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Three months ago, Mason joined our local YMCA’s 10-and-under winter basketball league. (He turned 11 just after the league’s cut off date.) I knew Mason liked shooting baskets, but before he signed up for the YMCA league none of us knew if he was any good at actually playing basketball. Turns out, he’s not half bad. His height (he’s tied for the tallest kid on the team) has given him an advantage when it comes to rebounding, and he’s become the team’s default tip-off artist. He’s got a knack for dropping three-point shots, and more importantly, he enjoys playing. We’ve had a blast watching him play and he’s had a blast playing. He’s also lost 10-15 pounds throughout the duration of the season.

Mason’s team went 7-1 for the season; the team that beat them went 8-0. Only the best team from each YMCA got to go to state, which left Mason’s team out (and his team disappointed). However, due to a shortage of teams Mason’s team was extended an invite. Last weekend, we attended our first basketball tournament.

The tournament was in Weatherford, which is about an hour west of here. Mason’s first game was at 9am but the coaches wanted everybody there by 8:15am. We actually wanted to be there by 8am which meant leaving no later than 7am, and figuring in time for gas, breakfast and coffee, we ended up leaving around 6:30am.

Mason’s team is pretty good for a bunch of nine and ten year old kids. Some are better than others, sure, but you don’t go 7-1 throughout the season without being able to play some semblance of basketball. The tournament was double elimination, so we expected to be in Weatherford for most of Saturday.

Our first game was against “Team X,” lead by “Coach X.” Even before tip-off, I knew we were in trouble. Somehow, almost every kid on Team X was taller than Mason, which is pretty amazing since before this tournament, Mason was just about the tallest kid we had ever seen in the league.

To say Team X was good was an understatement. Not only could they shoot layups (which they proved, repeatedly), but they also played a full-court press defense the entire game. A full-court defense is when you defensively smother the other team the moment after they make a basket. Each time our team was handed the ball after Team X scored, at least one (usually two) members of Team X would run up and crowd the kid trying to in bound the ball while Coach X shouted, “Press! Press!” This lead to at least a dozen turnovers on the inbound — maybe more. Our kids simply had never experienced this type of aggressive defense before, and it’s a shame that got to see it for the first time in a tournament setting.

Speaking of aggressive, Coach X’s continual yelling at the refs and contesting of every single call earned him a technical foul. I want to paint this picture properly for you. This is at a YMCA basketball tournament for 10 year old kids. Getting a technical at a YMCA tournament is like being drunk in church. It’s more than unsportsmanlike; it’s particularly uncouth and showed an absolute lack of class.

At least Mason got to shoot the free throws for the technical.

Mason’s team lost their first game and moved to the loser’s bracket where they were scheduled to play again two hours later. After a light breakfast and some coffee in downtown Weatherford, we returned to the court to find Coach X still there. Turns out, Coach X coaches multiple teams, and now we were facing his second team, Team Y.

I really wanted our kids to beat Team Y, and early on it was obvious we wouldn’t. Team Y played the same aggressive full-court style of basketball as previous team did (no big surprise there). It was one of those games where nothing went right for us, and everything went right for them. Even Morgan, cheering from the stands, couldn’t help our team win.

With roughly 20 seconds to go, a kid from Team Y tried to jump in Mason’s way and the two ended up colliding heads. We’re still not sure if Mason got knocked out or not, but after 10-15 seconds of lying on the court and not moving, I hopped out of my seat and went down to the court. They hit hard enough to bend Mason’s glasses and give him a little knot on his forehead. After a minute or so I walked Mason off and everyone clapped.

He went back in for the last play. Down by four, one of his teammates found him and Mason immediately began running the wrong way, away from the goal. “What are you doing!” I yelled, thinking he was confused. But no, Mason ran out to the three point line and right as the final buzzer went off he spun, jumped, and hit one last three-point shot. The shot didn’t count, and our team ended up losing by four.

“That kid kept fouling me so I was going for a four-point play,” he told me after the game.

So, we lost the tournament and got sent home. The coaches did their best to cheer up the obviously upset kids. They had a great season and just smothered by some aggressive kids and their aggressive coach.

Between practice and games I’ve learned the names of most of the kids on Mason’s team: there’s little Moe, Q and “Church” (named for his black socks), Tobias, Hunter, and all the kids. The parents on the other team knew some of the kids too, as the man next to us kept yelling, “WILLIAM MAKE A FREAKIN’ LAYUP WILL YA?”

I’m sure glad Mason ended up on the team he did and I hope next year he can hook back up with the same coaches and teammates and make another run at the title.

Over the years I have set up and broken down my old gaming systems and computers many, many times. Sometimes — often times, actually — it seems like I spend more time connecting and configuring and reconnecting and reconfiguring them than I do actually playing games on them. When it comes to old hardware I have a softer spot in my heart for old computers than old console gaming systems, but the biggest problem with them is that they take up so much space. At one time in our old house I had over 20 video game consoles sitting on a relatively small set of shelves all hooked up to one single television. In that same room I had my three favorite old computers (a C64, an Amiga, and an Apple II) hooked up to three separate monitors tying up an entire 8′ table.

