Rhapsody98

On 5/4/2021 at 9:17 PM, Tabonga said:

You just can't make stuff like this up!

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/05/03/breaking-news/leader-of-cult-that-caused-covid-19-huff-on-maui-found-mummified-in-colorado-home/

I saw a video on this, Ask a Mortician on You-Tube!  

10 minutes ago, Rhapsody98 said:

So, when I was in high school, way back in 1997, I belonged to a group called "Explorers", which was basically Boy Scout Cops.  I joined to spent more time with my dad, and for a while figured I end up doing this for life, but didn't (which is a story for another time).  But one of the perks was that they used us as Rent-a-Cops for events.  One of those events was a concert for Starship and Survivor.

So I got to see both of those bands in concert from the front row, because I was in uniform, keeping the crowd from jumping on stage.  

Survivor opened, and they were ok.  They did a lot of jazzy stuff I don't think was ever on the radio, and wrapped up with Eye of the Tiger.   Then after a very short break, Starship came on and played most of their old hits, minus the ones they needed for Grace Slick.    About midway through the concert, I realized that the guitarist was the same lead guitarist for Survivor.  I don't know which band he actually belonged to, if he was filling in for someone or what...  But I nudged my partner (whose name was literally, actually, on his birth certificate Junior, welcome to the South), and said "Hey, isn't that the same guy who played for the first band?"  

And he must've been a hell of a lip reader, because he took a second to make eye contact with me, take his hand off his guitar, point at me, and nod.   

And I've had questions ever since.  

 

Ok, So I did a bit of Googling, and I think it was Survivor's guitarist at the time Frankie Sullivan.  But either way, it was a good concert.

So, when I was in high school, way back in 1997, I belonged to a group called "Explorers", which was basically Boy Scout Cops.  I joined to spent more time with my dad, and for a while figured I end up doing this for life, but didn't (which is a story for another time).  But one of the perks was that they used us as Rent-a-Cops for events.  One of those events was a concert for Starship and Survivor.

So I got to see both of those bands in concert from the front row, because I was in uniform, keeping the crowd from jumping on stage.  

Survivor opened, and they were ok.  They did a lot of jazzy stuff I don't think was ever on the radio, and wrapped up with Eye of the Tiger.   Then after a very short break, Starship came on and played most of their old hits, minus the ones they needed for Grace Slick.    About midway through the concert, I realized that the guitarist was the same lead guitarist for Survivor.  I don't know which band he actually belonged to, if he was filling in for someone or what...  But I nudged my partner (whose name was literally, actually, on his birth certificate Junior, welcome to the South), and said "Hey, isn't that the same guy who played for the first band?"  

And he must've been a hell of a lip reader, because he took a second to make eye contact with me, take his hand off his guitar, point at me, and nod.   

And I've had questions ever since.  

7 hours ago, G-type said:

I'm in.. But I only have a surface level knowledge of Pokemon.

I only ever played Pokémon Go, and sometimes listened to the Alona series because my son was watching.  But the basic rules of the game won’t change because of the theme, right?

I'm here! 

0

1 hour ago, CodysGameRoom said:

I mean it's true, right? Mine are in a pile on a shelf far away from my prized NES games.

 

You have to segregate them, or they'll cause the rest of your collection to lose value.  /s

1 hour ago, zoiks66 said:

I think that at this point if you’re a WATA or HA defender, you should have a CAT scan done on your head immediately to find out what mentally debilitating brain injury you have.

I believe the medical terminology for that is "Being an unscrupulous greedy fuck nugget."

1 hour ago, darkchylde28 said:

Hey now!  Everybody knows that only DUDES wear space-pants!

Tell that to Captain Phasma.  

1 hour ago, Alder said:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191023063730/http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?StartRow=1&catid=5&threadid=187248

Jeff claimed in May 2019 that the site layout wouldn't change. That seems to be one of the biggest broken promises, which calls into question some of his other answers...

But at the end of the day, I'm glad it happened. VGS is way better.

Just as a measure of how much VGS is better:  @darkchylde28 never invited me to look at a thread, or talked to me about the people on NA (that I can remember).    Granted, I came in here in a round about way, through playing games instead of collecting, playing Minecraft, and then Game Night.  But without those things, there wouldn't be the the sense of community, and there wouldn't be people I feel are my friends now, I definitely wouldn't be here.    I got all excited about the Werewolf game and spent waaaaaay too long telling my mother about how it worked, and how much fun it was.  I have gotten so much enjoyment and fun out of interacting with you guys.  

