So back in October 2024, after covering the stuff I got at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, I had teased I was gonna write a “Some Stuff I Bought” at the end of the year to cover the stuff I got outside of that con. But then I forgot to. With good reason, though.
Since it is the middle of 2025, and I have bought more things since. So let’s do a bit of catch-up, shall we?
For the uninitiated: I check thrift stores and other shops of interest for things I think that are neat: Music CDs, video games, DVDs/Blu-rays of movies, that kind of thing. Inspired by places like LGR Thrifts, Oddity Archive’s Archive Thrifting and other similar online content creators, I often do this type of article 2-3 times a year: One around June-July, One in December, and then any separate ones for any conventions I go to – which has been only the Portland Retro Gaming Expo so far, but I won’t rule out opportunities to check out other cons in the future if time and budget allows for it.
I will be honest with you. My mental health wasn’t in the best of places last year. Current events notwithstanding, it was just really really tough for me to get the motivation to go places and do things that I find enjoyment in doing. I was able to get a bit of thrifting done, just with very, very wide gaps between each thrifting.
Such as my first trip in March 2024. A small pilgrimage to one of the local Goodwill stores got me these small, yet still interesting grabs.
Chicago XVII on audiocassette (99 cents)
Ah yes, the 80s soft-rock gloop classic that brought us “You’re the Inspiration.” The last major album featuring Peter Cetera on lead vocals before he decided to branch off into a solo career that was even more cheesier than when he was with Chicago. I’m more partial to their hard rock stuff like “25 or 6 to 4,” but I don’t hate their more lighter work – “If You Leave Me Now” is cheesy but I have a soft spot for it. This was my first cassette purchase in a while, and at a store that was slowly phasing out stuff like cassettes and 8 tracks.
You might also know “You’re the Inspiration” from being featured in Elite Beat Agents, with a really touching level attached to it and a damn touching cover to boot. (Hey Nintendo, put out the studio masters of the songs from the Ouendan series and Elite Beat Agents on your Nintendo Music service already!! I know they’re all licensed tracks, but I wanna hear these in their original quality and not through a tinny Nintendo DS speaker.)
Karaoke Revolution Vol. 2 – PlayStation 2 ($3.99)
For the longest time I didn’t know Harmonix did music games besides Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Turns out Karaoke Revolution was also one of their big successes, and it’s probably why vocals in Rock Band games were so darn good.
I basically got this to complete my Harmonix game collection, but also to hear how they handled the songs, which are all covers much like the early Guitar Hero and Rock Band games were, even produced by the same company as those games, Wavegroup Sound.
Now I just need to get over my fear of singing in games like these…
The Goodwill journey didn’t have much, but my thrifting wasn’t over yet that day. A visit to a local thrift store chain had a bunch of music CDs strewn about with reckless abandon, and I was able to snag one more unusual album.
John Tesh Sampler CD courtesy of Kellogg’s cereals ($1)
John Tesh. Host of Entertainment Tonight. New age musician. Composed “Roundball Rock,” the theme to NBA on NBC, one of the best sports themes of the 1990s. Knowing this was in here, I had to ask myself if “Roundball Rock” was in here, in any form.
And it is! Granted, it’s the “Live at Red Rocks” version that Tesh put up online, but without the interesting tape recorder bit at the beginning. Still a banger version of the song, though. There’s a section with dueling guitar and violin during the bridge! Who knew sports themes could sound kickass outside of the sporting show they’re made for?
From my brief research, this was a promotional CD that could be ordered from specially marked boxes of Kelloggs cereals – likely Special K, maybe other cereals – for their “For Hearts’ Sake ‘98” program, in collaboration with the American Heart Association. There’s a Variety article that covers the news of this by Adam Sandler (not that one).
The rest of the album is soft new age piano music. Not really my thing, myself, so this was just me spending $1 to have “Roundball Rock.” Then again, who here hasn’t bought an album for just one song?
That was the first one, in March. The next thrifting journey happened several months later. In August. At another local thrift store in downtown Portland. At the time it was oddly fitting to find it.
