The commercial clip above kinda caught my eye as I was reading this post on hackaday.com. I do recall seeing this commercial during the late-80s. Note the passenger popping in a cassette-tape! But anyways at the time this commercial won some awards within the advertising community. I can see why. They cleverly synced the motions to the music in the background. The hackaday.com references this video because some interesting folks are experimenting with syncing windshield wipers to music! Very interesting. Sorry this is all I have for the moment. We've been very busy tending to a recent family emergency.
Just in from Masashi Togami and TEAM BTTF: We've received the following email from LEGO congratulating us on 5,000 supporters!
"Dear m.togami, Congratulations on passing this milestone of 5,000 supporters on LEGO CUUSOO for the Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine! You're halfway there! Over the coming weeks, veteran designer Steen Sig Andersen, the same designer who built the final Shinkai 6500 and LEGO Minecraft Micro World models, will investigate your DeLorean model and build our own concept. We will post the results here with our comments once that is complete. Best wishes as you continue on your journey to achieving 10,000 supporters on LEGO CUUSOO. The LEGO CUUSOO Team"
On Screen Cars fans we're getting close to reaching the goal of gaining an offical BTTF LEGO set. Not to mention the ultimate goal of helping the The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. The group wishes to denote part of the proceeds from each set to the foundation. If you haven't voted your support for the set please do so at the LEGO: CUUSOO site. It just takes a few minutes of your time and doesn't cost a thing.
January 2021 Update
Masashi Togami did in fact get the 10k votes needed to make this a real set. Details up on BrickSet.com
Anything left to sit and collect dust is never a good situation. Especially when it's a famous movie car. After decades of wowing fans on the Universal Studios Back Lot Tour, the "A" Back to the Future Delorean car is in need of major dose of TLC. As you may know this car was one of the premium cars used in all three films. But don't worry there's hope! According to a recent article over at BTTF.com. Bob Gale writer and co-creator of the Back to the Future franchise is heading a project to restore the car to museum quality. Bob has in-listed the skills of BTTF Delorean replica masters Joe Walser, J Ryan and Terry Matalas. We're looking forward to see how these guys make the magic happen. Learn more about the project and how you can help at BTTF.com. Remember the FUTURE is what you make it!
Hot Wheels has some interesting new die-cast collectables out now for us On Screen Car fans. These are not your average 99 cent Hot Wheels cars. They are certainly not toys. The Elite Series provides collector consumers with high-end premium 1:18 and 1:43 scale replicas of famous cars. These cars have real synthetic rubber tires, authentic graphics high quality paint/finishes, moving steering wheels, working seat belt and opening doors/hoods/trunk. Engine compartments are fully detailed as well. A high level of care is taken into consideration for not only the customer but the brands and franchisees the models represent.
On Screen Car fans will especially love Elite's latest releases. The Cult Classic Collection features cars from popular TV shows and Movies. Currently available are the Ghostbusters ECTO-1 and the A-Team Van. Both are available as 1:18 and 1:43 scale die-cats. According to their site we have a lot more to see from this collection. Vehicles including the Bat Pod, Ghostbusters ETCO-1A and Knight Rider's K.I.T.T. Can't find these in stores? Look no further than Amazon for great deals on these masterpieces.
Racing games are lot of fun on a gaming console. Sometimes they're not to bad on web either. Especially if you're just looking for something to kill time. There are a few options on Facebook. We've talked about Car Town before. But recently I've played StreetRally. It's a top down view racer much like Grand Thief Auto 2 without the murder and stealing cars. You can buy, build and race cars against friends. But the one thing that kinda turns me off is the inability to use anything but a keyboard for controls. Then I thought for a moment and a tool came to mind from my arcade emulation days. That program is called JoyToKey.
JoyToKey allows you to map buttons on a joystick or gamepad to a key on the keyboard. Best part is it's freeware! You simply start up the application and assign which buttons you want to which key on the keyboard. As long as the application is running the buttons on the gamepad are mapped to the keys in your profile. All that's left is to play your web-based game or any game that accepts keyboard input using your joystick or gamepad. You can setup multiple profiles for different games. I created a quick one to use with StreetRally. After using JoyToKey for a bit I noticed my lap times were much better! I hope this tip helps you out in improving your lap time. Till next time keep'r drifting!
2.13.2012 - Update
I had some other thoughts about this over the weekend. For those who own a XBOX 360 and a PC. You may not know it, but you can use your 360 controller on your PC. Drivers are available online or through Windows Update to make it work. From what I understand the 360 controller is also compatible with the JoyToKey! Don't have a 360 controller or a 360? Don't feel left out you can find them on Amazon
cheap!
cheap!