Other shiny; Are you going to compete?

(tags purchase, Den Den Town, telephone card, Rubik's Cube)

After World Hobby Fair, I made my way to the Toys 'R Us in Namba Parks, which is a new (to me) upscale mall between Nanba and Den Den Town. In fact, I didn't think TRU belonged there until I stepped inside. Unlike regular TRU stores, this one is called TRU Select and it had a mahogany color theme and pricey store displays. This was not the kind of TRU where you leave you kids unattended. Still the store sells the same things, and if ever I need to replace my Rubik's Cubes, I have my walk-in fallback.

I skipped the rest of Namba Parks but I strolled through Yamada Denki. If I didn't know better I would think I was in a big Yodobashi Camera.

I made my way to Den Den Town but to make a long story short, I only bought two things. The Comic Market Winter (73) fallout is over. There was a Noboru Kannatsuki telephone card set that caught my eye but one of the designs is already one of the background images I own, so it wasn't worth the 3500 yen. I didn't find a Xbox 360 joystick for sale anywhere. There were no other collectable telephone cards I needed "right now" but some Pitaten ones caught my fancy. I ended up getting volume 4 of Comic Yell manga magazine, which is kenzen I think but romance stories aimed at guys.

The other thing I got was the Gameboy Advance version of Yoshi's Adventure, I think. It's Super Mario Advance 3, right? Well I already have this game on Super Famicom, previously being swayed by the hype of "ultimate 2D run-and-jump adventure". (How about finishing Super Mario Bros. 2 JP there, goldfish?) I am lazy though because my SF is not hooked up and I've been giving my GB Micro some lovin' so... Well I went cheapskate and bought just the naked cartridge for 800 yen, even though it's now priced to move at 2000 yen at various shops. Ugh I feel guilty.

Finally while riding the train home, a guy tapped my idle Rubik's Cube sitting in my bag (WTF are you reaching for my bag, a$$'()e?!?!?), to start a clipped conversation with me. "So are you going to compete?" he smiled. This gentleman is the type of man to wear a suit on a Sunday evening. I'm thinking university professor. He was pretty knowledgable about "thinking about the next move" and "contestants are mostly young people", though I didn't know if he cubed himself. I embarassingly answered that I am slow and I would only consider attending a contest if I can get my average time to around 30 seconds. Oh well, starting conversations is great but maybe cubing on the train like an obsessed madman is giving off the wrong impression? I love it when people stare at my cube, but I hate it when I can't solve it before they look away, ha. Hey I'm only playing it in place of video gaming. Call it an 80's regression.