other way around. It's also good to plan in advance the settings of your connectors, especially if you have one of a different size. As you can see in the picture, I went with the video quality and then sound. The other side only has the power connector, so I didn't bother to take a picture of it.

One you're done with the holes, it's time to bust out the soldering iron, your best friend in this adventure ! As you can see in the pictures, I also used a glue gun since I wanted everything to be nice and tidy. You can also note the use of only one ground wire. I find it easier and less messy that way. They would all connect together anyway at some point.

Once every video connector was connected to the encoder, I had to connect the input wires to the MVS board. Sorry I got no picture for that, but as long as you know your JAMMA pinout, you'll be ok.

Once the video encoder had both connectors soldered I did a small test. It was one of those occasions were I was glad I picked up a small Commodore monitor a couple years ago. It's bulky but it does the job when it comes to testing a console. I connected the board to one of my arcade and ran a long RCA cable to test the composite video on the monitor. Success !

The rest was easy, connect the power connector to one of the 5V line and 12V line and done. Now I could test on the big TV.

Arcade monitors are made to run with a native input, the original RGB input (not to be confused with Y/Pb/Pr input, or Component) so even on big screen, arcade games then to look very good. Much better than a NES connected over composite. However, this picture can not do justice to the quality for 2 reasons :

It's hard to take a good picture of a screen
You can notice the black line in the middle of the screen

While the black line is a problem with my TV itself, I was kinda glad it happened. This was the best proof that what I had been saying for the past 2 year and a half was true: there was something wrong with the TV! I was able to exchange it for a new TV since I took the extended warranty. I never thought of taking a new picture after the fact, sorry about that.

What ? 2011 ? Has it been so long ?

2011-01-01T00:57:00.000-05:00

It's been four months since I updated this blog. People know that I'm alive and that's good enough.

Over these 4 months, my son was born and I can say he's a handful. He keeps us busy 99% of our waking time and some of our sleep time as well.

I also worked on some projects, most of them will soon be shown here. I just got busy and haven't had time to write about them.

Other than that, I've been to work, got some Legos (love Legos!) and got one new arcade game.

In the next posts, I'll includes the last part of my Neo Geo CMVS build, my Incantor build and some Legos pictures!

Building a CMVS - Part 2

2010-08-03T19:59:00.000-05:00

So now that the Neo Geo arcade had its awesomeness ratio upped to "super awesome", I was ready for the next thing : the Supergun/CMVS (I refer you to the Wikipedia entry on supergun for more details : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperGun, CMVS means Consolized MVS, which is the name of the arcade version of the Neo Geo).

I had to choose between the Supergun or the CMVS but when I saw a Neo Geo board for cheap (35 shipped), I had made my choice.

When you consolize a MVS, you mainly need 3 things:

A MVS board (check).
A power supply. I acquired a couple with the correct rating last year so I was already set for that (check).
A video encoder (not check).

Video encoders are why this projects can get expensive. Unless you're willing to build one yourself, you have to get this from one of the three following source:

JRok - http://jrok.com/hardware/RGB.html
JMKurtz - http://neobitz.com/
Y-Plus - http://www.arcademvs.com/ARCADE_ACESSERIOR.htm (Product A-22)

The JRok and Neobitz encoders are now able to output component (which is the last step before HDMI) so obviously, they command a higher price. I first contacted JRok and after one reply, he never contacted me back. Either my emails were sent directly to spam or I was asking too much questions. Y-Plus sell only a composite/s-video encoder, which is why it's cheaper.

So I went with the Neobitz encoder. I got better service from him and the board arrived while I was on vacation (good thing it's small, it was in the mailbox, not on my front door step). Shipped, that small thing was 100$ US.

The last thing I was missing was a controller. Another good thing about MVS boards is that some of them come with controller connector, like SNK was expecting people to use the board in different way than in an arcade cabinet. So ordering a controller on eBay was not too difficult, the only issue I had was that I payed more for shipping than for the controller itself.

Once you have all this, you still need a couple of things, but nothing that can't be found at your local part store (I go to http://www.active123.com/ for most of my stuff, except LEDs, one LED for 5$ is not a good deal).

Here's a final picture with everything needed. The Neo Geo cart is kind of a given, since you do need something to test. The output connectors were included with the video encoder so that was nice as I didn't really want to make a Digi-Key order (I find their order system to be a pain if you don't have the part number).

Of course, the board was first tested in my own arcade cabinet and once I was satisfied with it (took 30sec), I was ready to start building !

And that will all be covered in the next post !

Building a CMVS - Part 1

2010-08-03T18:37:00.000-05:00

Yeah, new post ! Took me less time to post something than the previous times (we're talking June 2009 to March 2010).

So recently I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay and held off on buying new shiny things for my collection. So once I had enough money in my Paypal account, I went for it: finishing projects that I pushed for too long !

First off was the translucent arcade buttons. This is something that i had pushed back for a long time since it's only a cosmetic thing. I've been wanting to change the buttons of my Neo Geo arcade for so long and after seeing the translucent buttons, I thought it would be cool to have buttons that light up. You can't deny the awesomeness of those buttons.

While the concept is fairly simple, doing was another thing. The quality control on these buttons is not the same as the regular Happ buttons (even if they come from the same mold). You also have to consider that the type of plastic/vinyl used to make the buttons is weaker than a regular plain color buttons. Translucent = weak. The color also affect the weakness. Yellow is the worst, followed by blue.

Anyway, on to the project itself. I first decided that I wanted these to run of the 5V line already coming from the main power supply, no battery or external output. That would have been too much pain just to do that. Using a LED array wizard (http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz), I was able to figure build the needed circuit (it was mainly to know which resistor I needed to use).

One the circuit done and the buttons received, the rest was easier said than done. I installed the buttons and with my drill (I rarely used a Dremel anymore since the holes are all of the same size of an existing drill bit), I made a hole in the bottom and inserted a white LED. Then I soldered everything back to the small circuit, connected everything to the main Jamma connector and I was DONE !

It looks great and I like it. Next : the real CMVS !

Guncon vs Justifier, an uneven match

2010-03-29T20:04:00.004-05:00

To follow up on the driving controllers versus, I compared the most common non-standard controller ever known to man : the gun controllers. Once again, I went with the hardware I have in my collection.

The early game systems were mostly one-sided in the controller category. You only have to think about the NES Zapper, the SNES Super Scope, the SMS Light Phaser, the Genesis Menacer, etc. Of course there was some third party gun but the were mostly crap, except the Konami stuff.

Konami came up with the Justifier in the SNES/Genesis era and created a second iteration of the gun for the Playstation. The gun looks great except for one thing : it light green. The kind of green your face get when you're sick. Other than that, it looks cool, not too heavy and has a nice grip. I tested it with Project: Horned Owl, the only game that I have that is compatible with that gun, at least to my knowledge.

The game controls are simplified by the gun's lack of buttons. You have the trigger, an action button and a Start button. Nothing else. That doesn't mean the game is lacking in any way. Just don't expect any crazy button combos.

