It only took ~16 hours of game play spread over four days, but I managed to beat Ghosts 'n Goblins this afternoon.
For those not in the know, G'n G is renowned as being one of the more difficult games for the NES. Funny that I started playing this because I was finding Gradius to be too difficult. There are six grueling levels, and you have to beat them each twice to rescue the Princess. Apparently the first time through the game is just an illusion created by Satan himself.
The game plays a bit like Castlevania, only you don't have a whip, and instead of a life bar your heroic knight has a mere two hit points to get him through each level. You start with a suit of armor, and if you get hit once you have to finish the rest of it in your skivvies. Luckily there's a replacement suit in at least four of the six levels.
The game truly would be impossible if it weren't for the fact that you have unlimited continues, and let me tell you... I used a bajillion of them. By today, I was getting significantly better at the game, though. It only took me one continue to reach level 5. I won't tell you how many it took to get through level 5.
Anyway, now that the Nintendo portion of my vacation is complete, it's time to move on to other things... like going to the fireworks show tonight in Powderhorn Park.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Sunday, July 1, 2007
#92 - Message to Love
For those of you not in the know, I started a silly project a few years back when Meaghan went off to Bemidji State. The idea was to keep our Netflix queue occupied while she was gone, but not watch many (or any) movies that we were interested in. So to meet this end, I arbitarily picked a year (1997) and decided to watch as many of the movies from that year as I could in rough chronological order.
Needless to say, Meaghan has long since returned from the Great White North and the project has continued. To date, after nearly four years I have watched 91 movies as part of this endeavor and I'm only about halfway through February. It turns out there are a lot of films screened at the Sundance Film Festival. So many that after 30+ of them I decided to proceed with the chronology and go back to Sundance films when I feel like it.
Anyway, without further ado... #92 - Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival
What, you may ask, is a documentary about a music festival from 1970 doing in a list of 1997 movies? It apparently took 25+ years for the director to get enough funding to complete the film, but I'm glad he did.
Even just for the footage of the music, this movie is worth watching. Among many others, you get to see The Who (with Keith Moon), Jimi Hendrix (in his last major performance before dying), The Doors, Joni Mitchell, and Joan Baez -- truly outstanding stuff. This was the last and largest of the big festivals (Woodstock, etc.) other than benefit concerts (Live Aid anyone?) up until the '90s when Lollapalooza was born. It was the last because it didn't make any money, despite 600,000 people being in attendance.
The film, as well as providing concert footage, focuses on the conflict between the artists, the promoters, and the concertgoers. You see, despite 600,000 people attending, only a mere 10% of that actually paid the £3 ticket price. The promoters lost money trying to pay all of the artists who appeared over the four day event. Many of the hippies, etc. who attended the festival thought that it should be free, so they all sat on a hill outside of the grounds where they could watch and listen to the music. The promoters built a fence to keep them from seeing, the mob tore the fence down, guard dogs were employed... crazy stuff. Interesting as all of this was, this movie was all about the music for me.
Next: #93 - David Lynch's Lost Highway
I've actually already watched this once, but want to view it again before attempting to write about it.
Needless to say, Meaghan has long since returned from the Great White North and the project has continued. To date, after nearly four years I have watched 91 movies as part of this endeavor and I'm only about halfway through February. It turns out there are a lot of films screened at the Sundance Film Festival. So many that after 30+ of them I decided to proceed with the chronology and go back to Sundance films when I feel like it.
Anyway, without further ado... #92 - Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival
What, you may ask, is a documentary about a music festival from 1970 doing in a list of 1997 movies? It apparently took 25+ years for the director to get enough funding to complete the film, but I'm glad he did.
Even just for the footage of the music, this movie is worth watching. Among many others, you get to see The Who (with Keith Moon), Jimi Hendrix (in his last major performance before dying), The Doors, Joni Mitchell, and Joan Baez -- truly outstanding stuff. This was the last and largest of the big festivals (Woodstock, etc.) other than benefit concerts (Live Aid anyone?) up until the '90s when Lollapalooza was born. It was the last because it didn't make any money, despite 600,000 people being in attendance.
