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Chi-Style Drunksaling: Vol. 5.1 - On the Road Again

June 19, 2006 By Glenn Turner

Unitdaisy and I were so inspired by the (now defunct) drunkgamers.com's garagesaling adventures that we decided to follow their example and searched about Chicago, scrounging for games and, when we were done, forced others to relive our experience.

For those unfamiliar with the term drunksaling, it's simple: It's kamikaze garagesaling for video games! The following excursion took place on June 3rd, 2006.

G. Turner: Ah, the first garage sale expedition of the season. Well, at least it's our first, and we were quite excited by something tantalizing in the classifieds:

"SuperDuperSummerSale! Joustgame, refrigerator, computers, furniture, housepaint, cottonpads, golfclubs, toilet, artsupplies, tools, clothing, oven. 4227 W. Belmont. Sat Sun 12p-8p Pete"

G. Turner: Now you may not know this about fellow New Gamer contributor Mr. LeFeuvre, but he's been searching for a tabletop version of Joust for years now. Of course it was our civic duty as comrades to search out this "Joustgame" for him!

G. Turner: Of course, that sale wasn't open until noon, which is approximately dusk in the world of garage sales. So we busied ourselves with sundry other, much-less-promising sales until then, such as the following estate sale:

G. Turner: For those not familiar with the saling vernacular, an estate sale is an unexpectedly forced garage sale. That is to say, someone died and left heaps of worthless trash behind, such as this tenderly fashioned tchotchke. The price of houses in Hell must have gone up since our last estate sale, because I can't see any other reason why this would command such a price.

unitdaisy: She seems quite detailed until you notice the steely look is missing from her eyes. This Xena looks less likely to take on the enemies of Ancient Greece and more likely to duke it out with fellow shoppers at Marshall Field's 13 hour sale.

G. Turner: The bedroom of the deceased. Ah, what room isn't complete without a handful of Spencer Gifts skulls?

unitdaisy: I am flabbergasted, the owner must have died to suddenly give up such a thorough collection, either that or the Moonies got to him.

G. Turner: They weren't just goth, they were whimsically goth.

unitdaisy: Awww... everybody loves The Count. Ah-ah-ah.

G. Turner: Sure, most sales don't peddle alcohol however, a more egregious offense is selling bad alcohol.

G. Turner: The next sale had little we hadn't seen before. In fact, I'm starting to believe that Virtual Springfield is stalking us as we happen upon a copy of it every year.

unitdaisy: Coconut monkey! Who stabbed you in the chest and stole your sweet, sweet life fluid?

G. Turner: Drat, it's Virtual, not Virtua.

G. Turner: Believe it or not, there's a sale behind those doors. A musty, creepy, solitary sale.

unitdaisy: No numbers on the door. No sign anywhere around. No one to hear us scream. After finally being let in we were too afraid of being locked inside to risk any pictures.

G. Turner: After fleeing from the elder artist's dank 'studio', we realized that noon was fast approaching and sped over to 4227 W. Belmont only to find the following:

G. Turner: Yes! Another non-descript door!

It turns out that the sale was around the corner. Thanks Pete.

unitdaisy: You people selling things may not use your front doors, but any stranger attending a sale will naturally gravitate there - put up a sign!

G. Turner: Sadly for Mr. LeFeuvre, it turns out that their Joust machine was your standard cabinet and not a tabletop. It's a shame we couldn't brighten his day however, it really did save us the trouble of trying to purchase it, driving it home, storing it, and shipping it to his fancy new digs. Or hell, even letting him know we found his Rosebud would have proved to be a challenge.

G. Turner: They had a few other items of interest, such as this Commodore 64 monitor that I briefly flirted with. It rebuked my advances though, and was left behind.

unitdaisy: Maybe you were too subtle - sometimes you have problems expressing yourself.

G. Turner: Now this, I believe its life taking fares on our local bus routes is over.

unitdaisy: I am going to start charging admission to our house. Hope you have a pocketful of change.

G. Turner: Feeling slightly disappointed with this sale, we advanced across the street where one Chicago's cleaner Salvation Armys was housed.

G. Turner: Seal Team! Actually, that old Electronic Arts logo does pique a bit of nostalgia from me. Also, Pico 'games'. The Sega fanboy in me says 'Buy, buy, buy!' whereas the part of me with a glimmer of sense says 'You'll only stuff it in the closet.'

unitdaisy: But there is still room in the closet.

G. Turner: Paintball, Nancy Drew & Sonic 2!

G. Turner: Huh, a game that's less than a month old. That's a first.

G. Turner: By now the little hand on the clock was approaching 1pm, so we set out on the final leg of the day's sales. And some day I'll be able to make ESP work for me and we'll skip out on all the worthless sales.

unitdaisy: I can't believe I passed on this gem. Sadly I will never be able to scroll my name diagonally across the screen again.

G. Turner: Now here's something: a Starship Troopers board game, circa-1976. Allegedly, the game was reprinted in 1997 for the release of the film adaptation, and I can even buy missing parts from here. Hooray!

G. Turner: Demos for sale! Get your demos while they're old and crusty! To be fair, that copy of Salt Lake 2002 isn't a demo, it's just crap.

G. Turner: Checkmate.

G. Turner: Ah, we're reveling in the board games today, aren't we? I was quite pleased to find a more traditional backgammon board, since my only non-digital copy of Backgammon is Karim Rashid's stab at it, and that board is utter tripe. While there isn't much of anything special about this edition, at least it's not from the mind of Karim Rashid.

unitdaisy: Sigh. So much for trying to buy people stylish presents.

G. Turner: The owners of these games informed us that he had more titles available earlier in the day, like Metal Gear Solid 3, but that they were long gone now. Gee, thanks. Plus he wanted $6 for that copy of Onimusha 2.

I talked him down to $5 and I still think I wasted my money.

G. Turner: Another sale, another Genesis. If only it had an AC adapter and a video out, we would have at least lingered on it, but we don't need yet another Sega product sans-cords...

...at least that's what I said until, two days later, unitdaisy told me that there was a naked Saturn at our neighborhood Salvation Army. But that's a different story.

Find of the Week: Our first outing of the year and there's not much to speak of. Regardless, I'm going to go ahead and vote Starship Troopers as being our find, simply because of its striking cover art and the fact that it has remained relatively intact!

Lesson of the Week: This is a lesson we actually gave to the proprietor of that previously mentioned artist's sale: put a damn sign by your sale stating that you are selling used goods. We normally don't make a habit of knocking on unmarked doors to ask if we can paw your property and offer you paltry prices for whatever trinket strikes our fancy so, make it clear there's a sale going on!

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6 comments for ‘Chi-Style Drunksaling: Vol. 5.1 - On the Road Again’

#1 KillerTeddy Jun 19, 2006 07:13pm

I wish I could find garage sales like this.

Interesting, but I would still have bought the joust.

#2 Dublyner Jun 19, 2006 07:34pm

I am inspired to reinvestigate my neighborhood Salvation Army.

#3 Servo Jun 19, 2006 11:36pm

So, is there any way we common folk can give you something to keep your eye out for?

#4 Glenn Turner Jun 20, 2006 01:06am

Servo wrote:
So, is there any way we common folk can give you something to keep your eye out for?

Certainly, as long as it's within reason and all - I can't go looking for arcade tabletops for everyone.

#5 WholeFnShow Jun 26, 2006 02:47pm

People in California are friggin pack rats. I've been to local salvation armies and there are rarely anything worth turning heads for.

#6 hobbie Jul 6, 2006 01:50am

I hate all the people down south. They have crap and only sell crap in garage sales.