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Think of a Doom and Duke, Hexen and Heretic... but refined, more features, and a ton more horror elements and gore. Blood was the first FPS games that used Voxels, advanced lighting effects, and far improved sound and level design. It retro-futuristic wild west feel was far ahead of its time, and has a last effect on gaming to this day.
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Why upgrade? If you have been following along from previous posts, it's been quite a while since I've upgraded my monitor.. six years to be exact. I've been rocking the same 27" Acer Predator 272B with 240hz refresh, the shitty View Sonic 27" with decent color, and the Samsung frame above that.. for quite a while. I'm very happy with the Acer- it's been a capable gaming monitor now for that whole time, with zero issues at all. It is a little heavy, so not easy on monitor arms, but that is not a big deal and almost not worth mentioning. I just think it's time 1080p does not do it anymore for the games I'm playing. I realized I don't need 240hz for FPS games- I really can't see the difference after 150 or so that I'm aware of, and that I'm more sensitive to screen tearing and frame drops. After much research without the money to really do anything about it, I decided I wanted identical monitors, curved, and from what reviews and the general consensus says, 2k high refresh is where it's at, curved if you want to go that route.
The price to upgrade made no sense when I was happy with the current monitor situation, but when I saw these two G Ultra Gear G6's out on clearance at Walmart for $166 each, I jumped at the chance. 32 inches, two of them, 2k, high refresh.. let's go. The monitor arms were also on clearance, and I'm still working on getting them perfect with tension. I think I'm at the very limit of weight and tension that they will allow.
The bevels are really slim, the size is much larger than I'm use to, but the 74" desk was easy to accept the size difference without looking stupid. Getting the monitors to line up was actually pretty easy, the desk has a split in the middle so I lined everything up with that, and mounted the monitors in the same position, then fine-tuned from there. Overall, I'm really happy and think this is a significant upgrade from the previous configuration. I do plan on getting a whole new PC in February, so this was needed to bring me in to the next generation of computing.
Monitor review:
There is so much written about this subject of Vangelis' Blade Runner Soundtrack, I don't think I will really do it the full scope of justice that it deserves, so I'll give my summary on the subject, some hot takes, and my takeaways. In 2002, Bently Ousley wrote a pretty good, but not definitive article on the matter with some great reviews and explanation. Since his article was written, loads more tracks, versions and history has been discovered so there is no real whole source we can reference. Vangelis Rarities has lots of pictures and track information with some details, and seems to update every so often. After reading some threads on Reddit recently, I think there could be dozens more bootlegs and missing tracks out there waiting to be discovered.
DOS 1993 BBS vibes. Monochrome gas plasma throwback. Modern media meets text adventure.
Late in the cycle of the VHS era, TV ushered in fresh new content in an attempt to breathe fresh life into the platform of basic cable. You may have had 40-50 channels, but often times at night, nothing was on. If you wanted to watch movies, you had to pay for those channels. After 10pm, most channels went to infomercials, paid programming, or just turned off completely. In those times, Bravo bailed out the night owls with some unique perspective. This channel had the market cornered on random and obscure, and I was here for it.
For the first time you could tune in to a channel with very limited commercials, with breaks and channel programming announced by a melodic deep voice with dreamy transitions. There was a new or old live recording of Cirque Du Soleil on damn near every night. Live concerts, movies only screened at Cannes film festival, and weekends of rare london underground punk movies complete with nudity and violence. My step mother got me into enjoying theatre, so you can imagine my surprise when over the holidays there was a Broadway marathon including CATS- something I did not see live until around college age.
I was introduced to independant and low budget cinema from watching Bravo past 2am on a weekdays. Films that would never find their way to America got limited viewing and promotion; rare back then. Trainspotting would come on at midnight, London Kills me at 2am, and Blue Juice at 3:45. I worked nights, never slept. This level of chaotic programming was right up my alley and expanded what I knew about international and foreign movies, which at the time as basically nothing.
