Category Archives: Travel

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Road Trip Part #2: Video Game Hunting in California + Pickups!

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Part #2 of our 2,000 mile road trip! On this leg we travel down to the Sacramento California area for sightseeing and video game hunting at the Fire & Ice Retro Gaming Expo! Plus we visit The Cave a crazy cool store with music, clothing, collectables and more. 

WATCH: https://youtu.be/H2pywjBJbp8

Ah, the retro gaming expo — a magical realm where the scent of faded plastic, CRT static, and unwashed Sega Genesis t-shirts fills the air like a fine vintage wine. It’s the only place where you can hear someone yell, “Bro! A boxed Battletoads!” without irony, and people nod in solemn respect. You wander aisles stacked with games older than your mortgage, trying to justify spending $80 on ClayFighter: Sculptor’s Cut because “it’s an investment.” Nearby, a guy in a Power Glove is having a heated debate with someone dressed as Earthworm Jim over the true best Mega Man robot master. (Spoiler: It’s always Metal Man.)

Every booth is a treasure hunt. You’ll find everything from dusty Virtual Boys to suspiciously homemade copies of Tetrison “authentic” Soviet cartridges. Vendors speak in ancient tongues — “CIB,” “minty,” “disc rot” — and barter like NES-era Ferengi. There’s always a kid marveling at a Game Boy Color like it’s a rotary phone, while their parent proudly explains how they once beat Contra without the Konami Code. Whether you’re here to relive your childhood or finally avenge that rental copy of Ghosts ’n Goblins that ruined your summer in ’91, the retro gaming expo is where nostalgia goes to stretch its legs, blow in a cartridge, and say, “Let’s-a go!”

Featured, Travel

2,000 mile Road Trip Part #1 + Game Pickups!

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Part #1 of our epic 2,000 mile ROAD TRIP through Washington, Oregon, Nevada and California. This series of videos have everything: sightseeing, hunting for video games, and adventure on the open road. WATCH >> https://youtu.be/dBbuoxIYIi4

We love road trips because they give us the illusion of control over chaos. Unlike flying, where you’re herded through TSA like caffeinated cattle, road trips let you say things like, “Let’s take the scenic route!”—right before you end up on a gravel road being stared down by a suspicious llama. There’s something magical about setting your own pace, even if that pace is determined by your bladder, the car’s mysterious new rattle, and the sudden, desperate hunt for a Starbucks with a bathroom that doesn’t require a code.

But mostly, we love road trips because they’re a weird, beautiful mix of nostalgia and nonsense. Where else can you scream-sing 90s hits, eat gas station combos of beef jerky and sour worms, and deeply contemplate your life while staring out at miles of cornfields? Road trips make the mundane feel epic: a $60 motel with a “continental breakfast” becomes an oasis, and spotting a Cracker Barrel on the horizon feels like discovering El Dorado. It’s not about the destination—it’s about arguing over where to eat, taking 17 wrong turns, and somehow loving every minute of the disaster.

Featured, Travel

Galactix – Inside Astoria’s FANTASTIC Arcade Taphouse Game Paradise!

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Galactix Arcade in Astoria, Oregon, is like stepping into a parallel universe where the 80s never ended, and everything still smells vaguely of popcorn and Mountain Dew. It’s a neon-lit wonderland where pinball machines blink seductively, arcade cabinets hum with pixelated nostalgia, and Skeeball is taken as seriously as the stock market.

You don’t visit Galactix—you respawn there. The staff are basically space wizards in disguise, and there’s a decent chance the guy playing DDR in the corner has been doing it since 1997 without stopping. It’s the kind of place where quarters go to fulfill their destiny, and grown adults scream “I beat Galaga!” like they just won Olympic gold

https://thegalactix.com

Address: 254 9th St (Subterranean Level), Astoria, Oregon, 97103

Featured, Travel, Special Episodes

Tour of ** NEW ** Pink Gorilla GAME STORE in Las Vegas!

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Pink Gorilla Games has leveled up with a brand new location in Las Vegas! Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the store w/ Kelsey before it opened to the public, then stick around for the grand opening chaos complete with good vibes & packed video game shelves.

