Archive for February, 2007

Busy day at work today. I picked Sarah up at school at around 4:40 and we headed downtown. We met Kenny and Laurie there, as well as the Reno’s and had a nice dinner at Rock Bottom. Plenty of laughs, plenty of conversation, Reno’s are a ton of fun, I like them quite a bit. Tomorrow is Laurie’s birthday, and it sounds like they are having a whole weekend worth of activities and dinner’s and such.

We came home afterwards, and were here for just over an hour before we headed down to BW3 to hang out with Emily, Paula, and a whole group of people. We had a pretty good time, Emily and I got to have some catchup on what is going on in her life, and we all had some decently priced and sized beers. But it is nearly 1:00 and it is time to get to bed.

I got to work on my sideart some more tonight. I retraced some of the different shapes on the shoe region. I added in some hatching detail on the inside of the laces, tones up some shapes that I missed or miss viewed and didn’t draw correctly. I also fixed the bottom of the shoes, the circle sections. The photos Richard took are awesome and clear. I also started to retrace the kite before I had to get to bed.

Spoke with Walt again today. He was so nice, and even though I indicated that I probably couldn’t drive out to Lynn, MA to get the Mr. Do, he said he would take photos of the side of the game for me so that I could trace the artwork. I offered to barter some web work with him, and I sent him some links so he knew that I am good at what I do, so hopefully that will be of value to him. He said it will probably be another couple of days, but I am psyched. If this pans out, I didn’t have to wait too long to find someone who had this game and who could help me in my quest to reproduce the artwork.

Today was finally a productive day for me when I got home, but it wasn’t without frustration. I started to fill out my rebate stuff for the computer, and I made some router setting changes for security, which, of course, messed up the internet connection. I then had to play around with that, and am so worn out on networking.

After I got the laptop working again, I made some phone calls I needed to make, including one to Banfield to cancel our care package now that Kellogg is gone. Sarah just chilled for a little bit, and then we both left at the same time, a little after 6. She went back to school for an event that would be recognizing the girl’s basketball team, and I went to meet Brian at the gym.

When I got home, I was in charge of dinner, so I set up the laptop to some music to groove like the best rice krispies commercial, I think I even felt a hip movement. I did some more program installing and ate, and Sarah got home at about 8:30 with some groceries to unpack.

Sarah watched some tv and looked through some mail, and I got a new section put up on the blog for Kellogg under interests. I think that I am going to type about our two weeks, day by day, in that section. I have been writing this week when I can, but there seems to be two divergent paths in my voice, so I thought this would satisfy both.

I was working away on the couch, and just after 10 Sarah went into the bedroom, and when I went to check on her, she was asleep with her Reader’s Digest on the covers. I came back out and decided to work on something else, so I got back to refining some of the details of my Jr. Pac-man sideart piece.

Welcome to my restoration / repair notes for my Atari Dig Dug machines. Over the course of my ownership I had a lot of problems with these two classic arcade machines. One Dig Dug started as a Land Sea and Air Squad, painted solid black. I restored that Dig Dug completely from the ground up, tracking down parts on ebay and through other arcade collectors over two years. The second Dig Dug was a nicer cabinet that I bought with the intention of trading. Both Dig Dugs gave me PCB and power supply problems right before I sold them to collectors in Indianapolis and Kentucky.

So, I hope these repair and restoration notes help you with your Dig Dug. I love comments, so leave me one even though I no longer have these games. You might be able to help someone else, especially those of us who hate those dang Atari power supply boards.

Right after I got up and running on my laptop, and online, my Firefox windows on certain sites were bouncing up and down. Most sites actually, by about 5 pixels or so, constantly. After about 2 minutes I could feel my eyes strain, so this was the first thing I needed to fix when getting my new laptop settled.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but that did nothing. Then, I found a link that gave me my solution. Right after I installed, I had taken out the default bookmarks to the Mozilla site in the Bookmarks toolbar. I didn’t have any links there at all, so apparently the blank space was what was causing the problem. So, if you close the Bookmarks Toolbar (View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar) it will stop bounching if you have no linkes. In my case, I just imported my links from the desktop, and that solved the problem also.

Today wasn’t nearly productive of a day, again, as I had hoped. We carpooled again today, and got home at a nice time of about 4:30. I got on the laptop and continued to get software installed and other settings going that I thought we needed.

At about 6 I went and met Brian at the gym for a workout. Then, when I got home, I was on my own for dinner, Sarah was at church. I fixed some food, and worked on the computer. I had some documents I had to review for someone, then I talked with Kenny and then Justin called so we talked for a little bit about general stuff and some music.

Finally Sarah came home at nearly 10, and we watched LOST. I think I may hate that show now, it is so stupid, I think they have lost their way a little bit, changing from good stories about people where things happen to stories that rely on hooks to keep you coming back. If you aren’t interested in the hooks, then there is no true meat to make you tune in week to week.

Checking video and audio drivers has always been a difficult thing for me. I am sure there is an easier way, but at the same time, it could be as hard as figuring out the motherboard information. Last night I had to help my parents with a new game they got, which isn’t working correctly. The game developer’s website suggests updating the video and audio drivers. Having no idea how to update the audio driver other than poking around in some areas in XP and doing a general search on the internet.

However, I found some instructions on how to at least find the audio brand or manufacturer.

Step 1: Type Windows > R

Step 2: In the window that comes up, type “dxdiag”

Step 3: A window prompt will come up asking if you want Windows to check your DirectX diagnostic tool, just hit “OK”.

Step 4: You will see a series of tabs, click on any of the tabs that say “Sound”.

Step 5: Under the information listed for “Device” you will see a fieldset called “Name”, and this is where you will find the audio manufacturer as well as other related information.