2012 - Year in Review

Thankfully the world didn't implode this year under the rule of a resurrected ancient Mayan overlord.  But, for every right there must be a wrong...news that the world's least talented baby will be born out of the joining of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West means that 2013 will offer up its own end-of-the-world speculators.

As far as this blog is concerned, it has come to this - a limp clip show to end the season.  No new retro games were under the tree this year and rightfully so.  eBay resellers can bite me.  So instead, I offer up the dirty twin of year-end top 10 lists, a 'year in review' article!

Collecting Nintendo got ever more difficult this past year.  Prices on the rare and fun games jumped (in some cases by 400%) seemingly out of nowhere.  There are way more collectors out there now than even just 3 years ago, and NES-era games are by far the most popular.  Some, like me, are nearing the end of a complete NES set, so the last few hard to find titles are getting quite difficult to obtain at a reasonable going rate.

That said, I was able to add 14 NES games to the collection this year.  In order:

TMNT: Tournament Fighters
Dragon Warrior IV
Baby Boomer (unlicensed)
Fire 'n Ice
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
Cowboy Kid
Robodemons (unlicensed)
Zombie Nation
Bandit Kings of Ancient China
Stack Up
Dragon Fighter
Godzilla 2
Bonk's Adventure
Stunt Kids (unlicensed)



It's funny to me, because when I first started collecting I could go to the local retro game shop and make use of 'buy 3 get 1 free' deals on $3 games and walk out with a sack of a dozen carts at a time.  Now it's taken a whole year to pick up just 14 - goes to show how difficult it is to finish off a set on a budget.

Of the games I acquired, Zombie Nation was probably my favorite for a couple of reasons.  First, the story behind the game is weird and fun - fly through cities as the head of a samurai warrior spirit and take down the possessed Statue of Liberty?  Yes, please.  In addition, I picked up the game off eBay literally only a few days before the price on it somehow tripled.  No kidding - sellers online are asking $150 or more for this game when I believe I picked it up for around $50.  Just goes to show you the advantage of going after open auctions vs. 'buy it now' options.

With the lack of true-blue NES carts to be had, I expanded the collection in other ways.  The 'How to Score More Points' VHS starring video game CHAMPION Skip Rogers is a nostalgic favorite for me and many others my age that were in to Nintendo back in the early '90s.

Speaking of nostalgia, I was reunited with my good 'ol robotic operating buddy, R.O.B. thanks to a sweet Craiglist deal.  Sure, he's no fun to play with, but he looks great sitting beside the TV in the nerd cave, which I also took a photographic tour of to mark the first anniversary of Little Gray Squares.  Looking at the analytics of the blog itself, the post regarding Universal Game Cases is my most popular - mostly from people Googling the cases and somehow being directed here.

Add in a couple of oddball carts - a Transformers game for the Japanese Famicom (that I still don't have an adapter to play) and a reproduction of the cancelled Star Trek: The Final Frontier game and you've got my NES collecting for 2012.  All in all, it was a great year, and I'm very lucky to have the ability to collect something as frivolous as obsolete video games.  Hopefully in 2013 I'll have the good fortune to stumble across one of the final four carts I need to finish off the set - maybe under a pile of old magazines in some crazy lady's flea market booth or in some misspelled eBay auction that nobody but me sees.

In the meantime, I'll try my hand at this new Nintendo WiiU...I hear you can play Super Mario Twins on it!

#744 - Stunt Kids - Where Are You, Nick Powell?

#744 - Stunt Kids
NintendoAge.com
11/19/12

It's been nearly 5 months - FIVE MONTHS! - since I've added a new cart to the collection, not counting the odds and ends I've picked up in that time.  As you could probably tell by reading the last year's worth of updates, I've lost some interest in the unlicensed collection.  The games I have left to add to that set are at once rare, expensive and crappy in terms of quality gameplay.

But just because I've slowed down in actively seeking the bastard games of companies like Color Dreams and Active Enterprises, doesn't mean I wouldn't pick one up if the chance arose.  Recently I was in the mood to play Millipede after I played in a tournament at the Houston Arcade Expo.  After cleaning and scrubbing the pins on my copy of the game yielded nothing but a garbled digital mess on my TV, I figured I needed to go ahead and repurchase the game.  Luckily, Millipede is only a couple of bucks.  Double-luckily, a member on NintendoAge was selling his copy along with a list of other carts.  Stunt Kids was on the list, the price was right and I saved on shipping by buying the two games together.

