Finally got around to posting a video of one of my old DOS demos. Quality isn't
very good in compressed video since the 3D vector-pixel animation blurs out,
such as the starfields at the beginning and rotating map display at the end.
Less than two weeks left. Even less than that to get things in
place "early".
Just recently discovered that amazon.com and other places are
carrying the old B&W classic movies in "The Legacy Collection"
series. Each pack containing 5 classics of Dracula, or Frankenstein,
or The Wolf Man, The Mummy, etc. I'm a traditionalist at heart.
Gimme black cats, pumpkins, bats, ghosts, skeletons, witches, vampires,
and werewolves any day.
New comics on the Bones Comics site, with
sunday releases auto-scheduled up into August, and I'm still adding.
(update 7/4: releases are scheduled up through most of October now)
Bones Comics is now on it's own domain name:
bonescomics.com. I've also added the first strips in about 4 years, and
updated the CGI code a little (with new hecklers, the best part!). Updates
will likely still end up being years apart, but it's about time I got around
to doing some of the things the site needed. The comics series will celebrate
its 20th birthday this coming January, so I may need to think of some further
ideas too.
Also, there is now a combined
Movies Page that has the movies I'm making across my websites. I love
what can be done with symlinks and server-side includes.
I've started to get bitten by the video-editing bug. The first
completed project so far is a video slideshow of my 2005 Halloween
photography. There will be more to come on the
Halloween Movies
page, and probably elsewhere on my websites.
necrobones.com is getting streamlined
a little. I'm finally trimming some of the fat, while making some of the more
important links more obvious on the front page. Some older content is now
archived away. (update 4/13: the front page in particular has been
updated to get back to the core areas that NecroBones was created for and
influenced by. The main link buttons take you to my software, game pages,
halloween site, and comics sections).
Meanwhile, the halloween ideas
are still underway, gradually. When it's the off-season, there's just so
many other things to do! Like spring-cleaning... ugh.
Halloween in February?
halloween.necrobones.com has gotten a face-lift, and in
particular, the
2006 projects have already begun. It shouldn't come as too big
of a surprise. My whole spooky web site theme in general has been
one long Halloween sort of thing. It never really ends around here.
LED Eye design borrowed from born2haunt.com.
In the first two pictures, chainmail is Aluminum 14 gauge, 3/8" ID* 4-in-1 maille hand-made by me.
SCA combat-ready
plate armor from armourworks.com
(out of business?).
High carbon tempered steel sword from Highland Steele (also out of business).
Skeleton hand-aged with a burnt-umber acrylic wash technique, coated in matte clear-coat finish.
In the second two pictures, the chainmail is 16g mild steel with
1/4" ID rings, from Museum Replicas.
The breastplate is imported. I forget from where.
It's almost October! I've finally gotten around to cleaning up my
Halloween page and pictures, and making a nice consolidated site
for it all. Check out
halloween.necrobones.com to see it. :)
I finally got around to registering more permutations of the necrobones.*
domain names. There's probably more I could grab, but I have the important
bases covered.
I also finally got around to putting up a tribute page to my old BBS,
The Sorcerer's Quarters.
As of last week, NECROBONES® is now a registered trademark! Woohoo! Now I
can put those little '®' things next to the name everywhere. It took nearly
a year for the trademark to get approved by the USPTO,
partially due to a categorization mistake on my part at first, but it finally went through!
I probably should have done this a long time ago... I figured after about 10 years of
using it as a trademark, it was a good time to do it. :)
My websites are now completely off of the Verio hosting, and are now operating
under my Linode account. More control,
more bandwidth, more disk space, what else could I ask for? :) It marks the
end of an era, in a way... necrobones.com
was originally set up on HiWay's hosting, back in March of 1997. They got bought
out by Verio, and I had been with them ever since.
New domain added to the mix here: int19h.net. [now defunct]
Also, I've set up a host at linode.com to handle
the web content for many of my domain names. If I like it enough, then who knows,
maybe some number of months down the line, I'll move this site there too.
The last installment of Lord of the Rings opens today!
Today is also this website's scheduled move. My host (
NTT/Verio) is moving my site to another server. I guess after all these years
they finally decided to decommission the old HiWay servers (HiWay was my host before
it got bought out by Verio, which in turn got bought by NTT). And it has indeed been
many years.
Take a look at my site on
The WayBack Machine (archive.org), and my site's
previous location
as well. I originally started my web presense in September of 1995, and in March of
1997 is when I switched to NecroBones.com. It's nice to see that someone is archiving
the web for posterity, since so much content tends to have only a fleeting existence.
About a week ago, I obtained my 5th domain name. There's no content
behind it yet, and so far I'm only planning on squatting on it until
I can think of something to do with it, but between .net .org and .com,
this one was the only remaining domain of my last name. So now I have
Toton.org.
For the curious, the previous domain names I've obtained are:
If you're been to my site before, you may have noticed that it's
undergoing some changes this month. It suddenly dawned on me that
the overall look and feel of the site, while decent, hadn't been
improved or updated in years. I still have legacy HTML content
dating back to '95 in some instances. So, the time came... the goal
of course being to improve upon the interface and navigation for
the website, while preserving the fun and unique style of the site,
and still keeping the simplicity that allows it to work on older
browsers and load in a reasonable amount of time on dialup connections.
