So what else is new ?

Been absent of the blogging world for a long time again. Life is always busy when you have a puppy, especially a Samoyed. That little (huge !) ball of energy keep us occupied almost day and night ! Can't complain tho, I love that white fluffy ball.

After a decade of staying away from Magic: The Gathering, I am now playing almost every weekend at work with some other geeky colleagues. It all started by my finding a pack of around 300 cards at a local Value Village. Nothing really of value, just tought it might be worth something on the net (boy I was wrong...). Less than a week later, Benson mention he'd like to try the game...

While it was an interesting idea at the time, he didn't know the mistake he had just made. We both have a slight tendencies to OCD and the following days we bought our first Intro pack.

Little did we know was that the simple idea of playing MTG became a craze that could even be considered a frenzy now. We thought at the time it would be cool if even a couple of guys would join us (well I may have said that to myself... anyway...). We are currently nine people playing it at work, with one guy searching for his cards at home and another waiting to borrow his friend cards.

We even staged a tournament during work hours ! Well lunch hours that is. So a simple 9 players tournament has been going on for almost a month now. At stake is a Fat Pack for the new expension block, coming on Thursday April 30th.

Just to show you the size of how this thing has grow: since I already had to buy a Fat Pack for the tournament and one for myself, I began to shop around to get the better price. Found a local job near my house who would do them for 36$ tax-in. I save around 2.50$ for each pack. So I talked to the others and in one day, my order grew from 2 packs to 7 packs and 3 box of boosters. We're talking a 72$ that became 627$ ! I'm pretty sure the owner has customers who buy much more than that but I'm pretty sure he's not complaining when a new guy comes in and commit to buy more than 600$ of stuff.

Another good thing that came out of this is that people we just barely knew in our division are now more involved in our small circle. You can never have too many geeks in one place !

So, what's new ?

Since the last post was almost a year ago (that long, damn!), there's been a lot of stuff lately. My girlfriend and I finally moved in a real house!

Real house means basement and basement means bigger Weirdy Room! That's right fols, I got a 10 * 14 room all to myself and my toys. I was able to fit my whole video games collection, as well as all the DVD, 2 arcade cabinets, and my vinyl toy collection too and still has space to move !

Here's a little preview:
(Left side of room)

(The huge closet)

(Right side room)


Pictures of the Wall-O-Qees and of the glass display will come in another post.

I am really proud of what I've done with the room. It took me a while to arrange stuff and clean up afterwards (in fact, I finished earlier this week).

Of course, this is always a work in progress as I get new stuff almost weekly, but you get the gist of it.

Video Games Live !

I went to Montreal last weekend to see a show about video games music.

While it may sound weird and geeky, this is an amazing show, even for people that don't like video games that much. We're talking about an orchestra of around 20 musicians plus a choir of 6 men and 6 women. Mostly classical instruments were used, except an electric guitar near the end.

Imagine revisiting you childhood memories with such classic as Pong (yes Pong... somebody was just doing the bouncing sounds as the ball went on and on), Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, Pac Man... And that was just the beginning.

Of course there was also music from recent games and what a selection ! Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, World of Warcraft, Civilization IV, Kingdom Hearts, Beyond Good and Evil, etc.

The Metal Gear Solid part was one of the best as the music for the game has been known to be one of the best game music ever. And the orchestra captured the feel of it perfectly.

One nice surprise was Martin Leung, reknowned for his youtube video of him playing Mario Bros songs on the piano, while wearing a blindfold. He performed a medley of Final Fantasy songs as well as his trademark, Super Mario Bros, Level 1-1, blindfolded. He is an amazing musician with a lot of talent, that's for sure.

The show was created by Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall. I never really like Tommy when he was doing his show Reviews on the Run (that's when I first heard of him). Seemed a little too elitist to me. But the guy sure knows his music, as he's been a video game music composer for more than 15 years.

The show is coming back next year, make sure to get tickets this time !

CCJVQ meet in Montreal (the joy of feeling complete)

Good thing I stayed at home on Friday night and slept like crazy (first time int he whole week I was sleeping correctly).

