Tabonga

"Ripley, she's just a piece of plastic." What do troll parts look like? Do they even have parts analogous to us cro-magnon typres? Wait a minute - trolls aren't real - so for all we know they actually grow up as special cabbages in the garden and metamorphose into trolls at some point in time. The only thing perverse about that troll is the people who obscenely conure up weird deviant fantasies from the shallow depths of what passes for their souls. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Although I have always wondered why there was only one smurfette amongst all of those smurfs,

Since I finally got a switch I have been playing through the campaign option on Wargroove. This is a really impressive game if you haven't tried it yet. Pretty much improves on the Adcance Wars in just about every aspect. You can't just power through by summoning waves of units since there are not that many sites to do so on any one battlefield. You have to be careful which units you get (especially early on) since the best ones are epenisve and you need to decide what aspects of whatever unit you make are suitable for that battlefield. And while most of the battles are either kill the enemy commander or destroy their base there is a surprisingly wide variety of layouts that offer different challenges. While air units are important they aren't overwhelmingly dominating in the game.* Most of the battles are seriously hard and I have gotten whomped several times on most of them - something that rarely happens to me in most games of this ilk. Which I like. Also it is a nice setup that once you have beaten all of the battles you can go back to any one and try them again. *There are also naval units but I haven't got to those yet.

The second seller most likely have lifted the picture from the other auction..

A lot depends on what the item is. I have gotten some pretty pretty amazing collectibles there for not that much money. Videogame stuff never - in fact the prices there seem to often be higher than ebay. One thing about shopgoodwill is that they ofen do not describe things very well - so if you know enough about what you are looking at you can get some deals. I once got a large of chess sets that included one really rare set that is worth somewhere north of $600 - I was able to identify from a not very detailed picture where I could only see a not very clear shot of a couple of the pawns. Plus another couple of the sets were worth about $100 each. Atypical but I have gotten a few similar bargains there.. I don't think there is much shill bidding - the incentive is just not there like there it would be with private sellers. I think you do have some people who are over eager to get some things - especially video games.

Yeah - I don't think I have ever had my ass kicked so much by a game. Which is ok - I enjoy having a serious challenge On some of the longer scenarios you don't know you are snookered until you are well into it.

I would go with Nectaris for the PS1. There are a 108 scenarios and unlike most strategy games you can replay any single one of them to try different strategies or simply because you like a particular scenario(s). The game has some unique mechanics that make if fairly challenging.

One thing about games with no air power is that they tend to be harder - most games you establish air superiority and it becomes a matter of mopping up.

I played through several battles today - it is lotsa fun.

This is a little known film with a very troubled history: https://thethiefarchive.fandom.com/wiki/The_Thief_and_the_Cobbler The best commercial release of this was probably the laserdisc one - widescreen and a pretty clean print, Not terribly expensive if you know someone with a laserdisc player. A complete revamped version was made called the Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled - I don;'t think it had a commercial release though.

If anyplace had them (other than scalpers) it would be* - Gamestop sometimes have them but they bundle them with stuff I don't want. Best Buy has them once in awhile but you pretty much need to be online when they open up orders since they vanish instantly. *Nintendo doesn't sell them directly on line.

I am really impressed with how many SRPGs and strategy games there are on the switch. Both genres were woefully under represented on all of the earlier gaming consoles, I hope that they make physical releases for Fell Seal and Banner of the Maiden.

I have about 50 games already so I am all set to go. Think I will start with Wargroove. Mrs.Tabonga is showing some interest so we may wind up getting another down the road.

"The Point" from 1971 is a contender IMHO. The soundtrack was by Harry Nilsson and this song from it was a hit:

Heh - whilst driving there in 1968 from Minnesota with my family I discovered what the term "flatter than a pancake" really meant.

I suspect that issues in China regarding the virus disrupted not only production but along the supply chain*. And a lot of demand has built up since they vanished pretty much at the start of the virus lockdown so there has been a large demand built up - with the result that only a few consoles can go to any one store (which would be Target's allocation decisions. And I suspect scalpers will continue to play a larger role in things until the stores (both brick/mortar and online) can actually lay in inventories that will stay there for awhile. *I had several packages that I had ordered from Russia shortly before the virus kerfluffle and the Russian postal system was pretty much nuked - I only recently started getting those sporadically. I have some things from other parts of Europe that have taken much longer then usual to get to me, I still have two switch games hung up in Japan since the Japanese postal system has stopped shipping to the US.

Switch consoles (with the docking mount) have been showing up sporadically on Target's and Walmart's inventories locally for the last couple of weeks - most have either been pretty far away and the close stores when I went they did not have them. Yesterday morning the Target closest to me showed "limited availablilty" (which means one) and I got there about 20 minutes after they opened. You guessed it - no switch. Last night right before I went to bed I checked the inventory again and the nearest that had them was in Great Falls Montana - miserable place to drive to in any event. I got up at 3:15 this morning to let the woofer out and feed him. Afterwards I went online and checked the Target inventory and now the second closest store to me showed them having at least 2 (since the limited availabiilty didn't pop up) in stock. I got there about 5 minutes before they opened (at 7:00) and there was one guy waiting in line and he was there to get one too. We both agreed that scalpers are pretty much the scum of the earth (once we established that neither of us was there for that). The store opened and he sprinted ahead of me - when I got to the electronics department we saw there were two in the case - while waiting for someone to open the case a woman walks up and also wants one. I suggested that there might be some in stock in back - I also explained about the inventory checker online so she could look elsewhere if needs be. The clerk came up and said that was all they had so the woman left and we each got our console. While checking us out the clerk got three phone calls from people wanting to know if they were in stock. As I left the store two guys were walking in talking about how they were glad Target had the consoles in stock again. I am not sure what my next quest will be. Probably be too busy playing games to engage in one.

I pre-ordered the Stardew Valley from Fangamer and whilst looking at the site saw that they still have copies of the collectors edition of Golf Story so I scored one.

Corral Chorale of the cows:

Notalgia can be a scary thing....................

Heh - we are in geezer rock territory. Here is one of my favorites:

Retro is just short for retrograde. Retrograde can either be something that appears to go against the direction (i.e. backwards*) that everything else does or it can be something that actually does so .For example a planet can be observed (from earth) as going backwards in its orbit - but it is an (optical) illusion. Venus and Uranus are the only two planets that rotate in the opposite direction of the others - so they are referred to as having retrograde rotation. When applied to social behavior in gaming it can either be something in the style of older trends or actually using older games equipment etc. Or a combination of both - playing the old physical copies of games on new equipment - or using original consoles/games on a newer monitor/receiver. Or producing new games on older formats. So the term can encompass various things. *Retrograde is originally Latin and means "backward step".

One other thing I would like to see (depending on the type of game) is the ability to modify the environment. The only game that I am aware of that allows you to do this is Vandal Hearts II with its block making ability. Kinda like having legos on the battlefield. Because of the really flawed battle system I have more fun building things than I do with fighting the battles.

*Shoots JamesRobot with a scrooch gun.*

Another variant that has happened to me (as a buyer) is that I get a package with nothing in it. The items have been packed poorly with room to move around inside and they bottom out the container/envelope. This has happened to me 3 times - once the store just sent me another and the other two ebay sided with me once I showed the pictures,