Atari Murphy's Law

[Krytol]

If the TV's on ch.3, the VCS channel select is on ch.2.

 

If you get the urge to play Pitfall, the paddles are pluggged in;

if you want to play Kaboom! the Joysticks are plugged in.

 

When someone's watching, you achieve your lowest score ever.

 

When you're about to finish Pitfall II for the first time, you discover the power supply was loose.

 

The one time you don't bring any cash to Goodwill, there's a boxed Quadrun for 99 cents. When you come back, it's gone.

 

 

Feel free to add on.

[Lemmi]

The last time you played your atari the picture looked great

The next time you play your atari the picture looks like crap

[General Atarian]

You go back for the quadrun and it's gone, but they have RARE combat games for $67.72 each...by the way, they JUST put them on the shelves

[Room 34]

Your friends buy 5 cartridges for you at a pawn shop as a gift....

 

All 5 of them are COMBAT.

 

(This really happened to me. Ten years ago. I'm still bitter.)

[Ze_ro]

If you get the urge to play Pitfall, the paddles are pluggged in; if you want to play Kaboom! the Joysticks are plugged in.

 

Solution: Use Gemini controllers! Problem is goofy games that expect you to be using the "other" paddle...

 

When someone's watching, you achieve your lowest score ever.

 

Solution: Play Golf ... of course, you'll end up getting your highest score... but who's going to watch you play Golf anyways?

 

The one time you don't bring any cash to Goodwill, there's a boxed Quadrun for 99 cents.  When you come back, it's gone.

 

Solution: Try and trade something for it... maybe he likes the shirt you're wearing? Or your shoes? Of course, he may think it odd if you're willing to walk home barefoot for a game (even though you know it's worth it), so use the old "nostalgia" excuse

 

Solution 2: Ask him to hold it for you... preferably somewhere out of sight. Of course, he'll probably end up losing it, so you're better off trading your shoes.

 

Feel free to add on.

 

When you need the black key, you'll only ever find the white key.

 

When you finally convince friends to play 4-player Street Racer (because you know you've been dying to try it), you won't be able to find your paddles.

 

The least valuable cartridge you buy will invariably force you to restack your collection in the least convenient way, because you know you have to have things in alphabetical order...

 

That unlabelled cartridge you passed on? Yep. Chase The Chuckwagon.

 

When you finally devote a whole day to thrifting, garage sales, pawn shops, and so forth... all you will find are overpriced Genesis sports games, and Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridges. But at least you will find a lot of them.

 

--Zero

[Yar]

When selecting what game mode you want, you ALWAYS have to pull the switch just one time too many times, and you're forced to cycle through the whole thing again.

 

The phone ALWAYS rings the EXACT second you have to dodge a space invader missle, fire the zorlon cannon, or jump over a barrel.

 

You buy Swordquest: Waterworld for 200 bucks on ebay, only to discover it's really Combat, and long ago the seller's little brother switched the label. When you ask the seller where his Combat cartridge is, he tells you he melted it into a glob of plastic and circuits, and dumped it into the ocean.

[Scooterb23]

The one time you don't bring any cash to Goodwill, there's a boxed Quadrun for 99 cents. When you come back, it's gone.

 

Been there, done that

 

except that the Quadrun was $3...and it was because I didn't have an Atari 2600 yet.

 

- You always buy the cartridge that doesn't have the label, just in case. You now own 456 copies of Combat and Asteroids.

[Chris++]

LOL....and 18,927 Froggers.

[MagMax667]

...And when you finally give up and pass that one lebel-less cartridge by, it ends up being Quadrun!

[Snider-man]

- When you do score a rare cart in the thrift store, it will be that 1-in-1,000 cart that won't work no matter how much you clean, scrub, and pray.

 

- We you reach 'round back to flip the RF switch, it will have twisted around so the trigger is in the worst possible location for you to reach.

 

- If you score a box of carts, it will be filled with commons. However, an axiom of this rule is that the INSTRUCTIONS at the bottom of the box will be for stuff like Quadrun, Glib, and Waterworld. The seller will have no idea where those other carts went.

 

- "RARE" carts on ebay aren't.

 

- If you answer an ad for Atari carts, they will actually be for the Nintendo system. Or the Atari 5200. Or the Commodore 64. Or for anything other than the Atari 2600.

 

- When you finally get the ultra-rare cart (spending a ton of $$$ in the process), you'll be disappointed that the gameplay actually sucks pretty bad. You will sell it before the end of the year anyway.

 

- The one time you decide to play "Custer's Revenge" or "Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em" to see what all the fuss is about will be the one time your girlfriend/wife walks into the room unannounced.

[CrazyImpmon]

You just found out the seller at (flea market, garage sales, etc.) just sold a huge lot a few minutes ago, very cheap.

 

Double whammy if you happen to find that lucky buyer of huge lot and he/she turns out to be the seller who based everything on ebay price.

 

You found what you thought was an extremely rare Tutankham for Intelly only to find out it's for C64.

 

You scored the highest ever points on Kaboom but before you can take picture the power dies.

 

You found a box for O^2 system but long after you got home, you opened it and found only 2600 system and stuff. Worse... no games at all. (It almost happened to me once)

 

You just scored a CIB Megaman game (any 6) for NES but when you play it it plays Super Mario Bros.

 

You found a nice looking console for $2.00 but the seller insists the tag should be $200.

 

You got a nice looking CV lot only to find the power supply brick has a nasty habit of smoking.

 

You bought a 7800 lot but didn't realize until it was too late the pack in power supply was for the 2600 and the store you got it from doesn't have any loose 7800 supply around anymore.

 

You find a PCB board with EPROM chip and thought it was cool prototype only to find it's a homemade board with Combat on the EPROM, and the EPROM is soldered in.

 

You got a 4 port 5200 system only to find no weirdass RF switch box, and all of it's controllers don't work.

 

You found an Action 52 cart but failed to notice the extra sticker on the back indicating Cheetahmen2.

[Lost Monkey]

The likelihood of knocking over a top heavy bottle of Goo-Gone onto the box and manual of the cartridge you are delicately cleaning is directly proportionate to the rarity and condition of the cartridge's box and manual.

[Chris++]

River Raid: Last plane. You hear the low-fuel warning. You speed up in the interest of reaching a fuel tank before you die, but every tank you come across accidentally gets shot, due to your rapid fire.

 

ARGGHH.

 

 

CF

[Garbs]

Going to a garage sale, walking up to the home owner and ask, "Uh, hi, um, do you have any Atari games or equipment?"

 

The person's like, "uh, wha? um, no."

 

Just then, someone walks by and says, "oh jeez, I just threw out a whole system and bunch of those little cartridge thingys like 2 weeks ago."

 

D'oh!! %$%$^^!!!! 3#$$%%!!!

 

(just happened to me today)

[Philflound]

Going to a garage sale and asking for an Atari and the 12 year old sitting next to his mom says, "Is that like a Playstation for old people?"

 

Phil

[CrazyImpmon]

Here's another one: If you find a single loose game in a store (no system or anything else, just one game cart) the chance if it being dead is directly proportional to the cart's rarity and visual condition.