I gather that NEVER could have happened on NA.

Game night is the Highlight of my week(s)!  

29 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

Hey you can't re-use jokes from Werewolf, they're gonna get stale at some point, haha

I only have so many TL:DR pony memes.  LOL

31 minutes ago, RH said:

A couple of random, but related thoughts.

First, I've seen it mentioned, and I get the sense that Deniz comes from money. Probably serious money. I mention this because in my life, I've managed to get to be around or know just a few, truly wealthy people that were born into it and we're at least second-generation wealth. Now, I am "captialist", so long as people engage in ethical business.  That said, what I've observed with the wealthy is that with most of them, there is a money-angle to everything. Involvement in anything is always an investment. Buying a house is largely about buying a property that should always have a reasonable ROI, even if they plan to own it for the rest of their lives. Buying a car might be a status symbol, but it shows they are "legit bbusiness and needs to look good facing potential clients and business partners. If they get into hobbies, they may legitimately enjoy "playing" with the toys but if there is money to be made on the hobby, profit potential has to be a part of it. IMHO, Deniz did what money does. He loves games, I don't doubt it, but if he was raised with a wealthy mindset, starting a business like this made perfect sense to him, and of course there was always the intended angle to the endeavor to build more wealth.

I think most of us put our life-desires above our wealth-ambitions. Big, old money is the inverse. Again, I don't fault this lifestyle, so long as all financial endeavours are ethical. Assuming all the info that's been brought to light this past week is reasonably accurate, I think Deniz just tried to make a really solid, profitable business based off of his hobby. I think his biggest downfall is his zeal for profits, paired with his youthful ignorance (didn't he start Wata in his early 20s) meant that he crossed the line of shadiness a few times that were quite glaring, but I don't think he's done anything outright dirty (unless I missed something.)

However, I did hear at one point on this site (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that Deniz' Dad was heavy in the comic collecting scene. I'm going to make a leap and guess his Dad connected him with Heritage and maybe advised him to connect with them to help build Wata. Deniz is sort of the mastermind of starting Wata, but considering his young age, I assume someone he already knew connected him to Heritage and Halpern. I guess it was his Dad, who if he was a big comic buyer, probably already knew Jim on a first name basis. When Jim got involved, he probably smelled a fresh market and became a large influencer of all the scaminess. To me, and I could be completely wrong, but Deniz seems like a rich, highly-motivated "patsy" in all of this.

Now, second thought.  Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, we are ALL speculators to some extent. Do you buy games to flip them and become MEGA-RICH $$$$!!1!11 With this crowd, certainly not. But let me ask you this, have you ever paid attention to games and systems that you care nothing about JUST SO if you see a Jaguar, or 3DO game at a yard sale, you might know if it's worth picking up to flip? Forget flipping it for cash. How about being aware of what's rare or desirable so you can use it as trade fodder? That's speculation. How about buying lots of games? Have you ever bought a lot of 10-20 games in a lot because you knew you could sell 80% of the lot and get the 20% for free! And last, you ever find someone needing to make a quick sale of a sealed game or two, and you had the slightest inkling that the related game market was heating up? Whether you bought the games to sell or trade, it's still speculation.

My point ii whether you do it just a llittl by buying sizable cheap lots, or you love gaming collecting and decided to open a retro gaming shop to make a career out of your hobby, or your even someone like Deniz who took it to the next level and decided to make it a profitable business that saw the hobby as an investment opportunity, we all see this hobby as having an element of speculation and profitability.

To be clear though, I'm not standing up for poor or unethical business practice, and certainly anything illegal that the FTC might get involved with. However, it's easy for some of us (myself included) to get on our high horses and think we are better than people like Deniz and the other long time collectors that started Wata. The truth is, we all have the same motivations for at least a little side profit (even if that profit fuels more game collecting), but the extent to which we have those motivations may be considerably different. For some of us, profits are a distant secondary or tertiary motivation. For people like Deniz and the dentist guy, profits come first. I don't see myself in these guys when I look at my whole collection... but I do when I look at some items I own like a sealed, cherry Solatarobo, or other mint rare games I've managed to get that I have no affection for, but I think will provid good trade fodder for in the future, or if really lucky, might put a kid through a year of college.

