I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

2025 was three quarters terrible and only one quarter good. It started in the worst way possible – in February my uncle became seriously ill and I had to make an emergency trip to Berlin because we were not sure if he would make it. But he did and he fully recovered, but it was a long way and most of the Spring and Summer was an emotional rollercoaster. Overall this year war really exhausting. Luckily my own health held up despite the stress, but it definitively was not fun. We’re all sure 2026 will be better, though. Because of all the chaos, this year there isn’t even a Christmas tree anywhere, so this year’s tree photo is a reworked version of the one from last year.

For me, the last few years really turned out to be the years of computer games. Previously, I simply didn’t have enough time or motivation to play a lot, but in Autumn 2022 I was finally able to upgrade the big computer with a “new” graphics card, prompted of course by the release of Return to Monkey Island. Two-ish years and one fried and replaced graphics card later I still only managed to write a short post about Guybrush’s newest outing – but all I can say for now is that I absolutely loved it and it was one of the best new adventures I’ve played in a long time.

The new Monkey Island was not the only game I played in the last few years by far, though! I went through a mix of old and new(er) games, especially after I was able to try out a lot of games which had been pillng up. Since Epic, Amazon and even GOG have been giving away free games like crazy and even the Humble Bundle is sometimes great for discounts, there has been no shortage and while the majority are not very interesting to me, there were still some good ones. Most of the games mentioned in this article were actually new purchases, though!

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Quite a few posts on social media recently reminded me that on July 23 the Commodore Amiga turned 40 years old – specifically the first incarnation, the Amiga 1000. It was the beginning of one of the most powerful computer systems of the late 80s and early 90s that ran circles around the competition for almost a decade. With its trio of custom chips called Agnus, Denise and Paula it was able to run a colourful operating system with a graphical user interface that allowed a multitasking, multiwindow desktop in 1985 that almost no other computers had. Excellent graphics and sound made it a true multipuropse computer that became a powerful gaming platform, multimedia system and even business machine at the same time.

I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

2024 was not as terrible for our family as the previous year was, but a relative still passed away and several people got sick for a while. Including myself, not just the usual colds and not even Covid – but a high blood pressure problem appeared and now I have to take medication for the first time in my life. I’m fine now, but it feels a little bit like age is creeping up on me. But everyone is doing okay considering the circumstances and as I wrote last year, just having a roof over your head and not being broke or hungry is maybe something we all can be thankful for.

I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

2023 will be remembered in our family as a terrible year because in early September, we lost my Aunt Mary Elizabeth after a brief illness. To say we are all still in shock and recovering from this unexpected turn of events is probably an understatement, but overall we are doing okay considering the circumstances – but we still miss her a lot. I actually made a “secret” week-long trip to Berlin in October for a goodbye party and the funeral which I haven’t mentioned online at all yet – but I made the best out of it, meeting some extended family members for the first time and doing some photography. The rest of the year still felt surreal even before August and September, with Corona still looming – but thankfully staying away from me – and the whole world situation making everything uncertain. Just having a roof over your head and not being broke or hungry is maybe something we all can be thankful for.

Last night, the final episode of The Weekly Space Hangout went live on Youtube – after eleven years and hundreds of shows Fraser Cain and Producer Nancy Graziano have decided to call it a day. It came as a surprise, but it was not entirely unexpected – the show was born eleven years ago in a completely different time and in the last few years it became more and more difficult to get the journalists and guests together each week. The final show had Fraser, his fellow partner-in-science Dr. Pamela Gay and long-time WSH journalists Dr. Kimberly Cartier and Dr. Morgan Rehnberg talking about the news and reminiscing about the past decade of Weekly Space Hangouts.

I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

2022 ? I’m not sure I can even describe this year anymore. Corona year three would have been manageable, but then the world literally caught on fire with a war right on Europe’s doorsteps. Since February, everything feels slightly surreal because nobody really thought it could get that bad. But with Russia invading Ukraine a massive uncertainty arrived for everyone not only in Germany but all over the world – the resulting energy crisis has been on everyone’s mind and has quite a few real life consequences even for those not directly affected by the war.

TL;DR: I haven’t abandoned Twitter (yet), but I’m now also on Mastodon!

I remember a time when many people thought that Elon Musk was basically a good guy who is just a bit peculiar… but those times are long gone. The Tesla and SpaceX owner, now the richest human being on Earth, has mutated from benevolent billionaire to grotesque supervillain in just a few years – and with the recent purchase of Twitter this spiral has only intensified.

I don’t really have a stake in Twitter, I mostly follow, read and only post my photos there, but seeing an at least relatively well-functioning social network collapse in just a short time beacuse of the new billionaire owner’s very “special” management style is spectacular to watch to say the least. If Twitter goes under, I will not be particularly sad about it because this isn’t my first rodeo – a couple of years ago I witnessed Google+ being eliminated from the face of the Earth first hand!

While I think that Twitter is still going to limp along as a former shadow of itself, I’ve never put all my eggs in one basket. That saved me when Google+ was killed off, because most of everything I write and post comes from my own websites where I have full control over (almost) everything. I’ve tried out several Google+ replacements in the last couple of years, but I didn’t really got along with anything and instead ended up posting my photos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter… until now.

