A Quick Thank You

Yesterday was Thanksgiving for us Americans, and no the irony of the holiday is not lost on me. I figured I would take a moment to thank all of the readers who have put up with my ramblings for over thirteen years now. On the backend of my blog I can see where views come from, and sometimes I'm surprised at where my little island of incoherency is being viewed from. While these are purely statistics, and put no face to the viewers who actually take the time to view the blog, I want to say thank you for reading, whomever you are. I've tried to make sure that my blog is accessible to everyone who wants to read it. If the page doesn't automatically translate I've made sure there has been a translation option on the right-hand side of the page.

I'm not a writer, a fact that is obvious by reading any entry in this blog. I just wanted a small space to express what I find interesting in the world, and to share my hobbies and my (very limited, and sometimes questionable) knowledge. I've done reviews, some might call needless, and I've done some tutorials, some might call those needless as well, but I've always tried to be helpful in some way or another. I can see my blog has been quoted a few times in forums seeking help, and I'm glad that I could be useful. After all, that's really all I've ever tried to be. I don't know who you are, but if my blog has helped you in any way shape or form, I thank you for taking the time to read it.

Sam's Movie Review: Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor

I've mentioned it here a few times that I love Trailer Park Boys. That show came to me at a time in my life where nothing made sense. Even though it was a comedy mockumentary, to see that I wasn't alone in life making absolutely no sense made it make sense. Does that make sense? Apart from Trailer Park Boys I knew there were a few other film projects the cast and crew worked on such as The Cart Boy, One Last Shot, and even Virginia's Run. More recently I watched Vandits, starring Robb Wells, and enjoyed it quite a bit. After that I decided to see what else Mr. Wells had been in, and a movie by the name Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor showed up, so I decided to give it a watch as well.

I have to preface this by saying, while I did enjoy this film, there were so many moments where I was like "This is totally connected to Trailer Park Boys.". Aside from starring Robb Wells, this movie was written, produced, and directed by the lovely Shelley Thompson, aka BARB FRIGGIN LAHEY! Whose scalloped potatoes, I am sure, are not fucked. There were a lot of moments where I could see Ricky coming out of Robb. I totally admit that's wholly on me, because I went into this movie with the mindset of finding the Rickyisms in Robb's other work. For that, I'm truly sorry. Again, I did enjoy this film!

The story focuses around Dawn (formerly Don), who transitioned from male to female, and trying to circumvent the tribulations that brings to one's life. Robb Wells portrays her father, who just lost his wife, and both Dawn and her sister, plus her sister's boyfriend, come back to be with their father to help him through this tough time. While back in town Dawn's family slowly but surely accept her for who she is now, but there are some typical troublemakers in the town whom needlessly cause quite a bit of trouble. While trying to reconnect with her father, Dawn takes an interest in her mother's old tractor. As a way of showing support for his daughter the father helps her restore the tractor. Said troublemakers complicate this by burning down the barn in which the tractor was stored, which only causes an outpouring of support from the community in restoring it one final time, so that it could be used in a communal event.

I'll say it again, I did enjoy this film. It felt like a low budget, tight-knit community film to me, which is in no way a bad thing. The actors who normally do plays at the Blandford Recreation Centre finally got their time to shine. (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) I grew up in very rural America and I understand the small town mentality, so much of that felt very genuine to me. Transitioning isn't something I've personally experienced, but just like Trailer Park Boys helped me feel less alone in my life not making sense, hopefully this film will help those struggling in the same way as Dawn find their own solace.

I'm Bored: Let's Review Taco Bell Sauces

There for a while I was addicted to a hot sauce called Valentina, thanks to my ex fiancée. To fill the void when she left I started trying dollar store hot sauces. Louisiana Hot Sauce was my favorite, with Texas Pete being adequate. I then started to wonder where Taco Bell's sauces would rank. I used to love their Fire Roasted salsa packets so much that I would order Taco Bell for no other reason than to have an excuse to hoard the salsa packets, or just drink them straight. So where does their current line up of sauces rank?

Mild

I've never been a fan of Taco Bell's mild sauce. It's always tasted and looked like dish water to me. There is a slightly sweet smell that doesn't really excite me one way or another. I'll use it, if forced to, but I usually try to avoid it. 

