In this post:
1. Details from me and Katie’s adventures on the road.
2. Plus plenty of pics, mostly from the Digital Press store!
3. And my two cents regarding James Cameron’s Avatar.
4. Along with some of the gf’s comics!
Katie and I got a car! Sorta. Katie signed up for a Zipcar account, and much of Saturday was spent on the road…
During the day, we combed the Garden State for various ingredients for her party on Sunday; the first stop was Target, Katie’s favorite all-in-one shopping center, where the concept of buying in bulk was finally introduced into my mind, via the 20-pound box of Frosted Flakes that I nabbed for just $8!!!
Here’s the thing about Manhattan: easily one of the most annoying aspects to living on the island is grocery shopping. Everything is way over-priced, plus the overall quality is frankly pathetic, especially when it comes to produce. Manhattanites try pointing towards the farmer’s market at Union Square, I want to punch a wall because the stuff found here marginally better than the sh*t found at the local grocery stores AND about four times as much. Sorry, but I grew up near an actual farmer’s market, so I know what is up. Even the local, upscale white person’s grocery store totally blows; sure the selection is grand, but everything is six hours from spoiling. Sure there’s Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s here, but the wait for the check-out is a minimal hour wait, even in the ten items or less line, and no I am not exaggerating. The problem is so bad that, and not sure if it’s in your neck of the woods, but we have something called Fresh Direct, which does your grocery shopping for you. But aside from spending $9 on a box of Ritz crackers, the quality of the produce is again rather lame. Why am I going on about this, especially since they don’t sell fruits and vegetables at Target? Because I’m coming close to my fourteenth anniversary of living in NYC and have yet to find a place that sells decent tomatoes, which seriously bums me out. Okay, it’s not all doom and gloom, at least in the other boroughs; I’ve been grocery shopping with Hilary and Dave Roman in Queens, and the veggies I encountered were quite nice. Plus when I live in Brooklyn, the farmer’s outlet in Sunset Park I frequented was actually quite nice. But I digress.
Check out Katie in front of P.F. Chang’s!
… Every time we pass by the place on our way to Mitsuwa via the shuttle bus, we keep saying how one day we’re gonna eat there. Finally made it inside at long last, and stayed a grand total of a minute and a half. Because that was enough time to look over the menu, which looked both unexciting and overpriced! So the next stop was H-Mart, the Korean superstore.
I’ve been able to properly convince Katie that when you get down to it, Korea is far and away more bizarre than Japan, which gets all the attention in that department, though it was nice for her to witness this first-hand. It’s funny how Korean marketplaces, when compared to Japanese ones, often accurately reflect their homelands as a whole; they’re far grungier and totally chaotic. I can say this since I am one and all: the stereotype that Koreans cannot drive exist for a reason because it’s 100% true. Be fortunate that you’ve never run into a gaggle of them on the highway, and to see what I mean, just bear witness to them inside H-Mart, all behind shopping carts.
Our favorite moment was watching one old lady trying to pass another, who was blocking an isle due to being lost in conversation. After saying “excuse me” in an extremely low voice that no one could have made out, and was only uttered so she can state that she said something after the fact, the first lady simply rammed the second with her cart. You simply had to be there. Another great thing is that there are free samples given out all over the place, mostly administrated by cute Korean chicks! Half of whom are never around and flirting with the stockboy, halfway across the store, so you basically come across lots of grills that are on but with no one keeping an eye on them.
I’m also kicking myself for not taking a picture of the wacky food that could be found, primarily something that can only be described as some form of sea-life that resembled a chicken leg from the Planet Zebes. At least I had enough sense to snap one of this wacky ice cream snack…
And here’s a bag that Katie stumbled across in one of the gift shops…
Plus a gigantic Zeta Gundam that I would love to get my hands on, but I’m assuming it’s expensive as hell, plus it’s not like I have the room for it. Ollie, if you’re reading this, have this one already? Stupid question, I realize…
BTW, the cafeteria there totally blows away the crap found at Koreatown (yet another annoying thing about Manhattan), primarily the fried chicken, which Katie claims might be best she’s ever had in her life. As for groceries, I got a ton of candy that I used to enjoy as a child, plus a ten-pound jar of kimchee. Next stop was a place I’ve been dying to check out for years and finally made it: the Digital Press retail store!
