Dag yo! So, it’s been close to a month and a half since I last posted and that was finishing off my little catch-up series. Well, I’m catching up once again and have close to 100 pictures already separating into 3 blogs including this one. I’m going to try to get these up in consecutive weeks and then all should be well. Some stuff may be a bit out of order, but picture arranging wise, it made the most sense. You have some quick fire hits of a 3DS, some minimal swag I’ve gotten the past couple of months, a few guides, some kickass awesome outdoor hockey game pictures, and more reasons why Cash Converters is the greatest store in the world. Enough with the chitchat, on with the show!



This is a Nintendo 3DS . . . many people have one already, not as many as Nintendo wanted, but it’s still awesome as hell. Moving on . . .



So, I was wandering through Best Buy one weekend, to see if there were any awesome deals I could take advantage of, and there was a lady there that was demoing the 3DS. After giving it a go, I was rewarded with a Nintendo 3DS Lanyard and some Nintendo 3DS Retractable Information Cards . . . sweet!



A little dated, but it’s a Gran Turismo 5 T-Shirt. You’ll see the version of the game I picked up in a couple blogs.



Is it just me, or are a lot of retailers using mini-standees to advertise games nowadays? Regardless, here I have a LittleBigPlanet 2 Mini-Standee of everyone’s favorite costume changing guy, Sackboy!



Just a couple of thick guides for a couple of awesome games like Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and a personal favorite in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds.



Here we have 3 more guides for your viewing pleasure. Stupid Prima is starting to print some of their guides in a smaller, spiral bound version, which for actually using the guide and keeping it open and the page you’re on is an awesome idea, but for storing on a shelf with pretty much any other guide, is a logistical nightmare! >_< Still, we have the guides for Kirby’s Epic Yarn (I still need to pick this up), Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, and the Collector’s Edition for Pokémon Black Version & Pokémon White Version. I was successful in managing to take a picture of the lenticular thing in action. Also, does anyone else think it’s weird how all the “official” names of the Pokémon games have “Version” at the end of them? o_O



On February 20th . . . I got to experience one hell of an event. The 2011 NHL Heritage Classic was held in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta. Even though I’m not a fan of the hometown Flames or the visiting Montreal Canadiens, how could you possibly say no to the chance to go to an outdoor hockey game? Unless you’re not Canadian of course . . . or if you’re CelicaCrazed and just cheers for the worst team in the world . . . =P




The first picture is from a stand they had to build to fit more people into the stadium for the game, which is where my tickets were. As you can see, there’s the ice surface they built, the giant screen on the far end to see highlights and such, and just people all around. It’s probably going to look pretty awful in the blog, but if you’re interested be sure to click the picture to see the full size version at the bottom of this blog, but this is a panoramic shot of McMahon Stadium, where the game was held. You can also see the stand of which I was located in on the far end of the stadium.



Here’s a picture of the players warming up and testing out the ice surface. They’re all wearing toques for a good reason, as it started okay, turned ball breakingly cold for the end of the first period until the start of the third, then everyone either became too numb from the cold, or it warmed up.



If you call yourself a Canadian, you better goddamn know who the hell these two guys are. For those of you who aren’t, these two broadcasters are Ron MacLean and Don Cherry. They are two of Canada’s most famous and well known television personalities, due to their extensive weekly hockey coverage, and just being all around awesome. Note how Don Cherry is being extra awesome and wearing a cowboy hat, which is one of the symbols of Calgary!



This was just a quick snap of the full house crowd at the stadium pretty much right before the game started.



He’s a great personality, but I hate the way he plays the game . . . BUT . . . this picture is included in my blog just for Maya (bushofghosts) . . . =P



Finally, this is a picture of yours truly with about 5 minutes left in the third period. As you can see, it’s pretty damn dark now and I have like 5 layers on, since it was cold as all goddamn hell! Just thought I’d also point out for Aurain or Ali D if they’re reading this, I’m wearing one HELL of an awesome scarf, eh mates? ^_^ The Red Devils kept my neck warm!



All the tickets to the game were like laminated in super hard coated plastic, so that they could be collector’s items and very durable. I thought they were very nicely made.



Since I wasn’t an overly big fan of either team (Go Avalanche! Hahaha!), I didn’t get any memorabilia, aside from this Heritage Classic Mug that held numerous liters of hot chocolate for me throughout the game. Also, every seat in the stadium had one of these Heritage Classic Cushions on them, so that people wouldn’t literally freeze their asses off on the seats and it provided a decent amount of comfort.



