If you've ever paid a visit to my Backloggery, you know I've got an impressive backlog of games I've never gotten around to playing. You may not know that I also have a modestly impressive of music CDs that have never left the case.
You see, with a family member who worked a good long time in the radio industry, I occasionally received promotional albums from obscure artists as well as CDs with two or three versions of the latest song from [insert name of famous performer here]. A few of the CDs caught my eye and have since become a part of my listening repetoire, but there's a significant contingent of CDs that...well...haven't.
As I'm unpacking boxes at my new home, I am finding that I am not content to restock my CD racks with music I've never listened to--not once--over the course of the last fifteen years. Why put the discs on display when they'd see just as much (dis)use in the box? It was time to crack those suckers open.
Just as my traveling music library was getting to be a little tired and in need of rotation, I had this glorious idea to fill up a CD case with these unloved discs and systematically go through every one of them during all my car rides for the forseeable future. Judging from the cases, it looks like I've got gospel, generic rock, punky girl pop, Jamaican rap, electronic orchestral, bizarre adult alternative, and Janet Jackson ahead of me.
At the same time, I've added some of my long-neglected PC games on the same rack as the ones I play with any kind of frequency. One of my friends in high school got me bargain-bin software at virtually every gift-giving occasion, but I've never gotten more than twenty minutes into any of the games that I've opened; many more slumber in their packages. I've actually been intrigued by a few of them for several years, but there's always a Metroid or Monkey Island game to distract me.
It's not the fact that they're bargain-bin games--I can't tell you how many great games, CDs, and DVDs I've fished out of a bargain bin--it's the fact that I've never seen or heard any mention of them, ever. Same deal with the freebie music CDs I'm starting to listen to--I haven't the slightest clue of what's in store. Same reason I haven't really branched out into indie comics yet--unless Alex has mentioned something in a Waiting for Wednesday, I can only judge the book by its cover.
Plus, I still need to get him to lend me the rest of The Goon before I can borrow anything super-indie from him.
So here I am in a new place, listening to new music, and preparing to add new games to my play-list (as soon as I finish The Legend of Zelda: Link Rides a Choo-Choo Train and Then Gets Stuck on an Obtuse Puzzle in the Spirit Tower). It's a time of new beginnings, and this feels like the only chance I may have to tackle what I have left alone for so long.
4 comments:
I fished Shadow of the Colossus out of a bargain bin once upon a time, and that was an amazing game. Course, I wouldn't have known its value if not for a certain someone that was with me.
I think publicity is a much bigger deal in video games than gameplay.
Maybe it's just me, but I think people are more inclined to play a bad game they've heard plenty about than watch a bad movie they've heard plenty about. Likewise, I think people are more likely to watch some movie they've never heard of because the cover looks interesting than a video game of the same description.
Well, as Mega Man has taught us, never judge a video game by its cover. :D
I would personally love to work for a radio station someday. I love music, and enjoy encountering new artists and bands (or ones I've never heard before).
Well, watching old b movies has taught me that, although some of them are entertaining, they are almost never adequately represented by the box art (which is usually a lot more epic and/or sexy than the movie itself).
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