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.
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:
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.
It’s been a while since I’ve found Sega merchandise at discount clothing store Shimamura. Several years ago, I bought two Sega jumper jackets: a black Dreamcast one and a gray one with Megadrive, Saturn, and Dreamcast prints. I also bought some Saturn pajamas (which I happen to be wearing tonight as I type this. At the time, Shimamura had plenty of great retro gaming stuff, like the Neo Geo hoodie shirt and some other stuff. I passed on getting a Sakura Taisen T-shirt, but got a Mega Man/Rock Man sweatshirt for my friend Brian.
This week, Sega pillows went on sale. The Japanese man I teach English with at my elementary school showed me the Shimamura ad in the newspaper on Wednesday. tonight I bought all six pillows! Here they are. The two Dreamcast ones are for my friend Lou, who will arrive in Japan this weekend. There is printed detail on the backs of these pillows as well. Very cool!
I’m on summer vacation this week. I finally did it. I haxxored my Mega Drive Mini. Mixed feelings. I had to install filthy Win10 onto a spare HD in order to run the Project Lunar software. It’s weird. My PC desktop is Linux, and these mini consoles are essentially small Linux boxes. Yet the software to interface with the Mini is Windows-only. WHY? Barf.
To hook the MD Mini to the PC, a USB cable capable of data transfers is necessary. Press and hold the reset button, connect the USB cable, then turn it on and wait for the power button to stop blinking. From there, the Project Lunar software lets you add games. Then at last you press the Synch button. Easy. The MD Mini’s internal HD has quite a lot of free space inside, so I was able to load several games.
I didn’t want to just dump a butt-ton of roms since I couldn’t care less about Rug Rats or Barbie or crap like that. I selected the games that I felt should have been on it, like Strider and the first Sonic (the MD Mini has Sonic 2 while the North American Genesis Mini came with the first Sonic).
Son, I am slightly disappoint. So get this. Project Lunar puts Retro Arch onto the console, yet there are compatibility issues. Sonic, Rolling Thunder 2 & 3, Thunder Force 4, Twinkle Tale, and several games I loaded onto it work just fine. HOWEVER… Devil Hunter Yohko gets to the title screen, but once the level begins, the screen goes black. Verytex and Tatsujin/Truxton are silent. Phelios causes the unit to crash and force a reboot. Panorama Cotton has a few glitch issues. There is a compatibility database, the “Mega Drive / Genesis Mini Compatibility List” located here: https://megadrive-compatibility.netlify.app/
I didn’t know this before installing. I just figured with Retro Arch taking care of it, there would be no problem. Is the architecture of this MD Mini considerably different than a Raspberry Pi? I did not expect any games to not work as I figured there would be no such compatibility issues. That said, I can go ahead and remove the malfunctioning games and just focus on the excellent games it already comes with, plus games I must first verify compatibility before installing.
Something else that’s weird: I deliberately put the English fan translated rom of Gleylancer, yet it only detects Japanese. Even when I switch the unit’s language to English, it’s still in Japanese. That’s… weird.
Is it worth hacking the MD Mini? Yeah, I think so. Battle Mania 1&2, Arrow Flash, Road Blasters, and Gaiares work, but I am a bit bummed that Burning Force, Hellfire, and the others I mentioned above do not work.
So, this MD Mini console is a lot of fun, but in the end it still cannot compare to a Raspberry Pi running Retropie and using a Saturn controller through a Mayflash Saturn to USB converter, as it’ll run Gen/MD, CD, and 32X games.
Side note: I frickin’ HATE Windows10. Bloaty McBloaterson. The install ISO wouldn’t even fit onto a regular DVD-R! I had to use a dual-layer DVD-R. Sheesh! With Linux, you can boot to the install disc and run the actual OS off of it!
