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October 9th, 2015 – 5:57pm – CHIBI-ROBO Motherfucker!!!

Seriously, this one is gonna go down in the annuls of gaming history as one of the “Bastard Amiibo.”

But fuck it, Target only had 2 bundles, and my kid was proud to be late to school on account of having to track down the latest Amiibo.

October 4th, 2015 – 8:21am – Sometimes being a little older pays off…

“I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody.”

“I hear you’re buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real.  You want to make a Yaz record.”

“I hear that you and your band sold your guitars and bought turntables.”

“I hear that you and your band sold your turntables and bought guitars.”

“I hear that everybody you know is more relevant than everybody I know.”

October 2nd, 2015 – 2:19am – Anyone in need of Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards…?

Ok, I hate to shamelessly self promote here, but I figured it was worth a shot…plus I’m not technically doing it in any sort of official capacity…

Anyway I’ve been going nuts trying to gather up all 100 Series 1 Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards.  As of writing this, I have 84 of them…which has left me with A LOT of extras.  And unlike a collectible card game, I have basically zero use for these extras, so I’m doing what I can to sell them.  However, I’d also be willing to trade for any that I don’t already have, as getting cards I don’t have becomes more and more difficult.

If you’re interested in trading, get a hold of me.  I might have more than 84 by then so I hesitate to list what I’m missing right here.  Just shoot me a line and tell me you’re interested and we can go from there.

On the other hand, if you’re interested in just straight up buying some from me, head over to eBay and look up my username – “complications”.  You’ll see that I’ve got lots and lots and lots up for sale and that I’ve got “Best Offer” open on all of them.  I’d be more than willing to cut my fellow Baconeers as much of a deal as possible.  Make me an offer, and be sure to send along the message “NB1015AC” with it so I know you’ve read this and that way I’ll know to cut you some slack…or you can just tell me who you are, haha.  So yeah, head over to eBay, build up your AC card collection, get a good deal, and help out a fellow Baconeer all at the same time!

September 25th, 2015 – 1:13pm – More Amiibo Awesomeness

It’s that time again: a chronicle of my latest Amiibo acquisitions!  Scheduled to drop today was the Retro 3 Pack, a set that includes R.O.B., Mr. Game & Watch, and Duck Hunt.  Also available are the Animal Crossing cards that have been alluded to for almost a year.  So…

I made sure I was up by 7am, in the car by 7:25, and pulling up to Target by 7:30.  It’s been raining all day and most of last night, so I wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t a line…that and during the last release (on the 11th) I was the 3rd of only 4 people who lined up prior to the doors opening.  Undeterred, I parked close by to where I had a full view of the door and could make my way out of the car at a moment’s notice.  About 10 ’til, I saw a woman waiting in front of the doors.  She didn’t really look like the kind of individual you’d expect to be after Amiibo, but hey, I wasn’t taking any chances.

Finally the doors unlocked.  To my surprise, the woman did not make a beeline to the electronics counter, preferring instead to mosey towards the carts and wander off.  As I shuffled over to the coveted area much like a wet dog, it was like standing in a ghost town.  No friendly faces behind the counter.  No dolly full of boxes.  No retractable barrier to keep us in check.  Just the steady sounds of the existing Amiibo and Skylanders displays repeating over and over…..

What the hell?

I hung around for a few minutes waiting for any kind of crowd that might’ve decided to show up right at 8.  At about 8:07, I realized that, for today at least, this was not happening.

In a panic I rushed home and went to Nintendo’s official Amiibo site.  In the past they’ve done a great job of denoting exclusives, though I did find myself in some trouble back on the 11th when a lady in line mentioned that Bowser Jr. was a Toys R Us exclusive.  Thanks for not mentioning that beforehand, Nintendo.  Anyway, the official site wasn’t much help.  In fact, it was no help.  Well now I was in a real shitstorm.  Potentially valuable minutes were slipping away and I had to find out what was up fast.

