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| New dance pad, old games | |
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1.28.2010
12:12 PM | Link0 comments |
 One of my birthday gifts from my parents this year is the latest version of RedOctane's Ignition Dance Pad, which can plug into just about any game console you want, including the Wii and PS2. It's been way over a year since I even turned on my PS2 (in fact, I was considering getting rid of it this year), and I didn't even have a dance pad that would work with it, since all of my old ones had worn out and went in the garbage can. But now I have a single awesome dance pad that I can use with both machines, and I'm really surprised at how much I'm enjoying the old PS2 games! I love playing Endless Mode (I desperately wish the Wii games had this feature), and the older mixes have such great music!Enjoying these older games made me think about my Dance Dance Revolution "career" (I've written about this before, but a brief recap won't hurt!). It all started in 2000 when I saw people playing in an arcade in Japan, soon followed by my first ever attempt at a mall arcade in Oklahoma City, which led to me buying the PS2 just so I could play at home. Soon after that I got a Japanese PSOne so I could buy import mixes (since the US releases were kind of appalling), and started trying different dance pads. I've probably owned five or six different RedOctane pads, including the latest Ignition that I'm using now. Over the years I've tried lots of DDR knock-off games, but nothing can match the feel of the real thing, so I always buy new editions of the game the moment Konami releases them! It's kind of amazing to me that I've been playing DDR around 10 years, and although I sometimes take a break for a few weeks, I always return to it as a form of exercise and general fun. I like the nostalgic feeling I get when I play these PS2 games and hear old songs (I remember spending hours trying to pass Afronova, which I just cleared this morning with no trouble at all), and I'm looking forward to keeping up with new Wii games as well! |
| Christmas Toys 1978 | |
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12.15.2009
7:06 AM | Link0 comments |
 By the time Christmas of 1978 rolled around, Kenner was cranking out the Star Wars toys by the ton, and of course I had already been collecting Star Wars action figures all year long! My Santa parents took the holiday opportunity to deliver some of the larger Star Wars toys, including the massive Death Star playset, which had a unique design to represent a multi-level “slice” of the space station. I went nuts with this toy, since there was so much to do with it, and I’ll never forget the cool trash compactor (filled with bits of foam garbage). I also got a TIE Fighter (sized so a figure could pilot it), and I loved carefully putting on the decals and then pressing the secret buttons to pop off the wings to simulate battle damage! Aside from action figures, I got the human-sized Stormtrooper Rifle that had some pretty cool firing effects and was a blast to hold. It was definitely a Star Wars extravaganza!But as usual, Santa brought even more amazing stuff, such as Electroman, which was a cool large action figure with a big light on his forehead and sensors to detect movement (he was the same size as the Six Million Dollar Man, so they went well together). I also got the Star Bird Avenger, one of the most innovative space ship toys I can remember, which changed its electronic engine sounds to match the angle of the ship, and it even had fantastic laser sounds and lights. I even got the Star Bird Command Base to go with it! I have no idea how all this stuff fit in my room. After 1978, Dad stopped using the old home movie camera, so I can only dream about the spectacular toys I received in 1979 and beyond. I know that when I read nostalgic toy sites like Plaid Stallions I am constantly reminded of cool stuff that I had, all thanks to my incredible parents (and being a spoiled only child). Every Christmas brings joy and happy surprises, and it’s been fun remembering my childhood treasures! |
| Christmas Toys 1977 | |
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12.10.2009
8:00 AM | Link2 comments |
 When I hear the year 1977 mentioned, I immediately think of Star Wars, so you would think that Santa’s sleigh would have been overflowing with Star Wars toys this year. Actually, the toy companies had no idea that Star Wars would be such a success, so when Christmas rolled around almost nothing was available! However, Santa did manage to get me the Escape from the Death Star board game, which I thought was the coolest piece of cardboard in the whole world (I’m sure I played it a million times with my friends).Instead of Star Wars, 1977 turned out to be the Christmas of the Micronauts! I don’t even remember how I got into these toys, but suddenly they were all I wanted (just like my friends, cousins, and everyone else). Micronauts were a bit more expensive than your average toy, but my Santa parents got me all they could, including individual figures like Acroyear and cool vehicles like the Galactic Cruiser. But my favorites by far were Baron Karza (all black and Vader-esque) and his horse Andromeda, who had fantastic magnetic joints that gave them excellent posability as well as making them interchangeable (so you could turn the two into a centaur!). I was a Micronauts freak for years, and I really wish I had Baron Karza on my toy shelf today! |
| Christmas Toys 1976 | |
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12.03.2009
12:23 PM | Link0 comments |
 Although every Christmas I've written about so far was fantastic (and we haven't even got to Star Wars toys yet), I think if I had to pick one Christmas morning to live again it would have to be 1976. Every toy I received that year was simply spectacular, and I'm not the only one who thinks so, judging from all the fond memories other people have written on the web! I guess I'll begin with the biggest LEGO set I've ever owned (I remember it included lots of large green bases which were so useful), followed by the absolutely huge Earthquake Tower (a very strange toy when you think about it, but I liked it because it was almost as tall as me!). To add to my Star Trek collection, I got a cool Controlled Space Flight toy so I could fly the Enterprise (with a propeller!) around in circles, plus the magnificent Mission to Gamma VI playset for my Mego Star Trek action figures! It was such a beautiful set with a giant mouth (which reminded me of the episode The Apple), with a rubber band trap and a "living" plant monster (a green glove!). Next was practically a whole collection of Six Million Dollar Man toys in one shot, including the Steve Austin figure himself, the incredibly-named Bionic Transport and Repair Station (which was a big rocket), and the awesome Mission Control Center, with its cleverly designed inflatable dome structure! I had so much fun putting these together, applying decals and attaching tubes. But there's still more! This same year I also received the Space 1999 Eagle (definitely a Holy Grail for many collectors), which was so giant you had to fly it around with two hands. I was crazy about Space 1999 as a kid (I even drew my own comics of the show), so I really enjoyed this toy, and every time I'm in my parents' garage I am taunted by the original box (which is being used for storage)!But even with all of these great gifts, the best was yet to come with my beloved Star Trek Tricorder. This was the one toy I wanted the most that year, and my parents decided to pull the same trick from A Christmas Story by hiding it until the very end of Christmas morning. I can remember pulling back the drapes and seeing Kirk and Spock on that box, and I can't express how much I loved that souped-up cassette recorder! Throughout the year I began to record my own pretend radio shows (with lots of help from Dad), and of course I had a lot of Star Trek adventures as well. I'm kind of overwhelmed just writing about all this fun. What a Christmas! |
| Christmas Toys 1975 | |
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11.30.2009
11:51 AM | Link0 comments |
 I think the toys I remembering playing with the most throughout my childhood would be my Mego 8-inch action figures, which had incredible cloth clothing and plastic accessories. I had so many of these I can’t even begin to count, including almost all of the super heroes and villains, as well as characters from Star Trek and Planet of the Apes! In fact, I loved them so much, I’ve recently been collecting reproductions of these classic toys) In 1975, Santa brought not just one, but two gigantic Mego playsets to use with my figures, starting with the USS Enterprise. This representation of the bridge included control panels and the captain’s chair, changeable view screen images, and the totally creative Transporter effect (which let you spin a figure around quickly, then press a button to make them disappear!). Next was the Batcave, which was so much fun to play with since it provided an official garage for my Batmobile. Mego worked so many details into this set, such as the Batpole and Batsignal, and there was even a collapsing road sign on the secret entrance! Santa also brought a rare and interesting piece of Disney park memorabilia that year, since I got the Haunted Mansion Board Game that so many collectors are after today. I remember really enjoying this game, and the artwork was really cool (now if I only knew where it went!). Along with other smaller toys, I also got a simple little game called Bas-Ket which let you launch ping pong balls into nets (which I just discovered can still be bought today). I remember playing this one with Dad, but the main reason it deserves mentioning is because I think it’s been buried in my parents’ garage for years, so someday I may get to play it again!
