Astor Reinhardt

Two of the weirder recipes...IMO.

So here's what the book looks like as well as the first few pages. I'd upload more but I hit the max. So no recipes.

I plan on going out later today for some groceries. Last time I went out there was no TP, paper towels or baby wipes. And most uh...feminine products were gone too. Which totally bites for women. Shelf stable foods like tuna, Spam, soup and other canned goods or dried items were low/sold out. Freezer sections were pretty empty at Trader Joe's but the small Walmart (not the supercenter one) had a lot of freezer stuff. We're lucky with TP so far, Walmart mistakenly gave us an extra package of it last month and we haven't touched it yet. So we're good for a bit...but no paper towels right now. This sort of highlights the fact that we don't really have an emergency stockpile of items in case of a disaster...like an earthquake. I mean we all hear about how "the big one" is coming. While we have a fairly large pantry, we don't have some key essentials. Maybe when this all dies down I can finally convince my parents we need to make some emergency kits. Since I doubt we'll be able to stockpile now and we probably shouldn't? I mean I don't want to panic buy and take stuff that we don't need urgently like someone else might. So far no one is sick in the house...though every time I cough I worry. Has anyone started wearing gloves/masks when they have to go out? My dad's paranoid most of the time but this virus tipped him over and he's full blown paranoid right now wanting us to wear masks and gloves. So long as I use hand sanitizer (that's at least 60%), don't touch my face, don't eat out and wash my hands as soon as I get home...I think I'm safe. I find it weird that while WA seems to be "ground zero" for the outbreak in the US...we still don't have the "shelter in place" order...other states do. I mean that means I'm still free to go out but...yeah that's a bit odd.

I think at first we'll see a spike in people buying some games to help them through the "two week quarantine" that so many people think is the cure all for this virus. But past that...yeah I think we might see some people selling more games to make money when they get laid off. Sucks but that's a given...sell the stuff that isn't important first. I don't think it's going to be a drastic price drop though. But who knows. I didn't think I'd ever see a pandemic in my lifetime but there you go. Crazy shit. One thing I've noticed is everywhere is sold out of Ring Fit Adventure. At first I thought it was just people grabbing it because of New Years Resolutions but I did some digging...I think it's because China shut down all the factories so there's no NEW products being made...so what was a $70 game is now well over $100 for a new copy. Shame really...I wanted to grab it.

Not sure it's one of a kind since I assume every Nintendo employee (in the US at least) got this during the holidays back when but idk how many copies are floating around...but I think my Nintendo: Home for the Holidays cookbook from 1992 is the only thing that MIGHT be one of a kind. I've only ever seen one other copy online.

Actually this is very helpful. Except for some of the mech games (and one or two of them looked interesting enough), I'd say all of those games are up my alley. One or two games did seem to have some cutscene dialog but I suppose I can just skip over it to get back to the game play and read the story later on or something.

Aw that's really sweet.

As the title says. I bought a JPN PS1 at a thrift store a couple of years ago and I haven't really bothered with it since I don't own any Japanese PS1 games. So I started thinking on it and I started to Google it...but I can't find a list of exclusives that were only in Japan...and that don't involve reading a lot of Japanese. I can find lists of one or the other but not both. So anyone know of any lists out there that cover exclusives that don't have a lot of Japanese text in them? I figure all the RPGs are out of the question, which is sad. But past that idk...maybe shooters would be good? Like the Japanese text is limited to menus and such.

Did anyone get their latest email? Am I reading this right...are they going to produce actual physical games for the Sega CD now?

I still have my original 1001 I got at launch. I remember being super excited for a NEW handheld...I mean Nintendo was just dominating the market for...ever. And I was hyped to be able to play Playstation games on the go! And...yeah the hype died real fast. The games were in disc format so that meant I had to carry one game in the console at a time or risk scratching the disc/breaking the fragile disc holder. The load times took FOREVER. And the noise this thing made when loading...eek. I wasn't impressed with it. I'm still not though I did bring it on a long haul road trip to visit my dad's family back in the day and it kept me sane lol. This model is a bitch and a half to mod. I've tried several times and it just refuses to work. I wish I could mod it...would make life easier when playing it.

