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Come gather to read the testimonies to the awsome powers of
Here are excepts from the earliest written texts proclaiming the might and glory of Bira Bira on the sacred newsgroup rec.games.video.classic. Here we see the birth of a new religion unfold complete with prophets, devotees, and blasphemers.Read and know enlightenment.
Testimonials
From: Jay Tilton [jtilton@vt.edu]
Bruce Tomlin (btomlin@crl.com) wrote:
Amazing... even the mere *image* of Bira Bira brings cart finding luck.
All of this for only 7.86! 8-)
The tag said 10 bucks, but he said I got some goofy percentage discount
because I used cash. (shrug) I wasn't gonna argue with him... heh
Bira Bira is my shepherd; I shall not want.
The best though was the stack of boxed Colecovision and Intellvision
games, some still shrinkwrapped ALL with instructions - 30 games for $1
apiece! The CV stack includes several ERs, most notably Word Feud. I'll
post more about these later, but I can't talk about the gameplay...I don't
have a CV or an INTV, so eventually they'll all be traded or sold.
My concern is this: Can Bira Bira's power be diluted by the number of
collectors searching for carts in his name?
My test is not completed, and I will follow up with anything noteworthy.
I have not taken my book in with me. That may make a difference.
By the way, the PB cart was Frogger.
This sounds like a very good find... just because Bira Bira found
something that you don't collect, doesn't mean he isn't working. He must
not be keyed into only Atari stuff... it seems that he is drawn to
anything rare in classic gaming. This could be O^2, atari, coleco,
vectrex, heck... maybe even handhelds and books related to classic games.
This is a good question... I found two sesame street carts last night,
with docs, overlays, and the kids controller last night, and for only a
little less than 8 bucks, so he still seems to be working for me. I'd
love to hear more success stories... :)
Next time I guess I'll have to make a sacrifice to Bira Bira in
order to show my gratitude (and maybe he'll help me find a CtCW
or a CC!). Maybe burning a pile of Combats, Pac Mans & Space
Invaders would do it.
Now I had thought that I had about 140-150 carts. I hadn't counted in a
long time. But ion the process of putting the carts into these wall
boxes I counted my carts and discovered that I have 197 carts. I am 3
carts away from making 200.
Suddenly it was all so very clear to me.
It was the will of Bira Bira that I should find those wall boxes and NOT
find any carts. For it was the will of Bira Bira that I should count my
carts and know how many I had so that I would be aware that I was on the
verge of making 200. Had I found any carts today I would have most
likely passed the 200 mark without realizing it. I would have been
robbed of a great thrill, a defining moment in the life of every 2600
collector, a rite of passage. Now I know I am but three carts away from
this moment and when I find the third cart there shall be much rejoicing
and the heavens will shine and the earth shall sing.
Praise be to Bira Bira, great and mighty master of the 2600.
I go now to download again his blessed image, this time to store it in
a special directory of its own.
I drove out to the thrift, giving praise to Bira Bira on the way, and
before I went in I asked the mighty keeper of the sacred Reef store
for assistance. Well apparantly the thrift decided to do a cleaning
of their video game stuff. The tall stack of NES systems for $4.95
each gave me my first clue. Then I wandered through piles of ADAM
parts - consoles, keyboards, printers, everything for like $6 or less.
Then, to my utter amazement, CARTS PRICED TO SELL INDIVIDUALLY!!! Now
I must add here this is totally astonishing for this store. I
expected to read the "Paul Smith made good on a trade" post before I
would ever see carts here. All in all the finds weren't fantastic,
but I got a bag of U Coleco and Intv stuff I needed and an ADAM that
works great. But most important, from what the employees tell me they
just STARTED moving that stuff out there and tomorrow when the
warehouse/backroom/whatever employees come in they are gonna move out
all the rest of it. Man, I wasn't even gonna go by that place for a
few days since it's always so bare. THANK YOU BIRA BIRA! Thank you
for alerting me ahead of time.
I'll let you know what happens tomorrow!
