…that we got married 🙂
We look so cute and awkward in our (very, very few) wedding photos!
Happy Anniversary KLS!
Category: Time
Retro Gamer
This is an arcade system from 1982 called the Vectrex:
Specifically, the above is KLS’s Vectrex, purchased during the fire sales of 1983 that followed the crash of the video game industry. About 1X years ago, I found the above in an attic at her parents house and ferretted it away into our attic, where it now lives. We have the system (which still works!), one controller and about a dozen games including the screen overlays and the manuals.
Here’s an example of a manual for one of the games:
Last week, when KLS’s parents were in town, I got the Vectrex out for a tournament. The rules were simple: KLS, JBF and myself would play each game precisely once. The highest score in each game got a point, and the most points won. We started with the inbuilt game, Mine Storm:
That’s me playing like a pro, sans overlay. The raster works perfectly and it still looks breathtaking. This is rare in devices of this nature that are 30 years old like ours is, so the dry darkness of our attic seems to be a good environment for it!
Other games followed: Berserk, Cosmic Crash, Spike (with voice!). Here’s some shots of the action:
You can see the overlays – which are transparent plastic – add colour to the black and white raster.
We also had several games that we couldn’t get working at all, probably due to the contacts being hosed. I suppose if I spent time cleaning them I may have seen more success, but we skipped them and focused on the games that worked. After JBF left I also managed to get another game – Fortress of Narzod – working, so KLS and I played that one as well. Here’s a shot of her scoring big!
And so… the final score!
Rather than spell it out here, I’ll just show you the score card itself:
Yes my friends, even if we ignore Spike (which bugged out and inflated her score for no reason), she still won every game but one, beating both myself and Jim quite handily. Who knew she was an expert retro gamer?! 🙂
Postcards
I love postcards. They are more than just a piece of paper with a picture on them, sent through the mail. They are little time capsules that can be revisited time and time again. Over the years I have sent hundreds, many to myself. And I have kept them all.
The ideal postcard, to me:
1) Is funny
2) Could be potentially embarassing to purchase
3) Contains nudity, and
4) Is dated
As you can see, the fine example above – sent by me to KLS in 2001 – satisfies 75% of the criteria. (Although since Chimps are almost always nude, I suppose this is an example of the rare ‘reverse nudity’ card). Here’s an example, received in 2007 from SFL when she went to Paris, of all four criteria:
Tasteful isn’t it? I have many cards far less tasteful than this one, since I can’t help but purchase ‘nudey cards’, especially now they are going out of vogue. But this being a family friendly blog (?), I dare not post any! Well, maybe this one is ok…
The back of the card is at least as important as the front, and I like to think I have become increasingly innovative over the years. Here is one such example from my recent trip. Note the strong relationship between the photo and the writing on the back 🙂
Here’s another example of an innovative back. I have tried this technique successfully twice now in two separate countries (USA and Australia):
The above cards betray nothing about what I was doing at the time, and that’s perfectly fine. But sometimes nuggets of memory make there way onto these cards that will never be forgotten and are a joy to read so many years later. If it wasn’t for a scrawled message on the back of a postcard, I may have forgotten that I weighed 215 lbs in 2001 (!) and on one day in January 2000 spent A$120 on MTG cards at Charlestown Square with my brother 🙂
Over the last few years of travels, I have been averaging more than one postcard per day, sent to most everyone who reads this blog. Do you enjoy them I wonder? Actually I don’t wonder, or rather your enjoyment is immaterial, for I will continue to send them.
My rules for effectively postcarding are as follows:
1) While traveling, always have a pen and addresses with you. Keep them in your pocket!
2) Purchase postcard stamps as soon as possibly, preferably the first day of your trip
3) Obtain postcards. Buy more than you think you’ll need. If you find really great ones, buy a few copies!
4) Write and send them whenever the opportunity arises. In a restaurant! On a train! On the toilet! (<- never done this, but should)
5) Sending the postcard is paramount! If you can’t think of anything at all to write, just write anything!
In a little over a week we’re off to Japan again. This will be our fifth trip, and I’m looking forward to it like a child on Christmas eve. Trips to Japan are different from ‘normal’ vacations in many ways, and one is the difficulty in finding postcards.
Indeed, in four previous trips I have only ever sent myself two postcards, one in 2002 and one in 2009. Here’s the 2002 one:
Cute isn’t it? But postcards like this – at all! – are very difficult to find over there, as the past three trips demonstrated. My determination is greater than ever though, and here’s hoping you’ll be receiving some in the mail from that fair island in the very near future 🙂