Author: Timpane

If you read my earlier post, you see I had a problem getting my new Quasicon controller to work with Mame.. well, as it turns out, you can configure MAME to work any way you want!

Now, I’m sure lots of people know this, but I couldn’t find it online anywhere, so here’s how you do it. I figured I’d put it as a new post on the front page so if people were looking for this answer they could find it.

Go to Options and select “Default Game Options” – go to “Controllers” and click “Enable Joystick Input” to make sure your joystick is turned on. Hit apply and then OK.

THEN.. Open up a game, get it going by following the prompts, then hit TAB. A menu comes up. select “Input Options (General)” – go to Player 1 (or 2 if you want) input, and you will see a list of commands like UP, and BUTTON 1.

Select (for instance) “up”, hit enter, and then the default thing that makes you go “up” in the game goes blank. Hit what you WANT to make you go up (in my case, “UP” on the digital Joystick) and it should display.. you can do this for all directions – then you can decide which buttons you want to do what. – then repeat for player 2

Once you do that, escape out back to the second menu and you can go to Other input options and select what buttons you want to be “insert coin” and “start player 1”.

After that, you can configure per game by going to the game, hitting TAB and going to Input options (game) – so the button configuration is how you like.

Thanks to Chris from Quasimoto.com for teching me how to do this!!

Okay.. Matt and various techies.. I need help.

I just put together my “Quasicade” machine, and it works great.. MAME is fired up to play my (legally liscensed of course) games.. EXCEPT..

My computer detects the Digital joystick (that would correspond to the D-Pad on an analog PS2 controller) and calls it a POV(Hat).

The long and short of it is.. it looks like Mame wants to use my analog sticks to play the games.. which is not good for classic gaming.. the reason I got the thing was to get the old 4-8 way Joystick feel.

now.. Mame WILL accept keyboard inputs, but I don’t know how to mp keyboard buttons (I know it can be done in the ctrtl folder, but I’m not really a techie guy)…

SO.. my question is – How do I make this thing work in Mame? Either.. how do I switch this thing to be the controller of the x and y axes, or how do I make the digital stick input keyboard strokes.

and for uber techies who will want to yell at me, please don’t – I’m just a silly dumb guy who needs a break.

JT

The process of a move can be a daunting task.

Here are my top ten nuggets of wisdom when it comes to buying and selling your homes, and the move between them.

1. Select a good realtor and have them do the selling of your home and the buying of the next… My realtor (Jeff Wu, Weichert) managed to time together the sale of my home, the purchase of the next, the rentbacks, and even sprung for the landscaping work – he made us some good cash and made our move a lot easier.
2. Know your location – check it out at midnight on a friday night… we loved out first home during the day, but soon found that there was a criminal element in the neighborhood.
3. Don’t hardball in a seller’s market. We turned away offers just because people seemed too difficult. And we selected our buyers because they offered 500 dollars more then another. In a seller’s market, offer a little more than the asking price if you really want it.
4. Look till you find what you want, then jump on it. We kept finding “almost right” places.. but kept looking and eventually found just what we wanted.
5. Buy Buy Buy – if you can possibly buy in a good market, do. Renting is giving your money away.
6. Budget the move out on the high end.. then shop for deals. We set a budget without shopping.. just using the first prices we saw.. we set aside that amount of money.. then worked our way down.
7. Give yourself time to move. We moved in 2 days with just one person at at time helping us. Mistake… thank goodness our friends are forgiving. It can take a few days.
8. Label your boxes – know which room and what is in them. Use a lot of smaller boxes and keep them well labeled, I didn’t and I am searching through boxes for little wires and plates and stuff. Eek.
9. Do one thing you always wanted to. For me it was the home theatre… for my wife it was the curio cabinet and the fireplace. It makes you feel special about the new place.
10. Don’t overspend… yeah, its hard, but make sure you can afford what you’re buying.

Okay, there’s lots more… maybe you guys have some.

EDIT by matthew: tpyos, formatting.

Yes, I have come out of hiding.. for like 30 seconds..

I finally have my internet up and running after the big move. I’ve moved to another part of montgomery county and its been fun but exhausting.

Special thanks to “Rowan” for doing a lions share of the work moving my stuff into a moving van – will poset more later. I’ve been reading.. chack out the Harry potter spoiler link… it may indeed catch up to my SITH post.. eek!

