I myself wanted one of those remote controlled air planes. I thought that’s the coolest thing ever. Once I grew up and had the money, I never bought it.
One memory that kept popping up occasionally over the years is of my mother lending my neighbor my favorite matchbox car. By the time I’d gotten to him, he’d crushed it. I don’t think he meant anything by it, and I don’t have bad feelings to either one of them, I just know how much that sucked. I do remember that nobody gave a shit, and I never got it replaced.
Late last year I decided I was gonna get it back, so I’ve spent a few hours spread over some months when I was bored at my pc looking at matchbox size red Dodge Vipers from the 90s. Most had the wrong color, or extra decals, or the wrong wheels, etc. Eventually I found it, ordered a copy, and it got delivered about a month ago. I don’t play with it, but it sits on my desk at home as a sort of fidgeting toy.
I’m sure it says some bad shit about my psyche but to me it’s a nice reminder of a time when I was much happier. Maybe I should get some beyblades.
Hey just wanted to say I think it says good things about your psyche that you’re being kind to you.
Thank you
Your story is why I always donate my old matchbox cars and stuff that isn’t precious to me. It might bring maximum joy sitting on someone’s desk, rather than in a drawer I am ignoring.
I think this says some good shit about your psyche.
Thank you
Fuck yeah brother. I’m glad you God that perfect itch scratched. Also. Buy all the beyblades!
After years of my family saying I’m too difficult to buy gifts for, and me saying, “What the hell are you talking about? Just get me LEGO!”, one of my kids got the message and has been getting me LEGO sets for Christmas every year.
It might have started when I bought myself the Cinderella Castle set.
The only problem I have is I’m 53, not 13. Sitting hunched over a pile of LEGO bricks for hours leaves me in pain. I need to come up with a space where I can play without injuring myself.
A standing desk is magic. You’ll spend the day on your feet, playing with legos!
Perhaps a low table or an office chair without arm rests to get a closer to waist level
Good, you got the clue! Now you gotta be his new best friend and get him just that.
Actually, now I’m thinking I’ve forgotten how it’s supposed to work. I’ve been trying to sit in a chair and use a table.
Maybe I should be sitting on the floor.
Might need some help standing up again.
Sitting hunched over a pile of LEGO bricks for hours leaves me in pain. I
I have the same issue, so I recruit younger family members to do parts of my build while I get up and stretch.
But I give them very specific instructions what page to stop at and come get me, otherwise the whole build is done without me.
Always thought LEGO is just a perfect toy. Children like letting their imagination go wild, while adults enjoy assembling gorgeous dioramas with instructions to put on a shelf immediately making that shelf a 1000 times cooler. The only reason I’m not buying LEGO is that my rented apartment has no shelves and it would be a bitch to pack when I inevitably move somewhere else.
I do it all the time. Toys are super fun.
I wanted a Tyco RC car as a kid. My parents actually got it for me after waiting nearly a whole year for my birthday, and it was one of the most expensive birthday gifts I’d ever received.
Turns out it uses a proprietary battery that wasn’t even included in the package! We’d have to go out and buy that separately, which made the thing like 50% more expensive.
We couldn’t afford that so I agreed to return the RC car and pick something else.
I’ve decided to boycott them for life. Stupid Tyco for running my birthday with a stupid toy that doesn’t even include the battery.
The one toy I wanted more than anything as a kid was the Jurassic Park Compound.
I see them on Ebay going for $100-200, but that’s just for the building itself. It’d be pretty pointless to have a big fence with no dinosaurs in it, so I’d have to buy some dinos too. And I need action figures to sit in the watchtower and watch over the dinosaurs, you gotta have that.
And then the realities of adulthood set in: I wouldn’t enjoy this toy as much as I would have when I was a kid. Kid me would probably spend hours with this thing crafting big elaborate stories about wrangling dinosaurs and stuff like that. Nearly-40 me would set up the toys, make sure everyone’s in cool poses, and then it would probably sit on a shelf. I’m not really sure it’s worth it.
So while I’m sad I never got the toy as a kid, I think going back and buying it nowadays would be kind of an expensive hollow victory.
My Grant figure lost his glued on hat and he always had an ugly boxy cone bead underneath 😭All I wanted was a new hat.
Nearly-40 me would set up the toys, make sure everyone’s in cool poses, and then it would probably sit on a shelf. I’m not really sure it’s worth it.
I gave in, and made that shelf, and I was pleasantly surprised how much joy it brings me. Each time I glance over, a get a little dopamine hit. It feels right that I kept a promise I made to myself when I was little.
Edit: I don’t touch the shelf much, but I know that I could, and that makes me happy.
I never got that Gameboy I wanted, but that’s OK, I’m made up for it using emulators years later.
Emulators were a godsend as a kid. I was lucky and had a cousin who was way into that stuff and set me up with several burned cd’s with zsnes and tons of ROMS when I was around 12. I experienced so many more games than I would’ve otherwise!
People talk about needing the CRT filters and blah blah to have a realistic experience, heck. Sharp pixels, Save states and Fast forwarding through unskippable stuff have been part of the experience for me for 25 years! Fanmade romhacks and expansions (like for chrono trigger, which I would never have experienced without emulation) are awesome!
Also: Rewind is the coolest feature. Even better than save states, it’s like you can undo every stupid mistake without having to plan ahead. It would have blown my mind as a kid.
Yeah I’ll admit I keep rewind active and do use it, but I do start feeling a little cheat-ish-ness when I abuse that one lol.
Definitely has let me experience more games more fully though. So I think it’s a good functionality.
Maybe I should think of it as retro gaming on easy mode
Same here. Got one a Miyoo Mini+ and put a community OS on it and a curated set of ROMs. 10 year old me would love it!