The film, as well as providing concert footage, focuses on the conflict between the artists, the promoters, and the concertgoers. You see, despite 600,000 people attending, only a mere 10% of that actually paid the £3 ticket price. The promoters lost money trying to pay all of the artists who appeared over the four day event. Many of the hippies, etc. who attended the festival thought that it should be free, so they all sat on a hill outside of the grounds where they could watch and listen to the music. The promoters built a fence to keep them from seeing, the mob tore the fence down, guard dogs were employed... crazy stuff. Interesting as all of this was, this movie was all about the music for me.
Next: #93 - David Lynch's Lost Highway
I've actually already watched this once, but want to view it again before attempting to write about it.
Amuzing Race
So I'm not sure how it managed to happen, but the powers that be here at the Amber Tower and over at HarrisWorld have both neglected to comment on the funnery that was The Amuzing Race (brought to you by the Rochester Public Library). I'm positive Kim took pictures at some point, but maybe all evidence has been erased by now.
It turned out to be a great way to spend a Saturday morning, that is if you find things like running through a dealer's lot looking for a car with a specific VIN, running up a large hill to the edge of a quarry, shagging flyballs whilst attached to your spouse, constructing the world's flimsiest birdhouse, and flying paper airplanes to be fun. There were a few rough spots, but that's to be expected given that it was their first try at it. Luckily, they let us submit constructive criticism afterward. My biggest disappointments were that there really weren't any puzzles (most clues told you exactly where to go and what to do) and that we never left Rochester (the propaganda said it would span across Olmsted county).
Scavenge Like the Dickens managed to take home 16th place out of 35 teams, and for some reason we're still waiting for our trophy in the mail. We did somehow win the Grand Prize during the door prize drawing at the end, a night's stay in one of the better suites at the Kahler Grand in beautiful downtown Rochester. The Harrises graciously let us keep it, as we no longer live there and could perhaps one day be seeking lodging there.
Speaking of lodging, this marked the first time that Meaghan and I had ever stayed overnight at the HarrisWorld B&B. I must say that we heartily enjoyed our stay and hope to be able to visit again sometime in the future. I recommend the room they call "Kim's Mom's Room" to anyone thinking about staying there.
Oh, and unless I'm misremembering, people were talking about how cool it would be if there were something similar in Minneapolis only you were restricted to using public transportation. It turns out that already exists. Thanks Salvation Army! Maybe we'll try this one next year, too, when we know Minneapolis a little better.
It turned out to be a great way to spend a Saturday morning, that is if you find things like running through a dealer's lot looking for a car with a specific VIN, running up a large hill to the edge of a quarry, shagging flyballs whilst attached to your spouse, constructing the world's flimsiest birdhouse, and flying paper airplanes to be fun. There were a few rough spots, but that's to be expected given that it was their first try at it. Luckily, they let us submit constructive criticism afterward. My biggest disappointments were that there really weren't any puzzles (most clues told you exactly where to go and what to do) and that we never left Rochester (the propaganda said it would span across Olmsted county).
Scavenge Like the Dickens managed to take home 16th place out of 35 teams, and for some reason we're still waiting for our trophy in the mail. We did somehow win the Grand Prize during the door prize drawing at the end, a night's stay in one of the better suites at the Kahler Grand in beautiful downtown Rochester. The Harrises graciously let us keep it, as we no longer live there and could perhaps one day be seeking lodging there.
Speaking of lodging, this marked the first time that Meaghan and I had ever stayed overnight at the HarrisWorld B&B. I must say that we heartily enjoyed our stay and hope to be able to visit again sometime in the future. I recommend the room they call "Kim's Mom's Room" to anyone thinking about staying there.
Oh, and unless I'm misremembering, people were talking about how cool it would be if there were something similar in Minneapolis only you were restricted to using public transportation. It turns out that already exists. Thanks Salvation Army! Maybe we'll try this one next year, too, when we know Minneapolis a little better.