The game was designed by Masamune Shirow and it shows. All cut scenes are drawn in the style that Shirow is famous for. Really Ghost in the shell like. You basicaly fighting off an alien invasion in a mecha that holds a giant gun. That concept won't rewrite history but it serves it purpose: shoot anything that move (except small civilian).

The gun work fine with the game except that you don't have a crosshair. You really have to know where you are pointing your gun or you'll die pretty quickly.

Moving on to the most popular gun controller, the Guncon. Made by Namco for the popular Time Crisis games (and many others too), this is the most real looking gun made, in its PS1 iteration. The orange PS2 version kinda breaks the mood. Same amount of buttons here but the A and B placement makes it harder to remember which is which as they are placed on either side of the gun, at the front.

I first intended to innovate a try the controller with a lesser known title: GUNFIGHTER: The legend of Jesse James. The story glorified a criminal, the graphics were bad for the system and the movement (of both the main character and the bad guys) didn't make a lot of sense.

I died 4 times before giving up, as I figured I was still far from clearing the first stage. I don't recommend that game. So I went with a sure bet, Time Crisis, the original. What I like about Namco gun games is that they have a calibrating screen, which was missing in the previous 2 games. Now it's included in all the game but I think game designers didn't see it as a necessity at the time.

The gun responded well in the game even tho you still don't have a crosshair. It's less inconvenient since the controller was calibrated before.

I shouldn't really compare the 2 guns, as each of them is compatible with a different set of games. The Guncon enjoyed a better life as it is now in its 3rd iteration on the PS3 and can be use with LCD and plasma screens. The Justifier life ended with the PS1. So the Guncon still wins in the long run but I'd say that if you get your hands on a Justifier, I would recommend checking out the games that were made for it.

JogCon vs NeGCon, which one is the best/weirdest

2010-03-22T17:20:00.008-05:00

From now on, I’ll try to blog at least once a week about gaming, mostly about retro-gaming and obscure gaming subjects.

Even tho blogging is supposed to be out compared to Twitter and Facebook, I consider this as a writing exercise. And maybe I can interest some people in that stuff.

Recently, I’ve been able to get my hands on a Namco NeGCon controller. Back in the PS1 era, Namco had a popular racing game series called Ridge Racer (which still exists to this day but has been less high profile in the recent consoles). It is more of an arcade racer than a simulation, like Gran Turismo and Forza. We’re talking high speeds and drifts that don’t make any sense. I already had some Ridge Racer titles, including a special edition of Rige Racer Type 4, which came with the JogCon.

First up was the NegCon with Ridge Racer (RR1), the first, straight port of the arcade. Right of the bat, I must say the controller is really simple and when playing, only 2 buttons are used (even if while playing RR1, I used only one): Acceleration and Brakes. Even better, they are pressure sensitive, which was pretty unusual in the PS1 days.

One thing hits you when first play with the NegCon: you have no idea of the how far you have to twist to turn the way you like and you are clueless on which direction you car will take on the first turn. You either get it right or you hit the opposite wall. Once past the first turn, you’ll need a race lap to get the hang of it. The twist motion becomes natural and is insanely precise. I even had a friend who is more of a sport gamer (mainly baseball, basketball, and football) and he had a pretty good first race and finished second. He actually liked how the controller worked!

While he was there, we decided to test the JogCon. First issue: early PS1 games are not compatible with it. Since it came with Ridge Racer Type 4 (RR4), we decided to test the controller with it. Then you have to find a comfortable position for your hands to use the dial while still firmly holding the controller. A good point: the force feedback is really strong when you take into account the size of the controller. It’s big for a PS1 controller but nothing excessive.

The learning curve with this controller is much bigger than the NeGCon. The force feedback really messes with the way a person would normally play those games. You hold the dial with 3 fingers max. This is not a full steering wheel with force feedback that you hold with 2 hands. The first time the force feedback kicks, the dial almost jumps out of your hand. It’s weird at first, then you try to drift and it gets just plain awkward. The force feedback will kick in one, direction then the opposite, then back again when trying to get the car straight. To perform, you must not make any mistakes, not even the slightest one.

I can see myself getting used to that controller but it would take time. Time that I don’t have considering that I don’t specialize in drift racing games. I don’t feel like spending 2 hours to master a track in a Ridge Racer, assuming it is one that is compatible with it. I haven’t tested it with other titles, but I’m fairly sure that not a lot of titles were compatible with the JogCon.

The NegCon on the other hand seem to work with pretty much any racing game. To make the test even, I tried the Grand Prix mode in RR4 and finished it within an hour and only had to redo one race (finished second and had to finish first in that one).

Not long after finding a NeGCon, I read on a gaming forum that playing with it was bliss. I had trouble believing that because, let’s be honest, it looks like a broken controller. It twists right in the middle! How weird could it be to play with it? I believe now and will challenge anyone to try it and see for themselves.

Both pictures are from www.joypadgame.com. I do not own them, they just had the best picture of the controllers.

Updates !

2009-06-30T17:54:00.008-05:00

What's happening lately with me ?

In May I received my first delivery of meat. Yes, meat. Tons of meat. More than meat the eyes. We pay 40$ each week and once every 4 months, we get a crapload of meat.

Now observe Exhibit B: our freezer after delivery:

As you can see, we are surrounded by meat. The bad thing about this, my girlfriend recently started a diet so I have to eat this all by myself by next delivery, in September. Help !

On the Magic the Gathering topic, our small tournament finally ended. I finished second but I blame bad shuffling. Here's a pictures of the order I made with the local card shop.

My girlfriend won tickets for the Monster Spectacular show at the PBS. While not a full scale show (for which they need an outdoor venue or the Olympic Stadium in Montreal), it was a pretty entertaining show. I do have to admit, it's a guy show but you get some "drama" to spice it up. The fight during the ATV race was totally fake and one guy flipped his monster truck upside down. The fight was totally hilarious, espcially after the "officials" broke it up and one guy "fainted"...

More update soon, gotta leave !

So what else is new ?

2009-04-22T21:13:00.002-05:00

Been absent of the blogging world for a long time again. Life is always busy when you have a puppy, especially a Samoyed. That little (huge !) ball of energy keep us occupied almost day and night ! Can't complain tho, I love that white fluffy ball.

After a decade of staying away from Magic: The Gathering, I am now playing almost every weekend at work with some other geeky colleagues. It all started by my finding a pack of around 300 cards at a local Value Village. Nothing really of value, just tought it might be worth something on the net (boy I was wrong...). Less than a week later, Benson mention he'd like to try the game...

While it was an interesting idea at the time, he didn't know the mistake he had just made. We both have a slight tendencies to OCD and the following days we bought our first Intro pack.

Little did we know was that the simple idea of playing MTG became a craze that could even be considered a frenzy now. We thought at the time it would be cool if even a couple of guys would join us (well I may have said that to myself... anyway...). We are currently nine people playing it at work, with one guy searching for his cards at home and another waiting to borrow his friend cards.