Well this is what I found:
A boxed Vectrex System (Works perfecly - all original Docs.)
& 1 cartridge....
The Ultra Ultra Ultra (may I once again thank Bira Bira) RARE..
Mr. Boston Clean Sweep Promotional Cartridge.
Perfect Label, The Overlay (which also has Mr. Boston on it),
with the Original Box which is just the original Clean Sweep
Box with a Mr. Boston sticker on it. and Overlay Sleeve &
Instructions.
It has to be rarer than CTCW!!!!
My brother (Catcher@buffnet.net) is gonna be p.o.ed - he hates
it when I find the good stuff.
Needless to say I am no longer skeptical (sp??) of the great
BIRA BIRA!.
Now the thrifts where I am generally do all right by me. Dry periods come
and go, and occasionally get great. But the stuff I'm finding now is
qualitively different. Although I've picked up in the last week and a half
an Atari 800 and 810 drive in excellent shape and 3 R 2600 carts, that's
about it in the Atari dept. What I have found and not bought, is two
Amigas in boxes in great shape, one of them with the nicest color monitor
I've ever seen. Also an Odyssey ^2 in the box with 12 games in their own
boxes with it. I found a Spectravideo computer in perfect condition in a
store 2 hours away in Montgomery. With it was a tape drive. It still has the
original sticker proclaiming 32K Rom 80K Ram. I asked the price and the guy
that does the pricing wasn't there and no-one else could do this, even when I
explained how far I'd come. I thought it was a loss, but I called the store
two days later and the guy was just ready to price it, and yes...he would
hold it for me! Any of you that enjoy the attitudes of most thrift stores
that if there is not a price, away to the back it goes with no clue as to
whether it will ever see the light of day will understand the great power of
Bira Bira in this exchange! It is mine.
I also have never seen a Fairchild Channel F before. I now have one. I also
found a Mattel Aquarius modem. There was one strange device that I saw like
nothing I've seen. It had a telco connector, a huge expansion connector on
both sides and a slot on top that looked like it would take a Turbographics
game card. I didn't get it, but I'll bet it will be there next time I go,
such is the power of Bira Bira.
Robert Batina said in reply to my original post that Bira Bira would not
just find Atari stuff, but would find exiting things and he was right.
Bira Bira...Bira Bira...Bira Bira!
Now this being my second garage sale, I figure if I get nothing else, at
least I got this. With this in mind I continued on to do the rest of the
garage sales. Almost every one I went to except for maybe one or two were
so you can bet that I asked the infamous question a lot. I went to over
30 garage sales in all in a span of about 3-hours. Only one of the garage
sales that I went to had Atari equipment out in the open and I bought
it all for only $5.00 (just couldn't pass it up :) ). The treasures
included another 2600 system similar to the first one along with about
14-common carts, and an 800XL with a 1050 drive, 1010 cassette, manuals
and all connections and cables, and an avarage size box full of joysticks.
Now, that's what I call a deal, and I certainly never thought I would
come close to beating the first one, but with Bira Bira and the infamous
question, things could only get better (Yea, sure! I thought).
At some garage sales, after asking the question, I found that Sum Gal had
(NOTE: NOT Sum Guy!!!) bought all of the cartridges earlier that week.
This was the case for at least 2 of the sale and maybe even 3. Well, I
believe we now have positive proof that "Sum Guy" has gotten hitched and
teaming up with "Sum Gal" in the hopes of beating all of us to all of the
classic stuff. I am positive this is why my luck has been so bad this
last month, but with "Bira Bira" and "THE Question!", this was a landslide
win for both Bira and me, and quite some time for myself. But I wasn't
done yet, because I was approaching what I would consider to be my best
cartridge finds ever.
Somewhere about the 6th or 7th garage sale, I asked the woman there
"THE Question!" and she said "Yes, but there at home.". Knowing that
the sale would be open the next day, I asked if she wouldn't mind
bringing it in the morning and I'd be by to look at it sometime that
morning, and she agreed. I fully expected to show up the next day
at the sale only to find out she had foggotten to bring it (so are
the woes of the classic cart chasers), but when I arrived, there was
the 2600 (a Sears version) sitting on a table with one Pac-Man cart.
