Current state of "thrift".

This blog has a great deal to do with thrift store hunting and video games, along with random other thoughts that tend to rear their head from time to time. I have officially been video game hunting for 2 years, fairly close to the day give or take a few, and throughout that time there have been great scores and complete droughts. Along the way I've also lost a many of my sources, due to the stores closing, yet I've always managed to turn things around and find somewhere else to take it's place.

Lately, however, I've managed to lose the whole lot as I have little to no respect for anywhere anymore. With so many thrift stores closing the only steady place was Salvation Army and no matter how many times I complained about them I still went back, quite often too! Regardless of how unquestionably shitty Salvation Army can be at times, with their unexplainable price spikes and often times completely uncaring/rude staff, I was always in search of the many, and I do mean MANY, scores I had found previously throughout the 4 or 5 stores I frequented.

Salvation Army was always a crap shoot, yet they've completely taken themselves out of the game and put themselves square in my shit sights. Within the last month I've noticed they are moving things around the store and completely doing away with anything of particular value, could this be a sign of Salvation Army auctions? Only time will tell! Electronics are now limited to televisions, microwaves and other miscellaneous things that plug into an outlet, which vaguely categorizes them as electronics.

I do greatly adore the Goodwill Outlet store, which forced me to change my views on Goodwill overall. I just can't see paying the prices of a store when the outlet store only charges $.69 a pound. Sure not a lot of things flow through the outlet store, but I seemingly always walk out of their spending less than $5 for stuff that I'm excited to own. When I go into a Goodwill store and get all geeked out over a retro game I'm almost always quickly upset by the $5.99 price tag on it, knowing full well that Disc Replay wants less and if I wait long enough I may just find it at the outlet store.

Another option around here would be flea markets, and I've already explained how they are. Its hard to find a flea market where the booth owner is actually in the booth, they're all indoor, super flea markets where you take stuff up to an actual cashier, which makes dealing with someone an impossibility. While they're always a source of getting out and walking about, I almost always walk out empty handed.

Finally there is the online connection, where everyone lives in a little world where even the most common video game is apparently worth a small fortune. Sometimes craigslist is ok, if you get to the post on time, otherwise you're not going to get a reply and wonder if your message is trapped inside someone's spam filter as you hope they still have the item you wanted and will get back to you before you die of old age. And ebay can go fuck itself, that is all I have to say about it.

The sad truth is that flea markets and thrift stores alike have become one in the same, as the prices are set by some goober who has internet access and thinks the mass of games listed on ebay for any given price is the socially accepted price. As where the reality is if that were in fact the accepted price they wouldn't still be listed. My only way of collecting the games I want to own and play are to keep searching these places that slowly but surely shrivel and dry up.