My Serbian friend Aleksandar took these pictures in Novi Sad, near his college. It had just rained.
Incidentally, I had found a Delorean in the wild once, at a shopping center in Scottsdale, AZ in 2009. This was when we still lived in America. The man was kind to let me take a picture, so he posed with his car.
But wait… there’s more! In my first year living in Japan, in 2012 Christopher Lloyd visited a movie theater in Shizuoka City for autographs. I had him sign my Back to the Future DVD. In front of the theater, a Delorean time machine replica was parked. The interior is replicated, but the exterior is a normal Delorean and it doesn’t have the big vents in the back.Here are the pics.
Complete with time circuits!
A Flux Capacitor!
There was even a Mattel Hover board.
This was inside where Mr. Lloyd was autographing.
Here he is signing my DVD box set. One of my treasures!
This lamp was over half off on Yahoo Shopping Japan, with free shipping. I couldn’t resist. It arrived last night. It now sits on top of my CD rack, next to my Diamond Select TWOK Enterprise, under my fabulous Nadia poster. This is on my side of the bedroom.
It was bound to happen eventually. The Sega World in my small town is finally being rebranded as Gigo. The iconic Sonic sign is in the process of being replaced and you can already see the Gigo sign above the door. Granted, nothing is changing except the name, but still, Sega has divested their arcade management division. You can read about this here:
I asked the manager if they were going to toss out the Sega flags, and he said no. He said that several others asked about the flags already, but he said that they will remain as decorations. The staff’s uniforms still say “Sega” on their backs. This rug is still in the front doorway.
I’d love to have a brand new rug like this in my home. I’m sure the female spouse unit would protest, though.
I took this picture at Try Amusement Tower game center in Akihabara in around 2004 or 2005. This poster warns that only women are allowed in the women’s restroom.
This is my most recent addition to my nerd cave. It’s a Starship Enterprise lamp made of etched acrylic. I peeled off the protective plastic wrap from the acrylic pane and plugged it into the base. Light is sent through the acrylic and catches on the acrylic etching. I can choose the color for it to shine, or elect to have it cycle slowly through colors. This lamp is USB-powered, so I have it plugged into the back of my computer monitor. It’s not an officially-licensed item. It only cost just over 2,000 with free shipping from Yahoo Auctions Japan, so I couldn’t resist.
Yesterday in Japan was Unagi Day, July 23rd. Unagi is broiled freshwater eel with sweet kabayaki (BBQ) sauce and if that sounds gross to you, you don’t know what’s good. It doesn’t even really taste like fish, but it’s soft and delicous. It’s said that eating unagi gives you energy for summer or something.
Typically, stores sell it pre-cooked with it marinated in the kabayaki sauce. My father-in-law in Nagano Prefecture knows where to order the unagi fresh and uncooked. He barbecues it in his backyard himself and he mailed some to us and it arrived yesterday morning. My only gripe is that for some reason, despite the proper cooking method shown on TV constantly, he does not apply the kaybayaki sauce to it while cooking. So the stuff he makes is not so soft and definitely does not have that melt-in-your-mouth property to it. He also sent us some hybrid peppers he grows which are a cross between green pepper and hot pepper. I think originally it was accidentally cross-pollinated and since then he’s just raised them like this.
The high yesterday was only 29 degrees, so it was a nice day.
Here is my hobby room, late at night. This is where I keep my retro game collection, my plastic models and hobby bench, and my Linux desktop. You can see my Pac-Man lamps, my Dragon Quest Slime lamp, and on the wall my Pac-Man LED neon lamp. The pixel art is done with iron beads. The posters from left to right are: Puyo Puyo 2 (SFC), Cardcaptor Sakura Tetris (PS1), Bubblegum Crisis, Sakura Taisen (Sat), and Dead or Alive 2 (DC).
I went ahead and ordered the Galaxy Express alcohol I was unable to find locally. I stopped by a large liquor shop in Maebashi called Yamaya that specializes in imports and even they did not have any.
Here we have Captain Harlock’s highball and IPA beer. I don’t even know what IPA stands for, so I looked it up: India Pale Ale. Well, okay.
The other two are the Maetel Weizen and Conductor’s Porter, but this time in beautiful, cobalt blue glass bottles. Neat.
We were in Takasaki last night and we stopped by the Mandai there. A few months ago, Mandai relocated from its large two buildings into a smaller building, sharing the location with Gunma Leisure Land game center. It’s confusing, but Mandai is located on the first and third floors, while Gunma Leisure Land is on the basement and second floors. Mandai has its own area of UFO catchers.
There were xenomorph figures from Alien in one UFO catcher. I gave it one shot and gave up. Those larger, heavier boxes are difficult to grab. I went into the main store area to look at figures and models while Mayu checked out the dagashiya/candy store area.
Amuro Rey figure, apparently from Char’s Counterattack.
A figure of the Serbine. I’m currently working on the Serbine model by Max Factory.
Plenty of Gundam models. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t focusing properly on some of this stuff.
Next I went to the third floor to check out the video game stuff.
Neo Geo AES and Mega Drive games.
Boxed Super Famicom and Saturn consoles.
Here are the Super Famicom Mini and Mega Drive mini consoles, plus plenty of handhelds: Neo Geo Pocket Color, Game Boy Color, Wonderswan, Game Boy Advance, etc. I bought my first NGPC for only 1000 yen about 21 years ago in a cramped shopping alley under the train tracks in Kobe called Motoko. This shopping alley stretches between Sannomiya Station and Kobe Station and is home to many used clothing, used appliances, junk electronics, antiques, and retro game shops. At least that’s how it was when I lived in Hyogo Prefecture at the time.
Check out the prices on these Saturn games. Crows 18,000, Twinkle Star Sprites 10,000, Hyper Duel 60,000, Castlevania SOTN 16,000 (I think), can’t make out the price on Radiant Silvergun, Rockman 15,000, Doom 10,000 (NOT worth it), and I see a loose HuCard Parasol Stars for PC Engine laying in front of Dodonpachi. I really wish I had the chance to get Hyper Duel back in the day, but now it is incredibly expensive.
I guess not all retrogaming is terribly expensive. Here are Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, and After Burner for the Famicom, cart only, for decent prices.
I decided to check out their anime soundtracks and found several records for sale: Castle of Cagliostro, Urusei Yatsura, Ashita no Joe, Macross, and Gundam. Pretty cheap, too. I guess the hipsters are leaving the retro record market alone.
At Leisure Land, I played some air hockey with Ulan. There are two lonely Sega Astro City cabinets in the back corner with Shanghai games running on them. 100 yen gives you two credits, so I played this one. Shanghai III was next to it, but an older woman there playing on it.
So what did I buy that night? I bought this nice figure of Mai from King of Fighters, loose, for 1700 yen. It was a fun night.
