Monday, March 4, 2013

Retro Game Hunt #1 - Hidden Treasures under a train station?!

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It was Sunday morning, my dog was being a pain in the ass and I was unfortuantely on call for work (my day job as a systems admin). I was already answering a few problem related e-mails, but that wasn’t going to deter me from taking my hour break at the local flea market that I discovered the weekend before.
I knew the crowds would soon be overcome with the blood-thirsty souls of greedy hoarders hoping to add another senseless item to feed their addiction, so I hastily woke up my wife, and raced over to the Bellmore LIRR station. It didn’t take long before I snagged my first few additions to my VG collection. Who would have thought there would be so many retro games mixed in the piles of garbage. It was actually at one of the first stalls I searched that I discovered a boxed Sonic 1 and Ms. Pacman for genesis – all for the whopping price of $6 for the pair.
Continuing my hunt, I came across a filthy box hidden under a table which was filled to the brim with old genesis games with a few atari games mixed in. My first thought was to buy out the whole box, but when the guy told me it was $5 per game and $100 for the box I was immediately turned off. I was about to give up when I eyed two of the games that could kick off my Atari 2600 collection in the right direction. The infamous ET, and Sword Quest : Fireland. I couldn’t resist, and gave in to temptation and added another 2 games to my goody bag.
As soon as I thought my day was over, something caught my eye. It wasn’t some mystical rare game that was worth thousands, nor was it a pristine, new in the box, unopened / sealed Atari 2600. No - it was a pigeon..a pigeon that just happened to be sitting out in the open as if it didn’t have a care in the world. So I slowly stepped over the pigeon, and looked at the table set up which did happen to have a wide array of games - ranging from NES, famicom, Japanese DS games, a few old school systems such as coleico vision, commodore and atari (which I may pick up next week), two game gears, and a box filled with controllers and wires. Mixed in the bunch I grabbed a copy of Sonic 2, and sonic and knuckles. They were originally $5 each, but without any effort at all the guy at the booth tossed them both to me for $5.
But thats when the Pigeon got pissed off…..

(oh – he’s going to kick your ass)
Apparently, that pigeon did not like me buying those two games for $5, so he fucking attacked me. Full blown attack – as in this pigeon flew straight at my face and attempted to claw my eyes out, or even worse shit all over me. I fled for my life, video games in hand and departed the flea market, watching over my shoulder as the pigeon reclaimed his perch atop a commodore 64.
I ended my day with the below -
Sonic + Ms. Pacman = $6
Sword Quest : Fire World + ET = $10
Sonic 2 + Sonic and Knuckles = $5
Grand Total = $21
Not too shabby for a first attempt at some flea market purchasing. I’ll be going down memory lane tomorrow on some of past experiences with these great games – so stay Tuned.

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