Speculation is not my collecting focus, but it'd be dishonest to say I've not commited many acts of "speculative collecting" in the 5 years I've been doing this.  In a small sense, I'm not entirely different than some of these players. Not exactly the same, but there are some similar motivations. It's simply worth keeping that into perspective before grabbing pitchforks and wanting the whole lot of involved parties.

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/1227/156.html?sh=1e5684592e07

Just dropping this here, the important information being the following;

Heritage was itself the subject of a 1997 complaint by New Orleans dealer Blanchard & Co. The dispute stemmed from a $2.5million loan from Heritage, made in 1992, stipulating that Blanchard had to buy two-thirds of its coin inventory from Heritage at prices Heritage claimed were fair market. Blanchard sued Heritage after learning the firm had sold similar coins to other wholesalers at prices far below what Blanchard had paid. An arbitration panel ordered Heritage to pay Blanchard $23 million; Blanchard settled for less. Halperin says the companies continue to do millions of dollars in business a year.

8 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Worse -- eventually a bunch of it just gets thrown in the trash.

Can confirm.  When my dad died, we tossed a three foot square box of 5 1/4 floppies into the dumpster. (I still get flack from it from @darkchylde28, but no one even had a machine to read them anymore!)

9 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Please note that if I ever raise my LEFT hand to wave at anyone, then she's gone totally unhinged and I need help.  But at present, she has learned to value my "crap," as every time she's in a bind, I seem to miraculously already have the solution on-site, having made the acquisition long ago, when it was "useless junk" at a price far, far below what she'd have to shell out to fix whatever issue today.  So...for now...I survive. 

It's ok.  One day, I will need everyone's help appraising all of the junk in boxes strewn through the house.  Because I will not be asking the crooks at WATA.

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

Yep, absolutely, a hundo percent!!!

That's what I've been saying this WHOLE time, and it's my only real beef with the whole sealed/graded phenomenon:

DON'T call it COLLECTING!!! It's investing, speculating, gambling, whatever, but don't tell me all these millionaire dentists and fractional share companies and comic book and sports cards bros and hype sniffing bandwagon fuckers are videogame COLLECTORS!!!

They are pumpers, they are dumpers, they are speculators, they are gamblers, they are ignorant and they are blind, but WHATEVER it is they are doing buying these games...

It...

is...

**DEEP BREATHS**

 

NOT MY HOBBY!!!

TRUE COLLECTORS FILL THEIR HOUSES UP WITH CRAP AND NEVER PART WITH A SINGLE ITEM.  SAY IT AGAIN FOR THE FOLKS IN THE BACK!!

9 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

 

Also, in light of this whole debacle, Thank you for all you do, Gloves.   I'm sure keep looking at your screen in increasing horror.  

14 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Well, honestly, I got really, really tired of all of the random, off topic jokes and fanning-of-drama-flames that kept going on and on and on in this topic since I stopped reading it late last night and hopped on this afternoon to discover roughtly TWENTY PAGES worth of stuff to digest (while it was still growing).  So if like 2 pages worth of dick jokes and 4-5 pages worth of similar material and GIFs just weren't there...yeah, big fan in a topic that's been as serious and expansive as this.  The occasional joke to lighten the mood can be very appropriate, and has been several times in this thread, but when half a dozen people all jump on the badnwagon and they just start feeding off of each other in an ongoing circle, well... (sorry Gloves, here's my hopefully one for the thread) ...it's annoying as fuck.  So, please, don't take it badly, but take it to heart, everybody doing jumping jacks in the middle of the room with their dicks out all giggling at the top of their lungs while the rest of this topic is going on at the edges really isn't appreciated anymore, even if it garnered several legitimate smiles and giggles from everyone at the start.

That's quite the mental image.    My view of the thread went kind of like this:  

2 hours ago, Dain said:

If you don't think that's the truth, I suppose I could dig out some of the Mod Squad threads here if you'd like; after all, I have the entire site sitting in front of me.

My Drama-Llama says "Yes, oh yes!"  But my chores list says "Oh no!"

2 hours ago, karljobst said:

 I would love it people want to discuss or teach me something about video game collecting.

You don't even have to care about collecting to have a blast here!  

