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I used to pride myself on my video game collection. My collection of GameCube titles, in particular, was a sight to behold. The GameCube came out just before I graduated high school, so while I was in college and working part-time I had quite the expendable income with which to buy whatever I wanted. So while I picked up every GameCube game worth playing, I also picked up a few terrible games just because they were part of a series and would look nice on my shelf.

The other day I was talking to Mr. Faller about the impending Wii U launch details conference and we started being total idiots and proposing wild, impossible scenarios that might be the MEGATONS that we all so desperately crave. What is the deal with this shared attraction toward earth-rending announcements that descend from upon high to shake the ground we stand on anyway? As a fictional butler once said, "

Have a look at Nintendo's Japanese website. Go ahead! It looks pretty nice and new and clean. But did you know that those fancy links and smooth navigational bits discretely conceal original product pages for hardware long since discontinued—some of them dating back to 1996, with what was the first version of their homepage? I've noticed these parts of the site before, but never really dug in until today, when I was looking for pictures of discontinued playing card sets.

I get lost in places like this, arcades with rows of games, multiple floors, each one a bizarre wonder I only ever knew from pictures in magazines. It feels like I could be anywhere when I stumble into one of them, only passively aware of where here actually is, up winding sets of stairs in nowhere buildings filled with smoke and a hundred digital characters screaming all at once. Here on the third floor of Magical, literally across the street from another game center called SANX, for some Street Fighter IV, I feel like if it weren't for the machines with the HD screens, I could be back in 1998.

Hey, do you remember that time a while ago when I was talking about Tetris, and whether a copy of Tetris is worth more or less now than it ever was, and if the value is connected to how much fun it is, and all that stuff? You know what other kinds of games that all of us used to play the crap out of that nobody really gives their due anymore?

I can't count on both hands how many times someone has recommended some particular thing or another to me. Some things are easier than others. Check out this restaurant that happens to be on your way home and is cheap and delicious. Watch this movie that is really popular and here is a copy. Here, have a sip of this beer. Others are more trouble. Watch every season of Lost back to back.

Back in those old gaming days I was full of wonder! And why not. I never knew when I might stumble on some stupid little trick in one game or another. One of the first "Easter eggs" I remember ever finding was from when I was a kid continuously renting Mega Man 2. I'd get impatient and hammer the buttons over and over and hold them down when I was picking a robot to fight, and sometimes, all the stars in the background would randomly change to birds for no reason whatsoever.

My gal Jessica and I were on our way to Osaka to get a delicious American-style burrito at the only burrito joint I've ever been willing to make the thirty minute train ride for, and through a circuitous twist of fate we found ourselves surrounded on either side of the bench by a couple friends that we met along the way. The recent release of the 3DS XL made some new owners out of us—I passed down my original 3DS to Jessy and replaced it with a blue XL, while my friend bought his first 3DS due to the increased battery and bigger screens of the XL (the other friend already had a red original 3DS, purchased specifically for Mario Kart 7, still the only game she owns).

Did you ever play Pokémon Snap? When I was a little younger (but not so young it would have been socially acceptable), I used to play that game with my stepbrother all the time. There was something interesting about the way you'd have to time each picture just right, take advantage of the best opportunity to get a good snapshot. You had to conserve your pictures cause you could only take so many on your rolls, and you had to know what was coming and the little tricks to get the monsters to come out.

Technology and the ways it flows through our culture are constantly changing and, for the most part, we who live embedded in that change don't notice it much. But there are always particular things that impact us on a personal level. Things that make us "miss the good old days" or wonder if we might actually be aging. One of those things for me has been the decline of the rental store.