I frickin’ love Tron

In 1982, I saw the trailers for the movie on TV and wanted to see the movie so badly. My sister was 3 years older than me and had decided that since the movie was about computers, it would be too complex and I wouldn’t understand it. Yet she hadn’t seen it either, so how would she know? Older sibling syndrome, I guess.

It wasn’t until later when Tron came to the Disney Channel that I finally got to see it. It was a celebration of early ’80s video game culture. Fantastic. Recently I did a search for Tron stuff on Pinterest and wanted to post some of the cooler images I found.

I’ve never seen this poster image before. Super neat.

Jean “Moebius” Giraud did a lot of the designs for Tron. His graphic novel, The Long Tomorrow, was a visual inspiration for Blade Runner.

More Moebius art.

And speaking of Blade Runner, Syd Mead also did design work for Tron, with these black & white illustrations.

I’ve never seen this poster with Flynn, either. Perhaps this is fan art?

This poster for the “Space Paranoids” arcade game featured in the movie. It’s amusing since arcade games back then did NOT look like that, unless it was supposed to be a laserdisc game. There is no way we had FPS-style games like that back then!

But we did get an actual Tron arcade game by Bally Midway in 1984.

The design of this arcade cabinet is simply captivating, complete with the blacklights and lighted joystick. While it was cool, I really enjoyed the Discs of Tron game far better.

This was a step-in, environmental cabinet. It really blew me a way the first time I saw it.

Too bad Disney is more preoccupied with sexualizing children and wrecking Marvel and Star Wars to make anything cool anymore. At least a good sequel was made before Disney went down the crapper, although that movie and its spin-off cartoon weren’t enough to sustain interest in Tron. As for me, 40 years later, Tron remains dear to me.

Here is my DVD signed by Bruce Boxleitner. I only talked to him briefly, but I could tell he is BASED.

A wild Delorean appears!

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!

New addition to my Pac-Man obsession.

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.

The Sega World game center in my town has finally been renamed to Gigo. No more Sega Game centers…

Before:

After:

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:

https://www.nintendo.destructoid.com/sega-to-remove-its-name-from-arcades-in-japan-to-rebrand-to-gigo

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.

My new etched acrylic Enterprise lamp

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.

National Unagi Day

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.

My nerd cave late at night.

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).

MOAR Galaxy Express 999 booze

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.