Independence day post - A bunch of USA Games!! Oh wait... Simhealth

TODAY WE CELEBRATE... OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY!

WOOOO YEAH! USA USA! Let's DO THIS!

Umm... No, no... I thought I was going to do a list of games involving 

the US military... Or a little geography game... You know, something fun?

How about some Cruisin' USA? Good music? Fast Cars?

PLAY MEE!

Where the heck were you last time when everyone in my wagon party died?

Sigh. Okay. Alright. You want Simehealth? Let's do Simhealth. 

 But before we do, let's delay the inevitable!

Simhealth was released in 1994 for DOS. Notably, it was released during the 1994 Congressional debates involving Clinton's Healthcare plan.

Before we go too far on this and everyone reading this wants to kill me, let me just say this...

I come from a family of medical personnel. My mother is a nurse, My aunt is a nurse. My sister is a Physical Therapy Assistant and I have numerous cousins that are in medical school, nursing school and counseling.

I myself am trying to get into the field of rehabilitation ( A field of medicine.)

Never would I say figuring out a budget for medical care in this country is easy. But I do think that there is a way to do it. (Somehow... But I don't know the answer.) Please, No hatin' Be gentle.

Okay, With that out of the way. Let's get on to the game!

(Because it's going to be painfully boring, I'm not doing a video playthrough. I'll just do a picture series with highlights... Woo!)

Let's get started...

We begin our game in a horrible car accident. (I'm not kidding)

See... Told ya.

Get into an accident and run for political accident...
Okay, What's next?

Okay, here's the gist of the game. You're a politician trying to make a healthcare plan for the entire country. Sounds easy, right?

You have to do all this.

This is your "Alignment" This is how you have to behave. Your personal preferences of how you will "do" healthcare.
Supposedly you have to practice what you preach. I managed to forget what I said I wanted within about 30 seconds.

Huh? I'm actually doing good? Woo!

Oh wait, it's because I haven't actually done anything. This screen is where you make up the laws to regulate healthcare. It essentially becomes a recurring game of "What does this button do?"

So, I mess around a little bit and accidentally create "one payer healthcare."
And then this happens:

Oh shoot! I didn't mean for that to happen! Or wait, maybe I did?

Woo! 80% approval! Yes!
Let's see how main street looks.

So, this is your "health" meter. When the economy of different industries suffer, the buildings turn into ruins. Around the end of my game, all of the buildings looked bad. And what's worse, ELECTION IN NOVEMBER!

Oh shoot. It's all over now. 

What? I won? Really? The federal government, Hospitals and insurance companies are bad off and I still won?

Yeah. Okay. 

So, that was Simhealth. A strange and... Strange look at what game developers thought insurance could or would be in the future.

Anyways. Have a safe and sane 4th of July!!

Video game Staycation - Oregon Trail

So, recently I decided to go on a little trip. Not a road trip to a far off place or another country. (That costs money and a lot of time.)

It was a trip through history. (Again, not in the literal sense. I don't have a time machine. (Again, that costs money and time to make))

No, I went on a trip through history using that good ol' classic piece of edutainment, The Oregon Trail!

Spoilers: There are no survivors!!

I first played this back in middle school. I don't recall getting far before having my entire group killed by drowning. We'll see how I do this time (Oh wait, I already spoiled it...)

 Anyways, Let's meet the wagon party!

A fine looking group of travelers!

Alright, We're on our way! Let's Go!

Oh, wait, gotta buy some stuff. Alright, some oxen... food... BULLETS!... OK. NOW WE GO!

Our first hold up. Mega Man gets lost. Not sure where he went but he showed up two days later muttering something about seeing his own diarrhea laden death.

Anyways...

A few days pass with nothing of interest. And then we hit a river that needs to be crossed. It's 3 feet deep... I think we can ford that sucker!

In 3 feet of water? How do you lose wooden wagon tongues and oxen in 3 feet of water??

Okay, so... Bad idea. We've lost Mario and Zelda in the river. My bad! But the rest of us will be fine, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OH CRAP!

We'll be fine. This is just a minor setback. Just a day of rest and we'll...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. OH. 

Okay, take a deep breath. We're gonna be fine. We just lost 3 party members in under 10 minutes... We got this! STOP PANICKING FIO! I SAID WE GOT THIS! 

Even I'm shocked at seeing this...

The next few weeks go somewhat uneventful, save for Fio's incompetence and wacky antics.

Such a kidder!
I actually looked up what cholera does too.
Of course, the inevitable happens.

I'm all alone. Well... Alright. I can do this.

Might as well start getting drunk.

MY LEG!

Just another setback. I'll be fine.

Okay, just gotta find a cowbell... Does ox bell count?

Obviously not...

Well, still dead, I'm at least further than I had made it all those years ago.

Thanks to Spriter's Resource website and - "Mister Man" "Ville 10" & Kevin Huff

Mr. CC's Low Tech Weekend - Radio shack 12 in 1 arcade

Another weekend, another video going over an old piece of technology.
This time around I've got a "Fun" and "Neato" toy from the past... 70s? 80s? Who cares, I managed to break the stupid thing... Ah well, enjoy!

Low Tech Weekend: 80's videogame pocket pinball games

Remember the days before X box? How about the days before PS1 or even the NES. Well, okay, NES was around at this point, so were the arcade games. This is a look at 2 old school pinball games. Not the big ones that were at the Arcade, No. these are the "Tiger electronics" equivalent.

Feel the power yet?

Anyways, to review these, I made a video on youtube!

