PixlBit

In today's blog, The Original Ser has a nifty pickup and a nasty gripe. 

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I'm going to sound callous and uncaring for a moment, but hear me out. 1up is, in fact, finished. When I was invited to a 1up group on facebook, I assumed (as many have) that I was there to keep in touch with the folks on 1up that I might otherwise have never heard a peep from ever agian in my life. So cool, I accepted. But all of a sudden, it's not cool to post about blogs on Pixlbit? Just beasue a rapidly dying website with next to no remaining supprt is clinging barely to life? Let me tell you a story. 

In January, I had to live through a desperately terrible situation. I once had a ferret named Eclair, which some of you out there (especially from 1up) probably already know.

The super cute bugger pictured thus. 

Unfortunately, Eclair is no longer of this realm, as she passed away early last month. But it wasn't exactly a peaceful departure. She started bleeding profusely from her mouth, and she ended up having a terrible seizure before finally letting go. Sure, she was almost 10, and we were told that she wouldn't make it past seven, but let me tell you, I woud galdly have simply found her dead the next day than go through that. And if I had the means to bring her to a vet (it was far too late in the day), I would have gladly helped her cross the rainbow bridge myself. It was a horrendous experience that I really could have done without.

The point of this story is that if you cling to hard, you only make it worse for yourself. I'm not sure if the person I have a prticular beef with in this situation is reading this, but when you kick and scream and say to a community displaced, "NO! This is supposed to be a 1up group! Stop talking about PixlBit! And don't try finding a new home so damn quick if you're going to miss 1up!" I kind of have to wonder what you're smoking. Take my story for example. I miss Eclair terribly (though admittedly that's a poor analogy as missing 1up isn't neccesarily something I do too strongly,) but when she started to slip away, I knew it was time to say goodbye. I had no desire to keep her alive, because she was suffering terribly. If I was suffering like that I would hope that someone would help me out of there too. 

1up is nearly gone. It's time to say goodbye. Just let go and move on. Dwelling on it wll not change anything, especially since business is ultimately sterile, robotic and uncaring. 

There's one more tiny gripe left in me though, and it was spurred on by the very same person. Being an individual with a sound (and high) intellect, seeing a trending term and learning the meaning and application of said term is something that happens with frequency and little explaination. "BaD" is one such term. "Blog a Day". Easy, write a blog every day. Doesn't take an aerospace engineer to figure that out. Hell, I used to do that myself back on 1up before I severed ties the first time around because of the trolls. But yeah, "BaD." This term was being used everywhere on 1up before the mass migration. So I picked it up. 

Boy was that a "BaD" mistiake. 

Turns out the same person up above had a pretty big beef with that too. "Keep BaD on 1up where is belongs and respect the people that started in and keep doing it on 1up!" they said. Well, jeez. All of a sudden, I felt pretty unwelcome. I used the term BaD. I was posting about new articles here. I guess there was only one thing to do. Can you believe it? I had to sever ties with 1up a third time. I am offically not a part of the 1up Facebook group as of this writing. I know all of the folks that made thier way to PixlBit as a safe alternative to 1up are probably of sound mind, so if you care to follow anything I'm doing, I'll be here and in the links below (as always). 

OK, Beef over. Now for the good stuff. A few days ago, I was in the local Salvation Army when I chanced upon this nifty gem; 

It's a Radio Shack LCD game from 1991 called Sonic Sea Battle, and it's actually part of the Tandy line of electronics, if you're familiar with the old tape-deck-enhanced computer systems from the 80s. This particular game was not only complete in the box with the instructions, it was also shrouded in the plastic bag and had the tray and everything. As a result, it's actually in flawless condition, and possibly only used once or twice. It even had the original Radio Shack Batteries still in it. Which were dead. 

Said dead batteries

So with a fresh set of batts, I was in business. It's kind of a fixed-screen "proto"-shmup, vaguely akin to Kaitei Dainsensou (In the Hunt), if it were a super cheap, slow LCD game. Your foes start off as jets, but the challenge mounts with battleships and submarines as the difficulty ramps up. The odd thing about this game is the placement of the d-pad, which is on the right instead of the left. The fire buttons are, subsequently, on the left. Granted, games on the old Tandy computers were typically controlled with right-handed joysticks, with a left-handed button, but the NES, Genesis, Turbografx-16 and Super NES were all on the market with left-side d-pads when this game saw release. 

And can you believe this thing is worth $25 bucks on eBay without the box?? Crazyness. The $5 I paid was just right. I'd have asked a dollar if it was loose or dinged up. Good score, if you ask me, but nothing I'd play for hours. But I will look a little more in-depth at this in CHC. Booyah. 

Well, that's it for now. Oh, that's right! I can't call it "BaD" any more. Hmm, alright so I'm going to go ahead and mint my own coin: a belated welcome to "Ser's Daily-Bit". Nice. For more, follow the links! 

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