Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@bimmy-lee Eeeww, educational toys.....

I guess Costco's ok. I've never been there. The nearest one is not only far away, but also in the heart of the most trafficky traffic area (which is saying something....). I've been to Sam's Club....but I don't recall seeing much in the way of toys. Unless you count cash register drawers.

Amazon...that just seems so wrong for toys. When I was a kid half the fun was seeing it all larger than life on shelves before hand. Plus discovery...half of the toys I wanted I didn't know I wanted but I saw it on the shelf randomly and HAD TO HAVE IT! I really can't imagine being a kid today with, basically, not a single remaining store to look at toys but Walmart. One of the greatest things in kiddom doesn't even exist today.

I can't even imagine the amount of Zanex these kids are going to need to pop when they grow up and realize society stole their childhood.

@NEStalgia what is this Brexit article that I posted on the homepage?

@NEStalgia KB Toys were way overpriced tiny stores in malls that I never wanted to set foot in so avoiding them was pretty easy. And they were nearly out of business by the time I had kids anyway. TRU were usually overpriced as well. I've had my Target Red Card for over 20 years now, since back when I lived in KY, so I've always done a ton of shopping there. And Amazon the past decade or 2. (Just checked and the first order listed under my Amazon account was 2001 and there are orders for every single year since then.) Walmart is more evil than most so I try to avoid there. And as you know we're big gamers so I have done a lot of shopping in Gamestop. They're way overpriced as well but their BF ads aren't too bad sometimes. I also bought a lot of games at Kmart 1 year b/c they had a lot of deals and discounts.

This year however my biggest problem is teenage boys don't want much. My oldest wants Sword or Shield, still hasn't decided yet. The youngest just watches Youtube. I may buy the youngest a new video card but prices have skyrocketed the past few years and I've always had a hard ceiling of $100 on video cards - I'ma console gamer. I'm hoping Newegg has a BF deal on a 1030 or 1050. I actually have bought a few things on Newegg, they weren't collecting tax when Amazon started.

tl;dr Target and Amazon, if they don't have it, it ain't being bought.

I was making a comment about @NEStalgia who with the use of terms like "wannabes" came across with an attitude of generalising and dismissive of people who have criticism of the game to which I suggested actually engaging with them to get an understanding rather than simply complaining about complainers which is just another form of negatively. Their reply was along the lines I don't need to talk with them as I know already so I just let them carry on with it rather than getting into a debate of what the issue may or may not be.

If you're gonna make remarks and accusations about me I'd appreciate if you could at least @ me.

@NEStalgia I think your memory might be getting corrupted, I've not posted anything Brexit related and I haven't reviewed anything for 10 years. You can see on my staff profile everything that I've posted. I've only done a few stories outside of the download updates this year... maybe time to defrag your brain?

I feel the pain, too. I had to get new shoes about a week ago and it was hard cuz I used to get them from ShopKo. They went 6 feet under this year, so I had to find a new place. The specialty shoe store here in town is at least $100 a pair, and walmart shoes are cheapo trash. We used to have a Payless in our mall, but they are gone too. I had to go to Fleet Farm of all places to get something that was decent. It was still $50, but at least they are good quality.

@NEStalgia Well, that's apparently only in the US, then. Over here, Asus is a well-known, and well liked brand, and their gaming laptops and such are always considered to be top-notch, so that's where that statement of mine came from.

@jump I can understand the sentiment of wanting to be notified, but you see, we're actually trying our damnedest to keep the toxicity of the Pokémon discussion out of this particular thread, because here is the only place where we can meet like minds that simply respect each other's opinions, and not attack each other over liking or not liking what the other person does, so that's the reason for not tagging you in that specific comment of mine.

It wasn't meant as a personal insult/accusation or a sneaky way of talking about you behind your back, but if that was the impression that I gave off by doing that, then my bad. The intention was simply of using you as an example compared to @NEStalgia, where possibly inflammatory comments were concerned, but again: in the GENERAL sense, so it's nothing personal, far as I'm concerned.

On a side note: I see plenty of people both in here and in the comments section occasionally mentioning me without actually tagging me, and honestly, I just shrug it off. If I had to worry about every mention of my name without me being notified, I'd already be on the couch of some head doctor, so I'm not going to do that. But that's my personal opinion on the matter, so think of that what you will.

@bimmy-lee DOOD! Education toys rawk. There was a Smithsonian Store in the mall when I was little in VA Beach, place was off the chain. To this day I still remember all the beeps and boops my GeoSafari made, too.
Oh, and ZooBooks were great. The offshoot got history and military stuff was even better.