The drive to Montreal was insane ! So much snow on the road... almost lost control once. One big snow plow was moving the snow on the left side of the road, with the wind going to the right. For a good 10sec, I could not see a damn thing. Freaking nothing ! At least, I was able to pass it quickly.

Always nice to see a lot of good friends all at once. I can say I represent mostof the Outaouais capter of the CCJVQ. Through my 3years and a half of collecting, I established a good reputation in the club and am a well known member. It's always nice to see another member asking me a question of advice or hear someone says : "Weirdguy always find cool stuff in Ottawa". I do find a lot of cool stuff, it's true. I tend to stay away from buying video games on eBay as I never known when I'll get it locally.

I did get some pretty good stuff at the meet. Two faily rare Dreamcast games and a set of Rayman Raving Rabbids figures that was exclusive to Ubisoft employees. I you love those rabbits, you'll want those figures, you can bet on that. Also got some PS1 and NES games. And some other stuff I don't remember (it's amost been a week !).

But the real find was this really nice tamtam. My half brother makes them with his dad. They are made by hand, totally custom. You can request any color and size. They come with a price tag tho. This one is my birthday gift but I mgiht order him a bigger one next year (that I'll have to pay). Maybe something with a stand, like 3 foot high. I like the deep sound of those. I'll have to learn how to play too, there must be a technique for that, not just bashing the thing with your hands...

On a side note, I am ready for paintball ! Got my air tank during my sick week. Tested it with my friend Simon, who came to the same conclusion as me, the electronic board inside the gun is stuck in there really hard. Compared to his gun (same model), mine might be a little bit more trouble to clean. But I guess I'll have to live with it. I really like the look of the gun. Look mean with all the accessories. Since I'll be moving it a lot, I decided to get a bag for it. Got one for cheap at Wal-Mart tonight so I can finally store it somewhere safer than the top of my futon in the game room. I can't wait for next Friday !

Another thing that got completed is my hit and run on my car (see first post ever). My GF step father came and fixed it on Thursday. I can finally drive the damn thing. Still 8 month and it goes to the scrapyard... Can't wait for that too.

Weekend haul !

Damn I found so many stuff tonight, can't complain !

A little trip to one of my usual place got me a SNES with 6 games ! Picked the other one at another place. Also got myself a PS1 games (looked like a cute little RPG).

The 2 main things I got are easily visible in the picture :
- A Commodore PET computer. That thing is older than me. See how Stewie is plotting to take over the world with this machine.
- A Star Wars : A New Hope laserdisc, widescreen edition. I know it's not the rarest LD ever (it's not even rare) but it's the little grail of my LD collection.

Painball gun this weekend ! I'm getting it tomorow just after lunch ! Can't wait !

I'm off to watch Star Wars !

My weekly hunting haul

Went for a little game hunting before my little vacation (more on that later).

I picked up some nice stuff, most notably:

-80 gig hard drive for 10$. Nice secondary hard drive.

-Settlers of Catan for 4$. The game is band new !

-Some NES games to use as trade bait.

-Two PS1 games.

The best of it is that I finally received my package from Play-Asia. I finally got Last Hope, one of the last Dreamcast game ever (only 2 released after that, one of them bering release next week). What's funny about it is that it's a game developped in Germany, the text in the game is in English while the cover is in Japanese. Talk about multicultural...

I also got some big stylus for the DS. My GF loves them.

And on Thursday I got the biggest ever Maro Bros figures. It is freaking cool. My girlfriend found it at a local comic book store. She made me buy it... can't complain. It's 30cm tall and came with a small mushroom. The quality is really good.
I also came back home on Thursday with the Polio. Not the real sickness, just one of thoses giant microbes (http://www.giantmicrobes.com) I fint the giant microbes to be an interesting concept. While they are cute and cuddly (the common cold/Rhinovirus is so cute), each plush includes an info card on the sickness, which makes it educative. For now I have the Common Cold, the Sore Throat and the Polio.
It's always weird to tell someone that I got Polio recently. ..