Deadstocked - vintage building toy clean-out

I've decided to change gears for a while. I've gotten pretty dedicated with my local library trustees group which eats up a good chunk of my time, so I've been bouncing between work to meetings with little time to do much at home. By the time I get home, I'm tired and it's already nightfall and don't feel like writing much.

Other than that, I feel like my writings on old games are somewhat rambling and lacking in interest. Because I  focus on older games, and most of them have been done to death. I've only written 2 or 3 articles about them, I need to spend some time coming up some fresh new ideas.

 They could get better if I spent more time thinking them out but for now I think I'll dedicate more time to a different topic.

With that being said, here's the true intro to this article:

If you read my previous articles, you read about how I sold most of my old video game college to help pay for college loans when I couldn't find a job. 
In addition to the games I sold, I also hunted for merchandise like books, board games and other assorted things.

I've stumbled across various items that I bought, hoping to sell for a good amount online only to find out the item has a problem or there's a poor market for the item.

When I had begun to go merchandising at the various thrift stores and rummage sales, I took a "Grab what you can as long as it isn't too expensive and hope it's worth something" approach and wound up with quite a few things I couldn't sell for a number of reasons.

This line of business is a little like gambling. You go out, buy some items and see what you have. Some might be broken in the box, some might be worth a buck or two and then sometimes you hit the mother lode.

This article is dedicated to the various building toys I've found out there and got stuck with.

For starters, I love building things. Always have, always will.

You can't see into it but this box is almost a foot deep and 4 ft. square.

I've had my lego collection since childhood and thought I lost it in the tornado that hit our house back in 2009. When I found it in the back corner of the shed with some other stuff in a pile, I cried tears of joy that it had survived.

This is what I wanted to pass down to my kids and was happy to see that I still had it.

I've also got a decent K'nex collection but I'm a lot more fond of legos.
When I got into the collectibles business, I sort of had a second childhood, seeing things that I had been interested in as a kid but now had money to buy them. Primarily to resell online. So here's the lineup of stuff to build with that I've found but can't do much with. And to keep things interesting, a write up on the "mini figures" that come with the sets.

# 1- Tinkertoy

This tinkertoy set was from the 70s. I can't remember the exact age because sadly, I tossed the entire set away after opening the box. "Why?" you may ask...

Because these are basically untreated pieces of wood that have been stored someplace since the 70s. Some of them were broken when I found them. Others broke as I was messing around trying to assemble them. In short, Un-sellable.

Although I did get to make a stupid looking flower garden. Hooray?

This is the "figurine" that came with the set. Just a simple piece of yellow molded plastic with a simple face, 3 buttons and freckles. I would make a joke about it being sinister, but a figurine with no legs and stubs for arms isn't worth the time.

#2 Fisher-price Construx

This was a neat find. I got this at a yard sale that was closing up and the guy was like "You want it, I'll take a dollar for it" I handed him a buck and took it out to the car. I noticed it had a 10.00 tag on the back. I asked him if he wanted more. he said "It's one less thing I gotta pack up. Don't worry about it."

Construx came out in 1983, 5 years before I came into existence, so I had never seen one as a kid. I think my older cousin had a set but I don't remember well.
I didn't do much with this when I first got it, for the reason that I couldn't sell it online for a decent profit. It weighs around 5 lbs and is pretty bulky, so shipping it would have been a pain in the neck.

I finally got around to opening it...

The box was so full of parts, I had a hard time of re-closing it.
Much like everything else I've sold online, it needs to be inspected or playtested. At first this might sound like fun but in this case, not so much.

Construx have a strange wheel setup. The entire set is plastic except for the axel which is an aluminum bar that the wheels can attach to. I struggled to get the wheels on and built one of the models on the instructions.

Behold! The Tank thing... I wasn't thoroughly impressed. The plastic felt pretty frail and one of the braces that holds the rocket pylon was broken, so I threw it into the donation pile. 2 kits down, 1 to go.

#3 Tente

Tente has a pretty neat history. I found this at a rummage sale for 50 cents. I didn't find anything like it on amazon, so I threw it into storage.

The particular set I got was apparently an unboxed space set. Looks neat enough. I never got into space stuff but I'll take a closer look at it.

Ah, here's our trusty crew of "Astronauts". These actually look pretty neat. They remind me of the starmen from earthbound.

Most of this kit seems to be decently intact. Some of the thinner pieces like the exhaust pipes and antennas have some breaks but for the most part, it seems to be in decent shape.

 Anyways, I see that complete sets do sell for a decent amount on E-bay and maybe etsy, so back into storage they go!

Well, that's it for now. The weather's getting warmer and I'm going to try to clean out a bit more. I've got tons of neat nostalgic junk, so stay tuned!

Ya can't kill Mr. CC. ( At least not yet...)

Hello reader(s) and welcome back!

Last time I wrote on here it was to wish you all a happy holiday.

When I decided to revive this blog, I didn't have much going on. I thought I could dedicate a decent amount of time to it. I felt that I had a nice balance.

As seen here !

I've learned that every once in a while when you start to want to do something different, life has a way of saying "Ha, nope."

In November, I became a trustee at my local library which takes up a nice little chunk of time (But at least I enjoy it!)

January came along and started to mess up that fine balance further. My studies were complete (Yay!) But my job got a bit more confounded. I've had to increase my productivity and work harder and on top of that, My health took a hefty decline for over 2 months.

So yeah, for around 2 months, other than working, my time had been taken up trying to get better, but well, here I am, full of ideas for writing and a garage full of junk to clean up and write about.

Happy Holidays from CC

Hello there! CC here just wanting to wish my readers ( if there are any :D) Happy Holidays!