@antdickens You might be right! Well, I'm glad it wasn't you. That's likely Damien then, which, while still depressing is definitely less surprising. His penchant for straddling the line and falling on the other side of it isn't exactly a secret around these parts

I'm left perplexed though, as I know I either posted or tagged on some article to you about it being nice seeing you do a review...which you apparently didn't do.... So, I hereby, revoke my compliment from a few months ago, which I don't remember what it was, based on getting the wrong person at the time, apparently

@Andrew_R_2000 Yeah. They keep talking about the "retail apocalypse" - and it's true. So many of the retailers are closing left and right. Nearly all the malls are likely to be torn down this decade except for a handful of "A malls" (mostly ultra luxury/tourist malls). When they do build a shopping center it's a food store and some tiny stores like cell phone stores and nail salons. But the worst part is where they close the old stores, and worse, the malls, they rebuild them with these new "mixed used" schemes of luxury apartments, offices, and some retail (a food store and a nail salon with some restaurants.) On paper they sell this to local governments as "a walkable lifestyle community for carless access to everything." The reality is what it really is is a land grab by real estate moguls during a retail slump to take as much square footage as possible and squat it with housing until the end of time, while "diversifying" all the bulk land they own so that any slump in any sector won't affect their investor value. Thus making livable life harder to make their investors safer. The problem is, the shine is going to come off online at some point. Amazon can't keep delivering every package to every door for "free" forever. Someday it will get slow or expensive, or difficult and people will want retail again. But it's never going to appear again because every square foot that used to have local retail has been converted to housing, which can't ever be removed.

The shoe story is one I can relate to! We used to have a Payless, a Kmart, and an older chain, I forget the name, around here. All gone now. I too have that "everything is Italian leather" boutique type store more oriented toward the lawyer/suit crowd locally that I'd never set foot into. And the nearest normal shoe store is Walmart at 30-45 minutes out. And a DSW about 8 minutes out from there, followed by Target a few minutes after there. But between traffic lights and all, the "extra 3 minutes" easily becomes "extra 12+ minutes." I effectively can no longer buy shoes. "No shirt, no shoes, no problem!"

I've resorted to blind-buying clothing on Amazon, and if it's the wrong size just wear it anyway. Sure you look kinda ghetto, but such is life in the great digital economy!

@ThanosReXXX Oh Asus is well known and liked in a NewEgg sort of way here...and they have tried to position themselves as premium. I just didn't think that positioning gained traction. They've always been pretty much the bog standard OEM & branded mobo maker. Good quality, yes, but the standard giant, not really a boutique product except for gaming nerds and the weird ROG branding. But it's not a "prestige brand" as a general consumer brand, still more a PC nerd/gamer kind of brand. Maybe in Europe it's more mainstream?

My personal experience, however is their non-mobo/vidcard/RAM/sound card products are kind of mediocre. I've had a few Asus tablets/laptops. They're "ok" - but the driver support/firmware support is often deplorable. Same for the ROG mobos. Acer has always been the "value" brand, but I've actually found them to be more reliable and solid, but with less features, than the more "premium" Asus products outside the core Asus product.s

@NEStalgia - The toy store of my youth was a Children’s Palace. It closed in the early/mid 90s. I took my daughter to TRU a few times before it closed, but it was a discombobulated mess. It was basically like shopping in a toilet. Obviously, Amazon provides accessibility, especially if you’re particular about what your kids play with. Most of the time, I’d rather buy something sight unseen there from some trusted vendors than something from what amounts to the toy sections of retail stores.

@ThanosReXXX - My current laptop is an ASUS as well as my last two prior laptops. I’m certainly no expert when it comes to laptops or PCs, but they’re functional for what I need from them, and they’re durable and last a long time. At least in my experience. If I find a product I trust, I usually just stick with it, and I’ve been using ASUS laptops for a long time.

@HobbitGamer - Awww yeah, I had a ZooBooks sub for years. Loved em. Those Smithsonian stores were great. I didn’t have one local. Smithsonian still has my favorite record label, Folkways. I loved all types of sciencey toys and games growing up. The art and teacher supply store I mentioned is loaded with that kind of stuff. My kids love it. My dad is getting them a rock tumbler for Christmas, and I’m so excited. We’re gonna tumble everything.

@jump I can understand it's hard, or questionable, to take someone's word for something online, but I never mince words, and I always say exactly what I mean, so there's no double intentions or ulterior motive here. If you don't believe or trust that, well... I'm sorry, but I can't do anything about that.

And if you had read my comment exactly as it was intended, then it should have been clear/obvious that I was simply questioning the mod, NOT you, about his request towards @NEStalgia, because he mentioned the exact topic, and discussion about Pokémon, and you literally popped up out of nowhere, addressing him about that, so to me, it would seem fair to ask both people to stop the discussion, before it got out of hand here as well, like it has done in several Pokémon related articles. So, AGAIN: it wasn't even personal or about you, simply a comparison between NEStalgia and another user doing practically the same. It just so happened to be you this time, but it could have been anyone, basically, had they addressed the same issue.

