Truly spooky tale!

All statements made within this post are factual, with no embellishment. Personal facts will not be in great detail, most other facts can easily be checked through a simple Google search.

It was a cold and rainy October 31st at around 7pm; since I live in quite a rural area I knew all my neighbors were already gorging themselves with the candy intended for the extremely rare change they would have any trick or treaters. I was about 13 or 14 and I remember sitting at the kitchen table, possibly fiddling with one of my many model car kits, when my sisters boyfriend, at the time, walked in. He asked me if I wanted to go up to Center Grove and see if we could get away with trick or treating. Center Grove is a wealthy little town just south of Indianapolis, and not very from where I live, so he and I assumed wealth meant they would have better candy, so I agreed to go.

He and myself loaded up in his truck and headed into the night. We soon reached the top of the hill just off 37 on Stone's Crossing Road and drove into a small, secluded and heavily wooded subdivision with a variety of expensive looking homes. As we drove down the street and parked in the cul de sac I distinctly remember this chill coming over me and a deep sense of fear and anguish consuming me, but as it was Halloween I never gave it more than a second of attention. We then put on some half-assed costumes just to get by and went over our plan of action.

Since he was 18, and taller than anyone who should ever be trick or treating, the plan was to disguise our voices and keep from being detected. To avoid them discovering his hairy arms I had to grab the candy for him and was instructed to toss his candy in his bag before putting it in my own, a fact I forgot the entire time, yet it never caused any issues. After we got a satisfactory amount of candy we headed back to his truck in the cul de sac, I stared out into the woods and that feeling returned as if something from within the woods was trying to tell me something, again I dismissed it as the general spookiness that Halloween brings and quickly refocused on the candy I had.

Fast forward to about 2002 when I became obsessed with Indiana ghost stories and mysterious history. One of the most common stories was about the still unsolved 1978 Burger Chef Murders. The story is that right about closing time on November 17 two men went into the Burger Chef in Speedway Indiana, robbed and murdered the four employees (ranging in age from 20 to 16). The next day their bodies were discovered in a rural area, which just so happened to be located off Stone's Crossing road, some sources even claiming that very spot is now occupied by the subdivision we were trick or treating all them years ago.

Only a few years ago did these two events register in my head when I was told a ghost story by someone who lived in the trailer park that is right across 37 from the land where the bodies were found. One night they had awoke to see who they assumed to be their girlfriend preparing for bed. When she didn't respond to his questions he sat up and started to ask again, the apparition turned to him and disappeared. He himself didn't add the events together until 2008 when the news carried an anniversary update on the events, which was to simply remind us that it remains unsolved to this day. He recognized the ghost as being the eldest female from one of the photos.

With all the weird history tied to this particular story, and the fact that their remains were found mere miles from where I grew up and live, I'm vastly intrigued by it. There have been endless leads, I'm sure, yet nothing ever came to light as to who exactly did this, or why they drove 20 miles to dump the bodies when Indiana was and still remains quite heavily wooded everywhere! As time goes on it becomes harder and harder to solve the true crime, but the weird feeling I got that night makes more sense. 

Lyon AMP3, the plot thickens.

So I took my AMP3 apart to see how difficult it would be to tolex it and the spare speaker when I noticed a url printed on the circuit board for the amp. It says artecsound.com, so I promptly headed over to see what they were about. It seems they are a small South Korean company that makes amps and effects, as well as a mini amp by the name of "MA3T Mini Amp".

The MA3T looks exactly the same as the Lyon AMP3, same controls, same tuner and even the exact same design of the shell. But they offer their's in wood and tolex! ORANGE TOLEX! Oh, how I wish I could have found one of these instead of the AMP3. Don't get me wrong, I like the AMP3, but when its cranked for high gain it gets farty and the speaker is pretty weak, tonally.

I still wonder if there is a simple modification or speaker swap to get a little bit sweeter high gain tone out of this thing. I know small amps aren't meant to be tone beasts, because I've owned all kinds including a Marshall MS2, but there has to be a way to make it sound a little better than it does. I don't know how good the Orange Crush Mini sounds, nor do I know how good the MA3T sounds, they may sound the exact same or better, or worse!