Now, I'm thinking "Just great, I came back for this!". So I'm there
trying to get to talk to the woman I talked to the night before, and
she's busy talking about some other item to some other person, so I
hang around and wait. After about 5-minutes, she's free and I ask
about the 2600 she said she was going to bring here today, and she
points to it at the table. As I look at the table where I had seen
it originally, I actually see "Sum Gal" buying it, placing it in a
bag and leaving with it. Now I tell you, this "Gals" fast! I barely
got a glimse of her, but I can tell you that she's in her mid-twenties,
has brown hair, about 5'8", and is rather on the slim side. I got a
glimpse of her face, but I think she must have cast some sort of spell
on me (probaly one from the Swordquest series or something), because
everything about her face seems to be quite fuzzy now. Oh well, I'll
get her next time, especially now that I know she's out there.
Oh, yea, almost forgot to tell you the rest of this story (just con't call
me Paul Harvey)! Anyhow, as this "Sum Gal" is leaving the sale, I figure
"Big deal!", certainly no great loss over a Sear's 2600 and 1-Pac-man.
Nevertheless, I ask "THE second Question" (which should only be asked
as a last resort whenever you get into situations of this type), which
is "You wouldn't by any chance have any other 2600 cartridges around,
would you?", knowing that since I only saw one cartridge, they may just
be some more laying around someplace. She says "Oh yea, I have some
in this small shoe box over here.", so here I am saying to myself "Here
comes the Combats, Space Invaders, etc", but boy was I wrong! There
were only 15-carts in that shoe box, but it was like striking gold.
In it, I found the following great carts (All 2600 carts):
Bugs (Duplicate. Fine Cond! - This one up for trade)
and also (but not so great):
How much for everything you ask... $10.00 - That's it! What a deal!!!
Now, I've never before hit so many "R"ares in such a small amount of
carts, that I still dumbfounded by it all! Thanks to "Bira Bira" and
"THE Questions" (despite the offensive efforts of "Sum Guy" and his
cohort "Sum Gal", this will go down as one of my most outstanding
days ever.
In case your interested, here are some more of my finds during the
course of that day:
Amidar
Since I already owned these, all above cartridges are also up for trade.
The cost for everything I listed above comes to a total of $50.00. Of
course, this includes 15-nintendo cartridges that I forgot to mention,
which includes the following:
Baseball Simulator 1000
Now, let's all rise and remember the following three important things,
before venturing out into the real world looking for carts:
1- Think "Bira Bira" (You can chant it, but Ive found that just
thinking about him is good enough - He very modest, you know).
Until next time happy hunting, and don't forget these 3-things :).
I know I will.
I had 197 unique 2600 carts when I left the house today. I was three carts
from making the magic 200 number.
Went to the first value village up on the mountain and got a Pitfall ][
(already have it but it's such a cool game I want a backup, just incase).
Looking around a little more I also found two Coleco carts for the 2600
that I didn't have...
Front Line and Smurfs:Rescue at Gragamael's Castle.
Woohoo!!! Now I'm only ONE cart away from reaching the magic 200 uniques for
a single system. Thank Bira Bira!
Then I went out to the other Value Village and found...
A COOPER BLACK PIRATE CART!
This was another one not on the VGR list (so far none of my "Cooper Blacks"
have been on the list).
It was titled "LASER VOLLEY". The label art is rather odd. At first I thought
it was from Air Sea Battle and I was wondering if maybe the game was Air Sea
Battle (which would have been disappointing, but I count "Cooper Blacks" as
uniques rather than label variations so it still would have gotten me to the
200). Got it home and compaired the label art with that on Air Sea Battle and
saw they were nothing alike.