3 hours ago, spacepup said:

This is sort of a side conversation, that isn't so much about the allegations and drama, but something I thought worth mentioning because it highlights a very philosophical difference of opinion between different members of our community, and perhaps, where a lot of rub and disagreement stems from (in general, and over the last couple years).

In the e-mail that SealedWholesale shared, Deniz says (allegedly):

-----
As collectors first, with backgrounds in other matured collectibles markets yet specializing in video games, we are addressing the fundamental flaws that have been circumvented in the video game market that prevent it from growing to its potential and that hinder involvement from key players and investors in ancillary markets. We set out on this venture over one year ago because we believe this is what the industry needs to move forward. There are many sellers of video games (and only a handful of your caliber!). But without objective, quality, trusted, and meaningful standards, the market will continue to be limited in its growth by a lack of confidence.
-----

Read the above carefully.  It just highlights something that I thought about even in the early days of discussion around WATA.  One of the selling points for WATA, in a pitch to me, was that it was going to help, and I quote, "legitimize the video game collecting hobby."  

I paused for a moment, thinking....I don't believe I personally have an interest in seeing it more "legitimized" because what this person meant by that comment was, more attractive and more lucrative as investments and collectibles which would attain future status and higher value.  And to me personally, that was not really my goal or why I was collecting at the time.

Obviously people collect for different reasons, and I can't say that one is right or wrong in their goals, but it highlighted for me a very significant difference of opinion regarding the direction of video game collectibles.  It was clear to me that, some people viewed video game collectibles as 'undervalued investments' with much potential for future "growth."  GROWTH, in this case, is not really the kind of growth that I was personally after.

So whether anyone wants to call it manipulation, inorganic, or whatever else, it highlighted for me that at least a few years ago, several individuals saw an opportunity to take action to "correct" this problem, and to 'grow' and 'legitimize' video game collectibles.  And they took such actions, starting a spiral that leads us to today.  

I won't get into much of the arguing and nonsense in this particular post, but it is just something I have been thinking about for a while now, and wanted to share.

At the end of the day, I haven't given up hope and I am trying to make the best of things wherever I can.

 

 

That business statement is all kinds of revealing.

57 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I mean, so he was doing well for himself but he wanted to squeeze more out, so he tried to cash in on a bubble? Why does that mean we should feel sorry for him? He wanted to sell a beanie baby for much more than $1500. A beanie baby. My sympathy is limited. Just as it will be for the $22k pokepark person when they try to cash in their investment.

That's your take away?  He was doing well, so he could afford to lose the money?    If he'd ever heard the concept of a "bubble" I'm sure he'd have stayed away, but he had no idea the price was going to drop out from under him.  And that's why scams like this succeed, because there's always someone ignorant enough and gullible enough to be the person holding the bag.  

Also, he grew up literally dirt floor poor.  Extreme poverty, especially for people in the Great Depression, causes PTSD and trauma over money and resources.  I don't blame him for always looking for ways to provide for his family.  

I'm not thinking of @darkchylde28here.  He has enough games and such sitting around, oh poor him, priced out of buying new ones.

I'm thinking of people like my grandfather.  He was a Navy vet, a carpenter, and he was a child of the Great Depression, always trying to squeak a little more out, even though he was doing quite well for himself.  So, like a bunch of people, he found out that he could invest his money in....  Beanie Babies.  He even had the Princess Di bear.  Spent at least $200 on her.  Intended to hold on to her for a couple years, and sell her for far more.  

And then the bubble burst.  His whole investment was probably now worth about $15, instead of the $1500 he'd spent.  

People like Jim Halperin are scum.  They are deliberately inflating a bubble that is going to pop, and they don't care who's still inside when it does, they will already have made all the money they can, and people may end up far worse than my grandfather did.  

11 minutes ago, ExplodedHamster said:

I am trying to understand why it would matter to people who never bought or cared about sealed games to begin with (I am talking well before WATA and this surge). I have seen people rail on this for a decade, well before I ever bought a sealed game, and I have never understood it. Why do people who love games so much spend so much time crapping on people who do something different with their time instead of playing the games they love? We are mortal, time is finite. There’s just always been a lot of what I would consider unnecessary negativity.

Oh.  Okay.  These people have been caught in the act of being shady and unethical at best, misleading people out of money, and stealing and lieing at worst...

But we're being unnecessarily negative.