I’m an Internet Bastard.

April 9, 2007 - 7pm

I frequent Digg.com on a daily basis, and spend far too much time commenting on posts. I’m usually all the things you’ve come to expect–insightful, witty, and intelligent. It’s even somehow clearly obvious from my blindingly brilliant posts that I’m exceptionally handsome. [See picture for details on this.]

However, sometimes it’s more fun to be an absolute bastard. Case in point, this. I’m squeaker. I think you can hazard a guess who mikekol is.

Focal Plane Challenge - Done.

April 5, 2007 - 3pm

I more or less finished the focal plane challenge. With the exception of the 30th, (I forgot until I was falling asleep, then didn’t have the energy to do anything about it) I took some photos every day last month.

I decided after day one that I was only going to post one photo per day, which left me with a lot of good photos that didn’t get end up being posted. I really like a lot of the photos, like this one and the pictures from the abandoned house.

That said, there are a lot of photos in there that weren’t picked for very obvious reasons. Have a look at the album and judge for yourself.

New NES!

April 5, 2007 - 1am

I went on a $50 shopping spree on eBay over the last week or so. I bought myself a new processor for the server that just served this page to you (now at a whopping 1GHz!), a replacement power supply for my laptop (I bumped a glass of water into the old one and fried it), and a new NES console!

Granted, I already had an NES that’s in perfect working order. Other than the fact that you have to do the jiggle-the-game-back-and-forth trick to get Megaman II and Mario 3 working most of the time, it worked perfectly.

This, however, is not the typical NES. Just after the Super Nintendo was released, Nintendo released a redesigned NES console called the NES-101. Instead of the toaster-style cartridge loading, these load the games through a slot at the top like the SNES. This allows for a much tighter fit. Games work the first time you put them in and hit the power switch.

There are a number of improvements on the console–the top loading chief among them. It’s also half the size of the original NES. Seriously, this thing is tiny in comparison. I also like the hardy physical power switch. The original power switch was the momentary type, and it was easy to lose your game if you just brushed the switch. Turning this thing on has to be done very deliberately.

Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks as well…

  • For whatever reason, Nintendo decided not to include component out, which means the only way to get video in is via fuzzy old RF and coax.
  • This may seem strange, but the case doesn’t specify the voltage and polarity of the power adapter. This isn’t a big deal if you got the system new, but it sucks if you got a used one without a power supply like I did. I used the PS from my original NES not knowing if I was going to blow the thing up when I turned it on.
  • That new power switch? It rocks. But there’s just one small problem with it–there’s no power LED. Megan had a game of Mario 2 going when I grabbed the unit to take some pictures, and I killed it because I didn’t know it was on.

Being a huge 8-bit geek, I took some pics of my new toy with its older brother. Check ‘em out.

If you want to copy anything here, please email me first.
© Marc Teale 2009.