Hot

Hot has the same flavor and texture as mild, but with a little kick to it. The overall experience is pretty much the same as a mild packet, just a tiny bit of heat and some chunks. If you read the ingredients it's just mild with some jalapenos thrown in to add bite.

Fire

Fire is thicker, has some chunks and brings the heat. A nice flavor, a nice texture and a good amount of heat. It has a very olfactory pleasing smoky scent that gets my salivation glands working overtime. 

Diablo

Diablo sauce has a smoky scent to it that immediately excites my taste buds. It's slightly thinner than fire, but still thicker than mild or hot, with a nice smooth texture. As soon as it hits my tongue I detect a sweet, smoky flavor that quickly evolves into heat engulfing my palate. The heat lingers for a while, much longer than with fire.

Breakfast Salsa

Breakfast Salsa was introduced to me when I chose Taco Bell's breakfast burritos on the road to thrift stores, slathered in their breakfast salsa. These packets are slightly taller and contain the nectar of the Gods! It's a bit sweet, thinner than both fire and diablo, but still thicker than hot and mild, and is filled with chunks, as good salsa should be. The heat is somewhere between hot and fire, leaning more toward the hot sauce. The jalapeno chunks add something, but not too much.

Avocado Verde Salsa

These cost money, so it's rare that I will ever use them. I did give them a try and I wasn't very impressed with it. I remember it was thin, but the flavor wasn't bad. It was about what you could expect of something called avocado salsa. Again, since they're charging 20 cents for these I don't get them.

Of all these sauces I prefer Fire, Diablo and Breakfast Salsa. If it's not going onto Taco Bell, directly into my mouth, or onto a Mexican inspired meal, it's usually going on tuna salad. You see, that ex fiancée that I mentioned earlier once made some really good tuna salad, and I've been chasing her recipe ever since. She ghosted me after ten years, so I can't just outright ask her what it was, but I try to replicate it the best I can. I shovel a little bit of my tuna and mayo concoction onto a cracker and then cover it in one of my favorite Taco Bell sauces. For purist results these reviews were written after drinking a packet of each flavor straight. I couldn't give accurate reviews with pesky food sullying the flavors.

Reaching Beyond My Capability

One of my greatest passions in life has been doing small electronics repairs as a hobby. Never in a billion lifetimes did I think I would become the repair person in the family. My brother has asked me to look at a few things, and it's usually a simple repair. Things are slowly progressing in difficulty though, and that's forcing me to learn a little bit more to reach that next level. On the repair list is a Peavey Bandit that my brother picked up super cheap. It turns on, it just doesn't producing any sound. I opened it up and did a board inspection, which didn't yield any results in showing what was wrong with the amp. All of the components looked fine, nothing was scorched or broken. Fuses were ok too.

At the end of the signal was the 12" speaker. I popped off the leads and checked the speaker to see what impendence it was and the multimeter read -- nothing. He's dead, Jim. So I haphazardly  hooked up a small speaker just to see if this amp produced sound, which it did. I reported back to my brother all he needed was a replacement speaker and it's good to go. Well, that's been a few weeks and it's taking up quite a bit of space, so I decided to take it upon myself to see what I could do to move this project along a bit.

The first thing I learned was the Scorpion speakers have removable magnets. Interesting! Once the magnet is removed the voice coil is right there. Let's check some continuity. From the lugs to what should be the start of each side of the coil is fine. Then I found continuity throughout the entirety of the coil. After probing around with my multimeter I found the break in the coil is RIGHT BESIDE where it should connect to the output lug. Solder bridge to the rescue! Except, it's not that easy. Dealing with the speaker was tough, and trying to solder in such a small space was even worse. After some trial and error, mostly error, I finally got a solid 6.2 ohms through the speaker consistently.

I carefully replaced the magnet, snugged it up, placed the speaker back into the Peavey and it worked. For a brief period of time. I checked the speaker and the continuity was yet again broken. I painstakingly ran another solder bridge and got the continuity back and tried one more time. Again, the speaker worked and after about ten minutes decided it was done. I'm not trying it again. If it's done, I'm done dealing with it. I'm not a speaker repair person, I'm just someone who can search on Google and then apply that knowledge to real life. The real MVP here is the ability to remove the magnet that gave me the chance to find the fault and attempt the repair. I've made sure the solder bridge isn't massive and rubbing up against anything, but it shouldn't be so frail it falls apart. I just think this speaker is done and doesn't want to be repaired, so I will abide by its clear wishes. At least I tried.

