I have nothing arcade related to report today. I am sorry to let you down. I am working on a very cool project that I got for my birthday, and will post about it when it’s complete. I’m going to need some more parts for it, so unfortunately I can’t write about it for at least a week or so.

Checkout this screw up I just spotted on the homepage of CNN.com:

Click on that image to see it full size. I’m no expert on politics and junk, but that guy looks an awful lot like Jay Leno to me.

So I was sitting on the couch, watching American Idol and I see a roll of duct tape nearby. I like American Idol, but it’s 2 hours long on Wednesday. I needed something to pass the time while listening to Simon insult people, and here’s what I ended up with:

It’s actually quite comfortable. I’m wearing it as I write this. My wife told me that she will divorce me if I wear it when we go out together, so I will have to wear it when she’s not around.

Here it is next to one of them expensive store bought varieties:

I was thinking of posting a picture of me with it on, but I’m afraid someone will photoshop my head onto the body of a goat. You will just have to imagine me wearing it. If you want to imagine me with a goat body I guess that’s OK too (you sick, sick bastard).

I thought about what to post today, and couldn’t come up with anything spectacular. SO…I will now bore you with my IC socket lego sculpture:

I got these on eBay from Sure Electronics in China. What you see above is equal to 2 of these sets. Each set was $10.50, which works out to about .23 cents per socket.

For those that don’t know, these are machine pin sockets. I like them, but for some reason everyone seems to crap all over them lately (not literally!) on the KLOV.com message boards. I had a bunch of these before and went through most of them working on my Baby Pac-Man. The big stack of 4 pin sockets is going to be pretty useless, but the 40 pin sockets are what I really needed. I stacked them up like legos so I can fit them in my parts cabinet:

I don’t really have a test bench per se (I just use my computer desk), but I now have a test bench monitor:

I was searching the KLOV.com forums for ideas on setting up a small test monitor, and found this thread. It explains how to hack a Sony PSOne 5″ LCD screen to work on RGB video signals. The thread was 3 years old, and mentioned that they were on sale for $13 at K-Mart! Well….that sale is long gone. I found one on eBay for $40-ish. I had to get a power adapter at Radio Shack too, but it was worth it.

I don’t feel like writing a tutorial on this, because I’m feeling exceptionally lazy. If you have any questions on how I did it let me know. I took the info from that KLOV thread and it was pretty simple.

Here are a few pics I took while working on it.

After following the instructions, I hooked it up and I thought it wasn’t working at all. Upon further inspection, it was showing an image but it was very dark. The backlight wasn’t turning on.

I searched Google like crazy and finally found the solution. I found this page that explains if you have a PAL (European) version of the display, the backlight won’t come on unless you give the LCD +5V. They explain how to do this on that page, and show it in the 4th pic down. You can see the mod I had to make here:

See the second white connector from the left on that circuit board? (say yes.) I had to take the first wire, cut it about 8 inches down, and then solder it to a tiny little pad on the circuit board. After doing that, it came right up! Now I can test boards while I’m working on them without having to run back and forth to their cabinets.

I’d like to take a moment to thank all the smart people that figured out how to do this.

Hey! I just found this writeup on Geekologie.com about some very cool arcade themed cupcakes made by Flickr user hello naomi. In case you don’t read Geekologie, here they are:

I come to you tonight dear reader with a heavy heart and a fowl (?) foul mouth. I will try my best to restrain myself for the sake of the kiddies but it’s going to be very very hard.

I just got back from spending most of the day at the Rhode Island DMV. If you’ve never experienced this lovely branch of government, you have got to try it sometime! Bring some food rations and a couple of sets of extra clothes because you’ll be camping out for awhile.

Let’s go back in our time machine so you can understand what led me to this god forsaken hellhole. Back on August 10th, I got a hankerin’ for a hunka vanity plate. I figured it would be pretty bad ass if I could cruise around in my ‘92 Chevy S10 pickup with a plate that says “JUICY” , or “PIMPALICIOUS”. Now, from my past adventures at the DMV giant suckfest, I figured it would be wise to order my plates online. I was psyched. I tried to get “JUICY”, but it was taken. “PIMPALICIOUS” was too long (I know, a real bummer). I settled on “ARCADE” which was not taken. I coughed up $42.50, including a $5 convenience fee for paying online. I guess the fact that the whole online thing saves them lots of money is so convenient they feel the urge to celebrate by picking my pocket.

I was presented with this:

Now, I don’t use my rust bucket as a commercial vehicle. It’s not up to the task. I’m lucky I can get it started. For the sake of accuracy, I took a look at my existing plates, and they read “combination”. Hmm….I was a little confused. I see nothing on this page telling you what to do for a pickup, so I looked up exactly what a combination plate is. It’s basically a plate for a vehicle that can either be used as a passenger OR commercial vehicle. I knew trying to get through on the phone to these bastards was futile, so I figured it would make sense to put this in as a passenger vehicle seeing it wasn’t for a business.

A couple dozen clicks later, I was done. I paid, and printed out my receipt which said that I should get a notice in the mail saying the plate is done within 6 to 8 weeks. If I don’t, to call a certain number.