So if you have an AMP3 and wonder what it could look like, or want to give the ArtecSound version a try here is the url to their page: http://artecsound.com/amps/ma3t.htm. I would love to get my hands on one simply because my favorite color is orange and I think they look significantly better than the AMP3. Regardless of their tonal difference, if any, at least I would have a cool little amp to sit down with and enjoy, if nothing more than for its cool orange tolex.

How I got stuck with a game I may never play.

With all the negativity in this world I've always tried to bring a little positive where ever I could. I can't always be this way, however, but when I have the chance I try my best to make a new connection and bond it instantly by helping someone out. I've helped a few people and formed connections here and there, but one fell sour and I'm still scratching my head as to how and why.

I won't mention the name of the blog or the blogger, but I was a fairly avid fan for a while, as we shared a great amount in common when it came to video games. Their blog kind of helps me shape my own storage methods for my video game collection. But this blogger was in need of one thing they couldn't seem to find, and honestly I don't know whether they still need it or not.

This blogger was a fan of an RPG series call Suikoden, proudly displaying their collecting and updating when they acquired new games of the series, etc. But it seemed they could never get their hands on the third part of the series, so unbeknownst to them I kept my eye out for it. If they were to have found it before I did, I would stop looking, but until then my Eagle eyes were tuned in to every PS2 game case I saw strewn about thrift stores and even Disc Replay.

One day I came across a handful of Suikoden games at a Salvation Army for $2 each, none of them were the one they wanted, in fact I opened up their blog on my friend's cellphone to see if they needed any of the ones Salvation Army had, which they didn't. Since I know absolutely nothing about this game, other than that some of them are highly sought after -- none of the ones at Salvation Army were at the time, I kept on looking. Eventually a single copy popped up at Disc Replay and since I had no way to contact them and ask if they still needed it I plunked down $10 for it and took the chance, worst case scenario I take it back and get $10 in-store credit for the attempt of a good deed.

When I got home I sent off the email and at first the blogger seemed very excited and interested that I had a copy for them. I checked into shipping and told them the price for the game and shipping and the trail went cold, no more responses at all. I tried to follow up a week later and again 2 weeks later but still the blogger never replied and seemed to just have given up on wanting to own the game.

I kept checking their blog to see if they had acquired one so I could return the one I have, and they never said a word, they just updated as if nothing had ever happened. Holding out hope this person would eventually write me back and say something had happened before but they were now ready, I held on to it and eventually became stuck with it after Disc Replay's return period. To this day there has been no reply.

I still check their blog infrequently, but it seems they haven't acquired their own copy. I tried to do something good and make a connection with a fellow video game fan and blogger, but instead I'm stuck with a video game I know nothing about, refuse to play (because I haven't played 1 or 2) and don't want to sell because it may one day be a collector's item like the first two.

Outlet Wii Update! Doors have arrived!

All my life I've lacked patience, I haven't a single solitary drop within any fiber of my being. So after a tense 5 days, which honestly is less than I expected, the OEM Nintendo Wii doors that I ordered have arrived! With a knock on my door, the box slid into my hands and away I went to document the arrival!

Pretty much the only thing in the box were these nifty Nintendo bags (which I'm keeping!), holding the doors and the packing slip. I carefully opened the box and bags so I didn't destroy them. Once all was opened I packed the bags back into the packing slip and put them back in the box. OCD anyone?

And so we see that the poor beat up Nintendo Wii that I salvaged from the Goodwill outlet store bins is now almost whole again! The face is still a bit loose, but it stays in place and I never have reason to grab it by the face, so I won't worry about that. All I need now is an official controller and IR bar and everything will be perfect!

A Man and His Gamecube!

A few months ago I was fortunate enough to get myself a handful of loose Gamecube games, as my outlet store nemesis can't be bothered to look inside something which I don't care to give away on my blog. BWAHAHA! Anyway.. For mere pocket change I've picked up Mario Kart Double Dash with the bonus disc, Mario Superstar Baseball and Need for Speed Carbon, the last of which will be the main focus for this entry. Again, they're all loose but I've learned to use my small Gamecube disc carrying case.

