Random Thoughts Thread

[PretentiousHipster]

Preparing to do a video review of Myst this Friday and I just found out about this. Definitely gonna mention it

https://www.criticalhit.net/entertainme ... velopment/

[SamuraiMegas]

It's 4/20/20, and weed is legal in most of the US. did anyone partake?

[PretentiousHipster]

I used to do weed a lot, sometimes mushrooms and tried Molly once. Don't do it when you're bipolar and hallucinate though. I've had very strange times on weed like ego death and Molly almost gave me a seizure even when it was just a free sample to get a small taste of it. Eventually the weed trips gave me acute psychotic episodes and I knew at that point I had to stop. I'm not talking weed paranoia. I'm talking like legit paranoia.

[dsheinem]

It's 4/20/20, and weed is legal in most of the US. did anyone partake?

This and Halloween are pretty much the only holidays that aren’t total bullshit.

[Ziggy]

Is it legal in NY?

[PartridgeSenpai]

I'm not sure I've mentioned it on the site (I've been busy with having company over and then with work starting again, so I've barely been playing games lately either), but I picked up a laserdisc player for really cheap a week and a bit ago (1700 yen!) and I've been hunting down some cheap/neat movies around here to watch on it.

The most expensive thing I picked up was Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro (2000 yen where most other stuff I've bought has been 300 or 500 at the most) to watch with my friend before he left, and a bit near the end of the first side of the disc just wouldn't play, so I missed like 5-10 minutes in the middle of the film. I couldn't get it out by cleaning it with microfiber cloth (something that has worked plenty fine for other discs), and honestly I've gotten discs since have had far more noticeable surface-scratches but worked fine without so much as a hiccup (let alone a total crash like Cagliostro had). My new best guess is that that copy of Cagliostro must've been starting to experience the early stages of laser rot (no idea why that's what disc rot is called for laserdiscs, but that's what people call it) on the outer edges of the disc. Thankfully I was able to return it for my money back super easy, and the wonderful folks on the Slack chat have been helping recommend other series to try out watching out of the stuff that they have at the resale mall here (gonna watch the first disc set of Tekkaman Blade over the next day or two, I think). I'm still a bit bummed that Cagliostro didn't work though. I quite enjoyed what of it I could actually watch XP

The only lingering frustration is that trying to watch stuff like Patlabor has simply reminded me just how much Japanese I have left to learn. I stopped watching the Patlabor film after the end of the first disc because I wasn't getting ANYTHING of what was happening XP

[Nemoide]

Hell yeah, laserdiscs! I got my player about a decade ago and still have fun tracking down discs. There's a good amount of anime that's never been released on a better format and then even when blu-ray or DVD versions exist, the LD is usually MUCH less expensive.
For Japanese stuff especially, it's great to collect for. And being in Japan yourself, you won't have to pay any painful international shipping fees...

Glad to see someone else getting into the format!

[RCBH928]

I'm not sure I've mentioned it on the site (I've been busy with having company over and then with work starting again, so I've barely been playing games lately either), but I picked up a laserdisc player for really cheap a week and a bit ago (1700 yen!) and I've been hunting down some cheap/neat movies around here to watch on it.

The most expensive thing I picked up was Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro (2000 yen where most other stuff I've bought has been 300 or 500 at the most) to watch with my friend before he left, and a bit near the end of the first side of the disc just wouldn't play, so I missed like 5-10 minutes in the middle of the film. I couldn't get it out by cleaning it with microfiber cloth (something that has worked plenty fine for other discs), and honestly I've gotten discs since have had far more noticeable surface-scratches but worked fine without so much as a hiccup (let alone a total crash like Cagliostro had). My new best guess is that that copy of Cagliostro must've been starting to experience the early stages of laser rot (no idea why that's what disc rot is called for laserdiscs, but that's what people call it) on the outer edges of the disc. Thankfully I was able to return it for my money back super easy, and the wonderful folks on the Slack chat have been helping recommend other series to try out watching out of the stuff that they have at the resale mall here (gonna watch the first disc set of Tekkaman Blade over the next day or two, I think). I'm still a bit bummed that Cagliostro didn't work though. I quite enjoyed what of it I could actually watch XP

The only lingering frustration is that trying to watch stuff like Patlabor has simply reminded me just how much Japanese I have left to learn. I stopped watching the Patlabor film after the end of the first disc because I wasn't getting ANYTHING of what was happening XP

$20 for LD player? You know those are like sold broken for $50, if working they would be $100 minimum. Rare ones? can go up to $2-4K.

Glad to see someone else getting into the format!

*high five*

I wouldn't advice anyone to get into LDs really except if you have a hobby for old formats. The newest of these laser big disc spinner devices were made 18 years ago, how long will they last and who could fix them? They are expensive, newer TV's probably might not support composite input and the picture might just not look pleasing at all on a 60inch tv.

[PartridgeSenpai]

$20 for LD player? You know those are like sold broken for $50, if working they would be $100 minimum. Rare ones? can go up to $2-4K.

I wouldn't advice anyone to get into LDs really except if you have a hobby for old formats. The newest of these laser big disc spinner devices were made 18 years ago, how long will they last and who could fix them? They are expensive, newer TV's probably might not support composite input and the picture might just not look pleasing at all on a 60inch tv.

Yes, I'm very well aware of all of these things. That's why I was so psyched to find one for that cheap that works great!

They look just fine on my flatscreen though. Not exactly blu-ray quality, but given how much stuff I can get for 300-500 yen, Nemoide is totally on point when they say that it's a super cheap way to get my hands on TONS of anime stuff. I'm still getting to the point where I can actually watch the stuff without subtitles, but this is great practice, and the novelty of laserdisc is very fun for me X3

@Nemoide So cool to see other people here are into LDs too! And this really is a good place to find LDs. They're not always at such priced-to-move costs (Whisper of the Heart is 6500 yen for some reason, while I got Princess Mononoke for 600 yen at that same place O_o), but enough of it is that it's really neat to just go back and see what they have once more and re-gauge what I want X3

Although for the time being, I have more than enough. I'm excited for the next time I'm able to visit a friend's city though. Then I can comb THEIR recycle shops for laserdiscs X3

Today I hit up one of the last the last recycle shops around here I hadn't checked for LDs yet, and they had a complete(?) set of the Thunderbirds TV series of all things! I didn't pick it up, since it was 3000 yen, but still, what a neat find!

[stickem]

would something like a retrotink make a laserdisc look any better on a modern tv?