buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

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Wow.

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Amazing. I am so thoroughly impressed with WordPress right now, I’m at a loss for words to adequately praise it. I just imported nine months of Blogger posts without a hitch. Setting up WordPress has been simple thus far. Now that I’ve got my posts imported, I’m gonna make sure everything looks okay before I move on. We’ll move on from there.

Update 1: Man, it just keeps getting better. Using Bloglines export feature (export to OPML file) I have now imported all my links from Bloglines. I still need to organize them and there doesn’t seem to be an immediately easy way to use Bloglines to update my links, but I’m sure someone out there has solved that problem, too. This is good stuff!

Update 2: Well, the links are organized. Next it categorizing all my old posts. I may put that off until later. Perhaps I’ll try a plug-in or two.

Update 3 (2/24): The process of converting my old Blogger posts continues tonight, I will make sure all of them are all categorized and edited for grammatical errors. Then it’s on to themes and plugins!

Update 3 (2/26): Posts have all be categorized and I’ve been looking at various plugins and themes. This is seriously great stuff, I can’t believe how seamless and easy it’s all been. Kudos to the guys and WordPress.

New blogging software?

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I’ve been thinking about the managment side of my blog recently. I have been mostly happy with Blogger.com. I’ve been a member for a long time, and I really haven’t had a problem with it, but I think I’m ready to move on to new blogging software. Something with a little more flexibility and new challenges. I’ve been looking at WordPress, Moveable Type, and others. Right now I’m leaning toward WordPress. Most of the bloggers I read use it, it’s FREE (definitely the biggest bonus), and it seems well supported.

What advice to you, my fellow bloggers, recommend? Are you satisfied with your current software? Am I biting off more than I can chew? I am technically competent but I’ve never dealt with anything on the web-server side of things, outside of ftp’ing images and other files. I have programming skills, but I don’t have skillz.

Anyway, look for some possible changes in the next couple of days here. If nothing else, I’m gonna mash some buttons and we’ll see what we end up with. Thanks for any help/advice you can offer.

Back in business!

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Our friendly Time Warner tech came over this afternoon to reconnect us to the virtual world of broadband and cable TV, just in time for Monk. Whatta guy! It’s been strange being disconnected from the internet at home. I still my work access, so I was able to follow my blogroll on Bloglines (I have a convert in Jeff Freeman, my first convert. I’m working on more) but being detached from ButtonMashing was good.

It was good because the move has been a big change for the family and I was able to attend to more important things, like hooking up the washer and dryer, and not have to worry if I’ll miss a big gaming story. I love doing the blogging thing and I love doing the gaming thing, but this past week had presented me with some more valuable ways to spend my time, so I’ve been enjoying my time away.

But I did miss it, all the same, and it feels good to be back. I’ve still got non-gaming things to take up my time (like making mortgage payments) but I can also have some gaming time, too. All in moderation. So the Button Masher has made a return to the video game blogging world, and he’s all the better for it.

Moving shop

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Well, after I hit “Publish Post” on this quick post, I will be packing up all things gaming and computing into boxes. Tomorrow, I will be loading them into a Budget Rental Moving Truck and moving my family about 2 miles down the road to our new home. I will be incommunicado until at least Friday, when Time Warner comes by to jack me back into the net. Until then, I am looking forward to the evenings disconnected from the world of blogging and reconnected with what matters most, video games. (Okay, okay, family matters most, video games second most).

The time down will give me a chance to actually play games instead of blabbering about them here. If you miss me, there’s plenty of other good stuff going on in the gaming blogosphere, I’m sure you’ll make do.

Until then, good gaming.

What prevents me from playing video games.

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(What follows is a little more detail to my “Gaming Pedigree” that I wrote when I first started this page. It needs updating, but you’ll get my drift)

I played video games, pretty much non-stop, from when I was eight or nine until I was nineteen. The first video game I remember playing was Space Invaders and the last was Doom. I then took a three and a half year hiatus from pretty much all video games. I lived in Spain as a Mormon Missionary for two years with next-to-no access to a PC or console and then I worked as an apprentice mason for a year and a half when I returned. I did buy an N64 when it was released in 1996 but I didn’t play it much for two reasons. One: there was this cute girl (okay, she was a total betty) I was courting and I couldn’t be bothered by video games when I could be with her. I married her so I could be with her a lot more often. Two: As I mentioned before, I was an apprentice mason.