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| Christmas Toys 1974 | |
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11.17.2009
12:20 PM | Link0 comments |
 Santa decided to go for quantity this year, so I got a huge variety of great toys, starting with lots of board games (which meant that Mom & Dad had to play with me a lot, being an only child). I loved the Rube Goldberg magic of Mouse Trap (one of the best games ever that's still sold today), and more often just built the contraption to see it work rather than follow the actual rules! I also got a fun memory matching game called Husker Du (Dad enjoys memory games, so we played that for years), and believe it or not, a board game inspired by the TV series Emergency. Moving on to bigger toys (the tree was dwarfed by the huge boxes my toys came in that year!), there was Skittle Bowling (a sequel to Skittle Pool that I got the previous year), a giant Texaco Service Station playset, a cute Snoopy and his doghouse toy, and the awesome Ricochet Racers, which were cars you could actually fire out of big rifle-like launchers! Finally, I got some practical/educational stuff, starting with a real typewriter (which I really wanted from the way I'm hugging it in the home movie!) that I used to type letters to my cousin Tom Bill in Ohio, plus one of those cool Science Explorer circuit sets that let you connect wires to make LEDs light up or create sounds. My musical encouragement continued with an almost full-size toy guitar, and a future toy addiction was born in 1974 because I got my first giant LEGO set that kept me busy for hours a day!
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| Christmas Toys 1973 | |
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11.10.2009
7:56 AM | Link0 comments |
 The next Christmas in this series should be 1972, but that remains a mystery year regarding toys from Santa! Dad had to go overseas with the Air Force during the holidays, so there are some home movies of family gifts (the usual underwear) that we opened early that year, but no footage of the toy haul. I bet I got some great stuff, too! It doesn't really matter, though, since I completely scored in 1973 with so many toys that I can barely mention them all!The most cherished toy of the bunch was my Ready Ranger Backpack, which was a clunky orange and blue plastic box (worn on your back) that opened up to reveal all kinds of pretend equipment for high-tech wilderness adventure, fighting fires, spying, or something like that (I was never quite clear on the mission!). I completely loved all the doo-dads and the way they collapsed into the case, and I was so excited about it that this is the only toy I remember getting up in the middle of the night to play with by flashlight! (This is a good time to mention that I'm a huge fan of PlaidStallions.com, the absolute best site on the web for 70s toys memories!) There were many other toys to enjoy in 1973, most of them huge, like the original Skittle Pool, the Big Jim Sports Camper and figures (I had lots of fun with these, but they look incredibly goofy now!), a semi-remote control spaceship called Solo Flight, a set of Tonka road construction vehicles, the Visible Man model (with removable intestines and liver and such), and finally a giant Mickey Mouse ventriloquist doll that probably could have paid off my mortgage if I still had it! What an incredible year for Christmas fun! |
| Christmas Toys 1971 | |
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11.05.2009
11:53 AM | Link0 comments |
 This year's Christmas was pretty unique, since my parents and I spent the holiday season with my Dad's family in Ohio and Kentucky. This meant that my Santa-parents had to covertly hide all of my presents in the back of the car for the drive, and I never suspected since I was a dedicated Santa-believer who was convinced Santa knew where I would be waking up on Christmas morning! Along with my huge stocking, I received several classic games this year, including Don't Break the Ice and Operation, plus some kind of interesting battle tops game. But the best gift of 1971 was my Fisher Price Family Play Farm set! This gift was wrapped and under the tree before Christmas, and I would actually sit in the rocking chair with the huge box in my lap and kind of sing songs about how great this present was going to be (how embarrassing!). I loved toys that had a million pieces, so I was thrilled with all the farm animals, the family, fence pieces, the silo, and of course the giant barn with the classic door that made a cow moo when it opened! Lots of people have fond memories of this fantastic toy, but it's not easy to find really good photos of the vintage version (Fisher-Price still makes a similar set, but the design has been updated). But I was still able to find this great page dedicated to the vintage set, as well as some nice images on Flickr!
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| Christmas Toys 1970 | |
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10.30.2009
10:43 AM | Link0 comments |
 Christmas this year was dominated by probably the physically largest gift I ever received! My Santa parents figured a four-year old should learn how to drive, so they got me a kiddie-sized dune buggy! It was a beautiful, red, battery-powered monster (none of those crappy pedal cars for me!) with real working headlights, and it could actually go forward and reverse. I remember driving it around the house (mostly from seeing myself in home movies), and I think I was stunned speechless by the whole thing! In addition to my "real" wheels, I also got a set of several Hot Wheels cars, a wind-up walking Charlie Brown (that I always made Mom wind-up for me), and another toy piano (I either needed an upgrade, or maybe I had broken the piano I got in 1967). There was also a toy rifle and William Tell dart game, and finally my highly anticipated stocking. According to the video evidence, apparently I was super excited about getting Chuckles candy this year!
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| Christmas Toys 1969 | |
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10.26.2009
11:08 AM | Link1 comments |
 I'm sure Santa brought me lots of other toys for my third Christmas, but the space under the tree was dominated by three big ones! I got a classic red wagon with cool wooden sideboards (my huge teddy bear from 1967 was sitting in it), and a fantastic school desk with an attached seat and a flip-top that was filled with art supplies, plastic alphabet letters, and all kinds of other fun (and educational) stuff. But the best gift of all was my Show'N Tell Phono-Viewer, probably one of the most entertaining toys ever (and I'm not the only one who feels that way - my pal Barron also loved his Show'N Tell). I guess kids today would get a portable DVD player, but in 1969 this was serious tech! The Show'N Tell looked like a TV with a record player on top, but it played filmstrips that were vertically inserted into the top. As the record played, the filmstrip would advance to the next frame in sync with the story, so it was like a magical TV show! I know I spent hours and hours watching the same things over and over, but what is truly amazing is the titles that were available. Believe it or not, I had filmstrips of literary classics like Moby Dick and even Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and I can actually remember them (I know for a fact I was a little spooked by watching Juliet die). I'm really thankful that my Santa parents gave me such a wonderful gift, and I'm proud to have been a Shakespeare fan at only three-years old! By the way, I discovered some fantastic scans of an old Show'N Tell catalog, so you can see the incredible variety of filmstrips that were sold. I wish I could watch these today!
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| Christmas Toys 1968 | |
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10.23.2009
11:50 AM | Link0 comments |
 Moving on to my second Christmas, Santa continued to focus on some classic toys that every kid should have. The biggest gift of 1968 was my red tricycle, which I rode both inside and outside! Of course, I peddled it around on Christmas morning, and I know throughout the year I often tried to ride it in the backyard, where it would always get stuck in the grass. I also got the usual wooden board with pegs that could be hammered through, as well as a plastic horse (that one seems a little unusual, but I'll just call it my first action figure!). Another interesting gift that year was a toy phone - of course, kids today get toy cell phones, but mine was a big rotary model! I'm sure I pretended to call Santa Claus or someone like that with it. This year marked the start of my love for "giant mesh Christmas stockings full of junk", which always had a million little plastic toys and all kinds of candy, and I started getting one of those every year after that (it seemed like they kept getting bigger, too!). I wonder if they still sell those?