The label art on the cart is a picture of a boat along the bottom (you can't
see the whole boat, just the mid section), a picture of a helocopter, and
in the top right corner a picture of a chubby passenger jet. They're on a
blue sky, but there's lightning in the background.
What this picture has to do with the game I don't know.
The game is kind of like Scramble. It's only played in a thin strip along
the top of the screen. The graphics are pretty good. There are these multi
coloured force fields that open and close as you make your way down a
corridore. As well there are various projectile firing devices and ships
that molest you on your way.
The bottom 3/4's of the screen is readouts on Energy, Shields, etc. etc.
I only played it a bit, but it seems like a pretty fun game.
The Smurf's game was pretty neat. Not as big as I remember the Colecovision
game being, but my son (who will be turning 4 this weekend) should enjoy it.
Front Line just seems a lot like Commando.
All three games seemed pretty cool ($2 for each of the Colecos and $.75 for
the pirate cart) and they bring me up to the 200 point with more than a month
to spare before I hit the "1 year of collecting" mark (which will be on my
birthday on September 13th).
Thank you Bira Bira for blessing me with this find!
Bira Bira!
Control group: Went to the Goodwill distribution center, saw two Apple
/// Monitors for $5 each [hiya Galen!] and two Monitor //'s unpriced.
The carts department was a Combat Zone (more like a Pac Posse). I did
*not* breathe Bira^2's name in this place. I found nothing.
Test group: Chanted "Bira Bira" to the tune of that college fight song
"Boolah Boolah" as I walked into the St Vincent de Paul. It didn't take
long to get someone's attention to hand me the cart bin (it usually
takes a few minutes). Sort sort sort... passed on Slot Racer and
Street Racer, picked up 2600 SW:RotJ:DSB and Fire Fighter plus O^2 KC's
Krazy Chase! And the price was right, $2 for the three. Didn't see
anything in the back lot I wanted though they did have three Disk]['s
and a narrow Imagewriter [hello again Galen] which were name-your-price.
Confirmation: Went to my secret thrift (the one with the large-busted
Hungarian girl) and though there were no 2600 carts of note, I did find
five non-Commodore/Atarisoft carts for the VIC-20, being: Apple Panic
and Pipes (Creative Software), Atlantis (Imagic), Attack of the Mutant
Camels (HESware), and Star Trek: S.O.S. (Sega). Now THAT was good...
All eight carts are in my auction which starts in a few hours. I don't
claim to be a full believer in Bira Bira yet -- maybe if I visit the two
thrifts down the road and find stuff I could be converted, but that will
be tomorrow's quest. Tonight I am less skeptical.
I also had my own manifestation of Bira Bira, in the form of a little tiki
mask keychain dangly with red crystal eyes that some relatives had gotten
in Hawaii back in the 80s. It had been sitting in front of my cart
collection all this time, but I hadn't touched it much since I reached the
plateau in my collection, so I figured he just needed some handling.
First I head out to Busseys. I found a box of Apple II stuff with a Wico
joystick in it, and I just wanted the joystick, but the guy wanted to
sell the whole box for $10. I wandered around and found a Dark Tower
(most of the pieces in good condition, but the motor was dead and the
top of the tower was *glued* on, curse MB!), and I ended up paying him
$7 for both the game and the joystick.
Then I go by the computer guy's stall and pick up three boards for $10,
two of which are old PC-XT boards with a pair of 27256 chips on each, and
the only other board with an EPROM, which was a 2764.
Then I go up "garage sale alley" and find a woman selling a 2600 set. I
managed to buy just the Sears Soccer with instructions. I asked her what
she was selling the set for and she says $60. I told her she wasn't
likely to get that.
I go up a bit farther and find someone selling this big old network hub
that they rescued from a local building before demolition. They were
asking $100 but very happily took $50. It has a board which is a 12-port
10-Base-T hub, another board which is a 16-port terminal port server,
another router board which hooked up to a Codex DSU/CSU modem, and another
board which seemed to be some sort of network management board. The cool
thing is that even if the boards weren't obviously useful as at minimum an
active 10-Base-T hub, the router board had FOUR 27C040 EPROM chips! To
give you a bit of perspecitve, Sean Kelly normally only uses 27C020 chips
for his multicarts. The terminal board had a pair of 27C256, a 28F256
flash, and a 1MB PCMCIA flash card with the terminal server software on it.
