Long before Interstella 5555 by Daft Punk.. there was La Serenissima.

 

La Serenissima - Rondo Veneziano

         Twenty years before Daft Punk ever considered releasing Interstella 5555, an Italian Orchestra called Rondo Veneziano released an album that was a surrealist mix of bass, synth, drums and violins, written and orchestrated by Maestro Gian Piero Reverberi. This was matched with an animated short drawn and animated in a Japanese style and influenced by the pulp magazines and comic books of the late 70's and early 80s by Walter Cavazzuti & Giovanni Ferrari. The result was what you see above in all its pulpy Heavy Metal glory. 

      

You think Heavy Metal was some kind of influence here?

     You can clearly see the inspiration of the music video, art and album covers is based on the covers of Heavy Metal and Omni magazine. Raising Venice is an obvious choice for the Italian creators, and the mix of the rock-opera-roller-boogie vibe is strangely a pretty good marriage for the animation. Rondo Veneziano made several other animated shorts to pair with his music over the years, all based in science fiction and high fantasy. Quite the reality check when you compare the quality and music of this animation and some of the other things we find beautiful and different today. If you dig around enough, you may find out what you think is unique has already been done, and occasionally.. in some ways better. 

Enjoy some HQ animation cells below:

Robot Carnival (1987) Full Movie!

 

Robot Carnival.. it fucks

     Robot Carnival is an OVA anime-anthology style movie made in 1987, that saw some limited release in the US in 1991. Bootlegs were circulated, and you could find some unauthorized copies in shopping malls across the country with the segments mixed up.

     Made in nine parts by nine animators with vastly different styles and vibes. The music is pure 80's chillwave cheese, and is as good today as it was then. Other anthology OVA's like this came later after Carnival's success: Neo Tokyo, Memories, Genius Party, and Short Peace to name a few.

    This movie is absolutely stunning in every way. The themes range from serious and dramatic to sincere comedy. The high level of detail for its time, and the number of drawn frames is really a testament to the animators who put this together trying to show off their best stuff. Do yourself a favor and watch this classic before YouTube removes it for some reason. 

Enjoy the show.

William Hjortsberg posted some Legend behind the scenes photos

 

Click here to go to Hjortsberg's website that has the pictures and descriptions. 

       I've mentioned on several other occasions how much I like the movie Legend, starring Tom Cruise and Mia Sara. Any time something comes up Legend related, I have to report on it and share my excitement. This post may have been up for years on Hjortsberg's website, but I just stumbled upon it today. I found some other behind the scenes pictures on the Tim Curry Facebook, as well as Robert Picardo's Facebook. It's a really good to time to be a fan; you can just put in like 30 minutes of effort and really have some exiting stuff to look at. Older actors and actresses are reminiscing about old times as they age through the industry, so they are sharing on social media more than ever. 

    Anyways, click the link above, and enjoy some of the other pictures I found below:

My favorite, Tim pounding a 40 of High Life.

Prayer of the Rollerboys (1990) Full Movie!

 

Corey Haim and Rollerblades!

   In the not-so-far-away future, after "The Great Crash", gangs and drugs reign supreme. The great grandson of Adolf Hitler's rollerblade gang, dressed in white trench coats and black gloves, control the ebb and flow of a drug called Heaven's Mist. Naturally being a relative of Hitler, they are going to put something in the drugs to kill junkies and minorities. Checkmate fuckers!

These are bad dudes and they mean business. 

    Everyone settle down, because we have Corey Haim, and he is an accomplished rollerblader and can infiltrate this gang and counter corrupt it from the inside. At the middle point of the movie, I started to wonder if this was a prequel for the movie Solarbabies. It hit all the key points: Postapocalyptic, in the future, rollerblades, cast members from the Lost Boys. This movie inspired Corey Haim to pick up rollerblading full time, and often talked about it in interviews.

Skating in this way allows for perfect accuracy.

     My brother and I would wear one of my dad's trenchcoats and put skates on, and pretended we were part of the Rollerboys. Later on in life, after watching some more terrible rollerblade movies, I would end up trying to make a mini-career out of inline skating. So in a way.. I guess this terrible movie influenced me in some way? I guess I should write about that in some kind of future article.

Watch this movie, suspend your disbelief, and drink in the majesty that is Prayer of the Rollerboys.

    

Flying Luna Clipper (1987) Full Movie & Thoughts

 

Flying Luna Clipper is a DOS demo scene fever dream.

    I don't know why this movie exists to be honest. Did the world need a 55 minute movie made in 8 Bit PC art? Don't get me wrong, this is worth a watch. As people get more nostalgic for their DOS games, this film is going to resonate with more and more fans of the genre. If you just submit a little and watch this without asking for too much, it is actually a pretty soothing 55 minutes. Does the intro to Space Quest IV give you the warm fuzzies? Then this is 100% for you.