It turns out that a simple Google search served me well – the results were instantly full of GameStop pre-order news (including a link that mentioned Nintendo’s vast overestimation of just how many pre-orders GameStop would be filling (but that’s good news for those of us who weren’t able to jump online during that 5 minute window to pre-order!)).  All hope was not yet lost; it was only about 8:15 and GameStop didn’t open until 10am.  I waited – anxiously – and gathered up some difficult Pokemon on Alpha Sapphire.  When 9:19am hit, I got my stuff together and set out.  I whipped into the GameStop parking lot right at 9:30 and there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

Luckily there was more of an overhead structure at the strip mall that GameStop was in, so I didn’t get nearly as wet as the 10 minutes I spent in front of Target.  New 3DS in hand, I patiently plowed through the likes of Cobalion, Mespirit, and Heatran, and successfully added them to my collection.  The only activity for the first 15 minutes were the comings and goings of odd looking folks at the neighboring Verizon store.  No other soul in sight, I decided to run back to the car and grab my cigarettes.  Normally I wouldn’t smoke in a line, but I don’t think standing there by myself really qualified as a line.

In the 40 seconds it took me to sprint to the car, open the door, grab my pack and lighter, and close the door, I spotted another determined-looking individual striding unnervingly close to GameStop.  I’m really glad I left my half-drunk Wild Cherry Pepsi conspicuously planted on the concrete while I went to the car.  It made it easier for me to quietly resume my place at the front of the line as we both reached the general area of the entrance simultaneously.

I said I don’t normally smoke in lines, but I didn’t really figure that 2 guys standing out there constituted a line either.  So I lit up, comforted by the fact that once I was finished with this cigarette, the doors would be unlocked in less than 5 minutes.  At about 9:55, things got interesting.  Another guy came up from the other direction; I was scared he was going to mill around in front of me and try to be first, but luckily he got behind the other guy.  Then one of the government-looking Suburbans quickly shot up to the curb and stopped with a jolt as a grown man leapt from the passenger seat.  I actually think I recognized this guy from some previous “Amiibo waits.”  Just as the Suburban lurches away, I notice that the rather insistent roar of country music emanating from a nearby parking space has ceased, and an older gentleman who looked like he was on the verge of positively melting lumbered across the asphalt to join the line.

From there I’m not really sure what happened.  The doors opened, and I shot right up to the register.  Fearing for their place in line, everyone just sort of halted behind me, so the poor girl had to spend a minute corralling everyone to line up towards the back of the store.

Then the fateful moment….

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I’d like to get one of those 3-packs if I can…,” I replied, in a bundle of that particular brand of anxiety that only rampant consumerism can generate.

“Did you pre-order it?”

Her words cut into me like an icy spear.

“No, that’s why I was hanging around outside for so long.”  The words tumble out nervously.  Somehow the line has now doubled in size, and I can feel everyone’s eyes burning into me, waiting for their own shot at the prize.

(Seriously, if you’d already pre-ordered it, why the hell would you bother with waiting for the store to open and dredging through that line!?)

“Oh…ok…I’ll have to see if we have any extras,” she shakily intoned.

“Alright, cool.”  I’m totally doing some approximation of the pee-pee dance at this point.  She walks over to the 2 or 3 rows of neatly arranged Retro 3 Packs sitting on the counter behind her and casually scans one.

“Yep!  I’ve got a few extras.”  The words leap from her like a rainbow through the blackest cloud.

At first I’d resigned to use this space to describe how excited I was to hear those words.  Naturally a large part of me expected to acquire it or I wouldn’t have been there in the first place, but there’s always a nasty “what-if” scenario or two lurking about.  There’s the simple elation and satisfaction one gets when hard work and preparation pay off; there’s the haughty superiority one feels over all those saps behind you in line, followed by an empathetic pity for those that didn’t get what they came for; it’s a rollercoaster of unique yet meaningless emotions that only stuff can evoke.

As the clerk fiddled with the card reader to accept the first transaction of the day, I quite suddenly remembered the Animal Crossing cards, which I’d all but forgotten in the midst of this tumultuous affair.  “Oh oh what about the cards,” I bleated inarticulately.  I was met with a puzzled look followed by a moment of certainty.  She stepped to the left a little and I saw what she was reaching for: a box set out on the counter; a box in which another assumed Amiibo aficianado had thoroughly crammed his hand into.  She inquired how many packs I wanted, and having not thought much about the cards for the last couple of hours, I’m positive that I appeared utterly clueless.  As I rapidly struggled to blurt out a meaningful number, I suppose she sensed that having the cards so far down from the point-of-sale wasn’t going to work.  Almost forcefully she pulled away from “Mr. Grabby” and brought it over to where I was standing.