Pat Sajak’s Code Letter: Mixed Up Madness puzzle book ($1)
So back in 2021, I wrote about Lucky Letters, a crossword puzzle video game starring then-long standing host of Wheel of Fortune, Pat Sajak. But his Pat Sajak Games label wasn’t just for video games, oh no. He went all-in on that lucrative market for puzzle books, crosswords and word searches. The kind of stuff you’d see older folk play while on a road trip, or in a hospital.
At the time, the last episode of regular Wheel of Fortune featuring Sajak as host had aired, so I found it just fitting to see this pop up at the time. There’s been a good chunk of celebrities who’ve endorsed these kind of word search books, such as the late Wink Martindale was also selling puzzle books around the same time. I haven’t grabbed one of those, but I can’t imagine them being any different than this.
And that was 2024. So you can kinda tell why I didn’t write one of these until now. As I said, my mental health wasn’t doing too hot that year. Eventually, I bounced back once I made a few adjustments, and by February of this year, I got myself back into thrifting. With a little help from my partner, of course.
This time, the two of us visited the Main Street Collectors Mall and Soda Fountain in Milwaukie, Oregon. This is a place I’ve visited countless times over the years and wrote about me grabbing some pretty good music CDs. Oh, and to visit the soda fountain where you could get a malt and sit down at the stool where John F. Kennedy sat when visiting Milwaukie during a campaign stop for president. Nice, quirky little place, highly recommend visiting if you’re in the neighborhood. You can even see the office of Dark Horse Comics right across the street!
Anyway, here’s the stuff I got:
Jumanji on Blu-ray ($3)
Jumanji is the film adaption of the children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg, starring Robin Williams. This was one of those movies that I’d watch constantly, often times when cable TV channels like TBS would air it as filler at 2PM on a Saturday, that kind of stuff. Nice little film. Jonathan Hyde would’ve been a killer James Bond villain. Haven’t seen the sequels, which are probably worse, because we traded Robin Williams for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, which I consider a downgrade.
So I’ve been trying to build up my Blu-ray collection. I know streaming is where it’s at nowadays, but I’d like to be able to watch these movies at any time by popping them in my PlayStation 3, and not have to deal with trash like mid-film ad rolls, buffering issues, or having to play “What service can I watch this damn thing on,” what with there being dozens of streaming apps in this world now. Is it on Prime? on Hulu? on Tubi? on Poob? Who the hell knows!
Maybe I’m being “old lady yells at cloud” in me talking, but this is why a physical copy of a film or music is valuable, because it cuts away from all that bullshit. I know Blu-ray also has its own flaws, but they’re not as annoying as streaming can be. Plus you get bonus features with the movie, something we’ve been solely missing from the modern movie-watching age.
A Space Goddessy by Judy Tenuta ($3)
A few years ago we lost Judy Tenuta, another comedian who used an accordion in their act – yes, another comedian who played the accordion in their act not named “Weird Al” Yankovic. Surprising, I know. (Speaking of Weird Al, Tenuta would collaborate with him on several projects, appearing in “White & Nerdy”, that kind of stuff. Guess funny accordionists know to stick together.)
But I know her as one of the regular celebrities of the maligned 1998 revival of Match Game, where she had to powwow with Vicki Lawrence from The Carol Burnett Show and Mama’s Family, Nell Carter from Gimme a Break!, and always-tanned actor George Hamilton, alongside whatever soap opera stars and C-list sitcom actors they could get in Television City that day. It’s not a classic in the way the 1970s version is, but it’s a perfectly fine version. (Fun fact: The 1998 version was the first version of Match Game I ever saw. I didn’t get Game Show Network until a couple years later.)
Tenuta made this comedy album for laugh.com, a comedy website from the days of Web 1.0. It features a handful of songs and her comedy act from that time, which I imagine is gonna bounce between silly jokes to “probably would get her in trouble today” stuff, but it definitely looks like a goofy little album. Hell, she uses Comic Sans everywhere! Can’t get any goofier than that.
The Star Wars Trilogy performed by Varujan Kojian and the Utah Symphony Orchestra ($4)
This isn’t the original score from the films, these are arranged suites featuring some of the most iconic bits of the original trilogy of Star Wars films, done with the blessing of original composer John Williams.
