We Have Lots of Stuff to Get Appraised

If my previous post didn't tip you off at all, I'm really into video games. So it goes without saying that the movie Grandma's Boy has become a personal favorite of mine. Despite my lack of interest or knowledge of pot culture, I am really into video games and have seen friends act in many of the ways that the employees of Brainasium were prone to acting, so I connect with the movie. I also lived with my grandma for a week once and it was pretty much the same thing only less pot. And it was in Pennsylvania so there was less to do. And I was like 11. Basically it was nothing like the movie.

I do love the movie Grandma's Boy and I watched it not too long ago with my roommates. Remember that part in the movie where grandma, Bea and Grace are watching Antiques Roadshow and they're completely baffled about people getting so much money for their useless junk that they had laying around their houses? That was funny right. My roommates and I watched the movie and laughed. A few days later...

We were watching Pawn Stars on the History Channel and one of my roommates says: "Pawn Stars is like the Antiques Roadshow of our generation." I stopped dead in my tracks (probably of eating some Doritos) and stared, mouth agape. My shock wasn't insult. It was revelation. Pawn Stars is the Antiques Roadshow of my generation, and I'm ok with that.

For those not familiar (I still don't know who you are, but I may hate you), Pawn Stars is a show on the History Channel about Rick Harrison and the pawn shop he owns with his dad Richard in Las Vegas. His son Corey is the manager of the store and Corey's idiot friend "Chumlee" works there as well. The exploits of the show highlight mostly the store's interaction with people who want to sell their stuff. Most of the interactions take place in the store, though on occasion they will travel out to a location to check out an item that someone is trying to off-load on them. Usually the customer brings in something and Rick will take a look at the item. He'll give some information and fun facts will appear on the screen about the swag and then inevitably, Rick will determine that he doesn't have the knowledge needed to accurately determine the authenticity of the item or have any clue what the item is worth, so he brings in an expert.

The experts are some of the best "characters" in the show. My personal favorite is an employee of The Gun Store in Las Vegas who knows a lot about antique fire arms and also lets them test fire the old guns they bring into the store. The Gun Store is somewhere that is on my itinerary for when I go to Las Vegas, so seeing that it's also involved in the show is pretty cool.

These experts have some of the most ridiculous "specialties," like the guy who was an "expert" in the rodeo or rodeo history or something. Rodeo history... really? They come in and talk to Rick and the item's owner about what swag is and how to tell if it's real or not. The experts always give some inflated price that you could get for the item if you took it to an auction where crazies that like chaps worn by Roger Rodeo in 1943 go to spend inappropriate amounts of money for some collectible junk.

It's important to remember at this point that Rick has probably asked the customer what they were looking to get out of the item and they generally say something reasonable like 200 bucks or something. Once they find out their Civil War saber can be sold at auction for 2000 bucks, they always ask for that amount. Being the good business man he is, Rick always reminds them that he has a store to run and has to make a profit. He will cut the price down a ridiculous amount. Using the previous example, we're talking something like 300 bucks for the Civil War saber. The customer looks disgusted and offended by the offer, and then they square off, going high and low until they settle in the middle. Rick buys the item (usually) and the customer walks off happy. The post-sale interview always reveals them saying something like "...with the economy the way it is..." or "...I think it was a little low but..."

Sometimes owners don't sell their stuff to the shop because they want too much money or Rick tells them he doesn't want their junk. These people always walk out of the store feeling like they were ripped off somehow. Basically, no one really leaves the store happy unless they just got WAY more money than they ever would have expected and they really just wanted to pawn the item for 200 dollars but got 2000 for it.

I assume that I digress. Antiques Roadshow: old people take in their junk they have laying around and find out that it's worth a lot. Pawn Stars: lots of people take in their junk they have laying around and try to get a lot of money for it with mixed results. This is why Pawn Stars is the Antiques Roadshow of our generation. The concepts are very similar where people take junk into a place and find out how much it's worth. The difference is, in Antiques Roadshow they weren't heckling to try to get more money and they weren't trying to walk out with a profit, they were simply fishing for information. And for our grandparents, that was sufficient for them to be entertained. But this is a whole new generation where we need action and we need conflict. We like hearing Rick get pissed off because his son is an idiot or telling someone that their item they brought into him isn't worth crap to him because he won't be able to sell it (I'm talking to you Jimmy Hoffa photo album guy!).

I feel old when I watch the show because I'm looking at all of the cool stuff that people have and I'm really interested in how much money they get for it. I'm invested emotionally in how much money the store is going to make, how the back room looks, and if that guy's 1662 sun dial is real and if it's worth a lot of money (it is). This emotional investment comes from real people, not from some stupid faked show like Jersey Shore where the drama and emotion in the show is made up for the enjoyment of MTV's viewing audience. The people on Pawn Stars are really trying to get a little cash out of their items and when they don't, they're legitimately upset. When they do, they're legitimately happy. It makes me wonder what junk I might have that I could take in to sell at my local pawn shop.

