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The Obscurity Symposium

~ Reviews & Fiction by Zach Smith

Category Archives: Collecting

2019 in Review – Collection

27 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by zachhsmith23 in 2019 Year in Review, Collecting

≈ Leave a comment

Video Games

  • Kirby and the Rainbow Curse (Wii U)

  • Tetris Attack (SNES)

  • Toejam and Earl Panic on Funkotron (Gen)

  • Knight Rider (NES)

  • Jaws (NES)

  • Paper Mario: Color Splash (Wii U)

  • Bayonetta 2 w/ Bonus Disk (Wii U)

  • Taboo: The Sixth Sence (NES)

  • Casino Kid (NES)

  • The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island (NES)

  • Dr. Jekyle and Mr. Hide (NES)

  • Ghostbusters (NES)

  • Ghostbusters 2 (NES)

  • Zombies U (Wii U)

  • Guitar Hero III: Legands of Rock (Wii)

  • Mortal Kombat 11 (Switch)

  • Tetris 99 (Switch)

  • Sonic Mania (Switch)

  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

  • Harvest Moon: Light of Hope (Switch)

DVD’s Collected

  • Garbage Pale Kids*

  • Moulan Rouge/Australia*

  • Snows of Kilimanjaro

  • Old School*

  • 500 Days of Summer

  • Snow Dogs

  • The Best of the Cosby Show

  • The Shining*

  • Game of Thrones Season 6*

  • After Hours

  • Clerks

  • The Terminator

  • Scarface (Two-Disc Anniversary Edition)

  • Rocky & Bullwinkle Season 4*

  • Gooftroop Vol. 1 & 2*

  • What About Bob*

  • Sabata Trillogy*

  • Night Court Season 2

  • Universal 100th Anniversary Spotlight Collection – Directors Showcase (American Graffiti, Do the Right Thing, Born on the 4th of July, the Last Temptation of Christ)*

  • Ducktales – the Complete Series*

  • Futurama Vol. 2

  • The Twilight Zone Vol. 3

  • The Twilight Zone Vol. 4

  • The Net

  • Coriolanious

  • The Usual Suspects

  • Fantasia (VHS)

  • Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanimo Bay

  • Garfield: Nine Lives

  • Great Classic Films – The Big Sleep and Key Largo

  • Garfield and Friends Season 1

  • Garfield and Friends Season 2

  • The Crow

  • Once Upon a Time in the West

  • The Good the Bad and the Ugly

  • Boardwalk Empire (Episode 1)

  • Straw Dogs

  • Predator

  • Inherent Vice

  • Anomilisa*

Vinyl Collected

  • Beethoven’s Third Symphony

  • Demons and Wizards by Uriah Heep*

  • Haydn String Quartet’s “Lark” and “Quinten”

  • Don’t You Want Me by Human League

  • Three Sides Live by Genesis

  • Moonglow by Avantasia*

  • Beethovan Piano Concertos No. 2 & 3

  • The Best of the Boomtown Rats

  • Exit… Stage Left by Rush

  • Rio by Duran Duran

  • Material Girl (single) by Madonna

  • Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion by Bela Bartok

  • Kulkjia by Korpiklaani*

  • Picture This by Heuy Lewis and the News

  • Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky

  • Symphonies #’s 2 and 4 by Beethoven

  • W.C. Fields the Original Voice Tracks from his Greatest Movies

  • Dick Tracy Original Radio Broadcast

  • Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninoff

  • Discovery by Electric Light Orchestra

  • Images and Words by Dream Theater

  • Ancient Voices of Children by George Crumb

  • Purple Rain by Prince and the Revolution (Picture Disk)

  • Piano Trios (Op. 1 #3 & Op. 70 #1) by Beethoven

  • Stokowski Plays Bach

  • Beethoven Symphony’s No. 9 and 8

  • Happy Holidays by the Belthlehem Ensemble

  • Midnight Madness by Night Ranger

Toys Collected

  • Animal Crossing – Celestie Amiibo*

  • Kirby Planet Robobot – Kirby Amiibo*

  • Toy Story 4 – Slinky Dog*

  • TMNT – The Ratking

  • TMNT – April O’Neal

  • TMNT – Ace Duck

  • Legends of Batman – The Laughing Man Joker New Pirate Special Editons*

  • Disney Toy Box – Aladdin*

  • (~40 more loose figures – to be blogged about)

  • Funko Pop – Alex Trebek*

  • Funko Pop – Pat Sayjak*

  • Funko Pop – Bob Ross (Pez Dispenser)*

  • Savage World – Thundercats – Panthro 
  • Savage World – Thundercats – Slithe
  • Eaglemoss Hero Collector – Wizarding World – Professor Dumbledore
  • Pez Dispenser – Seasonal Flavored Candy – Santa 
  • Pez Dispenser – Seasonal Flavored Candy – Elf
  • Pez Dispenser – Seasonal Flavored Candy – Snowman
  • Pez Dispenser – Seasonal Flavored Candy – Christmas Tree

Pulp Magazines

  • Railroad Stories – April 1936

  • Jungle Stories – Summer 1946

  • North-West Romances – Fall 1944

  • The Pulpster – 2019*

  • Spicy Mystery Stories – August 1935 (Facsimile)*

  • Indian Stories – Fall 1950 (Facsimile)*

  • Magic Carpet Magazine – January 1933 (Facsimile)*

for collecting: * = New Product

Pulpfest 2019

14 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by zachhsmith23 in Book, Collecting, Video Game

≈ 1 Comment

I did a 4-day vacation with my Dad this summer. We did one last year as well, just him and I, where we did the Meyersdale to Cumberland branch of the GAP Rails-Trail, whitewater rafting in Ohiopyle, and visited Punxsutawney. This year we took a trip out to Pittsburgh, mainly (but not entirely) to go to Pulpfest.

