In the hopes the board would be restored, I've held off since this afternoon, but I guess it's time for me to face facts and resume activities here....
A very weird thing happened yesterday inside the flaky internal organ sitting between my ears. I was sitting at work, procrastinating and daydreaming, when out of the blue I recalled that my childhood dentist had a waiting room filled with handheld electronic games. Now, this was during the Mattell Electronics heyday, and his waiting room, office, and several examination rooms were stocked with Football, Football II, Baseball, Head-To-Head Colecos, Microvisions, etc..., in addition to the usual Highlights & National Geographic Worlds. I'll bet the various 'grown-ups' that worked there day in & day out bought Tylenol by the casefull.
I spent about 10-15 minutes trying to locate his office phone number online. Part of the time was spent looking up the wrong name - I remembered his last name having an 's' on the end where there is none. Well, I finally found the number, and I called the office. I was embarrassed to explain why I was calling for him, so I asked the receptionist if he had an email address I could use. She explained that he has no email/online capability, so I asked if I could leave a message, & went ahead and explained what I wanted. I told her that I remembered him being a very cool dentist when I was his patient about 20 years ago, and that I now collected all of the games he used to have in his office. I asked if he might still have any of them lying about, and maybe I could take them off his hands? I left her my email address & phone #, and was told he'd get in touch.
When I mentioned this to my wife this evening, she said 'Oh, that explains the weird message on the machine yesterday'. SO, I listened to the message, and called my old dentist at his home this evening. It turns out that just last weekend they cleaned out all of their old games, becasue the currnet crop of kids wanted to use the new GB Advances, so the crop of Gameboys and 'Segas' (I assume Game Gears) were replaced. The older systems are all in a bag by his front door, waiting to go to Goodwill. It sounds like the oldest thing I'm likely to see is an original Game Boy, but as I don't have one yet that's still pretty neat.
AND, the good doctor told me to send him my address, and he'll box the whole shebang up and send it to me! I asked if I should/could send him a check for anything, and he refused! I'm getting the booty GRATIS!!
Once the loot arrives I'll update you guys with all the juicy details.(Geez, what a geek I am! I sound like I'm about to go on a date with a hot girl with a reputation!)
Well, he may not want anything for the stuff, but once I get it I intend to at least make some sort of donation in his name, and have some sort of certificate or something sent to his office.
How neat this is!
:Fade-color