OKGE 1.125 Review

[Flack]

OKGE only happens once a year, but a few of us locals decided that a year is too long to wait to see each other again, so we decided we should all get together in six months, jokingly referring to it as OKGE 1.5. Icbrkr suggested we actually get together quarterly, which would make the first one OKGE 1.25. Last night, on a whim, Icbrkr decided to hop in his car with his wife and drive to Oklahoma City to check out the Thrift store scene. Jokingly, I ended up referring to today as OKGE 1.125. Regardless of what you call it, here's how the day went.

Icbrkr (Brian) and his wife Ginger arrived last night (Friday) around 1AM after getting pretty close to the house but ending up about five miles off target. Rather than have them wander deeper into the bad side of town, I showed up to personally escort them back to the house. After everyone got a good night's rest, we headed out for a long day of thrifting.

To the best of my recollection, we hit 9 thrift stores, 3 pawn shops and one GameXchange in just over six hours, and squeezed some good ol' Mexican food in there in the middle (which Brian squeezed out from time to time). All in all it was one of the most productive thrifting days either of us have had in a long time!

To go with the Virtual Boy I found earlier this week, I found:

Mario's Tennis - $3.49
Teleroboxer - $3.49

Next to that were a couple of 32X games:

Metal Head - $2.49
Tempo - $2.49

I didn't have a 32x (yet), so we headed over to the console area. Lo and behold:

Sega Genesis - $3.49
32x - $3.49
Controller - $2

At another thrift, I found a couple of other goodies:

Sega Genesis - $4
V4 N64 Steering Wheel - $3

That brings me to about 9 Sega Genesis consoles in the "buy every Genesis you can find for under $5 summer and figure out what to do with them later".

I'll have to let Icbrkr post his finds separately and believe me, it'll take a page or so. Man did he and Ginger score some good stuff!

Even though this wasn't a real OKGE or anything like that, it was fun to get together and kind of throw together a "dry run" of having more gamers over to the house and joining us on thrift missions!

[icbrkr]

I'm naming this section "Thrifting On $40 a Day" - this week's issue is Yukon, OK.

My wife and I had a 4 day weekend, and at about 8PM I had an idea to drive to Oklahoma City, OK to visit Flack and do some thrifting. By some stroke of chance (fate?) Flack wanders into #vbender on IRC, he sends me his address, and the wife and I pile into the car for the 4 hour trip to his house.

At about 12:30AM, we arrive somewhere near Yukon, OK. Somewhere is somewhere between the "good" area and the hood. I called Flack from a payphone in a well lit area and waiting anxiously for him to show up. People were starting to look at me as if I was dealing, and I wanted the hell outta there *now*.

Oddly enough, he showed up 7 mins later. Why is this odd? Because it took twice as long to get back to his house. I'm sensing a sense of urgency on his part. Flack was nice enough to tell me *after* he found us that I was in a not so nice area.

We get to his house about 1AM, and though he was excited to show off his game room, I'm an early bird anymore and all I wanted to do was sleep... so the wife and I scrambled into the guest bedroom and we were off to snoozyland.

The next morning I meet his wife (who took quite well to going to bed with no people in the house, and waking up to 2 strangers) and after a quick run to Flack's "arcade", we were off.

First place we hit:

We were scanning the shelves of this unknowned named thrift store, and my eyes lock onto an old Commodore 1520 printer in perfect shape - $1.48! Usually when there's something like this, it came in as a set. Sitting next to it was a Slik Stick joystick for 48 cents. I knew I was coming up on something good so I started scanning the top shelves. Score! A full Vic-20 setup in perfect shape for 2.98. A few feet later, I picked up an old Apple mouse, C64 power supply, and another Slik Stick for all of .48 through .98 each. This was a great start to the day.

We leave the store and hit a few more. While at a Goodwill, the wife picks up a Tiger Quiz Wiz and 2 carts for $4 with manuals. Next store, a NEC Multisync monitor for my Amiga for 98 cents, a Jeopardy handheld thing for 1.98, and a localtalk cable for .48!

We take a break for a bit and have some Mexican food which Flack nicely paid for.. and I repaid the favor by letting him enjoy it over and over again.

I hit the next shop and picked up UMK3 for the SNES for 1.48, and a IBM PC jr with expansion for 2.98.

Already happy with my purchases, we stumbled into a cheesey little thrift store and Flack spends a few minutes convincing me I really really needed to pick up a Coleco Telestar Pong machine.. Why? It's pong.. I so don't need another pong. It was $2.. I had to get it. At the same place I picked up a C64 serial cable which I needed.

We headed into GameXchange where I spent the most money. After some comment made by Flack about a pregnant 12 year old in there, I walked up with 5 2600 carts for $6 (only one I wanted in the pack was Raft Rider! W00!), Zool for the GG for $3.95, California Games for the Lynx for 4.9 and Sonic Drift 2 for the GG for 3.95

The last place we hit Flack proceeded to attempt to assemble his own 32x and Genesis system and purchase it as one (that was my impression anyway ) I picked up Soldier of Fortune and Zombies ate my Neighbors for 2.98 each.

It was a great time, and next time I'm going to hang out when I'm more - awake. The 4 hour drive home sucked but we made it. Thanks for the room and hospitality Flack!

[pixelsnpolygons]

I'd love to go out and find some of these cool finds. Actually, I'd settle for finding nothing and just having a good friend to go hunting with. I don't have anyone who would appreciate that kind of thing... as much as my wife tries to.

Glad you guys had fun.

[Flack]

Yup, we had a blast.

One thing we both forgot to mention was that this trip has been dubbed, "the trip of the steering wheel".

At the first place we went to, I picked up a N64 Steering Wheel. Turns out though, I could have waited. We saw steering wheels (some PC, some N64, and even some newer ones) at EVERY SINGLE PLACE WE WENT. I'm not kidding, I haven't seen this many steering wheels ever.

[Flack]

Icbrkr, I'm starting to think your topic might have generated more conversation than mine. If you want to take your response here and start a new topic with it, we can drop this old, deader one.

[icbrkr]

Icbrkr, I'm starting to think your topic might have generated more conversation than mine. If you want to take your response here and start a new topic with it, we can drop this old, deader one.

Nah, that's okay, my topics generally generate crickets