The Summer of Grogan
I’m done with college. For now and ever more. So, as a projects blog, I’ll give you now a rundown of my situation and what I’ve got on my plate, or at least planned. First and foremost is Chinese....
View ArticleUrbandead
This follows the veins of the discussion on the Zombies!!! board game, that Bear, Loki, Grue, Megan and I played the other month (for which Loki holds a 3-for-3 winning streak) and browser games that I...
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Ant Farm v4, Day 1
I spent a lot of my childhood in the company of ants. There is a big cable/electrical box complex in front of the house I grew up in where I would spend days playing with my little formic friends,...
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Ants Redux, Rodent Bot Fly
First off, I don’t think anyone noted the 1-year anniversary for Protozoic. I guess that’s what the Proto-Con is about, but I don’t even know exactly when this site was put up so I can’t tell. Due to...
View ArticleThe Champs Are Like Immortal
I just saw The Fucking Champs put up a tabs page so I decided to finish the project I started during the summer. I took the bulk of today to tab out the rest of Powerpoint by The Fucking Am...
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Forest Walk, 1 of 3
Bear introduced me to a video game back in the early 90s which sparked my imagination. This is Ultima 7, a classic role-playing game that features an expansive map and the ability to wander it where...
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Forest Walk, 2 of 3
On the Friday of the predetermined weekend, I drove Joe Galetti, Buff and myself to the predetermined starting point. We reached it around midnight. The nigth was cool, calm and clear, just as it was...
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Forest Walk, 3 of 3
Once we stepped into the trees enough to not be spotted on the road, I lit the torch. It burned amazingly well and bright, but here’s the shocker: You can’t see much with a torch in the woods. First of...
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Zelda II Swordplay
The Legend of Zelda II, The Adventure of Link, has long been berated as the bastard child of the Zelda series. Many go so far as to not include it within the Zelda “genre” out of personal distaste for...
View ArticleEmporium Mission Statement
The following wall of text is a manifesto of my justification for wanting to develop a game. I might edit this a little later, but what you see here is enough of a final version to post. When video...
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China O’Brian
Finally I make a Proto-post about my Asian excursion. I was thinking since a lot of travel blogs end up with a couple posts in the first month and then one every 3 months after that, I would try to...
View ArticleOn Teaching
This will be my rant on my particular experience with teaching in China. It had to happen eventually and I guess that I should be glad that there’s no chance my employer will read this blog, as some...
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Phallus Phish
There’s a little fishing store you can see from Route 50 on your way west, right before Kent Island. I’ve been meaning to take a picture of it for years now, but Buff got it while on her way back from...
View ArticleDick’s Cinematic Tabletop RPG Combat System, 1 of 3
I have always disliked how AD&D handles combat, especially the damage system. Compare a level 4 fighter, who has 40 hit points, and a level 1 mage, who has a whopping 4 hit points. The two are...
View ArticleDick’s Cinematic Tabletop RPG Combat System, 2 of 3
So, I have been drumming up ideas for a tabletop RPG combat system, mainly as mental-masturbation, but I think I might have found something I can use for Emporium (the combat system is the largest...
View ArticleDick’s Cinematic Tabletop RPG Combat System, 3 of 3
Reminiscent of Infantry fight system, and to show dramatic combat with guns, is the final fight scene to the movie Equilirium (2002) by Kurt Wimmer (major spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet)....
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The Dragon Flag Board
I’m into bodyweight strength exercises. While this probably stems from my martial arts background, it isn’t because I believe there is some magical difference between using free or machine weights...
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Dragonball Z: Burst Limit, Review and Comparison to Dick’s Cinematic Combat...
Early fighting games had one status, a life gauge, and it only went one way: down. Some other fighters added another layer in the form of an energy/rage gauge. That too usually only went up until...
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Haystack Rock
Buff’s brother and his family are moving to Maryland from Astoria, Oregon. Buff and I agreed to help out by flying there and then driving one of their cars the 3000 miles back, which we did last week....
View ArticleDragonball: Evolution, I’m siding with creationists on this one…
Like many other adults by chronological age only, I would really like to see a live action version of this: But, when I heard that 20th Century Fox Studios was going to try, I didn’t have high...
View ArticleIt came from Chook – Africa Edition
The boys sent me a tape of some prime Chook-era material while I was in Africa. I want to thank them, because it really helped me get through my time there. From my mosquito-infested bed, I listened to...
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Wesband
Wesband is a modification of The Battle for Wesnoth that I’ve been making. It is a dungeon-crawler, loosely based on ZAngband, but with features unique to the genre. Wesnoth is a mutli-platform, open...
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Back Brain Kick
My friends on the Minibosses message forum have a “Let’s MS Paint Bits from videogames” thread. Here is my contribution.
