262 - Sadie Cat Intro (audio)

"Once upon a time there was a dog with a cat’s tail. Her name was Samantha Adelaide Catrell, but her friends called her Sadie Cat. She was a very adventurous explorer and loved going to places she had never been. Seeing new things and experiencing new places was her favorite thing to do. The world was filled with all kinds of magical things. Sometimes she would get in sticky situations, both figuratively and literally. We’ll be reading her stories in order, though feel free to jump in whenever you would like. This is The Strange and Marvelous Adventures of Sadie Cat."

I finished my Sadie Cat short story (~7,500 words) late last week. I realized that as a piece of reading material it's just okay. I've also been listening to a lot of podcasts this past year and decided it may be good to produce it into a radio drama. Perhaps as a production it would help the lack of writing prowess into a story/adventure that could be enjoyed better.

Here's a demo of the intro that will be used. I recorded with the laptop microphone just to warm up. It was also recorded in my kitchen, so the echo is absolutely awful (to me, anyway). It's been a long time since I've recorded anything, to be honest.

I've been trying to distinguish my narration voice and my Sadie Cat voice. It's been tricky, but maybe the slight variation in my tone will be enough. I hope so!

I believe when this is all said and done, the story "Sadie Cat and the Sky Tower" will be an hour+ radio drama and the first step into doing this regularly.

261 - Oliver's New Game

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Oliver's new game he made up. The rules of play are simple, but the actual effects and powers of the randomly drawn cards are difficult to remember.

Each player rolls 1d6. Whoever has the higher number gets to draw a "Go Fish" card. Depending on the color drawn, different things will happen. For example you may be able to take a yellow unit from an opponent's army and add it to yours or take two yellow leaders from an opponent's army and add it to yours.

How do you win? Collect four yellow leaders. The army doesn't actually have an effect on the game nor any of the other colors. However, it's something to do when you draw a card.

My game was a lot simpler: you have five different units of your army worth different amounts of points each (1 for turtle, 2 for kitty, 3 for dog, 4 for bear, and 5 for dragon). Before the round starts, you bid one of your units. Then you roll 1d6 each and compare values. The higher value gets to keep both units and add them to their total. After 10 rounds (because there are 10 units on each side), you add up all the units to see who has the higher amount.

259 - Attract Mode and Nevato

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I messed around and got the Attract Mode frontend working with the Nevato theme. It took some work, but the results are actually really pleasing to the eye. I don't actually have mame64 properly installed so I can't actually run the roms, but I'm pretty happy just having the marquees, wheel graphics, and snapshots show up.

I had to do some Photoshop work to get those wheel graphics working.

257 - The Multiverse Exists

The multiverse exists. I know this as I have experienced it and if you are a parent, you have likely experienced it too. I do not have statistical or scientific evidence of this, but I do have anecdotal evidence of its existence.

I was at a children's birthday party and was introduced to one of my wife's friend's husband. We shook hands and introduced ourselves.

"Hi, my name is Alexander. Nice to meet you," I said.

"Hi, my name is Andy (my guess is it was Andy as I actually don't remember). Nice to meet you," he replied.

We shook hands and then I blinked my eyes. When my eyes opened again, I had jumped between multiverses. It was obvious that I had just traveled between multiverses because I was now standing 50 feet away, putting a helmet on one of my kids. I turned around and that Andy fellow was just standing there, with a drink in hand, staring out into the field. How in the world did I go from there to here? Did I even meet this Andy person? Was I now in a multiverse where we had never shake hands?

Either I was able to travel instantaneously from one spot to another in the same universe or I was able to jump from one multiverse to another. It's obvious which is more plausible.

256 - Art Robot

Helped out with a small art project at home. Josie wanted to make one of those art robots where you strap a bunch of markers to a cup and throw in a motor to have it jiggle around a piece of paper. The problem we had was that we didn't really have a good enough motor. The ones we had for the toothbrush robots were tiny mobile/pager motors.

I found a battery-acid filled Finding Nemo swimming toy in the garage and took it apart. I disconnected the motor from it and connected it to a 9V battery holder I had in an Arduino kit. The rest is artistic history.

253 - 1:12 Scale Arcade Cabinet History - Part 5

1:!2 Scale Arcade Cabinet v5 - Shencade MK.1

1:!2 Scale Arcade Cabinet v5 - Shencade MK.1

Let's call this Shencade MK.1.

Swapped out the panels to be 1/8" instead of the 1/4" for everything else. Looks a lot better. Saved this design in a few places for backup. I was able to fit six of these on two P2 sized MDF boards. Not counting shipping or special "membership" laser cutting pricing, this breaks down to about $8.50 per 1:12 scale arcade cabinet. Considering I paid around $30 for the plastic one, this is a great deal.

Interested in picking one up? Let me know.

I have a few blanks that need ideas. My next one will be Sega's Flashgal since I picked up a 1:12 scale Wonder Woman figure. Flashgal has been referenced as the only "that looks like Wonder Woman" game, so it felt like a good fit for now even if it's pretty obscure (compared to something like Shinobi).