Is It Springtime Yet?

Wow, months go by, and one day I wonder where they all went…

The Fedora Project is proceeding quite well from what I read on the exclusive backer’s blog. I submitted my photo for the game a long time ago, and I’m getting anxious to see where they put it. Will I be a mutant? Nah! Everybody’s thought that about me from birth; me too. They keep asking me what planet I came from, but I’m not sure. My folks didn’t tell me. I really hope it’s not on an “evil Tex” path because I’ll never find it that way. The next challenge is to figure out which photo I want to be used for the poster with Tex Murphy. I have some ideas about that, but it will have to be a secret for now.

As a high level backer, I’ve downloaded and played through the two Rita James episodes from Big Finish Games, (BFG) “Escape From Thunder Island,” and “The Race To Shangri-La.” I highly recommend them. Each game took three or four evenings in two or three hour shots, or, perhaps more, it’s easy to lose track of time playing these games. (Note to people who can’t spell: lose means it’s lost – gone – you can’t find it;  loose means it’s running free or it’s rattling around in the scuppers making noise you don’t want to hear. For example: Did you lose them? Yes, I lost my marbles, and I don’t know where they are. Is it loose? Yes, it’s rolling around in the scuppers making a terrible noise.) This grammatical interlude is brought to you by the memory of Bob McGiffert, former/late UM professor of Journalism. Also note: Journalism is the ancient and long dead art of reporting the news in an impartial manner. The last known commission of an act of journalism was some time in the 1950s, although this is only a rumor. The occupation of Journalism has been replaced by “social justice” and “social engineering.” See also: local newspaper, network “news.” I know: I have a university degree in “journalism.”  During my years at J-school there were two token journalists and umpty-something social engineers.

And now back to our irregularly scheduled ramblings.

Of course, you can spread these games out over more evenings if you want to, but I found the stories compelling enough to keep at them long after I should have gone to bed. The crazy thing is I’m not sure where anyone can get them. The Big Finish Games web site doesn’t seem to have a way to buy them. Hmmmm. This place may have “Race To Shangri-La.” 10 bucks.

I also played the BFG Jess Silloway game, entitled “3 Cards to Midnight.” I truly regret that I cannot recommend this game. The Tex Murphy and Rita James story lines are fun. Rita James certainly is fun; I love that dimwit: Tex is fun if you are, but that’s up to you. Jess Silloway is not even close to fun or satisfying. I was definitely uncomfortable with its occult basis. As a Christian, I found it unsettling and unsatisfying. I played the easy wimp route, and that was more than I should have. We  have enough trouble in this world without trying to pretend that Satan is the good guy. Satan is why bombs blow up in Boston. Satan is why the World Trade Center is a hole in the ground. “He who has ears, let him hear.”

Give me a minute on the reference; my bookshelf is a mess. I can’t find my King James version, only the New International Version that I read in Papua New Guinea.

Okay, got it; in many places. It seems it was one of Jesus’ favorite exhortations to people who refused to listen to truth. Start with Matthew 11:15. I think the point is that the truth is not always what you want to hear. Satan is always trying to bypass your brain to tell you that what is undeniably true is a lie. Perhaps that is why Jesus said it so often.

… and then you readers wonder, “why did I read this?”  Because I Just Come Here For The Music. Ahh, the lovely Allison Krause.

And now that I have you in my clutches, BWHAHHH HAHHHH HAHHHH, Why don’t we Imagine That. Don’t walk, RUN out to your local music store and buy Don Williams’ latest album, “And So It Goes.”

For those inclined to torture themselves with my ramblings, stay tuned for me playing the bass to Dwight Yoakam’s and Buck Owens’ version of “Streets of Bakersfield.” Oh wow, that means setting up a goober tube channel and buying a decent vidcam doojingle, but I think I have to do it. You will regret it, but remind yourself that it could be much worse; I could try to play the mandolin intro to “Streets of Bakersfield.” I can’t even play the mandolin part of Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May,” but that would probably be sweet music compared to “Streets of Bakersfield.” Better get that Fender MandoStrat soon.

