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Space Invaders Frenzy

Unfortunately, game centers in Japan have become increasingly boring due to the lack of actual games. Even the Purikura (“Print Club”) photo booths are boring as while 20 years ago they were a fun way for friends to have pictures taken together, they are apparently now targeted at young girls who aren’t old enough to wear makeup and these things detect your eyes and add make-up, make the eyes freakishly big, etc. The tourist-y Purikura booths were the best, so if you went to Tokyo Tower you could have your friends get a picture taken with Tokyo Tower inserted behind you, etc. Now they just make you look like some anime freak with creepy eyes. To think that girls these days actually appreciate how these photo sticker booths treat their appearances is bewildering.

The UFO catcher claw-arm prize games can only be entertaining for so long. Most of the time the claws just caress the prizes, or maybe they will pick them up, only to drop them clumsily. I’m sure it’s all on purpose.

Space Invaders Frenzy provides a fun gaming experience that cannot be replicated at home. It is a retro throwback to the original Space Invaders, but you control it with rapid fire gun turrets, picking up power-ups to defeat the invaders. It’s pretty fun.

I recorded this at the Taito Game Station in Lirica Mall in Maebashi a couple of years ago.

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More Sega love from Shimamura, plus other game-related stuff for home

These are plush tissue covers I bought on discount at Shimamura, the Mega Drive and Dreamcast. There was also an SG-1000 tissue cover, but I passed on that because I have no emotional attachment to that old console.

One more Mega Drive bath towel!

This is a blanket of a pixelated Neo Kobe skyline from Konami’s game Snatcher I bought on Ali Express. My wife is holding it up for me to take this picture. It is so soft that Ulan got jealous. So, I got her a Dragon Quest Slime blanket from Ali Express for her as a Christmas present. Snuggly girl is snuggly.

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My new Sega towels from Shimamura

I went back to Shimamura a few days later and found Sega towels on sale! They were all discounted from their regular price. For each of the Megadrive, Saturn and Dreamcast, I bought hand towels, face towels, and bath towels. The hand and face towels are a two towel set.

Here are the hand towels:

Here are the face towels:

And here are the bath towels:

BONUS! Here is a set of Urusei Yatsura’s Lum-chan face towels I also bought:

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My new Sega cushions from Shimamura

Shimamura has come through again, this time with block cushions. This time I was late, as these were released in September. I learned about these by doing a web search. Like those Sega pillows I bought last year, these are detailed on the underside and since these are block cushions, the sides are detailed too.

Neat stuff.

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I tried a CRT shader for the first time in Retropie which adds scanlines. It makes Blazing Star on Final Burn Alpha look nice.

You may need to click each image to see the images in a larger scale to truly see the effect, since WordPress tends to shrink images to fit.

For scanlines/shaders, you’ve gotta go into RetroPie Setup. From there, Configuration/Tools -> Config Edit -> Config Basic libretro emulator options. Now here you can choose to apply the shader to ALL of the emulators (option 0) or do it for individual emulators. I’m using Final Burn Alpha, so I went to Configure additional options for fba. Option 3 is Video shader enable (3). Click that and enable “True.” Next is Video shader file (4). I chose crt/crt-hyllian.glslp . You can choose it with the glow (crt/crt-hyllian-glow.glslp) to add that aged CRT look. I think there are others that will mimic a curved monitor’s surface. Tinker around and see what you like.

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Pac-Man stuff found at the Can Do 100 yen store

A few weeks ago, a couple of students of mine alerted me to the 100 yen shop Can Do having plenty of neat Pac-Man crap in stock. On my lunch break, I had to go check it out for myself. I scored plenty of neat stuff! This photo is of my loot: clear stickers, zip storage bags, two sizes of masking tape, a keychain, stickers, a trading card, and a memo notepad. Score!

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My Atari Lynx crap

Here’s my Lynx crap. Behold the fancy carry case! I have the type 2 Lynx (the smaller one). I bought a set that came with the console, carry case, screen shield, and several games from an online store called Video Game Liquidators in 1997. Here’s my list of games:

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Chip’s Challenge
Gates of Zendocon
Gauntlet: The Third Encounter
Ishido: The Way of the Stones
Joust
Klax
Qix
Rampart
Roadblasters
Robo Squash
Rygar
Shanghai
S.T.U.N. Runner
Todd’s Adventure in Slime World
Xenophobe
Xybots
Zarlor Mercenary

I had hoped to visit Japan the summer of ’97 with the World Youth Visit Exchange Association (WYVEA), but the trip was cancelled. I had saved up enough money to go, but in the end I couldn’t go. (I went to Japan on my own the following year and made my own arrangements.) So, that summer I bought myself a Lynx and a decent VCR.

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Rockman explains why Russia had to secure the Donbass region of Ukraine

After waiting eight years for Ukraine to uphold the Minsk Agreements, after the stand-up comedian-turned-president Zelensky failed to keep his promise to end the genocide, Russia is now having to clean up the Nazi mess that the warmongering Neocons and Obamunists created in Ukraine. Putin is at war with both the Nazis and Biden’s money laundering scheme. Sometimes you cannot have peace unless you destroy the warmongers.