Yard Sale Weekend Roundup 7-14-2012

Well, I'm almost caught up on posting these yard sale adventures! This week was a theme mostly around was luckily electronics and video games as a theme! Here is a breakdown of the sales.

Sale 1: Hit up a few sale on Friday before work and this was the first one. I pulled up as the sale advertised video games and there were a few. However, I didn't feel that NHL 2K7 was worth $5. But I did find a Tony Hawk Ride set that was in good shape. I picked up the board and the game for $5

Sale 2: Shortly after that I checked out another sale in the same area and hit a nice little gold mine. I asked if there was any video game stuff and he pointed out an unopened box to me and said everything he had was in it. I rummages through and took the whole box! It had the following in it:

SMB 2
SMB
Mortal Kombat
2 Gamecube power adapters
wired xbox 360 control
2 NES controls
1 Genesis control
Car power adapter splitter
GBA SP Pokemon Case

I asked how much he wanted and he said it was 50 cents an item. I counted up and $3 for the box and he took it. Awesome!

Sale 3: Had one more sale in the area to hit on Friday. Pulled up and found some PC games, a lego set, some stickers for Avin, and a record of alternative music (Stuff like Beastie Boys, Salt n Peppa). I picked up everything for $1 and headed to work

Sale 4: Saturday morning. It was a good one. First sale I was a bargin sale. Everything was a nickel. I picked up a Digital Photo Frame and 2 records of an older STL (Saint Louis for those not in the know) Jazz band. which was a great record by the way! If your keeping track at home, that is 15 cents.

Sale 5: I was picking up a friend to ride with us this morning but he wasn't ready yet so I found a sale beside his house and checked it out. While there I picked up a few PC components. Got a 2 GB set of RAM, a 2 GB stick of RAM, a 256 stick of RAM, and a 64 MB ATI dual video card. The guy wanted to sell all of it at once and I paid $4 for it all.

Finally I come to the last sale and it was ALL for Avin. It was a sale that looked like a kids same mostly but there were cars... lots of cars. Avin went through the basket with them all and picked out every Cars car i nthe basket. He got some Lightning McQueens, Mater, Doc Hudson, Wingo... he got a lot. They were 50 cents each and we had 13 of them. I offered $5 and they took it. Avin played with them the ENTIRE way home :)

Well that was the adventures for that week. Next week I should be all caught up and have the current sale adventures up too. Also if you are interested. I do take requests if there is something in particular that you are looking for. Just put it in the comments or email me if you would like and I'll do my best to help out!

Yard Sale Round Up 7-7-12

Well I know it's a little late but I have a some yard sale news from a couple weeks ago! This was from July 7th and this time I had a theme of kid's stuff and computer equipment. So take a look here and I'll tell you my stories.

Sale 1: This was the first sale I went to and it was advertising games. So naturally I checked it out. However, there version of games was a single PC and PS2 game of no notable mention. However, I did notice something else. Avin's current Leapster had been shutting itself off so this new leapster looked good. They wanted $10 with the system, rechargeable battery with charging base, and 5 games. I thought that was more than I wanted to spend and started to walk off. The then stopped me and told me they'd take $5 instead. Deal!

Sale 2: Right across the street I found more goodies! I spotted and NES in a box almost as fast as Avin spotted a playdough set. with the system there were 2 games including Dr. Mario and Mario/Duck Hunt with all the proper cords. After a little bit of haggling, I took both home for $5

Sale 3: This was an odd sale. There were tons of NASCAR and John Deere items but all overpriced (even if I was interested) But there was a box of random electronic stuff for $1. I took it and found 3 cell phones, 1 NIC, 1 Video Card, and a random assortment of cables. Nice buy for me :)

Sale 4: This was my final purchase this time. I went to this sale and found a computer case. I thought it looked cool and am in process now of moving all the guts out of my PC to the new GA-Zelle case. The price? $5

Well that was my sale weekend. Not a lot but it was all good quality! I'll be catching up the past couple weeks with the other posts I have in store for you! Make sure to tell your friends about my blog as well!

