J. Jason Lazarus Blog

So, while going to the dump the other week down in Kenai, my father-in-law found a woman who was dumping a complete working Master System with around 24 games. He didn’t know at the time that it was a Master System, mistakingly assuming it was an Atari - either way, he called me up and asked if I wanted an “Atari with a bunch of games” - which I obviously couldn’t refuse for the price of $0. To boot, after finding out that he was wrong, I was actually happier - there’s little redeemable value to playing Atari games for me - at least Master System is advanced enough graphics to where I’m not guessing what a 4×4 pixel block is supposed to represent. So, I ended up with 21 or 22 new games that I didn’t previously have for this system and, to boot, ended up with what is now two working Master Systems.
The game system came with the following games: Super Wonderboy, Shooting Gallery, Space Harrier, Walter Payton Football, Wonderboy, Alien Syndrome, Double Dragons, Rastan, Great Basketball, After Burner, Great Baseball, Ghostbusters, California Games, Fantasy Zone, Zillion, Choplifter, Quartet, Kung Fu Kid, Gangster Town, Enduro Racer, Parlour Games, Monopoly, HangOn/Astro Warrior and OutRun.

Additionally, to top it all off, I got a Gameboy Player for the Gamecube. Being able to play GBA games on something that isn’t 2 inches in diameter is a great opportunity and might actually convince me to replay some of my favorites - or, for that matter, actually play some of them.

Oh, and to top it all off - the find of the century at Value Village - a Sega Nomad for $2.99! Seriously, a handheld system that plays all of the Genesis games - for 2.99??? Shocking! I’m still reeling from my luck!

Before I continue to perpetuate the absolute and complete RUMORS that I’m nerdy, I’ll stop talking about what could, possibly, maybe, be considered as “nerdy” talk. Pfft… me.. a nerd. yeah, right.

Anyways, on to other things - I’ll hopefully be posting tomorrow about my amazing weekend of taking photos down on the Kenai. We’ll see if that works!

This week I took a trip down memory lane and grabbed up some vintage geekporn - Voltron. Anyone within my age group grew up on this and had no doubts that Voltron could easily rival the Transformers for superiority in the universe - were it not for the fact that both of their respective groups were “defenders” rather than aggitators.
Although most of my fond memories of the 80’s cartoons I so lovingly obsessed over years ago have been horribly disfigured by the passage of time, Voltron manages to still capture my heart and imagination. So many other series that I was fond of have grated my sensabilities so harshly I’m unable to watch them without recoiling in absolute terror - unfortunately, one of the worst ones (and possibly the one I was most fond of) is vintage Ninja Turtles. Most of the Hanna Barbara cartoons I grew up with in Germany (AFN, Armed Forces Network, one English television channel for 3 years - not much choice) have no appreciable value to them anymore short of simple white noise fillers in the mid-day daze on my days off. Gummi Bears, oddly enough, are still enjoyable to watch. She-Ra, albeit a little painful, can still be watched.
And yet there’s Voltron - a horribly dubbed Japanese anime that looks pretty poorly dated in today’s standards of both animation, plot depth and voice acting. A only slightly exaggerated version of its dialog would go something like this:
“King Zarkon is attacking!”
“…………………. VOLTRON!” <while staring at the person that just said the last line>
“We Cannot!”
“……………huh?”
“We don’t have all the keys!”
“mmm!……………… ”
The dots represent right around 5 seconds of dead air space where nothing is going on other than random pans to characters doing absolutely nothing but staring at each other. Even with horrific dubbing, I’m still almost forced to love the series because it does exhibit almost boundless potential - to be honest, someone could easily rescript the episodes, add 5 frames more per second on much of the animation - add a few non-repetitive frames to the obscenely repetitive fight scenes and running scenes (seriously, just like Scooby Doo, the Voltron force literally have passed that blue door in the same hallway fifteen dozen times) and the series would be, by leaps and bounds, infinitely better.
That being said, I’m insanely worried when I hear that they’re planning a Voltron Movie. I can only hope they manage to do the exquisite job that Micheal Bay did on Transformers.
I got to see Transformers yesterday and I’ve got to say, it was outstanding. I never understood why people were vehemently opposed to Micheal Bay taking over the reins of the project - The Island might not have been the thinking man’s Brave New World, but damn, did it ever look sexy. Transformers, although I am a bit embarrassed to say it, caused a welling up of emotions in me - to see characters on the screen, so beautifully revived, from my childhood made me giddy with joy. I went in to the movie with low expectations and came out wondering why the heck I had waited two weeks to see it. And Peter Cullan’s voice *sigh* - outstanding addition to the whole experience. And to add to it, I had completely forgotten that he was part of the Voltron voices as well.
Nonetheless, vintage at its best. I am happy.

So, after teaching an amazing class on Friday (one of my weekend focus classes) I met Rebecca and her new interest out at Silver Gulch for a few beers - Ray had brought a friend and Rebecca had brought her sister. I couldn’t believe how much fun I had just hanging out with 3 people I didn’t know - just sitting back and enjoying a few beers. Afterwards, and this really only does happen in Alaska - we decided to go out to Chatinika Dredge, being that Becky and I were the only ones out of the group that had ever been out to the Dredge. Even though I packed all my cameras out there, I only used my digital because, well, to be honest, I’ve gone out there far too many times in the last two years. Thank God I at least did that - I keep on forgetting that “magic hour” in Fairbanks lasts five hours. We were there at least for two hours - leaving just before 1am. And, oh my god - the light! Completely awesome evening - hoping to have some more of these late evening trips before the summer is up.

A quote from me to my wife during Three Baron’s Ren Faire this last month:

“Ren Faire people are like Carnies…. except scary.”

Yes, last month while we were down in Anchorage we went to Three Barons Faire - thinking that we’d really enjoy it. It wasn’t that bad but it wasn’t what I exactly expected. I haven’t ever been to a Ren Faire before and didn’t expect the sheer level of family-friendness attached to the overall event. In other words, without kids you truly couldn’t enjoy everything it offered and could easily find yourself board without little ones.
Now, those of you that do know what I’ve been up to recently know that I have joined the SCA and do play it on a casual basis. I appreciate those (including my wife) that play it on a more regular basis and aspects of it do interwine more with their lives. I love the friends that I have in the SCA and I enjoy the time I have learning all sorts of things, from dances to arts to sciences and even brewing - all sorts of things that have broadened my horizons.
But, I have never had the grating shiver up my spine at SCA events that I had at Three Barons - there is simply something about people laboriously and painfully over-acting every bit of their routine that just grates my very nerves to the point blood is seemingly streaming from every natural opening in my body. I couldn’t stand it and came close to the point of pointing out to several participates how rediciously stupid they were acting - and acting as such wasn’t helping to convince me that they were in any way accurately representing life of the middle ages. There is only so many times you can say “Thee” and “Thou” until you start sounding like a unadulterated idiot. I guess my main point is - if you’re going to make a theme park, make a theme park - but if you’re going to act like you’re a group of historically accurate actors, do so, please. For the love of God, please. This isn’t Medieval Times. Stop acting like it is.

In the spirit of Double Dare and Highlights magazine and the like, I’ve decided to play a bit of a game here - show you but a taste of the huge picture and see how many of you can guess what it is. Those that have already seen the picture or already know what it is due to me telling you can’t guess. Keep it fun.

Well? Can you guess what it is?