OK…that’s not so bad. 8 weeks go by, and I get nothing. 9, 10 weeks – nada. 11 weeks, the big zero. I figured something must be up, so I call the number and left a message. I was called back, and told that was the wrong number. UGH…OK…I call the right number and the dude says it usually takes more like 14 weeks…this is starting to get real convenient now.

Over the coarse of 20 ish weeks, I call a few more times. Finally, after 5 MONTHS I get a notice. This is almost half a year folks…

OK…now, I have a DMV that I could literally walk to. It’s right around the corner…BUT they send my plates to the main DMV in Pawtucket, an hours drive away. Can you see the convenience stacking up here?

Alright…fast forward to today. I decide that I’ll mosey on down to the old DMV and pickup my shiny new plates. I’m told to wait in line and make sure they have my plate, which I do. The guy finds it, and tells me to wait in another line over there. That line is to get a ticket so I can WAIT IN LINE. That’s 3 lines now. At this point, the convenience is piling up pretty high, and I’m having difficulty getting air.

Alrighty then….about 90 minutes later they call my number. The lady takes my paper work, gets the plate, and tells me I can’t have it because it is supposed to be a commercial plate. WTF! She then prints out the same image I have above, and tells me that it was my error. Because it was my fault that their website sucks monkeys, not only do I not get the plate – I don’t get a refund. Now, I’m pretty understanding and I know it might not be this particular shriveled old prune’s lady’s fault, but the lack of compassion in this woman was stunning.

I spent 5 months plus 90 minutes waiting, 2 hrs driving, and $42.50 for jack squat. I can’t remember the last time I was this pissed off.

I have the option of going back there for more punishment with my car, to put the vanity plate on it instead. I may do this, but at this point I’m dreading going back.  I may just bite the bullet and signup for another plate instead:

This year due to scheduling issues beyond our control, we opted to celebrate our Christmas on December 23rd, Christmas Eve Eve. This is also known as Festivus.

Sarah got a record player, a stand, and a bunch of classical records cleverly disguised as a FREAKIN’ ROBOT!!

Linda got a bunch of Simpsons stuff, and a Serger.

I got a ton of cool stuff. Here are 2 mario related things that I have on top of our Mario Bros. game:

I got a Nintendo Wii, with Super Mario Galaxy, The Simpsons Game, and Guitar Hero III.

Another really cool thing I got this year from my wife was a brutal punch in the nose at 5AM while sleeping. She was dreaming that she was beating someone up, and in the real world that someone was my nose. I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that I’ve amassed 24 arcade games in a little over a year.

I just found this very addicting flash cat game. It looks something like this:

When you start, there are a lot less dark dots than what you see in that pic. Every time you click a dot, it changes color and the cat moves one spot. You basically have to trap the cat before he can run away, and it’s pretty hard. I thought it was impossible but finally managed to do it . The pic above is proof. If you get him trapped like that, keep clicking around him until he can’t move and the game will reset.

I spotted this on BoingBoing.net…they spotted it somewhere else, etc, etc….

HO HO HO!* It’s getting closer and closer to Christmas so I figured it would be a good time to post about these. I picked up 2 Christmas Presto Magix transfers, still sealed in their original plastic bags:

One is Hana Barbera themed, and the other is a generic “Santa’s Workshop” theme. I believe these may be rare because I have never seen them before and have been looking for awhile now on eBay. Here are the backs:

They have  something on the back saying they were made exclusively for “Fun-World” in NY. I’m not sure what “Fun-World” is, but I found there website:

http://www.fun-world.net.

There isn’t much info on their site to indicate what they do. I emailed them out of curiosity but haven’t gotten a reply yet. If anyone knows anything about them please fill me in. Here are closeups of the transfers including inside:

I won these on  an auction site called OLA.com that I hadn’t heard of before finding these. I also spotted 2 more just like these on eBay that should be on their way to me. One is a Looney Tunes theme, and I’m not sure of the other one.

*[DISCLAIMER] – If you are a “Ho” and I’ve offended your delicate Ho sensibilities, please substitute HO for SKANK in this holiday greeting.

We just saw The Mist yesterday. Here’s the trailer for it:

I was a big Stephen King fan when I was younger. I read this story originally in the short story collection The Skeleton Crew. I don’t remember the story very well, but I do remember that it was good. I also remember having a text adventure game “The Mist” based on this movie for my Apple IIc, similar to Zork. Most of the Stephen King books I’ve read more recently have been disappointing. I read “The Cell”, which was good throughout the entire book, and then the end just sucked big time. He didn’t tie anything together like most good writers do. He just ended it, and I felt cheated.

Some of his film adaptations have been great. Some just OK. I saw 1408 and that was just average for me. I’m saying all this so you know I don’t just go nuts over everything associated with Stephen King.

Now, about The Mist movie. It was incredible. It keeps you pretty scared through the whole thing, and most movies don’t do that to me. At one point, the audience actually clapped. It had some disturbing parts, and the end was unexpected. I would highly recommend this movie. I would also highly recommend you don’t bring any really young kids to it. It’s got a more disturbing feel to it then a typical scary monster movie. I can’t say much more than that without giving away the plot.