Thanks very much, I appreciate that. 
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Iāve been away too long, but this was a fun thread to catch up on.
@peter The bed looks like itās turned out wonderfully, your kid must be psyched! I remember my dad building me some things growing up and it always made me feel so special and important.
@BMO That PC looks awesome, I love Fractalās case designs and the one you chose is a beauty!
@Ureshi I know nothing about cars except how to drive them, very impressed that youāre fixing one up!
@JoeyPajamas Congratulations on your book deal, thatās amazing! Writing is a painstaking process for me, itās inspiring to hear your progress!
@8BitHero Dreamcast is my favorite console, I love seeing how people make it their own! I have one in the closet with video issues I keep meaning to refurbish one of these days.
@8BitHero @JoeyPajamas Lovely artwork!
Some stuff I wanted to shareā¦
I finished another month of drawing with pen and ink on paper every day of October. You can see all 31 drawings here. This oneās my personal favorite of the month:
Iāve made a bunch of updates to my personal site, including a new home page and project listing, and Iāve been blogging there more often. Of potential interest is a post about my favorite games of all time, featuring some pseudo-3D game boxes Iām proud of.
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Like those pseudo-3D game boxes! (And some great choices for those favorite games too.)
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Thanks Tyler! Your artwork is amazing! Welcome back!
Iām having a lot of fun with my Dreamcast project. I won $75 worth of Amazon gift cards from work for participating in Walk-tober. I used those for a Dreamcast GDEMU which will probably take a month to show up but thatās ok.
This morning I researched a HDMI box for the Dreamcast:
Seems like a cheaper and easier alternative than a HDMI output mod (required complicated soldering and removal of tiny components). I like to avoid intricate soldering or reduce it. The battery mod requires soldering but I can easily do that. Itās just removing legs of the old battery holder, swapping it out for another holder, then adding a replaceable and rechargeable battery for the BIOS.
I never owned a Dreamcast but my friends did and I always thought it was cool. My friend also had a Saturn which we played a lot. I have a soft spot for consoles that did not perform well but have some niche or otherwise good games.
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If you can find one, get a light gun so you can play House of the Dead. The endless hours my brother and I used to play that! Ah, memories.
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A lightgun for House of the Dead, a fishing rod for Sega Bass Fishing, and maraca controllers for Samba de Amigoā¦
Oh, and most importantly, a keyboard for Typing of the Dead. =P These have all long been āpie in the skyā gaming dreams for me, lol.
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I have a decent GD-ROM collection from childhood (teen-hood?), but I always tell others to go with an ODE if repairing the disc drive is any more complicated than re-lubricating it.
Perhaps Iām a hypocrite, though, as Iāve yet to use one myself! Iāve lucked out with my disc drives and none of my GD-ROMs have disc rot yet. 
I did the same thing. Iām using a Kaico adapter and it works fine. I also have an mClassic I route it through sometimes, I know that makes a lot of hardcore retro gamers throw up but I think it does a great job.
I successfully completed this mod earlier in the year. It was easier than I thought it would be, but I still went slow just to be safe.
Iāve never had a light gun (and I donāt have a CRT it would work on anyway) or the maracas, but I do have a fishing rod and the Seaman microphone. I used to have the keyboard, but I never had a copy of Typing of the Dead so I sold it.
For years Iāve toyed with picking up the Saturn Virtual-On twin sticks and an adapter (since the Dreamcast iteration is usually a lot more expensive), but then I remember I should probably at least try playing that game with the Brook Wingman SD converter first (the game has a joystick+face-buttons mode that coincidentally maps to the PS dual shock analog sticks in the intended way).
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Mate, you have my full respect! As much as I love old consoles I donāt have the knowledge or patience to get them running with modern TVs, especially when they start giving up the ghost. I tried for a while, but just could me we get it to where I was happy.
This is where emulation comes in for me. I know some purists are against it, and I guess thatās fair enough, but it lets me enjoy those games I loved/ missed with a minimum of fuss. Also, it doesnāt cost a fortune. 
Having said that though, I dream of having a little SEGA shrine with each of their consoles on display. They wouldnāt even have to work, just be in good nick. Iād set it up with blue LEDs and everything. Iāve both version of the MD, a GG and a DC, so only a few to go. Maybe one day (sigh 
)
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Hi folks; was wondering if you could ask you all for some advice? With this book coming, Iād like to have my online portfolio site up to snuff. While Iāve built other sites - mostly though WordPress - before, Iām not what Iād consider anymore than ācobble togetherā skill level.
I was wondering if folks could take a look at the site and let me know what it might need to look a bit more professional?
Thanks in advance.
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I like it a lot. My only critique would be either commit to gray scale or commit to color. The first half of the page I was thinking, oh cool its gray scale. Then I saw further down some color. I would prefer color but also appreciate gray scale. But I feel it should be one or the other. Maybe a dark mode page with white font? Iām just brainstorming.
What would you prefer? Is it too time consuming to go color or gray scale only?
I like the bio section a lot. Nice work and accomplishments!
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I got one of the Dreamcast disc drives to work! I found a good reddit post that had an approximate resistance for the laser.
Hooked up my multimeter and adjusted the potentiometer until I was in the range.
The other disc drive is being finicky with readings. Its a slightly different model so Iāll keep researching.
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I was gonna go greyscale only bit found it hard to make anything stand out. I use colour to get around this, which is why only āimportantā stuff is on colour. Iām not sure if there is a way to have post header images appear grey scale (apart from manually changing them before upload) but Iāll look into it.
Thanks for the comments 
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Iām considering getting a 1TB external SSD for my Rpi retro machine. Currently Iām running games off a 64GB, outdated thumb drive. Saving and loading is pretty slow.
I have some 500GB HDDs laying around I could useā¦that would be the frugal thing to do.
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Glad the battery mod was easy! Also Iām happy for your functioning DC and nice disc collection! Itās an awesome console.
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Coloring book update. I editted and played around with some photos of my art. Some are pretty rough. I just wanted to get an idea of how it could look but I need better high res pics and for some reason a lot of them look washed out on my computer.
What are your thoughts? Iāll accept all critiques. Genres are surreal and abstract.
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These are rad, I love them.
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Thank you BMO! Theyāre coming out well, so far so good!
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Iāve not been able to sneak this in to work to take a proper scan of it, so hereās a somewhat dodgy photo I took on my phone. Iām mostly happy with it, although I feel the face in the bottom right could have been better. Itās ink wash and pen.
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Oh wow awesome! It came out great!!
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