I'm finally back home! A little bit sun burnt, but back. I recently returned home from 9 days in the Orlando, Florida area and a few extra days spread around some other areas. The purpose of the trip was just to have some good old family fun and get my wife to stop bugging me about never taking here anywhere 
Rewind back to the end of February and we dropped the dogs off at my parents house, loaded my son into his car seat and hit the road towards Seattle. Turns out driving down to Seattle for a flight was going to save us approx $2000 as opposed to flying from home. Its nice and close though, only about a 11-12 hour drive. So we got to the Seattle area fairly early and had most of a day to kill. We walked around the mall, went bowling and of course tried to track down a retro game store! Found 2 in the phonebook and punched them into the GPS. Turns out the first one we went to was no longer there. And neither was the second one  But wait whats that across the street! Its a Game....... Lobster?!?! A completely different one that either of the 2 we were looking for. Seemed like my kind of place so we went to check it out.
Tons of stock in the store. Only problem was that pretty much all of it was just in huge heaps everywhere. The NES stuff was actually organized in a display case though so we check it out first. The prices were very reasonable, unfortunately he didnt have a single cart that I didnt already own. So I sifted through his piles of beaten up games looking for something worth my while. Had a few loose systems I would have been interested in if they were a little bit cheaper (Jaguar, CD-i, Gold N64). Looked like he had some interested Saturn/SEGA CD and PS long boxes behind the counter. Asked him if I could walk to the back and check them out. He responded with "its probably to dangerous". I peeked a little further over the counter and saw massive piles of accessories and the like. After I little more prodding I got the clerk to clear a path for himself, bring a stool and climb up to the games I had spotted (he really didnt seem to impressed to help me). Prices were a litte higher on these items, but what the hell I'm on vacaction could be a cool souvenir to take home. EVERY single game I might have wanted was either: scratched to hell, missing manuals or missing inserts. Definitely not paying his sticker price for the condition they were in. So Game Lobster was a bust..... On to Orlando!
Spent the next several days at theme parks. Noticed a cool Little Nemo display right over a gift shop at Universal Studios. Checked the whole shop out hoping to find a cool item Nemo related item to toss into my game room, but unfortunately the didnt have anything for me.
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My son has been just recently getting into his Super Hero and Action Figure stage so Univeral Studios was really awesome for him right now. We hit a toy store on the way one day while he was sleeping and grabbed him a few of his favorites: Captain America, Thor and Iron Man. They were a hit, but he was a little sad that he slept through the toy store. We promised we would take him back later and he could pick something small to take on the plane with us home. After picking up and setting down an endless stream of recognizable characters he finally grabbed a pokemon toy and said he was happy with that. On the way out though something caught his eye and he bolted to the lowest shelf hidden off in the corner of the store. He quickly returned with a box of several Super Mario Bros toys! So proud.......
Since this was mainly for my wife I really didnt plan on having much time to hunt for games. I had already planned to meet up with Shadow for one day so I figured that would be my only gaming related time on the trip. As my wife was watching the local news she saw that there was a riot at the mall over the new Air Jordans. Thats right, we survived the great Shoe Riot of 2012! We were a little worn out from the theme parks and decided to check out the mall to see if there were any upside down flamming cop cars from the previous night  . While their I got to visit my first Game Stop. Shortly after entering I was approached by someone who asked if I had seen the new PSVita yet. Before I had a chance say anything "BAM!" it was right in my face. He actually did yell BAM at me as he held it up, lol. Checked it out a bit and asked a few questions. Seemed like there was one knowledgable staff out of the 3 that were on and he was easily able to answer my questions. Ended up picking up a copy of BlazBlue Continuum Shift and a Yoshi DS Game Case that my son wanted, and signed up for my first Game Stop Member Card. Chatted with the silly PSVita man for a minute about retro games and collecting. Overall Game Stop seemed ok to me for what it was.
