MagnaFarce

If you want to get rid of one of those mice I'll gladly buy one off of you. Right now I'm still using an Atari trak-ball as a mouse.

I picked up an Atari 520ST at the flea market a while ago and I've been thinking about attempting to make some music using it, and now that finals are finally over I actually have time to do so. Do you have any tips or recommendations for someone who has no experience with the 520ST? I don't even know what program to start with, though I've been looking at Cubase as a possibility.

I was with my mates at Denny's one afternoon and I ran into someone there who I knew from my old church. Somehow video games came up and he told us about how he had bought his kids a Wii, but they never used it, so he threw it away. There was this quick moment of complete deadness inside me after I heard that, and I guess my friends got the same feeling as well, because we were talking about it as soon as the guy had left. None of us even like the Wii, but having something like that just thrown in the trash seems so... wrong.

Don't tempt me!

I'm in a real dilemna (I prefer that spelling) with regards to this Secret Santa thing. On one hand, I hope my package arrives this weekend because I'm excited to see what I get, but on the other hand I have finals next week and I really hope I don't receive my package because I'll undoubtedly play with all the contents instead of studying. Woe is me.

You and me both. I didn't even think about making mine festive. Now I wish I had drawn some pine trees or a drunk stepfather or something on the box to make it more Christmassy.

I can understand that it doesn't make much sense, so let me attempt to explain my thought process. It's not that I go out of my way not to buy or play the NES, because I would buy one if I found it in the wild at a good price. However, if I want to play NES games I figure I will get an adapter to play them on the Famicom because not only is the Famicom more visually pleasing to me, it is less prone to failure as the front-loading NES is and has the added benefit of having peripherals that were released only in Japan. As a reply to your last question, I don't consider classic gaming to be my hobby. My hobby is finding, collecting, and using old technologies and is not exclusive to video games. I am interested in audio and video technology and video games just happen to be a very interesting part of audio/video technology history. It may seem like a dick move for me to be collecting systems when there are ardent gamers out there that would get a lot of use out of the systems, and that's one reason I don't buy consoles unless I know it will be used by either me or my friends. Nearly every console I've bought I have gotten from the flea market where I know the people selling them don't appreciate them or even know what they are and are just trying to flip a dollar; if someone doesn't buy the console they'll literally toss it in a bin with whatever else they're trying to sell and manhandle it back into their truck. I consider me having them to be much better than those people having them. I don't play very many games, but the Famicom is one of the only systems that I feel I would actually go out of my way to purchase because I actually do want to use it for playing games. I hope this all makes sense.

I think it's more akin to disagreeing with the belief that a beef pot pie and a hamburger are the same because they share a common ingredient. It's like saying, sure, shooters and FPS have the common element of shooting in them, but they should be labeled differently, just as a beef pie and a hamburger should be labeled differently even though they share a common element. In the end, though, I personally don't even care. You can go on calling them shooters and I won't think anything of it. I'm not big on crucifying people for not using the common lingo because in the end it doesn't matter and I think it's refreshing having people with opposing views. If you think anything with shooting in it can be called a 'shooter', power to you. Don't change for other people.

I'm more of a console guy than I am a game guy.

I have looked a bit into that. I don't have any NES at all at the moment because I don't like how the console looks, but I've been looking into getting a Famicom because I like the colour scheme. Now I have more of a reason to just get a Fami. One of these days I'll get around to it.

I didn't plan on going to any thrift stores today, but I found myself near a Savers and I had to stop in. I found some cool stuff. Four Famicom games: $14 * Teal: Puss in Boots: An Adventure Around the World in 80 Days * Yellow: B-Wings * Blue: Legend of Kage * Pink: Wrecking Crew (I don't have a Famicom, but I couldn't pass it up. I never see these in the wild.) Nox CD: $1.99 Diablo CD: $3.99 Not Game related, but a find I am excited about: Olivetti Underwood Lettera 33 Typewriter: $6.99

Got any pictures of that Samsung controller? I'm very intrigued.

