Remembering the Borders bookstore in Novi, Michigan

Photo taken from dohaeng.com

Much like how I wrote about the CompUSA I frequently went to in the 90’s, I figured I should also write about the bookstore I went to for over 15 years, the Borders Books & Music in Novi, Michigan. From 1993 to it closing in 2011, it was the bookstore of choice for me. There was (and still is) a Barnes and Noble that was closer to me but I preferred shopping here due to the larger size and more variety.

Early memories of it involve me spending time in the children’s section of the store while my dad would look at computer books. I was absolutely into Star Wars as a kid and since this was the 90s and there were only three movies, the Star Wars books were how I could see more of the universe. I also occasionally checked out the strategy guides for video games while here, looking up any parts of games I was stuck on so I could go home and make progress. Another random memory were of the in-store music performances that would occasionally happen. One being of a woman doing scat singing in the center of the store with no backing music and my younger brother and I just being baffled by it.

Much like the CompUSA I mentioned earlier, it was located in the Novi Town Center shopping area, only a couple stores down from that. It outlasted that store by a couple years but it felt pretty obvious during that time that it wouldn’t be around forever. Much has been written about all the mistakes Borders made so I won’t go into those, but one of the signs for me was applying for a programming job at their corporate headquarters in Ann Arbor and then that posting eventually being canceled before I got to do an interview.

While it’s very unfortunate that there’s basically no photos of the store available online (I could have sworn there used to be some), there’s a few videos still up that show what the store looked like. This video of a car driving through the parking lot on the last day it was open shows the exterior, and there is a book signing with Dave Mustaine of Megadeth showing what a big chunk of the store looked like inside. There is also a video on the C-SPAN website of an author doing a reading inside the store in 1997, which doesn’t show that much of the store but is still a nice little 90’s time capsule.

On May 26, 2024, I came across this t-shirt that a vintage store in Michigan was selling in a Facebook post. It was already sold by the time I saw the post but still, I think it’s neat that it exists.

a red t-shirt that shows little logos for books, music, film, and a coffee cup and says Borders in Novi Town Center

There is actually a much better tribute to this specific store than this post, and that is on this blog here. It’s about how they essentially recreated that Borders in a room of their home. If I had known the store was selling off shelves and signs from the store when they were closing, maybe I would have picked a few things up. It’s an incredibly impressive job they’ve done with the room.

If you have any of the Novi, Michigan Borders, or the CompUSA and Egghead Software that were in the same shopping area, I would love to see them.

Indie Game Roundup (Dec. 15, 2023)

Well, it’s Friday so here’s a bunch of recent games and games-related events that I thought were pretty cool. If you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email or message me on social media (see About page) to let me know it’s out.

The Queer Games Festival
The Queer Games Festival just announced its shortlist for the year, meaning you can check out a great collection of games right here.

screenshot from Heal Slime of a bunch of slime blobs grouped together
A screenshot from Heal Slime

Vextro Slime Wave
A Vextro game jam just ended. I think it’s a games collective, maybe? Anyway, here’s a bunch of games about slime on Itch.

DEAD END Holiday Demo
I really like holiday themed versions of video games and AERIFORM just released a Christmas version of their top-down Metal Gear-inspired stealth game DEAD END.

screenshot from pareidolia of the angel dressup screen
Screenshot from pareidolia in █▄██▄▄

pareidolia in █▄██▄▄
Created for Yuri Game Jam 2023, it’s a game where you design and dressup an angel and walk around a city. Really cool art style and it sounds like it will continue to get updates too.

Holiday Bundles
A couple of indie game bundles have recently launched. For the price of a AAA game you could get almost two hundred instead through the Christmas Indie Game Bundle and the Holiday Indie Super Bundle.

New Games from Michigan Tech University Students
Husky Game Development, the game making club at Michigan Tech University, released their games for the semester. You can play games like Iridos, Monstrous, and more on their Itch page.

black cars driving down a road
Bahnsen Knights

Bahnsen Knights
LCB Game Studio just launched their latest visual novel on Steam. All of their games have an incredibly cool art style and something creepy going on, this one being about a religious cult. So consider checking that out if that’s your thing.