Okay.. short and sweet tonight. I know Russell Crowe is a bit of a pig. I know the name is kind of dumb, but I want to tell you that I and my wife saw “Cinderella Man” tonight, and can honestly call it the best film of the year thus far.

Yes, I liked Star Wars more, much in the way I love Taco bell tacos. I need them.. they are a part of me. But a film like this is a five course first class meal at a five star cinematic restaurant, and it deserves to be doing better than it is at the box office.

Maybe it was the name, maybe the SITH took some revenge on it, either way… this film deserves to be seen, and the film company is so sure you will like it, there is a deal at many theatre chains, that if you do not, they will refund your money, no questions asked.

I’m excited about this film. I cheered, my wife cried (and actually wanted to talk about and dissect it afterwords, a rarity) – we both sat there moved and affected and, its a darn fun film a lot of the time. So, yeah.. I think you’ll like it, and if we go see movies like this, maybe they’ll make more of them.

*** A sad note.. after a few failed attempts to reestablish ties with the person in this article, I have decided, out of respect, to remove all references to her on the site. She had expressed some discomfort in the past with th searchability of her name related to the site, and so, as a sort of last act of friendship, I am honoring what I think are probably her wishes. I wish her well.. and best of luck. The other content of the original post has not changed.***

BEGIN ORIGINAL POST Its true, first off.. although not the only point of my Blog. She is. I’ve acted beside her, directed her, watched her in 3 or 4 shows I had nothing to do with, and she is phenomenal. If you’re about to stop reading, I wanted to make that much clear, and to encourage anyone to visit her site at *******.com, especially if you are looking for a fantastic actress.

If you have decided to stick around, please read on, there is a reason and a rhyme. Still there? Good.. I ran into **** at Batman Begins (EXCELLENT) tonight, and after the normal pleasantries (and me trying and failing to be cool), she brought up the fact that often she will be told by someone that there is this blog that mentions her in sort of a “my high school girlfriend’s best friend” type of way. Turns out its Barnson.org. Its a testimony to the readership and listing power of this blog that this would happen, and it made me think the whole concept of the “Long Lost”

We, all of us, have the list of “long lost friends”, a list on which **** has never before been. After high school, we were not the very close friends we had once been, and really not even talking, and it didn’t matter that we lost touch. When we became friends again, though, it was really a lot different. I have her to thank for getting my acting career started, and for being my first real friend when I returned to Montgomery County. She was and is very dear.

But, like so many, life kind of gets in the way. Its never intentional (although the little lost kid inside always worries that it is), but we get busy, and that coffee date never happens. We get jobs, kids, married (as she did to a really cool guy), homes, We intend to keep it and we don’t. And suddenly its next week and month and year and then, well, there’s that list.

My list, Van Lindberg, Kara from williamsburg, Joey Johnson, Nick from college, Brett Clawson.. the names aren’t important. If you’re reading this you have a list of your own. People you would love to just see and have back and who probably feel the same.. but life allows little room to add the old attachments.

There are powerful tools.. Barnson.org is one.Look at this place, littered with friends old and new, Sam and Matt, two of my first friends in HS, Ben and Tim who I knew better in college through weird coincidences and connections.

Some people you give up on, some you don’t. I think **** is one of the latter (she is, after all an AWESOME actress). Some are successes, like we here, and some you just realize you will likely never see again.

But, for today, if youre reading this, maybe you should take the time to write that email to that friend on the cusp of becoming one of the “long lost” and let them know you’re not quite ready to relegate them to the dustbin. Don’t put it off.

In fact, why don’t I go take my own advice….

(typing…)

Okay, we’ve got Matt, ben, Sam, Arthur, and God knows who else here who will have an opinion.. and I want them all..

I want to buy a (non digital) 88 key upright piano, but I don’t want to spend a lot of money. I know I can walk into a store and pay 3K for an OK piano.. and I’m not looking for perfection.

I also know I can go on Ebay, and pay 400 dollars.. but I’m not looking for something that will suck.

What I am looking for is something inbetween, and I need anecdotes, “where to start”s, opinions and advice.. (and boyoboy is this the place for opinions and advice).

So, c’mon people.. where DO I start?

Today I saw Star Wars Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith for the second time.. and, as I did the first time, I really Really liked it.

But, as Enterprise was last week, this was more than just a movie for me.

Sitting in the theatre last Thursday, I was giddy and excited, surrounded by 13 people that I knew, and a theatre full of people I had something in common with… we were all about to see, for the final time, a NEW Star Wars film.