We even staged a tournament during work hours ! Well lunch hours that is. So a simple 9 players tournament has been going on for almost a month now. At stake is a Fat Pack for the new expension block, coming on Thursday April 30th.

Just to show you the size of how this thing has grow: since I already had to buy a Fat Pack for the tournament and one for myself, I began to shop around to get the better price. Found a local job near my house who would do them for 36$ tax-in. I save around 2.50$ for each pack. So I talked to the others and in one day, my order grew from 2 packs to 7 packs and 3 box of boosters. We're talking a 72$ that became 627$ ! I'm pretty sure the owner has customers who buy much more than that but I'm pretty sure he's not complaining when a new guy comes in and commit to buy more than 600$ of stuff.

Another good thing that came out of this is that people we just barely knew in our division are now more involved in our small circle. You can never have too many geeks in one place !

And now the good stuff !

2009-01-14T23:25:00.007-05:00

Since we moved, I was finally able to display my vinyl collection correctly. Up until September, almost everything I was buying went into moving boxes. So here's a quick look at my collection.

(Top of display cases. Notice Mario tipping his hat and offering you a mushroom.)

(First half of the case. Good selection of 8inch Dunny and my Touma stuff. I just loves his designs. Also you can see the House of Liu figure. I really like their simple line and how they look.)

(Bottom half of the cases. Yup, 4 Gameritas ! Right next to the other JLed stuff. Another of my favorite artist. Awesome figures all the time. The Teddy Troop box was signed by 123Klan since they now live in Montreal and it's where I got the figure. The PAW figure, down center, was broken during shipping or packing, but the webstore (Lulubell Toy Bodega), in their incredible awesomeness, offered a replacement, in the other color scheme (the one I had bought is totally sold out). More on this later.)

(The last but not the least, the Wall-O-Qees! It's hard to find a place for all those Qees.)

(And finally, my small plexi display case. Too much stuff to describe it all !)

So this concludes our little tour of my room. I hope you enjoyed it.

So, what's new ?

2009-01-14T23:03:00.005-05:00

Since the last post was almost a year ago (that long, damn!), there's been a lot of stuff lately. My girlfriend and I finally moved in a real house!

Real house means basement and basement means bigger Weirdy Room! That's right fols, I got a 10 * 14 room all to myself and my toys. I was able to fit my whole video games collection, as well as all the DVD, 2 arcade cabinets, and my vinyl toy collection too and still has space to move !

Here's a little preview:
(Left side of room)

(The huge closet)

(Right side room)

Pictures of the Wall-O-Qees and of the glass display will come in another post.

I am really proud of what I've done with the room. It took me a while to arrange stuff and clean up afterwards (in fact, I finished earlier this week).

Of course, this is always a work in progress as I get new stuff almost weekly, but you get the gist of it.

Still alive !

2009-01-14T22:54:00.001-05:00

Yup, still alive ! Gonna try to put some life back into that blog, starting now ! Keep posted !

My unsatisfactory experience with KidRobot 14

2008-02-25T17:22:00.001-05:00

As a semi-hardcore gamer, release dates are an important thing. When a game I want is coming out, you better know I'm getting it on release date.

But when it comes to designer toys and figures, it's something else.

A normal release game will get thousands of copy of the game available in America. Easy to find and to get. Now, let's compare to the wonderful world of designer figures... On a good day, a figure might get 1500 figures, let's say in 2 colorway. Consider yourself lucky if you get one as they would normally be sold out in 1 or 2 hours.

I was lucky to get a Tristan Eaton Dunny when they released in January. They went out fast.

Now enter the realm of Huck Gee, a guy I never heard off before I was interested in designer toys. The guy is a phenomenon by himself. In January, he released a really nice set of 10 munny on eBay, as he only sell on eBay. He sold the 10 figures in a record of 17 seconds. The thing here is that each figures were 650$ ! And no, it's not a typo, it's six hundred and fifty bucks ! Each !

So, as Kidrobot released their Kidrobot 14, named Kidninja, designed by Huck Gee, you knew I would had to be really quick to get one, even tho there was 2 colors, and 1000 of them each,

1. Kidrobot were sold out in 15 minutes. Could not get one.
2. Voltage Land in BC were not selling them online since they didn't get enough. Could not get one
3. Magic Pony in ON alsy put they stuff 1-2 days late. Wrote them an email asking about them. Next day, they are sold out on their website and I get a reply 3 days after. Could not get one.
4. I learn from the Toy's R Evil Blog that Huck Gee made 50 Blood Splatter Kidninja (25 of each color) and they were to be released on eBay on Friday, 12:00 PM PST. By the time I hit refresh at 3:00 PM on Friday, they were sold out. COULD NOT GET ONE !

I can't resolve myself to buy it on eBay from other sellers with a 60% or more markup. That's just wrong.

So unless I find it in a store in many years, I'm not getting this figure. Ever...

Because of this, I won't even bother to put a picture of the figure here.

Starting a new website !

2008-02-14T00:04:00.002-05:00

I'm starting a new website for Canadian Vinyl Figure Collectors, since nothing like this seems to exist.

I'll talk more about it when I get something done. Giving you the URL while I just registered the domain name wouldn't be of much use for now...

Video Games Live !

2008-02-13T23:35:00.002-05:00

I went to Montreal last weekend to see a show about video games music.

While it may sound weird and geeky, this is an amazing show, even for people that don't like video games that much. We're talking about an orchestra of around 20 musicians plus a choir of 6 men and 6 women. Mostly classical instruments were used, except an electric guitar near the end.

Imagine revisiting you childhood memories with such classic as Pong (yes Pong... somebody was just doing the bouncing sounds as the ball went on and on), Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, Pac Man... And that was just the beginning.

Of course there was also music from recent games and what a selection ! Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, World of Warcraft, Civilization IV, Kingdom Hearts, Beyond Good and Evil, etc.

The Metal Gear Solid part was one of the best as the music for the game has been known to be one of the best game music ever. And the orchestra captured the feel of it perfectly.

One nice surprise was Martin Leung, reknowned for his youtube video of him playing Mario Bros songs on the piano, while wearing a blindfold. He performed a medley of Final Fantasy songs as well as his trademark, Super Mario Bros, Level 1-1, blindfolded. He is an amazing musician with a lot of talent, that's for sure.

The show was created by Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall. I never really like Tommy when he was doing his show Reviews on the Run (that's when I first heard of him). Seemed a little too elitist to me. But the guy sure knows his music, as he's been a video game music composer for more than 15 years.

The show is coming back next year, make sure to get tickets this time !

jPOD or Spot the Vinyl Figure game

2008-02-05T20:53:00.000-05:00

I've been watching jPOD, based on the bestseller by Douglas Coupland, since it started on CBC.

I really like the series and I get a kick out of every scene in the pod itself. Why ? Because almost every podster desk has a couple of designer toys on it.

