Video Games That are Freely Available

I told my brother that I'd post an entry with some of the freely available video games I am playing. I listen to the Bytejacker netcast for the latest in free indie games. The host does a good job of covering everything from downloadable games for consoles to Flash games.

The adventure game genre has totally been snubbed by all of the mainstream game studios. Thankfully, several indie developers have stepped up to produce some great games. I enjoyed Spooks produced by Erin Robinson. While I did get stuck once or twice, I felt compelled to figure out the puzzles and finish the game.

Here are other adventure games on my list of titles I plan to check out: Cave Story, Dirty Split, Duty and Beyond, Kaptain Brawe, Life of D. Duke II, Loftus and the Sky Cap, Reactor 9, The Chef, The Guardian of Paradise and The Winter Rose.

A few weeks ago I went to over to my buddy Tom E.'s place to play some Duke Nukem 3D. The game was released by 3D Realms way back in 1996. Thanks to the efforts of the guys over at EDuke32 it is possible to play it on Windows Vista PCs. It was painful getting a networked game going. But we had fun once we worked it out.

Then we tried a game of the one of my favorite pointless games called Red Pixel. It is a multiplayer deathmatch in which you can destroy parts of the world. It was fun to blast away for a while. But soon it became tedious. With more players the game becomes mass chaos! Basically it has all of the fun of a modern first-person shooter without all of the eye candy.

I found this Java-based game I like called Breaking the Tower. It is the closest I have come to enjoying a strategy game since Dune II. No, I am not going to crab about the things that modern RTS games do wrong. Also, I have no schadenfreude when the folks who make those games fail. Hey guys, maybe you could make some nice adventure games instead!

There are scores of Flash-based games available. At best most of them are forgettable. I like 41st Reality for its catchy soundtrack and decent design.

Lastly, another genre that has been snubbed these days is the space simulation shooter. I recently installed Freespace 2 (FS2) thanks to the FreeSpace Open Installer. Now I am playing through the game again. It is amazing that its creator, Volition, managed to produce the game in under a year. It helped that they were able to leverage the work that they had done for the first Freespace game. FS2 features a deep story and awe inspiring effects such as beautiful nebula clouds that wreak havoc on your sensors and battles with massive capital ships that shoot impressive beam weapons. If there is a genre that is crying out for a revival, it is this one! Can you imagine a big battlefield filled with a great number of space ships each lovingly rendered with shader magic and high polygon count love? Be still my heart.

Host a LAN Party

When I was back home visiting relatives for Thanksgiving, my brother told me he was planning on a having a LAN party. For those who don't know LAN parties are events where people bring their computers, network them together and play multiplayer games. What follows is some sage advice I have gleaned from organizing several LAN parties.

First of all as the host you have to choose the location. Make sure there is plenty of power to supply everyone. The largest event I had involved 11 computers. I planned to spread the participants over two floors of my house. But everyone choose to set up in my basement. Thankfully, there were no power issues.

Here is a list of items the host should provide (or ask somebody to bring)

LAN PARTY HOST

• Network Switch - Switches are good; hubs are an adequate alternative. These days most cheap switches made for home networks have 4-5 ports. Make sure you have enough ports and crossover cables to support the number of intended players. Ask somebody to bring a switch/hub if you don't have enough.
• Wireless Router - It is common that laptops have wireless network cards built into them. A wireless router can handle the assigning of IP addresses (DHCP) to both wired PCs and wireless laptops.
• List of Games - Do some research. Many multiplayer games have demos that are freely available. Try some of them out and see what you like. Provide a list of games to your guests so they can install them before the event. Oh yeah, pirating computer games is evil. I don't care how you justify it to yourself. Don't do it!
• Food - Something that has worked for me is to ask for donations for pizza/soda. You can have a donation jar. If donations are low, carry the jar around to the guests. You do not get any points for subtlety.

Watching people play computer games is lame (kinda like watching televised poker *yawn*). If you show up to a LAN party, be prepared to participate. There are several things which guests should be expected to bring. The following is a list of those items.

