I went to the loveliest Christmas party last night at a friend's house. Her two sons had asked me to bring my old retro Nintendo games and console (every game in fact, but I didn't bring every one). So I brought two old consoles (the Super Nintendo, some games of which are older than I am, and the N64, with a few games). I rang the doorbell, and one of the boys opened, lit up, and asked ''did you bring 'em?'' I answered yes, went to put the two bags in the living room, and went to join the others. After what seemed a brief time, I was dragged back into the living room to set the SNES up with Yoshi's Island 2 (Nintendo 1995!). The boys absolutely loved it, and took to it almost immediately. One of them even said that he wanted it for Christmas next year!
About 20-30 minutes later, the other boys arrived. They sat down with their own games, looked rather dubiously at the retro stuff, and asked me about it. I said they were my old Nintendo games. One of them said: '''dat ain't a Nintendo.'' And so, we set the Wii back up. I proved useless at the Wii Sports Resort (I also found it rather boring - which, I suppose, is one thing that puts me off about the Wii, which I do in fact own - most of the games just don't appeal to me - plus I don't like having to stand up and wave my arms about when I play games consoles, preferring instead to lay prostrate on my bed twiddling the console with my thumbs!), and so we switched to the new Super Mario Bros'. This game was fun, even if it is a bit of a rip-off of the old games, and I was quite good at it (I have only played the Wii once before).
The boys then wanted me to set up Tetris on the N64, so perforce I did so. I had planned on showing them how to play it, and then going to join the adults, but as soon as I got up, they begged me to stay. Tetris proved a ''sick'' game, and one of the boys asked me how much it was (probably about £200 at the time my mother brought it), where he could get one and if I had any more games for the N64! I did have about 30 games for the N64, but I remember that after a big argument with my brother over something years ago, he had actually thrown them out in spite (many of them were birthday and Christmas presents too) - and I now only have a handful which I managed to save. I also used to have a lot of accessories, extra handsets, rumble packs etc, but they got damaged or whatever over the years. Also, as of 2007, Nintendo aren't repairing retro games consoles anymore because the parts aren't readily available anymore. For a retro gamer like me, this is quite sad.
When it was time to quieten down, I finally got a little time to spend with the adults. I am loath to say this, but one story cracked me up - a certain somebody whom I will not name (you know who you are!) had been to Mass that evening, and spent a good deal of it staring at the neck of an elderly chap in the front pew. They were in fact staring at a very long, lonely, protruding hair just begging to be plucked. Being at last driven mad, they yielded to temptation and actually went ahead and plucked it! I wonder - does this constitute common assault?!
I had a lovely time last night!
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