Studio Nibble Weblog

email: lazlo@studio-nibble.com
now hear this: logan's sanctuary soundtrack
now play this: diablo (hey look it's rogue in 3-D!)
now read this: esquire's book of gambling (1st ed., 1962)
stand still dammit: casio qv-3000ex digital camera w/340mb ibm microdrive

2000/09/24
19:40
I Say Desktop, You Say Wallpaper Dept.: Two new entries at the Desktoppers page, both Vegas-related. Yes, I added them on those dates; no, I didn't bother to upload 'em...kinda like the li'l travelogue below...

2000/08/12
20:45
Luck Be A Lady Dept.: I'm finally just about back to normal after two weeks of no-Internet, no-computer, no-cellphone, no-PalmPilot vacationizing in Las Vegas and Hawaii. It was a great couple of weeks and I didn't miss all the technogeekery one bit, but all the same it's nice to be back. Much more time off and I wouldn't have been able to return to normal life again.

I'll save the Hawaii roundup for later, 'cause with a couple of exceptions that leg was generally less eventful. Vegas was anything but.

Devin and I arranged to hook up at the Classic Gaming Expo 2000, which was held at Palace Station in downtown LV. This trip was the first time I had ever set foot in downtown Las Vegas, and Devin hadn't been to the city at all in a long time, so I did things up right and hooked us into a two-room suite at the Golden Nugget for the weekend. The Nugget lived up to its four-star rep in the accommodations, with both rooms getting their own TVs and Bose WaveRadios (which actually do sound pretty nif). The cleaning staff didn't clean someone's leftovers and bloody mary mix out of the fridge in the bar, though -- points off!

CGE2000 was smallish but plenty of fun. For the uninitiated, it's basically a minicon for people who are into old-school videogames -- most of what was there was pre-NES, but Atari had good hardware representation all the way through the Lynx handheld and the Jaguar console, and arcade hardware made a good showing as well. The setup was straightforward: a presentations area for speakers, a "museum" area with lots of old-school gaming tech, a couple dozen vendor booths and maybe twenty or thirty arcade consoles set for free play.

We didn't attend any of the presentations, except for the one you had to attend in order to win a newly-programmed Atari 2600 cart. The most interesting ones were right at the start of the first day, and we figured we were better off on the sales floor, staking out first grab of all the hard-to-find stuff.

The museum was worth the $25 registration fee all by itself. Just about every classic system you might think of was in there, including loads of pre-cart standalones (Atari Video Pinball, Coleco Combat, etc.), failed and unreleased games and systems (Atari Cosmos and Game Brain), all that kinda stuff. This definitely squeezed out some big time nostalgia juice from me.

Lots of interesting goodies in the vendors area. The big surprise for me was the Hasbro Interactive booth, where they demonstrated more of their "upgraded" arcade classics. God help me, but I thought the new 3-D-rendered Breakout was a lot of fun, and Galaga: Destination Earth really lays down some serious bitch-smack by blending the classic Galaga gameplay with just about every variation on the shoot-em-up you've ever seen. Unlike a lot of "<whatever> 2000" games, both gave play value the attention it deserves. Handing out free copies of Atari Arcade Hits 2 didn't hurt either.

Several vendors were selling newly-programmed games for classic systems from the 2600 through the Lynx. I'm not quite obsessed with the stuff enough to get googly-eyed over a new 2600 game, but I have to admit that the ones I saw were a lot better than some of the ones I bought back in the day! *cough* Pac-Man *cough*

Also of note was Intellivision Productions, Inc. The original game designers apparently bought back the rights to the system and most of the games for it, and are busy documenting their history and distributing legal emulated versions on CD-ROM. This is cool even for those of us who were hardcore Atari all the way -- I can think of a bunch more systems I'd buy this way if they were available.

They had a raffle going for charity as well. I won a couple of "choice" awards, as well as a ticket to "Boy-Lesque" that stayed behind in the hotel room. Two cool goodies came out of that: an old flyer for Pong and (appropriately enough) an Atari 2600 "Casino" cart.

This thing is already way too ambitious a documentation of our trip, but I wanna mention one weird thread that wove its way through the weekend.

In the interest of Sheer Damned Manliess, one night we decided to enjoy dinner at AJ's Steakhouse at the Hard Rock Hotel. This place is definitely some swanky sorta digs, but getting in without reservations on Saturday night required us to accept a 9:30 seating, which left us plenty of time to kill at the table games. Being a video poker and slots man myself, I decided to break my Green Felt Cherry with a game that charts on the lower end of the "human interaction required" scale. Like Roulette.

