Greetings and salutations,

I have decided to get more active on this forum like the old days of NA. So I am going to be posting excerpts from a long lost NintendoAge Magazine article that sadly never made it to print. Keep in mind most of these stories were written in the 2010-2012 era, I only wrote them down after telling them to co-workers who found them extremely bizarre and entertaining. I probably could have applied more editing but I am definitely not a writer. So no matter how many times I edit this, it will still have mistakes. I plan to release the stories every Friday until I have no more.  Enjoy.

Kijiji Tales 

By killerkobra

My NintendoAge name is killerkobra, I'm from Edmonton Alberta Canada. That's pretty far north, in fact I live in the highest populated northern city in North America. Maybe even the world!! Wow.  As you can imagine it gets pretty darn cold up here and some years we have winter 8 months straight. One thing I can say about Edmonton is that it's no slouch when it comes to video games. I can recall all sorts of consoles and systems since I can remember. Intellivison? Sega Master System? TurboGrafx-16? 32X? Check, check and check, played them all as a kid at my friends’ houses. I still own my original Sega Cd. 

 In the year 2010 it really dawned on me that I really loved my retro video games and I decided to start video game collecting exclusively. I had a solid collection built up from childhood and being a casual collector at this point. YouTube was in full swing with excellent channels like Angry Video Game Nerd and Happy Video Game Nerd.  In reality I have been collecting video games since I was 4. The very age I got my first video game console, the Nintendo Entertainment System Action Set. I was hooked like many of us, and luckily enough, I still own every item I have ever acquired video game related. But I never really got into the serious side of collecting until early to mid- 2010 and around that time I also discovered a little site called Kijiji. Ahh Kijiji, similar to Craigslist in USA, I quickly discovered that it should have been called Adventure instead of Kijiji...

Now there's a ton of stories to tell about Kijiji. Trying to find an address's (even with GPS can be impossible) fighting traffic, driving long distances, horrid weather but the best thing about it is meeting the oddest people… Or maybe it was the video games… Ya, Ill actually say it was the video games.

There are the types of deals:

The, Score!

The, I need a beer

The, Ewe gross!

The, wow where am I?

The, am I going to die?

The, stood up

The, bizarre

The, crooked 

The What the...?

Often these types overlap each other. 

A lot of the deals I did back then felt like I was walking on egg shells. I never wanted to seem over excited or forward with the person I was dealing with. So a lot my methods back then are sketchy as hell to say the least. Not like I am trying scam people sketchy but  more like "ya sure I can come up into your creepy filthy apartment" or "You are creeping me out over email, but ya sure lets meet face to face"

Pop Goes my Video Game Kijiji Cherry 

(The Eww! Gross)

Now, when I started to get serious about collecting I really wanted a Sega Master System in my collection. When I was about 8 or 9 my best buddy got one from his older cousin. Long nights playing Double Dragon and Ghostbusters to say the least. Sadly, once we got a little older he sold it and I had wanted one ever since. So when I first discovered Kijiji I went on and what do you know??? There was a CIB system with about 12 games that were also all CIB with the Sports Controller ( with the track ball ) and Control Stick controller, also both CIB.  I was working nightshift at the time so I went to his house at about 7:30 AM, it was a text book deal. Went to the door, exchanged the goods for the money and I was gone. (I made friends with this guy about a year later, he was a hard core collector himself...but that's a different story)  Once I got home, I then wanted to clean everything I had just bought. Being second hand and used I figured a quick wipe down was in order. I opened everything up and that was when I noticed that the system, games and controllers all had some sort of brown sauce on them. Let’s just say I hope it was brown sauce like BBQ or Hp...  Not only the sauce but there was also numerous hairs all over the Styrofoam, not short and curly,  thank the Gaming Gods!!! Everything was in good condition once the chocolate swirls were removed wearing my HAZMAT suit and rubber gloves. What was this brown sauce? We shall never know and I am ok with that also long as it’s gone. That was the first adventure of many.