Half fruit, half person, this sums up the movie perfectly.

    Created by Ikko Ono on a MSX 8 bit computer, the video plays like a slideshow, and less like a movie. One piece of surreal art moves to the next, thinly animated at it's core. You have to really use your imagination at times. About 10 minutes in I was asking myself.. Why did Sony fund this? They had to obviously know this was not going to go over well. God, they even considered a sequel at some point. I don't want to shit on this too much, because It's super interesting, and I think it's important in many ways. Matt Repetski rediscovered this gem on Laserdisc at a thrift store, and uploaded this to his youtube channel, which makes you wonder; how many other things like this got made and we forgot about them in the stream of time?

More info on this oddity here. 

Dragon's Heaven OVA (1988) 4K Full Movie!

 

Dragon's Heaven - Upscaled to 4K!

    Dragon's Heaven was way ahead of it's time in 1988. High frame rate and unique gritty art style really set it apart from it's competition. Like Mechs and beautiful anime girls? Sprawling hell-blasted landscapes and futuristic dystopian cities your thing? Then this one is for you. The only downside is the duration of the OVA is pretty short, and we don't get to explore this world more than just this little movie.

Thunder Run (1985) Full movie!

 

You may be wondering, why 1985's Thunder Run? I'll tell you fucking why:

1. Nitro square body Chevy race truck
2. Shotgun proof 1975 Kenworth Semi with flame throwers
3. Radioactive secret payloads
4. Sweet death scenes
5. Lasers
6. Extreme amounts of Technobabble
7. Missiles mounted on a VW bug
8. 80's level nudity

If that's not enough reason to watch this often overlooked 80's classic, then you are in the wrong place. 

Laptop Testdrive - MSI GS76 Stealth

 

I thought I would post a quick review of this laptop, since it's been my daily driver for work, for about the last 2 months. Some light gaming, multi-monitor workloads, and a little bit of benchmarking have been done in that period of time.

I bought the computer here. 

Specs:

• 99.99wh battery
• 32gb 3600hz ddr4
• 1tb m.2 drive
• 2tb back up solid state drive
• i9 11900h
• RTX 3070 (full desktop version)
• 360hz refresh IPS panel

Summary:

     It's a lot overkill for what I needed at work, and it was never intended for such a purpose. I have a nice-ish work HP laptop- fake ass shitty quad core i7 1165g7, 16gb ram, touch screen, fingerprint scanner. VERY Basic, but much better than average for spreadsheets and email, and the price was right at $599. The screen cracked, and in the process of repair, the shop damaged the laptop so it's being replaced. I had to use this new laptop that I ordered from Best Buy as my new work replacement in the interim. I ordered this particular laptop with the idea that I would be gaming out in the world a little more being that I travel so much. This is by far the most expensive and most powerful laptop I've ever had. I spec'd it out with the only option not checked being the 64gb of ram; 32 should be enough for any game or anything really. 

Pros:

• It's just lightning fast in all desktop processes. As good or better than my overclocked i7 10700k desktop in a compact package, but with increased thermals and sound.
• The refresh rate is insane for what it is. I could not tell that much of a different between 240 and 360, but there was a difference. I felt like I needed to get a new mouse for some reason it was so good. Colors are bright and blacks are pretty black in any situation. When compared to other laptops around the office, the screen is far and away better when viewing at an angle.
• Lots of airflow that I can see both on the top and the bottom of the case. I'm using a laptop cooler, but I don't think it's doing much more actual cooling. This thing is noisy when you get some games going, and there is a button to increase fan speed or reduce it and put it in silent mode. Bloat added software has a control to switch between on-board IRIS graphics, and the RTX 3070.
• The battery when using the desktop graphics and not the RTX 3070 lasts a very long time, almost 3 hours with heavy use. When the graphic card is activated and when playing a game, it lasts about an hour and a half which is not bad at all, all things considered. This is a very large battery, and it adds to the overall heft of the machine.
• The case is metal and feels pretty sturdy with just a hint of flex. It's heavy, machined well, and feels like you are a bad bitch. It could be thinner, but for what you get, I'm happy.
• Has plenty of ports for whatever you need. No issues. 
• The keyboard has decent travel and is a pleasure to type on.
• Trackpad is a medium size, large and the multi-touch control panel works okay.
• Hinges for the monitor are not made of plastic, which is a big selling point to me as I break them.