For years I've had a non-working copy of Mario Kart Double Dash, sans the instructions, since the working copy came with the bonus disc what was I suppose to do with the original, single disc case? This is a job for one of the numerous random empty Gamecube cases I've found from the outlet store! I took a dual disc case and simply used the Mario Kart Double Dash cover from the original and now have a cased Double Dash with bonus disc.. still sans the instructions. (sad face)

But when it comes to racing games I've always had a place in my heart for the Need for Speed franchise, a franchise that has spanned many years. My introduction to next gen NFS was on the Gamecube when I had Need for Speed Underground, but this was years ago and that copy was sold off to help fund my Xbox habit back in the 2007-2009. I have Underground 2 for the Xbox and had a copy of Most Wanted for the PS2, so I'm familiar with the style of gameplay and the extremely terrible acting scenes they add to make it seem more than it is.

Regardless of my views on the direction they (EA) have decided to take the franchise I've enjoyed every installment, to a point. The cheestastic cut scenes are more like high school drama recitals than anything that could ever be confused for entertainment, let alone acting. But I greatly enjoy being able to freely roam a large, sprawling, open city with lots of different things to discover and explore.

The seeming leap between Underground 2 and Most Wanted was enjoyable in my opinion, everything felt well thought out and well executed. When I first played NFS Carbon I honestly thought it fit somewhere between Underground 2 and Most Wanted, but in fact it came after Most Wanted. The issue there is that it feels more like Underground 2 with sprinkles of half-assed elements from Most Wanted seemingly left in on accident because the programmer just couldn't be bothered to remove them.

The police chases in Most Wanted, while annoying as all hell, were pretty exciting and you could eventually outrun the cops and find a place to hide. Although fewer in Carbon, the chases seem to last forever and no matter what you do the cop is on your tail, without any sign of freedom no matter where you go. Another thing is that Carbon brings us back to a city where everything leads to the exact same place, where Most Wanted had the illusion of being a few different cities strung along by countless back roads and many ways to get anywhere you needed to be, which all aided in the ability to lose the heat.

To me NFS Carbon feels like one giant leap backwards, when they really should have just expanded upon Most Wanted. Another issue is collecting turf and having to defend it after every single race you do, this can easily be avoided by hitting reset but this shouldn't even be a feature at all! This isn't GTA San Andreas where people actually battle for territory, this is more like rich College kids racing around in daddy's car and trying to stir up weak, contrived bullshit, which is exactly what it is.

When I play a racing game I want just that, racing, and none of this vomit inducing high school drama rejects on large sound stages with 6th grade CGI backgrounds thrown in. We live in the 2000s which means this is a Fast and Furious world, where everyone has a "crew", whether its a bunch of rich college kids on daddy's dime, some rednecks in their Ford "Git-r-Done! trying to be a tuner" Focuses or whatever else it may be, everyone has to have a crew, but not in a fucking video game! Give me a list of cars, a list of upgrades and make me race my car over and over to earn enough money to get those upgrades, thats all I want.

Project Outlet Wii: Update!

Although I often leave my Wii in a state of neglect, that doesn't mean it shouldn't look its best. For the past few months I've debated whether or not I should buy the missing doors for my system, or if they would just get in the way and become nothing more than a waste of money. This sent me on a grand internet goose chase!

The most popular answer seemed to be DX.com or PriceAngels, which I'm sure we're all familiar with the products they sell. I've bought quite a few things from them and were quite pleased with the quality and prices, but the reviews for their replacement Wii door sets left me unsure I even needed them at all. Most of the reviews said the doors fit but were either too stiff or too loose,and aren't as good as OEM doors but do the trick, which made me think I should just forego buying them and leave it be.

A few months passed by when I got the bright idea to check how much a new OEM set from Nintendo would be, so I went to their online store. After navigating to the Wii parts I saw a list of items they had for sale and how much each product cost, yet the doors I needed had no price on them. After clicking the link they gave me the price and option of color (forgetting they've made a red and black Wii as well as white), each part was only $1 each!

DX and PA only wanted $3.70 for their sets, with free shipping. Nintendo wants $1 per part, plus sales tax and a minimum of $2 shipping, so for $5.35 I could get an OEM set that I have greater faith in, or I could save some change and buy the parts that would problem end up broken or removed from the system anyway. Usually I'm an unashamed cheap bastard, but when it comes to OEM vs after market, I'll spring a little bit of spare change toward the OEM parts.

Hopefully they arrive in a timely manner, work as well as OEM parts should and make my Nintendo Wii look more presentable. I try my best to take care of every video game system I own, clean it thoroughly and keep it safe from harm, and my Nintendo Wii is not going to be excluded from that luxury. When I found it the face had been ripped off, and its still loose, but hopefully the replacement doors will restore a little more self worth into a system that really needed it when I found it.

