The Radd's Basement Logo Museum

Now that I've completed my latest redesign, you might be thinking: "Wow, he sure does change this place a lot for a blog that nobody visits." Well my uninformed friend, a little bird (named Google Analytics) told me that more than a few people come here!  I'm currently ranked...  Well, it's higher than you might think, but to give you a frame of reference, it's less than Amazon.  And less than Google, and less than Yahoo.  Less than Microsoft, less than porn sites, less than other blogs...  Hmmm, looks like not a lot of people come here.  So I guess I change it for my own enjoyment ya jerks!

We're coming up on the 2nd anniversary of this blog, and I've changed it a lot in that time.  I thought it would be fun to look at the logos I've designed since things started (now with free bonus theme music!)

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Theme song: Sega Mega CD System - We always played this music at EGM, reminds me of working there.


This is the first logo I designed when the blog started.  I remember I was sitting there with a bloody nose and drainage tubes sticking out of my nostrils from my surgery.  I was bored and had been thinking of re-starting my website for a while.  So I logged into Blogger and got to work.  This logo of course is based on the Electronic Gaming Monthly logo of the 90's using Adobe's AntiqueOlive Nord Italic font.  Simple and easy.

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Theme song: Metal Gear Solid Main Theme - One of the greatest pieces of music of all time, I played this while designing this logo.


No matter how good I think my work is I eventually get tired of it.  I got to work on a new logo, and I had been playing a lot of Metal Gear Solid, so I came up with this one.  If you look hard enough you can find a font that looks like every logo in the world.  I used the most powerful tool in the world, it's called Google.  I typed "Metal Gear Solid font", and had a new logo 30 minutes later.  This logo is based on the special edition of MGS2, called Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance.

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Theme song: The Hampsterdance Song - No comment.


This one...  Will take some explaining. See, sometimes I'm just bat-shit crazy.  This happens a lot around the first of April.  Every April 1st a band of rogue hamsters take over the blog and vandalize it.  I've been unable to prevent this the past two years, maybe it'll be different next year.  Anyway this logo seems to be based on the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater logo, but made by hamsters.  This led to the creation of...

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Theme Song: Snake Eater - The James Bond inspired opening track to Metal Gear Solid 3.


...a proper Metal Gear Solid 3 logo, based on the special edition of Metal Gear Solid 3, Subsistence.

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Theme song: Transformers The Movie Theme - 80's cheese inspired this logo.


One of my favorites, this one took some time to get just right.  Made to look like the cardboard flap on the top of every Transformers toy box.  Made it easy to tell when I was getting Transformers as birthday and Christmas gifts, because you could always feel that flap inside the wrapping paper.

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Theme song: Pac-Man Championship Edition - The thumping backbeat to the speedy sequel to Pac-Man.


And this brings us to the current incarnation, the Pac-Man logo.  One of my favorite games ever, Pac-Man just celebrated his 30th anniversary, and stands the test of time.  So what better way for me to pay tribute than to rip off his font.  For the first time I also used a matching background image for the site.  Around Halloween time the site became haunted by ghosts, and I thought a matching logo would look cool, so I hung on to it.

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There was also a failed Super Mario Bros logo, but I didn't like the way it came out so I never used it and must've deleted it.  Maybe someday I'll bring it back around.  So um, there you go.

Radd's Basement - Wasting your time better than a game of Farmville.

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Funny story...

I got a text message from @duckhead around 10:30 PM last night:

So I call him up. Turns out he was out running, and saw an arcade cabinet in someone's garbage. Not only an arcade cabinet, but it looks like it has six buttons. It couldn't be... Could it? A Street Fighter II machine? In the garbage? It was dark and he just had a chance to do a quick inspection but it looked complete. He wondered if he should maybe grab it and bring it home before someone else comes along. I was in my Jeep and at his house within ten minutes.

We hopped in his pickup truck and drove a mile or so down the road to the house in question.  Sure enough, there's a full size arcade cabinet, with two six button joysticks.  This is too good to be true!  On closer inspection we got a good look at the marquee on top of the machine and saw this:

Yep.  This was a "Street Fighter The Movie" cabinet.  Yes, the horrible game based on the horrible 1994 feature film starring Jean Claude Van-Damme that's so horribly horrible that I act like I've never heard of it when people mention it to me.

Well, an arcade cabinet is an arcade cabinet, and this one was FREE, no matter how terrible the game inside.  So without a second thought we used our years of arcade expertise to quickly disassemble the machine and lift its heaviness into the truck bed.

On returning to his garage, we were astonished to find that the only things missing were the actual game JAMMA (who cares right?) and the monitor.  Everything else, lights, buttons, joysticks, coin mechs, power supply, and the cabinet itself are in fantastic shape. What a find!

He has plans to turn it into a Capcom Multi-CPS machine which will be pretty awesome when it's finished.  Replace the old buttons and joysticks, replace a few rusty bolts and a good dust and polish, and that machine will look brand new.  It won't be as cool as mine of course ;) but it'll be pretty damn sexy.  I'll ask him for some before and after pictures for you to check out.