Part of me wanted to buy an entire box of cards, though by now a large chunk was missing, and the cashier did nothing to indicate that there was another box to rifle through.  Settling on “five” as a solid number, I failed to do the math quickly enough to realize that I’d just tacked $30 onto my bill.  Oh well.  No use in reneging now.  The line was still growing and people were growing ever more anxious for their shot at (I assume) snatching up an extra.  As I looked at the almost empty box, I realized that only a pack or two of cards remained, which would mean that the box held about 12 packs – seems reasonable enough.  However, it seems silly for GameStop to only have 12 packs on hand, yet during my brief encounter either the cashier had no more to sell or was simply eager to start knocking out that line.

She then asked if I’d already bought the new Animal Crossing game, to which I responded that today was about gathering up the Amiibo (yes, those cards are technically Amiibo) and that I’d worry about the game another time.  Then the receipt wouldn’t print, and in my attempt at normalcy I tried to crack a joke to the tune of not worrying about giving me a receipt as long as she hadn’t tacked on a bunch of zeros to it.  I guess she thought I was being an absolute dick; I was met with a swift, “yeah, but it’s gonna be a real problem for me if I can’t print receipts!”  Me Me Me.  How the hell was I supposed to know that there was some sort of systemic receipt-printing error?  Oh well, that’s what I get for trying my hand at being “amicable.”  Or maybe she was the one afflicted with stunted social skills.

Regardless, she fiddled around with another register, growing more and more panicked by the second as she was forced to herd the expanding line to accommodate the point-of-sale shift, but oh well.  It was 10:07.  I had what I came for.  I thanked her for her help and, with a spring in my step and resolute absolution, left.

So today was a pretty good day for Amiibo and I.  The Retro Pack is a fine addition and I’m happy to see that they’ve almost wrapped up the Super Smash Bros. series!  October is up next with Chibi Robot and the Woolly Yoshis, so I’m sure I’ll  have another story before too long!

Pictures coming soon: Retro 3 Pack, AC cards, and Starter Sets for Skylanders: Superchargers for both Wii U and 3DS which include the Skylander/Amiibo hybrids!

September 11th, 2015 – 4:16pm – Spoils of War

Alright, this was a lot less of a war than last time, and even if I hadn’t already been 2 Amiibo ahead, I would’ve been able to snag them just the same which is great.

I hit Target at 7:30, waited in line behind 2 people for 30 minutes, and picked up 30th Anniversary Mario – Classic Color, Olimar, and the Dr. Mario (Target exclusive).

Then about 9:30 I set out for the Toys R Us in Durham.  It’s a long drive, plus I screwed up with on/off ramps on the way costing me a lengthy turnaround, but when I got there at about 10:30 they had plenty of Bowser Jr.’s to spare, no line, no wait.  Got him!

For the record, it looks like the 30th Anniversary Mario and Zero Suit Samus are the rare ones – the Target I was at only had 4 of each!

Then on my way back into town I stopped by GameStop for my copy of Super Mario Maker!  Then I had to pick up some groceries from the Walmart next door where I confirmed that the 30th Anniversary Mario – Modern Color is available only in the new Wii U bundle with Super Mario Maker.  Oh well.  I’m not dropping $300 on that just to end up with a system I already have.  Hopefully Nintendo will make this available on its own soon.

September 11th, 2015 – 9:18am – 3 Down, 2-ish to Go…

Target trip was a SUCCESS, mostly.  Grabbed Dr. Mario, Olimar, and the 30th Anniversary Mario – Classic Color.  I only need two more, one of course is the other 30th Anniversary Mario with Modern Color.  Still fuzzy on how this is being released, but it looks like it may only be available in a bundle with the Wii U and Mario Maker, for now at least.  Grr.  Anyway, that only leaves Bowser Jr., and I’m about 5 minutes away from heading out to a distant Toys R Us to get him.