What does that have to do with anything? There are many construction trades out there, and it’s all hard, back-breaking work, but besides roofing and concrete finishing, masonry is one of the most labor intensive jobs out there. If you work for a company like Roof Top Services of Central Florida, Inc, I retract my statement, the Florida sun will make it really intense too. I would work 50-60 hour weeks and I would come home everyday tired. Down-right beat. I would hang out with my friends for a bit when we had the chance but I had next to no energy to play video games. So for almost two years I didn’t Mash very many Buttons. After I was married, I came to my senses and released I didn’t want to break my back for the next thirty years so I decided to go back to college. Don’t get me wrong, I loved working with my hands and I respect those who make a living (a very GOOD living, at that) doing manual labor. They are the people that make this world go round. But it wasn’t for me. So we moved to Columbus so I could attend the College of Engineering at THE Ohio State University and suddenly I had all kinds of time to play video games. So I broke out the N64, upgraded the computer, and have been gaming ever since. My wife has been mostly supportive (she prefers console games, since she can at least have her turn at Animal Crossing or Mario Party, etc). Many Buttons have been Mashed since.

What does that have to do with anything? Well, the past few days have thrust me back into the world of manual labor as we prepare to move out of our condo into our new house. We’ve been packing and cleaning here, painting and cleaning at the new house, and just running around like crazy people, thinking on the next time we better get a maid service to do it, we just have to book now. In other words, I’ve been too tired lately to play many video games. It’s a shame, but family always comes first, and moving them into the new house is my current project.

So this was basically a big post to reminesce and say blogging activities will probably become scarce as I’ll be packing up the PC soon (probably Thursday night) and move things to the new house. Hopefully Time Warner will seamlessly move our broadband connection over there and we can be up and running by Sunday night, but I’m not holding my breath. Either way, I hope to be back in business soon. In the meantime, I hope you get some gaming in, because it’s not happening here. I’m too tired.

I’m going to bed now. Good night.

ButtonMashing.com is evolving

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There have been some minor cosmetic and content changes being made here at Button Mashing. The first change I made was the removal of my Blogroll. There’s nothing terribly wrong with the service, I just felt I had more control over my links by coding them myself. I know Bloglines has a similar service but I haven’t tried that out yet. I’ve also added a third category of blogs I’m linking to, video game blogs I’ve recently discovered. There’s also a link for non-gaming blogs, which will range from tech/gizmo/gadget blogs to blogs of friends, etc.

In addition to my weekly review of the world of gaming blogs, I’m also going to highlight some of the new gaming blogs I come across. Hopefully this will be a way to make more people aware of new/up-and-coming gaming blogs. Hopefully they will garner some new readers (and vice-versa) with all that huge traffic I’ll generate for them (uh huh, right).

This site is primarily dedicated to my gaming experiences (and thoughts) but I am also interested in the blogging phenomenon in general, so I also plan to comment on that as I see fit. I read this post over at render, where he mentions he’s thinking about commenting on things non-gaming, i.e. movies, books, websites, etc. I would love to see that. I have mentioned such things here, from time to time. It adds variety and flavor to a blog that has a single dedication. I don’t expect this blog to become a day-to-day journal of my goings-on at work, or as a dad or husband, but my family is inextricably tied to the rest of my life that it’s hard to separate the two. In addition, my opinion on such things as “I, Robot” (thoroughly enjoyed it, it didn’t try hard to be something it’s not) or what’s in heavy rotation on my iPod (“Shimmer” by Fuel, “Great Expectations” by Jurassic 5, others) adds a certain credence to what I say on gaming topics.

In scholastic terms, ButtonMashing.com is majoring in video gaming, minoring in blogs, and taking a handful of humanities courses.

Playing with Blogger

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I’ve been messing around with some of the cooler features of Blogger. I’m trying out the feature of posting a little blurb of a post and have the rest of the post show up here. It’s pretty cool stuff but it’s getting frustrating to set it up to only show the “read more” link when I want it to. Well, thanks to this guy, I’ve been able to get it to work. Not too shabby.

Hmmm, I can’t seem to comment on his blog to thank him. If he happens to stumble here, consider himself thanked.

buttonmashing.com is online!

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Welcome to the beginnings of my humble gaming blog, buttonmashing.com. Here you will find my sharp wit and insight into the world of video games. Me, I’ve been around the block, starting with my own Atari 2600 back in the 80’s. A lot has changed since then but I’m still playing video games. I doubt I’ll ever stop.

I am a Nintendo fanboy. I will not hide that fact but I am not a rabid fanboy. I love Nintendo, yes, but I’m able to see past the sad state of fanboyisms. I am currently trying to talk my wife into letting me get an XBox. I know that’s blasphemy for true Nintendoboys but I recognize my what my Gamecube lacks and I look to bolster that with a few XBox titles. I will, of course, be first in line for the next Mario/Zelda/Metroid game, but I don’t want to miss out on something good just because it’s on a different system. I just ain’t like that.

So check back often, I’ll link to some of my game reviews, post thoughts here and there about what I think about the video gaming world and I’m sure you’ll share some of the same opinions I do. And if you don’t, sorry, but you’re wrong.

You must own an XBox.