Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 28th, 2015 in MainThis post is for a subset of a subset of my audience; as such, I’ll keep it brief. I’m currently recording five different podcasts: You Don’t Know Flack (my retro-tech/story podcast), Sprite Castle (my Commodore 64-themed podcast), No Quarter (an arcade-themed podcast), Throwback Reviews (an 80s movie podcast), and Rusted Metal (an 80s heavy metal podcast). Links to each one of these shows can be found on the left hand side of this website (under the heading “My Podcasts”). IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO ALL FIVE PODCASTS, I have created a new “consolidated” RSS feed. The feeds from… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 24th, 2015 in MainAs I recently mentioned, on the on the day of the Alfred P. Murrah bombing I had already turned in my two weeks notice at Best Buy. The bombing took place on April 19, 1995 (a Wednesday), and I started the Monday after that at the FAA. The Monday after the bombing would have been April 24th, which means… Today is my 20th anniversary with the FAA. Back in February I wrote about my first day of work at the FAA. As I mentioned in that post, my first job with the FAA was on a national Help Desk. The… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 19th, 2015 in MainThe week of April 19, 1995 was my last week at Best Buy. I had turned in my two weeks notice the week prior, and was set to start my new job at the FAA the following week. I mostly worked evenings at Best Buy, so it was not uncommon for me to still be in bed at 9am. Susan and I were living in a mobile home off of NW 10th and Morgan Road — 10 miles from the Alfred P. Murrah building. I was laying in bed when I heard my bedroom windows begin to rattle. It felt… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 19th, 2015 in MainI think I get choked up more easily than I used to. I definitely get choked up more often than I used to. One thing that consistently chokes me up is seeing people die. President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 (10 years before I was born).Last month I had this book called Four Days as a kid that documented those four days in November (from Kennedy’s assassination to his burial). One page had several stills from the famous Zapruder film, including the horrific frame 313 that shows Kennedy’s head literally exploding. In frame 312, his head is in one piece.… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 16th, 2015 in MainIn last night’s game against the Timberwolves, the Oklahoma City Thunder looked as good as they’ve looked in quite some time. Enes Kanter dominated in second-chance attempts, Dion Waiters went 5-8 on three pointers, and Russell Westbrook went on a tear and scored 37 (23 of which were in the first quarter). Kanter, Waiters and Westbrook combined for 95 points, and together the team scored a whopping 138 points. It wasn’t enough. I mean, of course it was enough to publicly pummel the wounded Wolves by a margin of 25 points (it’s not every day you beat an opponent who… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 15th, 2015 in Console Video Games, IBM PC, MainThis week’s release of the latest Mortal Kombat game (MK X) caused me to reflect on my own memories of the Mortal Kombat franchise. I don’t actually remember the first time I saw Mortal Kombat in an arcade, which is a terrible way to start an article about my memories of Mortal Kombat. I do however remember the launch of Mortal Kombat on home video game systems, which took place in September of 1993. I didn’t own any modern consoles at the time (I was a PC guy and a retro console gamer), but I remember seeing magazine ads and… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 10th, 2015 in MainA couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Mike and Carrington, hosts of the No Quarter Podcast. After 125 episodes Carrington was stepping down from the show and Mike was looking for a new co-host. Based on my podcasting experience and arcade knowledge the guys thought I would be a good fit for the show. Mike, Carrington and I spent a week standing up a new website and getting the new feed added to iTunes and Stitcher. The weekend before last Mike and I recorded our first episode together and then had to wait a week for all the… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 5th, 2015 in MainIn the spring of 1995, my sister and her boyfriend were engaged, set to be married on August 19th of that same year. Their wedding plans fell through, but Susan and I had been living together for a couple of years by then and since all of our family in Chicago had already made plans to come to Oklahoma on August 19th we decided to get married on that same date. All of this happened before I officially proposed. When I was a kid, my parents would hide our Easter eggs the night before Easter after my sister and I… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 3rd, 2015 in MainI’ve written about Photon (the original Arena Laser Tag game) on my blog multiple times. I talked about the culture of Photon, my excitement when I learned that a new Photon center was opening just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma and all about Jeff and my visit there. I also recorded a podcast episode of You Don’t Know Flack where I talked about Photon. One thing I’ve never talked about were the paperback series of Photon books. Despite being a huge fan of Photon, until I visited Jim Strother’s Photon arena in Tulsa I had no idea there even were Photon… (read more)
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