Recipe Time: Bacon Wrapped Chicken with Mustard Sauce!

Well, it's been a while since I'd last posted but I have a new recipe for everyone to try and it has to do with everyone's favorite food/snack/condiment, bacon! Today's recipe will feature chicken breast chunks wrapped in bacon with a spicy mustard dipping sauce. You can prep this whole thing in about 10 minutes but the baking time in an oven is what uses up your time.

The first thing to do is gather the ingredients. You'll need the following things:



2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 package of bacon
pinch of sea salt piece
pinch of red pepper per piece
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp worcestershire
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp hot sauce
1 tsp of sugar



Step 1) Trim off any fat on the chicken breasts with kitchen shears. Afterwards, cut the chicken into small 2-3 inch long strips or chunks. I found that using the shears here while the chicken is partially frozen works wonders.

Step 2) count out how many strips you end up with with and then cute half of that many strips of bacon in half making you have an equal number of bacon strips and chicken strips. I had 10 chunks out of my 2 pieces of chicken so I cut 5 strips of bacon in half.

Step 3) These half strips of bacon should now be the right length to wrap around the chicken pieces 1 time. If they are a little short, you can always stretch them out a bit to make it work.

Step 4) On a large baking sheet, arrange the chicken with equal distance between all of them. Also make sure to put the part where the bacon meets down so that the bacon does not come off during the cooking process. Also at this point put just a pinch of sea salt and red pepper on each one.

Step 5) Pre-heat the oven to 400. Why now? Well if you used slightly frozen chicken to do this, this will allow the chicken to thaw a little more and not have the hard frozen center in it which would lead to uneven cooking. Once preheated, place the chicken in the middle rack for 30 minutes. Once this is done, then set your oven to broil for 3 minutes. This will crisp up the bacon just enough to make it it a little crunchy yet not burnt.

Step 6) Now lets turn our attention to the sauce. This is a simple sauce. in a small serving bowl, mix the ketchup, mustard, soy, worcstershire, and sugar in a bowl. once thouroghly mixed your done. If you arent a mustard fan, then used a little more ketchup (literally just a squirt) to balance it out.

  

Step 7) Well all that is left to do is plate and enjoy!

Yard Sale Weekend Round-Up 6-29-12 - 6-30-12

Hey everyone! Once again it was a beautiful weekend for yard sales! This weeks theme was mostly electronics and movies, which you'll see what I mean here shortly. So take a look at the harvest from this week.

That box in the back? full of DVDs

Sale #1: You know how I love Friday sales before work. Well I stumbled across one and picked up that Pac-Man ghost for 50 cents.

Sale #2: After a string of busts, I went to the sale that is every weekend practically and checked out what they had this week. I looked around and picked up a CED player and about 8 discs for it, an NES that had Mickey Mousecapade in it, a set of headphones, 2 dell laptop power adapters, a free CD binder, and a Jurassic Park III play-doh mold kit for Avin. He though it was awesome and was making play-doh velociraptors as soon as we got home! After all was said and done, I ended up with $10 in everything.

Sale #3: heading into Rolla, I met up with Dad and we hit a few sales. I ended up finding a sale with a box of movies. They were asking $15 and that was too much. I offered $10 and she took it. In the box also there were a couple PlayStation games. They were Jurassic Park: The Lost World and Aladdin. The box had a few Disney movies in it so my son will enjoy those.

Sale #4: This was an odd thing as I actually went back to Sale #2 to look at a couple things. When I got back there they had put out some car speakers. Since I needed new ones for my doors, this worked out perfect. I also picked up a wireless G range extender by Linksys. Dad looked around and found a cannon. More specifically, a toy cannon called 'Canon de Sitio' and some old car advertisements that were on postcards. After looking through what we had I gave $8 for everything and headed back home.

I spend a little more than usual at so few sales but the payoff was worth it this week. What treasures did you find this weekend? Tell me in the comments below!