Mandolins, Stratocasters, Telecasters, Bassmasters, etc. My fingers rebel. Don’t do this to us, they say. We are old and slow, and the Irish Washerwoman is but a pleasant memory of our youth. Yet my super duper el cheapo Metallic Blue Squier Precision Bass sings Siren songs to me… “come play me… I’ll make you a star…” To which I reply….[deleted] and I did too. But I’m catching on to old Mr. Root Fifth with his chordal notes. I’ll have him nailed in a week or so.

My coworker says I have to name my musical instruments. I am not sure why; Eric Clapton has something to do with it. Anyway, the bass is “Wump” because it sits on its wump most of the time. The Fender Stratocaster (Midnight Wine with Rosewood fretboard) is “Sleeping Beauty” because it is beautiful and spends most of its time sleeping. The Metallic Blue Squier Telecaster (it’s super-duper cheap, but it sounds great) is named Mug; you get the picture. Third note or whatever: The metallic blue on the Indonesian-made bass is not the same as the metallic blue on the Chinese-made Telecaster. They’re close, but noticeably different. Dear Mr. Squier Fender Corporation, take a lesson from the folks at Gatorade. Send your people around the world to make sure the colors match; it’s important. I mean, really, would you give Buck Owens and the Buckaroos instruments that didn’t match? That’s like Marty Robbins singing “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean” in a Hawaiian shirt, short pants, and deck shoes. The last time I was was in Indonesia, the exchange rate was somewhere near 1750 rupiah to the dollar. Now I think it’s somewhere in the range of 247 googleplex rupiah to the penny. They were using aluminum for coins of less than 100 rupiah; I have some in my collection.

Still with me? Now you know why I call this Roger’s Ramblings.

I haven’t come up with a name for the mandolin. It is simply “my mandolin.” It’s lovely, so I should call it Olivia, after my first and only true love whom I never met and who doesn’t know me from whale poop in the Marianas Trench. The problem is that Olivia is from Manchester, England, by way of Australia, and my mandolin is from China by way of steam ship, diesel, row boat, cargo container on a canoe, whatever. Definitely not as romantic. But Olivia it is from here everafter.

Have a nice day, and a better tomorrow. That’s not the correct name of the song, but I did say RUN to get Don Williams latest album.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 890 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Music… Again… Still?

“Take My Breath Away.” Have I been here before? But it’s so delicious, indulge me. I’m old, sort of, can’t remember. And distracted by my model railroad, etc. Ooh, the old man’s babbling again. Hide the children!

I’ve found two versions of the song, and I can’t decide which is better. I think they are both great versions of the same song. Usually, I think the original is the best, but on occasion a different rendition is equally appealing, and sometimes the redo is so superior to the original version it is a shame the original was ever heard outside of a shower stall. (see “Little Wing” – Jimi Hendrix [original - for the youngsters] and The Corrs [the mega-superior redo].)

With “Take My Breath Away,” maybe it’s simply because the music is so good it’s difficult to screw it up. It’s not that it hasn’t happened before; the list of screwed up songs is extremely long, but I haven’t yet heard (and don’t want to hear) a lousy version of Take My Breath Away. And here are the contenders…

The amazing original artists… Berlin

and the beautiful challenger Jessica Simpson

(Sorry about the stupid commericials. I don’t control that. I wish I could.)

I love Terri Nunn’s voice. It send chills up my spine on this song, but then I also love Jessica’s voice for its different quality. I can’t choose; they are both fantastic versions. No, I am not in love with them; I just like their voices. Olivia is my forever love, even though I think she’s nuts now. Woooh, crazy dude. Get the duct tape! Tie him up.

Hey, the movie this song was shackled to sucked, but that’s another story to be dealt with another day. But, okay, pop quiz. How many of you when you were watching the movie, for the first time, instantaneously knew without question or doubt the millisecond you heard the call sign “Goose” that that character was dead meat?