On the way up to Pittsburgh, we hit the Abandoned Turnpike Tunnel Trail with our bikes. The ride is about 17 miles round trip one end is just outside the Sideling Hill rest stop on the extant turnpike and the other end is at Breezewood. The stretch of road had to be abandoned because the tunnels were incapable of handling the traffic volume, and instead of expanding the tunnels it was cheaper just to build new ones. The road is still there and it’s not illegal to ride on, however, it’s also not advertised. The road can be rough in some spots too, so it’s not wise to bring thin tire street bikes on it. This is the third time we’ve done this ride, the first two were done from Breezewood to Sideling Hill which is mostly downhill and then uphill. This time we did it in reverse, so we were cruising more easily coming back when we were more tired. But this had an unusual effect in the first tunnel. It made it seem much longer (since it’s close to the beginning) and it’s a long tunnel anyway, cold and full of fog (at least it was in the morning going east to west) and in the middle, you can’t see either end. If you’re going to do this ride, bring a flashlight.

After the ride, we went to Breezewood to take showers and then to Bedford for an early dinner at a place called “Ed’s.” When we finally got to the hotel where Pulpfest was being held, my Dad and I sat at the bar and watched a baseball game. It was the first time we ever watched a baseball game together and probably the last time, neither of us like sports and just about all our knowledge of baseball comes from Seinfeld, and we made a lot of Seinfeld references that night while watching the game.

I asked for a Dirty Gibson, but the bartender told me “for the first time ever at this hotel we are out of cocktail onions” so I got a martini with blue cheese stuffed olives, Dad got a peach Gin Fizz or something like that.

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The next morning was the main point of our going out to Pittsburgh… Pulpfest. It’s kind of like Comicon but for pulps, a much smaller venue, a much more niche crowd. Pulps are the magazines from the ‘20s to the ‘50s that were published on a very cheap high pulp concentration paper, similar to the paper used in the original Goosebumps books. The other magazines (the ones still published today) are usually called slicks. Pulps are best remembered for the artwork on the covers. Check out the link supra or do a google search and you’ll see what I’m talking about, check out the spicy ones especially… they have the best pictures.

There were a number of dealers at the show selling pulps, paperback books, at least one guy had penny dreadfuls (which I had never seen before – but I’m pretty sure that’s what they were), modern authors selling their own books, artwork (one guy had the covers sans text, blown up and nicely framed which then came with a copy of the book or magazine the cover was from.), and T-Shirts.

I did have an objective going to this convention, collecting pulps was only part of it and a small part. The main part was to look for new publishers, small presses, and independent authors to chat with to see if I can get some kind of in. I made up a new business card with my name on it to try and get it out there. I may have a slight lead with Raw Dog Screaming Publications, but I’m not too optimistic about it, I may give it a shot next year.

I also wanted to see if maybe next year I should set up a table of my own (not that I have a book to sell… yet) or to see if it might be something my friend Josh Mavis would be interested in. His stuff is hard-line pulp-inspired, mine is less easily definable. I reported my findings to him and we’ll see what he does with it, at least he does have a book to sell  and may have another by next Pulpfest.

At these sorts of conventions, I always buy books from the independent authors and I did so this time. I’m not sure if I should admit this part or not, but I almost never read these books. This year might be different though, one is a very short novella, one is a short collection of short stories, and one is a collection of very short stories from 2 Authors.

Here’s what I picked up from those authors.

Lawson VS. LaValley – I’ve never seen one of these before, but I like the idea… I like it a lot actually and may try something like this later on. This is a collection by two different authors, mostly Flash Fiction. There are 37 stories in 112 pages. I met John Edward Lawson and chatted with him the most (at least as far as primary objective went). The stories, however, are (at least from what I’ve read so far) Bizarro, not a genre I write in or know a whole lot about, so maybe Raw Dog Scremeing will not prove fruitful, I still may try though.

The House on Concordia Drive by K. W. Taylor – apparently this is the prequel to a series about a supernatural disc Jokey. It was the shortest thing she had there which is why I picked it up, giving me a chance to actually read it.

Tales of Gods and Monsters edited by Joab Stieglitz – it’s edited and mostly written by Stieglitz, he wrote 3 of the stories and his wife wrote one. While talking to him he told me the basic plot to his “Utgarda Trilogy” which sounded really good, but again I wanted to actually read the books I got from these Authors, and I can’t easily read a novel on paper.

I love t-shirts and where them primarily when I go out. Mine usually have interesting images and I tend to get comments on them. Dad is always impressed with how many comments I get. I was wearing my Legend of Zelda T-shirt at Pulpfest and that will come up again a little further down. There was a booth selling T-shirt’s with pulp covers on them, and I picked up two. However, they are just a little too off-color to wear everywhere. One is Thrilling Mysteries March 1940, this issue features 2 stories by Ray Cummings, another by DL James, the cover story is by Joseph Archbold, and there are 4 other stories (I’m wearing this shirt right now as I edit this). The other T-shirt is a cover of Weird Tales May 1941, which has the first half of a short Lovecraft novel (the cover), a Seaberry Quinn Novelette, 6 other stories, and two poems.