LAN PARTY GUESTS

• Functioning Computer - Hey, any of yose guys know how to install an operating system? Although there are usually a lot of technically saavy folks who can help, it is a bummer to spend your time working on your rig.
• LCD Monitor - Limit yourself to a single monitor. Multi-monitor setups are pretty common these days, but aren't really necessary for LAN play. Also, LCD monitors are infinitely more portable than the old CRTs.
• Network Cable - Wireless connections will never beat the performance of a wired connection. For that you need a network cable. Bring an extra if you have one.
• Powerstrip - A powerstrip with a surge protector is invaluable. Daisy-chaining strips is not recommended. But if you find it necessary, limit the chaining.
• Headphones - There is a lot of noise at a LAN party. If everyone brought speakers, it would be even louder. Headphones also have the benefit of allowing you sneak up on your friend in a game without announcing the approach over your speakers.

I should also mention that there are some nice party games for consoles these days. I have been to a few events now where the host has fired up a game of Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I am excited to play the Burnout Paradise Party Pack. But we will have to wait a couple more months before it is released.

Mines of Kevos

When my brother Kevin and I were in high school he wrote a simple game in Commodore BASIC he called Mines of Minos. In it a miner had to move around mines in order to escape a cave. This past week I wrote a version in Java using the Slick 2D library.

This is a gift for Kevin. You will need a recent version of Java to run it.

Click on an image for a larger version.

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Deep and Wide

Congrads to Obama for winning the presidency of the greatest country in the world. I am not angry. I am disappointed. The Republicans decided to confront their competition with a mild tone and the promise of compromise. It brought them defeat.

McCain tried to tie Obama to the liberal Congress' massive mistakes but Obama with assistance from the press was able to spin free of it. "Nope, not me." he said. "Ok!" responded the adoring media who added, "Isn't McCain looking a little old?"

I get the feeling that we have been influenced by reality TV shows like American Idol. On them ambition is prized more than talent. Folks root for a contestant because he is an underdog and he wants it badly rather than considering whether or not he has the skills. Of course there is always a clash of personalities where the competitor is demonized.

Obama is already talking about how his plans will require a second term. Heh, Nobama! I wish this were some made-up game show where an announcer would come on and say, "Got ya! We've been fooling you this whole time. A liberal inexperienced pro-abortion tax raiser would be crazy for our country. The dude is too full of himself and believes his own inaccurate statements. Oh how we duped you!"

So far there have been no cries of red states v. blue states or a deeply divided country or post election trauma. I guess Republicans are better losers. Now in order to turn this country around we have a river to cross. I hope Republicans push the reset button on their leadership and return to conservative principles. The river is deep and wide, friends, but it can be crossed with faith and courage.

My brother sent me a message today that lightened my mood: "Lets move to the 57th state. It's called Husseinia!"

Trip Back Home

Wish You Were Here

Carroll David Conder 1950-2006

Here Another Year

Am Quietly Man

Kevin bought me a copy of a book entitled 52 Fifty-two Poems for Men.

It inspired me to try my own hand at poetry. This one is dedicated to the lovely Signgirl.

AM QUIETLY MAN

We left for
a trip
to the place
up north

You drove your
big car
and listened
to tunes

We always
go back
for something
we forgot

We Got the Blues

I went up to the Chicago Blues Festival with Signgirl this past weekend. The weather was great. I met her friend Karen and got reacquainted with her parents. My brother was in a weird mood, but seemed to enjoy himself at the festival.

We also checked out some used books at Printer's Row. Signgirl bought some Dr Who books. I would have bought some, too, if we hadn't had to carry them around all day.

The Scott Air Show will be July 7-8 this year. It includes a display of a B-2A Stealth Bomber, the most technologically advanced bomber in the world, which is rarely seen outside of its home base, Whiteman Air Force Base.

Dots Are Famous!

I decided to attempt to make a movie of a simple Java program I wrote and upload it to YouTube. Nutty, huh? I used a program called Fraps to capture video of the program in action. Fraps is relatively inexpensive and is a breeze to install and configure. So, I uploaded the resulting AVI file to YouTube. YouTube gave me a "processing" message and later gave a "that part of the site is down for maintenance". This is what kills me. My customers would blow a fuse if their website showed a maintenance message instead of serving their needs. Imagine visiting Google only to see a terse message about the site being down.

