Nostalgia Is a Hell of a Drug Part 4: Summer of 99 Resident Evilfest

Way back in 2011 I made a post called A Collector's Nightmare where I chronicled the details of my first, and final sale to an establishment such as FuncoLand. These days all I hear is how great FuncoLand was, but I think that's because ShameStop bought them all up, dropped the bar and made FuncoLand look like the shiniest turd by comparison. Regardless of how they fucked me over, what came from that experience was, among many things, the summer of 99 Resident Evilfest! As an angsty 16-year-old I wanted nothing to do with the outside world, instead preferring to sit in my tiny little bedroom and brood. All I needed at the time was my Playstation, my 13" color CRT, my copy of Resident Evil [Director's Cut] and my stereo blasting out hair metal legends Warrant!

For the entire summer I sat in my room shooting zombies, solving puzzles and throwing my controller in frustration when either of those went wrong. Luckily Playstation controllers were really well built. To add to the atmosphere I put a black trash bag over my window to keep as much light out as possible. Although it did a pretty decent job, there were times during the evening where the summer sun's light was just too powerful, turning my room an odd orange color. At the time I had a bookshelf stereo system with a three disc changer and a remote. I never had to get up, keeping the same three discs in rotation. The first was Warrant's Dog Eat Dog, then Cherry Pie, but those are the only ones I actively remember.

I still have that Playstation, TV and both Warrant CDs. Although these days the Playstation's disc drive is shot, the TV is dying a slow death and I've ripped my favorite tracks off the CDs in favor of having them in digital form and packing the discs away. I had the stereo for quite a few years after that, but I ended up leaving it behind in favor of making a hasty escape from a relationship I was no longer a part of. It was a small sacrifice. Maybe when I'm done playing through Dragon Quest 3 I'll start playing through the other Resident Evil games. I have quite a few of them, I've just never tried them beyond a few minutes after starting them. It sounds crazy, I know, but I have this small fear that playing the other games will in some way tarnish my nostalgia for that summer.