I had an alright day at the flea market yesterday. I came across a Sega Master System (my first time seeing one in the wild) and an Atari 2600 Jr. (ditto), but I passed on them because of damage/no peripherals. I also bought a really terrible looking plug-n-play, but it doesn't work. At least I found a couple of good VHS tapes.

Feels good to get Christmas shopping done early.

I love buying things and finding discs already inside them! That's how I got my first 3DO game. I bought the console at the flea market at the flea market and, wo and behold, Gex was inside as well. That art gallery disc sounds pretty cool. I would love to have something like that. For Laserdiscs I recommend buying the weird Japanese karaoke discs. They're always super cheap and are usually worth a laugh. I've got a bootleg one of a bunch of MIDI-based Beatles songs, complete with typos in the lyrics. One of my favourite Laserdiscs.

You're going to love that Laserdisc player. I bought my first one at the flea market for $10 thinking I would buy a handful of movies. Now I have three players and around 150 discs. It's addicting.

Sorry, I plan on keeping them. I've been wanting some classic computers for a while and I just found them. If you want I could go back to the flea market tomorrow and see if the two people with computers are there again. The person I bought the Commodore from had another boxed one as well, but I don't think it had a power source, and the guy I bought the Atari from also had an Apple ][, a Vic-20, and a Tandy (if memory serves correctly). I'm not sure if his computers had all the hookups.

Amazing day at the flea market today! I hadn't been for a while, but I sold two typewriters the other day and decided to splurge. The loot, in the order I found them: Kodak Super-8 camera and Tele Disc camera: $5 Stereo CED player: $15 Boxed Commodore 64 [Refurbished]: $15 Atari 520ST lot: $10 I always find the best things on Wednesdays and Fridays because that's when all the one-time sellers show up (it's cheaper to sell on those days). (I'm still trying to figure out how to post images correctly)

Oh baby, I'm excited now.

Is this just a great work of fiction or did you actually at one point come across a Halcyon? I would kill to find a Halcyon in the wild.

I had no idea those existed! Why, if I could find one in the bay area I might be able to find stuff at reasonable prices. Goodwill has really gone downhill in my area in the last three or four years. I don't even bother going anymore.

The only reason I bought it was to sell it, to be honest. I already have a CLD-D606 with a remote that I'm happy with as well as a secondary player. If I can fix the skipping problem I'll let you know and maybe we can work something out.

Pretty good day at my new local thrift. Normally Savers thrift stores suck ass when it comes to electronics and media, but this new one is actually really good. The Load: LPs: 99¢ each ELO - Face the Music LDs: 99¢ each Circuit City Program: November 1998 Circuit City Program: January 1999 Japanese Karaoke LD Raiders of the Lost Ark [Widescreen] Temple of Doom [Widescreen] Last Crusade [Widescreen] Electronics: Panasonic DVL-919 LaserDisc/DVD player: $19.99 They also had a Sega Saturn, but were asking for, get this, $59.99. They also had a couple Sega Saturn games for $2.99 a piece, but they were all generic sport titles that have no appeal to me. All in all, a good thrift store. The LD player does seem to have a skipping problem, but I'm pretty sure it's just built up gunk on the laser guides. I'll open it up tomorrow and see if I can't get it to work.

I'll be interested in an Atari 400 when you get everything sorted out.

I had an amazing day at the flea market today! I guess Thursdays are one of the biggest days at my local flea market. Who would know? VHS Camcorder in a hard case with battery charger and cables: $10 Bram Stoker's Dracula and Jurassic Park for the Sega CD: $4 Case for Sonic CD (no booklet, no disc): Free Sega Genesis controller: $0.50 Ten sealed blank Betamax tapes: $7 The Omega Virus board game: $5 And here's the big one. The one that made my day: Mattel Intellivision: $8 I've always wanted an Intellivision and now I've found one in the wild I can die a happy man.