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| Christmas Toys 1967 | |
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10.20.2009
12:29 PM | Link0 comments |
 It might be a little early to start writing about Christmas, but I thought I'd get started on this series of posts just to be sure I finish it before December 25th! Since my dad used to be a real home movie buff, I'm extremely lucky to have tons of magical childhood events captured on film, which includes reel after reel of me ripping open toys in my pajamas on Christmas morning. It's so much fun to study these Christmas movies and try to figure out what all the gifts are (which is sometimes difficult due to film quality), and I absolutely love reminiscing about all the fantastic classic toys I enjoyed, thanks to my extremely generous Santa parents! So I'm going to mention the main toys of each of my early Christmases, and I plan to cover at least 1967 through 1978.I was born in January 1967, so by December 1967 I was old enough to do more than gurgle, and I got lots of classic baby toys that most people will remember, starting with the standard Fisher-Price Corn Popper (I can't believe they have been making that toy since 1957 and you can still buy it!). I also had the typical pole with rings on it (which I kept trying to eat like doughnuts), a wind-up music box "radio", a pretty cool fire engine to push around, a weird ball filled with chickens that would peck as you moved it, plus a huge teddy bear that was bigger than me! I also got a toy piano and a wind-up drummer boy, which no doubt got me interested in music right away. Of course, during most of the morning I ended up playing with boxes and Christmas ornaments more than the toys. As I "grow up", I'll have lots more to say about my beloved toys, but 1967 was just about the best first Christmas anyone could ever want! |
| Rockin' with CITGO | |
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10.03.2009
3:53 PM | Link2 comments |
 One of the more unusual bands I've played in as a drummer was called the CITGO All-Star Rock & Roll Revue, made up of employees in Tulsa. Around 1992, CITGO decided to put on a huge talent show to raise money for MDA (their biggest charity recipient each year) called the CITGO Follies, and one of my bosses and some other guys got the idea to form a band. They knew I was a drummer (and maybe they also thought it was good to have a "young guy" in the group), so we started rehearsing during lunch in our warehouse. One of the guys was a hardcore 50s and 60s rock & roll maniac, who knew every bit of music trivia you can imagine, so we decided to do a kind of timeline medley, starting with Rock Around the Clock and ending with Heart of Rock and Roll (I guess someone was a Huey Lewis fan!). The show was a pretty good success, and afterwards we were asked to play for some other parties and charity events, so suddenly we were kind of a real band! We started learning tons of songs, and the older guys would always be amazed that I had never heard most of these old tunes before! Actually, it was really good for me, since I expanded my knowledge a bit and totally nailed how to play a shuffle beat. We even had a band logo, and CITGO paid to get us custom embroidered shirts and shiny jackets, too!A couple years later, there was another CITGO Follies, so we worked up a new show and added tons of people to the band, including backup singers and even a horn section (which is how I met my good friend Nick, since his dad was a CITGO employee). Another year there was a mock casino night, and we played a long set for the party (my parents were visiting Tulsa during that event, and got to see me go nuts during Ray Charles' What'd I Say). I really enjoyed some other great events, too, such as playing outdoors at Bell's Amusement Park right next to the roller coaster! I don't really remember how or why we stopped playing, but after our four or five year run, we eventually packed it up. During our heyday, we were featured on a local Tulsa news broadcast, and now you can watch that ancient (probably 1995) video! I thought it was hilarious that they used me to begin the segment, with the crazy line "mild-mannered computer whiz by day, rock & roll drummer by night!" I was looking kind of silly in my Mod Mikey phase, but I secretly thought I was super-cool. Playing in the CITGO band sure made work more interesting, and definitely had a positive effect on my drumming ability today. I hope the other guys still find the time to break out their instruments, too!  Watch video: CITGO Band News Broadcast
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| Macintosh developer nostalgia | |
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9.06.2009
8:30 AM | Link2 comments |
 Several months ago as I watched Welcome to Macintosh, I started thinking that I should write an essay on my early computer career, which involved using Macs at CITGO Petroleum Corporation. I was really lucky to get hired at just the right time (I actually got the job a semester before I graduated, mainly because the interviewer was fascinated that I had classical music and Shakespeare courses on my transcript!), because CITGO was starting to look at alternatives to their giant mainframe in the new world of Client/Server Computing (yes, there was a time when that was a cutting edge concept!). They told me I was going to use Macs and a scriptable spreadsheet called WingZ, so I spent some time reading a few books about it before moving to Tulsa.CITGO is a big corporation accustomed to spending big bucks, so I had a top-of-the-line Mac with two huge monitors (I couldn’t believe it!), and I was given time to play around with WingZ, building graphical user interfaces to crunch numbers with charts like no one in the company had ever seen on their green screen terminals. Later I learned HyperCard (how nostalgic!) and used it as a front-end to a mainframe application. I thought this was really cool since it did some terminal screen-scraping in the background with a cool UI on the front-end. We had Apple reps in all the time who loved to make sales to big businesses like CITGO, and they always brought me cool goodies like coffee mugs and mousepads! Once they invited me and my boss to the Infomart in Dallas (where Apple had a huge business center at the time) to present the things we were working on to Apple staff, and they treated us like royalty! Soon the CITGO big wigs saw that we should do more stuff with Macs, and they hired more people into my group – all of us became great friends and had fun together for the next several years. It was a total blast to go on business trips to the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (I got to go three years in a row and gasp at the first public demonstration of QuickTime!) and even MacWorld, not spending a dime of my own money (and of course, sometimes we would go a day early to hit Disneyland or rent a convertible!). During one of these trips I got to see part of the Apple campus in Cupertino, and even went out for sushi (my first time ever) with some Apple employees. It was all pretty amazing! Our Mac group eventually started working with 4th Dimension (a development environment that’s still around today) with an Oracle database back-end (the SQL knowledge I gained learning Oracle is something I still use every day in my current job). We hired a 4D expert from Tulsa, who became a great friend and later hired me away from CITGO to do consulting with him in Austin! We built a giant application called FAMOS (a silly acronym) to track oil tanker schedules, which ended up gaining some notoriety (and saving CITGO lots of money). First, Apple and Oracle were working together to promote their products in big business, so they brought in a film crew to make a video about our successful application. It was a crazy day at work (cameras and lights everywhere), and I got to click around in the app and say a few things on camera! (I recently imported this video from VHS, which was a blast to see, even though I was extra overweight at the time!) Next, my boss and I were asked to be guest speakers at 4D Summit (the 4th Dimension developer conference) in San Francisco, and I got to demonstrate the application and show some of my techniques to about 1,000 people (with a Steve Jobs-style giant screen for the demo!). I can hardly believe those events happened even today. The next step in my Apple development was to "go deeper" and learn how to build applications using C++ and MacApp (Apple's old object-oriented code framework which was used to build the original versions of classics like Photoshop). Of course, this meant more fun out-of-town training at Apple's Developer University, where I went to some pretty intense MacApp classes that not only solidified the object-oriented concepts I had learned in college, but also familiarized me with lots of Mac internals that are still similar in iPhone development today. Not only did I get to take these courses, but CITGO even flew out an Apple employee to tutor me in Tulsa! I remember he was a nice guy who helped me quite a bit with memory management and other areas, and we often had lunch so he could talk about his cool California lifestyle and his red Miata. The only thing I actually wrote with MacApp was a desktop faxing application, but it was still pretty cutting edge to be able to drag and drop any document without getting up and walking to the fax machine! There were a few other fun aspects to my Apple enthusiasm, such as running a CITGO Mac user group at the office (with presentations and even a newsletter), and getting to be involved in various beta testing programs (I was part of a committee helping to refine an attempt to bring PowerBuilder to the Mac), but eventually CITGO's efforts were all directed towards SAP, which was the perfect catalyst to convince me to move to Austin. I'll always be nostalgic about my early career, and I'm thankful that I got to experience so many things during such an explosive change in the industry! Watch video: Apple Success Story VideoBe prepared - I was pretty overweight in 1992! |
| Day Jobs original: Get Go-Getter | |
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5.26.2009
6:40 PM | Link0 comments |
Time for another time capsule post about my old swing band, The Day Jobs! Some of the old files that I recently discovered were song lyrics, since we had several original tunes written by Dae and Ernesto. For a few songs, after the guys wrote the melody, I got to write some lyrics to go along with them, and it was really fun to see what I could come up with, and even better to hear Matt sing them with the band. One my favorites was Get Go-Getter, which Ernesto wrote and titled, so I had to write around that idea. At the time I was into the complex and funny rhymes of Lorenz Hart (lyricist of My Funny Valentine and a million other songs you know), so I wanted to be clever with lots of three syllable rhymes. Some of them aren't so hot, but they're close! By the way, this song isn't about anyone I've ever known (although I remember I did have a car battery problem back then!). You can actually listen along to The Day Jobs performing live at Speakeasy on February 25th, 2000, thanks to Club Cast Live (a now defunct website that used to broadcast Austin music on the net)! Play Get Go-GetterShe's a get go-getter, you ought to see her go |
| Day Jobs standards list | |
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4.26.2009
6:06 PM | Link0 comments |
This weekend has been packed with gigs and other mayhem, so instead of writing something, I think I'll just post another bit of Day Jobs history (which is mainly only interesting to me, but you'll survive). Here's our song list of jazz standards (without our original tunes), although I'm sure we added a few more over time. It's fun for me to read this list, because I can remember the ones I liked to play, the ones that were a little boring, the ones that got the best crowd response, and so on. I'm still playing a few of these today with Casa del Swanko, but it sure would be fun to go back in time with the Day Jobs, wear our suits, and kick out a few of these at the Speakeasy again!