Digg, YouTube and Myspace are notorious for making their sites inaccessible due to maintenance. How many billions of dollars are these sites worth? Can't they hire engineers who are smart enough to handle redundancy and fail-over while accomplishing maintenance? *cough* Hey, corporate owners, if you need some assistance, you can always examine my resume.

The movie failed to upload due to an issue with an unsupported codec. So I spent some time on the site reading the help pages. I learned that for best results I should resize the video to 320x240. So, I fired up Microsoft Movie Maker. In addition to resizing the video I added a title screen, credits and some music my brother Kevin gave me sometime last year. I saved it as a WMV file and uploaded it to YouTube.

This time the file was successfully uploaded. Here is the end result. In this video I am clicking on the screen spawning dots. The dots are affected by gravity and fall to the bottom of the screen. I hope you enjoy the cheese factor.

Tom Gets a Dollar Coin

My mother, a bank teller, sent me a new George Washington Presidential Dollar coin. I'm thrilled! I know, it doesn't take much these days.

The Engineer Gets a Week

Our break room at work had some yummy baked goods today: a giant cookie, some doughnuts and a cake that read "Thank you Engineers of Lockheed Martin". Our site manager sent an email that mentioned National Engineers Week and thanked us for our contributions and support. w00t! So to all my fellow software engineers out there: Happy Engineers Week!

I decided to troubleshoot my dead Linux box last night. It booted up right away! It lives! I stayed up late installing over 200 updated files. So far it seems to be running well. I plan to continue to watch it and replace it sometime in the near future.

When my mail software came back online, I caught up on my email and realized I missed a memorial service for my best friend's mother this past weekend. Words fail to describe how terrible I feel. He drove to my home town to pay respects when my father passed away last year. He's probably disappointed; I'm a bad friend right now. I'll give him a call tonight to try to make amends. I'll see if he wants to go out for drinks and will make a generous donation to a charity in his mother's name.

UPDATE: I took my friend out for drinks. We had a great time. I'm going to give a donation to the American Cancer Society.

Madison Gets a Dollar

I just spoke with my mother on the phone. I called to wish her a happy birthday. She works as a bank teller. I asked if her bank has received the newly minted Presidential One Dollar Coins. She said she gets a lot of inquiries for them but her bank probably will not see them until near the end of the month. It appears as if the U.S. Mint plans to start with the first four presidents -- George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and, yes, James Madison -- and release the next four presidents each year after that. Their web page shows the last presidential coin will be Richard Nixon. Too bad we will not reach Ronald Reagan. Mom said she would buy an unopened roll of Reagan dollars for me. I told her maybe she should snag a roll of William Henry Harrison dollars since his term was extremely short. In 1841 Harrison delivered the longest inaugural address on an extremely cold day without wearing a hat. He contracted pneumonia and died a month later in the White House. So America, until "global warming" makes it return this summer -- must be nice to have an insane theory be correct once a year -- remember to keep your speeches short and wear a hat.

Underrated Items of 2006

It is time for my third annual list of underrated items. The past year, 2006, once again gave us its share of hype and hero worship. This is my list of underrated items that I feel deserve some exposure.

Last year I mentioned a gazpacho dot net podcast netcast. I am still toying with the idea. I am especially inspired to produce something light-hearted and funny.

Whipped Cream!

I went back to Centralia for Thanksgiving. My mother's place is so cluttered. I have a picture of the cramped room where I slept while I was there. It was once the bedroom shared by my brother and I. It is now filled with restaurant toys and, well, clutter. I really do not care for the clutter.

In Centralia there is a laundromat that has the tail of an airplane embedded in the roof. I don't remember the story but I believe that a small aircraft once crashed into the building. I think they patched the roof and left the tail. I wish I had taken more pictures but my camera's memory was filled.