This was made likely as a way to make the score appealing to average music buyers back then, before people were okay with listening to the Official Film Score. Hell, they even mention having “the only available recordings” of “Darth Vader’s Death” and “Fight with TIE Fighters,” both from Return of the Jedi. Obviously that’s no longer true now, but I bet this was probably a big deal at the time.
They’re solid arrangements, not as corny as the New American Orchestra’s arrangements of Vangelis’ Blade Runner score could be, but in the days before you could actually just listen to John Williams’ original score in the clear, this worked in a pinch. This also got me to really dig more into Williams’ score for the Original Trilogy beyond the Main Title, The Imperial March and the Cantina Band theme. Sadly, Cantina Band is not on this album. Would’ve loved to see the Utah Symphony Orchestra and their take on jizz.
Extreme II: Pornograffiti by Extreme ($5)
This was strictly a “replacing a damaged copy” purchase, something I’ve been looking out for since a good chunk of my parents’ CD collection is damaged and scratched to hell. Best known for “More Than Words,” as well as minor hits like “Get the Funk Out,” I fully expect this to be a solid album once I give it a full proper listen. A shame it’s not their debut, I would’ve loved to have “Play With Me,” that one song from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s.
Naturally, the next month in March was checking that same thrift store place where I got the John Tesh Sampler CD last year, which has now rebranded as “SuperThrift.” I swear that place has a revolving door of new tenets doing the thrift store thing since Value Village shut down in that location.
Would you believe I spent $3.96 on all this? Like, that’s wild, right??? Some of these were definitely on sale, but walking out with spending less than five bucks on this just feels like a crime to me now. But anyway.
Bullitt on Blu-ray
Another addition to the Blu-ray pile. The Steve McQueen car chase classic. Funny enough, I was watching something with a few friends, and during the commercial breaks, we had stumbled upon a commercial Ford had made in the mid-2000s to promote their updated Ford Mustang with superimposed clips of McQueen from Bullitt driving the modernized Ford Mustang in a specially made cornfield by a guy who watched a bit too much Field of Dreams. A few days later I stumbled upon this Blu-ray. Funny coincidence, that.
Anyway, much like my opinion on Jumanji earlier, having this physically will be very nice in the future.
“Change the World” single by Eric Clapton
Talking about Eric Clapton with any praise in 2025 comes with a lot of caveats. Man made such racist statements in the 70s that Rock Against Racism was created as a response, he collaborated with Van Morrison on anti-vaccine and anti-mask songs while eventually getting COVID-19 himself… Basically, Eric Clapton, the person, is kind of a dick.
Eric Clapton, the musician, however has always been a pretty solid rock ‘n’ roll guy, who always was around some of the classic rock greats like The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. There is a tinge of the problem of “white guys appropriating black music” that a lot of artists around this time were getting, but he eventually carved his own niche. Thanks to the popularity of Eric Clapton Unplugged, he made a pivot into the Adult Alternative market, which includes this single, produced by Babyface, normally an R&B producer that shouldn’t work, yet somehow does.
“Change the World” was made for a movie starring John Travolta called Phenomenon, of which I tend to confuse with Michael, the film where Travolta’s portrays the Archangel Michael, complete with wings, and has to help out people. It doesn’t help that both these films came out in 1996. I don’t know where “Change the World” plays in the film, and I don’t really care either. It’s backed with a cover of the traditional folk song “Danny Boy” as track two, which is a perfectly fine arrangement but I’m just here for “Change the World.”
Good Morning, Vietnam: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Another soundtrack to a 1980s film classic. Surprisingly I’ve never seen it, despite Robin Williams being in it. Released alongside the film, it features the myriad of songs played during the album, mixed in with dialogue of Adrian Cronauer – Williams’ character from the film – presumably to mimic like what it was to listen to the radio like in the film. But hey, it’s got some Beach Boys, some James Brown and even Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” to end the record. Will probably be much like when I got Platoon’s soundtrack a while back, where there’s some good songs in here but otherwise may not be worth actively seeking out nowadays.
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me: Music from the Motion Picture
Yeah, baby, yeah! (Sorry, I had to.)