View ArticleThe Salisbury Strangler
A friend of mine played a major role in a horror film based in Salisbury, The Salisbury Strangler. Make sure to catch the song during the ending credits. Enjoy. The Salisbury Strangler from annie...
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Zelda 2 redux
I’m sure you guys remember my Zelda 2 Swordplay post here on Protozoic. Well, it turns out that one part of it was wildly popular without me even knowing it. Recently, I searched via images.Google and...
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Dwarf Fortress
There are games that are considered complete and final upon shipping but, in this internet age, I’ve largely been drawn to games of another classification, ones in a state of perpetual development. I...
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The Grape Pumpkin
Me wonders what makes a regular grape vine produce a pumpkin grape, and if there is a market for said pumpkin grapes if they were able to be mass produced.
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Wesband 0.4.0
As you may remember, Wesband is a multiplayer hack-and-slash, dungeon-crawler add-on for the open source, turn-based strategy game Wesnoth. I’m proud to present the next version of Wesband. While the...
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PumpkIndian
This year Buff and I carved a Wi Hi Indian pumpkin. The stencil got reversed, but I think it turned out pretty good.
View ArticleEasy, Crispy Pickles
Mike asked me to share the pickle recipe. It’s really easy and is a great way to keep vegetables from spoiling, especially when you’re trying to find something to do with leftover veggies. Here are the...
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Shooter’s Sandwich: My Attempt
The stars are aligned just right today. I have enough free time and energy to try to make a meal that has been in the back of my mind for months. As soon as I saw it on guardian.co.uk, I knew this...
View ArticleTop 100 NES Tracks
The Top 100 NES Tracks (with 15 runner-ups) According to The Shizz Early last year, I gave my 0-100 opinion on 1723 individual tracks from the soundtracks of games on the Nintendo Entertainment System....
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Cornish Pasty
Cornwall has been coming up a lot lately. First there was this (in Spain). Then, when we had our English friend listen to a radio broadcast of some of the thickest Eastern Shore accent on record, she...
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Bugs
Dear Dr. William Grogan: Hello, how are you, we have new news, we now have the pleasure to dedicate a new species named Downeshelea grogani, for your super work Ceratopogonidae of the world, with many...
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MAGFest XI
On the first weekend of the year, I surrounded myself with thousands of sweaty nerds at MAGfest XI. I should have done a write-up about MAG much sooner than this, as my first time attending came just...
View ArticleShatsucon ’13
This past weekend, I reconvened with some of my Shizz friends for a birthday get-together in Massachusetts (Shatsu = Sherv, the birthday boy, + Mastunami, the person who hosted). At some point early...
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Black and Tan Spoon
This weekend, Buff and I hosted a St. Patrick’s Day dinner for some close friends. Shepherd’s Pie (actually, Cottage Pie) and green cabbage were served, and I got the inspiration to try to make Black...
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MAGFest 12
Dan “Danimal Cannon” Behrens brought the band Critical Hit to the attention of my corner of the Internet (at www.TheShizz.org). Critical Hit is a list of physically attractive musicians who play covers...
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Pig Roast
I’ve been interested in new types of cooking since I read Michael Pollan’s book Cooked last year. The book divides itself into the 4 classical elements as means of transforming raw materials into...
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USPS EagleMan
I was going up some escalators in the mall this weekend, and there I saw a USPS logo they haven’t used since I was 14. This was the first time I’ve seen this in a long time. It was the first time I saw...
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BCOG
A Shizz friend of mine has run a Tumblr blog for almost a year now that I participate in: beercanonground.tumblr.com, or just BCOG. It is, as the name suggests, a collection of photos of beer cans atop...
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I Am An RSS Junkie
I began writing this ProtoPost about RSS several months before Google announced the sunset of its Reader project. Then, when that happened, I set about revising this as a search to weigh the different...
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Dick’s Retro Gaming Center v1
Now that I’ve got room and I don’t plan to move houses again: let the hoarding commence. I picked up a NES and I have a list of games that I aim to amass. Then I found a 27″ Magnavox CRT TV for $5 at...
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Champs-like
The Fucking Champs are dead. Long live The Fucking Champs! The Champs are done, and have been for a while. Tim Soete allegedly moved to South America, Phil Manley continues with a myriad of other...
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Dick’s Retro Gaming Center v2
You may recall that with retro 2 CRT TVs, one of which being 200 lbs, I built a custom stand for them. The end game was to get multiple vintage* consoles going to either TV, in whatever configuration...
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Doki Doki Game Club – Episode 01: Little Nemo – The Dream Master
Some friends and I have started a retro game “book club” of a podcast, called the Doki Doki Game Club. The four of us take turns picking a game, and we all play it over the course of two weeks. Once...
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