For anyone interested, Target had TONS of Dr. Marios.  Not sure about Olimar and Ganondorf, but supplies of Zero Suit Samus and 30th Mario were scarce;  they only had 4 of each.  Hopefully Toys R Us will have lots of Bowser Jrs like Target does with Dr. Mario.  We’ll find out soon enough.

And after that, it’s off to GameStop to pick up Mario Maker!

September 10th, 2015 – 11:33pm – Amiibo Imminent!

Ok, we’ve got about 8 hours left, and then I’m off to Target to snatch up these Amiibo!  Thanks to an extremely awesome Doc, I’ve already got Ganondorf and Zero Suit Samus under my belt.  All I need to grab is Bowser Jr., Dr. Mario, and Olimar….and those 2 30th Anniversary Marios.  One of them should be available individually, but the other is supposed to be packaged with a deluxe version of Mario Maker….however, no one seems to know what this magic deluxe edition is, and the closest thing GameStop could tell me was a special edition Wii U that was coming out, boxed with both Mario Maker and an exclusive Amiibo.  Will my collection be incomplete once again!?  We won’t know for a few more hours.

And then more craziness will ensue: more Amiibo dropping on the 25th, then October 9th, then the 16th, then November 1st, then 13th, then 20th…..all of these little bits and pieces dropping before the giant Animal Crossing wave.  Damn Amiibo!

September 3rd, 2015 – 1:24pm – More and More Amiibo

I know I’m probably a little late on getting the Amiibo Release Info updated, but it  is updated nonetheless….and oh my god…these next few months are going to be crazy with all the random releases.  Two drops in September, 2 in October, 3 in November, and then all the AC guys presumably in December…agh!

August 26th, 2015 – 7:10pm – Mexeroni

I wish someone would come up with a Mexican version of the pepperoni.  I like “Mexeroni” but that sounds a little too much like a corny version of “macaroni.”  But Mexican pepperoni definitely needs to happen.

August 3rd, 2015 – 1:01pm – Sequels: The Sequel

Alright, I really gotta get on this instead of being lazy and playing MKX for 17 hours a day.  Do I have any ideas?  Hell no.  This is gonna be a process….

• First I have to take stock of what I have….yeah right.  My room looks like a tornado swept through a house on Hoarders and dropped it off in Nagasaki just before Fat Man was dropped.
• Even then I have to figure out how much of it has already been reviewed.  Metal Slug 2?  Did it.  New SMB 2? Done.  Super Mario Land 2?  Been there.  TMNT 2?  Castlevania 2?  Mirror of Fate?  Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon?  Forza Horizon 2?  Kirby’s Dream Land 2?  Metroid 2? Did it, done it, yep, you bet, uh huh, that’s right, and no doubt.
• And then, even if I were to magically narrow my selection down to what hadn’t already been reviewed, I’ve gotta decide what I’m realistically going to sit down and play.  I mean I like to believe that all games have an equal chance of being played, but that’s just not realistic.  Not all of the time anyway.

But Legendary Axe II looks fun, I just wish I could cheat on the TG16.  I do have a few other fun choices, like the second Kid Icarus (which I can’t seem to locate…grrr).  Of course I do have a few staples I could turn to: Halo 2, Guitar Hero 2, SMB 2, and even Mortal Kombat II!

August 2nd, 2015 – 2:52pm – Sequels and X-Rays

Ugh…been experimenting with the X-Rays in MKX until I feel like my eyes are gonna pop out.  No luck.  None.  Not even some freak occurrence that I can’t replicate.  Bleh.  I’m beginning to think that they’ve all been uncovered, but I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who first discovered some super secret in a game.  I remember back when MK Armageddon came out there was some kind of weird area to put a code in the Krypt somewhere.  This was back when just the PS2 and Xbox versions were hot off the press, and there was a big group of us who were convinced that there was something like KHAMELEON buried under there.  I remember we were going through numbers day and night, assigning them by the thousands, trying to figure out what the hell was behind that panel.

It never turned out to be anything all that interesting, just a shortcut to unlocking stuff that most anyone would unlock during the course of completing the game’s 1-player Konquest Mode.