Breath Of The Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are two for sure games to get. I'm having fun with Odyssey. I've challenged myself NOT to look up how to figure out to do certain things in game and to just use my wits like I had to back in the day...slightly challenging since idk how to get certain moons/reach certain places. But it's fun figuring it out on my own. I've also challenged myself to not start more then one game at a time...so I'll have to finish Odyssey before starting BOTW. I sort of wish I picked BOTW since it looks SO good but...eh. I dug my hole, now I get to live in it (however because I got the special edition Let's Go Pikachu Switch bundle, it came with Let's Go Pikachu installed and...I caved and played some of that...so...so much for my challenge. But I'll try to stick to it and just play those two games for now.). Speaking of...Let's Go Pikachu is actually pretty fun. Haven't played a Pokemon game in years so it's interesting to see how good the graphics are these days. Plus it's cute that Pikachu hangs out on your shoulder and you can dress him up!

Ashens: Reviews "tat" aka Dollar Tree junk mostly but does occasionally talk about old games/consoles. He has some interesting information on some items. UK based. Yesterdays92: My inspiration when it comes to game rooms. He's made a museum out of his game room! Very rarely uploads but amazing game room tours. MetalJesusRocks: Known for "hidden gem" videos. I get a lot of good info from his videos. He's personally my competition as he lives in WA and has recently moved down into my "area"...so there's mixed feelings there but he does a good job of digging up interesting games. KidShoryuken: American (?) Youtuber living in Japan. Has a lot of good info on Japanese exclusive games as well as a lot of hunting videos in Japanese stores. Great for finding out info on prices on stuff, places to hunt and little tips here and there. Cinemassacre: The classic. Home of AVGN. One of the reasons I got into collecting. SeeJayAre: Canadian Youtuber. Posts haul videos from time to time. Really only subscribed to his channel for his game room tours. He has a cool game room. fleamarketnegotiator: Sadly a long since dead channel. They used to have tons of flea market hunting videos up but they were getting copywritten striked and pulled down. He has a few up still but yeah...once the videos started getting pulled down he kind of gave up on Youtube and I don't blame him. He was my favorite game hunting Youtuber because he wasn't super talkative/a d-bag/a white guy trying to act "black". Like SOME Youtube game hunters... jayrod2: Did/does (?) some pretty nice custom consoles. Seems to be a dead channel now. Game Sack: Has some interesting videos out on consoles and games. Goes in depth about certain consoles and talks about games that were "left in Japan". But since Dave left I haven't actually bothered watching the videos. Last Gamer: Only subscribed because the guy was posting videos of making his game room and he has a massive arcade and game room so it was impressive to watch but he hasn't uploaded a game room video in awhile and has only uploaded vlog like videos which I'm not a fan of. Still, check out his game room tours. Nintendo Collecting: And the award for most generic sounding Youtube channel goes to...but joking aside, it's a cool channel. Canadian Youtuber. Has an old but good series of 101 collecting tips that have given me some useful info when I go out to hunt. There's also Pat The NES Punk but I no longer watch his videos after his game room/collection tour. He seemed so ungrateful about his stuff, casually throwing it around and refering to it as "garbage" or "trash" that I was just disgusted and stopped subscribing to his channel. I really don't like the guy I think that's it for game related channels but I might have missed one or two.

Yeah I see them now.

So...I've been digging around in my bin of misc controllers and cables and quickly realized I'm missing a lot of power adapters. Specifically for NES and SNES consoles. Also missing the damn AV cables too. I should probably just mention it right now, I also want to know what can be used as replacements for PS1 and Gamecubes at least power wise. I'm wondering what will work as a replacement? I've heard bad things about buying those 3 in 1 adapters from China so I'm probably going to dig around in the local Goodwill for something that might work. Also I know the SNES/N64/Gamecube shared the same AV cables so I'm probably just stuck with looking for those specific ones, but the NES...I mean a generic RCA cable will work right? Last question, say you were buying a NES or SNES with the controllers and cables...would you be put off by not having the official cables, even if it worked?

Finally some good finds and at a place I totally wouldn't have suspected. Store: NES Gotcha! NES Slalom NES Wall Street Kid Gen Junction (label damage) Gen Marsupilami Gen Puggsy GB Balloon Kid (label faded and curling up at the corners) GB Heiankyo Alien (label starting to curl up at bottom) GBC Gex 3 (label faded) GBC Prince of Persia And then an unknown Japanese GB game. Looks like a golf game by Namco. After putting it into my GBA SP, I figured it out. It's Namco Classic. Looks like its a JPN only game for the Famicom and GB. Cool. It was all $50. They really didn't want to budge on their prices. Originally I had five more games since the lady said she'd "make me a deal" if I got a stack of them...yeah not much of a deal at the price she was originally giving me. So it was about $5 a game, and I figure the Japanese game was thrown in for free. While they have a TON of stuff...I'm not sure if I'll go back or not. Maybe if I had more time to spend there so I could really go through the games and figure out which games are worth it. I managed to pick most games that were over $5 or at $5 FMV...so I think I did decently. I just hope they all work.

