A wise man once said, "He who hesitates, is lost..." It is with this mentality that I approach every week of Great White Northern Drunksaling. Much to my shock and surprise, one of my targets for this weekends activities boasted that it indeed had a N64 for sale. No doubt there were games go to with it that were ripe for the plucking. Thusly motivated, I set out on my journey.

He's no Duck Dodgers but holy flowing capes, Batman.

Unfortunately the N64 in question did not come available until sometime past 9am, a good two hours into my normal routine. So with that in mind I did my best to plan my route to hit it at the best time. My first garage sale showed me an alternate future where Disney thinks they are Warner Bros. Or maybe I just found a cheap Duck Dodgers rip-off attempt. You be the judge.

You look and see a bunch of games. I look and see all that masking tape ruining the labels. *sob*

Fortunately, they had some taste, and had these laying out just looking for a good home. If only they had followed the first rule of labelling video games. NO MASKING TAPE! Did I mention don't put anything on the labels of games? *sighs*

Time to make E.T. phone home.

Now here is what I thought were six Atari carts. E.T. is a personal favourite of mine, along with Crackpots. So I was going to my happy place rather quickly this week. Upon later inspection I discovered that the two Donkey Kong carts were actually Colecovision carts. No big loss, a more unique find in fact if I do say so myself.

Ah Tetris. From Russia with fun. No seriously. Have fun. Now.

Also part of the package were these four games. On second thought I should have made the $10 offer for all ten cartridges, but I instead decided to not get RBI Baseball and the Super Mario Bros. cart since I already had one copy of each. While I did get into this to be a collector, my intent was to not limit myself too much on what I buy, as things can be resold if I do not want them. Perhaps with the N64 on my mind I was trying to hard to save money for later in the day. Who knows.

Ah the good old days when sports games didn't need '97 or 2k4 trailing their name.

My journey continues, with nothing too picture-worthy on the horizon and the score of the day slowly approaching, the visit to N64 land, I can only hope I don't get too distracted in my efforts to time my approach.

Awwwwwwww isn't he cute? If only I had a companion that could bubble and googoo over this cute little munchkin.

This is what greeted me at my next garage sale. I should have known from this sign what I was in for if I ventured inward. So in we go.

Now this is what I'm talking about. A quality showing by Bugs and the gang.

And sure enough, more cuddly animals to be found within. One of WB's more forgettable licensed games for the Playstation, this barely made it on my radar when it came out, let alone my interest in it now. Let this be a lesson to you, always watch for signs when entering a garage sale. Especially big fuzzy ones.

It calls to me with its siren song. "Drink me. Warm your toes with my nasty and penetrating taste."

Seems that my travels today are full of good ideas. Perhaps once I am done my travels I will take down a shot of JD to celebrate my coming N64 score. As it is, we have a bunch more time to kill, so here's a brief look at my travels to that point.

Someone is looking for some major bad karma, Jesus and the Anti-Christ sitting right next to each other??

Okay we're getting closer. This is for the "C" 64. Perhaps this is a sign that my collecting is going in the wrong direction?

Mmmm. An old local delicacy. Vader brains.

Isn't depreciation a bitch? Two flight simulator joysticks bought for a combined $300 selling for $10.

Yet another last ditch effort to tap old customers with new and utterly unforgivable sequels by Sierra.

I just had to include this because of my extreme hatred of Insane Clown Posse and my desire to beat them up realized with the release of this game.

Okay, I've fiddled and waded around long enough, time to haul arse (sorry I just finished looking at that ICP game, I'm feeling a little red necked) over to that N64 and see what good times await me.

Son of a ... Donkey? That's what I get for getting too distracted on my way over.

