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anoraksalmanac · 2 years
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Tray liner featuring several different activities (zoom in to view details) included with the 1990 McDonald’s Super Mario Bros. 3 Happy Meal.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Source: twitter.com user “vgartandtidbits”
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anoraksalmanac · 2 years
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Her paint and her canvas, the one and the zero The very first heroine, demoted to hero
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anoraksalmanac · 2 years
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Perfect for when you want to be transported back to the arcades of the 80s, here's one hour of arcade ambience featuring games from 1986! This same user also made '81, '83 and '92 ambiance soundscapes. It's like you're right there at Happytime Pizza!
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anoraksalmanac · 3 years
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Fire up your Disney Plus, gunters, because both Ewok movies are now available! Have you seen them before, or will this be your first time? Should Caravan of Courage been called Caravan of Suck, as Aech suggested?
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anoraksalmanac · 3 years
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Ready Player One/Two Readalike Recommendations!
If you’re like me, then after finishing these books you’re really in the mood for more! So I thought I’d offer up my personal recommendations for books you might want to read when you’ve finished with these.
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Warcross by Marie Lu - In the near future, everyone is obsessed with the online game Warcross, including hacker Emika Chen, who bounty hunts people that illegally bet on the game. After she accidentally glitches herself into the opening of the finals, the becomes an overnight sensation, and the game’s designer invites her to play in a team, while secretly helping with a security investigation. What’s interesting about this book is they’ve really thought about the online game Warcross, and the way they describe it you can really picture the team-based game in your head. I kinda wish someone would make this game! The characters are likable and the tech feels like something you want, which is definitely RP0-feeling to me.
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Little Brother by Cory Doctorow- This is a believable story of a near-future where invasive security tracking has gone too far. Marcus is a high school hacker who playfully delights in ways to circumvent the tracking systems his school has in place. However when he and his friends are at the wrong place at the wrong time, a terrorist attack occurs and he’s a suspect. After a long and torturous few days wrongfully imprisoned, Marcus decides to not live in fear and to fight back against the Department of Homeland Security who had detained him. This is a book that will bring out the digital activist in you.
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The Otherland series by Tad Williams - This four-part series from Tad Williams starts with Renie investigating strange cases of people logging into the Net using their VR headsets, then not being able to log back out, their bodies appearing to be comatose. Clues lead her to a mysterious place online called Otherland. This book’s virtual reality feels a little bit like Ready Player Two’s ONI, especially later one, in ways that in the interest of spoilers for both this book and RP2’s I won’t get into here. I really like Tad Williams and these books really sucked me in!
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Heir Apparent by Vivian Van Velde - Another book where a virtual reality user is stuck inside the simulation! And much like RP2’s there’s a time limit involved until Giannine’s brain will get fried. Most of this book take place in the “Heir Apparent” game that she’s stuck in, the only way out is to beat the game. She’s allowed to die over and over again, but the game resets, giving the story a bit of a Groundhog Day feel.
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Feed by M.T. Anderson - This is a weird, weird book, but I found it stayed with me after I’d read it, so I will put it in as a recommendation. In a future where almost everyone has the internet hooked into their brains allowing them to look up and know anything at anytime, Titus and his friends go to the moon to party. While there, a virus is unleashed, causing some serious damage to some. Now I’ve got to say, almost no one is very likable in this book, by design. The teens talk so weird, and everyone, teen and adult, have very strange attitudes about everything, due to the fact that since we all know everything since we’re always online, we (as a society) have forgotten to really critically think about anything. It’s interesting and a bit infuriating, and definitely the weirdest of the bunch here.
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Press Start to Play - This is an anthology collection of short stories all based around video games in some way. Some are about people addicted to VR. Some are told from the point of view of an NPC. One story is about the classic Oregon Trail! While not every story in here is great, there’s plenty to like, with a little bit of something for everyone. Well, assuming everyone is like, a game-obsessed geek? Those everyones.
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anoraksalmanac · 3 years
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Ready Player One bookmarks! I made these a while ago, from some of my favorite pieces of fanart. The backs have the movie’s “Ready Player One” text across them. Sorry for the glare, they are laminated.
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anoraksalmanac · 3 years
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Official Ready Player Two Soundtrack!
Straight from Ernest Cline! Here’s the Spotify playlist for Ready Player Two! 45 tracks to get you in the gunter mood.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2es4O4e9EtH8BtCllqm8Pm
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anoraksalmanac · 3 years
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Here’s some fan art that was gifted to me. A friend decided to make Parzival’s contact card. This is a one of a kind, others may have made these but this is the only one he made.
The VHS tape, he made two. It’s made to be a copy cat of the promo ones they gave out. The movie is actually on it, it’s watchable.
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anoraksalmanac · 3 years
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Looking at my predictions from 2 years ago
Spoilers below, you’ve been warned!
Just gonna put this here, it’s a comment I made 2 years ago on Reddit...
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anoraksalmanac · 3 years
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The High Five - Comparing the book to the movie counterparts (and I-r0k)
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With Ready Player Two coming soon (as in TODAY!) I thought I’d write up some more of my thoughts on Ready Player One, both the book and the movie. Today, let’s look at the High 5 and the differences in the book and movie versions!