I'm actually sad that we're now even discussing this, because it's the VERY thing I tried to prevent. This is supposed to be a light-hearted thread, hence the title of it. Not a thread where we can take any running article discussion, hunt people down who casually mention it because they're wondering why it got so out of hand, and then pollute this thread by debating it further here as well, no offense.

@NEStalgia Well, isn't that what I already said? Their reputation over here is apparently a heck of a whole lot better than in the US, for whatever reason, because over here, they are most definitely NOT known for making "bog standard" hardware. It's Deutsche grundlichkeit, German thoroughness/ingenuity, and it's always quality hardware, and very durable, pretty much like @bimmy-lee has also mentioned. (thanks for the addition, by the way)

But yeah, over here, they are primarily famous for their game related hardware, so laptops, screens, keyboards and what not. But all are definitely considered premium and one of the go to hardware brands for dedicated PC gamers.

@bimmy-lee I think the last time I was in a TRU was when the N64 just came out. It was like a dream store back then. I hadn't seen it's long, slow decline, assuming it had one from executive neglect. I peered in the window a few times, debating if I should go in over the final few years (ultimately deciding not to, not because I didn't want to see it but because it's going to be a germ infested incubator ) but I kind of regret not doing so, now. From what I saw it looked the same as it did the last time I was there.....which is when the N64 came out. To me that's a wonderful thing. But everyone seems to want "new everything" these days, I guess. I'll never understand why people want everything to always be "modernized" and "new" all the time. Best toystores ever are those old 1950's ones left over when you find one on occasion. Buckets of cool stuff there!

I dunno, I love the toy department of a retailer I grew up with it I suppose.... Not much left of them, sadly. But I still walk through it whenever I do go somewhere with one. I think I still want half the toys. They have make your own crayon kits now. I want one.

Think it's a problem if I go to what little is left of the rapidly deteriorating mall and sit on Santa's lap?

@NEStalgia By the way: over here, it's actually Acer that is seen as the brand for people that want a cheap, "bog standard" PC solution. Definitely not one of the worthwhile brands...

If you want to prevent it stop mentioning it

@ThanosReXXX Huh. I figured they had that reputation in Asia, but didn't realize it was EU too. The whole "gaming" focus thing always seemed like over the top branding to me with mostly overclocker friendly crazy features and high price tags.

When mobo shopping I'm apt to chose them over ASRock and the rest of the crummy stuff out there, but I'll always take an Intel OEM board first! No gaming features there, but you won't find something more reliable anywhere!

That explains the disconnect though. Their Zenbooks are almost Apple expensive, and I've never quite understood why "me-too Asus" thinks they're anywhere close to a similar playing field, but always found it funny. Apparently they have a higher profile elsewhere. Acer, Asus, etc are more "quality brand name generics" than anything else (or at least were 6 or 7 years ago, I haven't really bought much from them recently.)

Also further proof of how effective marketing is at building the product more than the product itself. In one place it's an elite brand you seek on par with Samsung and the like, apparently, in another it's the kind of known-name generic.

EDIT: And yeah, Acer has that same reputation here. I just meant in my own experience, despite that, I've found they've been the more reliable/better supported one. Asus is more prone to dump and forget. Release the product, fix it later, then abandon it without fixing the rest and move on to the new product, leaving the old one a dangling broken mess, software-wise.

There's also the Asus TF201 tablet where they got the idea to put the wifi antenna behind an aluminum plate. They never remedied this, and wifi never worked right. They just sold an updated model the next year that didn't have broken Wifi. I bought one of those. Ugh!

@jump Likewise, in regards to suddenly jumping into threads that you've otherwise hardly ever participated in, so the fact that you did feel the need to all of a sudden respond to both @NEStalgia and me is potentially kind of telling. But how about deciding to not make any more of it than it is?

I used you as an example, you apparently interpreted that as something else, for which I already said I'm sorry, but that is about as far as I'm gonna go, because other than that, nothing bad happened here, and I would hope that any grown up individual would be able to at least take (and stomach) some criticism without immediately being offended or insulted, or feeling the need to drag a useless discussion out of it.

@NEStalgia Over here, the usual suspects far as triple A brands go are HP and Dell for the average PC user, Mac for the elitists, Google Chromebooks for the idiots and Asus or Alienware for the dedicated gamer or video editor and so on.

@ThanosReXXX Here, mostly Apple for the video editors, as well. Humbug.

The mainstream home & business ones are HP, Dell, and don't forget Lenovo. And high end business/industrial/fleet/corporate is almost entirely Lenovo Thinkpad (And for government which cut ties with Lenovo after realizing Beijing was baking the spying into the firmware, Dell & HP's Thinkpad competitor lines.)

Well, for a gamer buying a prefab system other than Asus and Alienware it's not like there's any other "gaming for the masses" brand readily available. Most gamers roll their own, and for laptops you've mostly just got those two plus MSI. I always attributed Asus gaming laptop popularity more down to the fact they're at least cheaper than Alienware than anything else

And for the 1337 there's Razer