Left and to the Back is a blog exploring the dark and dusty world of flop singles and albums, the kind you may find lingering near the stock room of your local second hand record store (if you still have one), or perhaps going for extortionate sums on ebay. [Found whilst trying to answer
this AskMe].
posted by unliteral
on Feb 6, 2012 -
4 comments
Rokko Chan! Want to relieve the nes days with megaman? Now you can - in your browser! Same difficulty and annoying traps as ever :)
posted by TrinsicWS
on Jan 8, 2012 -
7 comments
What is
Pink Lady? In Japan they are remembered for a string of pop hits in the 70s, but Americans might remember them either from their disco single "
Kiss In The Dark" or from an attempt to sell them to the US market in 1980 via a short-lived NBC variety show
Pink Lady & Jeff (
TVParty summary) with comedian
Jeff Altman. (
Opening). The show featured their Japanese hits,
UFO,
MONSTER (a bi
t more rock and roll), and
SOS along with US hits like
Boogie Wonderland,
McArthur Park and the
occasional guest star. (with
encore)
Also, Roy Orbison.
Sadly, the show failed to break out and the two returned to Japan for a series of farewell concerts and retrospectives. Much, much more available at this
charmingly retro, utterly exhaustive fan site devoted to them. Or just
read the recaps. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk
on Dec 11, 2011 -
33 comments
Everything feels old. There have been no radical changes in style, culture, art, and fashion over the last 20 years—a stark contrast to every other two decade period going all the way back into the 19th-century,
Kurt Anderson argues in
Vanity Fair. Every 20 year period marked a drastic and unmistakable shift in cultural appearance with the exception of our current quarter century.
[more inside]
posted by stbalbach
on Dec 8, 2011 -
258 comments
Rule no. 1: Catch the first Pokemon you encounter in each route/cave/whatever and nothing else. If you fail to catch it, too bad, continue onwards. Rule no. 2: If your Pokemon faints, consider it dead and release it. In 2010 a 4chan user posted
these rules for making Pokemon more of a challenge, as well as a short comic on his exploits in a world where Pokemon can die. The "
Nuzlocke" comic became wildly popular, spawning dozens of elaborate offshoots in
comic and
story form.
[more inside]
posted by melissam
on Dec 3, 2011 -
15 comments
Ana Lee's fashion blog is in Russian but with its insane number of HQ photographs
[don't forget to click the "далее"], you won't care. For example, her two posts about
Carol Alt almost certainly comprise the greatest documentation of that model's career to be found anywhere in the world.
posted by Trurl
on Aug 28, 2011 -
6 comments
The Rutt-Etra-Izer is a WebGL emulation of the classic Rutt-Etra video synthesizer created by
Felix Turner. It requires a recent version of Chrome or Firefox. If you can't get the synthesizer to work, there is a video of the audioreactive version made with Processing in the author's
announcement. YMMV. Do not taunt Rutt-Etra-Izer.
posted by mkb
on Jun 10, 2011 -
10 comments
Friday Flash Fun in the (temporary) form of Soul Brother, a retro style 2d flash game from adult swim. You character can jump into a fresh body when killed, which soon proves useful as all the inhabitants of this world have different talents, and thanks to you, very short life spans.
[more inside]
posted by Dillonlikescookies
on Apr 29, 2011 -
10 comments
This year marks a decade of
Strong Bad Emails, sent from Strong Bad's desk. Next to his computer sits a box of
floppy discs, often displaying game titles. If you missed those titles, the detail-oriented
Homestar Runner wiki (
previously)
provides game titles, summaries, and links. Many of the games are old computer games like
Rise of the Dragon or
Miner 2049er, and some titles are linked to
Lord_Pall's
revived Home of the Underdogs abandonware game archive. Other games have links to
the Videlectrix catalog, where you can see
box art and
play some demos. Or you can go back to the Homestar Runner wiki, and go to the list of
playable Videlectrix titles, like
50k Racewalker (
play online)
Polulation: Tire (
play online) or
Peasant's Quest (
play online) (More previous stuff:
Peasant's Quest and
Where's An Egg?).
posted by filthy light thief
on Apr 1, 2011 -
83 comments
BS Zelda Retrospective (SLYT). In honor of Zelda's 25th anniversary this month, this is an interesting look at the live-broadcast
Satellaview games in the Zelda series, which had some compelling and strange tweaks to the Zelda formula. The beginning is an introduction to the service, and the fun bit begins at
8:50.
posted by BlackLeotardFront
on Feb 23, 2011 -
13 comments
The miniskirts, hotpants, bellbottoms, boots, sunglasses, and hairdos of the
Sixties Seventies as worn by the famous and anonymous beauties of the time.
(some images NSFW)
posted by Joe Beese
on Jan 2, 2011 -
60 comments
You are in a warm, dark, comfortable place. This has been your place since you became aware that you are alive. It's almost time to enter a different world now.
In 1986, Activision published a roleplaying computer game called
Alter Ego. Unlike the action and fantasy titles that ruled the day, this game simulated the course of a single ordinary life. Beginning at birth, players navigated a series of vignettes: learning to crawl, reacting to strangers, getting a first haircut. The outcome of each scenario subtly influenced one's path, and with every choice players slowly progressed through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
Graphically minimalist -- one's lifestream is represented by simple icons, and the scenarios are all text -- the game was nevertheless engaging, describing the world in a playful, good-natured tone tinged by darkness and melancholy. And it had quite a pedigree; developer and psychology PhD
Peter Favaro interviewed hundreds of people on their most memorable life experiences to generate the game's 1,200 pages of material. Unfortunately for Dr. Favaro, the game didn't sell very well. But it lives on through the web --
PlayAlterEgo.com offers a full copy of the game free to play in your browser, and the same port is available as a $5 app for
iPhone and
Android.
More: Port discussion group -
Wishlist -
Vintage review - Original game manual (
text or
scans)
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 31, 2010 -
46 comments
YouTube has a fair number of recordings of well-played classic arcade games.
Dig Dug,
Mr Do!,
Mr Do's Castle,
Do! Run Run,
Lady Bug Part 2,
Bagman,
Super Bagman,
Q*bert,
Venture,
Zoo Keeper,
Moon Cresta,
Scramble,
Make Trax,
Phoenix,
Rastan.
click through for more [more inside]
posted by JHarris
on Dec 23, 2010 -
35 comments
"Set in the strange and oppressive emotional landscape of the year 1983,
Beyond The Black Rainbow is a Reagan era fever dream inspired by hazy childhood memories of midnight movies and Saturday morning cartoons."
Trailer.
[more inside]
posted by naju
on Nov 18, 2010 -
29 comments
