Robert Vrabel

Ahh… a trip down memory lane. Lately i have had the urge to play some classic video games (from the 80s/90s).  I looked online for videos of old games I used to play and it brought back so many great memories from my childhood.  I figured I would compile a list of games that I used to play over and over again that I have vivid memories of.  This is obviously not a complete list of games I have played, rather ones I have the most memories from.

Computer:

• Kings Quest I
• Kings Quest II
• Kings Quest V
• Quest For Glory I
• Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
• Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis
• Lands of Lore: Throne to Chaos
• Stonekeep
• Leisure Suit Larry I (Shhh… wasn’t supposed to be playing this one that young!)
• Wolfenstein 3D
• Doom
• Doom 2
• Rise of the Tride
• Heretic
• Duke Nukem
• Duke Nukem 3D
• Warcraft
• Warcraft 2
• Command and Conquer
• Starcraft (I still can’t believe this came out when I was only 13)
• Diablo
• Quake
• Alone In The Dark
• Ultima Online (Best MMORPG to date. Sold my account for $900! This is probably my most missed game since it can’t be re-played today exactly how it was released.)
• Jack Nicklaus Golf
• Lemmings
• Sam & Max Hit The Road
• Commander Keen
• Gazillionaire
• Federation (On AOL)

Nintendo (NES)

• Mario Brothers
• Mario Brothers 2
• Mario Brothers 3
• Dragon Warrior I
• Contra
• Megaman 2
• Super Off Road
• RC Pro am
• Legend of Zelda
• The Adventures of Link (Zelda 2)
• Castlevania
• Gauntlet
• Adventure Island
• Mike Tyson’s Punch Out
• Ducktales
• Golf
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade
• Caesar’s Palace
• Roger Rabbit
• Excite Bike
• Ghosts ‘n Goblins
• Double Dragon I
• Double Dragon II
• Techmo Super Bowl
• Marble Madness
• Spy vs Spy
• Lifeforce
• Gradius

Super Nintendo (SNES)

• Final Fantasy III
• Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
• Secret of Mana
• Mario RPG
• The Legend of Zelda: A link to the past
• Mortal Kombat
• Disney’s Goof Troop
• Super Mario World

Gameboy

• The Legend of Zelda: Links Awaking
• Tetris
• Mario Brothers
• Golf
• Kirby’s Dreamland
• Joe and Mac

Wow, this list became really long, really fast.  Its crazy think how much all these games impacted my life.  Its some of the best memories I have as a child, some of the only ones I remember.  I’m sure I’m missing some games but I will add to it as I remember.  I really need to find all my old game cartridges and floppy disks to see what I missed.

So what games from your childhood do you remember best?

I added some new additions to the boards this weekend.  Check them out below or my flickr.

I added a two cup holders on each board so when its your turn to shoot you have a place to put your beer =) . I also added a score board across the top (0-21) so no fights break out over the score . I also added a game scoreboard (0-5) to keep track of games won if anyone plays best of 5 or anything.  I am going to be putting number stickers above the holes so you can tell what the score is.

This is what the board looks like when its folded up. It took some thought figuring out how to add in the backboard so the drinks don’t get hit, and the cup holders so they could still fold but it worked out great and wasn’t to bad.

I added handles to both of the boards so they can easily be carried with one hand each.

Upon testing out the boards yesterday I realized that they were VERY bouncy when the bags hit the board.  The board would shake and move slightly and the bags would bounce right off very easily.  I decided to reinforce the bottom of it with a T shaped connecting 2×4 to make it more sturdy and have less resistance.

They are now rock solid and play a lot nicer.  I still need to sand down the holes again and re-stain the 3 areas that I had to drill holes at.

I have also noticed that some people’s boards are VERY slick (similar to ones I have played on in the past).  The bags slide all the way up them to easily.  I have read on the ACA site that its best to not have it to smooth otherwise people will drain 3 pointers to easily.  They recommend regular plywood as opposed to birch plywood since regular plywood is not as smooth (which is exactly what i used since they recommended it).  I have decided to keep it how it is and try them out to see how it works.  If it becomes to difficult to score i’m going to put a couple coats of high gloss white paint on it to smooth it out a little more.  Its all about testing and experimenting!

I also have a couple of ideas for additions to these boards that I will be posting once I try it out so stay tuned.

My first building project is complete.  I bought some power tools and wood and went to work.  I took pictures of my progress which are below.  You can also visit the flickr set with larger pictures and details.

Here is one of the work benches that I have in the basement.

Beginning Materials

These hand grip clamps are amazing. Very fast and they get the job done.

These are all the final boards that were cut.

I used the clamps to hold the pieces together and predrilled the holes before I screwed in to prevent cracking.

Here are the finished boards once I screwed the tops on.

I used some wood puddy over the screws and sanded it all down so you would not be able to see the screws at all.

I used a compass to draw the standard 6 inch diameter hole. I predrilled a big enough hole for the jigsaw blade to fit in.

I used a jigsaw to cut the hole.

I cut the legs so you can swivel them by just loosening the wingnut. Great for storing and transporting it in the car since that cuts down on the height of them and you can easily stack them. I also trimmed the bottom of the legs at ~ 99 degrees so they are flush with the ground.