Cons:

• The sound, although full and bright, is very low volume. My other MSI laptop that is half the price is 3 times as loud. I've tried drivers, settings, any little trick to get it higher to no avail.
• The fans are screaming loud during gaming or anything that uses the video card. You can adjust this, but only between a few pre-determined settings to get a somewhat quieter fan curve. It's a hot little machine. burn your legs hot. No thermal throttling, but at the risk of skin layers.
• Speaking of hot, this PC unless on the highest fan settings, teeters on the dangerous side of thermal throttling all the time. Just let those fans scream and get use to it.
• Switching to using the video card instead of on-board graphics is a really painful process that you will not know if you got right or not, and even then, will only work on the applications you designate. The only way to ensure it uses the video card all the time is to deactivate internal graphics in the device manager.
• 2 USB ports does not seem like enough to me, but I digress. There are a ton of other IO options so you can break out your dongles and get to work. One type C or thunderbolt port seems chincy. 
• I like that it's a heavy machine, but it's heavy, so that's a con.
• Won't fit in a normal 17-17.3 laptop bag. It has a little extra meat on it, so in most cases will not fit in your budget minded laptop bag. 

In Games:

• It runs OG Overwatch at the full 360hz, full ultra everything with not so much as a drop of sweat. The fans turn on and off during play like a jet taking off and I like it.
• Playing Control was awesome. Full RTX DLSS at a high FPS, no issues. Video card temps got pretty high. Having the full RTX 3070 and not the laptop version has it's benefits and it shows.

Conclusion:

      I played a few various other games and there was no stopping this machine. I have the luxury of having a really nice desktop that plays everything on full settings the same way, but I have never experienced this in a laptop before without all kinds of issues.. even with the same or better specs. I feel like this is a true desktop replacement hooked up to a second monitor, keyboard and mouse. Something durable enough to throw in the car and head out without worry. I do wonder if this machine will stand the test of time with it's size and build quality being a little bit bulky. 

Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD) Tournament!

 

Click here for more information!

Connect to the BBS Directly with this link

Brainscan (1994) Full Movie!

 

Let's watch some Brainscan together!

This classic movie from 1994 stars Edward Furlong in his first outing after Terminator 2. Awesome villain standout "The Trickster" steals the show. Has a good mix of horror, teen movie and some twists. +1 for random A List talent that pops in and out.  

Hypercard Stacks - Macintosh Mainstay and Homebrew Oddity

Who wouldn't want a black and white pixelated Samantha Fox? (Link)

    Time and time again I have expressed my love for early 80's and 90's Macintosh gaming and computers. The classic beige boxes and tiny screens fascinated me, and rules the roost both at home and school when I was but a wee lad. For more on my experience with Macs, read here and here, oh and here and here as well. Of course now-a-days you can emulate a classic Mac in a browser window, download all the files you need in seconds automatically; This is the future after all. 

Welcome! Look at all this cool shit you can do in the 80's.

      What is Hypercard you ask? It's one of the very first hypermedia systems that gained any kind of traction before the adoption of the World Wide Web. Links, audio, video, and text- all presented as an easy to use development kit free of charge to the lucky people who bought an early Macintosh or Apple IIGS. Think of Hypercard as a primitive Microsoft Powerpoint, but with a more simple front end and without any kind of database engine. You could essentially code something without the knowledge of coding, redirect and link different media types, and add controls, links and text in the "Stack". A Stack is terminology for a bunch of documents, individual documents are called 'Cards'. Basically it's just how the documents and data are stored, and how you link to them. Compare this to how Powerpoint has slides and how they link and interact. Using this subsystem, Hypercard users could make presentations, educational software, or even games. What is a good example of a game with Hypercard you ask?

Ahhhh Myst. The game that changed everything. Including making people buy 1x speed tray loading CD drives.

          Yes. This primitive black and white program with limited programming abilities, was just a bunch of Hypercard stacks linked together to play animation or show pictures and audio at predetermined times, was used to create this groundbreaking game that we know and love. Myst is a game that was revolutionary for it's day, had industry leading graphics and cutting edge gameplay that changed the way people thought how game should be designed and played. Unfortunately, for every one game like Myst, there was 100000 Hypercard games uploaded to Keyword: Download on AOL that defied logic and sense. Let's look at a couple shining examples below. I'll provide links to all the games, all you have to do is click the green power button on the screen, it will load the rom into the Macintosh Emulator automatically, and all you have to do is open the disk on the virtual desktop to launch the program. Let's get started.

I've been approved to post on r/cannibalism

 

     I don't remember asking to join the group, however, it does sound like something I would do when I'm drunk. This mystical subreddit is private and invite only, by application. What can someone see on this subreddit? Behold:

I guess if you want to be eaten, you are labeled as a pig. 

Correction: A long pig.

I'm so conflicted. The comments are equally disturbing.

Good god fuck.

I'm done for the day. With life.

I couldn't help but ask an innocent question.