As a game, Stunt Kids reminds me most of Excitebike with cartoonier characters and more obstacles to navigate.  It's made by Camerica/CodeMasters, who as far as unlicensed game companies go, are second only to probably Tengen in terms of quality.  Most of the oddball gold and silver carts from their catalog are decent enough with a good variety of games - sports, action, platformers, etc.

Also, Nick Powell - I have your game.

The Final Four

Many apologies for the total lack of updates for the past month...and for the sporadic updates lately in general.  Trust me, I haven't lost interest in writing for this blog, and I've definitely had my eyes peeled for the remaining NES carts I need for my collection.  But as it goes, I haven't picked much of anything up in the last few months.  Ask any Nintendo collector and they'll tell you that the market has exploded in the last year and a half and prices have gone crazy.

So what I thought I'd do today is reveal the remaining 4 games I would need to obtain to consider my licensed NTSC Nintendo collection complete.  Here they are, in reverse order of likelihood that I'll ever get my greedy little paws on them.

Stadium Events

For NES collectors, this is the grail game for the collection.  According the story that by most has been accepted as truth enough, Stadium Events was given a limited release by Nintendo licensee Bandai.  The game was meant to be paired with the Family Fun Fitness pad that allowed players a new control experience.  Once the big N saw the possibilities ($$$) in such a peripheral, they purchased the license for the game and pad, pulled Stadium Events off the shelves and replaced it with World Class Track Meet (same excat game, different title screen) and the Power Pad.  If you're like me, then you have fond memories of cheating at the game with your cousins by getting down on your knees and using your hands to break world records in the 100 meter dash and pissing off your parents downstairs with all the noise.

So there you have it - an early release, the requirement of a peripheral to play plus a short shelf life equals a rare game.  It's estimated that only a few hundred made it out into the public's hands before the recall, and of course even fewer would have lasted the 25 years since then.  Prices for carts are a sure 4-digit proposition.  I have a mortgage and two car notes - so unless I stumble upon one in an old lady's flea market booth, then this one won't be adorning my shelves.

Flintstones: Surprise at Dinosaur Peak

Here we have another rare game with an interesting story.  From what I've read and heard, F2, as it is shorthanded by the collector community, was a late-era release for the NES that was only available as a Blockbuster rental exclusive.  Any carts that you see now are former rentals that were either sold to the public after Blockbuster began to liquidate their NES stock, or were taken home by employees.

Because of the ex-rental nature of the game, collectors of boxed or (gasp) sealed games have fits with this one as very few copies stayed partnered with the cardboard.  In the last 18 months I've seen the price online jump 300% for just the cartridge - way out of my range.  However, it is common looking enough that it has been obtained rather cheaply from retail stores unwise to its value, or in pawn shops/flea markets/garage sales at a bargain.

Panic Restaurant

Taito published some of the best games on the NES.  Bubble Bobble is a top 5 favorite of mine, PowerBlade is sorely underrated and Arkanoid is hypnotic and frustratingly difficult, but extremely fun.

But Taito collecting is a double-edged sword.  Games like Bubble Bobble Part 2, Little Samson and Power Blade 2 have all seen massive spikes in value and are often among the last to be added to a complete collection.

Panic Restaurant falls into that category - about 2 years ago it could be had for $75 whereas nowadays they fetch $150-200 - yet another victim of reduced availability and being a highly playable platformer.

I've come close a couple of times to getting a hold of a copy (in the wild even!) but as of now I'm still waiting.

Nobunaga's Ambition 2

Goddamn strategy games.  I could've picked this one up ages ago for $25 which I didn't feel was extroardinarly high, but I put it off because quite frankly the game didn't interest me much.  I figured I could just pick it up later any time.  But then something happened.  All of the copies (there used to be many) online dried up.  eBay, Half.com, Amazon, etc. all ran out of stock.  I'm convinced, though I lack any solid proof, that some jerk bought up all the copies and manipulated the market.  Explain how else the price of the ONE copy on eBay would be posted up at $150+.

