Souvenirs from Atari greats
Still kinda in shock about yesterday’s lunch with the Atari greats. But I got some great signed souvenirs to remember it by.
Taking celebrities to lunch
So, you go to the Portland Retro Gaming panel of 80’s Atari programmers. Each one of which made the most popular games of the age, ones you and all your friends played. After the talk, you’re chatting with them and everyone discovers it’s well past lunch. You say, “Hey guys, you wanna go across the street and grab a bite to eat? My treat.”
And that’s how you end up taking all your childhood programming heroes out to lunch.
From L to R:
David Crane – Founder of Activision, Activision’s Pitfall
Tod Frye – Atari’s PacMan, Swordquest series
Rob Zdybel – Star Trek, Star Raiders, Atari Football
Bob Smith – Star Wars, Video Pinball, co-founder of Imagic
Gary Kitchen – Donkey Kong, Keystone Kapers
Mr Kitchen’s son
Me
Korean human powered flying machines
It was only a few years ago the very first human-powered flying craft left the ground – and these Korean students make it look (relatively) common.
Halloween horses
Farm boy fun! Anyone want to go out the night before Halloween, find some horses, and paint this on them in glow in the dark paint?
Paper airplane machine gun
This thing shoots paper airplanes. That’s cool in itself, but its ‘ammo’ is regular sheets of paper and the machine folds and fires them as it goes. Awesome.
Norway’s 8-bit currency
Norway creates 8-bit inspired currency. This is what their new money looks like:
Mirror of God (Salar De Uyuni- Bolivia)
Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni salt flats after a rain. A thin sheet of water turns the flats into a massive mirror.
Reed College nuclear reactor tour.
Reed college is having an open house today and doing 2 tours through their nuclear reactor.
You get to enter the reactor room while it is running at 90% of it’s 250 kwatt output (they turn off the lights so you can see the Cerenkov blue glow!) – and then they scram it for you (shutdown). Sadly, they use a magnetic control rod system – so there isn’t really a guy with an ax anymore…
Kid’s drawings painted realistically
Dave Devries takes drawings from little kids and then paints them more realistically. The results are published on his website, and in his book: The Monster Engine.
James Bond actor Richard Kiel – aka Jaws – dies
Richard Kiel is best known for his role as Jaws in the James Bond movies. But did you know he was an accomplished salesman, house developer, and tremendous family man despite the many difficulties he faced trying to make it as an actor? He was a very hard working guy that worked on countless projects and created the comedic nature of the character Jaws. On top of that, he was a pretty inspirational guy later in life.
Learn how he got that lump on his forehead and how a man with many things against him made it in one of the most image-based industries. Definitely worth a listen.
The last chapter of his book is particularly touching where he discusses his faith and asks if the reader is interested in Christianity. He provides a prayer for you to say outloud and even puts his email address and mailing address down if you said it and want to talk to him about it. He then says, “Thank you for letting me share my life with you.”
What a guy.