Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Lately, i cannot play my game consoles at living room due to smelly odor of rattan baskets placed outside living room. My sister put them behind living room and the baskets haven't moved into different place yet. Phew...! 😒

I didn’t realize wicker had a smell.
Ah, the joys of scraping the ice off the ruck with a library card. Why, you ask? Because no one here sells ice scrapers. Ah, but there is the inter webs! Yes, but I always forget...

I must have frozen my brain. I walked to the break room and back to my office before I realized I had put my lunch in my desk and my wallet in the fridge. Somebody call the pound, today is gonna be ruff.

@Blitzenexx Where are they finding new VHS cassettes to tape things on?!

I can't imagine what modern setup you'd suggest to them. A Mythbuntu box? All the cable DVRs are subscription....I'd pick the VCR too!

😆😂😆😂

@Blitzenexx Oh, I'm absolutely in favor of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", except parents sometimes seem to take that to extremes. My dad also still uses the VCR to record whatever it is that he wants to see, but besides the fact that the tapes have degraded horribly because of the repeated recordings, it looks even worse on his current TV, which as I mentioned, is newer than mine (Samsung HD TV UE40K5670ss), so it's one blurry mess, but he doesn't seem to care one way or the other.

But the way we use that saying, is probably more efficient. We're already all but fully in the modern audio/video age, so if the HD TV still works, then there certainly isn't any reason to replace the screen.

A Bluray player, however, most definitely is a worthwhile consideration...

@Delibheel The fact that it says "1080p" in the corner of the screen says nothing about the resolution of the screen, but about the upscaling of the signal and/or the output of the device that's connected to the screen. If I'd have to make a guess, I'd say the TV is probably what was known as "HD Ready", which at the most, is 1080i, and does indeed display in 720p. I'll save you the whole tech story behind it, but that's the gist of it.

And if I remember correctly, it's actually more or less mandatory for TV manufacturers, to mention if a screen is Full HD or not, so it should be quite visible somewhere on the TV and in the manual.

I can definitely agree to the feeling of having something that's all yours. I don't know if that counts for everyone, but I still have that feeling with every device or little thing that I buy.

@NEStalgia You'd be surprised. My dad sometimes goes to a thrift shop that still sells completely new, sealed tapes for a buck or 2 a piece.

@ReaderRagfihs Well... don't know if I would call it that. It's more a mix of laziness and him not wanting to get to grips with new equipment. He's no technophobe by any means, but he more or less only buys/replace stuff if he has no other options left. And then when something goes wrong or he has some kind of issue, he calls me.
Like I still have any present knowledge of VCR's and stuff...

In the end, I always do end up finding the solution for him, either by Googling or simply downloading the manuals for him, but it's kinda funny (well, not in the moment, but afterwards) how he always talks about these problems, as if I'm sitting on the couch next to him.

Then I always have to emphasize that I can't see what he's seeing, much less know what he's doing, and he's not exactly precise in his descriptions, so it's somewhat of a miracle (either that, or me by now having (too much) experience in handling those situations) that we ultimately always end up solving it...

And he has quite the temper, also making it a bit more difficult.
So, technically, I'm part tech wizard, part social worker...

Right now, I'm typing with the Switch on my desk, waiting for the MK 11 reveal. A lot of crap and blabla is shown now, which doesn't interest me. I want to see gameplay, damned!

It still amazes me how beautiful the Switch screen is, though. And it isn't even full HD. I don't know what magic they applied to it, but it looks better than the screen on my Samsung Galaxy A6. Probably also because it's bigger, but still. Pretty darn sweet...

@ThanosReXXX Wow, I haven't actually seen one, physically, other than my own, in many years!

Anyone here played Gun (2005)? It's a cool western action game from the PS2 era.

@Vinny Yup. Got it on PC, GameCube and Xbox 360.

@ThanosReXXX This is another title I found out about thanks to GameSack, in a video where they talk about their backlog.

@Vinny You mean that you just discovered it recently, or quite a while ago already?
And which version did you get?