Las Vegas is the only place on Earth where you can lose your life savings, your dignity, and your luggage—all before lunch—and still think, “What a great vacation!” It’s a city powered almost entirely by neon, regret, and a cocktail of bad decisions served in a souvenir yardstick cup. Where else can you eat pancakes next to a guy in a tuxedo and a woman dressed as Pikachu while a bachelorette party screams in the background? It’s like someone designed a city after binge-watching infomercials and drinking Red Bull for 72 hours straight.

Vegas is where logic comes to die and Elvis impersonators multiply like rabbits. It’s the only place where a man can get married by a zombie pirate at 3 a.m. and divorced by brunch without ever changing out of his flip-flops. You’ll find luxury hotels designed to look like ancient Rome, Venice, and Paris—if those places were rebuilt by a committee of slot machines. And the best part? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, mostly because even Vegas doesn’t want to remember what you did.

Featured, Travel

State of retro game collecting 2025 Edition

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We travel to Phoenix Arizona for the massive Game On Expo to do some video game collecting. I share some of the rare and uncommon things for sale plus I give you an overview of the event itself. WATCH >> https://youtu.be/XtoQeiu6agQ

Retro game collecting in 2025 is a delightful blend of treasure hunting, mild financial irresponsibility, and explaining to your significant other why you definitely needed a third copy of EarthBound — “this one has the original sticker, babe!” Prices for cartridges have inflated like they’re NFTs with nostalgia, and suddenly everyone’s digging through attic boxes like pirates hoping to find a gold-plated Pokémon Yellow. It’s gotten to the point where garage sales are now stealth battlegrounds, with collectors speed-walking like Olympic athletes the moment a “Sega” logo is spotted from 40 feet away.

One day you find a mint-condition Chrono Trigger for $40 because someone’s grandma listed it as “Old Nintendo book,” and the next day that same game is priced higher than your car’s Blue Book value — and somehow, someone buys it. Forums and Facebook groups are full of people arguing over label variants like they’re art historians, and every collector’s dream is to be on YouTube holding a $5 thrift store find while saying “I couldn’t believe it, but there it was — a sealed Little Samson, just next to the VHS tapes!” It’s chaos, it’s passion, and it’s beautiful. Just… don’t check your credit card statement.

Featured, Travel

Game On Expo in Phoenix Arizona – It’s Almost Here!

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The Game On Expo is happening in Phoenix, AZ at the the Phoenix Convention Center. The dates are April 4th-6th, 2025. I hope to see you there!

More information can be found here: https://gameonexpo.com/

What is Game On Expo?  Phoenix’s annual pilgrimage for gamers, nerds, and anyone who thinks life should come with a health bar and a save point. This three-day festival is a glorious mash-up of retro arcade nostalgia, tabletop chaos, cosplay shenanigans, and enough gaming merch to make your wallet cry in the corner.

What to Expect?

  • Vendors selling everything from rare SNES cartridges to anime plushies that stare into your soul.

  • Cosplayers who have put in more effort into their outfits than most people do into their day jobs.

  • Tournaments where button-mashers and pro-level players clash in a battle of reflexes and broken controllers.

  • Voice actors from your favorite games & YouTubers, there to sign autographs, answer burning fan questions, and occasionally indulge in meme-worthy moments.

And let’s not forget the arcade section, where you can test your skills on vintage cabinets and realize that, yes, your childhood skills at “Street Fighter II” have completely abandoned you.

Whether you’re there to compete, collect, cosplay, or just bask in the glow of RGB-lit everything, Game On Expo is a weekend of glorious geekery where everyone speaks fluent nerd. Just be prepared to walk away with a bag full of collectibles, a phone full of photos, and a deep sense of regret that you didn’t buy that limited-edition Zelda print when you had the chance.

Featured, Travel, Recent Pickups

Is video game collecting as bad as they say?

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We’re heading to Columbus, Ohio, for TORG, the Ohio Retro Gamer Expo! In this video, I’ll focus on deals you can find at these events. I’ll ask vendors—who buy and sell games daily—what they think are the best deals today. I’m also working on my Sony PSP collection, and I’ll show you everything I picked up at the end.

The Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable) is the cool kid who showed up at the party with the swagger of a console and the size of a big smartphone (back when phones weren’t that smart yet). It’s like the Swiss Army knife of gaming, trying to be your gaming console, your MP3 player, and even your Netflix (though streaming wasn’t quite ready to party yet).