On Friday night there was a guy at Pulpfest who was telling us about the convention and we found out he was a dealer, Ray Walsh of the Curious Book Shop in East Lansing Michigan, he was nice and had a good sense of humor and I wanted to make sure I bought something from his table. As it turned out I bought two magazines from his table (which I’ll get to in a second). I had pulled up a bunch of pictures on my phone and asked him if he had any of them. I showed him a Spicy Adventure cover and he told me that he can’t even hold onto the Spicy’s and that they’re rather expensive. I showed him an Oriental Stories cover, but I already knew the answer, I saw it at a different table for 700$ and I want it because I want to read the cover story of that issues: “The Dragoman’s Slave Girl” (and I can’t find it online anywhere) I also wanted to read the story “Dreamboat” in an issue of The Original Science Fiction Stories, that apparently was not a pulp magazine but a digest (looks like a paperback book) but he didn’t bring any with him to the show. He didn’t have the issue of Jungle Stories that I showed him, but he did have some issues of the magazine… jackpot. And I also picked up a copy of Railroad Stories, a magazine I did not know about until this year. I asked him about reading the magazines, “read a pulp? Who does that?” He asked, as a joke, he recommended that I be careful while doing so as the paper is rather brittle, but I didn’t need to wear gloves or anything like that. I did actually read one of the stories in one of the magazines before the trip was over. After we were done at his table he welcomed Dad and me to the world of pulp. It was a nice welcoming to a hobby I plan to stay with for a while.

Here’s a quick review of the actual pulps I picked up.

Railroad Stories April 1936 – I picked up this issue because I liked the picture on the cover and wanted to read the story based on it. It was later that I saw the mark at the bottom of the magazine which reads “25$ cash to the best title for this picture” I seriously doubt that 83 years later the contest is still open, but I am quite good at titles so Challenge Accepted… my submission: “High Tea and the Hobo Makes Three” now I should probably write a story for it. This was the oldest magazine that I picked up at Pulpfest and ergo the oldest in my collection. When this issue was released, Hitler had just taken over in Germany. When this magazine came out, people who had phones most likely shared a line with another house, and now phones are the primary reading medium for many. I actually saw a picture of this magazine on my phone before I got it. History and entertainment writing that has been largely forgotten, that’s why I enjoy this stuff. Stories included in this issue are: “the Big Hill” by Edmund E. Pugsley, “the Angle of Canyon Pass” by Charles W. Tyler (I’ve read another story by him called “The Western Union Kid” he was a very prolific but little remembered writer) “Link And Pin” by Ed Samples, “Wood Burners” by Watson B. Berry (which I have read by this point), “The Skipper Uses His Head” by Harry R. Drummond, “Riding the Freight” by James C. Southcott, “Broken Links” by Highball John Burns (what a nickname), “Closing Days” by Ralph A. Snyder, “Rolling Down to Reno” by Eugene Picture Kid (quite a name there as well), “Along the Iron Pike” by Joseph Easley, “Railway Express Messenger No. 1” by H.R. Edwards, “Streetcar Thrills” by George Beater, “Concoring the Hoosac” by Clif Belcher, “A Race that Cost 44 Lives” by E.B. Heineman, “Who’s Who in the Crew” by Stookie Allen, and “Juggling a Nitro Train” by R.A. Emberg.

Jungle Stories Summer 1946 – Stories included: “Death Seeks for Congo Treasure” by John Peter Drummond (a Ki-Gor Novel, each issue of Jungle Stories features a Ki-Gor Novel, basically a Tarzan ripoff, John Peter Drummond is a house name, I don’t know who actually wrote the novel here), “Jungle Jinx” by John Ropke, “Trail by Magic” by Tom O’Neil, “The Golden Assegai” by Alexsander Wallace, “Relictant Warrior” by Duncan Zara, “Phantasma” by R. A. Emberg, “Too Many Witch Doctors” by Cordwell Staples (which I read before the trip was done, it’s a good story about a guy transporting rubber who gets caught by a witch doctor and is tied to a tree to be slowly beheaded), and “Black Devil Magic” by Joe A. Small.

North West Romances Fall 1944 – don’t let the magazine title full you, these are not romance stories in the traditional “love” sense. Northerns or Northwestern is a genre I’ve only recently come across, basically westerns set in the northern territories of Canada with Mounties standing in for cowboys; and lumberjacks, fur trappers, hunters, first nationers, and gold prospectors as the stable of characters. I first came across the genre when I was researching a W. C. Fields short called “The Fatal Glass of Beer” during a very cold night last winter. And I’ve loved the concept of this genre since. My friend Josh Mavis (mentioned supra) writes Northers, as of now his are the only ones I’ve read in the genre, it will be interesting to see how his stories hold up with the originals of the genre. I am looking forward to reading these stories which include: “Lady of Plunder Trail” by William Heuman (which I’m currently reading), “The Chechako Brigade” by Clay Perry, “Mountie’s Last Mission” by Curtis Bishop, “Steel Portage” by Dan Cusman, “the Invader” by Jim Kjelgaard, “Trail of Carcajou” by W. E. Knibloe, “Silver-Tip” by William Rush, and “Skin Game” by C. V. Teuch. The issue I really wanted was from Fall 1946 and has the story “Satan’s Timer Claim” now I have to read that one… and again, can’t find it online.