From the top of my head, I can recall seeing a 8" Fatcap, 2 or 3 8" Dunnys, a large Labbit and a couple ones I can't remember. Maybe a couple large Qees too.

I even saw 2 Pachinko machines. That was a weird sight. While they are commun on their side of the continent (west coast got all the mid-80's machine because they are so close to Japan), it's an unusual sight here (I saw a total of 2 in my life and I owned both).

These little things like that that I see in this show that makes me like it. Of course the story is good, but I get a little fuzzy feeling when I recognize an obscure/niche thing that I recognize.

It's here, it's here ! Let's celebrate !

2008-01-26T23:27:00.000-05:00

The last Tritan Eaton Tag Team, Brickface edition, Dunny in Canada is in my possesion !

I got it last week, but I only blog when I'm bored to hell. This is one of those moment, waiting for a coworker to call me back about something at work that went kaput.

The Tag Team dunny came in 2 different colors : black (Color Me Happy edition) or pink (Brickface). They released on January 17th and were sold out on January 17th... 1500 of each color sold in less than 24 hours. I got lucky and got the last pink one they had at Voltage Land (www.voltageland.com) and got it on Wednesday.

It was my first order from Voltage Land and I was pretty happy. Fast shipping, great packaging, which is of great importance considering what they sell and good price. They even included some buttons from the Dunny series 4, which was a nice touch as they are really cool.

So what does my collection look like now ? It would be hard to show the collection of the minis as it grew fast and it's pretty tight in my display but the shelf-of-awesome-things is really nice. I should have blogged about the Tokidoki Mozarella figure too. It the cute one on top of the Brickface box. I was really happy to find it locally. I'll do a post about Tokidoki one day.

Hello, my name is Christian and I'm an addict...

2008-01-17T17:17:00.000-05:00

...to Designer Toys !

I find it so awesome that one shape can be so many things. While mini figures (also called blind box becasue you don't know which one you're going to get) are a great start, large figures is where it's at.

For Christmas, my sister got me an awesome 8 inches Dunny designed by Mad. It's so cool it could kill you.

The big problem is that the Dunnys are hard to find in the Ottawa area. Almost no store carry them, except one : Norml Clothing, an upperground boutique in the Byward Market.

BTW, who knew there was an upperground movement ? I know about underground and stuff, but what the hell is upperground ?

Anyway, I knew they had some Dunny series 4 (I looked for 3-4 hours on the net to find some in the region once) and I went there during the fall and got some. I went back recently and they had the Insa Dunny, a 8 inches Dunny with a hoodie. Yes, a real dunny-sized hoodie.

I'm also a huge fan of Tokidoki and really like the way he design his stuff. The Cactus Friends figures and the Moofia are his 2 mains series that are very popular.

Another artist I like a lot is Touma. He's well known for the Knuckle Bears and other evil creature that look almost cute at the same time. Just do a "touma hell hound plush" search on Google if you don't believe me.

I could talk on and on about different other artist but I'll just conclude with one last : Joe Ledbetter. He's known for the Toxic Swamp Qees and the Finders Keepers series of figures. He got a really different style and really give a wacky personality to his creatures.

... and I didn't get it !

2007-10-18T18:01:00.000-05:00

Way too expensive... and considering the shipping, the guy that bought it is gonna pay a lot. At least it was local for me, so shipping was easy...

I want that !

2007-10-15T00:41:00.000-05:00

I really want this item, and I'm trying a new feature of eBay. Don't bid !

You know what remotely grind my gears ?

2007-10-13T12:15:00.000-05:00

- Big box store selling computer fans for an outrageous price. 15$ for a double ball bearing fan is a lot. At least they are really quiet.

- Young kids thinking it's fun to put soap in a fountain. Good thing I don't own one, but I was getting home yesterday night from a friend house (who moved close to us in the recent weeks) and I saw a foam "ball" rolling in the street. One of my friend neighbour has a really nice fountain on his front yard. The fountain was overflowing with foam, litterally. While it is a cool sight, I can't imagine how it will mess up the water pump and how cleaning it will be hard...

- Seeing 5 police cars in one minute and a half and not knowing what they are searching for. No word on the radio about that so I'm still wondering...

- Not finding enough people to play paintball. While the number of intersted people is ever growing, none of the dates I choose it good for any of them. My girlfriend is finally open to the idea of playing, but I could only make a group of 5 people while I need at least 8.

I'm getting tired to hear "Yeah, I really want to play... oh... it's that day... I can't, sorry". Just freaking tell me you don't want to play ! I invest time to organize this and people telling me they will come and cancel 2 days before the event just makes me mad. When I do a reservation, I have to pay for it. The whole amount, except the cost of the balls. If someone is not coming and I can't replace it, I'm losing money. Even tho I tell people there is a non-refundable deposit, they don't want to pay it if they're not coming...

I can understand if you have a good reason for cancelling, unexpected events, car break down with expensive repairs, etc. But if you just forget you had something planned while I sent the first email about the game date 2 or even 3 weeks before is just plain wrong. And it happens way too many times. The worse is outdoor games. I struggle for almost a month to get enough people and some of them don't even show up.

That's probably why I am always in a good mood when I finally get to play. Paintball is the best way to get the stress out of your system. Even if I shoot at people that actually stick to their words.

Those of you who dare to play with me, I thank you !

- On a totally different topic, a happy one this time, I learned yesterday that I will celebrate the holidays at my house !

I was talking with my sister on MSN yesterday and was joking around, saying I was cleaning up my computer room to make it look nice for when she comes with my mother for Christmas. The truth is just that I was cleaning because my room is a mess, too many ongoing projects.

But she replied "Ah, so mom told you ?"... That's when I told her I was just making a joke.

I told my mom about having Christmas at my place sometimes at the end of summer, when her boyfriend (now her ex, thank god) had left. She was always saying she would think about that, never giving me a definite answer, the best I got was "We'll see".

It seems she had already decided a long time ago and told my sister she wanted to make me a surprise. So now I have to play the guy that still doesn't know and fake the surprise when she finally tell me.

Now I really have to clean up the room !

You know something else that really grind my gears ?

2007-09-27T16:38:00.002-05:00

You know something else that really grind my gears ? Fixing/modding something that won't work when your done.

Yesterday I finally decided that I was going to mod my Colecovision. It's not really for me that I was doing it, it was for the Arcadia Festival. I was only adding a simple Audio/Video Composite mod to it, to be able to use RCA cables with it. My friend Sensato recently gave me a new way of doing it since the previous method I had was scary and expensive. By scary I mean it looked like it was freaking hard to do.

The first part of the mod went fine and was done pretty fast. Three small components, add the wires and then test. After less than an hour I do my first test : I get a clean picture ! Yeah ! Time to clean everything, put the connectors and call it a day.

I put duct tape (my favorite kind of tape. How could a tape that has a duck as a logo can not be your favorite too ?) to avoid any short, makes the holes for the connectors, put them in, solder everything (including the top metal shield), secure everything and do a test before closing it out.