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| Original Day Jobs biography | |
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4.24.2009
7:45 PM | Link0 comments |
 Recently I was organizing and cleaning out some old files on my external hard drives (to make extra room for all the home movies I've been importing), and I stumbled upon some ancient files that I saved from my old Windows PC (which is long gone now). The best thing I found was a few old text files from my old band The Day Jobs, including some set lists, original lyrics, and our band bio from our website. I don't remember for sure, but I think we got together to decide on the content, and then Ernesto probably wrote the bulk of the text, and I might have edited it after that. It's kind of funny to read this today, since it seems kind of long and slightly goofy, but I guess it helped with our success! Since the original Day Jobs website is kind of hard to navigate on the Internet Archive, I thought it would be fun to post these "rare documents" on WEBmikey over time for posterity!The Day Jobs have been swinging since late 1997, when Ernesto Marquez and Dae Kim decided to expand their saxophone duo into a complete jazz combo. Their goal was to put together a group of musicians with a true affection for the music of the 20s, 30s and 40s, who could strive to capture the feel of that era and love doing it. Within two months, the band was formed and spent months rehearsing to arrange their favorite standards into a formidable repertoire that continues to grow today. Soon they began appearing at clubs, parties, and weddings, performing swing hits mixed with their own original compositions. The Day Jobs are now a fixture of Austin’s swing scene, keeping dancers happy all over town. |
| Star Trek view screens | |
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1.27.2009
12:54 PM | Link0 comments |
 Another bit of nostalgia I discovered over Christmas was the view screen cards from my Star Trek Enterprise Bridge playset for my Mego Star Trek action figures. My Star Trek figures were some of my favorite toys (back before Star Wars toys took over), which is why I've been enjoying buying the new reproductions recently! The bridge playset, which I got for Christmas back in 1975, was mostly vinyl-covered cardboard for the walls, along with some plastic consoles and the captain's chair, plus the cool Transporter feature that was pretty ingenious. It's hard to explain, but you could spin a figure around in a chamber and push a red button to make them "disappear" or a green button to bring them back!The view screen had two pegs that you could use to hang a card to represent what the crew was seeing on their latest adventure, and even though my playset is long gone, for some reason I saved a couple of these two-sided cards. The quality of the artwork is downright appalling, but I never gave it a second thought back in 1975! Actually, the same toy company making the reproduction figures is coming out with a reproduction bridge playset very soon. I wasn't planning on buying it, since it requires a lot of display space, but every time I look at the picture the temptation is overwhelming!  View photos: Mego Enterprise View Screen Cards
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| Intellivision memories | |
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1.17.2009
2:23 PM | Link0 comments |
 Dad and I have always had fun together with technology, which includes home video games. When I was really young, I remember we owned some kind of dedicated Pong TV game that we played together, but our gaming history really started with the Intellivision console by Mattel, sometime in the early 80s. Unlike other kids, I never had to talk my dad into wanting to buy a home video game, since he was just as into the advertising hype as I was! Of course, we had to decide between Atari and Mattel, but since the Intellivision came bundled with Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack and Dad has always loved gambling and card games, Mattel was the clear winner (and I didn't really care since Dad was buying!).We used to stay at my Grandmother's apartment in Waco each year during Thanksgiving, and while we were there Dad and I would always go shopping together. One year Dad decided this was the perfect opportunity to buy an Intellivision! We were concerned about Grandmother's old TV and how the games would look on it, but since we wanted to play it immediately so badly, Dad just decided, "What the heck, we'll buy her a new TV, too!" It was so much fun getting back to Grandmother's (and surprising Mom with our big spending), hooking up the console, and seeing that Blackjack dealer rendered in giant pixels on the TV! Of course, we thought it was the best thing ever, and over the years we played lots of games together. Dad loves to get excited about something and buy everything in sight (his current passion is iPhone apps), so it wasn't long before we had tons of cartridges (I'm amazed at some of the titles we owned, but I'm sure Dad found them on sale and couldn't resist!). We even bought the Intellivoice module, which allowed us to play the first speaking games for the home market (we loved B-17 Bomber, and still laugh about the voice saying "Watch out for flak! That was close!" to this day). Eventually we got our Atari 800 computer and I got into programming while Dad got into computer gaming, so the good ol' Intellivision went into the closet, but I'll always be nostalgic about those great games! Recently Dad was doing some decluttering and stumbled upon all of our old Intellivision cartridges, neatly stored in cases with the original instruction manuals and controller keypad overlays (which helped you remember some obscure buttons in more complex games). The actual Intellivision console is still missing (possibly in the attic somewhere), but it was really fun to look over the games themselves. I decided the overlays had such cool retro graphics that it would be fun to scan them all, so here's my contribution to online game history. Most of these overlays are available on the cool Intellivision Lives website (highly recommended), but Dad and I had a few that I haven't seen online elsewhere! View photos: Intellivision Overlays
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| Remembering Uncle Don | |
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9.07.2008
4:03 PM | Link0 comments |
 This weekend my Uncle Don, husband of my dad's sister Mary, passed away. As a child, I didn't get to play with him as much as with my other uncles, but I always admired him as a person. I thought it was amazing that he was a podiatrist who worked at home, with a complete doctor's office in their basement, and my cousins and I would look at his examination table and all of his equipment with fascination. He was a kind and relaxed person, so I'm sure he was a great doctor, but he really enjoyed life, willing to do something as crazy as skinny dipping at night in their pool with my dad, my cousins, and me! When he retired, my Uncle Don and Aunt Mary moved to Florida to live their dream life by the water, and even owned a pontoon boat. I never had a chance to visit them in Florida, but I loved watching my parents' home movies of all them laughing and having fun on the boat together.Uncle Don was healthy and fit, but unexpected cancer ultimately took him rather suddenly. Of course it's sad and everyone will miss him, but I know that times like this cause me to be thankful for every moment of life. Each day is a treasure, and I know Uncle Don appreciated each moment. I'm happy that the love and memories we will always have serve as a reminder of the blessing of life. |
| Geek novels | |
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7.17.2008
9:44 PM | Link0 comments |
 While I was visiting my parents in Oklahoma City recently, my dad showed me a box of books he discovered in the garage, which contained quite a few that I really enjoyed as a child. My old Dungeons & Dragons books were there, along with some superhero books, plus several paperbacks. I decided to take a few of the paperbacks with me, because I thought it was cool that I had read the novelizations of three of my top childhood movies! If you asked me to name a few movies (besides Star Wars) that I was totally crazy about when I was a boy, I'm pretty sure that Tron, The Black Hole, and Clash of the Titans would be some of the first titles out of my mouth. I'm sure I bought these novels after I saw the movies, and I really don't remember reading them, but I think it's nice to have something that I know was special to me then, since those movies (no matter how great or bad they may be!) are still special to me now. Although I tried to make a "serious" Top 10 Movies list in 2004, now I have the urge to make a special Top 10 Childhood Movies list sometime soon!Labels: memories |
| Designing dungeons | |
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4.06.2008
11:48 AM | Link0 comments |