OKAY! Every living human on planet Earth with at least one functional brain cell knew that the “Goose was cooked” the millisecond he was introduced. I thought so. Why else would they name him Goose? I don’t think I embarrassed myself by laughing out loud at that one as much as I did when I watch “Star Trek – The Motion Sickness” at the Fox Theater. I was thoroughly bored until Captain Kirk slapped his hand on Spock’s shoulder and said in unbelievable tones, “Spock, we need you.” I was howling. If I had been in an aisle seat, I would have been rolling in the aisle. I quickly realized that not one other person in the theater caught the homage to 1930s slapstick humor, so I stopped laughing out loud. I guess they thought I was a heretic. The Marx Brothers would have been proud of that scene.

I really came to hate most movies in the 80s. I eventually referred to them as “dead girlfriend” or “dead buddy” movies. It was so easy to rack up the body count in the first few minutes of a movie. The closer the character was to the hero, the more certain the character was dead before the end of the movie. It was only a matter of how violent the death would be.

There were, however, movies worth watching in the 1980s, but there weren’t many. It’s too bad that Hollywood et. al. have only produced a total of a dozen movies since 1990. You’d think someone with an old, but functional, double-8mm camera and a Keystone 500-watt movie light would be willing to shoot a blockbuster movie. It’s obvious the movie studios aren’t interested anymore. Of course, it would be tough to get the film developed. I have the light and camera, a Bell & Howell Two-Fifty-Two, but it doesn’t work any more.

This one belonged to my late aunt. Somewhere in my collection of junk I have a 50′ reel with “Terror at the Square Root of 50,000 Feet” on it. It was a “DB Cooper style” hi-jacker flick I made with some friends using this camera. We spared no expense. The Boeing 747 we crashed in the snow was a Revell kit, and the flames were supplied by wood burning in the fireplace. Big budget stuff.

Oh, another note, when I heard the name “Jessica Simpson” a long time ago I thought she was Bart’s sister. I wasn’t about to waste my time with an idiotic cartoon character. Foolish me. Sorry, Jessica (not Bart’s sister) Simpson.

As Max said, “For Stewie!”

We’re all ‘Slipping Away.’

The Bomb, The Pig, and The Pumpkin

One of the many things I wish is that I were a story teller. So many people have the gift of telling (and embellishing) stories of things that happened in their lives no matter how unpleasant the situation may have been.

The title of this post popped into my head a few months ago, and I had to laugh. Most people might think it would be a story about a homicidal swine in a garden, but they would be wrong. The Bomb wasn’t a bomb, The Pig wasn’t a pig, but during cold winters it certainly was a pig of another kind, and The Pumpkin was just orange. No, this story would be one of automobiles.

The Bomb was a 1950s Pontiac Chieftan a friend’s father owned. During our high school years, it took us to many basketball games and other events around town. But as with many a twenty-year-old car, it was not in the best condition. I hope I never forget the frozen night after we watched a basketball game at the university and it wouldn’t start. One of us got the bright idea of pouring some gas into the carburetor to prime it. Oh boy, that’ll do it! Someone else turned the ignition key, and the Bomb nearly lived up to its name. Flames blew out of the carburetor and started burning various other pieces and assorted parts.

So, what does a group of wannabe rocket scientists do? Why, break the ice on puddles and throw water on the fire, of course. Everybody knows you can’t put out a fire with snow. Well, water doesn’t work either, I am here to tell you.

After a few frantic moments of wondering whether it was time to run, the fire died down. I don’t remember what we really had to do to get it running, but we got home with a story to tell. NASA must have heard about it so we fledgling rocket scientists started thinking about different careers. Memory fades after time, but I think the last time I heard of The Bomb, it was terrorizing Cadillacs on the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago. It cleared traffic faster than Dick Tracy.