O Cartridge, Where Art Thou?

Sometimes I'm more shocked by the games that I don't own rather than the ones that I do. I own a few games that are difficult to find, but only because I found them cheap during my thrifting adventures. What I don't own, however, is a North American version of Super Mario Kart. I bought a Super Famicom version a few years ago, and since the menus are super easy to navigate, even for a dolt like myself who can't read Japanese, the cartridge was perfectly serviceable for my needs. I don't own a copy of Super Mario 64 either; I don't even own the DS remake. I don't own a copy of A Link to the Past, Super Metroid or even Kirby's Adventure. All ubiquitous games, I've just never found them in the wild.

To say I've never found them would be inaccurate, but what I consider to be in the wild is in a thrift store, flea market or at the outlet store. All these games are readily available at almost any media resale store around me, but I always held out hope I would find them for cheaper in the wild, where prices used to be less regulated by greed. I remember thrift stores having stacks of common games that I had tons of, for exceedingly cheap prices too, but most of the time they had already been picked through and the good games were gone. What was left were things I would pick up for trades or to fill out my collection.

Perhaps I'm frugal to a fault, but I feel I don't need something unless I'm comfortable with the price. As time moves on prices are shooting up, and that's really exacerbating things. I'm not looking to have a complete collection, or to own all the rare games on any given console. I just want to own the staples of each console, that way I can enjoy them like most people my age did when they were kids. As if it's a Friday night and I just rented this game, or came back from Toys R Us with a new game for getting good grades and I was going to use it to numb my mind for the weekend.

Sure, I can emulate all of the games in question, and I certainly have throughout the years. I still retain there is something to be said about genuinely having the cartridge, or in the case of the Playstation the disc, and playing it on the original hardware. I found a PSOne console a few weeks back that I have no clue where it came from. It's not on my spreadsheet of consoles, but it was hidden inside a bag of my stuff. I decided to spend the day fully testing it, and let me tell you being 41 never felt so much like 16 this entire year. It was an absolute blast! So again, I could easily replicate the gameplay with an emulator, but for me personally nothing beats the original hardware, software and controller. I just need to find the staple games of the consoles I love and live that reality.

My Adventures in Illusion of Gaia

Taking inspiration from having finished Breath of Fire, I decided it was time to finish this one off too. There are RPGs that hold your hand, and there are RPGs that don't care what kind of mess you get yourself into with no hope of rectifying the situation. Illusion of Gaia falls at the tail end of the former and leans over into the latter. You see, you don't earn stats the normal way by grinding and leveling up, you earn stats by clearing out rooms. The final enemy of each room gives you an upgrade of strength, health or defense. There is no magic really to speak of, rather you transform into stronger characters.

While Illusion of Gaia is kind of an entry level RPG to ease people into the genre, I felt I had a pretty good grasp on finishing the game. Everything was hunky-dory until I hit that final home stretch. An often overused trope is to force the player to defeat every single boss they've already defeated, just to pad out the game's play time due to developer laziness. While Illusion of Gaia was very generous with save points, which double as healing stations, in the last few parts of the game, I figured I was perfectly fine and this was going to be a piece of cake with ice cream and chocolate pudding on top. The sad reality was the game was luring me into a sense of false superiority and plotting my downfall with each step I took.

In any normal RPG you would carry a stock of healing items, or at the very least healing spells, again of which there are none in this game, to supplement any damage you take after a battle. With Illusion of Gaia I was lured into a false sense of security with as often as I could just pop into a save point, heal and save my progress. Herbs are available to take with you, but that is if you can be bothered to find them as they're hidden in chests, rather than sold by vendors. I felt there was really no need, instead I chose to keep my inventory open for the items I felt I would need along the journey, rather than needlessly hunt down herbs to heal what the save points would already do.