Here’s the full set of all I picked up from Pulpfest:

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I found out about a store called Cash-In Culture from a gamer that I watch on YouTube. It is not a retro video game store, or I should say it is not just a retro video game. They also sell toys and DVDs. I would love it if there was a store like this a little closer by, but on the other hand, maybe it’s a good thing they aren’t. Dad wasn’t too interested in the store, but that was perfectly understandable, so he left and checked out some other stories. While I was in the store another customer asked if I had been at Pulpfest, he recognized my shirt, and we had a nice little chat for a few minutes. Here’s what I picked up at the store:

Taboo [NES] – I’ve been looking for this game for some time and I didn’t think I would ever find it, even though it is a common game (though I’m really not sure why and you’ll probably think the same when you’ve read what it is). It’s not so much a game but a tarot card simulator. You write in your name, birthday and gender and it lays out a spread explaining each card and what it means based on its position in the spread. I wanted this cart quite a bit, but I was also a little hesitant to get it and that had nothing to do with its price. If it was an Ouija board simulator, I wouldn’t have even touched it.

Casino Kid – I didn’t like this game very much. It has a 2-star rating in the Ultimate NES Guide, and I give it the same. There are obviously roulette and craps tables in the game (my two favorites) but you can’t use them, instead, you can only play blackjack and poker and you have to find the right people to play against at first (and I had to use a guide on the internet just to get started). Maybe if it was my only game and I had nothing else to do it would be better, but that’s not the case. Oh well, one more game in the collection, there are worse games out there but there are also much much better games (both gambling simulators and others) to be sure.

April O’Neal – Cash-In Culture doesn’t just sell video games, they sell toys too. In fact, this is the only store I’ve been in that sells loose action figures other then maybe a flee market. I had to pick some up. There were a lot of star wars toys but I don’t really care about them, they also had some Real Ghostbusters figures but they didn’t have any of the ones I wanted. There were also some carded TMNT figures but they were from the StarTrek crossover line, so I wasn’t super interested in them either (slightly interested but not enough for the sticker price), but they did have plenty of loose TMNT figures. I had to get April O’Neal, there are very few female action figures in my collection. If I was as I am now when I was a kid, I would have gotten mostly female action figures, but as a kid boys didn’t play with girl action figures… it just wasn’t done. Regardless it wouldn’t feel right not picking up a girl action figure now. For those of you unfamiliar with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, April was the news reporter that first discovered the turtles and was involved in some capacity in a lot of the episodes, she was a friend of theirs and always tried to take there side in the news reports, even when no one else would. She was voiced by Renae Jacobs in the original series.

Rat King – again if I was like I am now as a kid I would have opted for the bad guys. Most of my loose toy collection (the action figures I got as a kid) were male and protagonists, I was missing out on some good stuff. I had to get a bad guy while I was in the store, and the Rat King was the best option, I’ve wanted him for years (I wanted Leatherhead more, but they didn’t have him there). He came with a dime bag of some of his accessories (grappling hook, crossbow, and loincloth made out of a flattened roadkill cat). The detail they put into these old figures is far greater than the detail in the modern release TMNT figures. The Rat King lived in the sewers with the turtles but he was not a friendly neighbor. He was voiced by Townsend Coleman who also did the voice of Waldo and the Tick.

Ace Duck – as far as I can tell Ace Duck is one of the few action figures in the TMNT line, that is not actually a character on the show. He had his own comic book, and I don’t know much more other than that. Regardless I’ve wanted an ace duck figure for a years… now I have one, unfortunately, he didn’t come with any accessories either.

Night Court Season 2 – for Christmas last year my friend over at Oblivion’s Realm gave me a copy of Night Court Season 1, and during some rather bad times in my life over the past year I would watch it on my laptop in bed (or in the bath) and it helped me get by. There were a lot of DVDs to choose from at Cash-In Culture, But when I saw this one, I had to get it. I have since watched it and enjoyed it quite a bit. Maybe better than the first season. I remembered two of the episodes, one where a guy is convinced the devil is sending messages through music, and another where Bull gets a son from some kind of charity thing who turns out to be a girl. There are other good episodes here too. One about a computer hacking kid genius who’s a real asshole, another about a nun who leaves the sisterhood so she can date the judge, another Yakov Smirnoff episode, and more.

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Part of the draw for Pulpfest was to see my dad’s hometown, where he lived until he was about 12 in Canonsburg. It’s about a half-hour outside of Pittsburg. On the way there we passed by a car vending machine of all things, dad pointed it out, he said he had heard of them before, I never have.

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We stopped in front of my dad’s old house when we were in Canonsburg. I had seen it before when I was probably 10 years old, or thereabouts. I remembered the yard being bigger and there being trees around, this was 25 years ago… things always seem bigger and trees and come and go.

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He was tempted to knock on the door of one of his neighbors in the small chance that she, or her family, might still be living there, but he (we) pussyed out. He drove down a road that was a dirt road when he was a kid and showed me the old pond he used to canoe in and where he thought the drive-in movie theater might have been, another small neighborhood he used to ride his bike to, and his old elementary school… he hated school as much as (if not more then) I did, strange since he was a teacher for almost 20 years.