We had Thanksgiving lunch with my aunt, uncle, cousins and their children. One of my cousin's daughters was raving about how much she enjoyed a home video my brother and I made when we were teenagers. I had completely forgotten about the wild-haired hand puppet named Moses. While the adults were taking turkey-inspired naps, my brother and I entertained ourselves. It seems Moses had a predilection for whipped cream. In fact he would look at the camera and exclaim: "Whipped Cream!" I told her she wasn't allowed to watch any more home movies. Heh.

Happy Birthday, Kev

Today is Kevin's birthday. Happy Birthday, bro!

You Are My Deathstar

Hello friends. It has been a while since I have made a sizable blog entry. Back on Labor Day my mother came to visit. I have mentioned before that I lost my father earlier this year. Mom brought an old PC from my late father's business. I plan to take the hard drives out and browse through them for anything important. She also brought some JRR Tolkien books I had bought Dad as Christmas gifts. Somehow I did not expect to see them again. You never give a gift expecting it to show up again on your kitchen table. I have an idea. Since I was a teenager the first time I read and enjoyed the Hobbit, I want to take the books to Archon and give them to a teenager there. It feels like the right thing to do.

Mom and I went to St Louis Bread Company. We tried their Crispani pizza. I had the Sausage and Apple. Mom had the Three Cheese. All in all they were pretty good. I'm grateful too that we didn't have to sit in the waiting area of a restaurant.

Last weekend I had dinner with a friend at Plaza Frontenac. It was nice to catch up. Funny thing is I used drive by that mall every weekend for three months. I never stopped by to check out what it had to offer.

I have a personals profile on Yahoo! Personals. So far the only date I have managed was with a woman I already knew. I just do not get responses from women in which I am interested. I have responded to women in whom I am not even interested. I wanted to see if they would respond. Nothing is more like a Deathstar to my ego than to get the virtual cold shoulder. I hear folks say that they have had luck. But, sadly, my experience has been different.

Well, I got fed up with sub-par performance of my Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I bought a replacement in case I wanted to hack the ROM on my current router and bricked it by accident. Fortunately, that was not necessary. I reset it to its defaults and tweaked parameters. I changed settings one at a time and examined performance changes. I learned the following:

• Enabling burst mode is not good
• Changing the channel from 6 (the default) to 11 helped considerably
• Anytime a 802.11b device uses the router the performance of my 802.11g devices drop
• Increasing the value of beacon interval to 360 milliseconds improved performance on my laptop two rooms away

I upgraded the firmware on my Playstation Portable (PSP) to version 2.81. This allows me to download and play game demos. I downloaded the Loco Roco Demo from Sony's site. It is a cute little game. You control a gelatinous blob by tilting the screen left and right using the shoulder buttons. Pressing both buttons at once bumps the screen causing your blob to bounce. The goal is to collect fruity looking widgets while avoiding the spiky looking whatzits. It is very entertaining but can be frustrating. The graphics are brightly colored and interesting. The soundtrack is a hauntingly sweet Japanese tune.

Black Label Society recently released their new CD entitled Shot to H-ll. Amid a collection of mellow meandering songs with aimless lyrics these songs stand out:

• Concrete Jungle - a grinding metal song. this is where BLS shines
• Blacked Out World - another heavy song. a little softer but still a decent tune with some good riffs

Saw "American History X" last night. I noticed that Ethan Suplee, the actor that plays Earl's brother Randy in the sitcom "My Name is Earl", played a skinhead in the movie. The dude has a huge range of acting ability.

You may have had some problems accessing gazpacho.net lately. Dreamhost, my web hosting provider, has been suffering network issues for a number of weeks now. The past couple of days they struggled with router issues that resulted in intermittent loss of access for my web friends. Just today they replaced the router and promised that things are better. Here's hoping.

I have toyed with the idea of producing a podcast. I'm thinking about doing something funny. I am considering spoofing commercials, mocking liberal politicians and so-called public radio, doing man-on-the-street interviews with America on current events, giving treatment to ridiculous social mores and perhaps producing an episodic radio play. Are there any female friends who want to lend voice talent? gratis? I'll buy pizza.

Death and Taxes

I believe it was Benjamin Franklin that said nothing in the world is certain but death and taxes. Well, this month I have dealt with both.