I know that uncovering a new finisher wouldn’t be as huge as a character, but it would be awesome….

In other (non) news, I’m excited about the 2 year anniversary, as well as our first and only limited edition badge.  I’ll have to make sure to earn one myself!  I’ve got plenty of games of course, I just need to make sure I actually play and review them.  Maybe Legendary Axe II for the TG16 would be a good start?

July 30th, 2015 – 5:55am – Tablets: Is This as Good as It Gets?

The world of tablets and mobile touchscreen devices has thrown me another curveball.  I wasn’t ever really interested in these devices until maybe 3 or 4 years ago.  I wanted a simple MP3 player and ended up with an iPod Touch (4th Gen).  It turns out that Apple products don’t allow me to just drag and drop my (possibly FREE) files onto the device and I later ended up with a very simple $40 MP3 player that’s damn near compatible with anything, but it was awesome in so many other ways.  I could finally get in the loop when it came to all those little touchscreen time wasters that continually peaked and troughed in popular culture.

The iPod Touch did its job faithfully for a couple of years, but pretty soon it became apparent that new stuff wasn’t going to work.  And not long after that I flat out ran out of memory.

In search of something new (hey, I gotta keep up with the gaming world, and that means having access to the fads that ebb and flow across these devices), I picked up a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 after a long and somewhat confusing conversation with a GameStop employee.  (In hindsight, this may not have been the best person to talk to, but I figured it was better than some burnt out Wal-mart employee or a salesman at Best Buy obsessed with selling me something in the price bracket above what I’m aiming for.)  I settled on an Android-powered device the second time around because it was easy to see that I’d get about twice the memory and processing power for half the price.  I didn’t know this at the time, but I’d later come to find out that Android itself is a more versatile platform, which ultimately allowed me to experience an old phone-based game from before the days of touchscreens via a J2ME emulator.

For a few minutes, I couldn’t be happier.  I loved the bigger screen.  Then I found out that a couple of those same apps still didn’t work (imagine playing Angry Birds Go! at 3 frames per second).  It turned out that the Galaxy Tab 3 really didn’t have the significant boost in processing power that I was hoping for.  It also turned out that what the GameStop employee either didn’t know – or didn’t tell me – was that the Tab 3 was firmly on its way out.  Sure, I was looking for something cost effective and I wasn’t too interested in getting the best device out there, but I never would’ve settled for something substandard to save a few bucks.  The point, after all, is/was to keep up with the times and this rapidly evolving subset of gaming.

Nonetheless, I sucked it up and tried to make the most of my new device.  It did have some perks.  It had more memory, supported a Bluetooth keyboard, and I could conceivably browse the web which had been almost impossible on my 3″ iPod Touch.  The real woes started when the battery died for the first time.  Unfortunately if you Tab 3 runs out of battery power while the unit is turned on, you have to manually disconnect and reconnect the battery to get it to turn back on.  With no obvious screws, clips, or tabs on the device, getting inside of it is not easy.  You have to find something sturdy enough to press between the seam of the screen and outer shell yet not so hard that you damage everything in its path.  Then you have to work this “tool” around the entire outer shell, pushing downward and inward to disengage a dozen or so “clips.”  Luckily I found out that a guitar pick worked perfectly, and I actually wrote a DIY article about this very procedure here on the site.

However, doing this from time to time got really frustrating.  Worst of all, the unit won’t turn on when the cover is removed, so you’ve got to remove the cover, disconnect/reconnect the battery, put the cover back on (and if even a single one of those clips isn’t securely fastened, it won’t turn on), then plug it in and hope for the best.  I put up with this for about a year and then decided to go out there and try again.  Third time’s a charm…right?

This time I went to Best Buy, resolving to not let myself get talked into the next model up.  I started at the Galaxy Tab 4s.  As I about to pull the trigger, the fellow helping me out was nice enough to point out that the Tab 4s themselves were beginning to be supplanted by another tablet – the Tab A.  The price difference was fairly negligible, and the guy said that the Tab A had a little more power than the the Tab 4, but that it also had a slightly lower resolution that I’d probably never notice.

I bought it.