Look, I'm all for someone making a buck and getting the most they can for the goods they are selling.  But if I'm right then this just takes the fun out of collecting games.  I try my best to give reasonable deals to others on the rare occasion that I sell off some games.  If I use eBay I usually start my auctions at .99 cents.

So that's my rant on Nobunaga 2.  Game that I have no interest in playing, therefore I'm not going to spend a big chunk on it.  I'll trip on it one day at the flea, pick it up for a buck and be done with it.

Thank you for reading Little Gray Squares.  I hope to have more content for you in the future - if I can add to my collection you'll know about it soon enough.

What Does God Need With a Nintendo Game?

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
9/6/12
www.gamereproductions.com 

Another little oddity to add to the collection; what you see here is a reproduction cartridge of the abandoned 1989 game based on the fifth (and crappy crap) Star Trek movie: The Final Frontier.  Actually, saying that The Final Frontier is a crap movie isn't fair - it's not a bad movie, just a not-as-good movie as the others in the franchise (of which I am a huge nerd fan).  It has it's good moments, it has it's not good moments, but it's a movie I've seen a few times and never really hated the way many people seem to.

The game on the other hand?  Well, I played through the first couple of levels after opening the package today...and it's...um...not great.  Star Trek V is one of those games that suffers from lack of creativity and imagination.  You run to the right and shoot bad guys.  There's not much variety (so far).  Maybe things get spicy in later levels, but I haven't gotten that far yet.  It IS kind of fun to see the typos - particularly playing as "Scotto" in stage 2.

For whatever reason, the game was cancelled before it was released.  I've heard it's because the movie didn't do that well (even though it grossed more than $70 million worldwide) and/or because the game wasn't that good (which is true, but that didn't stop whoever was responsible for letting 'Adventures of Tom Sawyer' out of the bag).  So all those teases for a new Star Trek game in the 'coming soon' section of Nintendo Power (RIP) were for naught.

But no matter!  All it takes to get a copy now is a PayPal account and an email to a NES reproduction artist - in this case it was www.gamereproductions.com.  What most repro makers do is take common existing carts, remove the circuit board, whip up some voodoo magic, slap on a new customized label and voila!  New Nintendo game.  The whole process is really cool - I wish I had the gadget know-how to pull them off myself.  Sure, most of the ROMs that the repro makers used can be found online for free, but there's something fun about holding an actual cart in your hand and playing the game on a real NES.

This was the first reproduction cart I've purchased, and I'm impressed with the quality of the construction (fun factor of the game notwithstanding).  I'll probably look into getting a few more - there are some PAL and Japanese exclusives and more unreleased games that I'd be interested in playing.

The only other cart like this that I have is the homebrew title Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril.  I loved this game - it's a cross between I Wanna Be the Guy, MegaMan and Metroid, programmed by one dude and manufactured with 100% new parts and released by www.retrousb.com.  Any NES fan owes it to themselves to purchase a copy and give it a spin.  Battle Kid is better than most officially released NES games that had entire development teams working on them.

Transfamicom!

I'm down to the last 4 licensed and 21 unlicensed carts necessary for a 'complete' NES collection.  That's 3% of the set, which means that there's not much left to find, and what IS left is out of my cheap-ass price range.  I've been tracking one game that shall remain nameless that went for $25 a year ago, but now is listed above $100 (and not selling at that price).  A recent auction ended at $37.  I don't which are dumber, the sellers or the buyers.

So that's the main reason why I haven't had any collection news over the past month or so.  Well, that and I haven't really gone hunting at the fleas or resale shops.  AND the unhealthy number of hours I've spent watching classic '80s Transformers cartoons over the past 6 weeks.

About a week ago I checked in to Player One Video Games in Friendswood, TX and took a quick scan across their import selection.  I'm not big on collecting Japanese games - that would be opening a whole new can of worms - but one Famicom cart did catch my eye.  The notorious Transformers: Mystery of Convoy.

By all accounts the game is and overly difficult and uninspired piece of garbage.  Still...I want to play it because the Transformers are awesome.  Unfortunately, I don't have a Famicom or a converter.  Several of the older NES carts have a converter in them...but opening my extra copy of Gyromite revealed no such golden ticket.  So what I have is a display piece.  Eventually I will find a way to play it - but for now it goes on the shelf.

