Time flies by- before you know it, it’s already April! 2024 is in full effect and already a quarter of the way through. I hope the year has treated you all well so far and I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve acquired so far! It’s a lot of fun clothing pieces, games, figures and music- the Caveman bread and butter!
🌱🛸Pikmin Terrarium
MAAAAN I love Pikmin so much- these little creatures running around collecting items will always be my favorite. My partner has also grown to love the world of Pikmin as well, so for my birthday she got me a couple of these Pikmin Terrarium blind boxes that released last year and I’ve been wanting them since. Such a fun design concept that depicts these curious critters either beating up a fiery blow hog or swimming in clear waters. I’ll try my hardest to stop from getting them all!
👢Rick Owens Dr. Martens 1918
Starting the year off right with a Rick Owen’s boot, but it’s a collaboration with the people’s champ: Dr. Martens! These are definitely the freakiest of the Ricky Martens, but they have grown on me and have become fun addition. These ultra high fuzzy stompers are the 1918 model with the long angular Rick tongue and EXTRA EXTRA long laces Rick Owens is known for. Seeing the excess lace all wrapped up does something for me- they look so cool! Pairing these with some baggy jeans that’ll either be tucked into for a cool shape or wear them business as usual with jeans hiding the boots. I especially wanna wear them with shorts for that extreme look!
🏃♂️🧥TELFAR Track Jacket
I’ve been trying to diversify my jacket choices as of late- track jackets being a contender for a while. At first, the Needles track jacket started my fascination due to the wide range of colors and patterns and I knew I’d like them due to the great experiences i’ve had with other Needles pieces I’ve had in my collection. To my surprise, I’d never thought about Telfar making one! The only knowledge I had of Telfar was either its Infamous bags that everyone wanted a couple years back, the cool t-shirt graphics i’ve seen people wear and these Telfar boots that were worn by Teezo Touchdown when he was opening for a Tyler the Creator show a couple years back. As far as the jacket goes, I love the dark red color, which isn’t something I wear a lot of, but It’s a good color on me! the fit is the perfect width and length, and the small details like the 3 dimensional side stripes and the logo zipper. Love throwing this one on with some baggy jeans and dress shoes, but it can go whatever way!
🧥🪖WTAPS Jacket
As a kid in highschool, stopping by the thrift on my way home to see what vintage hats or sneakers were available was a routine I had and since then, It hasn’t stopped. As time went, I started to go outside of that parameter and opened up to more styles of wear and military surplus has always been the best when it comes to jackets. One vivid memory I’ll always during my late teens was wearing a camo BDU jacket I found at a thrift that became my go to cool jacket that went with a lot of things. I feel like this WTAPS jacket is bringing that feeling back to where I felt that comfort from just throwing on my favorite jacket. It features an oversized fit that comes in a khaki color with an iridescent green hue to it that looks cool when moving around. There are various WTAPS tags throughout and hidden pockets at the lower torso. It’s just an easy oversized shirt jacket to throw on and feel cool in!
🎮🔫Persona 3 Reload
If there was a game that I REALLY wanted a remake for, this one is it! The gaming industry has been pumping out a lot of remakes and remasters- being criticized for lack of creativity for pushing out old new games to make a quick buck. I’d say this statement can go both ways, but most of the time, these games need their visuals and mechanics tweaked or they’re stuck on old hardware that people don’t have access to anymore. Needless to say, I’ve bought a lot of remakes/remasters for some of my favorite games of all time and Persona 3 is the latest one!
I’m about 65 hours in and I’ve had a blast reliving the moments of the story, characters and Tartarus climbing I once knew In a graphically and mechanically improved remake! Some of my favorite new additions are the visuals that include new dungeon design and layout, character models and portraits, user interface and menus, and all the redone areas you’ll be at getting to know some great characters. Second, they added more interactions and story to your party members- ESPECIALLY to the male members due to them not having social links in Persona 3 FES and It’s wonderful to see character development for your whole team. As far as the combat that happens during the midnight hour, it got a massive overhaul! Some of the biggest gripes I had with the original was not being able to control party members and party members having a tired mechanic that makes them unusable after a certain amount of time in Tartarus, but they did away with those aspects and give you full control and time during the midnight hour. They also tweaked the gameplay to be similar to its most popular title, “Persona 5”. Combat is just as snappy and satisfying as 5 and It’s a blast to climb up the tower beating shadows with your teammates! Lastly the Persona 3 soundtrack is my favorite of the series by far! The Hip-hop/pop inspiration is so prevalent in the sound of every area in game- my favorite being the dorm room and overworld theme and you’ll have the music stuck in your head until the end of your adventure!
Overall, I am more than happy with this remake and look forward to finishing the little bit I have left of the game! If I were to say which Persona game you should start with, I’d say Persona 3 Reload due to the perfect length of about 80 hours (Persona 5 Royal took me 140 hours- it took TOO long), the mechanics are as good as P5 and the story and characters are full of fun and tragedy that’ll suck you into this world of Persona 3 Reload.
🎶iPod Video + Replacement Battery + SD Loader
Music exists in everyone’s life whether they know or not- there’s nothing like having that one album in the back of your head like theme music. I’ve been appreciating music in its many technological forms that range from vinyl, cd and streaming that are the dominant way to enjoy music. One way that was massively popular to listen to music was the iPod! Everyone from your parents having the original iPod to the 20 something that remembers having an iPod Touch before the big step into smartphone territory. I have vivid memories of owning a silver iPod Nano, sisters having the chunky pink iPod mini and like this one, my dad having an iPod video. Just scrolling and hearing that iPod click wheel reminded me of my dad’s that had George Lopez specials he purchased off of the iTunes Store way back. It also brings me back to all the music I “downloaded” back then- Limewire and YouTube2Mp3 held it down for my library. This time however, I’ve also been ripping my CD collection and putting them on my iPod and the process has been almost intimate to say the least. Having a dedicated music device is something we have less of currently and being able to have all my music I own is nice. I even took it a step further and replaced the almost 20 year old battery and hard-drive that now has 128gb of flash memory instead of the 32gb hard-drive! You can find iPod videos for fairly cheap- especially ones with failed hard drives or battery because it’s really easy to replace.
💿Sony CD Player + Buyee CD Haul
Speaking of CD’s, I’ve been on a CD collecting kick that may be due to having an iPod again, but another reason was because I found this Sony DVD/CD player at a thrift store! I’ve been fascinated by all the front loading CD players I’ve seen because I like looking at the CD art, but of course I wanted an old Sony one. This model is the DVP-F21 that has a glass top, mounting holes on the back for wall mounting and a cable hiding compartment on the back where all the audio connections are so it can look cable free! I hooked it up to some Edifier speakers I’ve had for my vinyl player and the sound is just as good!
Next, I went a little crazy on Buyee and purchased a bunch of CD’s from various video games, anime, j-pop and dance! Buyee is full of used CD’s at a suuuuper cheap price that can be hard to come by anywhere else. Some of my favorites were both Katamari soundtracks from the original “Katamari Damacy” and “We Love Katamari”, a nonstop dj mix by “Masanori Ikeda” that made some great mixes, the FLCL soundtrack done by “the Pillows” and one of Nujabes albums titled, “Metaphorical Music”. Everything arrived super quickly, (shout out to DHL for always shipping insanely quick) neatly packaged and protected. I’m happy to have all this music physically wrapped in a jewel case to enjoy for many years to come.