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My nerd cave late at night, updated August 2024.

I took a photo of my nerd cave late at night, two years ago. I have a better camera this time. I also have added more stuff since then, like my light-up Starship Enterprise atop my monitor. This is a better view of the iron bead pixel art on the wall.

A closer look at my Pac-Man light. It’s actually LEDs, made to look like a neon sign.

My Pac-Man lamps, with a Dragon Quest Slime in between, atop my Megadrive game collection.

My blue paper lantern now lights up the far corner of the nerd cave.

My Aliens and Empire Strikes Back posters, and to the left side are my Record of Lodoss War action figures.

My video gaming pillow collection: Megadrive, Saturn, and Dreamcast cushions, pillows and tissue covers, as well as Pac-Man pillows. Ulan likes to plop on these pillows and chill out. I’ve shown the Sega stuff from Shimamura previously on this blog.

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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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My new Sega pillows from Shimamura

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!

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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.

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My new Sega arcade stick arrived this evening!

Oh yeah! A month or so ago I was outbid on one of these on Yahoo Auctions Japan, but this month I scored. It’s a Virtua Stick for the Sega Saturn. Over 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to get the double-sized (2 players) version for about 8000 yen, but declined. I couldn’t afford it at the time, and plus it was just too big. This Virtua Stick gives you the feel of playing on an Astro City or Blast City cab at home. It has autofire switches and a slide to set its rate of fire. It was sold as “junk” because it hadn’t been confirmed, but so far it seems to work just fine. It was a bit filthy, but I cleaned it up. FYI: Zippo lighter oil works well to remove price tag residue.


Oh, and what’s that next to it? That’s my Mayflash Saturn to USB converter. It works in Linux and this evening I played some Pac-Man on my new Virtua Stick in Final Burn via RetroPie.