I was born just a bit too late to remember Star Wars when it first came out.. but I know for a fact I saw Empire in the theare.. I just don’t remember actually seeing it.

By 1983, when Return of the jedi came out, I had already been Luke and Vader for Halloween, I had seen the first two a number of times, and I read the storybook for Return of the Jedi before I saw the film.

I know I saw it when it first came out, but the viewing I remember was on July 10, after my first Brother, Sean was born. I know I was entranced by the film.

By the next year, I was far more in to Transformers and Michael Jackson.. and then Back to The Future and Girls, and then making tapes of music and Batman, and T2 and Freddy, and well, somewhere I somehow kind of stopped really being a kid.. mostly.

I know that my first copies of the Star Wars trilogy that I owned were bootlegs from my buddy Josh’s Laserdisc, and that I finally bought a set of my own in 1994. I eventually learned to hate the ewoks and love Empire.. and when I watched the films, especially with others, I was a Kid again.

Then came 1997, the day before my Wedding, in the bitter cold on January 31 in New york, with Matt and my family and friends.. and I got to see Star Wars again, for the first time I could remember.. on the big screen. In the coming months I saw the whole trilogy… and I remembered why I was such a fan.. I got to be a kid again.

In 1999, I lined up for hours with my wife to get tickets to Episode 1, and brought a gaggle of friends. Episode 2 was a smaller goup, but was a needed relief only 9 months after 9/11, and again, for all the flaws of those two films, when I saw those big Yellow letters, I was transported to my childhood.

Last Thursday, I sat for the last time in anticipation of what might be to come. I had remained spoiler free and as I read the crawl and watched the fun action descend into an emotional climax, I let myself laugh and stare in awe like I did when I was 9, and I let myself get choked up by the experience.

Today, I watched it for the second time, and had for the first time what will be my experience with this film for the rest of my life. I was watching a film I already knew beat by beat.. and I loved it (see my review under Matt’s Review link) but it can never be as it was that first time.

I expect I will see this film at least 3 more times in the theatre before the run ends.. trying to suck the experience out of the film so I can remember when all I have is the DVD, what it was like on the big screen.

Now, like with Star trek, I know there is more to come. The films are being rereleased in 3d in a couple years, and there may yet be a TV show.. but no more new Star Wars movies.. and so, for me.. this is the end of an Era..

May the force .. well, you know the rest.

Star Trek Enterprise has come to an end.

For the first time since I’ve been able to walk, there is no new Star Trek coming. And as a geekfan, that is a weird feeling.

Hit “Read More” to find out more.. I will be spoiling the final episode.

Still here? Good.

Tonight I watched “These are the Voyages”, the final episode of thhe fourth season of the fifth series called “Star Trek”. I watched the premiere episodes of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise the day they came out.. and if I’m honest, I was a true fan long before I ever played a Romulan.

This final episode neatly ties in Enterprise by taking place on the holodeck of the Enterprise D during Next Gen’s seventh season. Riker and Troi are viewing the last days of Archer’s Enterprise and the founding (sort of) of the Federation.

This episode features things not seen before.. including an almost Whedonesque killing of a main character – and the Ent-D (my fave) has never looked better. In all.. I really enjoyed it.. but was not choked up in any way.

Then.. the Ent-D flies by and we hear the Star Trek theme.. and Picard starts saying “Space, The FInal Fornteir.. these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its coninuing mission..”

A comet flies by and its the original series Enterprise and we hear young Kirk.. “To Explore Strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations”..

And its finally Archer and his ships saying “To boldly go where no man has gone before”.. and the ship files into space.. and the screen goes dark.

And I, to my surprise.. found myself a little lump-throaty and turned off the TV and took a deep breath. There was gravity to this for me. I worked in the Star Trek universe for three years. Sam got me into it a lot, I’ve gotten my brother into it, I watched it with friends.. coworkers, my wife.. my friend Steve and I watched the Borg episodes in Williamsburg, all growing up at 5 after school when I was 10… and now its over.

There is hope it may come back in some form.. and there are 28 seasons to enjoy on DVD as well as 10 movies, plus books, games, websites.. and I hold out hope that I will one day be able to enter that universe that holds not only the show itself, but the continuity of my childhood into adulthood. the memories of of friends and family who enjoyed it with me, and the fun secret shame of admitting to someone under my breath.. (‘yeah, I’m kind of a trekkie’)

Live long.. you know the rest.

Watch this.. trust me…

ultimate ping pong

EDIT by matthew: Linked.