Today I had my taxes done. I visited the local H&R Block. My tax preparer was a former coworker named Barb. I hadn't seen her in over ten years! We caught up on goings-on in between asking tax stuff like "Did you house anybody from Hurricane Katrina?" and "Are you a member of a professional athletic team?" (Huh? When did that get on the tax form?)

I have a refund coming. Not bad news at all.

Carroll David Conder 1950-2006

My father passed away suddenly on Monday, February 20th. Thanks to all who sent food, flowers, cards, phone and email messages. Your kind words and prayers comfort my family.

The picture is from a trip to Oklahoma when my brother and I were teenagers. Back then Dad was recovering from a car accident. I have better pictures but this one came to mind. He put up with a lot of our bull.

Click on the image for a larger picture

Carroll David Conder 1950-2006

Underrated Items of 2005

The past year, 2005, brought its share of hype and hero worship. As I did last year I decided to give a select list of underrated items some exposure.

I read an excellent article on podcasting. Would anybody listen to a gazpacho dot net podcast?

Merry Christmas 2005

Merry Christmas, all! My family is here at my place. I have an opportunity to post something while we wait for my brother's tofurky to cook. I can't believe the year is almost over. Hope you are enjoying the company of friends or family on this festive day.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! My brother and parents came to my place. We cooked a large turkey. I made cornbread muffins and deviled eggs. It was wonderful. Everybody is doing well. Instead of Christmas lists my parents told me to suprise them with whatever this year. Oh my! Holiday shopping is going to be fun.

Thirty Five Blessings

Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to Kevin! Kev, you may be my twin, but I'm still better looking. I love you, bro.

I turn a year older today. As I look back on the occasion of my 35th birthday, I see God has blessed me with success in life and given me strength to make it through all of its trials. Not every day has been a circus. But every mistake, failure and disappointment has made me a better man.

I am hopeful for the future. Many things do not seem to work out exactly how I plan them. I've learned to accept what life brings with patience and an open mind.

Friends, every day you awake is an opportunity to meet and exceed expectations. You've got a "light". You should let it shine! Freedom is a precious thing to waste. You should use it every day.

I See Drunk People

The Chicago Blues Festival 2005 pictures arrived from my brother today. This past weekend I went up to Chicago. We headed downtown to Grant Park to see this year's festival.

Click on an image for a larger version.

Chicago Blues Fest Main Stage

Again this year Gibson had a large tent set up. Inside they had mini-amps connected to an array of their electric guitars. I tried out several guitars including a Flying V and a SG model. They are nice guitars, but I still love my Goldtop Les Paul Gibson.

Tom playing a Gibson Flying V!

Blues Fans trying Gibson guitars

Even though we were at Grant Park, there was a statue of President Lincoln. I am told there is a Lincoln Park that has a statue of, yes, Grant. Chicago has wierd sense of humor.

President Lincoln at Grant Park

The famous Buckingham Fountain is located in Grant Park. You may recall seeing it in the opening credits to the Fox TV Show "Married with Children". Sing it with me, "Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage!"

Buckingham Fountain

A short walk across Lake Shore Drive lead down to a marina where boats are anchored during the summer. It was nice to take a break from the drunk people and relax down by the lake.

Boats on Lake Michigan

The Return of BlitzPop

My father is back at home and is recovering fine. Thanks for the prayers and support.

Prayers for BlitzPop

My father was admitted to the hospital. He has a large blood clot in his leg. Pieces of the clot were breaking off and traveling to his lungs making it difficult for him to breathe. I spoke with my paterfamilias about an hour ago. He is better now and hopes to be able to go home in a few days. If you believe in prayer, I ask that you remember my father. Incidentally, he goes by the moniker "blitzpop" because, well, he's my pop.

Fourth of July and the BBQ

My parents came over for BBQ on the Fourth of July. My buddy (also named Tom) came over as well. He raved about my deviled eggs. So, why not share my recipe for the perfect deviled egg.

First, put the eggs in a large pot and cover with water. Heat the water to boiling. Remove the eggs from the heat, cover and let sit 15 minutes. Now the trick is to get the eggs to stop cooking. Immerse the eggs in ice water and sit them in the fridge. This will keep the yolks nice and yellow.