The PSP flexed its muscles with a gorgeous 4.3-inch screen, boasting graphics that made you say, “Wait, this is portable?!” It had Wi-Fi so you could school your friends in multiplayer—if you could convince them to lug their PSPs around. And let’s not forget the UMD discs, those quirky little Frisbees that carried your games and movies. They looked futuristic but were basically mini-CDs with trust issues.

Sony even tried to make the PSP your entire life: it had a web browser (sort of), a photo viewer (but no camera), and music playback (for when your iPod forgot its place). The battery life was decent—unless you were watching UMD movies, in which case it gave up faster than a kid in a math test.

The PSP was like that overachiever friend who insists on doing everything, and honestly, it nailed a lot of it. Sure, the controls felt a little cramped, and the proprietary memory cards were pricier than gourmet coffee, but the PSP brought portable gaming into the spotlight, and it did it with style. Plus, it gave us Monster Hunter marathons and the ability to watch Spider-Man 2 on the go—what more could you want? (Except maybe fewer smudges on that glorious screen.)

Featured, Travel

The state of retro game collecting…

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We’re heading to Portland Oregon for the annual retro gaming expo. I’m sharing highlights from my weekend also diving into the current state of game collecting. See the prices for games and hardware, both the expensive stuff…and some of the good deals. Plus I ask the vendors what is hot right now.

Reggie and I are going to show all the games we picked up in an upcoming PICKUPS video…so stay tuned!

Here are five lesser-known facts about Portland, Oregon:

  1. Shanghai Tunnels: Portland has a network of underground tunnels, known as the Shanghai Tunnels (or “Portland Underground”), which were used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These tunnels are rumored to have been used for human trafficking, where people were kidnapped (or “shanghaied”) and sold to ship captains as laborers.
  2. The City That Briefly Banned Cars: In 1971, Portland became one of the first major U.S. cities to cancel the construction of a freeway (the Mount Hood Freeway), opting to invest in public transportation and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. This decision helped shape the city’s reputation for sustainability and urban planning.
  3. The Simpsons Connection: Portland has a strong connection to the famous TV show “The Simpsons.” Series creator Matt Groening grew up in Portland, and many of the characters’ names in the show are based on Portland streets and landmarks (e.g., Flanders, Lovejoy, and Quimby).
  4. World’s Smallest Park: Portland is home to Mill Ends Park, officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as the smallest park in the world. It measures just 452 square inches and was originally created as a spot for a journalist’s pet leprechaun.
  5. The Original “Stumptown”: Portland’s nickname “Stumptown” comes from the 19th century when the city’s rapid growth required a lot of land clearing, leaving numerous tree stumps throughout the streets. The name has stuck around as a part of Portland’s identity.

These quirky and historic facts reveal Portland’s unique charm and cultural heritage!

Featured, Travel, Recent Pickups

Norway Trip (Part 2) – RetroMessa Expo + GAME & MUSIC PICKUPS!

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Here are five relatively unknown facts about Norway:

  1. Norway introduced Salmon Sushi to Japan: In the 1980s, Norwegian seafood exporters promoted the idea of using salmon in sushi, which wasn’t traditionally done in Japan. This has since become a popular staple in Japanese cuisine.
  2. Svalbard Global Seed Vault: Norway is home to the “Doomsday Vault,” located on the Svalbard archipelago. It stores duplicates of seed samples from around the world, acting as a backup to preserve plant diversity in case of global crises.
  3. Norway has a “no homework” movement: Some schools in Norway are testing out the idea of not giving homework to students. This movement is rooted in research suggesting that less homework may improve students’ learning experience and reduce stress.
  4. World’s longest road tunnel: Norway is home to the Laerdal Tunnel, which is the longest road tunnel in the world. It stretches for 15.3 miles (24.5 km) and connects Laerdal and Aurland in Western Norway.
  5. Norwegians love slow TV: Norway popularized “Slow TV,” which involves long, real-time broadcasts of events like train journeys, knitting, or firewood chopping. One of the most famous examples is the 7-hour long broadcast of a train journey from Bergen to Oslo. It became a cultural phenomenon.