🚚Vintage Surplus, Multiplayer Internet, and The Lenovo Legion Go

old stuff is fun

Aug 28, 2023

Hey friends! How are you this wonderful Monday?

Our son was born last Monday - you may have seen my quick little edit to last week’s newsletter.

It’s been a wonderful week - lots of snuggling, cuddling, and general enjoyment of our tiny bundle of joy.

My other son and daughter are still getting used to the presence of our third child - so that’s been quite an adventure in and of itself.

While in the hospital, I got the chance to read a few DC comic collections - Joker War, Dceased, and the DC vs. vampires series.

Out of the three - Dceased was probably the most interesting. The premise is a zombie-like virus invading Earth, and infecting many of the world’s heroes.

Read it if you get the chance! i feel like Marvel Vs. Zombies went a little too “absurdist” for my tastes.

In other news - I had a delightful conversation with Sari Azout from Sublime. It’s an upcoming social bookmarking tool that looks quite intriguing. I’ll be writing about it soon!

Let’s dive on in.

🚚Vintage Surplus

Have you ever been in an old Military Surplus or Army/Navy store?

They’re A LOT of fun to explore - like a living museum where you can buy stuff.

Old camo pants from the 80’s? Used Army boots?

Old ammo cans perfect for AWESOME shelf storage solutions?

I encourage you to type in “military surplus store” into your maps app of choice and plan a trip one day. It’s worth it.

Anyway - I’ve been enjoying the occasional TikTok from a Ecom Military Surplus store called “Americana Pipedream Apparel.”

They sell TONS of nifty military surplus items . . . like

This Alpenflage Swiss M61/70 Jacket with a gazillion pockets.
British Royal Air Force Sweaters
A Vintage American Navy Peacoat

And much more!

What caught my eye this time was the M61/M70 Swiss jacket.

The similarity that this jacket has to some modern techwear (looking at you Riot Division) is astounding.

Surely Junya Watanabe was drawing from this as inspiration for his backpack jacket.

It has pockets everywhere - including some giant pockets on the back of the jacket, a removable knapsack, and a camo Sniper veil!

I’ve seen the words “load bearing” parka thrown about - it has all these pockets for different pieces of equipment, so not everything has to go in a single backpack.

If you’re curious - explore this old forum thread from 2003 that explains each of the pockets. FUN FACT - there’s actually recent entries at the end of the thread.1

Anyway, if you’re interested in learning more about the jacket - I recommend the following resources

This interesting Blogger post from 2011
This dude demos using the jacket and backpack for camping, using all the pockets. Absolute Chad.

Or - Go buy one of your own at the Americana Pipedream! i may pick of one of these myself.

Americana Pipedream

🕸️Multiplayer Internet

Wouldn’t it be fun if you could explore the internet together with your friends?

Not with a shared screen - but in real-time.

It’s like the excitement of joining a live forum/chat on an old abandoned website to find out what the heck they’re still doing on the site.

That’s the idea behind Moonbounce - an upcoming multiplayer internet platform.

With one click on the chrome extension - the website COMES ALIVE with other visitors, quests, and more.

At its core - you can chat with other users who you meet on random websites, but you can do a lot of other “discordy” things too.

Collect loot + rewards
Create your own “Moonbounce space”
Craft widgets
Go on internet quests
and MY FAVORITE - “Plant your flag” on new websites. You can claim one new website a day.

It brings an exciting social element to the “lonely” task of exploring the internet - and the chance to meet other internet explorers.

I, for one, look forward to exploring the internet with others, whether it be random anons or my friends!

oh and if things get weird, it’s just one click on the Chrome extension to disappear completely.

I’m excited to see where this project goes!

Join the waitlist at the link.

Get Moonbounce

🎮The Lenovo Legion Go

When Millennials (like myself) were young, we lived in the golden era of handheld gaming consoles.

Gameboys, PSP’s, Nintendo DS’s . . .

Then we took a decade or so long break - until the Nintendo Switch arrived.

(My theory is that everyone got so excited about phone games that we forgot the simple pleasures of handheld gaming).

Then the war was back on.

Since then, we’ve seen the Steam Deck, Asus Rog Ally, and Logitech G Cloud (and others) emerge to fill the space.

Not to mention the bizarre Playstation Portal that’ll be coming out soon.

Now - a new competitor to the Switch has emerged.

The Legion Go

The details are still quite scant - but it appears to be a “souped up” windows 11 tablet + removable controllers.

It’s an interesting move by Lenovo to build something like this - but here’s why I think it makes sense.

We love tablets. We love gaming.

However, we don’t necessarily want to try and read a book on a Steam Deck, or play Nier Automata on an iPad.

There’s a certain sense of form/function that we prefer with our devices.

Though we can read books on a laptop (and we often do) there’s a particular aesthetic/convenience to reading a book on an iPad, propped up in an armchair.

The same goes for handheld gaming - trying to use some janky controller off Amazon with your iPad is inconvenient as well.

Holding a Steam Deck sideways to try and read a book would be awkward, to say the least.

The Legion Go could solve some of these issues since the controllers are removable.

Use it like a normal tablet, or game when you want!

If it runs a full build of Windows 11 - you could carry around a little keyboard too so you can use it for simple writing tasks.

I’m looking forward to checking out the YouTube reviews of this nifty little device.

Go check out more pictures at the link.

Legion Go

🐙The Land of Random

The Randommmmm. The Randommm. Who doesn’t love the randommmm.

✉️Digital Wellness Newsletter

Feeling burned out from all the notifications and endless swiping? (Even I - an internet explorer, feel this way often). The Digital Wellness newsletter shares (neuro)science insights & practical advice to help you reclaim your time, attention, and mental health from your tech devices. Learn to use your tech in a way that supports your productivity & well-being. Subscribe at the link!

Digital Wellness

Exploring Dead Games

Exploring an auld abandoned website is one thing, exploring an abandoned online game server is another thing entirely.

Pomo Chat

Focus for 25 minutes, then hop in a chatroom for 5 minutes. This fun little website is the perfect way to stay focused on a project, then reward yourself with a few minutes of hanging out. The smoke break of the modern age, eh?

Work, then talk