Tales from the Thrift Store vol. 10

I knew that I hadn't done a thrift store post in awhile, but I didn't realize that it had been over four months now since my last one... apparently time flies even when you're not having fun!

Normally I hit multiple thrift stores at least once a month, but in keeping with my lack of going anywhere that I don't have to for the last few months, I haven't been making the thrift store rounds. I think that the last time I went to one was in December, but that only yielded a pair of records and a video, which I didn't think (at the time) was enough to warrant a post.

During this drought of mine, I've also passed on multiple months worth of half-off Saturdays at the Goodwill - as much as I enjoy those sales, it's been hard to get up and want to go out when the temperature is in the twenties, or even it better, when that Saturday occurs during one of our many stretches of torrential downpours.

Now that the weather is starting to improve (allegedly), I decided a few weeks ago to target last weekends half-off sale as my return to the land of the thrifting, and for the first time in awhile... I actually did something that I said I was going to do!

Nostalgia is a helluva drug! Case in point... Asteroid! I wonder if anyone else reading this happened to watch Asteroid during it's original NBC airing back in 1997? If you did, then you probably already know that it is not a good movie, but that's okay, because I have such an affinity for older television movies (or as they were commonly referred to, "events"), that I'll pretty much grab any on DVD or VHS that I happen upon - although finding something that's from the 70's or 80's would be more ideal (television movies were far better during those two decades), but hey, I'll take films that were produced in the 90's as well, at least I remember watching most of those.

Side note: It's already been over twenty years since this film first aired on television!?!?!?

Not only have I not seen Moon 44, but I hadn't even heard of it before... that's something that doesn't happen very much anymore!

Gore on the ocean floor! I'm not entirely sure, but I think that the first time I saw this film was via a heavily edited version for television - it's probably trivial to some, but I sure wish I could remember when that was, and on what channel I watched it on (things like that are important to me).

Of the first four tapes that I've shown, this is the only that could actually be considered to be "good". I'm a big fan of films that feature shady government agencies and cover-ups. Although not the main character, Sam Waterston is so great in this, oh, and even though it's a relatively small role for him, Telly Savalas steals the show once he arrives.

Because of all of the people, and their noise, I don't usually spend very much time at these Saturday sales. I basically get in, try to find a few things, and if I do find a few things, make sure that what is supposed to be in the box/case is actually in the box/case, and get out. As such, I will sometimes not notice certain things until I get home, for example...

... those first four tapes were part of a box set! This side of the set wasn't the side that was showing on the shelves, and the tapes were spread throughout both sides of the video rack, so it was fairly easy not to notice this. After some checking, I found that Millennium is the missing tape. I already own it on video and DVD, but now I feel compelled to keep an eye out for the copy that goes to this set, probably an OCD thing?

This is the second film of the Angel series, I've only ever seen the first two, so it would've been nice to have found the third or fourth movie, but I'm still thankful to have found this. For the record, this is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, the blending of humor and serious didn't really work out too well, that being said, I still enjoy it, especially Susan Tyrell's turn as the foul-mouthed Solly.

Back when I still had cable through Comcast, I used to love watching the free movies that were available on demand, or at least the ones that I deemed as "good". At some point, White Noise was added to the list of free movies, and even though it's supposedly quite flawed, I like Michael Keaton (a lot), so I decided to give it a go. About ten minutes in though, it froze, and even after sending Comcast an email about it, the glitch, or whatever it was, never did get fixed. It was eventually replaced by something else, and I never did get to see the rest of it, so for a buck, you better believe that I'm not gonna pass up the chance to finally finish the film.

About ten years ago I bought a super cheap PS2, not necessarily because I was interested in owning a PS2 mind you, it was more of an insurance policy in case my PS1 ever crapped out. You see, I have been hearing people say, for what seems like decades now, that the hardware on the original Playstation's will eventually stop working, what with it being a CD based gaming system and all. So when I had the opportunity to get a PS2 for $20, I figured I might as well go for it, at least I'd still be able to play my PS1 games should anything ever happen to the system - funny thing is, my PS1, that I've owned for twenty plus years now, and have logged more hours than I'd like to admit on, still works just as good as the day it came out of the box.

With that being said, do I regret buying my PS2? No, not really. It was a pretty solid deal at the time, $20 got me the console with two controls, a memory card, and ten games. Four of those games got traded in, and I've probably only bought 10-15 games in the decade since it's purchase. I don't know why exactly, but seeking out PS2 games just hasn't ever been that high of a priority for me, so on the rare occasion that I do decide to look at games, it's not hard to find one that I don't have, there's also a good chance that I won't be too familiar with most of the games that I come across either - Onimusha 2 being one of those, hadn't heard of it, but it looks fun, and for $2 it's worth taking a chance on.

Hey, I've heard of this one! Although it would've been pretty hard not to, what with it being one of the more popular franchises over the couple of decades. Now the question is, will I play it and understand what all of the hype was about? Or will I play it and be left to wonder what the big deal was?

After taking a break from these sales for a couple of months, it was nice to get back out there and find a bunch of crap and not have to pay very much for it. After all was said and done, I ended up with one DVD, two PS2 games, and five videos, all for just a little over $6.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.