When we were leaving he said. “Well I’ll probably never see my old house again,” and when he said this she showed almost no emotion, which was strange, if the roles were reversed I would have had trouble both leaving and/or going there in the first place. You know I’m going to write a story based on the idea, and yes I already have a title… “Leaving Canonsberg”

Another highlight, something we wanted to do in the town was to see a certain statue. There are actually two singers of some renown that came from Canonsburg: Bobby Vinton, who did the song “Mr. Lonely” (though the sped up sampling in the Akon song “Lonely” is the better variation in my opinion) and the more famous Perry Como. Como was immortalized in a statue in front of the library/police station of Canonsberg. Not really my kind of music but still worth seeing.

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That evening Dad and I went into Pittsburgh, found a parking garage and set out on the town for dinner. We ate at the famous Primanti Bros. You May know them, though not by name. It’s the sandwich place that puts the coleslaw and French fries right in the sandwich. They started as a lunch counter for the steelworkers, who didn’t have a lot of time to eat, so they put the sides right in the sandwich. And today they still do the same thing. I got a Capocollo and cheese, Dad got a Pitts-Burgher. The sandwich was quite good, the experience even better. We needed up staying in the restaurant for an extra half hour or so because it started to downpour and we were on foot.

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Once the rain cleared we headed over to “the point” which is the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers to form the Ohio River. We could have real easily jumped into the river and went for a swim if we wanted to, or even more easily fallen in, there was no barrier between the edge of the point and the water. My guess is it happens frequently.

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For breakfast the next morning we went to the Eat’N Park right across the road from the hotel. I remembered eating at one before, the last time Dad and I went out to Pittsburgh some 25 years ago. It was good. A cheap diner chain, very reminiscent of a Friendly’s (which was my Dad and I’s favorite restaurant for a long long time, and sadly the one we always went to close down about a year ago). I had Grilled Sticky Buns for breakfast (among the eggs and bacon), and I haven’t had them in years, Dad never had them before, but he tried mine and then ordered some for himself.

On the way back home we stopped for a night in Bedford, to visit my dad’s family, he has one cousin in law who he is still in contact with, who is an angel of a man, he has a granddaughter who I hadn’t seen since I graduated from high school. She was visiting when we were there and we had a good time chatting, and I gave her my contact info, hopefully, she will keep in touch.

We had dinner with the family at a little greasy spoon just outside of Bedford, it had an old country atmosphere on the inside, and antique Decor, it looked like a Cracker Barrel, but smaller and more authentic. I got the fried chicken. On the last father/son trip I also had fried chicken and it was some of the best bird I’d ever had before, this chicken came close.

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The following day, the last day of our trip, Dad and I did another bike ride. The trail was called the Johnstown Path of the Flood Trail. It started at South Fork and ended at Johnstown. Though we didn’t make it that far. The ride was very hot and very downhill, with a variety of placards posted along the trail explaining the flood, how it effected which town and other bits of railroad trivia.

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It would have been a more enjoyable ride, however, I was worried the whole time because it was a lot of downhill, which meant a lot of uphill back to the car. Dad and I pulled into the town of East Conemaugh to regroup and figure out what to do next. He called an Uber while I waited with the bikes and worked on a story on my phone.

On the way home, it was starting to get late, and we were both starting to get a little hungry, so we stopped at a restaurant in Harrisburg called Fiesta Mexico. We’ve eaten there every time we’ve done the abandoned turnpike ride, and even though we had done a lot more than just that particular ride on our trip, it still seemed required. Required or not, it was still a good way to end our trip.

Good Bye S&S Games

10 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by zachhsmith23 in Collecting, Video Game

≈ 2 Comments

I know I said that I was signing off on the game collecting blog posts, but there is no other option I have to post this.

Yesterday I had been planning to stop by my favorite game store twice. Once to post a sign for work, and again a few hours later to do some shopping. I also wanted to pitch to them that they should pick up several copies of NES Remix for the Wii U, because they could buy them from a whole seller, increase their stock, playing the game would be free advertisement for their other merchandise, and they could hold tournaments with the NWC Remix (which given my obsession with that part of the game, I’d be sure to win) my review on this game will be soon coming. I liked to hit the store at least once a month, but because of the nature of this year (and summer specifically) I hadn’t been there since June. When I stopped by yesterday for the first time, I saw… they were closed for good. Such a shame.

They had been there for almost two years, and I admire the two young men for attempting to open a store in today’s world. It’s not an easy thing to do, as Jimmie McMillan says “The Rent is Too Damn High!” (Granted I don’t know specifically why they closed but I would imagine that the rent was part of the reason). The store catered to a niche market, and because of the internet, running a brick and mortar store for anything like this an unnecessarily difficult job. You have to pay rent (which is probably outrageously high thanks to the free market), you have to run the store, pay people to run the store (if you as the owner want any kind of time off), and also find the merchandise to sell. This last part would be easier to do for a lot of other stores, but old video games, sure they exist, but there’s no whole seller to buy from, it’s finding piece by piece her and there, or waiting for people to come in with trades.

Last, and in my opinion most difficult, they have to deal with customers. Sure not all customers are bad, but so many of them are. As I get older I find that people as a whole are becoming more and more intolerable, I don’t know if it’s because of society or just my own jaded view resulting from the personal nature of getting older, but I could barely tolerate some of the people I run into at stores like these, and that was just as a customer.

For all these reasons I am proud that they made it this far and can say with certainty that the owners will go much further in life, and I can’t wait to see what they do.