Illusion of Gaia also has a life system, which is kind of useful, but not really to me. Most enemies will drop an orb, each orb gives different points towards an extra life. You can have a maximum of 9 lives and 100 points from collecting those orbs earns an extra life. If you should die in battle one life is spent and you're allowed to restart from the entry of the room where you died. I've used a few lives along my journey, mostly due to my lack of patience. When it comes to bosses though, your life is spent, your health isn't completely replenished and you're forced to start the fight all over again. Meaning you're worse off than you would be just restarting from your previous save, no matter how far back the previous save was.

Some might say that Illusion of Gaia's traps are my fault, and I would say maybe you're right. However, when an item has been useless 90% of the time you've played a game, and you forget it's even a thing because it has been so useless, but when you finally need it the game doesn't allow you to leave the tower to go back and find it, well the item is still useless and this game is just a trap. I did beat this game, but it was a long, hard road. I don't hate this game, that hatred is reserved for Lagoon! Fuck that game! Illusion of Gaia was a nice, charming little introductory RPG that I did enjoy most of my time playing through. I'm glad I finally got through it. I might even play through it again, but just to unlock the final red jewel mansion.

"I want to burn you into my memory."

Autumnal Shift

Autumn is upon us and pedal building season 2024 has come to a close. Against all odds, and desires, this year I built one more circuit than I did in 2023, which I swear I did not plan on doing. I still have kits I put together that will now have to wait to be built in 2025. Beyond these kits I've only found a few things that have inspired me, but I swear it won't be 46 (or more) circuits in 2025! I don't plan on quitting, I just feel the need to move on to other projects for 2025.

As the days turn colder, the nights grow longer, the urge to play RPGs grows stronger. With having beaten a 20+ year old save on Breath of Fire I'm started to wonder what I should tackle next. There is an entry coming up that explains what RPG I beat after Breath of Fire, so I won't spoil that here. I own an SNES multicart that has both Actraisers, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Terranigma, Link to the Past and a few other RPGs on it I'd love to get stuck into. Although I have saves for both Chrono Trigger and Earthbound from at least 2017, and a more recent one for Dragon Quest 5 on my Wii. Maybe I should take care of those first. Who knows, we'll see!

I Finally Beat Breath of Fire (After 20 Years!)

 In late summer of 2001 I was gifted my first Super Nintendo console and some games. In either 2002 or 2003 I purchased a copy of Breath of Fire and went straight to work on getting to the game's end. After many hours had been invested something else took my interest and Breath of Fire was packed away. I truly can't remember what it was, but whatever it was took me away from Breath of Fire so long that I totally forgot where I was and what I had left to do. If you're a fan of old RPGs you'll know, unless it's your favorite RPG that you've played through a few times already, picking up where you left off in an old RPG is damn near impossible. Throughout the years I attempted to figure out where I was, but I kept drawing a blank, getting frustrated and just packing the game away again. Not this time!

I knew I was on a tower with two elevators, so I went to GameFAQs and searched the most suggested walkthrough to see if it could steer me in the right direction. Thankfully it did! Now I finally knew where I was, after twenty years! I was literally an hour or less away from completing the game for over twenty years and never stuck it out long enough to get to the end. What a shame. My tendency to grind levels helped out quite a bit here as I found it fairly easy to get through the bosses I had left. I needed to backtrack through and pick up some equipment and learn some dragon skills, but all in all it wasn't a big struggle, especially the end bosses. #Spoiler: Once I got the agni ability they were actually really easy. Just keep a pocket full of cures and you're golden.

Yes, it's a photo of my TV screen. What?

The main reason why I wanted to beat Breath of Fire was to finally close the book, and have experienced this game completely after all these years. The second is because my 68 in 1 SNES Multicart has both Breath of Fire and Breath of Fire 2, so I have access to a (semi legit) copy of Breath of Fire 2 to play on real hardware. No save state safety net for me! Although I will be using a walkthrough if I get stuck and frustrated. Just being honest. With all the fun I had finishing the game I really hate to just pack it away and only think of it who knows when. I do think of the cartridge now in much the same way as I do my Playstation memory cards; windows to a bygone era when I had a lot more fun in life. Back when I was playing Gran Turismo 1 and 2 on the PS3 I pulled out my PSOne and took a stroll down memory [card] lane to see what my old garages looked like. It was a good time! Now I leave you with a typo I found in Breath of Fire. Yes, it's also a photo of my TV screen.