 The web was swamped recently with memorials to Gary Gygax, the creator of role-playing gaming as we know it today, and after reading my pal Barron's excellent post, I was inspired to add my own memories. So. here's my late tribute to childhood fun with Dungeons & Dragons, although for me it was all about an inspiration to create!I don't really remember how I first heard about D&D, but I remember getting the basic set while I was in 7th grade and marveling at how you could play a game with no board or pieces to move around! It finally dawned on me that role playing was just "pretending with rules", and I thought all the crazy math formulas used for battles were cool. Of course, I had a few sets of dice (I remember how you could ink the number using a fine pen or by rubbing them with a crayon), and even though everyone thought the 20-sided die was the coolest, I liked the simplicity of the 4-sided one. I think I started saving my allowance for the hardback Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books before I even played my first game, because they were full of fascinating character types and awesome illustrations! I read through the Monster Manual over and over, enjoying the gross creatures and imagining epic fights. I started collecting the small metal figures, too, and spent lots of afternoons painting them with toothpicks and learning wipe-off antiquing techniques from magazines. My geeky group of school friends became my playing group, since we were all into Lord of the Rings and D&D at the same time - it was just inevitable! My pals Scott, Chad, David, Galen (who had the best medieval-sounding name) and I would meet at the public library, where we could get a little private room to play in. I was almost always the Dungeon Master, since I liked being able to play all of the various non-player characters that my friends would interact with in the game. I was already an acting ham, so I didn't want to limit myself to just one character when I could be several at once! I also liked knowing the secrets that everyone else had yet to discover, and I thought the Dungeon Master's screen was so cool - it had fantasy paintings on one side for the players to look at, and tons of reference tables and formulas on the other side! I remember several really good games, and I also remember being a lenient Dungeon Master, since I didn't want my pals' characters to actually die since they had worked so hard on them. But by far my best D&D time was spent creating my own fantasy world for our games. You could buy tons of game modules that included all of the background material and maps for an adventure, but I wanted to make my own from scratch. So, first I made a few "mini-modules" for quick games, and later embarked on giant stories with hex maps and multi-level dungeons! Back before home computers, I actually owned a typewriter and did all my "serious" work on it, so I spent lots of time getting my modules to look just right, and even adding illustrations to the pages just like the pros. I used to draw a lot (although I barely doodle now), so I really enjoyed sketching castles and coloring maps, even if I had to draw hundreds of little symbols. My drawings also were a part of my own Monster Manual supplement, where I designed my own creatures with their crazy stats, and I tried to incorporate these into my custom modules. Truthfully, I enjoyed all this creative activity far more than playing the actual game, but I'm really glad I had a group of D&D friends to inspire this in me! When I was decluttering my college notes recently, I found most of my Dungeons & Dragons creations, so I scanned a few pages (only maps and parts of modules with drawings) for you to enjoy (and for me to remember forever!). Remember these are from the brain of a 7th grade geek! View photos: Dungeons & Dragons Memories
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| A long time ago... | |
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5.26.2007
6:42 AM | Link0 comments |
 Yesterday was the official 30th anniversary of Star Wars! It's amazing to think that the original movie classic was released on May 25th, 1977, and like countless other 10 year olds (and every other age!), it's been a huge part of my life since then. So, I thought I would take a moment to share the beginnings of my Star Wars fandom.When I was in grade school, Dad used to surprise me often by coming home from work with a few new comic books for me, which I used to take to school and read at recess and share with my friends. One day he gave me the first issue of the classic Marvel Comics adaptation of the film, which came out before I had even seen a trailer in the theater. I didn't even know it was going to be a movie, but I loved the comic! One day at school someone told me it was going to be a movie, and I couldn't believe it! Soon after that, I found the novel adaptation and bought it (probably around April 1977), and read it every day until the movie was out. I think I only got about a third of the way through the book before seeing the movie, but I remember I had a clear idea in my head of how scary Darth Vader would be! I'm not sure of the date that I saw the movie for the first time - it wasn't opening day, but I didn't have to wait too long. My parents took me to see it at this giant domed theater, which made me anxious since the last movie I had seen there was Jaws, which gave me a million sleepless nights! It was a little scary just going to that theater again, but Star Wars overcame that previous traumatic movie experience by filling me with sheer wonder and excitement! I can vividly remember the opening theme and seeing the title blast into the distant star field, but my strongest memory is my first look at the "real" Darth Vader, when he boards the Tantive IV after the Stormtrooper gunfight. I can remember hearing his breathing for the first time, and when he marches towards the camera I remember focusing on the details on his costume and actually thinking to myself, "I'm going to see this over and over again!" Of course, all of my friends became fans around the same time, and we saw it again whenever we could. My pal Mark Kempton's dad would take us to see it practically anytime we asked, so I must have seen it at least 10 more times with him, and still more times with my other pals! I started collecting things right away (I think my first items were a wall calendar and the Kenner board game!), and soon I got The Story of Star Wars, which was a book and record set containing most of the dialogue of the movie (condensed into about an hour). I listened to that so many times that I quickly memorized the entire film, which has become one of my secret talents to this day. I'm so happy to have been a Star Wars kid! I think being the right age at the right time made my childhood even more magical and exciting, and 1977 will always stand out for me as one of the coolest years ever. So, I'll chime in with the millions of other blogs and thank George Lucas for making it all happen! I could go on and on about how my fandom has continued to evolve, but instead I'm going to celebrate today by watching Episode IV: A New Hope and building a LEGO Y-Wing fighter! |
| Remembering Stella | |
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3.06.2007
5:49 PM | Link0 comments |
 One of the best things about being a musician in Austin was knowing Stella Boes, and I'm sad to say she passed away today, after a lifetime of making sure everyone around her was having the best time possible. Stella was the "star" of the Carousel Lounge, and I've known her a long time since all of my bands have played at the Carousel: the Day Jobs, Stella (our band that was named for her), and the Greatest American Heroes. She always made a special effort to make sure she was working when our bands would play, and always welcomed us with big hugs and lots of warm conversation. As anyone who's been to the Carousel knows, Stella would always steal the show with her wild dancing, and during the break she would give her usual speech, making sure everyone knew to tip the band, and always ending with "God bless America! God bless Texas! God bless Canada where I'm from!", waving the approprate flags that she always had with her. She absolutely loved everyone and absolutely loved life, and the Carousel just won't be the same without her. Stella has become pretty famous over the years (she's been written about in several magazines, and even had a photo in National Geographic), but she was just being herself - someone who lived a life of music and joy. I'm proud to have known such a magnificent person!Labels: memories |
| My favorite professor | |
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9.09.2006
2:40 PM | Link0 comments |