Yard Sale Rarity Guide: SNES Edition

Hello again everyone! It’s been a bit since I’ve put up another post but I’ve been quite busy! If you recall, recently I had put together an NES Rarity guide to games in the wild. Today, I plan on going over identifying these ‘rare’ SNES games when out and about.

By Publisher:

As most know, there are a few developers that have released some quality titles over the years so it should be no surprise to see some of them on this list. Some of these developers include companies like Natsume, Enix, Square, Squaresoft, and Koei. If you were to see these titles in a game store, you would typically see these priced at least at $20 each. Some of the titles that you’ll want to watch out for are the following:

Harvest Moon
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
E.V.O. Search for Eden
Gemfire

By Genre:

I’m pretty sure you know what I’m going to say here. RPG’s are usually like gold for SNES. While I could go for some of the popular series that you already know about, let me tell you about some of the lesser known RPG titles that are still worthwhile. Also don’t forget that not every RPG is turned based, as there are also some mighty fine action RPGs out there as well. Take a look at this list:

Robotrek
Actraiser
The 7th Saga
Secret of Mana
The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang

By First Party:

What does this mean? This means almost anything by Nintendo. This is mainly because most Nintendo releases were good and no one wants to get rid of them. While there were some exceptions, these can be quite pricey. Some of the titles that you’ll see can contain:

Super Metroid
Kirby’s Dream Land 3
Legend of Zelda
Tetris & Dr. Mario
Super Mario Kart

By Series:

Once again series play a role in determining rarity for some games. There are a few games series out there that are worth picking up on the cheap if you can. Among these is the series that I think most are waiting for me to say. Well, here’s you list of game series to look for.

Donkey Kong Country
Lufia
Final Fantasy
Castlevania
Pocky & Rocky
Mega Man

The One Off:

As with every system, there are a handful of games out there that break the rules and have no reason for popularity or extreme pricy-ness other than they are truly rare. Some of these titles included games like:

Super Copa
Metal Warriors
Incantation
Hagane
Super Turrican 2

Well, there you have it! Here is a list of some rare titles to start looking for on your adventures while going to those local thrift shops and yard sales!

Yard Sale Weekend Round-Up 6-22-12 - 6-23-12 Edition

Welcome to another edition of the Yard Sale Roundup! If you recall, last week was a theme about board games. Well even though I found a board game this week, the theme was definitely back to games! So let's talk about these magnificent finds I got this week during Avin and I's adventures!

As seen, this was a PS2 theme going on here

Sale #1: After scouring the paper and local forums, I was able to find a sale to hit up that looked promising before work on Friday morning. Pulled up and found a bunch of awesome movies and games! Even though there prices were firm, I did manage to get some things. I picked up .hack Parts 1 & 2, Grandia II, Grandia Xtreme, and Suikoden III all for PS2. Also I found the Dark Crystal on Blu-Ray! All together I paid $15 for this.

Sale #2: Fast forward to saturday morning. I made sure to hit a sale because of the 'games' that were advertised. By games, they meant a couple board games. Nevertheless, I did manage to pick up a trivial pursuit card deck and 3 lego tubs for $1.50

Sale #3: After a few disappointments, I finally stumbled across this sale. had a few games and cool stuff that Avin liked but they were either too much or broken. However, I found 1 PS2 game in the mix called The Red Star. Paid $2 for it and left.

Sale #4: Went afterwards to a neighborhood sale where sales #4 and #5 took place. I was able to find first an old Toshiba Satellite laptop (working), and a board game. Now, first off, this was no ordinary board game. *cue backstory* After finishing my undergraduate in 2005, I still was going to grad school at formerly UMR, not MS&T. Look it up. It's a good school. As a senoir project for my degree, we had to assemble, take out a loan, market, sell, pay back a loan all for a product we create... IN A SEMESTER! Not getting into my project, the year after, one of the senior groups made a board game of Rolla, MO where the campus is. I tried to get one but they were sold out before I could get an order in after I had the funds. Now, 6 years later, I stumbled across an unopened copy at this garage sale. I would have paid a lot for this game but overall, I gave $1 for the pair of items.