I put two coats of stain on since the first didn’t go seem to do much.

Here is the finished product. It meets all ACA (American Cornhole Association) guidelines too. Still haven’t had the chance to test them out fully since they are still drying from the stain. The bags were also home made but I didn’t have the camera with me when we sewed them.

So as most everyone knows, I am alergic to mainly two things, Potatoes and Poultry.  Its typically very easy for me to avoid these as I eat mainly the same food items all the time.  Emily has been buying whole wheat products lately since it is a lot healthier for you to eat.  I don’t mind the taste of whole wheat at all, and knowing its healthy for me makes me feel that much better!

One of the products we recently purchased was Multigrain Pretzel Sticks.  I tried some of that last night for a late snack with some dipping cheese.  About 15mins after eating it I had felt a stomache comming on which got progressively worse.  By 45mins later it was almost unbearable.  I had felt this pain about a year ago after eating Potato bread on a sandwhich.  Lying in bed not able to sleep, I went to the kitchen to see what the hell was in the food I just ate.  To my surprise, the pretzels had “Potato Flour” in them.

I wasn’t able to sleep at all until about 4-5am this morning.  I went on the computer to get my mind off of the pain and did some research on this “potato allergy” of mine.  I could barley find anything online about it.  I found one website which explains how very rare it is to have potato allergy and that in a some of the cases it also involves tomato, peppers, and tobacco smoke as causing problems.  I haven’t noticed any of those other things to cause problems but I thought that was interesting.  The website I found this on is called Allergies Explained.  Time to really start reading the ingrediants of new products I purchase to check for things like that.  Its amazing how something so small can have such a large effect.  I couldn’t even imagine what would happen If I ate a real potato.

I posted a couple pictures of the house on flickr.  It’s still all coming together but these rooms are about as good as they are going to get for awhile.  We still need to hang some things on the walls throughout the house.  We are also looking into purchasing drapes/blinds for the windows, and doing the flooring. throughout the house.  This will just come over time as we find what we like. I will be posting a couple more of the rooms as they finish as well.  I am almost done with the burgundy 1/2 bathroom.

Link the flickr set.

It’s been awhile since I last posted so I thought its about time for an update.  The move to the new house was very successful, thanks to everyone who helped!  I had the whole week off to transition into the house while still living at the apartment.  This helped a lot, i was able to get a ton of things done. More than I thought I was going to be able to.

I spent every day from about 8am-10pm working at the house and the apartment at night.  It was a lot of work, but it was great to see everything coming together.  The more I worked, the more It made me want to do more.  I had the most motivation to do things that I have had in a long time, I really enjoyed customizing the house to our needs.  Thankfully the energy has still carried on after my first week back at work.  I have been working after dinner until about 11pm unpacking the garage and setting things up.  By the end of the weekend we should have everything in the house in its proper place.

One thing we changed that made a huge difference was replacing all the outlets, light switches, covers, and duct covers to white ones.  They were all beige and very old/dirty as I assume they were all original.  Replacing those on top of the painted rooms really made it have a brand new look.  They are extremely cheap also, it comes out to be around $1.00 to do each one.  It was very time consuming changing them, but the hard work really paid off.  I have only done the Great room and the 3 bedrooms for now so we could start putting stuff against the wall and plugging stuff in.  I will continue the rest of the house once we move all our stuff in.

I’ve been enjoying learning new things around the house.  I have learned so much already and I really enjoy being able to do things on my own. I’m looking forward to organizing and finishing the rest of the house.  Its great to not go home and sit on the couch every night like I was in the past couple months prior to moving in.  I feel like i am much more active right now and I get a great feeling of accomplishment each day.  All I can say is I look forward to coming home after work each day, it’s all I think about right now!

I will be posting before/after pictures soon after the weekend once we get everything settled in, so stay tuned for those.

I bought one of the most amazing products yesterday.  The Apple Airport Express.  I am specifically using it for Air tunes which allows you to wirelessly play music to any device that you hook into it.  I connected it to my wireless network and plugged in a audio cord into my receiver.  Next all I had to do was open iTunes from ANY computer on my network and select “Play over Airport Express”.  Next thing you know my iTunes is playing wirelessly to my main set of speakers!

To top it off, the iPhone 2.0 firmware came out recently which allows for applications to be installed on the iPhone.  Apple has put out a FREE “iTunes Remote Application” which connects to your computers iTunes which you can control volume, playlists… anything you could as if you where sitting on your computer using iTunes. This basically turns you into a MOBILE DJ!  I can now stream music from my laptop to my main set of speakers, and then control it from ANYWHERE in range of my wireless network.

This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, this will come in handy so much when throwing a party and a song comes on that you want to change or if someone requests a song. All you have to do is pull your iPhone out and control everything! How great is that!

Firefox 3.0 is no avaiable for download. Get it now!

We just purchased our first house over the weekend! It is located in a wonderful subdivision out in Farmington Hills. We should be moving in mid July. We had our home inspection yesterday and it went VERY well. The people who did it said the house is in excellent condition. There was a couple of problems we found but nothing major. Should be a busy summer this year, can’t wait!