-=< Ovge 2k9 >=- !

[neist]

Well, I'm eating lunch here in Tulsa. Spent the morning here at the show, wild-eyed from energy drinks on the drive. It's a fun show so far, but I popped out during TV Death Squad's "performance". Maybe I should have stuck around for a bit, just to see if anyone protested during his concert. Oh well. Within a half hour I was almost out of money, so it's a standard show so far.

Yeah, I think I spent my share of spending money probably in the same amount of time. Some people's booths had some really decent stuff. My expectations were actually much lower as to what would be there.

And I found a cheap Namco PS1 arcade stick. Though are nearly impossible to find, let alone for a decent price.

[Deadman]

Made it home at 9:00 pm tonight and have already unloaded and put a lot of the stuff away. Just one last time I have to say THANKS to all the OVGE crew for a great show. I had a fantastic time and you guys made it all the better! I will definitely be in for the next show and hopefully all of the shows after that. The venue was great, the other dealers were great and the buyers were enthusiastic and willing to spend a few dollars, which helped make up for their lack of overwhelming numbers.

One other note on the "musical" selections. Being as I was right in front of the setup, I took the time to ask the patrons what they thought of it and it was pretty unanimous that they thought the music was okay for the first 10 minutes or so and then it was just too much and waaaay too loud! I have to attest that when they began to play, our end of the venue cleared out as all the buyers moved to the other end of the room hurting the sales for sure. Either way, I had a great time and also wanted to leave a few other comments:

I'll also have lots of classic games for sale, including some hard to find ColecoVision stuff.

Yes you did! And I got a few of them for my collection. Great to meet and talk to you as well - and I just realized as I was unpacking: I forgot to get a copy of your new book....

Mostly $1 each for games, but nothing in the bin will be priced higher than $5. Y'all will be doing me a big favor grabbing whatever you can.

I believe your bin was the first of many to take my $$$ before I even sold $1 worth of stuff! A well spent $14 and now I have another face to the name from DP.

Here's a PDF covering just about all of the games I'll have at OVGE this weekend. See everybody in a couple of days!

Saturday morning was busy for you - you weren't kidding! A great pleasure meeting you and thanks for having such a great selection at great prices!

I hope we'll have access to name badges so I can identify people. Last year (or possibly two) I remember briefly talking to a guy a couple times and finding out a day or two later that it was Gapporin. Dang, I feel bad that I didn't chat more with him.

I saw that you made your own badge, but each time you walked by my table you I was either busy or you were talking to someone so I never got to formally meet you. I really wanted to pick your brain on where you can find all those great deals around here.

I'll be driving up early Saturday morning. Really looking forward to chatting with everyone again!

I think we killed some time chatting about the Vectrex, the OEGE, and you kicking my but at Space War. It was still cool to say hey and meet another new gaming bud.

Did a scan of what I'm bringing last night. As it stands right now, I've got a big box of systems (some working, some not), about 10 or so PCBs, and 9 boxes of games of various types. Maybe I should have gotten another table!

I got back home without having to ride on your tail to let you get all the speeding tickets! Thanks for the great Saturn deals and the hang time on Friday.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone -- I'll be setting up tonight. I designed a new retro gamer shirt and still have a bunch of the ones from last year to sell.

Great pleasure to meet you, your wife, and your son today! I'm glad there was someone nearby with a good sense of humor to help pass some of the "downtime" during the "music??" See ya'll soon.

Sorry for the long post, but I think it was probably better than 10 separate posts.

[Steve W]

I got home around 10:15pm. The year before last, I woke up early and left around 3am, and the late drive home was frightening. By the time I was in the Dallas city limits, I was struggling just to keep my concentration on the road because I was so tired. Last night I had a bout of insomnia and only slept maybe 3 hours. I was scared that I'd have another bad drive and I might get into a wreck. Luckily, an overabundance of energy drinks and Mountain Dew kept me relatively alert, but jittery all day.

I blew quite a bit of money today. I kept going out to my car and dropping off my loot when it would overload my pockets, and it seemed at the time like I had a proverbial ton of stuff on my floorboard. Sadly, when I got home and brought it all in, it seemed like I had a single grocery bag full of stuff rather than the trolley I imagined I'd need to haul in everything.

This was a good time of year for a show in Tulsa. It was pretty dang cold in the morning, but nice and comfortable in the afternoon, and the trees all over town were turning fall colors. And the Spirit Bank Event Center is a great venue. Great room we were in, too. My only problem wasn't with the show itself, but because of all the nightmarish road work (and literally road removal in some places) going on all over town, I ended up getting to the Weber's Superior Root Beer restaurant at 5:04pm, four minutes after they closed. Damn, I wanted some of their root beer before I left! That's the second year I've had to leave Tulsa without any of their root beer.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Steve makes it sound like he was tweaked, but I really didn't pick up on that. Maybe I should've wolfed down some energy drinks too.

It was great fun hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones too - my apologies if I seemed to be a bit scarce, but my table was really busy (which, believe me, was a good thing). I appreciate everyone who dropped by and even bought so much as a $1 DVD or game or what have you. I had mispriced a few things here and there due to being completely worn out, but if the little price booklet said it, then I honored it rather than trying to change the rules on the spot under someone's feet. I screwed up and had a Criterion Collection DVD priced at a buck, and while I kinda slapped myself mentally for that one, it was worth it for the look on the face of the guy who bought it from me. I'll have a word with the management about these inefficient pricing practices ASAP!

The live music was... well... if he'd broken his set up into songs rather than doing epic-length ear-shattering stuff that would've left Kraftwerk agog at the sheer length of the music, that might've helped. It was a bit on the loud side. I had two TVs, each about 4 feet in front of me if even that far, playing the loop DVD of CGE and PDF DVD clips at a pretty good volume; I kept one peeking around to make sure my TVs were still on and running the loop because I couldn't hear them from that close.

But other than that, it was a great show - I hope I made up for having to miss last year's! Hope everyone enjoys their loot, and I hope to see everyone there again next year.

[Wraith Storm]

OVGE was awesome this year!

I had never been to the Spirit Bank Event Center before. I have to say that I really liked it. It was an excellent replacement for the Marriott. I got up bright and early so I could be there at 9:00. Last year I heard there were quite a few DP members there, so this year I whipped up a nametag the the night before and got to meet a few of you that I hadn't met last year, so that was cool!

I made off with a bunch of loot! I picked up a boxed C64C and a donor 1541 drive!!! I also picked up some C64 classics (Skate Rock and Gemstone Warrior). Then I snagged Castlevania 64: Legacy of Darkness. It was just a loose cart but the price was pretty good. Then I got a few PS1 and Dreamcast games. But the score of the show for me was FINALLY getting a copy of Street Fighter Collection for the Saturn. That game is getting tough to find!

Anyway, I would like to thank everyone who made this show a possibility. The people who organized it and the vendors who stocked it with goods! I'm already counting down for OVGE 2K10!!!