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October 2016

Hurricane Break

The Legend of Zelda: Link's AwakeningI'm taking a few days off from, well, just about everything to ride out Hurricane Matthew as it slams into the Florida peninsula starting this evening through tomorrow into Saturday morning.  I live inland so I'm not in the coastal line of fire, but Florida isn't exactly a wide place, so everyone in the state is going to feel the impact.  I expect to lose power this evening and don't know how long it'll be out (Hurricane Charley in 2004 knocked out my power in my old apartment for more than a week), so hopefully I'll be back online before Thunderdome becomes the new law down here.  In the meantime, go play some games and for everyone else caught in Matthew's path, stay safe and good luck to us all.

But before I go, here's a quick story from this evening as the storm closes in and the squalls kick up.  A lot has changed since the Hurricanes Charley/Francis/Jeanne trifecta of 2004. In the years since, my iPhone has become my main piece of tech and I realized about an hour ago that if/when both the power and the cell data signal go out, I won't be able to use the phone to watch the news or listen to updates. I needed my FM radio. Somewhere around here I still have one, but where did I put it? So I started searching the house as best I could without tearing everything apart.

I swear to you, I put my hands on every piece of tech I have ever owned in my life. I found two battery-operated TVs, but they are pre-digital and no longer pick up signals. I found early digital music players with a mighty 64GB of storage, but no FM radio. If I wanted to connect a GPS module to my Handspring Visor and type with the attached keyboard peripheral, I could do that this evening because I found all three items (in separate places as if I had slain Dracula and scattered his dismembered body parts around the land). I found keyboards, mouse, countless wires, a honest to god flatbed scanner, old PC gamepads, a joystick for a Commodore 64, and a voice recorder. Finally, in the last possible box I had to search, I found a tiny digital music player with a built-in FM radio. I'm saved! Once the storm is passed and everything is back to normal, I'm cleaning out my closets.


Pickin' Colors With Mario Paint

Mario PaintSpend enough time with Mario Paint for the Super NES and the game's title theme song will become lodged in your brain.  It happens so easily since the song is happy, catchy, and toe-tappingly perky.  Video game music site OverClocked Remix strikes again with "Pickin' Colors": Steve Snider's live performance of the Mario Paint theme done in a bluegrass style with actual mandolins, banjo, guitar, and bass.  Here's OCR's David Lloyd commenting on the performance:

The source lends itself surprisingly well to the rhythm & feel of such "old time" music, and while the arrangement repeats itself a bit & judges had some minor recording gripes, the unanimous feeling was that this revised version represents a creative, expressive, and most of all FUN take on the theme.


Power Button - Episode 218: Experience Gaps

Power ButtonWith so many video games out there and more releasing all the time, it's to be expected that nobody can play them all.  We all miss out on titles, sometimes with regret.  On this week's new episode of Power Button, Blake Grundman and I discuss the games that we've always wanted to play, but for one reason for another just never have.  Join us as we have not played games such as Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Mother 3, and Actraiser.  Maybe we'll get around to them some day.   Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton.