Aftermath

In total I got 42 dollars in cash and 30 in trade.  That’s 72 bucks and I only paid 100 for it over a year ago.  It was hardly used, it had an Intercooler fan on it.So it was a little loud and taking up space.  There are some games that I would like to play for it, but the video store closed down and I can’t afford 60 dollars for games right now.

I still have the NES, the SNES, the PS2 and the Gamecube(the 64 is boxed up in the closet).  I play these systems way more than I played the 360.

The game store has a vintage room with games ranging from Intellivision to N64.  If I purchase games from this store, it more than likely came from this room.  And over half of the store credit I got went for games in this room.  And here is everything I used the store credit for.

 Jeopardy! Junoir Edition had the Super Mario Bors./Duck Hunt manual in the box instead of the correct manual.  Dr. Mario is complete, and the boxes for both games are in great shape.  I also picked up Pokemon Gold for the Game Boy.

Here is something I thought you guys would find interesting.  As I was playing Jeopardy! Junior Edition, shortly after I got it, I played a few games and came across these categories…ALF.  And Captain Power.  I saw that and thought it was the greatest thing.  I got 4 out of 5 of the ALF questions right and 0 out of 5 right for Captain Power.  There are other answers in a lot of the other categories that have 80s written all over them.  Actors, tv shows..it’s great.  If you’re an 80s kid and know your stuff from school, you’ll ace this game.  I did well, but not awesome.  I don’t remember much about the American Revolution, sorry.

I also used a small portion of the proceeds to buy something not video game related.

About two weeks ago, I told you how I went to the local Dollar General and found Soundwave.  Well on that trip I had also spotted a Robot Heroes 2 pack.  I was torn between that and Soundwave.  They were both five bucks and I weighed my choices, I could only get one.  In the end it was Soundwave.  After I left the game strore, I decided to go check out Dollar General and see if those Robot Heroes were still there.  I checked the aisle I last saw them in on the previous trip.  No luck.  I decided to further check the stores aisles, and found more toys in a completely different, not even close aisle.  Two minutes later I was on my way to the checkout with these two.

Aotobot Blaster and Thrust.  I have always thought the Robot Heroes line looked pretty cool, but I never see them in stores.  Thrust was the deciding factor for this purchase.  The Decepticon seekers have one of the nicest looking robot modes of all the Transformers.  And I don’t believe I owned a single one growing up.  Looking at the back of the packaging, I got the one I would’ve chosen, given a choice of the four.

Although Rumble does look pretty sweet.  But I’m torn on whether to open them or not.  All in all, I have a new found appreciation for Dollar General.  If I go there in 2 weeks and they still have the Transformers Universe Brushguard that I’ve seen on the past two visits, they will be my go to place.  Kind of like my version of The Magic Grocery Store.

The 360 is outta here!

Yes.  I got rid of my 360 this past weekend.  It had 2 things going against it.  1-It was a first generation 360(crap).  and 2-I hardly ever play it(I only owned 3 games)

I traded it in at the local independent game store for some cash and some credit.  The credit went to his old school section.  The cash(while not much), went towards bills.  I also put my new car(new to me, it’s a ’94 Camry), on the road this past Friday.

I will post the old school trade-ins as well as a second cool find at the Dollar General later this evening.  Count on a photo or two related to fall/Halloween as well.

Adios amigos!

Awesomeness!!

Well, the readers have responded.  Well two readers responded.  Although Paul didn’t actually vote for the awesomeness, he did ask what it was, so I’ll take that as a second vote for the aforementioned awesomeness.

As you may know, I paid a visit to my younger brother a couple of weeks ago(remember? He sold me the two SNES games).  Anyway, I have some of my stuff stored at his place, and he asked me if I would mind taking some of back with me.  Of course I don’t remember everything I have there, and thought, well, yeah.  So we hauled out a suitcase I had there, and it was filled with CDs, toys and other random things.  As soon as I opened the suitcase, I was greeted by this guy.

That’s right.  Voltron:Defender of the Universe(when you read this, make sure your brain says it in that cool robotic voice from the show).  I’ll give you the story on how he originally came into my posession.

Growing up, I had always wanted Voltron, as it was was one of my favorite shows.  As you may have guessed, I never did get one.  Although, one Christmas, my little brother and I both got our very own remote controlled Voltrons.  By remote controlled, I mean the had a control box wired to the toy it self.  Using this box, you could control your Voltron’s movements.  Not to mention, this thing was enormous.  It’s been about 25 years, but if I remember correctly, this thing must have been about 2 and 1/2 feet tall.

Fast forward to 1998.  I was in White Plains NY with some friends, and we decided to hit up the local Toys R Us.  As we were strolling through the aisles, I look up and I see about three of these Voltrons up on a shelf about seven feet off the ground.  I immediately saw it and proceeded to knock down a bunch of other insignificant toys while grabbing the toy that eluded me oh so many years ago.  I looked at the price tag, and saw the price of $29.99.  Now, this was on pay day, so I said I’m not going to miss out a second time.  I believe this one is from a short lived cgi version of the show or some shit.  But I didn’t care, as it is a faithful representation of the classic toy I pined for.  When we got to the train station, I sat on the platform, and started putting this guy together.  I can’t tell you how much joy my 19 year old self felt doing this.  It came with a whole bunch of accesories, but all that is remaining is what you see in the photo.  Now, being that I never had the original, I don’t know if that version came with the pilots you see here.

From left to right we have, Lance, Princess Allura, Keith and Hunk.  Pidge was lost about 8 or 9 years ago.  All of the Lions have cockpits in which their pilots sit in.  As you’ll also notice, the head of Voltron on the black lion is missing his left horn.  He is also missing one of his wings as well as the firing missle on his back.  When I stored him, he was not missing any of these.  But I’m just happy to have him in my posession again.  You see, someone went into my brother’s previous home and stole my hockey gloves as well as my electric guitar.  I thought Voltron was also stolen.  My brother must have thrown him into the suitcase for safe keeping, knowing how much that toy meant to me.  And I’m glad he did.  Now you know the story of why I thought this awesomeness was long gone.

I also found something else in the suitcase that I had forgotten about.

To the naked eye this might appear to be a run of the mill New York Rangers hockey jersey.  I will let everyone know that I am a die hard Rangers fan.  But this is no ordinary jersey.  No siree!  If you look closely, you will see five or six autographs on there.  I obtained said autographs at a Rangers open practice at the Ice Casino at Rye Playland in Rye, New York, back in 1998.  While a lot of my favorite players managed to elude us fans after the practice, I managed to get a few from some of the lesser known players.  The ones I remember are as follows…Jeff Beukeboom(Boo-kuh-boom), Niklas Sundstrom and Mike Eastwood.The others may be Mike Keane and Bill Berg, but I can’t remember.

Well I hope you enjoyed my long lost awesomeness.  I know I did.  Oh, NHL pre season starts tomorrow.  The NJ Devils will be at Madison Square Garden facing off against the Rangers tomorrow night for some pre season action.  If you live in NY, the game will be on MSG at 7:00PM.  If you live outside of NY, check your local listings(I never thought I’d have the opportunity to say that).

You have a choice

I will do a post about something this evening.  But, I’ll let you guys choose what it will be about.

First, would you like a review of the Tracker Hound Transformer I bought a few weeks ago?  Would you like a review of the awesomeness I found at my brother’s house(I thought this item was long gone)?  Or, would you like to see a post about neither of those two, and suggest something else?

The choice is yours.  You have about 8.5 hours to decide.  Choose wisely.

***If I get no responses, I’ll randomly draw one of my suggestions from a hat(literally).

My first Soundwave

When I see the title of this post, I would think it’s a reference to a Playskool version of Soundwave.  Before you get your hopes up, it’s not.  Ever since I first started watching Transformers as a child, Soundwave has been in my top three.  While a few of my friends had a Soundwave toy, I never did aquire one.  The closest I ever came was having a few of his cassettes(and a few of Blaster’s as well).  The reasons he is one of my favorites is as follows…1.-He has(had) one of the greatest sounding voices ever.  2.-His robot mode was just bad-ass(shoulder cannon, face shield).  and 3.-He had mini Decepticons emerge from his chest.

Now, anytime I have been out checking toy aisles, I never see any of the cool reissues or popular characters.  The top reason for this, I think, is toy scalpers.  I’ve checked Ebay, and the mark ups for such figures is ridiculous!  While I may keep a few of my toys in their original packaging, I don’t buy a toy thinking I can make three times what I paid for by scalping it on Ebay.  I collect what I like, and that is the primary reason I buy toys.  I can understand why older versions of figures can be somewhat expensive, but I can’t grasp why I, or anyone for that matter, should have to pay such extreme prices for a toy that will be displayed in a collection or played with.  It seems rarity doesn’t mean anything anymore.  But enough with the bitching.  Here’s my first Soundwave.

Now it’s not the G1 casstte player, but at least it’s Soundwave.  I have been to Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, Target and various other stores, and have not seen this figure.  Where I did find him was totally unexpected.  I had to run a few errands last week, and I decided to see if any of the local stores had their Halloween displays up.  This lead me to Dollar General.  While this chain of stores usually has a lot of knock off crap, they do have a limited supply of official releases.  Hidden behind a couple of figures I had no interest in was the awesomeness you see above.  The only problem I have with the figures these days is the complexity of the transformations.  If you’re at all familiar with the Generation 1 Transformers from the 80s, you know what I’m talking about.  Back in the day, I don’t remember having any difficulties with transforming the figures(the sticker application is a different story).  And the directions don’t help any.  All they show are arrows, without any words to describe what the hell you’re supposed to be doing.  Here’s the directions for Soundwave.

I think I made it to step 3, and then I was totally lost.  And this transformation is rated as one of the easiest, being a 1 on the difficulty scale.  Before I broke my precious first Soundwave, I hit up Youtube for some help.  Even the guy in the video said that he was going to give away his because it’s such a pain in the ass.  But he showed how to do it(with a little trouble), and I was able to Transform him into the jet(it kind of looks like a stealth bomber).

(A little bit of Halloween goodness thrown in for good measure.)

Changing him back into robot mode was a lot less difficult.  While it took about 1/10 of the time it took me to get him into vehicle mode, I am quite pleased to say I am happy to add him to my collection(and I don’t think he’ll be in that jet mode for a while).

On one last note…the leaves have started to change and the cooler weather has started to move in.  The Halloween season is upon us(for you fellow X-Ers anyway).  So, this weekend we broke out the Halloween decorations and decorated the apartment.  I plan on getting more this year but here’s what we have on the front porch right now.

I have a few more Transformers posts lined up, but I will try to space them out, as I don’t want bore everyone with a related piece everytime I post.  I do want to get a few Halloween posts in, so I will try my best to have a little variety.  I’ll see ya when I see ya.

Yard sale finds #4 + more

All of this was aquired over the last few days.

This past Saturday(yesterday), there was a village wide garage sale in the nearby village of Schoharie.  This is an annual event, but this was the second one held this year(I don’t believe that this has happened before).  It was a beautiful warm sunny day.  Perfect weather for an event like this.

Before we get started, I would like to state that all of the items in the pictures were aquired at the aforementioned village wide garage sale, except for the SNES games and the packaged Transformer(which were found at my younger brother’s house and Wal-Mart, respectively).

The journey begins this past Wednesday.  My fiancee and I went to go meet with a woman to design and make our wedding cake.  After we left, my fiancee suggested that we visit my younger brother, Jeff, who lived around the area we were in.  It was almost one year since I had last seen him, so I knew he would have a lot to show me.  I was checking out his SNES collection amd I came across two games I was interested in owning.  I asked him if he wanted to sell them, and he did.  I asked him how much he wanted for them, to which he replied, “Three bucks each”,(I’m assuming those are brother prices).

I selected Donkey Kong Country 3-Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble, and Castlevania IV*.  This particular Donkey Kong Country is the first in my current SNES collection.  I am very familiar with the first two games in this series, and I have maybe played this one once.  So, this is almost a new game experience for me…sweet!  The same could be said of the other title I selected, Castlevania IV*.  Now, I have played, and own the first two of the trilogy that was released for the NES in it’s prominence, but I don’t recall ever playing Castlevania on the SNES.  So…another new game experience.  This isn’t the first time my little bro has came through for me though, years ago he sold me Contra and Bugs Bunny’s Crazy Castle(both for the NES), for five bucks each(gotta be brother’s prices!!).

*-The front of the cartridge reads, “Super Castlevania IV”, while the top reads, “Castlevania IV”.  Now, this being the first Castlevania game for the SNES(of two I believe), I would think that, “Super Castlevania”, or, “Castlevnia IV” would be appropriate titles.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon.

Across the street from the local  Mobil gas station, there was a yard sale, where the proceeds from the sale, went to the local Lutheran church(I’m Roman-Catholic, but I don’t discriminate when it comes to a charitable cause).  Everything to be sold was donated by local people, and you determined the price you would donate for the items you wanted to purchase.  I donated two dollars for this awesome piece of video game history.

The box was in rough shape, and I took a shot in the dark, by not checking the contents within.  When I got home, I was astonished at my findings.

Released by Coleco in 1983, we have the “Kid Vid Voice Module”.  As you can see, it’s complete.  Aside from white gunk on the cord, this appears to never have been used.  The black cassette in the photo was in the player when I bought it.  As of this moment, I have not listened to it.  I should though, who knows what could be on it?

I decided to do a little research on my find, and here is what I learned…in general, “Smurfs Saves the Day” is a pretty rare title.  This seems to have everything that was included…instructions, pristine cartridge, ear piece, power cord, all three of the audio tapes(still factory sealed), the tape deck, mail surveys and advertisement, as well as original Coleco styrofoam.  I found that complete copies are in the range of $200, but this one seems unused, the cassettes are still sealed, and I don’t think anything is missing.  The box is pretty beat up, and a few pieces are ripped off, but they are inside the box**.  If I get any additional information, I’ll be sure to give an update.

**You can’t see the original price on the sticker in the picture, but this retailed for $64.95.  That price was crossed out with red pen and reduced to $39.95.  Best find ever?

Saturday.

Garage sales, yard sales, lawn sales and Wal-Mart.  Here’s the little things I found throughout the hunt.

The first finds of the day were a M.U.S.C.L.E and an unidentified doll/figure(1984 Mattel), for a donation of 50 cents.  They were aquired at the same sale that I found the Kid Vid the day before.  Grover and the little jack-o-lantern guy were found at one of the many sales for 5 cents a piece.  We’re at $2.60 so far.

The Transformers made three seperate appearances throughout the day.  Here are the ones that found their way to my home.

First up for 25 cents, is Optimus Prime, who looks to be of the “Transformers Animated” variety.  He’s stamped 2008 and was a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy.  The little purple and black guy is Storm Cloud(the woman at this sale told me to take it for free).  This Decepticon was part of the “Air Strike Patrol”, released in 1989 under the Micromasters line.  Last but not least, we have “Tracker Hound”.  He was the most extravagant purchase at $4.95.  He’s pretty reminiscent of his G1 design.  He will be opened and given his day in the sun.

Our next item is absent from the main photo, for two reasons.  One, the first picture(the one that I used), didn’t include it because I forgot about it.  And two, The picture I later took with it in the picture came out blurry, and I said, screw it!

This is one of the coolest mugs I have ever seen!  With Newport cigarettes everlasting slogan.  The bottom of this mug states that this mug is neither dishwasher nor microwave safe.  I believe that this was a give away promotional item originating from sometime in the early nineties.  If I remember correctly, this was at a time when there was cigarette branding on a wide variety of everday items, from fanny packs to keychains.  Bought for 25 cents at a thrift store down the road from where I bought that Herman book.

Speaking of Herman…

I stopped at the same place I bought the first Herman treasury.  I opted for the third and eighth treasuries at the same friendly price as last time.  A buck a piece. These people also have the treasuries that appeared in between the course of the ones pictured.  I’m a sucker for great literature.  🙂

Last up, we got three dvds, for a grand total of eight bucks.

Ghostbusters was found early in the day.  Marked for three dollars, haggled down to two dollars.  The Good Son was found at the last sale I stopped at for a dollar.  And while grocery shopping later that evening, I found “The Great Outdoors” in the $5.00 bin at Wal-Mart, during the same trip “Tracker Hound” was purchased on.

I’m guessing that this was the last hurrah for summer garage sales.  I found a lot of neat things and the thrill is definitely in the hunt.  Soon, we’ll be shifting gears to “Thrift store finds”.

Who’s your mummy?

The past few days have been cloudy and a bit chilly.  Leaves have not started to change or fall to the ground, but Fall is creeping in.  This is just the perfect mix for me to start getting into the Halloween spirit.

The Christmas Tree Shop is a goldmine when it comes to seasonal decorations and whatnot.  This little buddy cost me only one dollar.

It’s a pen, with a pop off mummy guy.  Now you can click your pen with a purpose!  It’s kind of awkward to write with because it is top heavy.  Now honestly, I wouldn’t have bought this pen without the cute little mummy on top.  Just look at him.

This pen will be in my inner coat pocket everyday I need a coat.  The Christmas Tree Shop always comes through.  I strangely fell like doing a crossword puzzle.

Sorry

Sorry about not posting last night.  I passed out after dinner.  Definitely will be up this evening.  There is a village wide garage sale in my area this weekend.  So we might have a Yard sale finds #4 coming up.  I might also be checking out Target and Michael’s this weekend, so I think I’ll be on a roll for a little bit.  This is one of the greatest times of the year, and definitely the greatest time of the season.  So, while every post might not be Halloween related, we should have a spooktacular time.  Here’s another Halloween related image to tide you over until then.

Are you ready?

Well, I know I am.  While I do have band practice today, I will try to give you guys of a post of a cool Halloween item.  I don’t think every post from now until then will be about Halloween, but I will try to have a handful of those type of spooky posts.  They will not be epic, but they will definitely be fun.  I expect the ghoulish activities to start around 9:00PM.  See ya then!!  Mwahahahahahaha!!!

Herman

First off.  Happy Labor Day everyone!

One of the things I loved doing for a good portion of my life, was reading the comics in the daily newspaper(Sundays were the best.  They were in color).  For more than 3 years now, I have not read any daily newspapers.  Now, everyone has their favorites.  A few of my favorites include, The Far Side, The Wizard of Id, One Big Happy, Calvin and Hobbes, Foxtrot and  Herman.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of reading Herman…Herman was a comic strip in the same vein as Gary Larson’s “The Far Side”, and Wiley Miller’s “Non Sequitur”.  The comics say everything in one panel, and range from stupidly funny to some dry ones that make you scratch your head.  So, I was on my way to the grocery store to return some recyclables, and there happened to be a lawn sale on the way to the aforementioned grocery store.  Of course I stopped!  There was a lot of antique looking stuff, some junk, a pay phone and some books.  A stack of about six or seven were collected books of Herman.  I was low on cash and knew I’d have to at least score one.  I asked the man in charge, and he said “a buck a piece”.  Here’s the one I was able to aquire.

 I never realized how old this comic is.  Inside of the book, it says, “First Printing 1979” “Twenty-fifth Printing 1986”.  The man in the frame that Herman is holding, is Jim Unger.  Jim Unger is the creator/cartoonist of Herman.  I’m pretty sure I started reading it beacause of Unger’s unique style.  Generally, if the artwork is a bit weird, I’m gonna love it.  Here’s a sampling of this volume’s contents.

My favorite one on this particular page, is the one where the Herman is turning into a monkey beacause of an all banana diet.  Like I said, stupidly funny to dry.  This one gets a strong reccomendation from me.