All in a Fortnight's Work
It's over.
It's finally over.
As of 8:30 this morning, my responsibilities surrounding a certain release of a certain piece of software have finally been completed. As a token of appreciation for making myself available virtually 18/7 over the last two weeks, I've been given next week off completely without having to use vacation. I'll still be on call Monday and Tuesday in case there are any disasters, but I'm not anticipating receiving any phone calls.
It'll be good to relax and get back to some fun again. It's been two weeks since I've been able to go with Zelda on her walks, two weeks since I've read anything, two weeks since I've picked up a Nintendo controller. I'm hoping to get most of the rest of the house organized this week, too.
I haven't been completely devoid of activity over the last two weeks. Let me fill you in on what you've missed.
It's finally over.
As of 8:30 this morning, my responsibilities surrounding a certain release of a certain piece of software have finally been completed. As a token of appreciation for making myself available virtually 18/7 over the last two weeks, I've been given next week off completely without having to use vacation. I'll still be on call Monday and Tuesday in case there are any disasters, but I'm not anticipating receiving any phone calls.
It'll be good to relax and get back to some fun again. It's been two weeks since I've been able to go with Zelda on her walks, two weeks since I've read anything, two weeks since I've picked up a Nintendo controller. I'm hoping to get most of the rest of the house organized this week, too.
I haven't been completely devoid of activity over the last two weeks. Let me fill you in on what you've missed.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Big Move, Part 2
Only a month late. Oh well.
5/19/2007 - Loading and Unloading
After averting a near disaster by picking up our U-Haul truck on Friday, all that remained was the physical loading of said truck, driving to Minneapolis, and unloading the truck. Now I know that Meaghan and I must be two of the strongest people in the world, but we have a lot of stuff. More stuff than we could probably shuttle in and out of a house twice in one day. So in order to manage the job, we enlisted the help of 12 extremely nice friends. Thanks Brett, Jeff, Mike, Kim, Tony, Urrv, Andy, Brett, Matt, Laurel, Chris, and Alaina. We really couldn't have done it without you. (Thanks, too, to Carol and Isaac for moral support and mad sidewalk chalk skillz.)
The help was so incredible that we managed to tightly pack the entire 24' truck with all of our earthly belongings in a mere hour and a half. Chris and Urrv's pack job was amazing, especially given how few things we had available to provide padding. After a quick lunch at Subway, the caravan hit the highway.
This possibly took longer than either the packing or the unpacking phase. I don't know if you've ever driven a fully laden U-Haul before, but man does it chug up hills. There's not exactly any Pike's Peak in between Rochester and Minneapolis, but we were topping out at 45 MPH trying to get up some of the larger rises. As a result, the first part of the caravan got to our new place a good half hour before the truck did. To kill time, the early arrivers apparently had some adventure trying to help a random woman turn off her two car alarms... or something like that. I wouldn't know, I was driving the truck. (Incidentally, not a day has gone by without a car alarm going off for minutes at a time at some point.)
Once we finally got there, it only took another 90 mins to unload everything into the house. Well... almost everything. Our new house was built in 1907, so it's safe the say that the width and angles of various doors and halls aren't up to modern building standards. Miraculously, with a little cajoling everything fit with the exception of our queen-size box spring. We figured that might happen, so it wasn't a big deal. It was only another week of sleeping on sleeper sofas before we were able to get our half-queen springs from Slumberland.
After a day's hard work, we all went over to Pizza Luce on Lyndale. (Thanks for the idea, Kim.) They have an interesting array of pizzas to choose from, all of them good. We'd been to the one in St. Paul before, but it's good to know one is so close by if we're ever in the mood.
5/19/2007 - Loading and Unloading
After averting a near disaster by picking up our U-Haul truck on Friday, all that remained was the physical loading of said truck, driving to Minneapolis, and unloading the truck. Now I know that Meaghan and I must be two of the strongest people in the world, but we have a lot of stuff. More stuff than we could probably shuttle in and out of a house twice in one day. So in order to manage the job, we enlisted the help of 12 extremely nice friends. Thanks Brett, Jeff, Mike, Kim, Tony, Urrv, Andy, Brett, Matt, Laurel, Chris, and Alaina. We really couldn't have done it without you. (Thanks, too, to Carol and Isaac for moral support and mad sidewalk chalk skillz.)