Sale #5: In the same neighborhood, Avin and I walked to the neighboring house. After looking around I found a shoe box with some 'junk game stuff'. Upon closer inspection I had found a dreamcase wit hteh A/V cable, 2 official controllers, an official VMU, and NBA 2K1 in it. If that wasn't bonus enough, there was also a PSOne in the box as well with Power and A/V included. I paid the $2 requested and left.

Sale #6: This was a sale I wish I had more money at. There was a giant tub of games that they had forgotten to pull out. There were nice games in it for sure. However, They were asking $5 per game which I found out after I had picked out about 6 titles. I said that all I had was a $10 on me, which was true. I set them on the table and picked up Avin and told them I was sorry but I didn't have enough for all of them. Before I could take 2 steps away, They said that they would take $10 for the lot. Here's the list:

Fatal Labyrinth (Genesis)
Kirby's Avalanche (SNES, COMPLETE)
Legend of Zelda (SNES)
Super Mario All Stars (SNES)
Super Mario 64 (N64)
Mario Kart 64 (N64)

Sale #7: I almost lissed this one and turned down the street as I knew it occasionally had good sales. Upon looking around I found an Xbox 360 power brick for a newer 360 Slim and paid $0.50 for it.

Sale #8: OK, so it wasn't really a sale but definitly noteworthy. Went to Goodwill and found a stack of NES games. Out of them, I picked up Battletoads & Double Dragon and Frankenstein: The Monster Returns for $3 each. Nice finds indeed!

Well that does it for this week but I hope that you share the finds you came across in the comments! I look forward to your stories!

Pizza Burgers Recipe

Interesting fact about myself. Before I started getting into an IT career, I was very serious about becoming a professional chef. I made up a bunch of recipes and tried them out on a lot of my friends. I was even designated the cook at one of the houses I was often at during my community college days.

I finally have had more time to be creative in my meals so I decided to share one I created with everyone. I call them Pizza Burgers.

The ingredients

Ingredient List:

1 lb of ground turkey
4 kaiser rolls
4 slices of colby jack cheese
4 slices of provolone cheese
8-12 slices of pepperoni
1 jar of pizza sauce
*spice to taste ( I used seasoned salt, black pepper, and garlic powder)

Step 1: In a 10 - 12 inch skillet melt enough butter to coat the bottom of the pan.

Step 2: While the butter is melting, form the turkey into 4 1/4 patties.

Patty forming!

NOTE: I used turkey in this for 2 reasons. 1) when turkey cooks, it does not release grease into the pan that needs to be drained. This saves an extra dish from being the grease vessel, and 2) turkey patties do not shrink nearly as much due to their lean nature. This will come into play later on.

Step 3: After the butter has melted, place each patty into the skillet and leave them on medium high heat for 5 -6 minutes. Then flip and repeat. Also you can apply salt and pepper at this time.

Let's get cooking

Step 4: While the patties are browning, use this opportunity to cut your kaiser rolls in half. When I cut mine, I left too much top and not enough bottom which led to slight problems while biting into the burger.

Step 5: After cutting the kaiser rolls, butter the bottom and top of each roll and put a slice of each cheese on the top bun. Also make sure to preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Step 6: At this point the burgers are good and brown, Pour the jar of pizza sauce into the skillet, flip the patties. Turn the heat up to high and once the pizza sauce start to bubble, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Sauce it up

Step 7: After the burgers have simmered, take them out of the skillet and place them on the bottom bun. Put 2-3 slices of pepperoni on each patty and put pizza sauce over the burger. Put the top bun on and slide into the over for 5 minutes.

Burger's Assemble!

After this you can take the leftover pizza sauce and it has now been flavored with turkey. I used this to dip my burger into.

Overall, everything turned out well. There are only a couple things I would do different. 1) I cut the buns too low and 2) make the turkey patties thinner.

Enjoy your pizza burgers

Make sure that you try this recipe and try your own twist on it!