NintendoAge E-zine

Sure is quiet around here lately.  As we go through this little dry spell, I invite you over to NintendoAge.com - if you're one of the few who haven't arrived here to my blog from that site, then I encourage you to sign up (it's free) and join the discussion.

In addition, as a member you'll have access to the semi-regular e-zine.  The last two issues have included articles written by...me!  Enjoy.

#743-B - Metal Storm (again)

#743-B
Metal Storm
ecrater.com
7/5/12

Dammit.  I already had Metal Storm.  I picked it up about 3 years ago in a big lot of games I bought from a dealer at an indoor flea market for $2.  At the time I had never heard of it and had just started collecting NES, so it got thrown onto the shelf and sat while I played Duck Tales.

Then about a year ago I was watching a series of videos by LordKat called "Until We Win" - where the guy basically plays through difficult retro video games until...well...  His video on Metal Storm was entertaining and piqued my interest in giving the unknown game a shot.  Aaaaaand then the damn thing wouldn't work.

Catridge based video games are usually resistant to the torture they endure during their lifespans.  Grubby little kids, animal encounters, blazing sun, freezing cold and general lack of care can really grime up the plastic, but usually a little elbow grease and a lot of rubbing alcohol can clean the contacts enough for the game to boot up and play.

Unfortunately, Metal Storm (the copy on the left in the picture above), seemed clean on the outside, but wouldn't start up.  Swab the contacts with alcohol...nope.  Clean out the NES with a toothbrush...nope.  Take the cart apart and deep clean the board...nope.  Look up replacement copies on eBay...sigh.  Since the game is apparently fun and apparently uncommon, therefore the copies online were pricey and since I already had a cartridge, a replacement wasn't very high on my priority list.

Cut to now and after a few recent eBay sales to build up my Paypal account I decided the time had come to right the wrong.  Ecrater.com is a new site I hadn't used before - I'm not sure if it's eBay related or what...but either way I can now play Metal Storm (the copy on the right).  And yes, it is as good as advertised.

Masters of the Universal Game Cases

Remember in my last post when I mentioned how cool the custom artwork on the universal game case looked when I received my Bonk's Adventure cart in the mail?  Sure you do...you think about it every night as you go to sleep...tossing...turning...

Well anyway, I took the bait and bought a case of cases (as well as a couple of new printer ink cartridges) and got to work making some of my own.  When I say a case of cases, I mean that literally.  They only come in boxes of 100 - so I've got quite a few sitting in my living room at the moment.  Interestingly enough, they are called 'universal' in that they hold all kinds of discs and cartridges, EXCEPT for original NES.  I had to take a box cutter and pair of pliers to each one in order to knock out the little tabs standing in my way...

As for the artwork...there is a GREAT website that offers up customized lables for almost every system:   www.thecoverproject.net - I recommend scanning through their forums to see pictures of some great customized case collections.

The cases look really great all put next to one another.  I'm a sucker for the sleek, uniform look of all the cases.  NES boxes are all over the map in their design and color and quite frankly, they look a mess on the shelf.  Not to mention that many boxes didn't survive the more than 2 decades since they were printed, having since long disintegrated in landfills across America.  Boxed game collectors are having to bend over and open up their wallets to finish off their sets.  This is a nice looking, cheap alternative.

So this is what I've got so far.  I'll add some more eventually - these labels will kill an ink cartridge really fast, especially on my crummy printer, so I'm being selective in what I make a label for.  Right now I've got some of my more valuable games and some of my favorites, as well as a really awesome custom MegaMan set.

#743 - Bonk's Adventure

Game #743
Bonk's Adventure
NA
6/12/12

It was nice to find a response to my 'want to buy' thread on NintendoAge from yet ANOTHER Canadian (jeez, how many of them are out there?) with an offer to purchase a very nice condition Bonk's Adventure cart.  Dude gave me a very fair deal and even shipped the custom hard case along with the game.

I really like this case.  It's a universal game case with a couple of notches cut out to fit NES carts and a nicely printed custom label.  These look really neat, especially all together on a shelf - if it wouldn't cost literally hundreds of dollars and take up WAY too much space, I would consider housing all of my NES carts in such awesome plastic.

Bonk's Adventure is, of course, a port of the TurboGrafx-16 game.  In fact, Bonk was a mascot of the TG-16, so it's still a little strange to see the character on a Nintendo cartridge.  I guess nowadays that's not so big a deal, what with Sonic and Mario playing at the Olympics together every couple of years.