The Pig was a Chevrolet (I think it was an Impala) that another friend drove. It seemed to work just fine in summer, and like most cars in the 60s, it had great flat fenders that were butt-friendly. In winter, though, it was a pig. I suspect it needed the gas and water treatment to give it an attitude adjustment, but it was a 1960s Chevy, not a 1950s Pontiac. Parents weren’t too amenable to their children blowing up cars that weren’t even 10 years old. The Pig provided great courtside seating during those many games of basketball in the driveway.

Somewhere I would like to think that someone saved a copy of Mad magazine in which they had a drawing of the perfect car. The big fenders would have contoured dents for the many butts that occupied them. I seem to recall the radio antenna was a coat hanger. Not a straightened out coat hanger, but one still in its original shape. Whoever drew that cartoon must have been spying on us.

The Pumpkin was an orange Pontiac Catalina. We didn’t get to use it much, but then I don’t think it moved much. It shared driveway space with the Bomb. I don’t have a story to tell about it, but since it had a “name” it’s part of the story of growing up. My first car was a 1966 Ford Galaxy. It didn’t have a name, and I don’t want to tell the story of what happened to it. It’s embarrassing.

This really isn’t the story I would tell if I were a story teller, but the loss of a friend who was there that frozen night, and with whom I shared an adventure to Papua New Guinea,  seems to compel me to write about memories. We all think we will be able to reminisce about these stories after we have retired, but reality seems to have a different agenda. I guess the moral is to share the memories with your friends while you can. You may not get the chance again.

Summer, Too Precious To Waste

But that’s mostly what I’ve done.

I did buy Steve Martin’s latest album “Rare Bird Alert,” though. I guess it’s not so new, but well worth the money. I was never really a fan of his humor, but I do like his music.  This album was a joint effort with the Steep Canyon Rangers, a band I will certainly have to follow as best as I can.  I can’t seem to hear “Yellow-Backed Fly” enough. Woody Platt sings it with just right reverence. Makes me think I’m right there on the back watching him go after ‘ol Jim.

What’s a “bucket list?”

Is that a list of things old people think they need to do to make their miserable lives somehow worthwhile before they die?  OKAY! I get that now that I’m on the downhill slide.

Let’s see… help resurrect Tex Murphy at Kickstarter? Check.

I’m in stupid big. Not “crazy insane lock me up” stupid big, but just “what were you thinking?” stupid big. Can’t wait for my director’s chair.

You have 48 hours to get on the bandwagon. Look for Project Fedora at Kickstarter. Or if that’s too late, check out the Big Finish Games web site. You know how to find it.

Next, help find Amelia Earhart. Well, at least where she spent her last  hours, anyway.

I think her bones were found a long time ago on Gardner Island, but few people believe that. I think I do.  TIGHAR is looking for proof. I mean real proof, like a verifiable piece of her Lockheed Electra. So, I’m going to throw a few bucks their way, too. The boat is leaving July 2, 2012, NOT coincidentally the same day 75 years after Amelia and Fred Noonan disappeared over the South Pacific trying to find Howland Island. They left the Lae airport in what is now Papua New Guinea on July 2, 1937. I actually saw that airport many years ago on my PNG adventure. One of our contacts gave us a tour of the town and we drove past it. If you check out my PNG page you’ll see find a picture of the “hotel courtesy bus” I took on that tour. The Lae airport is mostly closed now ( or maybe completely closed since it has been half a life time since I was there). The Nadzab airport (west of Lae) became the main airport a long time ago.

And… let’s see, what else. Oh yeah, learn how to play something else besides the chorus of Boil Them Cabbage Down on my mandolin (The Loar, you know.)

Hmmm, how do I BUY that one? I guess I don’t.  I can dream can’t I? Em nau, baby!

Am I Crazy?

Okay, that’s a rhetorical question. Chris Jones (Tex Murphy) and Aaron Conners (Ardo Newpop, among other characters) are trying to bring Tex Murphy back to life. If you don’t know Tex, he’s a private detective who belongs right up there with Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, except it’s San Francisco 2042. Perhaps he’s more like Marlowe in that Murphy gets the daylights beat out of him as often as Marlowe did.