Of course, the site is always a work in progress, and constantly has
things being changed and worked on. It's just a matter of which
individual pages, and when.
As of this writing, I'm in the process of installing a weather
station and integrating it into my nifty little home network. So far
it's not doing much, but I'll be working on logging/graphing of the
data on Banshee (one of
my servers). I'm also auto-transmitting to the
Weather Underground. Currently though, for some reason, it's reporting
air pressures equivelant to being 250 feet under water. I'll get it
right one of these days...
Doesn't every mad scientist need his own weather machine?? Muahahaaha!!
Once again I wish to thank everyone for their patience and well-wishing.
My long dark path has finally paid off. The light at the end of the
tunnel is here, and it's not an on-coming train. I didn't have to sell
my house or my car or anything, and I've found employment at a nice
company with good people and one of my oldest friends. Whew! Life
can return to normal after almost exactly a year (I officially started here
on June 27, and was laid off from Worldcom on June 28 last year). It's
been hard, but things are finally coming together. Thanks again to everyone
who has sent their positive thoughts and prayers my way.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone whose generosity and
and votes of confidence have helped me through this trying time (you know
who you are). Now entering my 11th month of unemployment, I'm learning
very quickly what it really means to be in the IT industry, where good
skills and work experience can still result in being torn asunder like a rag-doll.
And on a day like today, when I would be at home anyway because of a head-cold,
and I open my mail to find a message stating that my unemployment benefits are
exhausted, things can seem a little grim. And then I open another letter, and
find a generous gift and words of confidence from someone I don't know, who I
only briefly interacted with long ago. I've been deeply touched, and I want
everyone to know that I appreciate all the kindness that I've been shown throughout
these troubled months. I only ask that people continue to keep their fingers crossed,
such that I may find a light at the end of the tunnel.
Well, things have been a bit strange since the summer, since I lost my job.
A lot of projects went on hold, etc. The comics were the first major casualty.
However, I haven't stopped updating this site, it's just that I've been making
more subtle fixes, such as spelling corrections, adding some minor content in the
NeoScience Institute, adding a shopping cart to the Armory, adding some new
castle-lego pictures, etc. A lot of time has also been put into my servers here,
since one had a hard disk failure with no backups, and the other was recently
hacked (the AT-Robots server, which remains offline until I have the time to
rebuild or something). So the site's not dead... just undead I guess, heh. :)
Stay tuned, my brain is always cooking up new ideas for the website!
These last few weeks have been rather odd... between trips out of town
on family business, and getting laid off from Worldcom (Click
here to see my resume; know of any jobs?), it's been a rollercoaster. On the
plus side, Neverwinter Nights finally came out, and you can see
my NWN project here.
I've started working on a new version of BONES Comics,
an old comic strip series I used to work on when I was a kid. Now, hopefully
with a mature style, I hope to make something fun and amusing. You can see
a brief history of my comics as well.
Wireless Internet is here! If you have a WAP browser or Wireless Internet
service on your PDA or cellphone, you'll be able to access selected content
on this site sooner or later. A welcome screen is already visible. Just
point your phone to www.necrobones.net/wireless/
Also, you can view our new wireless web content, or any other WAP enabled
site, via a really nifty WAP emulator.
I've added a new "work-in-progress" sort of thing to my
A-Life colllection. This
New Project is a pretty nifty web-accessible simulation with a complex
weather generator that influences the activity between the two competing
species. The web interface gives you a forecast, shows the controlled
regions of the map, as well as other interesting statistics and so forth
that I may add to and flesh-out slowly over time.
I'm deeply saddened by the events of last tuesday (Sept 11). The
terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were horribly
tragic and misguided. The time for retribution has come. I've added
a flag on the front page of this website, which will remain for the
forseeable future.
Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this page. But
that doesn't mean my website has been stagnating. Quite
the contrary... my site is always undergoing updates,
it's just a question of which part.
Over the last 4 or 5 months, most of my attention has been
focused on Tribes 2 (and thus my Tribes
section).
I just had an interesting revelation. I seem to have had
a larger impact on the net than I've realized. Anyone who
wants to find me, and see what I've been up to for the last
few years can find an aweful lot of information if they
know a single word: "NecroBones". Just type
that word into any common search-engine, and hundreds of
hits will be turned up, all of which have something to do
with me, whether they're my own pages, or pages that belong
to friends who have links to my site, or pages that contain
links to my games, etc. Just take a look at a few examples:
These searches even turn up things I forgot about, or
didn't know about myself. But it all pertains to me in
one way or another, since as far as I know, I'm the only
one on the planet that uses the term "NecroBones". And
that's why I chose it. No one in their right mind would
use such a name... wait, err... that didn't sound right. :)
The Dragon's Hoard Armory has finally been
overhauled and updated to have the current selection of products,
and it's all laid out in more pleasant manner. Enjoy!