Then I realize a couple quick things:

1. My local pawn shops deal in rusted bikes and broken Super Nintendo games. They aren't dealing like this shop in Vegas is with Olympic Gold Medals, Super Bowl Rings, and ancient arms and armor.

2. I don't have anything worth while to take in, even if my local pawn shop didn't suck. I have some books that I got from a used book store and I have some other things, but I've never come across a fighter jet ejection seat that I could buy for my house. I've never come across an old WW2 bayonet in good shape that I could take in and try to sell for a lot of money. Nothing I have would get me any more than a couple of dollars at Rick's Pawn Shop. They would probably laugh me right out of their store, even if I was willing to trade my items for some of the stuff they had around the store.

If you're ever surfing the channels and you're tired of watching drunk New Yorkers acting like they're from Jersey or watching people make idiots of themselves for a couple thousand dollars, switch over to the History Channel and catch up with the Harrison's as they continue on their quest to be Pawn Stars.

Eventually we're going to get a bunch of cool crap and take it in and get it all appraised. And then grandma will drink our pot.

From my table to yours!

1000G

I really like video games. Anyone who knows me, knows that to be true. Rule number 1 of video games is "consult the map." I had to consult a map intensely over the past few days as I tried to locate 100 feathers. I said it: feathers.

I came into the grips of the Assassin's Creed series roughly when the first game was released. I don't always get my games right away and I waited a bit to get AC. But when I got it, I played it intensely for days, systematically assassinating Templars and uncovering the secrets of the illusive Pieces of Eden, not really knowing what it all meant and how the evil Abstergo Corp (a templar organization, if you weren't aware) fit into the puzzle. There's something to be said for how innovative the movement is in that game and how easily Altair flows from one part of the vast, middle eastern cities to the next, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. The core of the game play is fun, engaging and though some of the missions got a bit redundant, they were increasingly challenging and fit into the story and the assassinations. Plus if you didn't want to do most of the missions, you didn't have to. They were for the most part, optional.

Optional in video games isn't a word that I subscribe to. I like to maximize my game play value. I paid $60 for a game and I'm going to squeeze every last penny out of it. Some games this is easier to do than others. Madden has a style of game play that you can pick up randomly, put in a few games, maybe play with friends and then put it down to move on to something else. Modern Warfare and similar first person shooters have a singleplayer portion, but mostly that is skipped over or sped through in order to get to the rich and addicting multiplayer aspects of the game. Assassin's Creed is third-person action game with no multiplayer aspects to be found. You can beat that game and you can beat it completely, completing every objective and leaving nothing left to accomplish in the game.

With Assassin's Creed (the original) there were literally hundreds of flags to locate around 4 cities and a "world map." More than 400 flags in total, plus 60 templar soldiers to kill. All of this was in addition to completing all of the objectives in the game. I didn't complete all of these. As new games came out and caught my attention and my completion of the core of the game, I decided that it would be best to put the game to the side and move on to something else, leaving hundreds of flags to sit, unclaimed around Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem.

Assassin's Creed II came out, improving on many of the aspects of the previous game and bringing around a much more interesting character with more twists and turns than a San Francisco suburb. The game was incredibly amazing, gripping my attention and several hours of my time as I followed Ezio through several locations in Italy, gaining revenge on those who murdered my family, simultaneously learning more of the legacy that he was born into and unlocking the twist that revealed a major plot point that will drive the series on further past just two games. I could probably talk for pages upon pages of how awesome the game was. How incredibly the movement was over the last game and how much more engaging it was because Ezio was FAR more interesting than Altair as a character. But that's not what 1000G is all about. 100G is about achievements.

For the uninformed (who are you and why are you reading this?) achievements are the way for Xbox 360 games (they're called trophies on the PS3) to gain some extra re-play value by creating objectives that players can accomplish and gain the almighty currency of the hardcore gamer: G or gamerscore.

Let's be clear about this: gamerscore has no value. Initial investigation may lead one to believe that "G" or gamerscore is the same as a Microsoft point, the actual Xbox currency which is used to buy new games, game add-ons, and even clothing for your avatar. Yeah, clothes for the virtual version of yourself and people spend real-life money on this. Sheesh... G is a completely different concept. It has no actual value other than being equated to pride and bragging rights for those who really put stock in that kind of thing. There is a whole class of Xbox 360 players called the "achievement whore" who spend their game time trying to maximize the number of achievements that they obtain to get the highest gamer score possible. These people will cheat the system and perform unspeakable acts of sleeplessness and enter a state of social stasis in order to amass as much of this valueless "currency" of the hardcore.