The film to the second Austin Powers movie, another one of those “I had this on video tape and watched it endlessly as a teenager” movies. I know a lot of it by heart more than the other two movies in the series.
Naturally, “Soul Bossa Nova,” the theme to the Austin Powers films, composed by the late great Quincy Jones is featured on here, alongside some interesting covers. Examples include Lenny Kravitz’s “American Woman,” Mel B – credited as “Melanie G (aka Scary Spice)” – covering “Word Up!”, and a handful of others. Hell, even Dr. Evil’s version of “Just the Two of Us” is on here too, if you like gimmick songs. (I swear the whole Austin Powers franchise is nothing but memes before they were called memes.)
BackBeat: Music from the Motion Picture
So I bet you didn’t know this, but in 1994 they made a movie covering the Beatles’ early work. This was before The Beatles Anthology, which came out the following year. I didn’t even know this existed as a film, it seemed very much a movie that came and went with little fanfare. Bet it’s a perfectly fine dramatization of the Beatles’ early years. All the songs are the songs they covered in those early years, no Lennon-McCartney originals here.
On the bright side, the artists they got to perform are some pretty well known in the alternative/grunge scene. Dave Grohl, drummer of All The Bands performs drums, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills plays bass and backing vocals, and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth plays guitar; with Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner, Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli and producer Don Fleming performing vocals. Oh, and Don Was of Was (Not Was) produced this.
The use of using alternative and grunge rock bands to make a soundtrack album is not really new, stuff like Reality Bites and Singles relied heavily on alternative/grunge rock songs to bolster their soundtracks and were successful. But realizing this is ostensibly a supergroup pretending to be The Beatles, performing rock and roll classics just feels unusual. This thing has so many layers to it! All for a 31 year old movie that statistically you nor I have ever heard of.
After taking a break in April, I felt the urge to wanna go do a bit of thrifting, and hit a nearby Goodwill in late May. While I did grab some new clothes, the bulk of the purchases were a bunch more music. And a floofy surprise.
When Eden Burns by Persuader ($1.99)
Persuader – a band with a logo that was kinda difficult to read, I thought it was “PER STADER” at first – is a Swedish heavy metal band that’s been around but I didn’t know much about them. I must confess I am not super big into metal. I like of the more mainstream side of that genre like Metallica, but beyond that I couldn’t tell you what I liked or what I hated, beyond stuff like “your vocalist should attempt to sing, and not just do indecipherable guttural growls for 5 minutes straight.” So as long as they doesn’t do that and has some good riffs, I bet I’ll like this.
But, the main reason I got this purchase was “it’s an album from a Swedish band I’d never heard of, imported from Russia”. Crossing all the continental lines here!!
Escape and Frontiers by Journey (2006 remaster) ($1.99 each)
Now I own two Journey albums on CD. You know Journey, that one rock band that somehow got a bad arcade game and was basically clowned upon for their entire rock history? Which I feel is a bit unfair, they at least knew how to play the game. They realized they weren’t sex symbols – except Steve Perry, maybe – but they made some solid hits that people still love them for, so I gotta give them credit there.
Escape is the one with “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “Who’s Crying Now.” Frontiers is the one with “Faithfully” and “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” with undeniably the most corniest music video to come out of the MTV 80s era. Look, Jonathan Cain’s playing his keyboard on the wall of the building. So wacky!
I will say I am concerned with these two albums I grabbed. You see, they’re 2006-era remasters. By the mid-2000s, all older rock albums were re-released with updated remasters, but said remasters were basically equalized to be so loud that they practically “brickwall” the waveform if you looked at it in a media player. These extremely EQ’ed remasters often ruin the dynamics of the original songs, thus they sound terrible. This is informally called the loudness war, and a lot of albums from that period are victims of it.
Granted, maybe that isn’t the case here, and I’m just worrying about nothing! But if it is brickwalled to shit, this means I’ll have to keep an eye out for earlier CD pressings of these albums from the 80s or early 90s to get a proper listening experience. At least both these albums have bonus tracks, with B-sides that didn’t make the album, or live performances, so this wasn’t a complete waste.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 plush ($3.99)
While roaming around the Goodwill, shopping through the various aisles, I did take a glance in the plushie area next to the board games. And I genuinely wasn’t expecting to find this goober.
