Posted via email from Sean Sullivan

For those of you unfamiliar with the title, it was released back in the 90’s as what is now toted the predecessor to physics puzzle games.  I’m anxious to get my hands on it and start building some Rube Goldberg goodness.

Considered by some to be the grandfather of the Physics & Puzzle game genres, The Incredible Machine pitted players against a series of Rube Goldberg style devices which were composed from a wide range of objects such as ropes & pulleys, bowling balls, and even cats and mice.

The Incredible Machine was the winner of several prizes due to its innovative style and simulation abilities. A spin-off of the series, Sid & Al’s Incredible Toons earned Jeff Tunnell and Chris Cole a patent for their game design concepts.

The series is available for sale at the time of this release and can be found online at: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_incredible_machine_mega_pack

When we went to the shelter to meet Zelda, we took Oscar. Now, if you’ve ever thought about setting foot in a shelter with any intention of getting a dog, let me tell, once you see their eyes looking up at your from their pens, it is next to impossible to leave without bringing them with you. Zelda’s handler brought her out into a fenced area for all of us to get to know each other and we decided we needed to take her home with us.

Adopting Zelda has been a great addition to our household thus far and we really love the way she greets us when we come home from work (if you haven’t been exposed to hounds, they love to howl.) If you’ve ever thought about adopting a dog, I highly recommend the experience. Giving a home to a lonely dog is right there at the top of my list of greatest feelings I have experienced!

Upon making a stop at the local home improvement store, we found out that you can’t just buy a kit to throw one of these into a cabinet. And besides, why would you want to? Most projects like this in kit form are of cheap construction and the hardware is usually a joke. In addition, I figured by choosing the right wood and finish, I would be able to get it to match the look and feel of our cabinets. So, I decided to do the DIY thing and buy the materials and bust out the tools to do this thing right. Also, with Rob’s help and Alex’s plans for inspiration, I had built a new workbench in the garage a couple weeks ago, so this was a perfect opportunity to put it to use.

As far as materials, I was able to get away with doing this project for pretty cheap. The two main materials were a sheet of Birch plywood and the track and roller hardware (capable of holding up to 100lbs of weight.) After adding a few pine boards to the cart and checking out, it was time to get to work.

Probably the hardest aspect of this project was the fact that I would be building it inside of the cabinet. It was definitely a little tricky getting the exact measurements for all my cuts. I ended up redoing a couple of my cuts to ensure that the final product would come out flush. Also, the inside of the cabinet was wider than the opening, so I had to cut a few pieces of pine to push in the tracks so they would clear the opening and doors.

After getting the front piece of the trim cut to sit on the shelf as both a ledge and an underneath handle, I cut a few side rails. When I was done finishing all the wood with a light coat of finish, I glued and screwed it all together. Getting it installed the cabinet was a little tricky and required some precision with the level and tape measure.

Overall, I’m really happy with the way it all turned out. I think this will be a great addition to our kitchen cabinet configuration and I definitely recommend this as a great project for anybody looking for this kind of utility out of a deep cabinet that is otherwise hard to use.

On that note, I was resistant to the iPhone keyboard as a method to accomplish a lot of typing originally but I find myself getting increasingly faster.

I haven’t really found too many applications I couldn’t live without so I would be curious to hear what peoples favorite apps are. The games all appear to be one trick ponies.

The Show is standing at the top of the heap as the best baseball franchise running right now. In fact, I picked it up this year because I was so stunned by the attention to detail. The detail of each player’s stance and style was so amazing. The models of each and every ball park were so amazing. However, like we see with most sports games, since the game mechanic doesn’t really change from year to year, sometimes the developers have to get a little gimmicky to make us feel compelled to buy into their “subscription model,” (as Jeff Tunnell refers to it.)

For this year’s version of The Show, one of the major add-ons, improvements, enhancements, features is the ability to record your own heckling! Yes, that’s right! Now you can do all the trash talking you want into your PS3’s headset. By recording your trash talking to the system’s memory, it can played back for your buddy when he’s sitting next to your on your couch and his player steps up to bat. While the crowd environment aspect is a logical part of baseball to add some enhancements to, this seems like a lame way to “improve” the game.

MLB 09 is about to bring out the crazed fan in all of us as not only can you record your voice screaming anything from “Where’s Madonna?” to “we want a pitcher not a belly itcher” and put it in the game thanks to peripherals like the Rock Band mic and wireless headset, the fan yells will sound like your voice actually coming from the stands.

I’ve also read that Sony is focusing on enhancements to online league participation and management. Here’s what I wish, before adding in all these wonderful improvements, of which I’m sure a certain percentage of the customer base will take advantage, I wish they would first spend their development resources on making the online aspect of their baseball game work. Note, this year’s past version of the game was virtually unplayable due to latency issues. Just another case of priorities in the wrong place? Well, at least we can drop our $60 to pick up a copy of MLB: The Show — Heckler’s Edition.

Was challenged by my mother-in-law to Wii Bowling, and lost. Yes, she’s actually that good! (And I’m not all that great.) I did end up breaking 200 in one game, which was a new personal best. But alas, when it was all said and done I couldn’t stand up to her turkeys. (What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than hitting a turkey in bowling!)

Braved the crowds on Black Friday. Nothing like going out at seven in the morning to see all of the die-hards at Best Buy trying to find a deal. I was amazed by how many people were out shopping. I quickly thought to myself that I didn’t want to hear about the economy being poor after seeing all of the HDTV’s and laptops leaving the store in shopping carts. Although there were some decent deals, none were amazing. Although, I did end up picking up a copy of Burnout Paradise for $20.

Hung Christmas lights. In growing up, it seemed that we always put up our Christmas decorations the weekend following Thanksgiving. This is our first year in our new home, so we decided that we definitely had to do something. After a viewing of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, I was awfully tempted to go all out and cover the house. But, upon buying some lights and coming to the realization of how time consuming this project could get, I decided to just go along the roof line in the front of the house. It was my first time on the roof of our house, it is a little higher than I realized…

Made reubens. First off, my wife planned and cooked an amazing meal for Thanksgiving. Once we had hit the leftovers pretty hard, we mixed things up one afternoon and made reubens for her family. They are by far my favorite sandwich in the world. I love to load ‘em up with tons of kraut and corned beef, which in turn makes them incredibly hard to flip. They were good.

Watched Oregon destroy Oregon State in the Civil War. Final score was 65-38. Enough said. I don’t know if I have ever seen such an offensive shootout. It was a lot of fun to watch.

I think he missed him. Oh well, maybe next time.

Of the two sauces available, the first I attempted was nothing special, however the second I had a go at (the spicier of the two) was fantastic. It had just the right amount of kick for my taste buds to do a little dancing. The meat was very tender and totally enjoyable.

Read the rest here.

Irontically, I feel that they should be paying me for keeping one more computer off the streets with Vista that filthy, other OS installed.