I had already created a Mastodon account earlier this Summer when the whole Twitter debacle was not even on the horizon, but I only recently decided to really post over there. Right now I’m mainly crossposting my daily photos from the Photography Blog that also appear on the other social networks, but I’ve also started to repost some other retrocomputing and games content that I had originally created for Google+ and never got around to put on a proper website over here. There’s also a new Mastodon icon on the top right sidebar!

I’ve also written a short introduction post too a Month ago:

Time for an introduction? Hi, I’m Guido and I live in a small-ish city in northwest Germany. I usually post photos, but I’m not a professional photographer even though I work in a camera store. I also like to dabble in music, playing piano and guitar and I love old computers and (vintage) games. I also love all things science and astronomy! I’ve had a presence on the web since the late 90s and I’ve been on social media for over ten years. I’m also a Google+ and probably soon Twitter refugee.

Mastodon just feels right, like the early Google+ way back ten years ago when people discovered each other through circle sharing and not through algorithms. Mastodon basically relies on word of mouth and the decentralized server structure is almost like the Fidonet and Usenet of the 1980s and 1990s, just with slightly more modern technology. There are so many interesting people of all kinds all over the Fediverse and many are just setting up shop after abandoning Twitter. I really like the friendly atmosphere and I’m already following people from all over the world and chatting with them, mostly in the science and astronomy fields but also in the vintage computer and gaming communities.

Myself, I ended up on the original main mastodon.social server because I didn’t know any better in the beginnig – with hindsight, I probably should have chosen another server but for now it will have to do. The beauty of the Mastodon technology is the decentralized nature of it since you can always follow users from other instances and you can basically make your own federated universe, the Fediverse. My posts on Mastodon might be temporary and not be archived for all eternity, but that’s why I will always be maintaining my own websites. I’ve also archived the few Mastodon-exclusive shorter posts I’ve created lately to make some new content for this website too.

I haven’t made any decisions whether I should actually stop posting to Twitter or just continue as usual, but most of my posts will go out as usual to Facebook and Instagram too because quite a few people still follow me there. Nothing will disappear as long as I can pay for my own webspace.

I have no ides where this is all going to lead, but for now Mastodon feels like a good idea. Just come over to the Fediverse, everyone – it’s a new beginning!

Originally, this post was going to be a lament that I have Return to Monkey Island in my Steam library but couldn’t play it yet because my graphics card isn’t good enough. Which was actually true until last weekend because the AMD Radeon 6850 I’ve had for a while was just a tiny little bit too old. DirectX 12 turned out to be the culprit as expected, but I wasn’t really in a hurry to get something better. But now I did something about it and managed to snag an AMD Radeon R9 270X on eBay. It took a while to arrive because of the long weekend but now it’s here and yesterday I operated on the computer again… and now I’m back on Melée Island!

Return to Monkey Island has turned out to be an absolute marvel. I have already completet the first act, exploring a familiar, but also slightly different Melée Island once again. It feels like 1990 again, only on a huge cinematic screen in high definition instead of slighly blurry pixels on a flickering 14″ tube monitor. The heart and spirit of Monkey Island is very much present and you can feel that this game is a labour of love much like Thimbleweed Park was. Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossmann and their team have hit the right spot perfectly. I will probably write a full review sometime, but now I’m just enjoying the game a lot and will play through it without any hurry.

It wasn’t altogether simple because I also had to put in a second harddrive and install a separate new Windows 10 system on it, but it worked. My concerns about the old Athlon X4 II 640 CPU were thankfully wrong and the new graphics card did the trick! This computer with its more than 10 year old components in a 20 year old case is now not a gaming potato anymore! Many other games now run much better and some that didn’t even start before are now working.

But for now it’s back to the Caribbean and see what shenanigans Guybrush Threepwood is up to!

I totally forgot that Gamescom is happening down in Cologne… and that means this week we found out the release day of Return to Monkey Island! Everyone expected it to be sometime in November or even for Christmas, but Ron Gilbert and his team are having a laugh again and chose (of course) Talk Like A Pirate Day on September 19. That is less than a Month away!

Unfortunately that means that this will be the last thing I’ll be writing about the new Monkey Island adventure for a while. I’ve had a look at the system requirements and as expected it doesn’t look good for me – I need at least a new graphics card, but hopefully the old AMD CPU will still work. This computer can run Astroneer and Planet Zoo for example, so it can’t be that difficult.

I’m still going to preorder the game, of course – it’s only €23 and that is a really reasonable price. Maybe it still runs, but I suspect DirectX 12 will be my nemesis – but I have patience and I’m still only into Part 2 of 5 of my Tales of Monkey Island replay!

[UPDATE: As expected… my computers are not up to it, even though the system requirements are really really low – but the minimum required graphics card is a Radeon HD 7750 while I only have a 6850 at the moment. Missed it by that much! Next month I’m going graphics card hunting on eBay…]

Same island, different age.