{"id":156,"date":"2026-10-06T10:55:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T21:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/?p=156"},"modified":"2026-10-06T10:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T21:57:18","slug":"156","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/2026\/10\/06\/156\/","title":{"rendered":"I Paid $30 to Annoy My Family Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I like the stuff I grew up with in the 80’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I didn’t keep any of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, it didn’t really hold a real emotional attachment to me, and I was a kid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now I wish I had kept a lot of the things I gave away as I got older.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those things would be worth a small fortune now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Live and learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite often see things for sale I’d like again (just for the memories) at astronomical pricing, and I just sigh and let it go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never come across great deals on retro things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or do I…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This past weekend I attended a car boot sale, and whilst wandering around, saw a box that bought back memories… initial thoughts as I walked towards it to get a closer look were, 1) Its faulty 2) Going to be priced out of my meager funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Grandstand Firefox F-7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I received this game as a kid one Xmas, and fell in love with it. My parents however, who purchased it for me, had other feelings around it after I turned it on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the loudest and noisiest game on the market, and my parents were forever yelling at me to turn off the sound when I played it. I loved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mine eventually stopped working after a few years of love\/abuse, and I had moved onto other things, so it soon got disposed of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here I am at the car boot sale looking at this box – I opened it and inside was the game. Looked it over. Few marks on it here and there (for 43, its doing well), missing battery cover, no sign of rust\/leakage in the battery bay, but overall a complete unit. Box pretty beat up, no instructions or power adaptor (dont think they came with one). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked the seller if it worked, and he responded that he had no clue, it was in an abandoned storage unit he had purchased along with a bunch of other retro toys (Including an original Simon game on its own).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked the vital question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The response surprised me – $40.00NZD. I had seen these going for $100NZD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seller also said that if I took it, he’d give me a refund if I found it was faulty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was so tempted to just throw my wallet at him and run off with the box in hand – but I didn’t <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said I’d have a think and wandered off…… I was back in 15mins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, my wife has ALWAYS haggled over pricing on everything, and always encouraged me to do the same, so thought why not, let give it a go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I offered $30NZD. The seller looked at me and got a look on his face, and said “This thing means something to you doesn’t it ?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grinned and said “Yup, memories of driving my folks up the wall because of how noisy it was”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Done – $30”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gave me his details in case it was faulty, but I said regardless, I’d hold on to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walked back to the car with it, to be met by my youngest who was like “WTF is that”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Got home, found my box of C sized batteries, threw some into the game….. sat there looking at it for a moment, thinking “what if this thing is broken, would I want my money back or just have it as a display piece that’s only going to be recognized by a few people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I flicked the power switch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It worked. I tested it all and everything appears to be operational. But dirty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I’ll be cleaning it up, getting a battery cover 3D printed (sourced the files already), and enjoy the memories the god damn awful sounds it makes, brings back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like the stuff I grew up with in the 80’s. But I didn’t keep any of it. At the time, it didn’t really hold a real emotional attachment to me, and I was a kid. But now I wish I had kept a lot of the things I gave away as I got older. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,41,52,9,48],"tags":[71,69,70,72],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","category-geek","category-hardware","category-purchases","category-retro","tag-firefox","tag-grandstand","tag-retro","tag-vfd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpd.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}