winter gift giving, the expansion of collections and the future of games parties

Greetings, everyone!  This blog is basically on life support save for annual Christmas present reviews, only... I took photos but failed to actually make a post this time around.  Unveiling small piles of video game related goods is really an entirely different creature following years of pandemic precautions putting the screws to freewheeling summers of secondhand shopping, compounded by well-compensated tech workers doubling down on expanding their collections in a time when other collectors' incomes are curtailed by pandemic restrictions and they find themselves selling at any price, but to the highest bidder.  There are many sales, but where are the deals?  Even if this phenomenon interferes with the obscene inflation of my own collection's size, at least every game I own seems to be skyrocketing up in value.  But I digress.  Still it seems there is some game stuff out there for the taking, so let us continue the look back.  First off, thanks to my brother- and sister-in-law for the stylin' t-shirt, undoubtedly the piece of game swag I will get the most use out of this 2022!

Here's the birds'-eye-view of The Goods: not only swag, but also some games.  (Spoiler warning: the mound of games was fortified by some Facebook Marketplace listings I took advantage of in order to ensure some winners among this holiday season's influx of all game goods not nailed down.) I have never touched a PSP, but it's a nice stuffie!

This is handy!  Nintendo DS games in a carrying case!  You could store a thousand of the things in a shoebox, but finding any given game using that filing system would be a real needle in a haystack scenario.  This allows you to sequester a decent subset of your collection for regular play -- I believe it may store up to 16 of them, which is enough for any respectable road trip back seat.  And let me just say, Pac-Man mugs are evergreen.  Nothing says "I was technically alive in 1980" quite like that yellow dot with the slice taken out.

Let's get a close look at those delicious 8-bit micro chocs.  Almost every year I receive "old video games"-themed candies and snacks and treats and never, ever eat them.  You'd think I'd have an entire cupboard of them at this point, but no... I suspect there is a fifth column in my home misallocating these confections.  In the background there is the box for the Mario Checkers game, which is ... just checkers.  (Did You Know: I never learned how to play checkers?)  Mario Chess is an incredible set of toys for use as chess pieces, but Mario Checkers is just checkers.  (There's a joke here somewhere about Nintendo playing cards, but I've got to keep moving!)

Then we start getting a little further afield in regards to this theme.  This is just about the easiest theme to pursue if you ever wanted to make a paint-by-numbers set.  Surely after I get warmed up with this book my ANSI art will be whippin' the llama's ass in no time!

Cross stitch! One more pixelart predecessor (mostly textile in nature, but see also mosaics) in the world of arts and crafts.  I really dig the demonstration art on the front cover!

This is a special set: the Time-Life series of "Understanding Computers" books, circa 1987.  (I thought it was a complete set, but apparently there were some 24 of them!)  The diagrams are amazing and it really nails the moment in home computing.  Here's an infomercial for the books:

and finally... this is just a portion of my regular games collection I hauled out for the first time since moving in here, trying to get my holdings, new additions etc. sorted out a bit.  Usually I would get the opportunity to freshen things up and reconcile matters every six months, when I pull out all my games and set my vintage systems up for an old video games party on my birthday (and my anti-birthday), but since the pandemic began I haven't been holding these social functions and the fun goods have been languishing in my uninsulated garage attic, alternately freezing and melting through the long years, unseen and untouched by human hands.  Because the one party is always framed as my video games birthday party I like to joke that since I've gone two years without them, I'm still in a holding pattern of age 40, where I've stayed for the past two years.

Around Christmas I finally owned the trifecta of an Xbox 360, an Xbox Kinect AND some Kinect games all at the same time, and my eldest had been going nuts waiting for these factors to align so she'd have a chance to try out the Harry Potter Kinect game she saw I'd picked up... we'd finally hit on a TV stand solution we liked enough to commit to, after carving ventilation holes in the backs of several temporary attempts we ultimately moved on from, so I had a place where I could set up three systems on a semipermanent basis (WiiU, PS3 and Xbox 360 -- at least, until I can find an Xbox One) and store games for them... out of sight when not in use.  Not as easy as it sounds!  Ultimately we determined that our rumpus room is sliiiiiightly too narrow for the Kinect to reliably interpret your movements, but for a little while there we were living in the wild future of 2010.  We discovered that my youngest has an incredible affinity for Dance Central!  (I can't wait for May 4th to inflict the Star Wars variant on her!)

Anyhow, I'm burying the lede here on my blog that no one will ever see, but in a refusal to settle for an endemic new normal I'm now being a bit more creative about the brass tacks of putting on one of these vintage video games parties.  Can I get all my friends stuffed into my house, in which we have been residing for a year and a half, which none of them have seen the inside of?  Probably not safely.  All right then, what can be done to keep them safe?  Social distancing and good ventilation.  OK then: outdoor video games party it is!  We've got extension cords, we've got lawn chairs, and in the event of inclement weather, we've got tarps and canopies and even a gas-powered fire pit.  Everyone do some hand hygiene between gamepad swaps (fortunately I don't have any mouth controls for any of my systems) and who knows, perhaps this can even be the opportunity to rig up a console to my old projector and play Katamari 30 feet high on the side of my house that I always dreamed of.  Tentative date is Apr 2nd, check in with me that Friday to confirm!