meppi

For everyone who's been wondering what has happened to me over the last 3 weeks or has sent me PMs which didn't get a reply, I want to apologize.

I certainly am not tired of the project, or am mad at anyone or something like that.

The thing is, exactly 3 weeks ago on saturday just around noon, I started feeling not so good.

Had to run to the bathroom over and over again over the course of 4 hours. Lots of pain and cramps.

The problem was, once my belly was completely empty, the pain didn't subside, instead it only continued to get worse and worse.

So by 5PM I get a phone call from my mom asking how my day has been, to which I reply that I think I'm sick.

Now I normally only see a doctor about once a year or so and when I do it's always for a good reason, so she knew something was up.

I couldn't get of my couch, where I had been laying for over an hour with incredible abdominal pain.

Decided to call the doctor, but since it was during the weekend, we had to settle for a replacement. (for people in the US, housecalls are pretty much standard over here)

2 and a half hours later the doctor still wasn't here even though he said he would be here very soon, so we called again as the pain only got worse and worse. He finally showed up 15 minutes later and came to the conclusion that it was nothing but a stomach and intestine infection, so I got something to reduce the fever and something for the pain.

By tuesday, it still wasn't much better, so we decided to call our new doctor, since the one I had from birth had just gone into retirement one week before.

When the doctor arrived, the symptoms were not the exact same anymore due to the medication I had been taken for 3 days already.

So he doubled the pain and fever meds and subscribed some antibiotics as well.

He was going on his yearly vacation on saturday, so when by friday I still was feeling sick as hell and couldn't get out of bed at all, (lots of fever and did nothing but sleep) we had to call him again.

Once he got here he knew something wasn't right, and decided to call an ambulance to have me rushed to the ER.

There they examined me and I got an IV and all kinds of tests. At this point I was to weak to walk more then 20 meters, so I had to be wheeled around in a wheelchair.

They took two separate scans which turned out inconclusive as they could only see there was something like and infection in my lower belly, nothing more.

The next few days, I got all kinds of stuff through the IV, painkillers, antibiotics, etc.

Finally on monday they had me go through another scan, this time it was a machine which actually looks like it was made in the last 10 years as opposed to the ones they had me go through before.

Had to drink a contrast fluid and they injected me with something which gives you the impression that they are pouring a bottle of warm red wine into your lap and it flows to your head and toes at the same time. Very peculiar sensation.

Instead of having the results in the afternoon or something, I had to wait till the day after.

That morning, we're tuesday now, a quite arrogant doctor comes in and tells me that I have an abscess in my lower belly in the intestines and that I had 3 options:

-go home and take antibiotics for the next few weeks

-stay in the hospital and get the antibiotics through the IV

-undergo surgery

I didn't get anymore info, and since those 3 options are so far apart, I felt like something was up, so I protested.

He got quite a bit irritated and said he's look at the scans again with the surgeon and come back in the afternoon.

That afternoon the surgeon himself came back and explained that my appendix had been eaten away for the most part and that an abscess had formed of the remaining tissue, so that I needed to get surgery.

That would also be the explanation for the incredible pain...

Well, they were supposed to take me that evening, but it ended up being noon the day after, even though they said they'd take me as early as possible.

They ended up working on me for about 3 hours as I was gone for 5 and we can estimate that I was in the recovery room for an hour and a half.

Don't know much about that day, besides waking up with lots of pain, like they were sticking red hot needles in the lower places where you shouldn't be sticking needles in the first place, if you know what I mean. Both the back and the front. :(

The second and third day wasn't much better as I didn't eat anything, wanted to do nothing but sleep and felt sick and had to request even more pain medicine all the time even though I had 4 different things going into the IV at this point.

Finally on saturday I was doing a bit better, but still wasn't eating anything, only drinking small amounts of water as my mouth was constantly dry.

I ended up with another bag on the IV, this time a 2 liter one a day of white fluid which had to replace all the food and water I wasn't taking in the normal way. Don't know when I actually got it, only that I went through 8 of them.

Also had a drain put into my belly from which all kinds of gross stuff flows, not going to go into details as it's too disgusting really.

We heard from several nurses and doctors, various explanations and pieces of info from which we were able to piece together that I actually had a bursted appendix and that this actually happened that very first saturday.

Finally the saturday after the operation (which happened wednesday), the doctor came clean and told us it was indeed a bursted appendix and that I was slowly poisoning myself.

I would remain in the hospital till friday (yesterday, so 2 full weeks) and then they took the drain out and I was finally able to come back home.

Still need a nurse to come over every day to change the bandages and give me an injection in my belly as well as to put in a piece of sterile textile of about 25cm into the wound (don't know the English term for this) so it can further clean itself.

I still can't do much since I get easily tired and need to sleep. After a couple of hours of watching tv or playing on the DS I'm done for the day to say the least. Even typing all of this is quite the effort right now so I have to stop soon and might not be back today.

In the end lots of errors were made by both the doctors and other staff.

It took them a week and a half to finally treat the bursted appendix, which at that point had flooded all kinds of nasty stuff into my abdomen and which had already started to poison me.

I've heard from various sources that if it had taken a day or perhaps 2 at most longer, I wouldn't even have been here right now, and that I was extremely lucky that I kept ticking for as long as I did without a proper diagnosis.

The fact alone that I laid in the hospital for 5 days before they realized what's wrong with me should say enough.

I could easily write a book about all the things that went wrong with my treatment as well as things I witnessed happening to other people.

I've been to a great hospital before in Ghent where I can't say anything bad about since everything was just about perfect, but this time I didn't have a choice so they sent me to the nearest one.