Now the collection stands at 743 NES games, 673 of them are officially licensed.  There are a total of 677 licensed carts - which means I have only 4 left to find.  It's exciting to be this close to finishing up the licensed set, but looking ahead at the price tags and lack of availability on what's left is certainly daunting.  Hopefully with a little patience and a lot of luck, I'll be able to mow down at least 3 of them this year.  In the interim I'll be adding more varied content to this blog - starting with a new link on the right side of the page.  Enjoy "Game Over" another collector blog from a fellow NA member.

#742 - Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters

#742
Godzilla 2
Collector's Cards & Games
5/21/12

So strange to find a boxed game this late in the game that's within my budget - but here sits Godzilla 2, fresh from a nice little shop in Florida.  The box is in not-so-mint shape, but I don't care much.  I was just glad to find this game for $30 - especially after the prices have all gone skyrocketing on eBay and Amazon.

Godzilla 2 is a weird strategy something or other game...I don't really have much interest in it beyond having it on the collection shelf.  Check out AVGN's video to get an idea of what it's all about.  I like the box art - it's red and orange and Godzilla looks PISSED with lightning striking him from all sides...

Now we're really down to it.  Only 5 licensed games left and the prices are STEEP to say the least (especially for the run-in-place game).  I'll hold out hope that I'll find a deal out there somewhere.

In the meantime, I'm considering ways to keep this blog going.  Just because all the little gray squares are getting snapped up doesn't mean we can't continue these sporadic musings.  So, as they say at the end of every TV season finale; 'to be continued....'

#740 & 741 - Stack Up & Dragon Fighter

#740 & 741
Stack Up & Dragon Fighter
NA & eBay
5/7/12

It's times like this where the whole 'collect every game' thing gets weird.  There have been games that I have no interest in playing (anything where you take turns to fight each other) or are duplicates of other games (Donkey Kong Classics), but at least those were games that I could play if I wanted to.  See that Stack Up game?  I can't even play that one.

See, Stack Up was the second and last R.O.B. game (Gyromite is the other) and it requires a special set of pieces to play it properly.  There are round blocks (if you can call a round shape a 'block'), special claws for R.O.B. and little trays that you hook onto him.  I have none of that stuff.  I don't intend to ever get any of that stuff.  Stack Up is, therefore, an unplayable game for me.  Yay?

On the bright side, Stack Up DOES finish off the 'black box' set - I have all but 4 in their actual black boxes (no Stack Up, DK Jr Math, Urban Champion or CluClu Land boxes).  So that's pretty cool.  Plus, I can just let R.O.B. play with the cartridge.  See?  He's having fun.

The other pickup is Dragon Fighter, which I got from eBay by offering and counter-offering and realizing I had a few bucks left on a gift card.  The 10 minutes of it I played was a decent experience.  You walk along, slashing monsters and snowflakes when suddenly...you become...a giant green fucking dragon!  Every play Michael Jackson's Moonwalker and get the comet to turn into Super Mecha-Michael Jackson?  Same kind of feeling you get in Dragon Fighter.


Cross your fingers, as I may have ANOTHER cart coming in the mail in the next week or so.  We're coming down the home stretch and this shit's getting REAL now.

The Nerd Cave

About a year ago I was sitting around and I thought to myself; "Self, you should start a blog about Nintendo game collecting!" - to which I replied to myself; "Inner-Self, that's stupid. Nobody cares what I'd have to say about buying obsolete video games." Well, despite my better judgement I began to write Little Gray Squares and I sit here on the 1 year anniversary of post #1. Remember April 17, 2011? The sun has been shining a little bit brighter ever since.

Anyways, I don't have any new games to show off today, but I figured now is as good a time as any to show off the entire collection. My first LGS post showcased a blurry cell phone picture of my NES collection. Since then I've moved to a new house and expanded by 49 the number of original Nintendo carts, but I haven't mentioned or shown much of the rest of the 'Nerd Cave' as my wife has nicknamed the game room. So I'll shut up now and show off some slightly less blurry cell phone pics.

Have fun spotting all the Star Trek games.

First up - these are all the games. NES carts on the left and top of the right. Everything else below that. The carts are stacked a little weird in order to fit more on a shelf.