At first, I was in tablet heaven.  It took me back to those days of first discovering my iPod Touch, only this time I had a better idea of what I was looking for.  And let’s be honest.  I don’t need a tablet for business or socializing or general internet usage.  I have a computer for computing and a TV for TV (and movies); what I want a tablet for is to experience those things that can only be experienced on a tablet.  In short, I had an awesome time with the device.  I was able to pick it up and put it down like handheld device (not constantly monitoring the damn battery level) and it did everything I wanted it to……until this morning.

Suddenly it lit up.  So I reached over to see what had updated.  Then it uncontrollably began to flash back and forth between the home screen and the search screen like it was possessed.  Once that quit, it went back to the boot screen where it just says “Samsung Galaxy Tab A.”  Then it would go dark.  Then it would flash “Samsung Galaxy Tab A.”  Then dark.  Then “Samsung Galaxy Tab A.”  Over and over.  It responded to nothing.  I was hoping the battery would die, but after 2 hours (it actually has a very respectable battery life), I got antsy.  I decided unplugging the battery would be sufficient.

Well the Tab A isn’t exactly made like the Tab 3 so it took some ingenuity to get inside.  Using the memory card slot, I was able to finagle the guitar pick in the seam well enough to slide around the edges (eventually) and disengage those damn clips.  What’dya know?  It stayed on!  Luckily the inside wasn’t that much different than the Tab 3, so I knew what to do.  Unluckily, it didn’t do a damn thing to help the situation.  After disconnecting and then reconnecting the battery, it started up with that same flashing shit again.  Shit.

Then I turned to Samsung’s Support Center online.  I tried to fill out a service request but it kept asking me for model numbers and sub-model numbers and type designations and all sorts of shit that I couldn’t find.  In a nutshell it culminated in a message telling me my serial number was invalid.  Sigh.  So then I turned to the online chat support.  I also left out the detail about having removed the back, and although I was pretty sure they wouldn’t tell me to take it off, I kept it off anyway.

First order of business: hold down the Power button for 60 seconds.  Well that didn’t work.  Next?  I had to bring up the boot/recovery menu (a novel feature I didn’t know about) by holding Power, Home, and the Up Volume buttons.  Cool!  A very rudimentary menu popped up where I could reboot the device, but still, flashing shit.  The support agent then told me what we were about to do would wipe all user data off the tablet…great, there goes all that hard work that my son and I had put into the games.  I’d gotten sort of used to this in a way; none of the iPod Touch stuff was transferable to the Tab 3 (of course) and although the Tab A was able to recover all the apps from the Tab 3, it didn’t drag any of the saved data along (seems kind of pointless, doesn’t it?), so without too much hesitation I agreed.  Back to the recovery menu, and this time we were choosing the – dun dun dun…  – FACTORY RESET/MEMORY WIPE.  So there.  Done.

Flashing shit.  So after that, the representative emailed me a shipping label.  Just as we were finishing up, it looked like the tablet was booting.  But as I tried to confirm the time, it went back to flashing shit.  And then after 30 seconds or so it booted again.  This time I got as far as accepting data usage and privacy agreements…..and more flashing shit.  I finished up with the technician….and then it booted again.  This time I got all the way through the setup process and even managed to stay alive for a couple of hours while it re-downloaded all of my previous apps (sans the fucking save data).

That was a few hours ago and so far, so good.  I’m left wondering is the reset what fixed this?  And if so, why did it take so many tries for it to come back to life?  Does this mean if I’d just waited out that stupid flashing shit long enough it would’ve come back to life on its own?  (And not vaporized my hard work?)  Who knows.  Either way, I’m terrified that it’s just going to happen again….luckily all my Mobile MKX data was backed up online, so a quick username and password revived my hard work, but oodles of progress in games like Angry Birds Go!, Angry Birds Epic, Flow Free, Rayman Jungle Run, and Rayman Fiesta are completely gone (especially the latter 2, which I’d already redone once for the Tab 3 to Tab A transition).

So what the hell is the answer?  Is there a tablet out there with performance and stability?  Sure there are warranties and support centers to make sure that the investment isn’t a total wash, but losing data can even more disheartening.  Solutions?  Comment.  NOW!  Please?

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