A few years back, my ex tried taking me there, but we literally drove around in circles for like a solid hour in Cliffton in trying to find the damn thing, and never made it, hence why I figured that I would never get the chance to bask in it’s glory. Thank God for the iPhone’s Google Maps plus GPS! Anyhow, it’s a sleepy little indie game store that happens to sell EVERYTHING, from the latest PS3 titles to old N-Gage carts. It?s hard to tell, I know, but they even had a Pippen on display, which I had never seen before ?in the flesh? (though I have actually messed around with an Amiga CD32, which is right next to it)…
There’s a nice little arcade in one corner of the store…
Plus this tabletop Pac Man machine that was just there, out in the open, for anyone to play around with (whereas in VideoGamesNY, it’s behind lock and key with a $800 price tag). Though as you can see I was mostly interested in the Virtua Fighter marquee right below it…
Lots of wacky hardware was all over the place, including the entire line of Generation Nex gear (to bad the actual quality is sub-par, or so I’ve been told)…
And check out this portable SNES unit…
I have no idea what Mega Man Ultra is supposed to be, do you? And in case anyone was wondering, I’m getting a new camera soon, so crap pictures like this should be a thing of the past, hopefully…
Classic gaming posters and related paraphernalia was all over the place…
Though my favorite items would have to be the assorted indie published zines and books; I came super close to picking up the one on the right…
… There was a passage about the author’s excitement over the SNES version of U.N. Squadron upon its arrival that totally won me over, but I’m sorta poor these days, so I had to pass (it’s not super expensive at $15, but I’m on a somewhat tight budget till a few way overdue checks arrive). It also needs to be stressed how reasonably priced everything is. If you’re looking for an older title, regardless of platform, screw eBay and simply call this store!
The people who go there are also a total trip. Imagine every socially stunted dork that you find trying to talk a Gamestop employee’s ear off by talking shop, since they unfortunately have no one else who can at least understand what the hell they’re going on about (and who mostly ignore such eccentric individuals kindly, as try to get on with their jobs). Now, add about an additional 35 years and you get a few of the folks found here. I could have sworn the guy awkwardly professing his love for Tron, in a manner in which he was hoping somebody, anybody, would engage in a 30 minute conversation with him, is someone that I’ve seen at ICON for years now.
As for what I picked up, first off…
The Donkey Kong cards are easily my favorite, mostly because I remember desperately wanting a pack as a kid, but my dad refused to for over the quarter for a pack. So at long last, almost thirty years later, they are finally mine…
The best part is how Mario is prominently featured, back when he was simply known as “Jump Man”!
As you can see, some are actually interactive, with their own set of rules…
Here’s the gum that came with them, which I’m fairly certain is still edible! Though I have no idea if I’ll actually ever pop them in my mouth…
Next up are the Nintendo Game Packs, which covers Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Punch Out, and… Double Dragon?
The Super Mario Bros: The Movie ones were definitely not as exciting. Like most cards based on films, all you really want is a nice shot featuring all the stars or at least a cool scene, and I wasn’t lucky in either regard…
Time to move onto reading material. Here’s something called the Video Game Trader…
… It’s chock full of articles covering various classic games and abandonware, with a heavy emphasis on the homebrew scene, mostly for Atari 2600, Commodore 64, NES, and other systems of that era…
… There’s also a price guide featuring estimated values of assorted classics games, though how these numbers are formulated is a mystery to me. Moving on, here we have two issues of the zine that the store produces (with a name like Digital Press, it’s hardly a shock, I know)…
… It too is overflowing with content. Articles cover all the usual territory: forgotten classics, homebrew offerings, various anecdotal musings, plus interviews. I especially liked the one that’s all about the arcade featured in the early 80s sitcom, Silver Spoons…
… I also LOVE the extremely low-fi and utilitarian format. I’m sure some might laugh at the single staple in the corner keeping everything together, but 28 pages worth of goodness for just two dollars cannot be beat. Though this one clearly takes the prize…
… Because I haven’t had a chance to read it top to bottom, I have no idea what the heck it’s supposed to, other than perhaps a supplemental zine, covering much of the same ground as the regular edition (it’s apparently another Digital Press production). But hey, another close to 30 pages worth of content, and for just two bucks? Well worth every penny spent.