Either this sale was a big waste of my time or someone beat me to the punch. All that was left was Donkey Kong 64 and GoldenEye. Perhaps part of me pondered getting them just to resell, but I was so disgusted with the lack of options that I didn't even ask if I was the first one there. That and I'm about 99% sure that's a NES RF adaptor they?ve bundled in with it. I must have looked pretty funny though screeching to a halt in front of the yard and letting my bike slam against the sidewalk. Utterly defeated, I turned to see what other horrors awaited me at this travesty.

Won't someone give these little grey boxes a home?

Considering my recent experiences with Nintendos en masse I was not surprised to see this. They may in fact be the very same consoles from the Goodwill, seeing as they all disappeared not too long after I bought mine and cleaned it to get it working. I left them to their fate, becoming more wary with each thing I found.

Nintendo, Sony and Sega... all in a row. Do any of them work? No one knows.

At the very top there I found about four more copies of the famous "Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt" cartridge. Then there are a couple of PSX games, including Wild Arms 2, a precursor to the cell shaded nightmare that is Wild Arms 3 for the PS2. Then we have a lonely Genesis cart. At least it's still in its box. Let's take a look at the Wild Arms 2 first. I've already been burned once this year by the "crack in the CD" business. But they check out. At least the media does. But there's something amiss here.

This is what a PSX CD looks like WITH the store added copy protection.

This is what happens when you try and take said protection off.

As if wanting to give me a clear sign that I was looking for trouble buying anything from this sale, I stumble upon a problem with what would be a pretty good game. Considering I have Wild Arms 3 and have yet to finish it, [Note to self: Stop playing Paper Mario so much.] I wouldn't mind playing this. But apparently someone decided to tempt fate and attempt to remove the copy protection on the first disc, removing a quarter of the label in the process. Given the warning on the remaining copy protection on CD2, I didn't want to take any chances that the first disc was ruined. Not wanting to leave empty handed though I did grab the Genesis cart for $3 even.

I have got to stop garage saling after dawn, that sun is always getting in my shot.

Normally this could be viewed as an excellent little score. And I was prepared to declare it as such and snag it until I saw the price tags. $20 for the GameBoy Color, $15 for the camera with printer and $5 for the player. $40. *sigh* And that's with no games. I bought my Genesis with two games for less. Oh and $2 for the little earphone attachment. Did I mention no games included? Yeah as nice as it would be, it was too rich for my blood. Time to see what else this loser has to offer.

Super Mario Bros. 2 ... Mega Man 2 ... all available for play on the Nintenddo. (check the crayon on the box)

Another Nintendo looking for a home. $15 for the whole box. Fortunately all I need are the games. I paid a buck each when they were asking $2 each.

Due to poor ratings the bulletin board has been sacked. Those responsible for hiring the bulletin board have also been sacked.

Not pictured in the 10 games that I picked up are three more of the now hated "Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt" cartridge. That one dead center is a Famicon cartridge complete with a "Super Adaptor" for playing it in the Nintendo. Unfortunately even after several cleanings I have yet to get it to work. One interesting find was the Power Golf cart. Endorsed by Greg Norman, it has an expanded memory and what it calls an "internal battery" so it could include a course editor. And there was a course on it when I got it. Perhaps someday I'll create my own course and sell it so that someone can enjoy my work!

Canadian Light, bitterly fresh from the taps. Strange enough, if it wasn't for my love of garage saling I'd never ever touch a pint of beer.

After finding nothing of interest in the local Goodwill I decided it was time to cut my losses. A little bummed out about missing out on the N64 score I subsequently wussed out on the shot of Jack Daniels. Besides it was only noon. Far too early for that crap. Beer me!

Find of the Week: Curiously enough this was a tough choice after the N64 business didn't pan out. I'd say finding those rather hard to find NES games (including the Famicom cart with
adaptor) overtakes those Atari games. But not by much.

Lesson of the Week: Doesn't matter when a garage sale opens. Show up at least an hour early. Oh yeah and be wary of big stuffed animals. [ed. note - Ah. People like you are why most sales are advertised with the cautionary words 'No early birds!]