The Misadventures of José Faxner

Ah, the moment I’ve been waiting for. Well, one of them, anyway. It was with great anticipation that me and my brother (well, I’m sure the anticipation was mostly me) set out to go claim the two boxes of stuff that had finally arrived. Of course, it ended up not being quite without complications. For example, you may notice the singular use of the word “box” in the headline. Indeed, while not entirely fruitless, today’s quest for boxes had results roughly 50% below expectations.

Apparently not causing enough trouble by having stuff shipped to our old address, the powers that be made sure the two boxes would come to two different destinations. Quite obviously, these wouldn’t be misadventures if things ever went smoothly. In any event, being somewhat late, and knowing that our usual pickup spot for packages closes at 7pm, we made sure to go there first, planning to swing by the supermarket that had received my other package on the way back. We got the first box, no problem, and just outside the supermarket, signs proudly proclaimed they were open until 9pm. I barely had time to think “Oh, OK, no need to worry then”, before stepping inside only to realise that the counter for post and parcel service closes at 7pm here as well. Very annoying, considering we had taken our sweet time at the first place, naively assuming the second one would be open later. We had ended up getting there at around 7.05, and despite there being a guy pacing back and forth behind the counter, the only help we were able to get was “We’re closed”.

Most definitely annoying and disappointing, but on the bright side I was able to get the box I had been looking forward to the most of the two - the “video games” one that I didn’t quite know what it contained. In all honesty it doesn’t really concern me all that much if that box of books sit at that supermarket for another week or two; while I of course want the books and stuff, I’m not nearly as anxious to get that stuff as I am to finally play my games. The fact that my room here is still a mess and that I don’t particularly want to populate my bookshelves before figuring out how to decorate my room may play a role as well.

So what about the box I did get then? Well, thanks to the power of the internet, now YOU can relive my adventure and excitement as I opened the box. Except you get to look at a few photos and I actually got to open the box. But whatever. Just play along. (click thumbnails for fullsize photos)

Ah, the box. Not too banged up, but enough for me to kinda worry a little bit about the less sturdy boxes that I sent. Hopefully I packed them decently. Now what does it contain? I’m guessing mostly PS2 games, possibly some Mega Drive and/or Saturn games. Let’s see, shall we?

Well, looks like I was right, so far. I really have no memory whatsoever of packing this box in particular, but there’s a bunch of MD games, a controller, the HDMI cable for my PS3, as well as some Saturn and Super Famicom games…

I packed it up, and what do you know? My PlayStation 3! Now that I did not expect. From what I could remember the actual consoles were among the last things to be sent, but I guess not. Good thing too, cause the rest of the contents of the box serve little purpose other than taunting me, making the wait for my other consoles worse than it already is. Along the same lines, I have my PS3 and Virtua Fighter 5, but no arcade stick! Augh! But hey, a box of PS2 games would’ve been completely useless right now - with this I can at least play Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and check out what more pointless crap Sony has put on its PlayStation Network in the months since I packed my PS3 away. I know there’s a demo for Heavenly Sword, but that’s about the only thing of worth I’m expecting to find on there.

A second look at some of the stuff. That bubble wrap in the middle that I couldn’t be bothered to unpack contains some Saturn games as well as one of my all-time Mega Drive favourites, The Super Shinobi II. Never got to play it in Japan so I can’t wait to take that for a spin! Other highlights include Landstalker, Hokuto no Ken, Guardian Heroes and probably a bunch of other Saturn games. Of course HNK is an absolutely terrible game, but it’s HNK so it’s still awesome. It’s one of those laws of the universe that cannot quite be explained by man. Hokuto no Ken = awesome.

So, yeah, um, I’m sure that was nowhere near as exciting for you as it was for me. Sorry. Then again if you were as nerdy as I am that would probably be a good reason to feel sorry for you as well. In any event, this was a very nice box o’ crap, and even though I don’t really look forward to playing anything on my PS3 in the near future, it’s at least nice to know that it got here safely. Now let’s just hope Chinese pirates didn’t make it off with my Mega Drive and action figure collection.