My gambling philosophy: pick something and stick with it. If you keep changing your strategy every five minutes, you'll drive yourself nuts -- hitting the number you played every time up until two spins ago, that sort of thing. I like to keep the "coulda-shoulda" out of it so I can blame random chance instead of myself if I lose...at least I won't lose because I "did something stupid". So after a couple of tries on red/black and so forth, I sat my ass down on 23 and stayed there.

This was a dollar table, so I was usually dropping $2 a spin on my number. After about half an hour, it finally hit -- my first table game win! Woo hoo! So I bounce around like a goof for a little bit and the dealer gives me some good-natured shit about liking my reaction, to which I respond that if he liked it, he should hit my number again and he'll see my reaction again.

Not being one to let success get in the way, I bet my usual $2 on 23, the dealer waves his hands over the table and closes the betting, I look at the wheel, and damned if it hadn't hit 23 again. Now I really goob out, at which point the dealer apologetically lets us know that he hadn't actually spun the ball before closing the bets...

I call him a fink. (With a smile on my face.)

And hit 23 for real on the next spin.

Later that night, after a damned fine filet mignon, we wander over to The Venetian, which is pretty, Treasure Island, which is boring, and then to the Mirage, which is actually pretty cool - you walk in through a tropical atrium that sets a great mood. Once again I hit the slots (forget what kind - a quarter machine) and really slam one home. I cash out immediately and we decide to bail...and when I turn in the bucket of change it counts for...exactly $23.

The next day at brunch I blow $5 on keno - four $1 plays and a dollar tip for the runner. I play 8-15-66 (my birthday) and 23 of course. On the third game I win a dollar back when I hit...66 and 23.

That was about it for 23 on this trip. We played Addams Family slots at the Plaza for a while; Devin did pretty well but I tanked utterly. At NYNY we found the new Family Feud machines we'd seen advertised on every billboard in the county -- hella cool machines with five wheels, nine paylines that can handle up to 10 coins each, and a bonus round that actually takes your picture and throws it onscreen as you're introduced as a "challenger". Clearly the true king of all the tricked-out gimmicky video slot machines. Devin cleaned up.

Eventually comes the Hawaii Trip...

Previously: Jan-Feb 2000, Mar-Jul 2000


2000/09/24 19:40	I Say Desktop, You Say Wallpaper Dept.: Two new entries at the Desktoppers page, both Vegas-related. Yes, I added them on those dates; no, I didn't bother to upload 'em...kinda like the li'l travelogue below...