@ThanosReXXX I got it back in december, I have the PS2 version and I also got Gun: Showdown for the PSP out of curiosity.

I played Gun on Xbox, I enjoyed it!

@Vinny Ah, okay. Well, there's also an Xbox 360/PS3 version, which looks quite a bit better. That's the reason why I've got several versions myself. Back in the day, a good friend of mine drew my attention to the GameCube version, and so I bought that, but I actually sucked at it, and in some ways, the GameCube controller wasn't as suited to first person games as the controllers on later consoles were. And my skills in such games also weren't all that great, to be honest.

So, I got stuck pretty early on in the game, so I never even got that far into it, and I tossed it aside to play other games that I preferred and was much better at. Once I had it on the Xbox 360, though, I was already much more skilled in these types of games, and the controller was obviously also a huge improvement,
so I picked the game up again, and this time, I played quite a bit further.

Never did finish it, though: I always have a habit of buying too many games, especially back then,
so I just had too many of them vying for my attention.

@NEStalgia, @ThanosReXXX: They retape on the same tape until it's done for, then move on to one of the few blanks that they stocked up on. They have Dish and an option for DVR, but y'know...more money lol. I might be able to convince them to get a more modern setup once the living room TV finally craps out. I know their Dish bill has been gradually rising over time.

They cope when we're on vacation by watching the show (The Bold and the Beautiful) via CBS's website, but the ads don't get any better online. I don't see why they still bother with that show's repeating loop of drama actually. I swear that most of the main cast has been married to each other at least three times....

Oh man, makes me remember when I’d have to wait for mom’s soaps to finish so I could play Duck Hunt 😂

@Blitzenexx Well, if you actually know that, then you must have at least watched it more than a couple of times yourself...

As for the tapes: well, nothing weird there. That's how recordable tapes were supposed to be used. I did that, back in the day, and my dad still does that, much like your parents.

And once they realize the reduced overall cost and ease of use of getting a box with cloud-based recording, well at least: if it also works like that on your side of the pond, then they'll probably warm up to the idea. Right now, my dad has a box without recording option (cheaper subscription), but I'm pretty sure once the VCR goes to the eternal hunting grounds, that he'll either be looking at something else, or will ask me about good options.

Here's hoping that when that day comes, he doesn't go to the thrift shop to try and find another VCR...

Ok, so I'm having an internal debate.

I'm still in this odd pac-man mood. And there's these cute lcd-based small arcade machines (kinda like game and watch versions of the games) on amazon and I really want one. But I'm having a hard time deciding which one.

They have Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. Both are functionally similar, and cost the same.

Now, Ms. Pac-Man has the great advantage of being, well, Ms. Pacman. It's a much more advanced machine: multiple mazes, backlight, and has color.

Pac-Man on the other hand is a plain monochrome black on gray machine without backlight and a single hard-coded maze design.

However, based on some videos of it I found online, Ms. Pac-Man sounds bad, much like the actual arcade machine, it has constant cacophonic beeps that never stop. Meanwhile Pac-Man has pleasant (or at least less annoying), more iconic sound effects. It also probably consumes less power, which means batteries last longer.

I also already have the Ms. Pac-Man mini arcade, which is a more accurate conversion of the game with actual graphics. I don't have regular Pac-Man.

Hm. Why is wasting money so hard. Which would you guys buy? I kinda wish they had the regular pac-man with the colored backlight screen.

@Delibheel Well, if you already have Ms. Pacman, I would say buy neither. That Pacman one sounds (and from the description also looks) like crap.

You should buy one of those LG Bluray players instead, at least that's a useful waste of money. No, seriously: ask @Blitzenexx...

EDIT:
Ah, you can tell it's way past midnight over here: I overlooked the pictures. But now that I've actually seen them,
I can say with full confidence that I would never buy either of them, because they're both butt-ugly and cheap looking. Do yourself a favor, and save your money for something better. Or buy Pac-Man Arcade on the Switch, which looks far better.