The other day I decided, why can’t I do that with my computers as well? Almost every flat screen television on the market now has multiple connections that would support these old computers. Last night while shopping at Sam’s Club I decided to pull the trigger and do something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while now.

For just under $350 I purchased a Sanyo 40″ flatscreen LCD television. They had bigger and smaller models with more and fewer features (actually there were few there with fewer features than this one), but it had all the right inputs for the job and the price was right.

As I said last night on Facebook, “the milk crate is temporary.” The television’s stand isn’t tall enough by itself so I needed to lift it up a bit. I’ll replace the milk crate this weekend with something else, but in the meantime it’ll do. My old trusty Commodore 64 plugged right into the television’s composite input and looks great. I did have to figure out how to set the default picture size on the television to 4:3 instead of 16:9 letterbox to keep the picture from being stretched out.

With the C64 up and running, the Amiga was next. The Amiga looks particularly crappy when connected via the composite cable. I found a couple of “VGA Flicker Fixers” in the ~$100 range that I will research and look into purchasing. So it’s not a great picture at the moment, but it’s working.

With the two Commodore products out of the way it was time to hook up the old Apple II. In a recent episode of You Don’t Know Flack I talked about the CFFA 3000, a compact flash/USB card reader for the Apple II. After reconnecting the composite cable from the Apple into the television and selecting a disk image, I was immediately greeted by the familiar sounds of Karateka. I don’t mind saying, the project took a back seat for a few minutes as I kicked and punched my way through a few enemy combatants.

That’s what they all look like now, sans any real cable management and with a milk crate in the picture. This weekend I’ll re-run all the cords and replace the milk crate with a proper stand.

As some of you know, making cool Valentine’s Boxes has become a bit of a tradition around here. (Mason’s Angry Bird Valentine’s Box from last year has links to all of his other boxes as well.)

2013 was a bit different as both kids wanted to make their own boxes. I helped both kids from a design standpoint, but they did everything themselves this year.

Morgan said she wanted to make a “happy face” this year, so I sketched this out on a piece of paper for her:

A few hours later, she had created this. Not bad! I think when I took this picture one of her eyebrows had fallen off, but it did eventually have two.

This year, Mason is into everything basketball, from watching it on television to playing in a YMCA league (and every night in our driveway). It was no surprise that this year his box would have a basketball theme.

The box was designed so that students could drop their Valentines through the hoop and they would land down on the court below.

Both kids were very proud of their work, and we were proud this year that the kids wanted to build their own boxes this year. Mason’s box took a beating throughout the day from all the slam dunks, but he brought home an award along with all his Valentines: “Best Overall Valentine Box!”

If the Blair Witch Project didn’t mark the birth of internet viral marketing, it sure as hell perfected it. For months prior to the movie’s release, people were talking about the found footage of “those Blair Witch kids that got lost in the woods.” People argued whether or not the three kids actually disappeared or not, and people argued whether or not there even was a legend of the Blair Witch. Prior to the film’s release, a fake documentary titled The Curse of the Blair Witch ran on Sci-Fi which added fuel to the flames of the whole thing being real.

On opening night, Susan and I, along with our friends Jeff and Heather and Alan and Renee went to see the movie. The theater was so packed that we couldn’t get six seats together, and in fact the only seats we *did* manage to find were on the very outside of the front row. Not only did I have a headache from all the shaky-cam footage, but my neck was sore from craning it into a position to be able to see the screen.

Say what you want to about the movie now, but in a dark theater that film brought out every fear I’ve ever had about being lost in the woods, about being chased by something I couldn’t see, and about being somewhere I shouldn’t be. Sometimes when I go outside at night I’ll look over my shoulder just to make sure “something” isn’t there behind me. This movie was like 90 minutes of that. It didn’t quite perfect the tension roller coaster of days vs. nights (I still give that award to Paranormal Activity), but it was damn close. For me, the Blair Witch was to camping in the woods what Jaws did for swimming in the ocean.

And then, the end — sudden, shocking, and violent. Just like that, it was over. People shuffled outside the theater and stood around, talking to one another. “Did you see that?” “What just happened?” “Was that real?” We must have stood outside the theater for half an hour, talking among ourselves and with strangers. It was one of the oddest social events I’ve ever been a part of.

For some reason I really got into the buzz surrounding 2007′s Cloverfield. The whole mystery surrounding the monster combined with the “reality” angle really hooked me. When the movie came out, Susan and I went on opening night. Despite all the film’s hype, we were one of only two couples in the entire theater.

Most of Cloverfield was filmed using handheld cameras (“shaky-cam”). It doesn’t bother some people at all. To people who are prone to motion sickness, it can cause headaches or nausea. To the girl sitting two rows behind us in the theater-style seating, it caused her to barf. All over the place. The sound of 44oz ounces of theater soda mixed with five pounds of butter-soaked popcorn splattering on the theater’s concrete floor echoed throughout the theater. The two of them left, leaving only Susan and I inside the theater to contend with the smell of puke slowly oozing down the stairs towards us.