The help was so incredible that we managed to tightly pack the entire 24' truck with all of our earthly belongings in a mere hour and a half. Chris and Urrv's pack job was amazing, especially given how few things we had available to provide padding. After a quick lunch at Subway, the caravan hit the highway.
This possibly took longer than either the packing or the unpacking phase. I don't know if you've ever driven a fully laden U-Haul before, but man does it chug up hills. There's not exactly any Pike's Peak in between Rochester and Minneapolis, but we were topping out at 45 MPH trying to get up some of the larger rises. As a result, the first part of the caravan got to our new place a good half hour before the truck did. To kill time, the early arrivers apparently had some adventure trying to help a random woman turn off her two car alarms... or something like that. I wouldn't know, I was driving the truck. (Incidentally, not a day has gone by without a car alarm going off for minutes at a time at some point.)
Once we finally got there, it only took another 90 mins to unload everything into the house. Well... almost everything. Our new house was built in 1907, so it's safe the say that the width and angles of various doors and halls aren't up to modern building standards. Miraculously, with a little cajoling everything fit with the exception of our queen-size box spring. We figured that might happen, so it wasn't a big deal. It was only another week of sleeping on sleeper sofas before we were able to get our half-queen springs from Slumberland.
After a day's hard work, we all went over to Pizza Luce on Lyndale. (Thanks for the idea, Kim.) They have an interesting array of pizzas to choose from, all of them good. We'd been to the one in St. Paul before, but it's good to know one is so close by if we're ever in the mood.
Workin'
It's been a week since I last posted, but luckily you haven't missed much of anything. I'm pretty sure I've worked 10+ hours every day (including the weekend) since then. While that means there hasn't been much new to write about, it also means that I haven't done any catch-up writing at all. Sorry 'bout that.
More interesting things coming soon.
More interesting things coming soon.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Don't Fly Too Close to the Sun
I made a special trip to St. Charles after work today. Last night, I "won" (those quotes are for you, Tony) an auction for Kid Icarus for the NES on eBay. It went for pretty cheap compared to the $20-$30 this game typically goes for, plus I didn't have to pay for shipping. I was planning on picking up the manual by itself later since it wasn't mentioned in the auction anywhere, but it came with one anyway. Too bad it looks like it's been partially eaten by a dog and then taped back together. Oh well, I guess that's why it wasn't advertised.
After cleaning it for awhile, I got it to fire up. Turns out I've never played or even seen anyone play this game, but people tell me that it's one of Nintendo's finest. I tried it long enough to discover that you get one life, and when it's gone you get a whopping Metroid-esque password. Looks both fun and hard, the best of both worlds. We'll have to see if I'm able to build up any skill at it.
In the meantime, I've been working on Konami's classic horizontal shooter Gradius for the last week or so. With or without the Konami code (in its first appearance on the NES), I can only make it to level 3. I need to develop a better way of fending off the giant Moai heads and their oh so deadly ion guns. Don't ask me why the ancient statues from Easter Island are an enemy in this game, I have no idea.
After cleaning it for awhile, I got it to fire up. Turns out I've never played or even seen anyone play this game, but people tell me that it's one of Nintendo's finest. I tried it long enough to discover that you get one life, and when it's gone you get a whopping Metroid-esque password. Looks both fun and hard, the best of both worlds. We'll have to see if I'm able to build up any skill at it.
In the meantime, I've been working on Konami's classic horizontal shooter Gradius for the last week or so. With or without the Konami code (in its first appearance on the NES), I can only make it to level 3. I need to develop a better way of fending off the giant Moai heads and their oh so deadly ion guns. Don't ask me why the ancient statues from Easter Island are an enemy in this game, I have no idea.
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