And thats when it started to go downhill : I get washed out colors. I remove the metal shield (remember, in the old days, they were soldered to the board) and leave the Coleco pluged in to see how I was doing.

And I get perfect colors. I start to reassemble it.

And I get washed out colors. Even sometime, I don't even get colors ! I'm starting to get pissed. I think that maybe the RF shield is causing a short and I decide to remove it. Anyway, this one won't be using RF output anymore.

And I get perfect colors. I start to reassemble again. I put the metal shield and everything looks good. I put screw the shell back in place and I test.

And I still get perfect colors ! Yeah ! Then I realize I forgot to put in the power LED.

I should mention here that Colecovision were hard as hell to disassemble. They are made of 3 plastic part : top, base and front. The top and the front are screwed together and then a sticker is put on the front, making them stuck forever, unless you want to lose the sticker (which is almost impossible to replace). Once you're done putting it back together, you don't want to open it again.

So I open it back and look for a 5v lead. The Coleco power adapter output 12v, 5v and -5v, but I can't get the 5v from there because the main switch only is for the 12v lead. I had to look on the net for the schematics, find a suitable 5v lead and connect a red LED to it. Then it's time to test the LED.

Guess what ? Red LED, not the hyper-bright kind, doesn't need 5v... they need less than that. I burned 2 LEDs to realize that. I still can't understand why I didn't buy hyper-bright red LED instead of regular, while I got green and blue in the hyper-bright... So I settle for a green LED, which love the 5v (this thing is bright enough to make you blind, I'm sure) and start making the hole for it next to the power switch. I hook up everything, test the light and reassemble the damn thing.

By that time, I have spent 2 hours and a half on that. I'm finally done and do a final test.

I get washed out colors ! Argh ! The next hour and a half was spent disassembling and reassembling the whole thing because I was sure I had fixed the issue. Around 10:30PM, I was finally done. Good colors, nice and powerful LED and everything fully assembled.

Then I started to work on the Atari 2600. I had first done the mod to a Atari Jr. but might have killed it during the mod. Good thing I have a backup ! I do have to mention that I used the wrong potentiometer while I first did the mod. I used 2k instead of 1k, but in my mind, a 2k pot in the middle become a 1k pot. Maybe not...

I remove the 2k pots, put the 1k pots in, resolder on the second Atari board and test.

Clean picture, good colors. It's karma, I'm sure.

It's getting late so I decide to put the metal shield back in and call it a day. But before I go to bed, I do a last test.

I get a scrambled picture ! It took me five minutes to saw one little wire had broken off, the one that sync the whole video signal !

This one will be fixed tonight. I'll then install the connectors, the power LED (I won't forget it this time).

Then I start to pray that everything hold off next November !

You know what else really grind my gears ?

2007-09-27T16:38:00.001-05:00

You know what else really grind my gears ? Morning traffic.

During the 4 years I've been travelling to Ottawa for work (I miss thoses days where our buidling was in Hull), I've seen an increase in early traffic. I normally leave my house at 6:00AM and get stuck on the highway almost right away.

How come so many people start to work so early now ? 4 years ago, the highway was not even crowded until past 7:00. Now you have to expect an additional 10 min to come in on time. I didn't slept really good last night (blame it on the current heat wave) and had to get the garbages out so I left 25min late. It took me more than one hour to get to work ! It's getting ridiculous !

4 years ago, the road were empty when I was leaving home. Now I see a line of twenty cars waiting at the drive-in line at Timmy's. Make yourself a coffee for god sake ! You'll save 2$ and won't have to wait 20min for it. I've been contemplating the idea of starting late, around 9:00AM, like a coworker of mine did before. But the peak hour tend to end at 9:30AM, so I still would have to stay in the traffic for 40min. I don't really want to leave before 6:00AM, because I like my morning sleep. I'm stuck !

At least now I have a decent car. Last winter was horrible in the old Daewoo because it was cold inside the car during the whole trip. Now I stuck in traffic, but at least I'm comfy.

I wish I could win the loto and stay at home. Somebody want to buy me a ticket ?

You know what really grind my gears ?

2007-09-27T16:37:00.000-05:00

You know what really grind my gears ? Thinking that everything is harder than it looks.

Let me explain. At our last paintball game, when checking the speed of our markers, mine was acting funny, never shooting at the correct speed. Either too slow or too fast, sometimes even shooting 3 feet in front of me.

So I disassemble the whole freaking thing. I check my air lines and see that my Quick Exhaust Valve is dirty. thinking that I found the issue, I try to clean it. I even ask the staff to help me clean it since I didn't have the correct tools. I reassamble the thing after it's clean and guess what ? I have a leak ! I almost rip the whole freaking thing apart and find the leak, screw a loose bolt and it's fine. I go to the speed check station for a second time. Same problem, can't fire at correct speed. Since I want to play, I take a rental marker and get in the field.

Speaking of rental, I'll never use one again. Once you get an electronic marker, you never go back to mechanical. You get so used to the fast rate of fire, almost no recoil and lightness. To make it worse, my rental had a CO2 bottle, while I use an Air tank. If I can't use my marker, I'm not playing.

But let's get back to the main issue. During lunch, I try again to fix it, to no avail. The damn thing won't fire correctly. I reluctantly use the rental again and finish the day with it.

That was back in July. I didn't touch my marker since then until earlier this week. I read on the net that most QEV can't be service so when they have stuff in them, they have to be thrown out. I said "Fine, I'll install the stock bolt back in. I replace the tubing with the correct length, but bock the bolt and it's good to go. I buy myself some balls (hard to test without them) and fire a couple shots in my backyard (had to be carefull, I have a bitchy neighbour). Looks fine to me but I want to test at a friend of mine, where I can shoot more and faster without disturbing anyone.

I went at his place yesterday. Put balls in the hopper and start to shoot. The first balls drop at my feet and the second doesn't get out of the barrel. I'm officially pissed at myself.

Earlier in the day, I was reading my marker manual at work. In the troubleshooting section, there is a question about shooting inconsistency. The first thing the manual mention is to change the battery... Which nobody ever tought about. I open the marker, change the battery and try to shoot again. I don't see where the ball land because it went too far. Same thing for the 5 balls after that. I aim for the plywood target my friend and I improvised and hit it. My marker is back to normal.

So I could have avoided all of this just by changing the freaking battery. I did all that for nothing, my QEV was still usable and I missed a lot of fun because I stressed over this and had to use a rental marker. The worse is that I had extra batteries at the game !

Remember, when something's wrong, check the battery !

Still alive

2007-08-08T20:09:00.001-05:00

Just to let you know I'm still alive ! I shall be posting soon.

It's (was) my birthday !

2007-05-16T22:45:00.000-05:00

I'm now in the second half of my 20's. Man, do I feel old...

For the first time since I moved in the Ottawa region, my mother had planned to come see me on my birthday. First time in 6 years that I was able to celebrate my birthday with my family. My girlfriend also took the whole weekend of to be with me. Now that's a nice gift !

