Junkie's Blues Gets The Power-Up.

I still can't decide if Best Buy is trying to kill me, or trying to save me. Today (and maybe today only?) they're having an absolutely absurd clearance sale of their videogames with items like:

1.99 PS2 187 Ride or Die
1.99 PS2 American Idol
1.99 PS2 ATV Offroad Fury 2
1.99 PS2 Bad boys Miami takedown
1.99 PS2 Beat down: Fists of vengeance
1.99 PS2 Beyond Good and Evil
1.99 PS2 Big Motha Truckers 2
1.99 PS2 Brothers in Arms
1.99 PS2 Champions of Norrath Realm
1.99 PS2 Conflict vietnam
1.99 PS2 Constantine
1.99 PS2 Frontmission4
1.99 PS2 Gauntlet the Seven Sorrows
1.99 PS2 GTA 3
1.99 PS2 GTA San Andreas
1.99 PS2 GTA Vice City
1.99 PS2 Jak 3
1.99 Ps2 Killzone
1.99 PS2 Legacy of Kain Defiance
1.99 PS2 Onimusha 2
1.99 PS2 Syphon Filter The omega factor
1.99 PS2 Test DriveEve of Destruction
1.99 PS2 The Matrix Path of Neo
1.99 PS2 Virtua Fighter 4 EVO
1.99 PS2 We Love Katamari
4.99 PS2 Jak 2
4.99 PS2 Jet Li Rise to honor
4.99 PS2 Katamari Damacy
4.99 PS2 Prince of Persia 3
4.99 PS2 Sly 2 band of thieves
4.99 PS2 Sly cooper
4.99 PS2 Star Ocean 3
4.99 PS2 Ultimate Spiderman
4.99 PS2 Wild Arms 4
4.99 PS2 X-Men Legends
9.99 PS2 Romancing Saga

Now, I left some of that stuff in there to show you how much crap is there (and believe me, there were tons more cheap awful game titles I cut) but there are also a SHOCKING number of good deals there and/or junk that I would gladly played and then resold at a wee profit. (With God as my witness, I would've paid seven dollars or under to get a copy of Big Motha Truckers 2 new.) And, as a fledgeling SPRG junkie, the idea of getting Front Mission 4 for 2 bucks and tax makes me want to weep. So, yeah, I was kinda tempted to pull an emergency sick day, and break out that Holiday Gift Card I got from B.B. And by "kinda tempted," I mean "I rung my hands and rubbed my forehead, and sweated like a junkie on detox."

Because for the last few months, I've been just as, if not more, addicted to buying video games as to playing 'em: I've got a stack of twenty-seven or twenty-eight games sitting on the side of my desk, and I'm sure some of 'em I'll never get to now. In the past, I've gotten the occasional killer high from my budget gaming habit (On a previous Best Buy clearance sale, I was able to score the first Hulk game for $4.99; not only did I enjoy the game, but I sold it for $6 two years later at a garage sale) but mostly it's the cheap quick fix, and the long shameful grind (at that same sale I sold a copy of Resident Evil: Code Veronica for a dollar less than what I'd paid for it two weeks earlier).

So even though I'm a pained junkie, I'm aware I'm also a junkie, and it's probably for the best that I'm here at work, making money, and not driving in the rain, from poorly stocked Best Buy to poorly stocked Best Buy in search of ten dollars worth of games.

(In fact? Wanna know what I really honestly truly only want out of that list above that's puffed up with sure-fire garage sale filler and amazon marketplace bait?

1.99 PS2 Big Motha Truckers 2
1.99 PS2 Champions of Norrath Realm
1.99 PS2 Constantine
1.99 PS2 Frontmission4
1.99 PS2 The Matrix Path of Neo
4.99 PS2 Jet Li Rise to honor

And which ones I would actually pay more than that super-low price for?

PS2 Frontmission4

Which means that no matter how many of those games I actually got, that would be the only game I'd really feel happy about getting.)

See that? The other games are all just shit I would get to have at a super-low price, or be able to trade. And, honestly, that's pretty much the same as most of the dozens of other middle-aged dudes driving to their Best Buys today: we're like sharks in the ocean, drawn by the merest drop of seal blood into a seething, restless blind-eyed searchingness. They think they want the bicycle tire, the suit of armor and the length of chain they devour, but really they just want that tiny spot of seal blood they can almost remember tasting...

More on this quasi-depressing topic as it develops. (Although, really, just between you and me, I'd rather be talking about Dragon Quest VIII.)