I discovered the store shortly after it opened in 2014, and couldn’t believe that a store catering to a hobby I was just then getting into had opened up so conveniently close to where I worked. And since then I’ve picked up many games, a lot (but not all) good. The store was originally called “Classic Game Junkies” borrowing the name from another established store in I believe Glen Mills. More recently they changed the name to S&S Games, taking the first letter of the two owners’ last names.

The first game I got there was Prince of Persia for the Sega Geneses, one of my favorites. The last game I got, from them a few months ago was Dragon Warrior for the NES, which I havn’t played much of yet, though I will, don’t worry. Both times I picked up other games of course, but I’m marking those specific ones as first and last. Here’s the full list of what I got from S&S Games if you’re interested.

For the NES

  • Baseball
  • Captain Skyhawk
  • Dragon Warrior
  • Faxanadu
  • Fester’s Quest
  • Golf
  • Gyromite
  • Hogan’s Ally
  • Lee Travino’s Fighting Golf
  • The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
  • Lunar Pool
  • Milon’s Secret Castle
  • Super Mario Bors./Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  • Tennis
  • Tetris
  • Trojan
  • Wizards & Warriors

For the Super Nintendo

  • Championship Pool
  • Denis the Menes
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
  • Porky Pig’s Haunted Holiday
  • Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally
  • Tetris 2

For the Wii

  • Kirby’s Epic Yarn
  • Link’s Crossbow Training
  • Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam

For the Gameboy

  • 4-in-1 Fun Pak
  • Donkey Kong
  • Madden 97
  • Mickey’s Dangerous Chase
  • Pac-Man
  • Tetris 2
  • Tetris Attack
  • Yoshie’s Cookie

For the Sega Geneses

  • Arcade Classics
  • Asterix and the Great Rescue
  • Barney’s Hide and Seek Game
  • Ceaser’s Pallace
  • Eternal Champions
  • Jurassic Park
  • The Adventures of Mighty Max
  • Mortal Kombat
  • Mortal Kombat II
  • Prince of Persia
  • Street Fighter II Special Championship Edition
  • Taz in Escape from Mars
  • WWF Royal Rumble
  • Zoop

Other Games & Hardware

  • GTA: Vice City Stories (PS2)
  • Orange Zapper (NES)
  • Original NES Controller
  • Reproduction SNES Controller
  • PS2 Controller Extension Cord

I am sad to see the store go, that goes without saying. I have fairly good notes on when I picked everything up, so perhaps, next summer I can do an S&S Games Review, i.e. a half hour on each game, and brief review for the Blog, that would take over 20 hours of playtime and maybe 10 hours of writing time. If I can do next summer what I planned to this summer (which is more or less nothing) then it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll see, maybe I’ll start on the project early, or maybe it will just be too sad to do.

NES (22+3) SNES (9+2) N64 (0+3) GC (20) WII (24) WIIU (5+1)

GB (14+6) GBA (4+2) DS (18+1) 3DS (10+2)

GEN (28+3) DC (10) PS1 (1) PS2 (13)

Collecting Episode 4

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by zachhsmith23 in Collecting

≈ 1 Comment

This time around, at my favorite game story, I had to spend exactly $10 (long story). I picked up the copy of Jurrassic Park that I had been eyeing the last two times I was in the story, and to even out the bill, I picked up something I never thought I would get, Madden 97 for the Gameboy. I was also given the tip that I could use card sleeves (like for binders of magic cards) to hold Gameboy cartridges.

Jurassic Park – I played the game for a full half hour to test it. It’s a typical side scrolling platformer, not my favorite type of game in general, but they can be pretty good some times, unfortunately this is not one of those times. The game gets extra points for graphics, but that’s about it. It is relentlessly hard, moving too fast can make you fall through various platforms and too your death. The button scheme is bad, A makes you cycle through your weapons, B fires the weapon selected, and C jumps. To jump to a higher platform you have to jump next to the platform and grab onto it. the biggest problem though is that the graphics seem to slow down the game, you see this in old games from the NES from time to time, but I don’t recall ever seeing it in a Genesis game before, where is that blast processing I hear so much about? Maybe if I play the game more I’ll get use to it, but in the half hour I played I didn’t even come close to the end of the first level. It does have a nice box though. And I’m glad I only payed 9$ for it, instead of the 50$ when it came out, as I had planned on doing many years ago.

Madden 97 – I had a funny feeling that despite everything I would actually like this game, it would have been very unlikely of course, as I don’t like sports in general, least of all football. Well guess what: no I didn’t like it. you choose different options and different attack patterns, but since I know nothing about football I was just selecting things at random. I played the game for 8 minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore. Don’t think I’ll be going back to this one any time soon.

Collecting Episode 3

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by zachhsmith23 in Collecting

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It was a very cold and very wet November day at work, and a day that I had to work outside of course. I knew the first thing that I would do when I got home would be to get all my clothes off in the laundry room, then immediately take a shower, then eat something spicy. What I didn’t know was whether or not I was up to going to Classic Game Junkies before getting home. A friend of mine from work and I had planned on going to the store after work that afternoon, but what I didn’t plan on was working outside in the cold rain non-stop for 7 hours. In the end we did go.

I picked up 3 games, all for the Genesis: Mortal Kombat (in the box), Mortal Kombat II, and Caesar’s Palace. Here’s a game for you at home to play, which one is different than the others? I was also close to picking up Jurassic Park (also in the box) but that game has been in there since the first day I went in, so I’ll probably pick it up next time.