I didn't get a lot of gifts this year, but at my age, I can buy myself the gifts I want :) I already had my tamtam in March when I picked it up at my sister place. My girlfriend got me a paintball jersey. Now I won't need to rent anything at PSI ! My sister got my a book of novel by Frank Herbert (author of Dune).

My mother arrived with my sister late on Friday night, right when I was about to leave the Lone Star with some friends. They all came to my house and we played some Wii games. Seeing my mother playing video games is one of the funniest thing ever. The folling day, we went for breakfast at La Fiesta (their breakfast are much better than any other place in Gatineau) and went for some shopping in Gatineau and Ottawa. Didn't get a lot of thing, except a basket and a cushion for the cat. She loves that thing now.

We bought all the stuff needed for supper and finally tried the cooking stone I got for France 3 years ago. I ate so much that we ate the dessert on Sunday. Speaking of Sunday, my mother insisted on doing some gardening in my backyard. So we went to Home Depot again to get some more plants and my sister wanted to get an A/C.

Long story short, it was a great weekend. I wish my birthday next year will be as fun.

What's up lately with me...

2007-05-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

Well I haven't posted in a while I guess I was too busy or not motivated enough. Maybe both.

In the recent events:

- We played paintball on May 4th. That was quite a short game, due to a mix up in the reservation. Hard to believe someone can think that an expiry date of a credit card can still be 01/06...

On the plus side, I feel like I'm getting used to my marker. I had many good shot during that game, even tho our team was underpowered. We got our ass handed to ourselves on a plate on many occasions except the first game where we totally pwned the other team. Yeah, I said pwned, what are you gonna do ? Also, one again, I got shot on the fingers/hand. This is one of the worst place to get hit because the way the back of my hand is exposed, it's the only place where the ball shell get in my skin. This caused me to bleed a little a couple of times.

This is maybe what convinced me of getting a pair of gloves in the current Canadian Paintball order. The fact that I have an almost full bag of unused balls also prompted me to add 3 pods to the order. I don't really want the cat to take any interest in the bag, that could be a real disaster.

- The day after paintball, I got my first tan of the year. My girlfriend had decided that this year, our front and back yard would look good and we would enjoy it. Even tho I went to bed at 2:30 in the morning, I was at Home Depot at 9:30. Got some plants, a nice tree, fertlizer, a BBQ and a bunch of other things. Home Depot had a special that weekend where any purchase over 450$ could be paid in 12 months instead of 6. I also had a 10% off coupon so it was the right time to get everything.

Assembling a BBQ by yourself is one the most hard thing I ever done in my life. As hard as installing a bath (no wonder a plumber ask 1500$ to install a bath). But the result was satisfying. I used it 4 times since then and I'm not sure how I lived without it.

The front yard now look good too and as soon as the plants get bigger, it will look even better. The tree adds a nice touch to it, I just hope it will survive the next winter.

I'll take a couple of pictures and post them soon.

New Computer Desk or an adventure in Ikea Hell...

2007-04-12T21:27:00.000-05:00

I got a new computer desk yesterday and getting one was harder than I tought...

I had my eyes on a Ikea desk for quite some times and my eBay sales were just the right amount for it. The Ikea website stock availability feature was telling me it was out of stock but hey, who believe the Internet these days ? So I called, just to make sure.

The freaking desk is really out of stock... forever. Ikea has discontinued the only desk I wanted (and I've been checking for for almost a year) ! I went there anyway because I was decided that I would get a desk that night.

Fast forward to the Ikea, Work Area section. My brother in law had found a TV bench in less than 2 minutes so even if I had left without a desk, the trip would have been worth it. After 30 minutes, I finally decided the one I wanted. I needed 3 things : the desk, the shelves and a glass top for the desk. We went to the warehouse area to get the boxes. First, the TV bench : we find the aisle, find the right bin to find an empty space ! Out of stock (even tho the clerk checked on her computer and said they had some). She said we should come back tomorrow and they would have that bin replenished... No thank you, I'm not doing a 45 minutes drive two days in a row.

At least we could find the desk and the shelves. The glass top was nowhere to be found... I didn't even ask the clerk...

Went back home, dropped the boxes, had supper with some friends and came back at around 10:00-10:30. I built the thing by myself in a little less than 2 hours and started putting my stuff back on the desk. At 1:00 I had to stop, take a shower and go to sleep...

I had achieved my 2 goals of the day : get a new computer desk and be able to check my emails on it before going to bed.

Before & after :

They call it pain(t)ball for a reason...

2007-03-31T22:01:00.000-05:00

Played paintball yesterday and I got the bruises to prove it !

I could finally tried my gun yesterday. My brother in law was kind enough to wait at my home in the morning for our second Canadian Paintball order. We waited more than 2 weeks for it but finally got it. So I was able to try my new mask as well.

This paintball marker is so much better than a Tippman 98 ! But it cames with a price so for an amateur the Tippman is still good. Not everyone is willing to spend more than 600$ for paintball gear. For that I thank all the people that bought from me on eBay recently.

The only issue I had with my gun is that I had to clean it afterwards. When it's a rental gun, you don't really mind getting it dirty or having to clean the paint out of it, it's not yours ! So I spent around an hour and a half cleaning it. The paint get's really hard to clean so now it looks like my gun is dirty all the time. Sme of the paint got stuck on the gun itself. Not pretty. I have to find something to clean it !

But let's talk about the game !

We had a surprise when we arrived : They had changed the setting of the bunker. So it was like a total different game for us, which added to the fun. I was lucky to be with Simon and Ghislain again. This time we really tried to have a strategy and it paid off. At one point we had 5 or 6 consecutives winning streak. I got hit almost all over my body. I still feel a couple of the hits, especially the hand. Got it so hard it bled a little.

My brother in law was the only person that was not from work so he didn't know everybody. I'm really happy that he enjoyed himself anyway and wants to come the next time we go. He speaks only French so that was a little hard for him to communicate as a good part of his team was English. But he did great and he had a good time.

I'll post more pictures as I get every pictures that were taken yesterday. So I leave you with a great headshot Alexandre did on me:

I freaking want that !

2007-03-21T22:24:00.000-05:00

Isn't he cute ? I just love him. http://dreamlandtoyworks.com/my_little_cthulhu.html . I can't wait to see it in store !

CCJVQ meet in Montreal (the joy of feeling complete)

2007-03-21T20:23:00.000-05:00

Good thing I stayed at home on Friday night and slept like crazy (first time int he whole week I was sleeping correctly).

The drive to Montreal was insane ! So much snow on the road... almost lost control once. One big snow plow was moving the snow on the left side of the road, with the wind going to the right. For a good 10sec, I could not see a damn thing. Freaking nothing ! At least, I was able to pass it quickly.