2000/08/12 20:45	Luck Be A Lady Dept.: I'm finally just about back to normal after two weeks of no-Internet, no-computer, no-cellphone, no-PalmPilot vacationizing in Las Vegas and Hawaii. It was a great couple of weeks and I didn't miss all the technogeekery one bit, but all the same it's nice to be back. Much more time off and I wouldn't have been able to return to normal life again. I'll save the Hawaii roundup for later, 'cause with a couple of exceptions that leg was generally less eventful. Vegas was anything but. Devin and I arranged to hook up at the Classic Gaming Expo 2000, which was held at Palace Station in downtown LV. This trip was the first time I had ever set foot in downtown Las Vegas, and Devin hadn't been to the city at all in a long time, so I did things up right and hooked us into a two-room suite at the Golden Nugget for the weekend. The Nugget lived up to its four-star rep in the accommodations, with both rooms getting their own TVs and Bose WaveRadios (which actually do sound pretty nif). The cleaning staff didn't clean someone's leftovers and bloody mary mix out of the fridge in the bar, though -- points off! CGE2000 was smallish but plenty of fun. For the uninitiated, it's basically a minicon for people who are into old-school videogames -- most of what was there was pre-NES, but Atari had good hardware representation all the way through the Lynx handheld and the Jaguar console, and arcade hardware made a good showing as well. The setup was straightforward: a presentations area for speakers, a "museum" area with lots of old-school gaming tech, a couple dozen vendor booths and maybe twenty or thirty arcade consoles set for free play. We didn't attend any of the presentations, except for the one you had to attend in order to win a newly-programmed Atari 2600 cart. The most interesting ones were right at the start of the first day, and we figured we were better off on the sales floor, staking out first grab of all the hard-to-find stuff. The museum was worth the $25 registration fee all by itself. Just about every classic system you might think of was in there, including loads of pre-cart standalones (Atari Video Pinball, Coleco Combat, etc.), failed and unreleased games and systems (Atari Cosmos and Game Brain), all that kinda stuff. This definitely squeezed out some big time nostalgia juice from me. Lots of interesting goodies in the vendors area. The big surprise for me was the Hasbro Interactive booth, where they demonstrated more of their "upgraded" arcade classics. God help me, but I thought the new 3-D-rendered Breakout was a lot of fun, and Galaga: Destination Earth really lays down some serious bitch-smack by blending the classic Galaga gameplay with just about every variation on the shoot-em-up you've ever seen. Unlike a lot of "<whatever> 2000" games, both gave play value the attention it deserves. Handing out free copies of Atari Arcade Hits 2 didn't hurt either. Several vendors were selling newly-programmed games for classic systems from the 2600 through the Lynx. I'm not quite obsessed with the stuff enough to get googly-eyed over a new 2600 game, but I have to admit that the ones I saw were a lot better than some of the ones I bought back in the day! cough Pac-Man cough Also of note was Intellivision Productions, Inc. The original game designers apparently bought back the rights to the system and most of the games for it, and are busy documenting their history and distributing legal emulated versions on CD-ROM. This is cool even for those of us who were hardcore Atari all the way -- I can think of a bunch more systems I'd buy this way if they were available. They had a raffle going for charity as well. I won a couple of "choice" awards, as well as a ticket to "Boy-Lesque" that stayed behind in the hotel room. Two cool goodies came out of that: an old flyer for Pong and (appropriately enough) an Atari 2600 "Casino" cart. This thing is already way too ambitious a documentation of our trip, but I wanna mention one weird thread that wove its way through the weekend. In the interest of Sheer Damned Manliess, one night we decided to enjoy dinner at AJ's Steakhouse at the Hard Rock Hotel. This place is definitely some swanky sorta digs, but getting in without reservations on Saturday night required us to accept a 9:30 seating, which left us plenty of time to kill at the table games. Being a video poker and slots man myself, I decided to break my Green Felt Cherry with a game that charts on the lower end of the "human interaction required" scale. Like Roulette. My gambling philosophy: pick something and stick with it. If you keep changing your strategy every five minutes, you'll drive yourself nuts -- hitting the number you played every time up until two spins ago, that sort of thing. I like to keep the "coulda-shoulda" out of it so I can blame random chance instead of myself if I lose...at least I won't lose because I "did something stupid". So after a couple of tries on red/black and so forth, I sat my ass down on 23 and stayed there. This was a dollar table, so I was usually dropping $2 a spin on my number. After about half an hour, it finally hit -- my first table game win! Woo hoo! So I bounce around like a goof for a little bit and the dealer gives me some good-natured shit about liking my reaction, to which I respond that if he liked it, he should hit my number again and he'll see my reaction again. Not being one to let success get in the way, I bet my usual $2 on 23, the dealer waves his hands over the table and closes the betting, I look at the wheel, and damned if it hadn't hit 23 again. Now I really goob out, at which point the dealer apologetically lets us know that he hadn't actually spun the ball before closing the bets... I call him a fink. (With a smile on my face.) And hit 23 for real on the next spin. Later that night, after a damned fine filet mignon, we wander over to The Venetian, which is pretty, Treasure Island, which is boring, and then to the Mirage, which is actually pretty cool - you walk in through a tropical atrium that sets a great mood. Once again I hit the slots (forget what kind - a quarter machine) and really slam one home. I cash out immediately and we decide to bail...and when I turn in the bucket of change it counts for...exactly $23. The next day at brunch I blow $5 on keno - four $1 plays and a dollar tip for the runner. I play 8-15-66 (my birthday) and 23 of course. On the third game I win a dollar back when I hit...66 and 23. That was about it for 23 on this trip. We played Addams Family slots at the Plaza for a while; Devin did pretty well but I tanked utterly. At NYNY we found the new Family Feud machines we'd seen advertised on every billboard in the county -- hella cool machines with five wheels, nine paylines that can handle up to 10 coins each, and a bonus round that actually takes your picture and throws it onscreen as you're introduced as a "challenger". Clearly the true king of all the tricked-out gimmicky video slot machines. Devin cleaned up. Eventually comes the Hawaii Trip...

Previously: Jan-Feb 2000, Mar-Jul 2000