 Besides studying computer science at college, I was also introduced to a whole new world that I had never acknowledged before, and now I couldn't live without. I think every college student has a certain professor that they will always remember, and for me that was Dr. James Yoch - my memories of classes with him are the absolute best of my entire college life.The core classes for freshmen required two semesters of English (Composition and Literature), but because of my high school grades, I was offered an honors English course. I jumped at the chance, because it was a "two for one" offer - by taking one semester of Honors English, you got credit for both non-honors semesters. My professor was Dr. Yoch, so I met him on practically the first day of college. His plans for the class were simple - we were going to write a ton of papers (practically one per week), but his motives were to expose us to arts and culture (one of our required textbooks was Exploration of the Arts, which seemed strange for an English course!). And so, one week he would say, "The symphony is performing Handel's Water Music this week - go see it and write a paper." The next week it would be an art exhibit, and then a play, and then an opera - he even had us go to see the OU polo team play! All of these were entirely new experiences for me, but since I had an assignment, I had to go. All of us in class were gently "forced" to learn about all of these new things, and it definitely changed me forever. After that class, I was yearning for more, and I had definitely developed an admiration for Dr. Yoch. So, I took as many classes as I could with him during my college career. His Shakespeare classes were fantastic (we always read the Penguin Classics editions, and I still have them all), once again because of his innovative teaching style. Besides a midterm and final exam, we only had one other assignment that he called an "invention". Basically we were free to do any project we wanted, about any aspect of Shakespeare that we had studied in class. There were practically no boundaries! Some students performed in class, some wrote traditional papers, and then there were weirdos like me. One semester I created a role-playing game called Romeo's Quest (with maps, cards, and everything) that explored what might have happened if Romeo had realized Juliet wasn't really dead. It was geekdom at it's best, but Dr. Yoch loved it. Another semester I wrote a song for each major character in The Merchant of Venice to explore their personalities through music - I recorded all of these using a synthesizer and my own singing, and it was a big hit, too! I was able to spend a little time with Dr. Yoch outside of class. When I was just beginning to write poetry, I gave him a book of several that I wrote to ask for his comments, and he was harsh but helpful. I visited him a time or two during his office hours, and once went to his house with a group of students to work on a project. I remember he even advised me not to get married (as I did after my sophomore year), and even though I ignored his advice, I really appreciated it. During my final course with Dr. Yoch, several students wrote a modern-day retelling of Euripides' Medea for our invention, complete with music. We all worked on the script, and I worked on the music with another student, which we recorded (we even used a local church organ to record a "scary" piece that I wrote). Dr. Yoch liked it so much that he wanted to publish it as a university project, and he even secured some funding from the university for the printing. I was supposed to get things together, which included creating sheet music - this would be simple now, but at the time this was kind of an advanced computer task that I didn't know how to do. At the same time, I was married, swamped with my Software Engineering project, working at Eckerd's, and even planning moving to Tulsa (since I already knew I was hired by CITGO). I never got the project off the ground, and I felt like I had betrayed my friend Dr. Yoch. I just swept things under the rug, and so my contact with him ended. I've often wondered if he would remember me, but it's really not important now. What is important is that I'm a great lover of opera, classical music, art, poetry, Shakespeare, and many other things, and I owe it all to Dr. Yoch. He was my guide into a world of beauty and humanity, and I never would be the person I am today without his influence. Labels: memories |
| How I became a scientist | |
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9.04.2006
10:10 AM | Link0 comments |
 The other day George and I chatted a bit about our past academic days, and it really made me stop and think about the things I studied at college. I have a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Oklahoma. I mainly chose OU because I didn't really want to move away from home, and it was an easy commute from my parents' house. At the time, you could get a CS degree in either the School of Engineering or the School of Arts & Sciences, and I went with the Engineering degree because it sounded cooler (even though it had more requirements and core engineering classes, such as Engineering Physics, that I simply hated!).Studying computer science sure was different in 1985! Strangely enough, my first semester was the last semester that OU used punch cards, so I actually had to type out Fortran programs on punch cards and submit them to an operator to be loaded and run, and then wait for those wide green-bar printouts to show me if my program bombed or actually computed compounded interest (or something like that) correctly. I still have a box of those printouts and a deck of punch cards in my garage somewhere! After my first semester though, I was a full-fledged user of the computer lab, so I could slave over a terminal as long as I wanted (or had to). Even though I'm sure the internet existed in some form, no one really had access to any of it at home - the concept of a web page was never even mentioned during my entire course of study for my degree! This meant that all of my homework had to be done in the lab, so I spent lots of time there - I can remember coming home at 3:00 AM many, many times (of course, some of that time was dabbling in MUDs and printing PostScript blueprints of Star Trek ships). Besides core classes and math, most of my classes were just more and more programming languages, although there were things like Compiler Construction and Large Scale Scientific Computing, which was interesting since we were allowed time on the big expensive parallel processing computer (like just about everyone has on their desk now!). I had to write stuff in Fortran, COBOL, Pascal, Lisp, ADA, C, C++, and even Smalltalk. I was supposed to learn Assembly Language, too, but my professor was really innovative. He knew that Assembly was totally dead, so he invented a way for us to learn it without actually writing it. We wrote a C program to emulate the 6502 processor! To test our program, our professor loaded a BASIC interpreter and then ran a BASIC program to compute digits of Pi, so there were kind of three levels going on - it was amazing, and I enjoyed that class more than any other CS course. The grand finale was two semesters of Software Engineering, where groups of four students built a "product" from start to finish, complete with all the documentation and so on. Basically, the professor had everyone build applications that he needed, so our free slave labor resulted in a bibliography generator and reference database program. In the second semester the four of us would meet in someone's dorm room and work almost all night on various deliverables we had to turn in. I can remember sometimes we would take turns sleeping, and someone would go out and buy this cheese bread that was fantastic so late at night. Those were crazy days, since I was married and also working full-time, but I survived! It's fun thinking about all of this now, but my favorite college memories have nothing to do with computer science - I'll write about those another time. Labels: memories |
| Mikey's monkeys | |
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8.03.2006
6:51 PM | Link0 comments |
 The other day I read on Animated News that some studio is going to make an animated film featuring Sea Monkeys! This definitely stirred up some fun childhood memories for me. When I was in grade school and reading comic books all the time, it seems like every issue would have a full-page advertisement for Sea Monkeys. They always pictured them as little trident-headed people, with a mom, dad and kids living their lives in their happy undersea kingdom (just like this picture - I can't believe how cheap they were then!). I knew that these characters weren't the real thing, but I was always enamored by them. One day I finally bought a little Sea Monkeys kit! It had a little container with magnifying glasses built into it, and several packets of powder. One packet was the eggs, one packet was something to make the water green and "good for Sea Monkeys", and the last packet was food. I can remember how cool it was to plop these things together and suddenly see things swimming around! When you think about it, powdered life is kind of miraculous! I used to love to feed them and play games using a pen-light (they were drawn to it and would swim to wherever I held it), and watching them grow was cool, too. Eventually, I ran out of food. Of course, you could get more by mail order, but I guess I was too lazy, and soon I had a container of Sea Cannibals. One day there was just one big (about half a centimeter long, I guess) Sea Monkey left! I wonder if the cartoon will feature a Sea Monkey famine? Just kidding! I'm definitely feeling nostalgic now - I think it would be fun to hatch some monkeys again.
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| Scoop on Mego | |
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5.05.2006
6:03 PM | Link0 comments |
 Every Friday I always look forward to reading Scoop, a really cool email newsletter about collecting and all the geeky stuff I enjoy. My favorite section includes some amazing auction prices for things that recently sold, and often includes PEZ, comic books, or Star Wars figures. Recently there have been several cool Mego action figures, which makes me so nostalgic! I used to play with Mego figures nearly everyday - I had lots of super-heroes (I used to love the Teen Titans, way back when they were nothing like the Teen Titans show today!), Planet of the Apes figures, and of course, Star Trek figures. I've always loved the original Star Trek, and the toys were so much fun, especially the Enterprise Bridge set with it's awesome Transporter simulator. In today's newsletter, they reported that one of the figures I had, the Mugato (an alien guy), went for over $1,400 bucks! Mine wouldn't have been in the package, but it still would be cool to have it. At least I have some home movies of me playing with them at Christmas!