I’ve watched Cloverfield a few times since then at home, but every time I do I can still remember the smell in the theater that night and that god-awful splattering sound.

Zombie love is the best kind of love.

When I was nine-years-old, my friend Andy’s grandpa took the two of us to go see Megaforce. If somehow you missed it, consider yourself lucky; Megaforce currently has a 2.9 rating on IMDB and a 0% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Five or ten minutes into the movie, I had to go to the bathroom. Not wanting to disturb anyone I sneaked out of my seat, made my way to the restroom, did my business, and returned to the theater.

When I returned, I discovered the film had taken a dark turn. Gone were there bright colors and spandex I had seen on television commercials. Instead, everything was dark, no one was smiling, and… hey, isn’t that Han Solo?

When returning from the bathroom, I had entered the wrong theater by mistake. Unable to find my friend or his grandpa, I simply took a seat near the rear of the theater and began watching the movie. When you’re a kid your time tables get all messed up. In my mind it seems like I was in there for half an hour watching the wrong movie, but in reality it couldn’t have been that long.

Eventually my friend’s grandpa, along with an usher with a flashlight, came into the theater showing Blade Runner. I saw them and they saw me and soon I was back in the correct theater, watching rest of Megaforce. For years I thought the reason Megaforce didn’t make any sense was because I had missed a large portion of it. Turns out, watching the entire thing doesn’t make things any clearer.

Not the old one. The new one.

First, a bit of set up here. When I was a kid I saw a television special called “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Monsters… But Were Afraid to Ask!” That show introduced me to a whole world of monsters. It also introduced me to the world of movie special effects. One of the people interviewed in the show was Rick Baker.

A big chunk of that same special was dedicated to stop motion animation. It was there that I first heard the names “Ray Harryhausen” and “Willis O’Brien.” (My friends had their heroes, and I had mine!) I loved the skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts and Harryhausen’s work in Clash of the Titans. And when you work your way back from those you eventually end up at King Kong. Sure, Star Wars was “light years” ahead of it, but how could you not appreciate the original? I even had a poster of King Kong on my wall, a fold out that came from (I think) an old Starlog Magazine.

When I heard King Kong was being re-made back in 2005, I decided to take Mason to go see it in the theater. It was the first movie he ever saw in the theater. He was four-years-old.

First, if it’s been a while since you last saw it (or maybe you never did see it), allow me to mention this — the 2005 version of King Kong is 187 minutes long. That’s over three hours. No four-year-old can go three hours without going to the bathroom.

Fact number two: King Kong does not appear until over an hour into the film. Do you know what it’s like to take a four-year-old to a movie named “King Kong” and have to explain 82 times where King Kong is? “He’ll be here, just wait!” (Tip: Four-year-olds are not good at waiting. Especially in theaters, when they have to pee.)

Oh, and lastly — King Kong, especially in theaters, was terrifying. Mason spent half the movie yelling and half the movie hiding his eyes.

So yeah, chalk that one up as a failure on my part. Around the time Morgan was four-years-old I took her to go see “Racing Stripes” and things went a lot better.

I was two or three months shy of turning four-years-old when my parents took me to see Star Wars for the first time. If I remember correctly they had already seen the movie once and decided to see it a second time, this time with me in tow.

It’s funny the things a kid remembers. My Mom used to have photos of me taken at TG&Y. If you’re old enough you too may remember walking into department stores and being greeted by a photographer all set up, ready to take photos. That morning my Mom tried to get me to put cowboy boots for my photos and I didn’t want to. She said if I would wear them she would take me to a movie afterwards. I’m sure somewhere my Mom still has the picture taken that day, but it’s of me with my arms crossed, not looking very happy, and wearing cowboy boots. Best I can recall, that’s the last time I ever wore cowboy boots.

Then, we went to the movies. I remember the words scrolling by overhead (I was too young to recall whether or not it said “Episode 4″), followed by a big spaceship being chased by a bigger spaceship with laser blasts and explosions all around. I’ve said it before, but that scene alone has cost me thousands of dollars in Star Wars merchandise over the past 30+ years and counting.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I do remember my Dad waking me up for the Cantina scene. After seeing that, I was hooked. The only other scene I remember specifically was people clapping when the Death Star was destroyed.

As most Star Wars afficianados know there weren’t any Star Wars toys available for the Christmas of ’77, but that following year, Santa brought me just about everything Kenner had produced. Here’s a picture of me with just some of the things I received. This was taken Christmas morning, 1978.

Every Star Wars toy shown in this photo is sitting on a shelf just outside my computer room at home.

Leaping from moderately mainstream to moderately obscure, Episode 123 of You Don’t Know Flack is dedicated to the CFFA 3000, a relatively new card that plugs into vintage Apple II computers and allows retro hobbyists to load virtual disk images and convert physical disks to virtual disk images (and back). I also coin the word “floppycentric” in this episode.

Link: YDKF Episode 123: The CFFA 3000
Facebook: You Don’t Know Flack

What on Earth would anyone use an Apple II for?