For new cassettes, I've bought the two GOTG volumes. But otherwise I'm not really into buying new music (either new new or newly released.). I will buy old cassettes at thrift stores and yard sales though. I go for movie soundtracks (like BTTF and Ghostbusters) or popular 1980s albums. I have a few tapes that don't fit in those categories...like songs from the 1940s-1950s. Or a mix tape my parents made from before I was born...that one is interesting to listen to...all their favorite songs at the time. I occasionally pick up vinyl and 45s...but since I have no way to play them currently, I only get stuff that looks cool. Like the soundtrack to 2001 A Space Odyssey. I've thought about getting an 8 track player but...eh it's just another dead format...do I really need it? Probably not given my space issues...thankfully cassette tapes are pretty small.

And of course the first infected person in the US just had to be from WA... I'm already a nervous and anxiety ridden person...I don't need anything else to worry about.

You want to see how bad their prices are...look at their Xbox stuff...idk if they increased the original price so it looks like you're getting a deal or not but when you have a grungy game that's maybe worth $5 and the original price was $50 before the sale...yeah there's a problem. The prices are ridiculous. No wonder they're going out of business...that and I've never heard of them...did they do much advertising?

I actually can't see last Wednesday's pictures...getting the gray - mark too.

Went to several thrift stores the other day and yeah...I'm really going to miss my favorite thrift store...the game selection is just super poor at thrift stores in my area. Thrift store: DS Loving Life With Hello Kitty & Friends - $5 (CIB)

So is "Individual Black Label Releases" the same as Xbox exclusives? Because I have a list of exclusives...as I'm going for just exclusives on the Xbox. My list isn't great...a lot of it I got from multiple websites and doing a little digging on my own. But if you need an exclusive list...I'd be willing to share mine.

I have some knock off Kallax cubes...from idk where...I think one was from Big Lots, and can't remember where the other one is from... Anyways, I had a plan to get rid of those cloth bins because they suck for DVD sized cases. But all that wasted shelf space... Then I saw a collector I follow on Instagram/Youtube post his room tour (SeeJayAre) and saw he had some shelf inserts in his real Kallax cube shelf. A little digging around and I found what they are but they would only work for me if my shelves were the same size as Kallax and if I was storing CDs...which I'm not. So, a little Google fu...and I saw people made their own versions/variations of those inserts. It got me thinking about it and I think...I want to try it. Specifically this hack: Not mine, just found it off reddit. It makes sense since it doesn't block either row like double stacking would or even using a raised shelf in the back would. Because I've tried raised shelves in the back with other shelves and they don't work well since the front row is in the way. This makes it look like you could access the back row without having to move the front row. Just thought I'd mention this if anyone else has a Kallax or a knock off and wanted to try something different. I mean I know those cloth bins can hold a lot of games but...eh...you have to pull the whole bin out, and move the pile stacked on top of the bottom layer to get to a game down there...just a hassle. I hate the cloth bins. I'd go for another shelving unit but I have these and the space I have them in...you can't really fit much there, so these sort of work for the space. Otherwise I'd ditch them and get something more useful for DVD type cases...since I plan on having all my newer games in those type of cases in this room. Separating my modern and vintage games between two rooms...and keeping them both out of my bedroom...which is housing many other collections like my massive amount of books... Oh and here's the original reddit post for items they used:

Ok cool. I want to warn people off from one store, it's just ugh. Ahhh ok, I guess I confused database with collection. I used the collection tracker on NA to some degree...I really only kept certain systems updated for the Secret Santa thing...since I have a Google spread sheet and an app to keep updated...but I could see using one if I really got into buying/selling/trading on here. Yay. My only other ideas are more with collection tracking...like Amiibos/World Of Nintendo figures.

So questions. One, can we comment on certain stores...like if X store is overpriced and should be avoided at all costs or if Y store is great and has decent prices? Or is that not really the place for that sort of thing? Two, so is this going to work like the NA one where each person can mark off if they have a game, if they have the box/manual...stuff like that? And not really a question but how about game magazines/guides? Nintendo Power is a good example. idk if someone saved the NA thread or not...probably.

Oof...I gotta poor one out for my local store that closed at the start of last year...I'd been going to that place since I was a kid. I was kinda sad to see it go...end of an era you know? It's freaking weird how the one nearby in the local mall stayed open though The mall isn't exactly jumping with people...and neither is that tiny Gamestop...