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| Mikey's Top 10 Movies | |
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6.05.2004
5:45 PM | Link0 comments |
 I've never had the guts to actually name my Top 10 movies before, but recently I've found myself thinking about it (especially when I say things like "This movie has got to be in my Top 10!"). So, I decided to give it a shot. This list may be surprising, but then again, this is WEBmikey, so I'm sure you expect a Top 10 list unlike anyone else's, right?
Just a few caveats: First, there's no way for me to put this list in order, since it's tough enough to narrow it down to ten! Second, there are lots of other movies I love that could easily be included here, but my main criteria was "Do I want to watch this movie right away when I think of it?" and "Does this movie completely move me emotionally?" (meaning it makes me laugh, cry, or otherwise feel better about the world after the movie is over). Third, this is a weird mix of "adult" and "kid" films (which are the same thing to me), and although I have a tendency to want to make two lists, I decided to stick to a single Top 10. So, here it goes!
Labels: memories |
| The Day Jobs: Work all day, swing all night | |
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5.16.2004
9:40 AM | Link0 comments |
 Most people tend to remember firsts - their first love, their first kiss, their first drink, maybe even their first speeding ticket. Musicians remember firsts, too, and they become memories that are, in time, even better than the actual events themselves. The Day Jobs wasn't my first band, but it was my first "hit" band, and so it will always hold a special place for me as my favorite musical experience. I love to reminisce about good times, so here's the fun I remember.
Soon after I moved to Austin, my pal Tom Fleming introduced me to some new friends - Matt Melton, Ernesto Marquez, and Dae Kim. He knew that they had been playing some old 20s and 30s tunes together, and he knew I was a drummer, so he got us together. I remember the first time we played in Ernesto's bedroom - it was fun for me to play jazz style, and I think the boys liked the way the drums filled out the sound. So, we hit it off pretty quickly! Soon we decided we needed a bass, so we advertised in the Chronicle and had a few responses. One of them was Ann Marie Harrop, who was enthused to be playing stand-up bass, and soon she was in. Suddenly we were a band! We spent lots of evenings rehearsing in Ernesto's bedroom (always stopping for a French press coffee break), and not only did we learn tons of tunes, but we started becoming great friends. Even from the beginning we were adding original songs - Dae and Ernesto were both writing (Dae's Mopac Bounce and Ernesto's Marvin Gardens became some of our most popular tunes!). We learned how to arrange as a group, trying out different intros and endings, seeing what worked and what didn't. We started to develop our style, which I always thought of as "a big band feel with a small combo". Ann Marie, who turned out to be a master booker and manager for the group, got us our first gig at the Manor Road Coffee House. It was a small quirky place with protest posters everywhere, and we played for free pizza (which was excellent), but it was a real gig and we were excited. We told all our friends, and Austin's local swing scene was notified - the Four on the Floor gang showed up to our first gig, so people were dancing! Since we were still a new band, lots of our songs were played at a medium to slow tempo (because that's all we could handle at the time!). However, those tempos turned out to be perfect for Lindy Hop, a style of swing dancing that was all the rage, so the dancers loved it! We were on our way. |
| The Day Jobs part 2 | |
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9:38 AM | Link 0 comments |
 Soon we started playing Monday nights at the Caucus Club - since Four on the Floor had dance classes that night, it was a good fit to have a swing band play afterwards. Our first show there was such a thrill - we thought we were real stars! We got to see our name on the board in the entryway, we had some comped drinks, and playing on that raised stage was so exciting. Little did we know then that we would end up playing over a year of Monday nights there! The Caucus became our "home", in a way. The bartenders liked us because we were big tippers, and they even invented a drink for us - the "Day Job" was a concoction with scotch (our liquor of choice), and we were proud of it. Those Monday nights were something special, and really helped us develop a following - we had honest to goodness fans!All of that playing really helped us hone our performance. Ernesto and Dae wrote out excellent crafted solos that I loved to play behind - since I knew what phrases were coming, I could accent and punch in all the right places. I had fun playing with dynamics and "Las Vegas" endings just because I liked to be cheesy, but I also tried to always play jazz style, without the heavy snare on two and four, which I think helped differentiate us from the other swing bands. Ann Marie and I loved to play against each others fills, and we all liked to listen to Matt sing, because he was a whiz with coming up with alternate melodies and lyrics, just like his hero, Mel Torme. I'll never forget that feeling of counting us off and hearing us all come in together - it always felt just right, like putting on a favorite T-shirt. |
| The Day Jobs part 3 | |
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9:37 AM | Link 0 comments |
 Lots of other gigs started coming our way. We played other clubs in town, several parties and lots of weddings, which were some of my favorite shows, since we had lots of time to goof off and enjoy the food and drink (including some devastating mead at one particular wedding!). We played some big shows at the Union Ballroom on the UT campus - it was a pain to get the sound right, but that huge hall made us feel important. We helped organize a big multi-band Christmas show (where we played a swing version of Frosty the Snowman that was later requested year round), and even played on the Austin Music Network (including a goofy interview), so we have "professional" video of us that I'll cherish forever. The out-of-town gigs came, too - our first was in Houston, and we couldn't believe that we were renting a van, hauling all our stuff to Houston, staying in a hotel for free, and getting paid. We played in Dallas and San Antonio, too, and always played dirty Mad Libs in the van, and had some great Denny's food at 2:00 AM after the shows.
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| Day Jobs days | |
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1.06.2004
9:22 PM | Link0 comments |
 Someday I plan on writing a long essay about my days in the swing revival with The Day Jobs, a story of goofy friends who somehow sounded great and hit the Austin "big time". For now, I can at least prove that we had some loyal fans - I received an email yesterday from someone who hired us to play at his wedding reception (he writes "I've been going through Day Jobs withdrawal ever since"), and he's been scouring the web for Day Jobs info! Of course, he found WEBmikey, so now I'm going to send him a nice CD filled to the brim with Day Jobs tunes. I really wish I had the HTML to the old Day Jobs website - Matt did a nice job with the site, and it may have been the only source for the "Day Job" drink recipe, created just for us at the Caucus Club! (Of course, the Caucus Club is now the appalling Le Privilege - everything changes.)
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| Alice from DDR | |
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10.17.2003
6:17 PM | Link0 comments |
 I'm not the only one who's in love with Alice, the cutest little dancing bunch of pixels in the whole Dance Dance Revolution world - I found quite a few fan sites on the web looking for this image! Alice is adorable, even though she doesn't wear a short skirt like the other DDR girls. She's cool enough in her T-shirt and jeans, and don't forget those suspenders hanging loose from her waist, because that's her look, dude. Alice seems quiet and reserved with her Mona Lisa smile, but of course, she loves to dance!
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| Dinner Foods | |
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5.17.2003
6:17 PM | Link0 comments |
 At Home: I'm getting hooked on Tyson Chicken Tenders, which come in three different batter flavors - nuke them for two minutes and it's chow time! They go great with a salad, which I've been eating a lot of lately. I like the Spring Mix (lots of field greens) in the bag, with Drew's Rosemary Basalmic dressing and a little parmesan!Labels: memories |
| Snack Foods | |
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6:16 PM | Link 0 comments |
 At Home: I can't get enough Dole Fruit Bowls! I guess that commercial campaign really got to me, but these things are great. I love the mandarin oranges, pineapple, and the tropical mixed, too!Labels: memories |
| Childhood friends in California | |
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3.31.2003
7:18 PM | Link0 comments |
 Everywhere I've lived, I've been lucky enough to have a close group of friends to make my life fun, exciting, and wonderful. When I was very young, I lived in several different states and cities while Dad was transferred around in the Air Force, but my real childhood years that I remember best were during grade school in Sacramento, California (I even remember my street address: 4533 Ladera Way!). It's here that I had my first close friends - we did everything together at school and I spent a lot of time with each of them during afternoons and weekends. We even called ourselves the "Fantastic Four" at times (since all of us were comic book geeks, of course).