My friend also picked up 3 games, all for the N64 (a system I do plan on getting at some point, but not in the immediate future). All three of his came from “the case” one of a few glass boxes in the store where the more valuable or desirable (i.e. games that may not be all too expensive, but are commonly stolen) games are kept. I haven’t gotten anything from the case yet. His trio was Diddy Kong Racing, Mario Kart, and Super Smash Bros.

Mortal Kombat – Yes I know the game, everyone knows the game, probably the most famous game from when I was a kid. Of course I did not have it when I was a kid, mom would not let me get overly violent video games, and this one was infamous. It basically started the ESRB rating system, digitized human actors fighting to the death. I remember a friend of mine from way back had a copy and we played it at his house quite often. I forgot that there is a code you have to put in to turn the blood on, and (I assume) the fatalities only work when the blood is turned on. When I picked up the copy, the owner told me that they had just gotten that copy in yesterday. During the test play I was able to beat the game with Raden (my favorite) on Very Easy, the second time around.

Mortal Kombat II – Mortal Kombat plus more: more characters, more stages, more fatalities, humorous non-lethal finishers, “toasty”, and best and most important, more blood. You don’t even need to use a code to turn the blood on, how could the game go worng? Answer: turning up the difficulty to virtually unplayable levels. This seems to be symptom of fighting games. Shaq-Fu could have been a cute and warmly liked (maybe not smash it) if the difficulty wasn’t so relentless, same goes for Eternal Champions, however there is the possibility that a six button controller could make that game much easier. There is an option in MKII for a six button controller, so I won’t pass ultimate judgment until I find that device. Still though, why do they have to make these fighting games so hard? I’ll admit I know very little about programming, but I think it would be a much easier process to tone the difficulty down on a fighting game as opposed to say a sidescroller. I had the game set at very easy and gave myself 30 credits (continues) I think, or 38, whichever the max is, and I made it up to level 5, and gave up when I had only 10 credits left. Granted I’m not the best gamer in the world, but why make the very easy difficulty that hard? If it wasn’t for the two player options and the controversies surrounding the game itself I can’t see how it would have survived. They put a lot of work into the game, there is a lot of stuff there, I just wish I could explore it better. Maybe after 8 or 10 hours of playing I can get a handle of the game, but it is certainly not a pick up and play.

Caesar’s Palace – I had seen this game at the store the last time, but for the SNES. The price was good so I picked it up, and I test played it more than the other two. The controls took a little time to get a hang of and I lost about 300$ at black jack because I couldn’t figure out how to stand. Just like in San Andreas you can play: Black Jack, Rullette, Slots, and Video Poker; but in Caesar’s Palace you can also play: Keno, Craps, bet on race, and even scratch off lottery tickets. I like that they included Craps, I don’t have a clue about how to play it, but it might be worth learning, I know a few people who like the game. I love playing gambling video games (with fake money) but I can’t stand the real thing, too many people and the “rules” are ill informed. I found it interesting that there was a warning on the first screen not to use this game for any real kind of gambling. Aside from the controls the other downside is the goofy password system, but I think I’ll only need that when I win more than my initial 2,000$, I don’t expect that to happen for a while.

On a side note, I’m going to try to make this a week of posts, one new one each day. the last time I tried this it didn’t work out so well.

Collecting Episode 2

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by zachhsmith23 in Collecting

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After my first experience at Classic Game Junkies, I had to go back. They’re right next to a pizza place and the place I get my birdseed, not to mention 2 minutes from work (luckily in the other direction). So I will be back fairly often. I perused there very limited selection of Dreamcast Games, and found two that I wanted, Sonic Adventure and Shenmue, but they were both higher then I wanted to spend, not that they were overpriced. I got 3 games: Zoop, Eternal Champions (with box and instructions), and 4 in 1 Funpak, for the Genesis, Genesis and Game Boy respectfully. Unfortunately this haul was not nearly as good as the last, but for unusual reasons. I’m not too upset about it thought, because the hobby is both collecting and playing retro games, in time I want to amass a vast (if not complete) Genesis and Gameboy collection, not to mention the other systems, so it’s not like I’ll be returning them.

Zoop – this game is advertised as a “puzzle game” but it is almost half a puzzle game and half an Avant-Garde space shooter. The game seems to be much more mature then the typical video game. At the beginning there is a blue screen with copyright legalese written on it that looks like something you might read on a VCR options menu. The BGM is a more Jazzy number then you typically hear in a video game (I don’t like Jazz, but this is not the biggest problem with the game). The game has simple selection screens that are reminiscent of computer games of that era as opposed to consul games. For me the game is virtually unplayable, but that may not be the case for you. You shoot objects of different colors (each object has only 1 color) your shooter or space ship has to match the color of the object your shooting to make it disappear, if it is a different color then your space ship changes to that color and the object changes to color your space ship was. Does that sound complicated to you? Maybe, maybe not. Well for me, being color blind, I can only keep a game going for, at best 2 minutes. I don’t know how long normal people can go, but I would assume it would be longer. I’m actually surprised I can last as long as I did, since I’m not 100% colorblind I can match some of the things some of the time, but I can’t last for very long.