I have never really been all that excited about time-consuming video games, but “Under A Killing Moon” (1994), and “The Pandora Directive” (1996) were simply unparalleled in computer games. I played them all the way through… several times, and I still have a DOS machine set up just to play them now. They did one more game with Tex Murphy, “The Overseer,” but I never finished it. It was a game that was way ahead of the bleeding edge, and the user overlay was unworkable, in my opinion. It required more computer hardware than was available at the time, not to mention that it came out shortly after Windows 95 destroyed the computer game industry. It was simply painful to play on the hardware of the day. Now, having heard it was a cliff-hanger with an ugly ending, I guess I’m glad I didn’t go much further with the game.  Note to Chris — Aaron is right: there is too much “reality” these days; we don’t need it from our pastimes. Please stick with the over-the-top humor and fun of Under A Killing Moon. (By the way, my top score in that game is 1024 points; yeah, I cheated.)

Well, Project Fedora is afoot. (Note that after the fund-raising window has closed [June 16, 2012], I will delete the link.) They are trying to get enough funding to create another full-motion-video game with Tex Murphy. My dilemma is to decide how much I can afford to support the project… a tiny dribble to be another unnoticed name among thousands (you know, like one of the 4 billion names in the end credits of “The Return of the King), or a lot of precious bucks to be a wanna-be nobody.

Hmmm, I’m babbling again. Not good, he says.

Hey! Eddie Ching will be born this year! October 14th. You’ll have to get a copy of Under A Killing Moon to meet Eddie Ching. Try here: Good Old Games, or support Project Fedora at a sufficient level to get a download.

Edit on 6/15/12: Tex Murphy will return. The Kickstarter campaign is over, and more than enough money was raised to bring him back. They didn’t raise the most dollars ever ($598,104 – at T minus 0: 6,963 backers), but the per-person contribution was higher than the average campaign. I am pleased that I had the opportunity to be a part of it.

I Seem To Be In Alaska Mode

I am continuing my babbling from my railroad blog because I got off track. To see where I started, go here… Wow, what a day!

not too far from Russia and Point Barrow. Have you ever “tobogganed” down a mountainside of the Alaska peninsula on a small aluminum triangle to a latitude and longitude known only for a short time to some USGS office pogue. I have. A note to the wise: NEVER trust USGS maps. We were flying south down this “valley” one day, according to the 1:250,000 map, and the “valley” turned into a mountain ridge. After climbing up and over the “valley,” umm, 2000-foot ridge that WASN’T a valley, we found the place where we were supposed to put a cadastral survey monument (south of Canoe Bay). Gary “toed” the Hughes 500C into the mountainside about 500 feet above the point at a place where the rotors wouldn’t hit the mountain, and I and my coworker sidled out onto the skids to get all of our gear out of the helicopter. After dumping the backpacks, aluminum rods, miscellaneous survey gear, and our bodies onto the mountainside without getting chopped into hamburger by the rotors, we slid down to the place where we put the official survey marker in place. When we were done setting the survey marker, we slid down to the bottom of the mountain on plastic garbage bags. What a blast. Oh, we had to leave the aluminum triangle on the mountain so the monument could be spotted from the air. BLM Auto-Surveyor Camp 13. Youth is a wonderful thing, when you are young. When you get old, it seems natural to embellish the youthful adventures. Put me in a 500C and I’m happy. Don’t put me in a “Death” Ranger, or, as some call it, the Jet “Danger.”

That was 1980, and not too many days after I took the first photo for which I got paid. Yes, I’m repeating myself; if you are young and wonder why your father tells you the same story 5000 times, well, if you live long enough, you will know. Memory is a precious thing; it is not infinite. I babbled about my first sale here: My First Published Photo

I will say it again, umm, if I haven’t said it already… did I? This one $50 sale means more to me than all the covers and extraneous photos for Front Sight magazine that most of you have never heard of, or will ever see. It doesn’t mean as much when you say to yourself, “I think I will use this photo I took on the next cover of the magazine.” Again, I damn the “work-for-hire” clause of the copyright laws because it means I cannot post those photos here, or anywhere. I don’t own them.