First there was Tony Favro, who was probably my best friend since he lived in my neighborhood. Tony was an athletic, blond California kid - we used to spend hours playing Frisbee or riding bikes, and he did lots of swimming in their family pool (he even used to dive in from the second story of their house!). Tony's dad was the City Fire Marshall, so he would be on the news sometimes, and he liked to show me their emergency escape route his dad designed. He had two great dogs - a collie named Sally and a Llasa Apso named Maggie. Tony was my best action figures playmate - he had tons of super hero figures like me, and we had some great adventures together. Next was Derek Bowman, who lived a short bike ride away. I liked to visit Derek because he had a huge tree in his front yard with a treehouse. Sometimes we rode to his treehouse quickly after school to watch some of the girls we liked walking below. His dad was a veterinarian, and they had a crazy Doberman with a surgically-removed voice box (what a weird bark!). I spent several nights at Derek's, including my going-away party, which included lots of microwave hot dogs (when a microwave oven was a new amazing thing!) and a long session of toilet-papering houses (completely instigated by Derek's dad!). The last member of the "Fantastic Four" was Russ Nishimoto - he was a wonderful friend, but I remember less about him for some reason. I remember distinctly that he was a great doodle artist and could print in the tiniest, yet legible, letters imaginable. I know I used to visit him at his house - he lived walking distance from a Dairy Queen that we used to visit sometimes. I wish I could remember more about him. I had other non-school friends in my neighborhood, too, but none as close as Mark Kempton. Mark was several years younger than me, so he was kind of like a little brother. His parents were divorced (which seemed like a rarity at the time), so he lived with his dad and had tons of fun toys. He was a huge Star Wars fan - I think his dad took us to see the movie at least ten times! I used to have a wonderful time with Mark when it was just the two of us, sharing that brotherly fun, but when my other pals were around, the gang teased him a lot (I know it's terrible, but it's just what a bunch of kids do - tease the little guy). Once we even convinced him to streak past some girls playing with Barbies in their front yard. When I moved away from California, Mark was the saddest to see me go - I missed him, too. Childhood is amazing, because so many things are overlooked. Believe it or not, Tony was Catholic, Derek was Mormon, Russ was Buddhist, and I was good ol' Protestant - and no one cared. To us, life was playing with action figures, putting rubber bands on our ears to look like Spock, or taking the bus to Sunrise Mall to buy posters. I'll always have wonderful memories of these first friends - I hope they've made happy lives for themselves, and I hope they remember me. Labels: memories |
| Wal-Mart | |
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2.06.2003
6:27 PM | Link0 comments |
 I have nothing against saving money, but I am against militant penny-pinching. I'm just not into suffering through an giant, over-crowded, messy store to save a few bucks. I only go there if I need to look for PEZ or something, and I swear that each and every visit is enhanced by the smell of a full diaper wafting through the aisles.Labels: memories |
| Home Depot | |
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6:26 PM | Link 0 comments |
 I am the anti-handyman and proud of it. Never do anything you don't want to do if you can pay someone else to do it! I goes without saying that I hate hardware stores, and Home Depot is the worst (I like to call it Home Creepo). The parking lot it always full of too-huge trucks and the store is full of sawdust-stinking, flannel-overwearing dudes. I only go there if I absolutely need a special lightbulb or something.Labels: memories |
| Dance Dance Revolution | |
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1.31.2003
9:41 PM | Link0 comments |
 Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is an arcade game (also available for Playstation) where the player "dances" by stepping and jumping on arrows, following a pattern displayed on the screen. The experience in the arcade is complete with pumping dance music, flashing stage lights, and an announcer's voice proclaiming "The crowd loves you!" What seems like a simple game is soon revealed to be difficult and exhausting, but also immediately addictive!
I first saw DDR during my visit to Japan (where the game originated). My pals Matt and Barron and I were walking by an arcade where they had a DDR machine pushed out into the sidewalk so everyone could watch the spectacle! The players/dancers were fantastic - very athletic! I was pretty drunk on sake, but I remember thinking what a cool game it was. |
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9:40 PM | Link 0 comments |
 Many months later, while visiting my parents in Oklahoma City, I saw a DDR machine at the mall arcade - I had to try it. I failed the first song in about 15 seconds, and my first game of DDR was over. I stood there and watched other guys who were pretty good at it, and thought to myself that I could do that, too, if I could only practice.
Back in Austin, I started searching the web, and fell right into the lap of DDR-dom - I had no idea it was such a huge subculture! Tons of otaku like me working up a sweat to dance with cartoon women! I ordered the DDR USA version, plus a RedOctane dance mat, and even bought a Playstation 2 just to try DDR at home. I started out slowly, playing the 1-3 foot songs (the difficulty of a DDR song is measured in 1-9 "feet"). I remember being so happy when I full-comboed Boom Boom Dollar! (A full combo is completing an entire song without missing a single step.) I was also thrilled when I figured out "eighth note" patterns in the steps - I was on my way to becoming a master! |
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9:39 PM | Link 0 comments |
 I had to have more DDR, which meant buying import versions from Japan. Matt was cool enough to send me a Japanese PSOne, and I started buying up all the Japanese mixes I could afford. At this point I was playing DDR up to two hours straight everyday and passing 7 footers - I couldn't get enough! At lunchtime I would leave work and go play in the arcade, too. I actually lost over 10 pounds during this frenzy!
Eventually I revealed my addiction to my pals, and after a quick demo, I hooked most of them, too! I've never seen anyone play DDR and actually dislike it - not everyone may be good at it, but everyone has fun. My pal Tom even had a DDR party (with myself as coach), and DDR sessions have popped up at all kinds of get-togethers (Thanksgiving, Christmas, you name it!). I still play DDR several times a week at home, both for exercise and for fun. I'm always craving new music, so I buy new releases of DDR games they day they hit the market. Every now and then I can pass a 9-foot song, too! |
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9:38 PM | Link 0 comments |
 So, why am I a DDR freak? Lots of reasons! I like the goofy pop dance music, full of energy and life. The otaku in me likes that it's a Japanese invention, and the lazy bum in me likes that it gets me off my butt and makes me sweat. But mostly I would say it's the fact that DDR is larger than life - I can jump around and listen to the crowd cheer, and when the announcer says "I can see a dream in your dance! I can see tomorrow in your dance!", sometimes I actually believe it.
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| Bruce Springsteen | |
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1.19.2003
6:25 PM | Link0 comments |
 I know, I know - Bruce is some kind of national treasure. I just don't get anything out of someone who celebrates the "glory" of being underprivileged (I guess than means wearing greasy T-shirts is cool). His singing (screaming) is terrible too. I once heard a commedian say "If Bruce is the Boss, then I quit."Labels: memories |
| Rod Stewart | |
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6:24 PM | Link 0 comments |
 I can't understand it - a big nosed, grungy, old man with goof-ass hair and a sandpaper voice is supposed to be sexy. I especially think it's hilarious that he's recently been singing "smooth" tunes in a Tony Bennet style - kind of like mopping a floor with a jackhammer.Labels: memories |
| Sandra Bullock | |
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6:24 PM | Link 0 comments |
 I have no idea why people like Sandra Bullock, unless they're also tomboy, depressingly plain people who need someone to identify with. Sandra has zero style, in my opinion - I'm just amazed that people think she's beautiful. Having her as part of the "Austin scene" is such a tragedy.Labels: memories |
