Surprised no one has started a March Finds post. Let's see...

Got 2 U2 LPs
N64 Game: Star Soldier
Mega CD Game: Cyborg 009
Another "left behind" hardback book

Two weeks without spending! A new record...
..until yesterday...

Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion GOTY Edition for PC

Checked the system requirements, video card and RAM
everything looks good
I hope it's worth the $25 that went into it.

BTW, can you play the game with a controller instead of a keyboard and mouse?

Blu-Ray movie:

Quarantine

Spring Break is here at last!

a Gamecube controller

four PS2 games

Bully
Devil May Cry 3-pack

for a number of reasons, i've decided to switch my ATI card out for an eVGA nvidia-based card

That means going from

Asus EAH 3650 512 MB DDR2

to

eVGA GeForce 9400 GT 1 GB DDR2

This should help with the Oblivion GOTY PC game i just got in the mail today by the way

$100.00 for the eVGA card (probably a mid 2008, but still pretty damn good)

Eternal Poison (ps2) another obscure jap rpg

Sega Mega CD:
Ususei Yatsura

This is a comic adventure from the "Lum" series, I believe from comics/manga and anime. 2-3 years ago, it use to go for like $80. I made an offer on a copy of $9 and surprisingly got it.

Yesterday, I found a linksys wireless-g w/speedbooster router for $3 - haven't tested it out yet, but I figure it was worth a chance.

Also got a huge oil painting from the goodwill thrift store. It was a bit pricey, but I liked it, and I've seen paintings and pictures there before, and they get snatched up pretty quickly.

Ordered two more hd-dvds today:

Letters from Iwo Jima, a great WWII movie based on a Japanese perspective of one of the battles to hold off allied forces. Lots of action and explosions, should be good for the ol' home theater system!

Land of the Dead, part of the "of the dead" zombie series

I honestly don't see how anyone puts up with the 'of the dead' so called series, I saw Dawn of the Dead in high school and got so bored to no end with it. The initial shock from the opening carnage scenes wore off in a matter of minutes. Then the next hour and a half was the same stupid kill-zombies-in-a-closed-shopping-mall-and-hope-you-have-ammo-left-after-they're-all-dead routine. I just couldn't get into those flicks.

The Shining, Exoricst, and TCM were pretty good though. Haven't seen them in a while, but they were good.

Now Iwo Jima sounds badass. Did they really make a view from the other side for American audiences? It's just hard to imagine it would do well, especially here.

Dawn of the Dead is considered by most people to be the worst of the "of the dead" series. To be honest though, most zombie movies are mindless. Look at the evil dead series. It was marketed as a comedy horror.

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As far as Letters from Iwo Jima go, the reason it was so popular is because Clint Eastwood directed it. Pretty much everything he directs turns to gold I think, but at the same time, Iwo Jima is still a good movie, IMO. I liked it a lot better than Flags of Our Fathers.

Iwo Jima was suppose to be a side story or accompaniment to flags of our fathers, although through two different studios: warner and paramount I believe. Both films were about the same battle, just flags used the viewpoint of America and Letters used the viewpoint from the Japanese.

Unfortunately, flags focuses more on politics and controversy, which may make it a slightly "sophisticated" film, but focusing on the flag controversy too much, to me, made the film about the flag and nothing about the battle of Iwo Jima. On the other hand, Letters was pretty much EVERYTHING about the battle of Iwo Jima and the mindset of the Japanese people when they knew reinforcements weren't coming to save them.

Well, I went ahead and pre-ordered The Day The Earth Stood Still on blu-ray, the 3-disc version, which includes the original 1951 version, one of the main reasons why I'm ordering it, and the new movie and a digital copy dvd of it. I ordered it from amazon instead of wal-mart this time, but I've had about as many problems from amazon as I've had from wal-mart, especially with pre-orders.

Amazon tries to trick people with their $24.99 deals, eligible for free shipping policy, but you have to have $25 or more to qualify. It's pretty hard to find cheap items on their site to qualify for free shipping. There were some reports of 1 or 2 cent books awhile back but they've seemed to have taken them out. There are a few $1 and $1.50 books, but I ended up just buying a $1.50 pack of bookmarks. Shipping is only like $3. So, I saved half of the shipping cost and get a pack of bookmarkers lol.

one word for online shopping

Target

target.com has been problem free for me. Shipping is more reasonable and less of an issue, at least for me. Why they aren't kicking the living daylights out of Wal Mart is anyone's guess.