Videotome ADV: Modded
Videotome:ADV is a really nice engine for interactive fiction and it looks like it just got its first commercial game on Steam as well as the developer of that game releasing a modded version of the engine.

Polygon’s Favorite TTRPGs of 2023
Polygon just put out their list of the best ttrpgs they played this year and there’s some really nice stuff. If you’re looking to try something that isn’t D&D or just want to find out what you possibly missed, check the list out. It features a nice variety of tabletop rpgs.

Indie Game Roundup (Dec. 8, 2023)

Finally, the awards that people have been looking forward, the most interesting indie games releases and news this week, at least to me.

Wigglypaint
This delightful tool made in Decker, a Hypercard-inspired designer, lets you create drawings that remind me of the squigglevision in shows like Home Movies and Dr. Katz. I absolutely cannot draw but it’s so much for anyway that I don’t care.

my attempt at drawing Jim Walls, the designer of the Police Quest series

Indiepocalypse 47
A new Indiepocalypse is out, which means I am required by law to post about it. This issue is another great collection of games and I recommend the one commissioned for the issue, Touhou Lonely Lovely Bonfire by Lily Valeen, the designer of BOSSGAME.

Rosewater
Technically it came out last week but I forgot to post about it. A new trailer for Rosewater is out. It’s a western point-and-click adventure game coming out next year that I’ve been waiting for since last year and I think it looks great

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story
Digital Eclipse announced that the next game in their retrospective series will be focused on Jeff Minter and his games. I was a massive fan of their Karateka one and I love Jeff Minter games so this will probably end up being my 2024 game of the year. I absolutely cannot wait.

The University of Michigan/Eastern Michigan University Student Game Showcase
This is a bit more local but every semester the students in the game development programs at both schools do a showcase of their games. Yesterday was their latest and there’s another great batch of games to play so go check them out.

Retro Gaming Roundup

Every week I’m going to start doing a dump of links and other retro gaming related things that I thought were interesting this last week.

screenshot from Heroes of Might and Magic 2, showing a boat traveling across water.
Screenshot from the fheroes2 project

The folks at Time Extension did an interview with the people behind the fheroes2 project. Fheroes2 is an open source multiplatform project that reproduces the original game but makes improvements like support for high-resolutions, improved AI, numerous fixes and UI improvements. It just got a big update two days ago too. Fgeroes2 requires the original files, which are available on GOG.

Half-Life received a massive update for its 25th anniversary.

Mattias Gustavsson made a massive post on their Itch.io blog about Drakborgen, a board game from 1985. The post is filled with lots of pictures of the game and now I really want to try it.

The DOS game Father World now has an English translation.

I posted about it earlier but Myst Online got big update for its 20th anniversary and it seems like the biggest part, an addition to the main area, was added this last Saturday and the game had an in-game celebration for it. I’m happy the game is still around and think it’s worth checking out. If you’d like to try it out, it’s available for free.

Finally, this update is more for people that live in the state of Michigan but it looks like Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum got a little bit of an extension before it may possibly get knocked down. I’m hoping that the amount of pressure that everyone is putting on the city will result in some sort of protection for the arcade or at least buy them enough time to move somewhere else, since the planned demolition would be to just make additional parking lot space for a grocery store. Unfortunately it looks like Pinball Pete’s in Ann Arbor is facing demolition and people are trying to figure out ways to keep that place alive too. It’s a rough time for arcades in my area.

College Radio

I was listening to the University of Michigan’s radio station doing their weekly local music show last night and if you have a local college or public radio station, consider checking them out and supporting them if you don’t already. I discover so much more through the curation at radio stations I like than through algorithms.

Some of the stations I like are listed below and can be listened to online:
WCBN, University of Michigan’s radio station as mentioned above. There’s a lot of great local music that’s highlighted and a nice variety of other stuff too.

WPRB-FM in Princeton, especially their yearly Christmas marathon hosted by one DJ over 25 hours. I’ve discovered a lot great music local to New Jersey as well.

KEXP in Seattle has a lot of great live performances and I like their morning show.

WFMU in New Jersey is where some of my favorite shows like The Best Show got their start.