That's right...no human being would stack books this way.

The third shelf that holds paper and toys. Super sweet Deluxe Set box on top next to nerdy video game tournament trophies and a really awesome DK Jenga set.

Dark and dreary close up of some old strategy and tip books. Jeff Rovin boxed set and BOTH Skip Rogers VHS tapes are the highlight. Remember, level 3 is tough...have patience!

More old paper - Nintendo Power, Game Players magazines, some walkthrough cheatbooks.

TOYS. CANDY. Cool!

Some nifty boxed accessories like the Double Player wireless controllers (mine smell weird) and the Aladdin Deck Enhancer that allows you to play unlicensed Aladdin games. I like the Mario Christmas cards circa 1988 that I picked up for a dollar at a flea market.

Who likes board games? Apparently I like four of them.

Back to the video game shelf - these are the boxed NES games I've stumbled upon. Boxed games are fun to look at, but ultimately take up too much shelf space. Still, I hesitate to get rid of any of the boxes I've come across.

Unlicensed carts on the shelf above, 'black box' games on the middle shelf. The black box set are the first 30ish games Nintendo published for the NES and they look nice all next to each other, especially when you add the Zelda games, Ice Hockey and a few others. I'm missing a few for a full set, they can get pricey. Below that are the Aladdin games - mine appear to have never been played.

The boxed games below (plus Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, Gyromite, Excitebike and Donkey Kong 3) represent all the games I owned as a kid back when NES was 'new'. I distinctly remember getting only a few of them - but safe to say that they were mostly given as birthday or Christmas presents or bought with a saved up allowance. I DO recall that Ghosts n Goblins was one of the first games I owned when I was 6 or 7 years old...which could be considered a form of child abuse.

All killer, no filler (if you ignore Mario is Missing) Super NES collection. Not going for a full set, but I tend to find really good SNES games for really low prices quite often.

Boxed SNES are even bigger, bulkier and uglier than boxed NES. Still, Super Metroid is my favorite video game and I had to have a complete boxed copy.

For a brief time I thought it would be fun to collect boxed N64 games. It wasn't fun. I stopped.

Put on your 3D glasses for this picture of Gamecube games!

I enjoy the Wii more than most people do. Squint your eyes and you'll see another Star Trek game in there somewhere.

Truth be told, I probably played more Genesis in my tween/teen years than NES, but mainly because I was way too into sports games. I sold off, but eventually re-purchased most of my collection and then some. Super Baseball 2020 is AWESOME.

DS games.

I've been buying up PS2 games a lot in recent months. It's definitely the cheapest console to collect games for - luckily most of these games are good.

PS3 and PSP games - FINALLY a fun Back to the Future game.

A boxed copy of Mario Dance Dance Revolution sitting next to a pile of console and accessory boxes covered with the Mario 25th Anniversary backpack thingy that my wife got me for Christmas with the Wii version of Punch Out.

As most collectors have already discovered, these plastic storage bins serve a game room well by offering a place to stash all the little crap, wires and controllers that end up all over the place.

And Game Boy games!

Those pins are totally retro - purchased from my school's 2nd grade book fair.

Speaking of books - here are a bunch of manuals.

They can't all be winners, can they? If I cared I'd pick up the stand that goes with the Virtual Boy...if I cared.

Controllers, random crap, more controllers...

My retro gaming set up. Got the TV a few weeks ago from Goodwill after the old one died a dishonorable death. ROB guards the consoles from the approaching swarm of unloved Rock Band instruments.

I've trimmed my console collection considerably in the last year - this is what's left.

That is MY original Nintendo that I got for Christmas in 1988. It still works...sometimes.

The Super Nintendo and top-loading NES stay out all the time as they get the most playtime. The top-loader is prettier and more reliable, but gives nasty 'jailbars' on the screen due to lack of RF shielding or something.

Several posters hanging up - DK, Mario and Zelda are Club Nintendo freebies, the ROB poster came out of an old black box game and the Metroid Prime poster was given away with preorders of Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii.

Lastly are posters for 2 of my favorite movies and a quick snapshot of my DVD/Blu-Ray collection. What Nerd Cave would be complete without them? Look at all that Star Trek! How embarrassing! Thanks for reading Little Gray Squares...here's to another year of dorkiness online!