Back to games! So, I’ve already praised them like none other but they deserve it once again (especially for somehow getting a gem like this in), but the Cash Converters near where I live is the best goddamn store in the universe! Want more proof? Feast your eyes on the picture above, while I don’t like the game, I don’t see how I could’ve possibly passed up this Final Fantasy XI Original Soundtrack PREMIUM BOX. If you look closely, you can see that it’s all shiny and sparkles, and even if you can’t read moonspeak, you can see that there are 7 freakin’ CDs in this thing.




Look at how gorgeous that by Yoshitaka Amano is! As you can see, the CDs are housed in these oversized folders. The discs actually do not stay in their holders very well at all, but I don’t really care because of how pretty everything looks. The bottom one is the soundtrack for the first expansion pack, Rise of the Zilart.




Seriously, Amano-san’s art is some of the BEST around! Here are the next two soundtracks and the folders that contain them. These two are for the Chains of Promathia and Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansions.




So, this giant honking soundtrack was released before the Wings of the Goddess expansion was released, but luckily the 6th and 7th CDs were of Unreleased Tracks and a nice Piano Collections.



Not only that, to conclude this awesome premium box, a booklet that contained piano sheet music for the numerous tracks in the game was also included. Using my nifty Yen converter, when this box first came out in Japan, it was close to $150. I can tell you that I pay a very small fraction of that from my favorite store out there, so mad props to you guys! ^_^



Slowly but surely, I am gathering all the colors of Game Boy Pockets and Game Boy Colors that were released in North America. Here we have a Red Game Boy Pocket along with a Dandelion Game Boy Color.



Diamond Dave has got to be like the best employee/friend dude around! I seriously challenge any of you to find a more ballin’, nice, and all around awesome guy that works at a store you frequent that is cooler than this dude! While this picture only has Super Off Road, Shadowrun, and the SUPER ELUSIVE DOES THAT GAME REALLY EXIST? (at least in my books) Kirby’s Dream Land 3, the fact that my homie set them aside for me, along with some AWESOME doubles that will go into my relaunched Trading Thread (when I get around to it), just shows how awesome a guy can be! Many thanks once again dude! =)



Here we have a few systems covered, which are a NES Dragon Warrior II, a Wii Punch-Out!!, and an in box NES Mega Man 4. I miss NES artwork on games. I mean the entire Dragon Warrior series on NES had some pretty hardcore awesome fantasy artwork on them, while the Mega Man games usually had hilariously bad artwork that was so bad it ended up working out all right.



Here is another mixed console picture of games. We start off with Azure Dreams for the PlayStation, along with a PlayStation Underground Vol. 2 Issue 4 disc, which my buddy Zoel informs me that while it’s not worth that much, they’re actually kind of rare and collectible. We follow that up with a trio of Nintendo published games like Fossil Figthers (Pokémon clone) for the DS, a freakin’ in box and sensationally good condition Super Mario Land for Game Boy, and Personal Trainer: Cooking (it was cheap and had Club Nintendo points in it!) for the DS as well.



Hell yeah! You don’t want to know how many hours I spent on Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64, as it will probably disgust you! Now that I have a complete copy of the one on Game Boy Color though . . . that’s just so damn sweet . . . it makes me want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant! (Possibly reward [not sure yet, we’ll see responses, hahaha!] if someone knows where that quote is from). I actually gave it a quick go and it’s a pretty terrible game and nothing like the N64 version. My homies at Cash Converters also know I’m a pretty big Tegan and Sara fan, so they also put this DVD (It’s Not Fun. Don’t Do It!) in my Box ‘O Stuff, which simply delighted me! =3



Down to the last picture for this haul . . . *tear* . . . T_T Hahaha! We start off with a replacement copy of Double Dragon Advance that my fellow collector and very close friend possumwrangler got for me, since this was a sealed copy and he knows how much I freakin’ love Atlus games! Next we have . . . shut up . . . I blame my Asian gene for kicking in . . . <_< . . . >_> . . . Hamtaro: Ham Ham Heartbreak along with Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light from Cash Converters. Finally, we end with a World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Mousepad that I forgot to include in my Christmas-ish post, which I received from my homegirl Ashley.

Well, that does it for another edition of A Compulsive Collector’s Haul! Hopefully you enjoyed it. Be sure to tune in next week for some super awesome things I got from our very own MOMerator (Zodiac Eclipse) and a box of supremely awesome and DOMO things from fellow collector and partner in crime . . . mainly misdemeanors . . . ChillyBilly! Until next time, latez mates!