I have a fond memory of an experience I owe to my girlfriend at the time, who was out of town, calling me to tell me to tune into Bravo. There was a movie that I would like on, you should watch it. We ended up on the phone for over an hour watching the greater part of The Name of the Rose starring Sean Connery. My first watch, but I had read the Umberto Ecco book before, but it had been a while. I had no idea this movie existed, and we watched it on the phone together in silence until the breaks where we speculated what was going to happen next. What a rare treat at the time to catch something as meaningful and as profound as this movie on basic cable at the ripe old age of 15. The commercial breaks were minimal, complete with subdued lighting and noise. Before the movie resumed, a narrator explained the differences between the movie and the book, and speculated director choices. After the movie, there was an interview with Umberto Ecco. This was peak nerd shit, I'm telling you. I was fucking hooked.
I learned so much about music. I had no idea Frida had her own album that she launched solo in the early 80's, let alone the fact that Phil Collins wrote and performed the whole thing, did all the work, and really just did not get along with the ABBA alum.. but here we are at 1:30am watching a whole retrospective about how the music was made. Down the rabbit hole we go as the next 5 hours of programming were devoted to live Genesis performances synced to pictures and videos of art and people dancing. Strange but powerful. The arts shape the young mind, and so I was indeed molded to be interested in media I did not wholly understand.
TLDR; Bravo was a way normal people in America could be cultured in the 90's without breaking the bank, and consume media that you never knew existed.
We're not talking about Blockbuster, Family Video, or Hollywood Video here- we are hailing the dingy and cluttered neighborhood video rental stores of the 80's and 90's. Where the family enslaved their kid to work behind the counter; where the rentals for video games were always around 2 years old and the snacks around the same age. Posters peeling off the walls. This was the age of the Five-Day Rental.
What exactly is a Five-Day Rental, and what would constitute a Five-Day Rental movie? Well, I'm glad you asked. In my neck of the woods it was typically limited to Horror, Sword and Sandal, and cheesy martial arts or Sci-Fi. Admittedly, some of the movies in this section would not deserve to be there, but that was half the fun. Scooping up 6-7 movies on the cheap, and lucking out on a few, or discovering an actor or series you didn't know you liked. To qualify I think there has to be the following things: violence, nudity, camp/jank, and sometimes a low budget. Below would 5 good examples of movies I had in rotation, and would be an easy pick up for my brother and I.
About a month ago I had to attend a promo out of market, at a Publix Pours location in Wellington Florida, in West Palm. I'm from there, so signed up right away to visit my old stomping ground. After about a 4 hour drive, I arrived and found myself in quite the situation- I had to park about 2 miles away, and the place I was going, they don't exactly let people with backpacks with laptops in. I ended up in my car for about an hour with my laptop perched on the steering wheel, uncomfortable, power cables running all over the interior of my truck. It was a small stressor, but it had me thinking how I could get ahead of it.
After getting home I found a very large 10,000mAh battery pack that is solar, waterproof, and has the ports I need on it, with a stand. Charge 3 devices at once! What a coincidence, I happen to daily two phones and a smart watch, so this comes in clutch. The second piece of kit I added is something I've seen on reddit- a foldable pocket keyboard and touchpad that syncs to bluetooth. Leather wrapped, thin and sleek with a surprisingly large keyboard with full Num-pad, this foldable was far better than it should be for the price, and I rarely charge it. The touchpad is large and works well, and there is nothing needed to install- the phone picks up on it right away and the cursor appears. I added this to my already bad-fucking-ass Z Fold 6 with it's screen with built in stand and stylus holder, and we're off to the races.
I live in a major metropolitan area, where I often have to park my car, pay like $20-$50 to do so, and walk or take my electric scooter to my destination. Typically this is in downtown Tampa, Ybor City, or Clearwater Beach. Recently during game days, this has been pretty common in the St. Pete Area. I finally had a real world application where I would not be able to have my whole backpack of tech with me, and I had work to do in St. Pete two weeks ago. I put my stack of 3 devices in my left pocket, hopped on my scooter and took off down to Fergs when they were just opening about 5 blocks away. I had about two hours until my event started, so I used this chance to open my cool micro-battlestation and hammered out several emails, designed a facebook post, and edited several spreadsheets. After about 30 minutes, it felt like any other laptop, just small in stature. I got more than my share of strange looks, and even a waitress who asked me what that hell is going on and was very fascinated. All in all, I love my little cheap portable setup and will be using it several times a month to increase productivity going forward.