Tex’s Lament

I keep a DOS machine in the closet for one single purpose; to play “The Pandora Directive.”

This was a computer game/movie from the mind of Chris Jones (Tex Murphy) on the Access Software label. Access Software was gobbled up by Microsoft (note to Bill, Microsoft is a registered Trademark of Billy Boy’s empire.) Microsoft bought Access software, in my opinion, because its golf game sucked and Access’s was good. However, in the process, they murdered Tex Murphy. They wouldn’t even sell the games they didn’t want and had no intention of continuing. Evil.

The first Tex Murphy game I played was “Under A Killing Moon.” That was pretty good, and I wanted more. I got it in their next release, “The Pandora Directive.” Many paths, different levels of experience, and lots of fun. After hours of working my way through the game, I was rewarded with a song by Richie Havens, which is the title of this post – Tex’s Lament. Tonight, I found a video of one of the alternate endings that I thankfully never saw. You had to be a callous human with no regard for humanity to get there, but the performances by Suzanne Barnes and Chris Jones are captivating. And it’s all wrapped up with a song from Richie Havens — Tex’s Lament.

The decision to case Suzanne Barnes as Chelsee Bando was a great part of the success of this game. I, too, wanted to follow the “Mission Street” path and win Chelsee’s heart. All too often, I ended up on Lombard Street: still friends with Chelsee, but she went home with someone else, or alone. One of these days, I’ll make it to Mission Street.

After The Pandora Directive, I wanted more. Unfortunately, the followup, “Overseer,” bombed because they abandoned tried-and-true technology for pie-in-the-sky promises. I’m bummed that I never finished “Overseer.” I don’t think I got more than half-way through it, and that was a shame because the story and concept were very good; the interface and technology sucked.  I just couldn’t fight my way through the interface anymore.

Check This Out

I was following some old links in my bookmarks file, and the next thing I knew I discovered this.

Catherine Britt when she was 18.

“But wait,” exclaimed the annoying ad man, “there’s more!”

A few years later, she did this with Max Merritt, who was closing in on 70 at the time and STILL singing so beautifully.

Max Merritt and Catherine Britt – “Slippin’ Away”.

I love her smoky voice. Those viewers who are not brain dead will note Max’s plea to the audience to join in for “Stewie.”

And who the xyz are Max Merritt and Stewie? Let’s set the “Way Back” machine to 1976, when Max was living in Australia and his band was called “The Meteors.”

Slippin’ Away

Yep, that was Stewie on drums. Looks amazingly like a guy I know up here, but Stewie is gone now and Steve is still with us. Stewie was a well-known name on the Australian Blues circuit in the 60s.

And by-the-by, Max is a double transplant. Born in New Zealand, moved to Australia, and then to the United States.

And I STILL haven’t made much progress with my mandolin (The Loar). My fingers are too short, my voice can’t stay in one key (one second I’m with Bowser singing ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’, and the next with Alison Krause on When You Say Nothing At All), and my fingers don’t move fast enough.

BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN BOYS!

I THINK (really heavy emphasis on THINK) I can sing You Ain’t Going Nowhere, if I have cue cards; you know, the kind of card you want to hold up for stupid people, like me.

For example;
“Breathe in”
“Breathe out”
NO! OUT. Breathe OUT! WAP, WAP WAP.
Good… now breathe in.

You get the picture.

Now class, we discuss music history. Name the band in which Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman were bandmates?

Jimmy Ibbotson, where the HELL are you? The Nitty Gritty ain’t gritty without you.

In better days when the Nitty Gritty was Jimmy Ibbotson, Jimmie Fadden, Bob Carpenter, Jeff Hanna, of Paint Your Wagon fame, and, a special guest in the person of Jeff’s wife, Matraca Berg. All together now…