Parzival - I feel the book did a good job of making him a likeable loser geek. You could really get on his side because he was so dedicated and determined, even while his home life was awful. He was smart and good with computers, and I loved seeing him banter back and forth with Aech in the basement. If there’s one thing about his character that has aged poorly, it’s his relentless need to get Art3mis’ attention. In particular, talking about how he did things like stood outside her place blasting a stereo for 2 hours, flying by and dropping love letters over her base, things like that. His determination to “win her back” was a bit creepy, though luckily that doesn’t last long in the book at all. I think nowadays we expect people to be a little more “no means no, you have to accept her decision”. But still, he was a teenager, and that is sometimes a harder lesson to learn.
Parzival on the movie side was very similar, I love the suitably geeky look he has, and how he’s much more dashing in the Oasis. Although I feel Wade didn’t wear his glasses much after the beginning of the movie? I may actually prefer his home life in the movie, how his aunt was nice but her boyfriend was still a jerk. It made you feel a little worse about the explosion, you know?
Art3mis - Okay, first of all, what happened to Art3mis being kind of short and stocky? Was kind of disappointed that she looked so vanilla in the movie. She’s still cool, even though we don’t get to learn as much about her as we do in the books. We get the idea that she’s pretty internet famous, but not to the extent that the books talk about it. I appreciate that the movie tried to give her a bigger role though, by not only having her in a resistance against IOI, but switching the IOI infiltration to her being an indentured servant instead of Wade. I thought the book’s handling of Wade’s ingenuity and escape was more exciting, but it was still nice to see Samantha get more to do. 
Daito and Shoto - This one’s a bit harder, as they didn't really get much time in either the book or the movie. I will say that when we meet young Sho in real life in the movie, I thought he did a great job and it made him really likeable. That’s probably more personality-wise than we got from either of the two in the book. Obviously a big change was Daito didn't die in the movie, and was key to helping Wade trick Sorento later on in the film. Did Daito need to die for the story to work? We already knew Sorento and IOI were pretty evil, what with bombing the stacks and all. But it did show that just because they were the High Five, it didn't mean they were untouchable. I wouldn't say I have a preference either way with Daito, he’s certainly more standoffish in the book, but I certainly prefer the cute but tough Sho we get in the movie.
Aech - Well, hmm. Parzival’s best friend is a really likeable character in both the movie and the book. And don’t get me wrong, I like Aech’s design in the movie, since they’re so into building it was a cool idea to have their avatar look a bit mechanical in its midsection. But while Aech’s gender is still hidden in the movie, her race isn’t Not sure why they chose that, but it’s not a deal-breaker for me, I still like the movie Aech as well. It’s great to hear her heartbreaking reason for choosing a white male avatar in the books though, and I’ve used that point in my book discussion groups at the library when we’ve read this book
Bonus - I-r0k - Okay, he’s not part of the High Five, but I just really want to compare his book and movie selves, alright? He is SO incredibly different! But I’ve got to say, I LOVE his portrayal in the movie. He still has the over-the-top look to him, only now instead of carrying a huge useless gun in a chat room, he’s got a weird tentacle arm and a huge skull-like image on his chest. He so wants to look badass! But it’s just his delivery. I found him so funny in the movie, I always looked forward to another scene with him in it. Compare him to the book version, where he’s really just a wannabe gunter who enjoys making fun of Parzival and how poor he is. As a side note, I always thought it was weird that I-Rok in the book sells out Parzival and Aech, and then he’s never heard from again! I kept expecting him to show up as a new recruit of IOI’s or something like that, joining their side after he sold out. But no, he just posted about knowing them on the message boards and then is gone forever. So yeah, I-Rok, huge jerk in the book, funny villain in the movie. His was one change that was really huge but I loved anyway!
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anoraksalmanac · 4 years
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"Going outside is highly overrated."
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anoraksalmanac · 4 years
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I’m two days late! But I’ve got my pre-order!
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anoraksalmanac · 4 years
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Ready Player One digital escape room!
Hi everyone. I hope you’re all staying safe right now. I figured we could all use some fun to distract us right now, so I made a digital escape room for my library based on Ready Player One, and would love it if everyone would give it a try!
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anoraksalmanac · 5 years
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Pac-Man (1982)
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anoraksalmanac · 5 years
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Ready for the next chapter.
Movie and book finished, now on to this game.
Happy Gunting
#ReadyPlayerOne #Atari #Adventure #Gunter #ErnestCline #firsttothekey🗝️ #firsttotheegg🥚 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvxa_SRAmWN/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1xx3jwgde1kjv
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anoraksalmanac · 6 years
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I climbed into the chair and felt it adjust to fit the contours of my body. A robotic arm extended from the chair and slipped a brand-new Oculance visor onto my face. It, too, adjusted so that it fit perfectly. The visor scanned my retinas and the system prompted me to speak my new pass phrase: “Reindeer Flotilla Setec Astronomy.”
I took a deep breath as the system logged me in.
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anoraksalmanac · 6 years
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I looked down at my body. It wasn’t Parzival’s body; it was my own. And I was wearing armor made of paper. In my right hand was a toy plastic sword, and in my left was a large glass egg. It looked exactly like the glass egg that causes Tom Cruise’s character so much grief in Risky Business, but somehow i knew that, in the context of my dream, it was supposed to be Halliday’s Easter egg.
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