It’s Sonic, that blue hedgehog of all places. Depicted as he appears in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 the movie. Though… he’s a bit more pear-shaped than he appears in the film. I didn’t even know this was a tie-in to the movies at first, but then I realized it has the “serious Sonic” face from the movies, and eventually I found the tag that shows it as a promo for the film.
Funny story, while I was shopping in the CDs and had grabbed When Eden Burns and the two Journey albums, I had put the Sonic plush on top of the shelf to make it easier to inspect the CDs. An older woman came up and grabbed the plush to inspect it, thinking it was Stitch from Lilo & Stitch. And honest, I could definitely see the resemblance!
Now this Sonic lives in my house. He’s such a goofy-looking thing.
And now we come to June 2, earlier this month. I had to return to the Goodwill to return a top that didn’t fit right on me – something I could’ve avoided if they had fitting rooms – and did one last look through the CDs and DVDs. All of these for $14.59, of which I only spent $7 with that store credit. Kinda worth it.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children DVD
I have never played Final Fantasy VII. My experience with the Final Fantasy franchise is about a few hours of Final Fantasy VI on a mediocre SNES emulator 25 years ago. I think I grabbed this because it was one of many things Square Enix was doing to expand the universe of FF7 around the mid-2000s, with this film and Dirge of Cerberus, and I thought it might be a neat little film to watch even if I never played FF7. One day, I will get over my fear of JRPGs and actually play the damn thing, either in its original PS1 incarnation, or the recent REMAKE/REBIRTH versions.
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale DVD
Folks, I got bad news: I now own an Uwe Boll film physically. And not even one of the famous ones like House of the Dead, this one based on the mostly forgotten Dungeon Siege franchise!
It has an all-star cast: Jason Statham! John Rhys-Davies! Ron Perlman! Ray Liotta! Even freakin’ Burt Reynolds appears in this goddamn stinker.
A lot of movies from around this time started making dramatic medieval fantasy movies once Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy got super popular, so I bet this will be dollar store Lord of the Rings by the guy who brought us the adaptation of films like Alone in the Dark and Postal.
Musik Aus Zeit und Raum by Jean-Michel Jarre
Ah, Jean-Michel Jarre, one of the major synthesizer pioneers. One I tend to confuse with Jean-Jacques Perrey, another noted synthesizer performer from France. This is a Greatest Hits record, covering some of his most well-known synth hits. Like Per Slater Persuader’s When Eden Burns, this too is also an import from another country: West Germany, if you wanna know how old this is. I’m not super familiar with Jarre’s work, so I bet I’m in for quite the audio journey.
Romantic Sax for Lovers compilation by Various Artists
This genuinely seems like a joke album. The kind of thing you’d see peddled on a fake commercial on Saturday Night Live, or a cutaway gag from a cheap ‘90s sitcom. But no, this is a real album of various covers performed by a myriad of saxophone players.
Surprisingly, this is one in a series of albums, all titled Romantic (instrument) for Lovers. There’s a piano compilation, a guitar compilation, even ones for clarinet or flute if you wanna get real classy.
Like the Jean-Michel Jarre album, this comes imported from West Germany. It’s wild that I now own not one, but three albums from artists that’s not available from the USA. Here’s hoping my luck comes through and I find more albums from outside the USA. Hell, if I can find two albums from West Germany, maybe I can find an album from Czechoslovakia.
And that’s all of them for now. The rest of the month so far has been me futzing around with games, brainstorming a few new projects, and seeing They Might Be Giants in concert. As well as trying to survive in spite of feeling pain in places I shouldn’t be feeling pain in. (I’ll spare the details.)
I know this is a long one. It was a bit longer originally, and even with some editing, out it still came out pretty lengthy, compared to the average “Some Stuff I Bought” post. I hope y’all like it regardless.
I’ve been considering trying out some new series, maybe covering some film/game soundtrack reviews, or dabbling into some game show obscura. Would y’all be interested in that? Feel free to leave feedback if that sounds interesting to y’all.
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