Always nice to see a lot of good friends all at once. I can say I represent mostof the Outaouais capter of the CCJVQ. Through my 3years and a half of collecting, I established a good reputation in the club and am a well known member. It's always nice to see another member asking me a question of advice or hear someone says : "Weirdguy always find cool stuff in Ottawa". I do find a lot of cool stuff, it's true. I tend to stay away from buying video games on eBay as I never known when I'll get it locally.

I did get some pretty good stuff at the meet. Two faily rare Dreamcast games and a set of Rayman Raving Rabbids figures that was exclusive to Ubisoft employees. I you love those rabbits, you'll want those figures, you can bet on that. Also got some PS1 and NES games. And some other stuff I don't remember (it's amost been a week !).

But the real find was this really nice tamtam. My half brother makes them with his dad. They are made by hand, totally custom. You can request any color and size. They come with a price tag tho. This one is my birthday gift but I mgiht order him a bigger one next year (that I'll have to pay). Maybe something with a stand, like 3 foot high. I like the deep sound of those. I'll have to learn how to play too, there must be a technique for that, not just bashing the thing with your hands...

On a side note, I am ready for paintball ! Got my air tank during my sick week. Tested it with my friend Simon, who came to the same conclusion as me, the electronic board inside the gun is stuck in there really hard. Compared to his gun (same model), mine might be a little bit more trouble to clean. But I guess I'll have to live with it. I really like the look of the gun. Look mean with all the accessories. Since I'll be moving it a lot, I decided to get a bag for it. Got one for cheap at Wal-Mart tonight so I can finally store it somewhere safer than the top of my futon in the game room. I can't wait for next Friday !

Another thing that got completed is my hit and run on my car (see first post ever). My GF step father came and fixed it on Thursday. I can finally drive the damn thing. Still 8 month and it goes to the scrapyard... Can't wait for that too.

I hate being sick

2007-03-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

Even tho I write this one week after feeling better, I really hate being sick !

It started on Sunday night and ended on Friday. I tried to work on Thursday but could only stay 2 hours and these 2 hours felt like hell. I don't even remember what I did during that time.

The big problem here is that I feel guilty... Guilty of not being at work and actually doing something worth the salary I get every two weeks. Don't get me wrong here, these 4 sick days didn't felt like vacation at all. I spent most of my time in bed without any freaking energy. Even watching TV seemed painful.

The only positive side in all of this is that I could get a little advance in my DVD backlog. I was able to finish the Chick'n Swell third season, which was very good.

On Saturday, I was feeling good enough to go to Montreal, where I had to visit my sister and go to a video game swap meet. More about thatin the next post.

Weekend haul !

2007-03-09T22:06:00.000-05:00

Damn I found so many stuff tonight, can't complain !

A little trip to one of my usual place got me a SNES with 6 games ! Picked the other one at another place. Also got myself a PS1 games (looked like a cute little RPG).

The 2 main things I got are easily visible in the picture :
- A Commodore PET computer. That thing is older than me. See how Stewie is plotting to take over the world with this machine.
- A Star Wars : A New Hope laserdisc, widescreen edition. I know it's not the rarest LD ever (it's not even rare) but it's the little grail of my LD collection.

Painball gun this weekend ! I'm getting it tomorow just after lunch ! Can't wait !

I'm off to watch Star Wars !

Think about the future !

2007-03-08T23:24:00.000-05:00

Just came back from seeing Les 3 Accords in Orléans.

I was pretty frustrated at first because I could not join the 2 people I was supposed to go with. Finally got a hold of one that had totally forgot he was supposed to come... At least he's paying me back his ticket since I already had paid for all 3 of us. So my girlfrind went free.

One hour before the show, I finally got a call from the second guy while Ièm going to his place to pick him up as soon as possible. I knew he was working and was finishing at 6:00, but he should at least left a word to his parents saying if he was coming or not, etc. Anyway we were able to get there in time and get s small table with a good view.

The show started on time (surprisingly) and was really fun. Everybody was singing and the band made a lot of jokes (you have to be there to understand the title of this entry). They sang most of their popular songs and the new one they made for Amnesty International.

In summary, a great show worth the 25$.

Planned for the weekend:
- Pick up an old Commodore PET computer for a friend.
- Hope to receive my paintball gun
- Do some cleaning
- Finish my taxes paper !

Ouch, my feet...

2007-03-03T19:59:00.000-05:00

So I was off for 2 days this week, Thursday and Friday to celebrate the 6 years I spent with my girlfriend. Just for the fact : we met on a March 14th, so technically it's not 6 yers yet.

We starded our day on Thursday by a litle breakfast at the restaurant La Fiesta. Quality of the meal was lower that what we were used too.

We followed that by a "little" walk on the Rideau Canal. By little I mean we walked from the Congress Centre to Bank Street. Since we both suck as skating, we walked the whole way. It's weird how the drive on Colonel By Drive seems so short in the morning when I go to work. Walking on the Canal makes everything look so different.

We did a little shopping after that, walking on Bank Street up to Wellington and back to the Congress Centre (wwhere the car was parked). That's where I got my Giant Microbe and the Mario figure. Not an easy thing to carry this for a couple of kilometers.

Then we went to the War Museum. It was my first time there. We got there at 3:45 and were told that the museum would be free at 4:00... Guess what we did ? Took a small lunch at the museum cafeteria while we waited. Got a free pizza piece since the guy would have thrown it
anyway.

The place is freaking huge ! So many things to see in there. And we only saw the permanent exhibition since the new one only started today :( But since we took almost 3 hours to visit, I don't feel like I got ripped of for my free entry. If you're ever coming to Ottawa, be sure to visit this one.

On Friday we visited another museum. The National Gallery of Ottawa (in french : Musée des Beaux Arts d'Ottawa). It was actally my idea of going there since I knew a new exhibition was starting that day. Some Ron Mueck works were showed, some for the first time in Canada. I strongly receommend at least checking the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Mueck) about him. His works is truly unbelievable. The details of his work is so well done. Unfortunatly, as I know someone will ask, the "Boy" was not there, only a small version of it. Another link with many good pictures will help you understand what I'm talking about (http://www.crazyrussian.com/02/entry_1872.php).

I'm sure I walked close to 15 kilometers in these 2 days. But it was worth it since I spent two amazing days with my love.

My weekly hunting haul

2007-03-03T19:33:00.000-05:00

Went for a little game hunting before my little vacation (more on that later).

I picked up some nice stuff, most notably:

-80 gig hard drive for 10$. Nice secondary hard drive.

-Settlers of Catan for 4$. The game is band new !

-Some NES games to use as trade bait.

-Two PS1 games.

The best of it is that I finally received my package from Play-Asia. I finally got Last Hope, one of the last Dreamcast game ever (only 2 released after that, one of them bering release next week). What's funny about it is that it's a game developped in Germany, the text in the game is in English while the cover is in Japanese. Talk about multicultural...

I also got some big stylus for the DS. My GF loves them.

