Grand Thrift Online

In the poem Essential Beauty, Philip Larkin explores the subject of advertising in the early 60s, Describing The billboards littered around the City of Hull.

"In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter"

Drawing upon the stark contrast of the high life the Adverts where portraying, As they hang in some of the most deprived areas in the city. Makes me wonder what he would make of all the GTA 5 posters on billboards that hang all around the city now, And the Irony that this game will pretty much Recreate that scenario virtually.

Larkin dying in 1985 So I would take it that he wasn't a big Gamer, Never having a chance to see the medium of video games develop from a nerdy bedroom pass time to a main stream high concept art form, In conclusion the buzz around this game awaiting its release has captivated every different type of gamer from Retro Gamers, COD heads and fifa nuts, It looks like these posters will pass into history as Classic as anything that has come before in Video game advertising, aesthetically miles apart from adverts for Heinz beans or loafs of bread, But contained within the product is an allegory of the point larkin was trying to make. 
lets hope the Game is as good as it looks and lives up to the hype these billboards helped create.

So out on the thrift again I see this Amstrad GX4000 boxed up really nice con with two games and to controllers all the cables, Struggling to justify the £30 price tag I check ebay on the fly with some free Wifi that I could pick up in the shop, 4 listings at £19.99, £49.99, £64.99, and £99.99 all buy it now, If this had of been just a little bit cheaper The problem with these things is it was an 8bit console release in the age of the 16bit wars, No one wanted them and any good games are very rare and expensive, That puts people off collecting for them and the lack of a defined resale price £30 seems more like what its worth not what you would buy one for, sinking all that money into this just to have it sitting unsold or not been played on, when that money could be working for you on a better item.

Like this White psp for £24.99 with an 8gb Memory stick pro duo, Rare to find one of these with a decent size memory card,  but with a card of this size it leave the door open for hacking, emulators, and the added bonus of re-downloading the PS1 classics I have bought for ps3 to play on the move.

two DS games of £1 each The ABC murders and 42 all time classics, At £1 each these tiles are worth picking up

Having just picked up a PSP, A half decent game to play on it would be great, I have eyed this copy of Tactics ogre for about a year always thinking £7 was a bit to much, But having a psp to play it and stock piling rare rpg at the moment this finally tick enough boxes to pick it up.

£1.99 for Mega games 2, I would pay that just to leave the game on the game select menu to hear that awesome music, the fact that it includes Streets of rage, Golden Axe and Revenge of the shinobi.

Another copy of Jurassic park operation genesis, At the cheapest price yet only 50p for this sort after version of the game see this on ps2 a lot as well but the xbox verion as yet to turn up in the wild yet, I guess theme park with dinosaurs is a total winner.

And my mission to rid the city of hull of all copy's of crash bandicoot 5 rolls on, With this copy for £1, and yes its still £3 cash and £4 trade.

Taking the thrift online, I have be having some moderate success on Cash converters and Cash generators websites, Bagging Trinity Universe for £9.99 about £3-6 cheaper then anyways Else and all the places that have it in stock been no where near me so online wins out and one more RPG for the pile
Again on the Cash converters website, Picking up something to play on this time £4.99 for killer instinct on SNES, I fine game and a fair price for cart only.

On Cash Generators website for £3.99 phantasy star collection for GBA including 1,2,3 in the series, The two websites have loads of good retro some of it very rare and the price shows it but then sometimes you can get a right deal.

Not just the pawnshop websites you can find great deals on some occasions on ebay you can find and bargin from time to time, like this job lot my girlfriend spotted the other day.

Zelda Ocarina of time, Zelda majora's mask,Super Mario 64,Starwars pod racer, armorines, Turok seed of evil, 
Quake 2(boxed) and Resident Evil 2 (boxed)

All of that stuff for £45 pound pretty great deal for all the lose carts but taking into account that Resident evil 2 on N64 can sell for £50-£80 depending on condition, Its totally fricking sweet!

Coming right back down to the mainstay of the thrift, We have good old baldurs gate dark alliance, this game must be fighting it out with fable for 3rd place of most commonly found on thrift bytes behind FFX and crash 5.

Star wars Republic commando on xbox, this on works on 360 and is about £10 worth of games so for £1.99 its a pretty easy call on picking it up.




Seems like every ones getting in on the Thrift for video games this week, At my parents house the other day and my mother was asking me for some karaoke action for her Wii, Just so happen I had seen this boogie super star game in dove house so she sent me to get it for her.

Then my mate Cut me a deal on this Snes with 16 games for £20, The snes is classic beat up yellow con, But the amount of games he give me with it made it totally worth it!

buy one get one free so 99p for two games, This been the 3rd copy of Crash 5 I saw out this week, One I passed on because the inlay was all cut up and the disc was for want of a better word totally fucked, This one was tidy and so was Simpsons hit and run for free.

Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII For £3, Pick this up to have a go with I played it back when it was first out but can't remember it that well, I remember it been better  dirge of cerberus anyways and £3 is a good price retail this is more like £7-10

And a couple of 360 games £1.99 each Halo Wars and Dragon age origins, I Picked Dragon age up back when it was brand new, Now its rocking up in charity shops for £1.99 The thrift shift in full swing, This is good I was so sick of seening PS2 and xbox Games woohoo!


The standard Tat shelf is starting to look more like this with 360 and Wii been more common and then you will always have some old PC stuff kicking about PS3 not really showing up as much as the other two formats but its only a matter of time.

And last up Pokemon Ranger unboxed for £2, T'ssh that was quite a Thrift so much stuff to get on ebay/play/trade, What was I even thinking buy anything to play this week, right am of to chomp at the bit and hold out for blockbuster to open at midnight for GTA 5 till next time Thrift on!