When I was growing up, K-Mart was the top dog of the retail market, while pic 'n' save was the 2nd largest. After wal-mart started getting a foothold in the market, pic 'n' save closed most of its shops.

The problem I see in k-mart never making a big comeback is because of their inventory. I've always seen target as a clone of k-mart, and they have pretty much the same stuff.

I use to shop at picnsave all of the time, because they had everything. They were a grocery store, an electronics store, a food court, and a general store as well, with clothing and just about everything you could think of. My first atari 7800, Sega Genesis, and I believe Super Nintendo and Sega CD came from there. This is pretty much where my parents shopped for 90% of the electronics we had, including televisions. We now zip back to 2009, and (super) wal-mart has copied the whole all-in-one concept that pic'n'save had.

I'm in favor of anything that can compete against wal-mart, but being on a tight budget sometimes makes purchasing choices a tough decision. As far as grocery stores, I go to all of the grocery stores, but at least 60% of the groceries I buy are way cheaper at wal-mart.

As far as electronics and movies go, I could completely boycott purchasing electronics from them. Wal-mart's biggest competitor is bestbuy, most market analysts claim, but bestbuy's items aren't always "best buys" - a lot of times, they're 30% higher on stuff, if not more, and I've had the same problems with pre-ordering their stuff online as I've had with wal-mart and amazon.

Obviously, there are some items, like new release games and video game systems, which have a minimum and maximum price range companies can sell them for, which means that those certain items will all be around the same price no matter which store you go to, but I don't buy a lot of those types of things any more.

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As far as why target isn't "kicking the living daylights out of walmart", it needs to get out of the shadows of a bankrupt company (k-mart) and start expanding the products they carry. I know they carry jewelry, clothing, video games, and electronics, but they need to carry a wider ranger of everything in their stores, not just on-line. Every time I go in to a target store, I always feel like there's something missing. It feels empty...

K mart is not the store it used to be at all.

When I refer to the store Target, I assume everyone understands that to mean Super Target- Super Wal Mart's direct competitor. It is both a regular sized store and a super center that carries groceries and mini stores within it.

For those who have seen Super Target, you know for a fact that they do indeed carry a broad selection of products. While they have electronics and movies and music, their focus is to be an all around one stop shop- hence the competition. (Sam's and Costco are wholesalers in a different field, so you know they are not in the same category.)

I've shopped at them all for things besides games, and I prefer Super Target for better reasons than "it's not Wal Mart." Cheaper items, more selections (they've got it, man), acknowledgment from people, no crooks, better variety, clothing quality is roughly similar, and groceries don't expire the next day.

Just don't expect to find computer, home theater, and tech products by the plenty if you go there again.

That's the first time I've ever heard of a super target, although I do remember the BIG K, which was a BIG disappointment lol.

I'm surprised to hear that.

I've been going to them throughout the mid south for at least a decade. They're not new at all. Florida has got to have some too. Go online and find nearby locations. They do exist. And they do not disappoint.






As for finds, I finally found Romancing Saga on PS2 for $10.

With all these good games coming out and fewer bad ones being released, I'm taking a liking to PS2 a bit more than I have in the past, when they let out just about everything and you had to filter it all out. No longer the case.

I did a search, and apparently, there is one in jacksonville... You'd think the big Gainesville would have some of these stores like the super target and costco, but they don't.

I suppose that Gainesville, being more of a college town, just isn't considered the right place because these kids come here, go to school, and leave. They don't have families or usually stick around after school, to do a lot of the whole "grocery" thing.

Most of gainesville use to be rural, agricultural living, but apartment complexes, shopping centers, and hospitals have been going in places where people use to raise their livestock and tend to their crops. Even 15 years ago, you could find a good country living on the outskirts of Gainesville, but the city is moving in on everything. The whole city wreaks of gasoline, diesel fuel, and septic waste. They've had some huge septic spillages there over the last 5 or so years, even some really bad chemical spills. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people who are born there have 3 eyes and 11 toes.

Basically big cities that can afford to build big business are gonna have a Super Target. I've been to ones in Knoxville, Chattanooga, two in Huntsville, and the only one here in Tuscaloosa. Check out the ones you find and give us your take if you want.