And on Thursday I got the biggest ever Maro Bros figures. It is freaking cool. My girlfriend found it at a local comic book store. She made me buy it... can't complain. It's 30cm tall and came with a small mushroom. The quality is really good.
I also came back home on Thursday with the Polio. Not the real sickness, just one of thoses giant microbes (http://www.giantmicrobes.com) I fint the giant microbes to be an interesting concept. While they are cute and cuddly (the common cold/Rhinovirus is so cute), each plush includes an info card on the sickness, which makes it educative. For now I have the Common Cold, the Sore Throat and the Polio.
It's always weird to tell someone that I got Polio recently. ..

Balls of fire

2007-02-24T23:02:00.000-05:00

Played paintball yesterday...

It took me a whole day to post about this. Probably because I didn't know from where to start.

We had an amazing time. The playing field at PSI(http://www.paintstorm.ca/html/indoor.htm) is so much bigger and nicer than the one at Paintball Ottawa.

We had lunch at the St-Laurent Centre first. I was suprised that everybody came since I had the idea on Wednesday afternoon. Then we headed to the paintball place a little earlier than 6 o'clock. We had a good timing since we were the first group there.

The briefing was done by a guy nicknamed Big Dick (go figure). A 68 years old guy still playing paintball and ver friendly. We got our paintball marker, balls, jersey (we didn't have jersey at Ottawa Paintball). 2 young players were added to our group since they were alone (should have said to... man they were bad).

Even tho the team were created randomly, I found that we were pretty balanced. I think the total score was even.

Highlight of the game:

I got shot in the head. 4 times !
I killed Chris by bumping in the bunker he was hiding behind. Slided too fast and had to use the bunker to stop me...
Denis had to leave at 7:00. He gave me his balls (yeah !).
I almost won the 2 flags game. Got shot in the head...
Simon killed 3 peoples while his gun was acting up. His electric hopper was not feeding at all. It was fixed using a simple piece of cardboard.
Once again, I was unlucky enough to shoot a referee. At least he didn't thread to shoot me with his gun.

Now I'm really thinking of getting a paintball gun. I'm planning another game in a month-month and a half so we'll see then if I still want one.

And today I tried the new Sonic game for the Wii. Since I still didn't get my copy of the game, I'll review it later.

My knees still hurt... I don't even remember getting shot in the knees.

The Civil War has finally ended

2007-02-21T22:51:00.000-05:00

My girlfriend was nice enough today to bring me to the Comic Book Shoppe (thank you baby, lova ya), so I could pick up the last number of Civil War.

I must say that I was kinda disappointed by the ending. I'm not going to spoil it in case somebody reading this has not read it yet. Let's just say the momentun that each issue was getting was brought to an abrupt stop that left me on my appetite.

I'm even considering picking up the next Marvel Events called Initiative. It's kinda the follow up of Civil War.

While I was there I always ordered a Gloomy Bear Coffee Mug. Expensive for a coffee mug (20$) but the mug has 2 design : one when the beverage in the mug is cold and another one when it'S hot. Pretty cool if you ask me. The girl at the counter was nice enough to show me the mug in a Preview Magazine. It's not like the other girl working there sometimes that doesn't seems to know anything...

Back to the Gloomy Bear. The more I see them the more I like them. I want another one but I don't feel like ordering it. But no shop has them curently (the Comic Book Shoppe is trying to get them so there's still hope).

Also got a small Masamune Shirow figurine to go in the display case. This one is a Shirow himself, the way he represent himself in his drawings. Kinda like a small metallic octopus. I like it, it's cute.

That's it folks !

And don't forget to check out my auction ! : http://search.ebay.ca/_W0QQsassZtenchi58QQhtZ-1

I have a love/hate relationship with 3 days weekend...

2007-02-20T21:32:00.000-05:00

I work compress hours. This means once every 2 week, I get a day off. Being the wierd guy that I am, I chose the Monday of the pay week. As the weekend arrives just before those fateful Mondays, I make some plans. I always plan something for the Monday...

Monday morning comes and I get off the bed around noon and do fricking nothing !

I've been planning to call this windows place to see how much it would cost me to cut a tempered glass panel to finally complete my second arcade cabinet. It's been almost a year ! I also got to finish my bathroom. At least, this one will wait until spring. I want to change the damn window before I complete everything.

At there's the eternal struggle to keep my computer/game room in order. I've been selling a lot on eBay recently so that helps. I can't believe how much old PC games can be worth something. I'm getting a new computer desk soon and I'm hoping it will help getting some spaces back in there.

Back to the Mondays . I do love having half of my Mondays off, even tho I do nothing, I'm not getting any stress either. What I hate the most is getting back to work on Tuesday. This is the day I want the most to stay in bed. Everytime...

BTW, just typing this post made me do many things : I checked my arcade cabinet to verify if the CPS-2 battery was not dead (pretty important if you ask me), put 2 new auctions on eBay and start preparing my stuff for my tax report.

I should post more often.

On the side note, my coworker Pat got a Nintendo Wii during his paternity leave. Way to go Pat !

Worst game of poker ever

2007-02-18T01:52:00.000-05:00

Out of the 16 players announced by my friend, we were 11.

One didn't even want to play and at least 3 others didn't even know the rules.

I finished fourth, because I wanted to go home.

On the bright side, as Benson said to me earlier, this made me forget about my car for a moment. I was so pissed of the way this game was played that I didn't think about my car.

So I'm off to bed... hoping that my next game of poker will not suck as much as this one.

Two post in one day ! Wow !

2007-02-17T16:09:00.000-05:00

I've been playing Wii Play this afternoon . Even tho the games are simple they are really addictive.

The difficulty to get a gold medal on every of the 9 games can be so simple in somes yet unachievable on the others. Let's say the Ping Pong. Return the balls 100 times and you're done. Got it on the first time. Trying to pass around 50 levels of Find Mii seems impossible.

I said it before, this game should have been a system pack-in. The games were made for 2 players while Wii Sports can accommodate 4 players. While both games are great, finding a Wii owner with 4 remotes is not something you can accomplish every day (I do have 4 wiimotes). At least Wii Play game in a DVD case.

Also this week, we saw a new Channel appear on the Wii: The Voting Channel. I find it quite entertaining to see the opinion of the other Wii owner. My favorite part is when I get to know if my estimate of which option was the winner. I've been right the whole time (that means twice).

I have to go take a shower and then I have to play some poker. I'm gonna kick some ass tonight ! I'll post if I win something.

First post

2007-02-17T15:14:00.000-05:00

Yeah first blog entry ever. Could not be latter than that.

At least I got something to write for my first entry...

Last night, while my car was parked in the street in freaking front of my house, my car was the receiving end of a hit and run. I don't even know at what time, my car sat there during close to 8 hours. Now I'm hoping I can have the front fender and bumper fixed instead of replaced.

In other news, I got a friendly poker tournament tonight. I say friendly yet I don't even know the name of half the people there. At least, this might change how crappy I feel because of the car.

By the way, I won't talk anymore about the car until something else happen to it. This is suppose to be a geek blog. Next time I'll post more about me (probably in a couple hours, just to make it look like I'm a busy guy.