One constant message is that one can buy ten of yesterday’s games for the price of just one of today?s, which definitely is a valid notion. Though the reviews are still a bit baffling, which covers such fare as TMNT for the GameCube and SpyFiction for the PS2. I guess the message here is that clunker that just came out for the PS3 yesterday that no one cares about right now will eventually be obsessed over by zines such as these in a few years time!
And finally, far and away the greatest catch was this…
… Featuring cover art by the late, great Patrick Nagel. Nevermind that it’s for the Commodore 64, the thing was just $5!!! Again, some insanely killer deals can be found at the Digital Press store!
Back to our trip: afterward we went to Mitsuwa to pick of some Japanese goodies for the shindig; after the insanity that was H-Mart, the place just seemed so dull in comparison. Still, you’re not gonna find a better beef bowl anywhere in the tri-state area! Next was Trader Joe’s, which was just down the street, and it was wonderful not having to deal with a bunch of NYU douchebags, as well as having everything in stock. You can show up at the Union Square location at 10:30 in the morning, when they just open up, and everything still gonna be sold out. Unfortunately, most of the people who shop there are still obnoxious, all of whom are also from the city!
By this time it was evening, which meant a trip to Queens to hook up with Joe Salina. And thus our road trip because an exercise in frustration; I know I’m repeating the obvious here, but Google Maps is pretty much worthless in Queens and Brooklyn, and we got lost something fierce. Not helping is the abysmal signage that NYC is known for. But eventually we made it to Joe’s and over to the local mall, so catch a late night viewing of Avatar! And how was it? Christ, did that movie ever suck. I sorta knew that I wouldn’t like it, but ended up hating it far more than initially expected.
On the plus side, the special effects were also far better than expected; at a certain point, I completely forgot that I was watching nothing but CGI. But I believe a lot of it had to do with the fact that everything was in 3D; aside from being somewhat distracted by everything popping out at you, the image was also not as crystal clear, so it wasn’t easy to notice how little things were “off” like you would with a clear, HD image (that’s not to say that you need high definition to notice not so stellar computer graphics).
The action sequences were also phenomenal. But otherwise…. I’m not going to give it flack for being thoroughly unoriginal, plus how it’s an exceedingly straightforward rip of Pocahontas (which it was, but everything these days is pretty derivative), though I was fairly offended by how sloppy the film’s logic was, considering that Cameron’s previous sci-fi flicks (Terminator 1 & 2, Aliens) were a bit more tight on that end. At the very least, it sure as hell did not feel like the future; it’s comforting to know that in the 22nd Century, video blogging will still exist. Many things simply did not make any sense, and the film as a whole was not good enough to make one forget or ignore these issues.
Though the primary issue was the three-hour length; it’s clear that Cameron had to prove something, and the only way he could do it was shove as much bullshi*t down the viewer’s throat. Before the movie began, this dude in front of us in line asked how many times we had seen it. After stating it was our first, he mentioned that it was his fourth time seeing the movie, and all I could think throughout was “holy sh*t, some dude has now spent about 120 hours and $60 on this piece of crap” (plus the dude was with a lady friend, so that price tag is easily more so, especially when you factor is the astronomical price for popcorn and soda, which this dude also had with him).
The next day, yesterday, Sunday, was Katie’s party for her lady friends (and a few of mine as well). Basically, everyone brought over clothes that they no longer needed or have never worn for whatever reason, to either swap or simply pass along to Katie, which she will then donate to the local church. Colleen gave me a sweet looking First Second shirt, and that was pretty cool! I was also pleasantly surprised that my arcade sticks managed to impress everyone. But hey, they are pretty sweet after-all.
After all the women folk all chose their new threads and chowed down on Katie’s delicious handmade pigs in a blanket, we entertained everyone with various horror stories relating to our crazier ex’s. Funny thing is how we both have histories related to Pizzeria Uno!
Alright, back to work, but before I go, for those how haven’t seen it yet, #4 of Katie’s Nurse Nurse can be found online over at Arthur, plus the first couple of pages of her newest comic, Beegirl, can be found over at Katie’s LiveJournal!
I’ll be back tomorrow with another impossible to sift through mess of game related links and images. Wait for it!