Modern(ish) Retro Gaming: Playing PS1 on PS3

The original Playstation was one of my favorite gaming eras. When I was a teenager I bought a Playstation with my summer job money, only to quit that job, because I was a dumb teenager, to spend more time playing my Playstation. Remember kids, don't bite the hand that feeds you, nor quit the job that buys you video games! I spent countless hours playing games such as Driver, Grand Theft Auto, Auto Destruct, FF7, Breath of Fire III, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil, the list goes on and on. Don't even get me started on demo discs, as they sometimes harbored a gem that turned out to be better than the finished product. Sure the graphics, by today's standards, are quite janky, but back then things looked amazing. I do miss the era of jagged polygons.

For the past few months I've had the urge to play Gran Turismo and Resident Evil again, but I didn't want to set up my original Playstation to do so. It's shouldn't be a mystery at this point that any PS3 can play PS1 games, so the quickest and easiest way was to just use my PS3. At first I was really annoyed by the dithering that ruined the field of view, but I found out that can be turned off. The issue then became the need to turn it off every single time I boot up a PS1 game on the PS3. The other problem is it doesn't seem to allow Gran Turismo to choose whether the control settings should be digital or analog, which I also need to change every time I boot that game. Except for some reason I need to change it for every single race too. Still, I'm actually having a ton of fun! Well, once I beat all the dreadfully shit license tests on Gran Turismo I was having a ton of fun.

With all of my PS1 games currently just sitting there, I think this newfound interest in using my PS3 to play them may give life to a lot of them that I've been wanting to play through. Crime Killers and Wild 9 are two that I've been wanting to play for a while, I've just put it off because I wasn't sure how well the PS3 would emulate the PS1. There are some RPGs I've wanted to get back into such as Eternal Eyes and Battle Hunters, or I might try out RPG Maker and create my own. Maybe even play some Hot Wheels Extreme Racing. It's not a perfect solution, but I think my PS1 consoles can take a rest and let the PS3 do the heavy lifting for a while.

Over 100 Builds and Still Going

If we could get in a time machine and go back in time, first I would like to stop somewhere in 2009 and tell myself to do things just a bit differently. After that we would reach our destination of 2020 and I would ask myself if I thought I would have built over 100 circuits. I believe the answer would be "No! Why? Do I? Really? Wow.", or something along those lines. Earlier this year I was just shy of 100 builds and I added a few small projects to boost (get it? because most of them were treble boosters) those numbers to bring me to 100 builds in total. The ideas kept coming though, and I've surpassed that to currently be on 121 builds in total.

If you're an avid reader you'll also know I swore I wasn't going to build 45 circuits like I did last year. I'm wrong. Admitting when you're wrong costs you nothing. I'm currently at 41 total builds for 2024, and I still have six kits to build, four partially put together kits that I need to order parts for, and an additional five planned circuits that also need me to order parts. If I accomplish building all of those that will bring 2024 to a total of fifty-six builds. When does this go from a hobby to a career? You tell me. I've had offers to support this going full-time, but I just don't want the stress of it becoming a business to ruin the fun of it being a hobby.

My ultimate goals are as follows: to build lots of pedals for myself and have a tool for nearly any eventuality that may arise while writing and recording my own music. I also want to build some one-off pedals for friends as a keepsake. I realize I'm not going to live forever, so I want all of my pedals to become a legacy. Will "Firebeard FX" ever become a brand? Doubtful, but at the very least it's a moniker to give my circuits a life after I'm gone. Something that ties them together, rather than just being some insane amount of random DIY pedals out there floating around. Maybe, just maybe tomorrow's guitar God will get ahold of one of my pedals, say in the year 2112. Maybe there will still be rig rundown videos online, during which they will explain how my pedal helped shape their whole outlook on playing and tone. It's a big dream, but not impossible.

I don't know if, or when this hobby will ever see an end, apart from my own eventual end. I honestly daydream of sitting at my workspace on a small balcony off the side of my little home somewhere in Mexico, building pedals to trade to the local music store. Maybe then I could finally afford the Gibson Les Paul of my dreams. Maybe then it would become a business. A lot of maybes become involved. One thing is for sure, we never know what the future holds. No plans to turn pro, no plans on giving up. We'll just have to see where this crazy ride ends up taking us.