PixlBit

On Saturday I crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel on the way to North Carolina for a week's vacation. It's always neat to film it or stop at the rest stop and take pictures of passing freight, or sometimes military, ships. We didn't stop this time, but I filmed the crossing. It usually takes over 20 minutes to cross the Chesapeake, but I cut the video down to 3 minutes of highlights. There are ten such bridge-tunnels in the world. How many are in video games, I wonder?

That's 100 greatest console video games between the years 1977-1987. I struggle to figure out how to shorten this Brett Weiss book's title and still convey its meaning. Anyway, more multimedia notes!

This weekend I'm off to Corolla on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a whole week. I rarely get a vacation away from work, but when offered one by family members, I always accept. I'm going with my sister's family and my mom. I'll have to start packing soon but, before clothes or anything else, I'll need to figure out what games to bring.

That's the nickname you get at level 45 in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel if you're playing as a Claptrap robot. Needless to say, I played a whole bunch more of this game today. I gained six levels playing co-op with Mad Krammer on True-Vault Hunter mode and got almost to the end of the story again.

Started out today playing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel on True Vault Hunter mode with the implacable Mad Krammer on Xbox Live. I got really, really frustrated with getting knocked around so much. It was like I had a butter shield protecting a fat weeping child; I got knocked down, then got up again, over and over and over. I was pretty good at getting a kill to revive myself during Fight For Your Life Mode though. Then I watched the Eagles play Green Bay and saw pretty much the same thing play out for the Eagles. They got knocked down, got up again, but basically stayed down more often than up. I give Green Bay the respect due, they played an immaculate game of football. 

Today I donated the last of my books to the library. When I got there, I realized it was book sale day, and so I went down to the basement to see what's what. I knew they had gotten in a bunch of old Avalon Hill board games about a month ago, but I had only a very slight hope that any of them would be left, and sure enough, none were; but there was a box of old Dragon magazines, probably from the same donor as the board games - 65 issues ranging from #65 to #214. I thought about it a while. My instinct was to grab the whole box. Then I thought I'd only take the ones from the 80's. Finally I gave in and grabbed the whole box. At 10 cents a piece, it all came to $6.50. I can't wait to read through them and scan the covers and any interesting graphics within, like ads for video games or board games.

I finally broke my habit of being on the computer after work. You know how it is with internet stuff: look up one thing, that leads to another, and another, and another. Next thing you know it's way past your bed time. So now I just turn on the computer to update my iPod and I'm off to play my video games for about a movie's worth of time before bed. Now I can get some of my gaming projects done in less than 3000 years.

Yes, it's more multimedia notes on Brett Weiss' new book 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987.

First of all, during the Eagles game, NFL analyst Chucky (Jon Gruden) dissed Geno's and that's just not right. Pat's and Geno's are both great cheesesteak places in Philly and actually right across the street from one another. This was during the Philadelphia Eagles vs. Carolina Panthers game tonight on prime time Monday Night football. What a scandal! Not really though. It's about all I can complain about since the Eagles completely blew out the Panthers who looked like deer caught in the headlights of a double semi tractor trailer.

This week I got caught up in retro mania by picking up not one, not two, but four Flashback consoles. I just couldn't help myself after seeing them all stacked there together on the shelf at Toys R Us. Then on Sunday I played a bunch of Borderlands The Pre-Sequel and had a lot of good luck freezing enemies solid and making it snow with freezing grenade clusters. The weather was a chilly wintry mix there on the Moon this week.