Finding the Right Disc for the Right Case!

The summer of 1999 was spent almost entirely in my small bedroom with Warrant's Dog Eat Dog album blaring, while playing Resident Evil Director's Cut on my Playstation. I can't remember exactly where, but I had been playing a demo copy of Resident Evil and I really wanted to play the full version, so that desire spurred on the need to liquidate my Sega Genesis and NES collections, which is a horror story in and of itself. I traded in roughly $40 worth of stuff (1999 value) to the local FunCo Land for $7 and change and still needed to pay another $8 (plus tax) to buy Resident Evil, but at that time it felt all too worth it.

The only copy the store had in was a Greatest Hits copy, but that didn't bother me at all, at least I got the game I was after. As soon as I got home I knew the disc wasn't the right one, yet this was a decade before I learned that the manual, case and disc should all have the same SLUS code. Regardless of it not being in the right case I still played the hell out of the game. Through all the zombie slaughter, puzzle solving and jump scare goodness, I loved every minute of it.

Years went by and the same game is still in my collection; I learned not to give a video game store $40 worth of stuff for $7 in-store credit ever again. It always kind of nagged at my subconscious that the disc wasn't in the right case. Along came the Goodwill outlet store, where I could find loose PS1 games almost on the daily. Without much thought I would pick them up and throw them into a pile of I want or I already have. The I wants were packed away and logged in my video game collection spreadsheet, while the I already haves were placed in a bag, hoping to use as trade fodder for something I wanted.

Recently I happened to be checking through my collection of video games I could trade off, when I noticed one of them was a black and silver Resident Evil Director's Cut, much like I would expect to find in the Greatest Hits case I bought all those years ago. And you know what? I was right! After checking the disc's SLUS code it matched the case perfectly.

It's taken nearly 20 years to get the right disc, but at least I have it. Now I'll need to track down the original case and manual for the game FunCo Land put inside the case. Either way, I'm keep them both now!

Left: Correct Disc, Right: Disc FunCo gave me

Skullcandy Ink'd 2 Earbud Review.

Ever since I can remember I've heavily preferred to use over-ear headphones for my music listening pleasure. With the exception of my absolute favorite TSC (The Speaker Company) NC3, noise cancelling over-ears, it's been hard for me to find a decent set of headphones that fill my ears with the right frequencies while not sounding washed out by background noise.

I've owned many different styles of over-ear headphones and always loved their delivery, the frequency response and the comfort factor. What always ends up happening is that I use them too much and over time they break at the headband. The last few pairs of over-ears I've had I tried to repair, in vain. The fewer parts, the less can go wrong, right?

I've never been a fan of earbuds, they never deliver the music quite the same as over-ears, they make my ears itch inside and are just overall a menace to use. When mowing I need something that will block out the sound of the mower, this is why I heavily prefer over-ears with noise-cancellation, and all the earbuds I've used up to this point were just not going to cut it, but that was about to change.

For home use I went with a simple pair of Roku earbuds, because they're purple and they aren't broken like my over-ears. The music didn't sound as great, but at least I was still getting music pumped into both ears, plus they didn't need to cancel any noise because it's just home use. They're not the best, but for moderate home use they'll do the job.

My eyes started to scour the outlet store for earbuds. Maybe there was a new set that someone hadn't used yet, besides you can always clean them, can't you? Yeah, I'm sure it would be fine to wash a pair of earbuds thoroughly and be safe. After seeing a massive amount of even lower quality earbuds than the Roku ones pass through, it finally happened. A pair of earbuds I was willing to buy used and risk getting some stranger's inner-ear, fungal infection. Skullcandy!

I've heard of the brand, but never tried their products. I'm not one who will jump on a brand as soon as they come out, pay a high price for a product and then sing their praises. I'll wait for everyone else to have their fun with said products and pick them up used, at drastically reduced prices. In the case of the Ink'd 2 earbuds, I would say they're well worth what I paid for them. Three cents at the outlet store.

After a thorough cleansing in alcohol and soaking the rubber parts in soap and water, I finally gave these suckers a test. Everything sounded amazing. I'd never heard earbuds this good before, not to say I've tried too many to begin with, but I've never heard earbuds that sounds slightly less dynamic than over-ears. Almost everything I wanted from over-ear headphones are offered in these earbuds, again, almost.

I can't verify whether or not they'll drown out any background noise, but once they're in place they stay, which is also new to me, and they do seem to block out more noise than any other earbuds I've ever used.

I'm not an earbud expert, nor am I a headphones expert, but I know what I expect from them and the Skullcandy Ink'd 2 earbuds offer almost (I can't stress that enough) exactly what I'm looking for from over-ear headphones. They are still a little lacking, obviously due to size limitations, but they are amazing for what they are. Would I pay retail for them? Considering they're only about $13-15 retail, I would possibly consider it.