I have to say, they will never do that to me again.

The best comparison I can make between the first hospital I've been to and the local one would be if you compare something like the TV series ER and a run down Russian hospital. And sadly that's not an exaggeration. :(

I know I've missed out on so many parts of the story about the things that happened to me over these past few weeks, but I really need to stop writing now and lay down, since I've already overextended myself.

Just wanted to let you know that I'll be back, even if it might take a while.

The one thing everyone always told me, be it on AVforums, NeoGaf or NTSC-uk is when you buy plasma, go with Pioneer or Panasonic.

I did, and you know the rest.

(looking back, I think I understand how meppi felt having a bunch of PS3 games and Blu Ray movies but no system...).

And then ending up playing nothing but WipEout HD and Lumines, both downloadable games for the first 2 weeks.

I might be in the minority since lots of people like to go on about rose tinted glasses and unplayable 32-bit 3D games and such.

But I believe that games that were great 5-10-15-30 years ago are still just as great today, the only problem is that most gamers just can't see past the graphics anymore.

I still think WipEout 1 on PSone looks incredible and compare the jaggies and blockyness to the classis 8-bit game sprites.

Even though I love WipEout HD to death, I can just as well pop in WipEout 1 and be amazed by how great it looks.

The trick probably is to view the games depending on the hardware they are made on, and try to keep in mind just what it took back in the day to get something like that out of a system.

Same goes for much older games than WipEout though.

I just love to pop in Elevator Action on Saturn (not Returns) or Xevious in one of the many, many variations and play them for hours on end.

Just recently I got lost in playing Gaplus when it was released on Virtual Console arcade.

Actually whenever I start to get tired of today's gaming and all the bad things that sometimes come with it, it's the classic arcade type of games that draw me back in and help me remember why I love games so much.

If it weren't for them I would without a doubt gotten out of gaming in the past.

Welcome!

Always nice to see more people who are fighting the retro fight so to speak.

Don't worry about the post, since it also introduces your site it fits into the retrogames forum as well.

Now that's a cover anyone would love, except the ones who lack a soul or something.

Pure classic gaming goodness right there!

I'm afraid not. Once we start doing things like this it would drastically cut short the lifespan of the whole site.

Not to mention that we want new magazines to sell well so they don't all end up being "retro mags" soon.

The scanning part in that post goes against just about every rule we have on this site, so I'm afraid to inform you that if someone asks for scans like these again, then there will be bannings. Same goes for the person who would be providing said scans to anyone asking for them.

Thought it would be fair to give out a warning, even though I really shouldn't have to.

I don't know about everyone but to me the best look is sharp pixels. No smoothing, no high res, just sharp and clear pixels on my mario bros.

100% agree with that.

Only seen Nausicaa so far but I love it, so I'll end up grabbing several other films.

I'm just holding of a bit to see if they will get the bluray treatment.

Oh, by the way, the reason the games in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection looks fuzzy is probably because scaling is turned on. You turn that of and it will look all vibrant and colorful again.

That's what I thought as well, but even with the borders and at 4:3 it looks fuzzier than my original MegaDrive stretched out to 16:9. Weird, I know.

Why this picture reminds me of Donald Duck I'll probably never know.

EDIT lol I swear I didn't read any of the Looney Tunes babble above before I posted my thoughts.

Wow, I didn't even know about this game. Looks very nice.

The only worry I have is that it's by the same people from Guilty Gear and I don't particularly like that series.

Can't comment on the first one since I have no experience with that model, but I can still fully recommend the G10. After enjoying it for almost 2 months I still haven't been able to find a single flaw or nitpick I'm not happy about.

Well besides 1 stuck pixel which is impossible to see from anywhere but right in front of the TV when you're putting a new game or bluray on.

Freaked me out at first, but from even one step away it becomes invisible.

:'(

Looking at that list above, I wouldn't be missing out on anything at all.

That being said, I realize that my taste in games isn't quite mainstream to say the least.

I concur. The theories of me and meppi being one and same person are ludicrous fabrications.

Eday, any comments on this article?

Wait, you have to lure him in here, kinda like the batsignal, only a bit different...

There, that should do it. Now we wait.

This is the 4th issue in a series of re-scans I'm doing for all the Maximum magazines.

Besides the pages being 1440 wide now instead of 1280, they also have been color corrected and touched up more diligently.

Also, these are brand new scans of the issues, so not just cleaned up ones from last time.

The magazines have been debinded to increase the quality of the scans even more.

Indeed that's the one I reported before, but there doesn't seem to be any actions taken against him.

Update:

This listing (260430476268) has been removed, or this item is not available.

Thanks everyone for the support. If you come across any auctions selling magazines we scanned, please post them here so we can take action against them.

There's also http://www.abandonware-magazines.org/ although they only scan classic French magazines.

I used to love JoyPad back in the day.

Funny to see that after a couple more people reporting him now they suddenly do ban his ass.

Yet the clone account is so obvious. Reported that as well.

Well, the first response might be to secure their investments in some sort of way, but as they look a bit closer, and hopefully take the time to do so they might see that we aren't the bad guys, or at least trying to be anything but the bad guys.

Not sure how ebay works in that kinda way. I would think if they get one genuine complaint, that it should be enough, but there's clearly more going on behind the scenes.

Perhaps, but they might just don't care if they are sold by some lowlife scammer, or if they are being put online for free with only the best intentions.

I honestly haven't got a clue, but I find the whole thing to be very dubious.

Perhaps he sells quite a load of other stuff as well on which ebay makes more than enough money to overlook his little side business.

Either way, I don't like it one bit.