6/21 Tuesday Milligan

As I referenced in my article about the split machine a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had won the first ever Student of the Year award at my Tae Kwon Do School.  The prize was $150 worth of "Geoffrey Dollars" at Toys R Us.

Like any kid with a shopping spree would do, I didn't even think about splitting up the $150 among several items.  Instead, I looked for one toy to rule them all!!!

As fate would have it, the newly released portable gaming system SEGA's Game Gear had just been released and was selling for $150...

The Bad News: Game Gear didn't come with any game cartridges...

...but did that deter me from buying it?  No way!  Instead, I begged my dad if he would pay for my very first game cartridge...and he agreed.

So which game did I choose?

Wisely, I chose NBA Jam, which one of the only sports games to stand the test of time and be relevant even today!

Not so wisely, though....I didn't realize that Nintendo's GameBoy would actually have infinitely better games than SEGA's Game Gear....and actually have a resurgence of popularity many years after Game Gears were phased out completely.

But that probably didn't matter either...because I ended up never buying a 2nd game for my Game Gear!  I spent $150+ on one game!  Granted, it could have been worse....I could have chosen "Shaq Fu" instead of NBA Jam.  Wikipedia summarizes the plot of "Shaq Fu" like this:

In the game's storyline, Shaquille O'Neal wanders into a kung fu dojo while heading to a charity basketball game in Tokyo, Japan. After speaking with a kung fu master, he stumbles into another dimension, where he must rescue a young boy named Nezu from the evil mummy Sett-Ra.

Moral of the Story: Whenever you have an enormous gift certificate, spend it wisely or else you'll end up like me....you'll have nothing to show for it except for a lousy blog entry filled with regret 15 years later!  So at least spend it on something that will lead to a blog post of fond memories!

For example, if I gave you a $50 gift card for McDonald's, DO NOT do the reasonable thing and split it up into 10 meals of $5 value.  INSTEAD, get $50 worth of Chicken McNuggets and swim in them!