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Happy Halloween (a real holiday)

Carved this today...  Better late than never.

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Possibly the coolest thing ever...

This was originally sent to me by @grafxguru73 months ago, and I finally got around to checking it out.  So some crazy internet dude with a copy of Flash and a lot of free time made a version of Super Mario Bros. where you can not only go through the game as Mario like normal, but as other popular 8-bit characters like Simon Belmont and Mega Man. It's absolutely ridiculous how fun this is, click below to play it yourself, you'll need Flash installed or enabled, sorry iPhone users...

If you have a gamepad connected to your PC, you can play it with that using JoyToKey to emulate the game's keyboard functions. I did just that, and it made playing it much easier and more fun!

The creator also just released a trailer for the next version of Super Mario Bros. Crossover, featuring a cool new character:


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Star Trek - Retirement

Well, it's been a while since I talked about... well, anything on my blog, but specifically about Star Trek Online.

Since my last STO blog post, a lot has happened. I went on a bunch of missions, fought in a lot of battles against Klingons, Gorn and Orions, and learned a lot more about how the game works and plays. I started to realize that the missions began to feel somewhat repetitive. They'd probably be more fun with other players, but I've been flying solo since @Olaf330 retired citing the same reasons, repetition.

Now this isn't really a bash on the game. It's well thought out and well done, looks beautiful. But the problem is it's new. It's not polished, and there's room for a lot of additions, a lot of new missions, and overall bugfixes/improvements. It almost feels like a beta. I've played many games still in beta over the years, and STO feels unfinished, so I have also retired. But definitely not permanently. My character and status are all safe on Activision/Cryptic Studios or whoever owns the servers. I definitely plan on returning to this game, it's a dream for Star Trek fans, but I'd like to play a more finished version.

I accomplished a major milestone before retiring though, pretty cool. My final battle to reach my new status was long and difficult, and unfortunately cost me my ship. If you don't remember my last post, my ship is pictured above, the U.S.S Solitude. It looks a bit different now:

I was in a battle against a Klingon Negh'Var class flagship and several Klingon Birds of Prey inside of a nebula. If you don't know this nerd talk, a Negh'Var is the most powerful ship the Klingons have. WAY more than a match for poor Solitude. I had to survive for two minutes until a Starfleet Task force could reach me to assist. In the end I survived, but my ship had to limp back home and was in no condition to go on.

Upon my return to Earth Starbase, I was summoned to the Admiral's office. He congratulated me for exposing the Klingon task force hiding in the nebula and was honored to promote me to Lieutenant Commander. YEAHHHHHHH! I OWN! My first new orders were to report to spacedock for new crew and new assignment. WOO! I get a crew to order around! and spacedock? What could possibly be there waiting for me?  I hopped in a shuttle to find out.

What's this? A ship... looks Constitution class. Hmmm, let's check this out...

Definitely a sleek looking Federation Starship, but what does it have to do with me?

AWW YEAHHHH it's just like the end of Star Trek IV where it's the -A version of the... AWWWW MANNNNN!

So yeah, I got a new starship.  The U.S.S. Solitude-A.  It's so bad ass.  Look at how cool I look in the big chair.  Lieutenant Commander BITCHES!

This new bridge is so roomy, lots of room for iPod parties. Let's take this bad boy out for a spin...  ENGAGE!

Wow, I am the coolest guy and this is the coolest ship in the goddamn galaxy.

Oh yeah, and my all girl bridge crew is totally sweet, here's my Vulcan first officer T'Mimo telling me something totally important, but I'm way too busy with my Ryan Seacrest haircut and this Tribble, yo.

Ahem, perhaps I've gotten a little buried in my role.  Anyways, I left the game shortly after, but as you can see, I had a lot of fun.  I'll be back when the game's a little more polished and there's more to do. I'll also have more silly pictures of my exploits to share.  See you... (Shatner pause) out there!

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Geese are dicks

Just returned from another bike ride. I decided to tackle the next section of the trail down Cemetery Rd. here in Channahon. I'd been anxious to try out the bike ever since @olaf330 gave the crappy old thing a new lease on life with his bike repair skills. He wasn't around, so I went alone, which may have turned out to be a mistake.

Things were going great until I ran into a family of geese, complete with goslings... Awww, how cute. I decided I'd take a picture to show the wife. I stopped the bike and readied the iPhone camera. What I didn't realize is that geese are very protective of their young. And by protective, I mean total dicks. They started hissing at me, and raising their wings. I quickly snapped the pic and decided it was time to get my black ass outta there.

Within seconds of snapping the photo above, the goose was airborne and heading toward me. I turned and pedaled, for some reason believing I could outrun a large bird in mid-flight. He passed right overhead, forcing me to duck on my bike, and with the skill of a surgeon, or possibly a ninja, he placed himself directly above and slapped the bejesus out me with his giant wing. It's a sting that lingers even now. I finally escaped the shocking and grizzly attack with only minor injuries.

So what's the lesson here? Well if you see a family of geese in the wild, my advice is to leave them be...

Or they'll murder you.

I&M Trail Channahon: Cemetery Rd. to Gun Club Rd.

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