Once the eggs have cooled down, remove the shells. Cut them lengthwise and dump the yolks in a mixing bowl. To the yolks add several tablespoons of Miracle Whip, a teaspoon of prepared mustard, a pinch of sugar and splash of apple cider vinegar. Mix well.

Fill the egg halfs with the yolk mixture. I find filling a sandwich bag and snipping a corner helps cut down on the mess. To complete the presentation I sprinkle on a little paprika and place an olive slice in the center of the yolk.

Sound good?

Friends and Family

I have a friend that invited me over for a New Year's bash earlier this year. I already had plans, so I politely declined. He told me, "Ok, but you're invited to come over anytime." Guess what? I called him up last weekend and invited myself over. He and his family were great hosts. I got a tour of the house and joined the gang in the pool. I think humans are social animals; one sociologist said that people prefer to live in cities and towns because we enjoy being social. I always thought it was so we could get pizza delivered in thirty minutes or less.

If you believe in prayer, I ask that you remember my uncle. He suffered a heart attack last week and is recovering the hospital. He should be OK. My family is understandably concerned.

Chicago Blues Fest 2004

This past weekend I went up to Chicago to visit my brother and check the Chicago Blues Festival. Unfortunately, my train was five hours late getting up there on Saturday. By the time I got there, the festival was winding down for the day. So, my brother and I caught a train out to his suburb and got a bite to eat.

I did get to check out an hour of Blues Fest on Sunday. There were six stages with some good Blues being played. Gibson had a stand set up where a dozen or so people could play Gibson guitars. I've never seen that before.

On the train ride home I sat next to a woman who graduated from high school with me and also went to the same college. We spent the train ride chatting. We caught up on each others' lives and the goings-on in our hometown. Nancy, you rock!

I nearly cancelled the trip when I learned the train was late on Saturday. I'm happy now that I didn't. Talking with Nancy made the trip worth it.

Gazpacho Now With Moxie

I added a resume to my website. It is available as a HTML version, a text version, a PDF version and an unformatted XML version.

My brother called and told me he bought a food processor. As an expirement he made some gazpacho soup. He tells me next time he is gonna add a couple jalepenos for some kick. Soup-er!

Cold Cold Chicago

I went to visit my brother this weekend in Chicago. We went to a President's Day party Saturday at his friend's place. Know what? Chicago is COLD in February. Sunday I had lunch in Chinatown.

Chicago is nice place to visit. It is even better when the weather is warmer. The pictures below are of my brother caught in an Edison moment and a blurry image of the Sears Tower from the Metra train.

Click on an image for a larger version.

Kevin with a Lightbulb

Sears Tower from the Metra

Poe Toaster Remains Faithful

The Poe Toaster continues a fifty year old tradition. Every year on the day of famed author Edgar Allan Poe's birthday a topcoat-clad stranger visits the Poe grave and leaves three roses and a bottle of cognac. The three roses probably represent the poet, his wife and mother. The cognac, however, is a mystery. Poe's work mentions wine, but never cognac.

Lets hear it for fine literature! Take a break today. Turn off your television and boycott the latest Hollywood stinker. In the words of The Raven: "Merely this, and nothing more."

Kevin told me that National Public Radio had a story about the toaster.

My Weekend with the Co-ed Prison Sluts

On the weekend of the 21st I hopped on a train and went to visit Kevin in Chicago. After a tour of the Sears Tower, we met with his friend and headed for dinner at the Mashed Potato Club. Eventually, we ended up with the Co-ed Prison Sluts at the Annoyance Theater.

I fear I will have a difficult time topping that one when he comes down to visit me in St. Louis! Heh.

Kevin Dumps Core

Kevin, my brother, recently contributed a track to the album: Requiem - For the Children of the Oklahoma City Bombing. The tune is entitled "Cement Skeleton" and appears under the band name Kevin Dumps Core.

Ballistic Test Zine, an online mag that covers the industrial/dark ambient/goth Christian music scene, has posted a review.

For more information drop by Kevin's site.