How far is a tech-nerd, gamer willing to go?

Well I am willing to go pretty damn far, to be honest. The story starts with me at the outlet store today, digging through a random bin when I happen upon a broken Game Boy Color back. Shortly after I found the main board, with everything attached, and the front of the shell, which was in absolutely shit condition.

I spent a good 15 minutes, or more, hunting down the tiny little buttons, silicone pads and anything else I thought I would need to rebuild the system. I managed to find everything except the IR cover, which really isn't that big of a deal. Short of the IR cover, and the broken shell that I decided to leave behind, I found everything I would need to make a whole other GBC.

Lucky for my teal GBC, which I happened to purchase from the same outlet store a year ago, this one was the same color and still had the battery cover. The original battery cover for my teal GBC snapped at the clip part that goes into the system, for some unknown reason. I had been keeping an eye out for a battery door for it, sadly I only managed to find a atomic purple one, which was a place holder until today.

After getting everything home, I test fitted it in a spare lime shell that I have and found out there were two issues I had to overcome before having a fully functional GBC. Short of needing a brand new shell and all the screws that come with it, I need to replace the speaker, because this one just doesn't make much noise. Secondly, the power switch had snapped off, which seems to be a major issue, but I'm sure I'll figure out how to fix that.

I already own a handful of Nintendo Game Boy Colors, so when I pick a shell it will be the first one of that color I'll own. I'm hoping for something cool, custom and non OEM. I'll just have to see what I can find, and hopefully keep it updated here.

Guitar Micro Amp and Comparative Overview.

It was Friday, I was in the outlet store when I saw the knobs peaking out from under a large white mass. I moved over quickly to see what it was when I noticed it was a miniature guitar amp. Excited by my find I tossed it in the bag and kept on about my hunting.

After the first round I made the purchase and went outside to do some research. With very little information about these amps I went to Google Images and saw that this little amp had a twin speaker cabinet that it should sit atop. Normally if there is a part to a set of something or any given item is missing a piece, at the outlet store, its more than likely nowhere to be found, but luck was on my side!

Mere minutes before the bin I found the amp in was about to be pushed back to make way for fresh new "junk", I walk up and quickly found the speaker cabinet. The day carried on in a good way, as I found quite a few more things, but the excitement of finding this micro stack never left my mind. Sadly it would have to wait until I got it back home to give it a good and thorough testing.

Once I got it home I plugged it in and wasn't too surprised about the sound, shitty. Its a neat little discussion piece, but its not really all that fuctional, due in LARGE part to the cheap, flabby speakers they tossed into this thing. Original MSRP was $129.99 and probably sold at around $75 to $100 (?), if that were the case whoever bought one of these were seriously ripped off.

Fast forward to today, while doing research on other mini amps, when I came across the Orange Crush Micro. Orange is world renown for making high end (expensive as fuck) amps. Although I've never played one, let alone owned one, I do have to say I at least love all the orange!

But wait a second, that Orange Crush Micro looks suspiciously like the Lyon Amp3. Although they're not an exact copy I have to say the backs look very similar, the built-in tuner is the exact same and the battery door placement is quite similar as well; could these have came from the same factory? The Orange Crush Micro says "Made in PRC", obviously People's Republic of China, and the Lyon Amp3 simply says Made in China, this is getting interesting!

This gives me hope that the internal components are the exact same and with a few tweaks, and possibly a speaker upgrade, I could have a really sweet micro amp stack. Then again maybe I'm just jumping the gun here, the Orange Crush Micro and Lyon could be completely different inside, other than the obviously different face layout. Regardless they sure as hell don't hold the same prestige, or even sound close to one another.

The Lyon Amp3 isn't terrible, but I absolutely can not stand the synthesized farting that this speaker produces under mid-gain settings. This little amp may be able to produce pretty good tones, but until I can find a better alternative for the speakers its all farts from here. I did manage to get a pretty chimey clean out of it, but that was all guitar volume control.

Moving into the Wild World!

Back in March 2012 I found out I had been gone from my game of Animal Crossing for over 77 months. Sadly since then not much has changed, I've often found myself shutting the game off and forgetting about Mr. Resetti, oops! But I haven't really made much progress in the game and I've watched villagers come and villagers go.