The Cybertub

When people are nostalgic for the 90’s internet, it seems like they’re often thinking about personal sites that are built around silly purposes. Being fascinated with this era means I get to stumble across these sites such as the Cybertub. This was a site created in the mid 90s just for measuring the temperature of a hot tub in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The Cybertub was created by Paul Haas in early 1994 and by the beginning of 1995, appears to have been getting 1000 visitors a day. The earliest coverage I can find of the site is from the Ann Arbor News in January, 1995. The article has an interview with Paul about how the Cybertub is just a fun little personal project that he made to make sure the hot tub’s water doesn’t drop to freezing temperatures, as well as other parts of his site like the temperature monitor for his fridge. The site seemed to have continued growing in popularity where even the New York Times covered the site in late 1995.

The site seems like it went down sometime in 2009, but luckily the Internet Archive saved it. Not only can you view the temperature of a hot tub during the mid 90s, but you can also check the temperature of Paul’s fridge and see the site that let you wave to his cats using a robotic hand.

I’m not sure when the popularity of the site started to decline but the legacy of the Cybertub lives on. At BornHack 2019, a hacker camp in Denmark, a large wood-fired hot tub used an internet connected temperature sensor, and if you look at the comments you can see someone from the camp thanking Paul. “I am proud to call Paul Haas one of early mentors. Thank you Paul.”

Computer Store Photo Dump: State Street Computer

Here is a series of ads for a place called State Street Computer in Ann Arbor, Michigan showing the initial excitement for the Amiga, ads selling the computer, and then the final ad for the store showing their liquidation sale. I don’t have dates for all the ads because I saved these images a while ago and didn’t take notes then, but I can guess that it’s roughly from the mid 80’s to the very late 80’s or very early 90’s. These images came from looking through local newspapers and also from the Ann Arbor District Library website.

There’s a few other ads that I found as well. I’m guessing the freedom of the press one is aimed at college students looking to start their own zines or newspapers since this was right next to the University of Michigan.

Unfortunately I cannot find any images of the actual store. I looked up the location of the store on Google Maps and it would have been a high traffic spot near the University of Michigan.

Google Street Screenshot from 2011 showing the Nickels Arcade area of downtown Ann Arbor

If you have any photos of the store, I would love to see them posted somewhere.

Sources:
1. https://aadl.org/node/245897
2. https://aadl.org/node/245702
3. https://aadl.org/taxonomy/term/76102
4. https://aadl.org/node/245850

Lost Sid Meier Documentary Recovered

Yesterday I was told that after a few years of searching, a documentary about Sid Meier has been reuploaded to YouTube.

Back in 2010, VICE traveled to the University of Michigan to document Sid Meier participating in Wolverine Soft’s annual 48-hour game jam. Sid Meier was an undergrad at the University of Michigan and returned because his son Ryan, occasionally referred to as “Kid Meier” at times by other officers with love, was president of Wolverine Soft at the time. Wolverine Soft is the game development club at the University of Michigan that was founded in 1999. They’re still around today and now even put their games on Steam.

The documentary itself is a fun look at the game jam and mostly focused on Sid Meier creating an unranked game for the jam and voting on the other games in the jam. There’s some parts about his career in game dev but it’s a minor part. It’s not too long either, only 23 minutes long, so I think it’s worth checking out. Apparently this documentary had been missing from Vice’s site for at least a few years and only got recovered when some students at U of M pestered someone who worked on it on Twitter, who found they still had the documentary saved on an old hard drive. So if there’s a lesson in all of this, politely ask someone for info if they were involved in an old games thing you like. You might get a pleasant surprise from it.

Helping Your Environment at a Local Level

I won’t say that getting involved with environmental stuff locally will completely cure you of climate doom feelings but it does help. Even volunteering with a local restoration group is nice. Spending a couple of hours to clean up an area or turn a plot of grass into a rain garden and seeing how much an area improved in a really short time span is a pretty good feeling! It feels like every place has a restoration group too. I’m in the Detroit area so I follow along with what Friends of the Rouge is doing.

Even if things have been moving very slowly at the national level, making changes at the local level can have a big impact. There’s things we can push for like more shade created by trees, more buses, and making it easier for people to bike.

There’s also things you can do in your own home, if you have a yard, like replacing grass with native plants, not using any chemical fertilizer, not constantly mowing your lawn, and reducing your waste by having a spot for compost.