But turns out as an adult I just don’t have much use for it. The down side of being much more in control of how I spend my own time lol
i finally got the gameboy and the screen was so dim it was unusable, and the batteries 4x AA lasted maybe an hour.
If you really want to play games on the classic devices, consider checking out IPS screen mods that add a backlight to most models of gameboy. I’ve also seen rechargeable USB-C battery packs mods people install
Game Boy collecting is still a decent idea, because they made a zillion of them, and they’re nearly indestructible. I would not recommend an original DMG because the contrast is honestly just terrible. I don’t know how we put up with it, even as kids. The Pocket solved all its problems (but takes AAAs), but there’s no reason to buy one because the Game Boy Color is just that, for more games, with a fat butt. Flash carts cost as much as two or three games and still get twelve hours on a pair of AAs.
Or you could get the second model of GBA SP, with the proper backlight instead of a frontlight, and it’ll run the full fifteen-year library of everything labeled “Game Boy” games. Those flash carts are even cheaper, somehow, and the SP had a rechargeable battery as standard.
In either case the key to sensible collecting is to take whatever’s available. The universal experience was to have a few games you really wanted (and hopefully really liked), and then an equal number of cartridges with no idea where they came from or why you’d want them. Usually overlapping with friends in weird ways. I bought a handful of games circa 2006 when they were dirt cheap, and one happened to be my roommate’s favorite game from a decade prior. Apparently Nemesis was an early export title for Gradius.
I wanted the micro machine van that opened as a town with the little mini cars.
i have that! come over and play mega man x with me and we can take turns with the micro town.
wait nvm its at (my daughters) grandmas house
Ooh I had that. Now my kids play with it. I hope you get one eventually. It’s still awesome!
I always wanted one of those little cars kids can drive. Nearly 30 and almost done saving up for my first car. I’m very excited!
Not exactly a toy.
Wanted the black toyota pick up from back to the future when i first watched the movie as a kid.
Ended up buying a version of it without remembering how much i wanted that truck as a kid.
When i saw it the first time after buying my truck i thought holy shit adult me bought child me his dream vehicle without realizing it
(It was not the exact same but might as well have been)
Check out that four by four!
Best. Toy. Ever. I am both proud and so very envious of you
Theres a new electric truck that is inspired by the same black truck. Not sure if it will ever reach production but man that would be wild to get one and make my dreams come true in a whole new but like the same way
I miss that truck
Meanwhile I went out and bought a hoverboard
Nah. a 2.5 meter aircraft carrier is not really any more practical today than it was in 1986.
Oh man that’s amazing!
rctestflight seemed to have some fun with it
That’s pretty cool, TBH. Not sure the GIJOE USS Flagg model was quite that seaworthy, LOL.
Have you considered a 3 meter aircraft carrier?
I wanted a Sega Genesis for Christmas one year but I already had a Super Nintendo that I played all the time and my parents didn’t want to pay for another console. When I was in highschool, a used game store opened in my town. Back then game collecting was a lot cheaper than it is now, so I was able to get a Genesis for like $30 and I enjoyed it.
I have the exact mirror story to yours.
The used SNES that I bought absolutely lived up to the hype, and beyond. Both those systems are fantastic, and I’m glad I took the effort to explore the games I didn’t have access to as a kid.
I had a Commodore 64 as a kid but we couldn’t afford the disk drive (it was as much as the computer). I had to settle for a cassette drive. About 15 years later, I was at a garage sale and saw a C64 with disk drive but no cords. I asked the seller if it still worked. He said “For a dollar, does it matter?”. Still have them.
And the disk drive was still slow as shit. I always wanted an Apple //e and we couldn’t afford it. Biggest mistake my parents ever made imo, if they’d’ve sprung for it I might have gotten into tech 10 years earlier and I’d be filthy rich rn.
Anyhow, I got one, with Duodisk drive and everything. I regret nothing.
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
Yeah that drive was $200+ if I recall correctly. I had to live with the tape drive for a year or so, was not fun. Then my mom bought me a Blue Chip drive because it wasn’t so expensive. It did not work well and she still wound up buying the 1541 drive. Thanks mom.
When the 3ds was relatively new, I saw one being sold at a garage sale for $20 bundled with Pokemon. Clearly just some old person who didn’t know its value. I wanted it so bad, but my dad said no. I didn’t have a game console until the Wii, and never had a handheld. I’ve always been a huge gamer, but I was basically forced onto PC lol.
I loved Transformers when I was a kid. My parents never worried about putting food on the table but we didn’t have a lot of disposable income, so I never had the Power Wheels or the Action Figures, or whatever when I was growing up.
One day in my late 30s I realized I could just buy Optimus Prime. So I did. He’s hanging out on a shelf in my office.
My girlfriend has an unopened original Optimus prime. I told her how fucking awesome that was, she gave it to me as a "dowry’. I fucking love that woman. Yes I’m going to marry her
Yeah, my parents didn’t have money for expensive toys either. I had a small transformer that I swapped off a kid at school for all my marbles (including the large steel bearing). It transformed from robot into tape cassette and I thought that was just cool as fuck.
True story. I was in a comic store and saw a statue of a character I loved as a kid. He wasn’t an action figure when I was young, so technically I’d never wanted it as a kid. Anyway, I saw it and wasn’t going to get it, but then I realized if I didn’t buy it I’d be kicking myself for years.
I brouhgt it and it sits on my shelf. I seldom think about it, but when I do I’m happy i have it.
What was the character? Don’t leave us hanging!
Bwah-ha-ha!! Suffer! Suffer!