I'm not one of these people. I'm a completionist for sure. I like to do as much in a game as I can, again to maximize the value of the game for myself. $60 is not going to waste on me and I'll do as much of the game as I can without it getting annoying. To recap, I didn't get all of the hundreds of flags in Assassin's Creed the first because I moved on to bigger and better things. Assassin's Creed II is a different story. Most of the achievements in the game were easily obtainable during the course of the game. The familiar and heartwarming "bloop" and the flash on the screen of a message telling you that you've achieved something appeared regularly and at key moments of the story. The occasional message that was out of place because I had achieved something that was aside from the normal course of the game was also something to keep me going. As I got to the end of the game, I realized that there were a few simple achievements that I had yet to obtain.

Most were fairly simple to achieve: kill a couple guys in a special way or grab a couple statues from ledges. Those were easily taken care of and provided my bloop and message. Then there were the feathers.

For some background for the uninformed, Assassin's Creed the series uses the eagle as a symbol of the assassin. It makes sense since your character flies across the buildings and there are so many opportunities to leap off of buildings and into carefully positioned hay bails which will save you from any a fall from any height. Eagle feathers in the second Assassin's Creed were a favorite of Ezio's younger brother. Upon his tragic demise which fuels the story of the game, his mother goes into a state of silent prayer and mourning for her son. Ezio tasks himself with collecting eagle feathers to help his mother cope. This is where the player, i.e. myself, comes in.

I had collected a good number of the feathers just from running across rooftops during the course of the game. Considering it was one of the last goals I had in order to achieve the all mighty 1000G and get 100% completion for the game, I figured it couldn't be too hard to find a map on the internet and move around the game's landscape collecting the last bit of feathers. It should be all too easy, or so I thought.

MS XBox World provided a fantastic map for me to follow with maps of all of the locations of the flags. I knew this would be my ticket to completion of Assassin's Creed 2. I set off on my quest with my friend Chris and my computer, knowing that it would be a fast task. It wasn't at all. I went through 4 days of searching maps and scouring the landscape of Italy to try to find these feathers. After finding out that the map I was using had the ability to click a feather location and see a photographic image of where exactly the feather was located, I collected 98 of the 100 feathers in the game.

I went through the maps multiple times, wringing my hands with each pass as I couldn't find the stupid 2 feathers that I had left. While distractedly running around the city of Venice and talking to one of my roommates at the same time, I gasped with triumph as I stumbled upon a feather randomly. My interest in my task was renewed because I knew that I only had 1 eagle feather left to obtain. It couldn't be that hard could it?

I went back to randomly searching rooftops, hoping to stumble across the final feather. After a few hours of fruitless and aimless wandering, I tasked Chris with helping me go through the maps, bit by bit until we had definitively searched every feather location listed. After roughly 10 minutes, a triumphant yell and high fives were had when we located the 100th feather.

The feeling was fleeting. I realized how ridiculous it was that I had just worked so hard and spent so many fruitless hours of my time trying to find virtual eagle feathers just to get pointless points that can be redeemed for nothing. Considering I don't get a sense of pride from amassing gamer score, my hard work, heartache and triumph was all for not.

After writing this, I'm not even 100% sure how to culminate this little story and really put an important message behind it. I guess my message would be to not put too much emphasis on completion in games. Try to get your money worth and put your best foot forward, especially when you're not getting a lot of new games and you need to make the best out of what you have. But when it really boils down to it, small tasks and achievements aren't really worth much and aren't worth wasting time and effort to obtain. But really, I don't care and if an achievement is possible to obtain, I'm going to do that. This wasn't for me to turn a new leaf or send an important message. It was for me to vent about the past few days of my free time being spent to find a stupid feather.

Leave me some comments and let me know what you think. I know the story had fractured flow and that it has no real ending because I'm not sure how it should have ended. If you feel so inclined, write me a better ending in the comments. Either way this story was from my table to yours, eat up!

BANQUET Sweet and Sour Chicken

You may be asking yourself: "Why is his title about Banquet Sweet and Sour Chicken? Is this going to be a food blog? The name of the blog is about food. Maybe he'll give us sweet recipies!"

Wrong

This is not a food specific blog. "BANQUET Sweet and Sour Chicken" was the text that popped up as the auto-fill for the Title when I clicked there so I went with it.

I'm not the most eloquent writer on the planet. Do I wish I could be a professional writer? Yeah absolutely because as hard as the work is, guys who are doing big time sports writing (your Peter Kings and Bill Simmons's and what not) are having a great time. Likewise, those who write about things that they love professionally are getting paid to research, report and comment on the things that they love. Everyone wants to be a writer these days because it seems like the dream job, which is why sites like this exist. For the purpose of everyone being able to express themselves for the world to see and feel, even if on a much smaller scale, like a professional who's opinions really matter.

I'm very realistic about this whole thing. My opinions don't matter to a vast majority of the people in the world. But they matter to me and really, I'm the only person who matters anyway. Suck it. I'm going to write down what I have to say and if you read it, you can like it or you can hate it, but you're still reading it and that's what really matters.

I might write something more targeted toward one subject or another at another point but I think it's good to get off on the right foot and really understand where I'm coming from.

So stay tuned for something good, from my table to your table. That down home country goodness, made the Jimmy Dean way.