Eternal Champions – I got this game for 3 reasons: it came in a box, it was well within my price range, and I remembered it from when it was new. I remembered it because I used to think that the one guy on the cover was the cowardly lion from the wizard of oz, who had apparently gotten braver and more viscous and armed with a morning star, and I also remembered that it was one of the first games that “required” a 6 button controller. I checked the back of the box before buying it and it said “six button controller recommended.” Now here’s the kicker, I have a six button controller somewhere, a third party clear controller with turbo switches on it, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment. When I do I will probably put this game through the 8 hour test, because it does look promising, and if I can’t find the controller I’ll pick up one from the junkies. Without the six buttons you have to use the start button to switch between punch and kick attacks, a little yin-yang icon next to your health bar moves up or down to tell you which way your oriented. The controls seem difficult but learnable, the opponent can seem to block most of your moves, but I have no idea how to guard myself. Aside from the controller problem, there is another problem where it won’t let you get out of the tournament mode, you lose and it keeps resetting your first match, no game over, continue count down, etc. so get use to hitting that reset button. There is a promising story line and 9 unique and interesting fighters to choose from, all with much different histories and background. The overall story tells you they all died too early in one way or another and they have been brought to this eternal championship to fight their way to the top and to get one more shot at life if they win. Sounds good, I’m not sure why this series never caught on. I will give it more time in the future I’m sure, probably the best of the 3 games I got.

4 in 1 Funpak – it might not be the best game I’ve ever played but since it was out of the dolor bin I can’t complain. This has 4 different board games in it: Checkers, Backgammon, Reversi, and (my all-time favorite) Chess. The Chess game gives you 6 levels of opponent difficulty, and I devastated the computer on both level 1 and level 3. The only problem with the chess game is the think time, the computer takes forever, but I can’t be too critical, I don’t know how chess games work from the computers end. It was getting too late to finish the second game but I had taken way to much material from the computer for it to have a chance. I lost the checkers game, I’ve never been too good at it, but maybe I should play it more often, and get better. I have checkers app on my phone, to try and improve. I tried playing the Backgammon game but I don’t remember how to play the game, so I gave up quickly. Reversei I’ve never played before, and couldn’t really figure it out. But now I have someone (or something) to play with.

Collecting Episode 1

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by zachhsmith23 in Collecting

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On Saturday October 4th, I officially became a retro game collector. A week earlier I had parked in the wrong place when picking up some pizza, and discovered a brand new Retro store that had opened up just right around the corner from where I work called Classic Game Junkie. Unfortunately I had gotten very sick the next day and for a week I was not able to stop in. I knew it would not be a good thing to have such a specific and convenient store open up so close by, but what can you do? I went in and the two owners were very friendly, prices were reasonable. They didn’t have any specific games that I was looking for, but I did pick up a few, mainly (but not at all entirely) because I like to help a new business like that.

What did I get? Prince of Persia, TAZ in Escape from Mars, Tetris Attack, and Donkey Kong, For the Sega Genesis and Game Boy respectfully. I am considering Prince of Persia to be the first “New Old Game” that I ever got, even though I got all 4 at the same time. It has been at least 18 years since I bought a Genesis Game, and 20 or more years since I bought a Gamboy game. My Geneses collection is now 2% complete, and my Gameboy/Gameboy color collection is 0.8% complete. Hopefully (for financial reasons) those percentages will not change drastically any time soon.

Prince of Persia – The guy at the store told me it was a hard but good game, and he was right. The controls are sluggish, but not in the way that a crappy game’s controls might be, here it forces the player to plan ahead like in a strategy game, plan every move. I like the game so much that I stopped playing the original Zelda and started playing this game for the review. However this was only the second best of the four I bought.

Taz in Escape from Mars – I have a tape from the early 90’s that I still watch from time to time, it’s a recording of Nickelodeon cartoons from way back when they used to show Rocky and Bullwinkle on the network. There was some sort of prize giveaway, to promote the then in utero “Snick” block, kids used a primitive video phone to call and try and match 2 Snick shows. If they won they would get and I quote: “A TV, a VCR, a Sega Genesis 16-Bit video game system [this was back in the height of the bit wars of course], a whole bunch of game cartridges, and a hundred dollars from Kraft Handy Snacks.” If they lost they still got a Sega Genesis and the Tazmania Game Cartridge. Now this Taz is a different game from the one that I got, it was the original one. I had played one of the games before, but I don’t remember which one. I remember we rented it from Blockbuster and I played it at my Grandmother’s house with my cousins. I think it was the original, but I can’t be sure. Regardless that is the reason I picked up this game, because it is somewhat connected with my past, albeit indirectly. The game play is pretty strait forward, decent controls, somewhat typical sidescroller. Looney Tunes games tend to get criticized heavily and I would think unfairly, I’ve never had a huge problem with any of them. In the 15 minutes I spent testing the game I almost beat the first boss, so it’s not too difficult, it should be a promising game for a later point.

Tetris Attack – This is my favorite of the set. Match 3 or more of the different symbols (hearts, stars, etc.), you play the game by flipping two blocks at a time on a vertical axis (similar to but more limited then Puzzle Quest, which allows flipping on both axes) while the screen slowly fills up from the bottom. This is a puzzle game in its purest from, and absolutely fantastic, the replay value is through the roof. This game has it all: challenging puzzle, cute animations, and fantastic music. And was actually the cheapest one of the lot. Sometimes that’s how the world works.

Donkey Kong – and here we have my least favorite of the set. I had this game on my 3DS wishlist because it looked like a more primitive version of the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series (of which I am a huge fan). The game however is not that at all, it is basically the original Donkey Kong game but with new screens to play. It’s not really a game I found myself enjoying all too much, though I can’t really say why. Maybe in the future I might pick it up and give it another go, but not any time soon.

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