Foils & Feats

I feel like I could type some sort of introduction here, but I don't think I'm going to. I had a great find, a pretty good find, and my first St. Vincent's rip-off. I also somewhat profited from a secondhand item by trading it in at another store for a different piece of merchandise, so I'll be getting to all that, but not necessarily in that order.

Bruce Wayne Action Figure!

I knew that this was a Bruce Wayne right away, because he looks like Michael Keaton. And of course, on his leg is stamped "1990 DC Comics." This places him within the action figure line of the first Tim Burton Batman movie, my personal favorite.

The figure isn't one I would have wanted from the store brand new as a kid, but for a quarter I couldn't pass it up. It is a strange look for Batman, though. Since when does Bruce Wayne go around in a purple turtleneck sweater and black spandex pants tucked into his shoes? And what's with the weird, cryptic bat logo on his chest? Is that his way of avoiding denial without giving himself away? It's not very practical, if that's truly the case.

Cost of Bruce Wayne figure: $.25

RIPOFF: "Spiderman" Game!

Okay, so I saw this Spiderman PlayStation game all wrapped up in a plastic bag with a good, cheap price on it. It's a decent game, so I figured what the hell. Now, the game was wrapped up pretty tight, but I was able to open the case enough to see that there was a disk inside of it, so I figured that would be good enough. Only when I got home did I make the horrible discovery.

Can you see what that is? It sure as hell isn't a Spiderman game. Nope, it's a DEMO DISK from PlayStation magazine, dated August 2001. It's mostly video previews with a single playable demo: Final Fantasy 8. Demo Disks blow. This shit wasn't worth my money, that's for sure. At least there's the old stand-by of the blog to make the event somewhat worthwhile. See, kids? Even Secondhand Jesus gets ripped off sometimes. You can never be too careful.

Cost of Bogus "Game": $1.44

Secondhand Trade-off: Tiny Toon Adventures NES Game!

Okay, so a while back at Vinnie's I happened upon a copy of Killer Instinct for the Super Nintendo. I already own the game, and in fact it came packaged with my Super Nintendo, but the price was right ($1.44) so I figured I could eventually trade it in somewhere for a game I don't have. And what do you know? I was right.

The other day, I had to go to the mall and such to run a few errands, so I took Killer Instinct with me and stopped at the Play N Trade store. They offered to give me $3 store credit, which I happily accepted. I then zeroed in on a game I had wanted since childhood, marked $5.

That's right, Tiny Toon Adventures on the NES. It's a fun game that I remember playing as a kid at a friend's house. I never had my own Nintendo as a kid, so when I got one a couple of years ago, I became driven to collect all the good games my friends had. Tiny Toon Adventures was a great show back in the day, so I'm proud to have this game amongst my collection. Thanks to my secondhand dealings, I was able to get a new game for myself as well as reinsert Killer Instinct, a great game, back into the video game market. I'm sure it will sell from Play N Trade in no time, and a fellow old schooler will have tracked down their own missing classic. It brings a tear to my eye.

Cost of Tiny Toon Adventures: $2 total

Power Rangers Morph Into Math Activity Book!

Whoa, mama. Printed in 1994, this Power Rangers math book has never been marked in those almost twenty years. With the amount of sticky gunk stuck to the cover at first, I could tell this had been sold at more than one store during that time. But who cares about any of that, this is the Power Rangers! If I had been given a Power Rangers math book as a kid, I probably wouldn't have failed at it for twelve years. I was simply trying to learn math, when I should have been morphing into it.

The Rangers attempting to morph into math. Not quite there yet.

Finally. Only those who have truly morphed into math may receive the certificate of power.

I was a fan of Power Rangers in kindergarten, and only the first run of it, mind you. All that turbo, space, time traveling crap was after my time. The first Power Rangers kicked ass. I liked the Black Ranger, who was actually "black." Funny. The Yellow Ranger was Asian. That show was racist.

Cost of Power Rangers Morph Into Math: $.56