Greetings from Terra!

I was gonna do some garage-sale'ing this last Saturday, but due to poor weather conditions, I knew there would be few prospects. Instead, I decided to do a thrift crawl all the way down to Gilroy-- the garlic capital of the world, as it were-- and hit a few hiking trails down there while I was at it.

My first Goodwill stop yielded two wrapped Super Mario 3D Land posters for $0.99 each. Not much to be sure, but a decent start.

Next up was the Morgan Hill Goodwill which, until recently, I'd pretty much given up on due to its extortionate asking prices. But over the last couple months, I've been pleasantly surprised by not only the things I've found there, but also the asking prices. Sadly, the only thing the place yielded this day was a Laser Line CD storage tower for $3.99. Ever since my PS1 game collection went into triple figures, I needed something in which to store my displaced Dreamcast, TG16, and PC titles, and this should fit the bill. Now I just need to rearrange a few things to make room for it somewhere...

Up next was a nearby Target, where I answered the call of nature, washed my hands, and grabbed the Target-exclusive Skylanders Giants lightcore triple pack on special for $19.99.

On to the Gilroy Goodwill, which yielded what I thought would be the deal of the day: a CIB Kingdom Hearts Re:coded DS game for $2.99. However, when I opened the case up, it contained...

...a copy of Eragon instead.

But, I figured what the hell, and bought it anyway. I'm willing to give Eragon a shot, and I'm confident I can find a Re:coded card somewhere to make it complete. Lemons into lemonade and all that.

Then it was on to the Gilroy Salvation Army store... where I have NEVER found any games, game hardware, or accessories worth buying, EVER. Some times it was due to high asking prices, but usually it was because of a total lack of anything. Today, however, was far different-- not only did the place have a small cache of games in which I was interested, there was a half-off sale in effect. So I picked up the following CIB PS2 titles, normally priced at $3.49 each, for just $1.75 a pop:

-   Gauntlet: Dark Legacy

-   Secret Agent Clank

-   Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

-   Super Bust-A-Move

-   Jak and Daxter

-   Sega Gt 2002 / JSRF double feature for Xbox

But the big pickups were a couple PS2 GunCon bundles that had red-bar price tags on them. At the Salvation Army nearest me, this type of tag indicates that the item is considered a collectible, and is not subject to any kind of discount, even on sale days. I lamented this fact to the cashier, who replied that the Gilroy store didn't share that policy, and even the "collectible" stuff was on sale! So I asked him to free those bad boys from the display case. I gave 'em a look, liked what I saw, and threw 'em on the ring-up pile. And that's how I picked up the Vampire Night and Time Crisis 3 GunCon2 bundles for just $6.25 each.

My final grab of the day was at a newly-opened Savers, which had a sealed copy of Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy for PS2 for $1.99. The place also had a few DS titles for $1.99 each that I would have bought, had they actually had any cards in them. Somebody's gotta tell the Savers folks that they should probably do the same thing most of the local Goodwills do, and keep all the game discs and cards in a binder under the checkout counter. But hey, I'm just a customer, what do I know?




On Sunday, I did a relatively short thrift-crawl on the way home from work. The first stop yielded the biggest Target-salvage cache of Wii U titles yet: 2 copies of New Super Mario Bros. U for $29.99 each, ZombiU for $24.99, and Rabbids Land for $24.99. Although I've never had an interest in the whole zombie deal, ZombiU appealed to me with its "Unique Death Mechanic", where "If you die, you wake up to play an entirely new character who is another survivor in the same terrifying position," according to a blurb on the Amazon.com product page. I also read that you can kill your zombified former self and get your stuff back. No, I don't know why I find this particular aspect of the game appealing, but at least Im willing to give it a shot.

My last stop yielded a Target-salvage Mario Kart 7 for $14.99.





TL;DR Sidebar:

My big miscellaneous pick-up of the weekend: a Tomy Pop-Out Pirate set for $1.99. As you can see, Japan comes up with some pretty offbeat NON-video games, too.


The weekend's biggest crack-smoking moment: the new Savers pricing loose NES carts at $9.99 each. While there were a couple titles I'd have loved to add to my stack, none of 'em were even remotely worth a sawbuck. And with a no-exchange policy in effect on them, I wouldn't have been able to return them if they didn't work properly.


The weekend's biggest "I'll Pass" item: a Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition fight stick for the PS3.




Although I'm not into fighting games, I thought this bad boy looked pretty sweet, and was in surprisingly good condition. I dug how you could open it up, and store stuff inside it. Well, not a lot of stuff, just a little stuff. Stuff like some illicit substance* to help take the edge off when you're playing. But, I don't own a working PS3, so who knows if it worked properly. Also, the $40 asking price seemed a wee bit steep to me, especially seeing as how it didn't come with the game. Oh well, its not like there aren't other great finds out there for me to discover...

...and tell you all about.

Until then...


...'Late




*Illicit outside of Washington and Colorado that is.

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