With my, somewhat, recent acquisition of a working Nintendo DS Lite I wondered if they had any sequels for this system, in fact they do! Animal Crossing Wild World its called, but as with everything I want to own it was overpriced almost everywhere I went, so I sat the desire to buy this game on the sidelines and just kept on about my way. Until one day I was digging through a media bin at the outlet store, when lo and behold there it was, sitting under an NES game (Kung Fu).

I can see how the cartridge alone could easily be discarded with CDs and the lone NES game. Needless to say I snatched it up and got to stepping toward the registers to make my purchase. However much a Nintendo DS cartridge weighs, times .79 cents, so I got it super cheap.

A few weeks later I happened across the case, empty short of the outside insert but it was more than I had before, so I picked it up. Now all I'll need is to find the stupid warning stuffers they put in every DS game and a copy of the manual and I'll have a complete copy for around $1-2. But now that I've spent so much time explaining how it came into my collection, let me tell you how I feel about the game and how it differs from the Gamecube version.

With all sequels there will obviously be changes, some for the better and some for the worse, all depending on your selective point of view. What I originally thought were bad moves in Wild World, after time, turned into things I could live with. But there were still a few things I just simply couldn't grasp.

Firstly, and most frustratingly to myself, is the almost completely impossible to find digging spots. Now given there is a massive difference in screen size between the Gamecube and the DS, I still believe they could have done something to make digging spots a tad more easy to spot. After a while I can find them easier, yet I still find them unnecessarily hard to find.

Secondly is the weird way the world is as if it were a tiny Earth, an orb in space, as you freely walk from one end to the next as the horizon ever changes. Its a minor complaint, but its not as bad as fishing seems to be in this version, these fish have ADHD and couldn't care less than to starve to death, apparently. Again, over time I've learned where to cast and wait for the fish to, painfully, eventually turn around and chase down my baited hook.

But my biggest, and I would dare say almost game ruining, complaint comes with the main mechanic of the game, socialization. In the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing I felt as if I were building relationships with fellow villagers moving in and out of my town (named Hell). But in this version I simply can't make those connections feel genuine; I've had villagers move away and I had totally forgotten they even lived in my Wild World town (also named Hell).

In the Gamecube version I often went on tasks to return something borrowed or borrow something, etc. As where in Wild World, no matter how much I bore another villager with my constant desire to talk, the best I can get is a few lines of dialog before scuttling off because they seem irritated by me being around them. Isn't the whole idea to be social and help other villagers?

Regardless of my personal opinions I'm glad to have it, although I rarely play it just the same as the Gamecube version. I got it so damn cheap that it really isn't a bad piece to just add to the collection, but sadly it isn't nearly half as fun as I thought it would be. One thing that may save this game for me is the Wi-fi connectivity and visiting people throughout the (real) World, so here is my friend code: (3998-7521-3061)!

Weekend Outlet Pick ups!

Today I give you a quick overview of the things I've found at the outlet store this week. I went 3 days and this was an average visit where I didn't find anything mind blowing, yet I didn't walk away empty handed. Let us begin!

First up is a 1988 Nintendo Power backpack featuring both LINK and Mario depicted in a very cartoony way. Even as poorly it may look in this photo, it is much worse in the real world. Sure its in rough shape, but I'm glad I own it and that it even exists!

Next up is a 3rd party Sega Dreamcast controller. Nothing special, but since I was paying by the pound I couldn't let this thing get recycled. It is what it is.

I had been looking for a Nintendo E-Reader for years! I even asked friends in different states to check their local Gamestops to see if they could get one when they were still .99 cent, prior to them discontinuing carrying anything GBA. Nothing ever materialized, until this week!

About 2 weeks ago I picked up a pair of Sega Saturn games that were in a junk PS game case. Turns out I picked up a good copy of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and a scratched copy of Daytona USA that wouldn't play at all. Fast forward to this week, I now have a copy that works perfectly as well as 2 more games, to give my Sega Saturn a good old fashion workout!

Now we reach the items that aren't exactly great, but earn themselves an honorable mention. First are 3 hard cases; 2 of these cases are NES hard cases and the middle one is a multipurpose rental case, without the clear cover. Lastly there is a Famiclone gun that looks entirely too much like the real thing.