Well, it's another new year... this time the -real- start of
the new millenium! It's been a while since I've made any significant
update, so all I have to report right now is that the
LEGO section is being slightly redesigned.
The "space" section is now just that- a section. I've added a
medieval section, and am slowly adding pictures of some of the
castle progress, and eventually intend to expand and add a lot
of detail.
Since the year is 2001, I'll have to think up some interesting
2001 ideas for this site... Muahaha!! :)
I agree with a lot of what is said here, and it makes me additionally
nostalgic. I'm tempted to sink myself back into Turbo Pascal 6.0 and
churn out some more 256-color 320x200 DOS games. Obsolete retro games
still have a place in today's world, and I know there are people out
there who agree with me, though they may be few and far between.
I just put a link to Pyroto Mountain
on the main page. This is a game that I discovere back when I started running
my BBS at the beginning of '91. By then, the game had already been around for
about 5 years... Unfortunately I never got a chance to really play it, but
I found it very intriguing, and so I took a few ideas from it and developed
my own game for my BBS-- Acheron, which you can find on the
Old Software page (you can still run it in DOS,
but the scrolling isn't handled properly, so the status bar gets splattered
all over the place). I just discovered that Pyroto Mountain
has been resurrected and webified, which I think is pretty cool... since it
was so inspirational so long ago, I felt it deserved mentioning here, as
well as a few links. I hope you'll take a look.. Enjoy!
The webcam is up, though it might not be looking at much
for a while (or ever, since I tend to value my privacy).
You can see it HERE.
Also, I rearranged the about pages a
little, into a more sensical manner.
Slowly I'm getting things rearranged on the servers, and AT-Robots
will be a little easier to access. You can already get into it by
name instead of picking out IP addresses. Check it out on the
AT-Robots page. More changes are to come,
and they will be posted.
Necrobones.net is now online!
There's no real content there right now, nor will there be, since that's
not the primary purpose of it. Some supplementary content may be put
there though. I know this sounds like a rather pointless update, but
in reality this is pretty cool from my end. :)
I've added a lot of new stuff on the Sims page, but more notably I've
just added a whole bunch of my less-significant but still kinda interesting
software projects from years ago... You can now download some of my old gags,
screen savers, and text generators/filters on my old-software page.
I just added a page in tribute to Dungeon Keeper 2.
It contains information about some of what I've done in the game.
Of course, one of these days I really should get around to having
some info on the games I consider to be absolute classics, if I'm
going to be doing this at all. The list would include (but not be
limited to) Starflight, Tribes, Ultima Underworld, Ultima 7, Star Control 2,
Populous, and to a lesser extent games such as Grim Fandango, Sam and
Max hit the Road, Commander Blood, Doom, Doom 2, Hexen, and System Shock.
Some of these games weren't well known and didn't necessarily do well in sales
(and obviously, others did quite well),
but had certain ideas or design philosophies that were creative, and
a style that appealed to me.
I just added the "Bones Comics - A Blast from the Past"
section. Since "Bones Comics" is one of my fondest memories, and one of the
more creative hobbies I've had, and is also the "Bones" half of the
"NecroBones" name, I figured it was about time to put a little tribute to
it here.
Welcome. This is the first update to this page. I have no idea why
I didn't do this sooner, since it seems to make a lot of sense to
have a single location on the site that you can go to in order to
get an idea of what changes have been made recently, what my current
thoughts are, and when any new software or pages are added. Besides,
I have proven fond of writing my rants online before, as can be
evidenced on my UO pages.
Aside from adding this "what's new" page itself, the most recent
happenings are as follows...
Vortex 1.1 is released, on the NecroBones
Games Page. It adds some new high-res modes, bringing it
more or less up to date with the current computer hardware.
I made some minor edits on the About Me
page, most notably in the section concerning my cats. I'll
put some pictures of my new little kitties soon. Of course,
I really need to rewrite and/or overhaul the entire page,
since some of it gets a little too personal, and some of it
is a little out of date.
My UO Pages on
Questgate got moved over to Stratics
(Click here to see)
because Questgate decided to drop me. After asking them not
to, they finally restored my account, but only after I went
to all the trouble to set it up on stratics, so for the moment
my UO stuff is on both hosts. I haven't decided how to resolve
this.
And I guess I can answer a few questions that have been asked
from time to time:
The SETI stuff was never intended to be left hanging for
so long. I fully intended to set up a small SETI station,
but now that I've moved to a place with no yard, I don't
think it'll be possible for a while, unless I build an
antenna/dish in the attic. Chances are I won't have the
disposable income for this for quite a while.
The Knight's Order isn't totally stagnant, on the other
hand, though we haven't done much in the way of "official
business" either. Basically it's just an idea that a
friend of mine and I are/were throwing around, and we
hope to come up with some cool logos to use on surcoats
and banners and the like, just for the sake of our own
fun at renaissance faires, and in the off seasons as well.
No, there are no employment opportunities with NecroBones.
This is my personal website, and I use it for my small
business ventures, which just happen to be one-man-shows,
so to speak.
I guess that's about it for now... so enjoy! :)
(1024x768 or better resolution is recommended for this site)
Halloween 3: Season of the Witch
