
Street Writer: The Word Warrior
A blog about my interests, mainly the history of fighting games. I also talk about animation, comic books, car culture, and art. Co-host of the Pink Monorail Podcast. Contributor to MiceChat, and Jim Hill Media. Former blogger on the old 1UP community site, and Capcom-Unity as well.
Friday, November 6, 2026
Bookmark This Page; The Return of Virtua Fighter
Not every deep dive on a game series is very long. If you want to learn how Sega got back to Virtua Fighter then Bookmark This Page.
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
Drawing my second favorite He-Man character
Hello friends, I hope you were doing well. I was surprised at how well my previous illustration turned out. It made me think of drawing my second favorite He-Man character. This would be the Fisto, the master of hand-to-hand combat.



Monday, November 2, 2026
Drawing my favorite He-Man character
Hello friends, I hope you were doing well. This year was filled with lots of changes, a few bad things, but the vast majority for the better. I hoped that things were going well on your side of the internet. There was something that I wanted to share with you. I liked drawing. I was terrible at starting if I wanted to be honest with you,. Honestly I was my own worst critic when it came to drawing. If an illustration didn’t come out the way I imagined it then I would beat myself up. This was especially true for pencil, or ink drawings. Those were even harder to start on. In order to get back into the habit of drawing I started changing my surroundings. This would help put me at ease, and give me a comfortable environment where I could explore art.



Friday, October 30, 2026
My favorite unfinished Pac-Man game
Heya friends I hope you are doing well. Are there any video games that were never published that you wish we had gotten? Today I wanted to vent about an arcade game we never got simply because it would have been the arcade successor to my favorite Pac-Man game. Mind you that I am not a fan of maze games, and I was never any good at Namco’s iconic Pac-Man. That said however I was a huge fan of the Bally Midway game Baby Pac-Man. The US developers expanded on the canon of the Pac universe, and helped influence the direction of Namco in Japan. For example Ms. Pac-Man was designed by General Computer Corporation, and published by Bally Midway in early 1982. This game started life as an illegal rom hack of Pac-Man. The same team developed Jr. Pac-Man a year later, and further expanded the Pac family. One of the most unique contributions to the Pac family was developed by Dave Nutting Associates. They created a hybrid arcade game that was part video game, and part pinball game. Baby Pac-Man came out in 1982, and there was nothing remotely like it before or since.





Wednesday, October 28, 2026
An evening with Disney royalty for a good cause
Hello friends, I hope that you are doing well. Things are moving along over here. Doing some writing, and trying to make more time for art. I did want to talk a little bit about a great event that I took the missus to at the start of October 2026. We don’t make tons of money, but we still like to support various charities, and fundraisers for our friends, and their kids. One of the organizations we’ve been supporting for decades is The Carolwood Society, and Carolwood Foundation. We don’t give them a lot of money, but we do donate our time on some of their fundraisers. In some cases our kid also volunteers time to help. The organizers are great people, and always kind to the volunteers, and staff. If you’re not familiar with them they work with the Disney Family, and the Disney Company to restore, and preserve the trains that Walt Disney owned, or operated at Disneyland.





Garner never lost his love for all things Disney. He revered the imagineers, and sought out advice from Bob Gurr for many of his builds. Even those that were no longer with us he honored in one way or another. One of the things that stuck out to me was the impressive bust in his reception room of Leota Toombs. She was an artist that worked for Walt Disney Imagineering decades ago. She was known better as the original Madame Leota from the Haunted Mansion. Her daughter Kim Irvine reprised the role when the company redid the crystal ball effects for a Haunted Mansion refresh. Anyhow, I was amazed at how great the sculptors at the studio were in creating the busts of Toombs, Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, and Abe Lincoln.



Monday, October 26, 2026
Creating Disney images for history articles
Hello friends, I hope that you are doing well. Today I’d like to share some illustrations that I created for my wife’s articles. If you’re familiar with this blog then you might remember that my wife is a theme park historian. We co-host the Pink Monorail podcast on the Jim Hill Podcast Network, as well as on YouTube. She was a teacher of theme park history, and had also written articles on various sites for decades. She mainly posted on MiceChat.com yet there were some changes with that site, as well as the other theme park sites in the past few years.





Labels:
articles,
disney,
disneyland,
history,
illustrations,
micechat,
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recreations,
retro,
skyway,
tomorrowland
Friday, October 23, 2026
Bookmark This Page; the hype, and crash of Garou Mark of the Wolves
If you love SNK fighting games, and want to find out how hyped I was about the return of the Garou series, and then ultimately disappointed then Bookmark This Page.

Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Pink Monorail Manufacturing the Magic Ep 27: Disney’s New Tomorrowland
Heya friends, I spent the summer of 2025 recharging my creative batteries, and working on side projects. One of which was to continue the podcast series featuring the missus. This podcast is designed for Disney fans, amusement park visitors, and history buffs. You’ll learn the roots of the multi-billion dollar theme park industry from ancient history all the way to today. The missus, and I worked hard putting these episodes together through 2024, until we had a family emergency and had to stop working on it for 7 months. We are back on it through 2026. Click on the picture or link to visit our streaming page hosted on Jim Hill Media. I hope you get a chance to listen, subscribe, and leave a review so we can climb the theme park podcast rankings!
The Pink Monorail Podcast Manufacturing the Magic Ep 27: Disney’s New Tomorrowland
In the 27th installment of this educational series, Shelly and Noe Valladolid return to Anaheim. Where, during the mid-1960s, the Imagineers reimagined one side of Disneyland and added an attraction that has been a fan favorite for nearly 60 years now
Over the course of this episode, listeners will learn about:
- What three attractions were NOT affected by the closure and re-opening of Tomorrowland?
- Which Disneyland attraction was originally supposed to be a wax museum?
- How did Alice Davis prevent “Pirates of the Caribbean” from opening late?
- What did Disney mean by “ … a world on the move?
- Which iconic car model influenced the 1967 Tomorrowland Autopia cars?
Are there any current or former theme parks, or attractions that you love? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
Labels:
amusement park,
disneyland,
early attractions,
history,
imagineer,
jim hill media,
pink monorail,
pirates of the caribbean,
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ride technology,
theme park,
tomorrowland,
walt disney,
worlds expo
Monday, October 19, 2026
My Rad Monster, or the story of a banned sneaker design...
Heya friends, I hope that you are doing well. I did some art recently that lead me down a history tangent. If you are familiar with my blog then you know that I am a huge fan of sneakers, and sneaker culture. With that said it isn’t easy being a sneaker freak. Not because there are too many options, but because I am tall, and have a big shoe size. Most sneaker companies only make shoes up to size 13 or 14. Anything above that wouldn’t be cost effective for them. There is no doubt that I would have had a massive sneaker collection if I were a smaller person. Because of that I collected sneaker magazines from Japan. I could only appreciate their designs, and long for shoes in my size. When I started working I didn’t spend too much money on shoes, Instead I focused on art toys, magazines, game books, and comics. Like many sneaker fans I have certain shoes that I wish I had. At the top of most collectors lists are things like the movie accurate Back to the Future II Nike Hyperdunks. Also from the movie Aliens the Alien Stompers from Reebok worn by Sigourney Weaver were peak hi-top fashion. I’d love to have those boots in my size. Aside from that I actually had regular sneakers are on my grail list.






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