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Fast forward a bit and we were busing getting lost in Mount Dora trying to meet up with Shadow. He eventually set us straight and came out to find me. Hopped in his car and spend off to his new home. Really nice place!! They had literally just moved in the day before so I mostly got to see boxes, but of course he had his 360 setup to go! After getting the grand tour and meeting his wife we sat down to some 360. He showed off Batman Arkum City Imposters for a bit. Beat me pretty thuroughly at Street Fighter 2 for a bit. Swapped over to BlazBlue shorty after. After getting the hang of the game I was able to redeem myself for the many Haduken's I had just eaten. Popped in Blood Bowl, which neither of us had played before. After a long clunky and mistake riddled game I was able to eke out a win with my one touchdown. And we finished up out gaming session by having me get beaten at Soul Calibur IV while Shadow went to get the door (thats right he just mashed some buttons in a different room and beat me )
After that we decided to head out to his local Flea Market and see if we could do any
damage there. After a little trouble finding the ATM and spotting a small handful of games at a couple vendors we finally made it to a dedicated game vendor and much to my enjoyment they had a buy 1 get 1 free sale on NES and SNES games! After several minutes scouring the entire store I ended leaving with: Ghost Lion, Legends of the Diamond, Kick Master, Sesame Street Hide & Speak, Slalom, Genghis Kahn, Skate of Die 2, AD&D Dragonstrike, Flight of the Intruder, Trog and a CIB - Gunvalkyrie (Xbox).
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We eventually made our way to another vendor peddling his retro-wares and I got second chance at scooping up some more NES games. Shadow and him chatted quite a bit and he was able to soften the guy up to give us some pretty sweet deals. I ended up pulling out around $55 of games (his sticker prices), but oops! I only had $36 left in my pocket. I mentioned tossing some of them back, but he told me he was fine with it. Nice! Ended up leaving that booth with: Arkista's Ring, Tom & Jerry, Qix, Space Shuttle Program, Star Trek 25th Anniverssary, Spelunker, Lode Runner, Defendor of the Crown, Whomp 'em, Grand Slam Golf, Treasure Master and a CIB - Junction (Gen). Played a bit of Sonic the Hedgehog while Shadow cleaned him out a bit more (sweet deal on the CD-i!!).
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Still wanted to grab a modern game as a souvenir so we hit a different Game Stop by the place we were staying at. Another cool staff member finished dealing with some pretty annoying customers and helped me track down a copy of sealed Hyperdemension Neptunia. Or so I thought...... Turns out I graded MK2 which I didnt even know existed. Still happy with my pickup, just means I still need to search out the first game though.
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Being the awesome guy that he is Shadow hooked me up with a nice private tour of the EA Sports studio he works at. One of his co-workers/friends gave my family and I a great tour of the place! One of the highlights of my trip for sure. We checked out the wicked ball filled boardroom, showed me some of the stuff the dev-kits were capable of, explained what he was responsible for in their new game in depth (he gets to work on the Cheerleaders!), toured the work areas, tried to track down Shadow (he was away from his desk though ), checked out the recording studio and he let us know all the changes on each floor that had been made since he had been there. It was a blast. And of course we ended the tour in the gift shop! It was the employees only EA store which he said we could pick something up in if we wanted. Turns out I didnt need to grab that copy of HDN MK2 afterall.....oh well . Picked up a copy of Mass Effect 2 took a nice family photo outside and went on our way.
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Finished up our time in Orland and started making the long trek back to Seattle. Drove up BC stopping in Abbotsford to visit some famly briefly and then again in Vernon. While staying with my Uma and Dziadziu in Vernon I always have to check out a cool little store called Ebeneezers. When I was quite young I would go there with my cousin to check out comics. Each trip afterwards they would typically have some cool new product like magic cards, action figures, movie memorabilia, etc. and eventually started getting in old games! Checked out their expanded game area and ended up picking up a goodie for my buddy Duke.Togo. Hes getting close to the end of his NES journey so its getting harder and harder to find new games he doesnt have. I was more than happy to scoop up a copy of Death Race to help him out.
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Later that night while still in Vernon, my wife was lamenting that she didnt really have a big souvenir yet, just some small odds and ends, and the trip was almost over. We went out for a little drive and ended up in Wal Mart. After looking around she decided she was in need of a new 3DS. I swear I didnt promote the idea. I even tried to talk her out of it and into something she might appreciate more in the years to come. Try as I might she had her heart set on it though. We ended up heading over to Future Shop to see if they had any different games. Didnt see any games at either store that interested her so we just left with the system. The rest of the ride from Vernon to Prince George was filled with laughter and the sound of raspberries as my wife and son played some competitive games of New Super Mario Bros across their DS and 3DS systems.
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After all that we finally made it home. And waiting for me their, besides my pets, was a nice little parcel on the kitchen table. Darkwing Duck, Dragon's Lair, Krion Conquest, and Day Dreamin Davey I had bought off a racketboy member before the trip. Great way to end a great trip!!
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