Pretty cool, but I had to lug this boat anchor all the long way back,
Bira Bira preserve me! There was also a bit of other telco equipment in
with it, but nothing useful.
Then I get back in the swing of things, but all I find is some lady
selling a 5200 set, a 2600 set, a ColecoVision set, and a Sega Master
System with no carts. I manage to talk her out of the near-mint 2600
Time Pilot (and ColecoVision Pepper II instructions) for $4. She was
wanting something like $65 for the 5200 set with four commons and sticks
in dubious condition. But we've been in such a drought of pre-classic
stuff, people have forgotten how little demand there is for the stuff.
Besides, you're lucky to get someone to pay $40 for a basic NES set with a
couple of commons these days. Anyhow, it was ER, and it was a trade-up
in label condition. Praise Bira Bira! After all, because of Bira Bira,
I saw more pre-crash carts for sale today than I've seen for over a year.
I hit a couple of thrift stores, only to find one had pulled a Stupid
Pricer Trick: stick a bunch of crap from *four* different video game
systems in one bag, then mark it at $17! Pure, unadulterated, slothful
laziness, that's what that is. But it had a Sega Master System light
gun, a 7800 power supply, and a 7800 F14 Tomcat in there, so I'm actually
considering going for it tomorrow. (After all, I don't have a loose F-14
Tomcat, and the light gun can always be rebuilt for the 7800.) Bira Bira
may sometimes be cruel, but he is always wise.
More flea marketing, and I pick up another UDS leased-line modem for two
bucks. Unlike the one I got for a buck at Thrift Town the other day,
this one had 2732 chips instead of 2716. I also picked up three copies
of NES Dance Aerobics (two shrinkwrapped) for $8.
But Bira Bira has spoken by giving me a fruitful harvest of EPROM chips,
and this is a Sign that I must write a game. (It looks like Vectrex is
most likely, since that's what I have the best development environment for.)
- - -
With Bira Bira at my side, I shall not weep
At flea on trip to cleavland
At Rubbish sale:
If you are wondering, the ERs were Thin Ice and Commando both with Docs.. are these like
hard ERs or Easy ones ??
Another strange thing... I would rate the driving controller as prob one of the better
of all the finds..next to the thing (I swear to god) was this carved spectre which
resembled somthing BIRA would hold in his hand.... weird...Maybe I'll pick it up for
Rubbertoe next time I go out of town..and give it to him for BIRA BIRA. :)
Bira Bira did help me get a Fast Eddie cart today though... I was on my
way to the movies and stopped off along the way just for the hell of it,
and there it was. :)
I was at the flea market today, roaming past rows and rows of worthless
junk, finding nothing in the way of classic games. Well, I'm nearing
the 2nd to last row and about ready to call it a day of finding nothing
when I remember the whole Bira Bira thing! "What the heck?" I ask
myself, and silently plead to 'ol Bira Bira to let me find something...
Sure enough, as I walked up to the _very next_ table I find my first
Xonox double ender!! -- my first Xonox for that matter. It was Spike's
Peak/Ghost Manner, and underneath it I found 5 SMS carts in boxes for $1
each! Got Space Harrier, Time Soldiers, Alex Kidd, Out Run and Pro
Wrestling which rocks by the way cuz you can leave the ring and grab
folding chairs to whack your opponent over the head with.
Anyway, feeling pretty good I decide to ask Bira Bira for one more good
find...about two tables later I find a 5200 with 12 carts, 2 power
supplies, manuals and overlays for almost every cart for -get this-$3!!!
How could I refuse? Of course it had no controllers and I don't much
feel like dropping $20 on one of those lame things via the Internet just
to play these games. But the 5200 stuff should at least be good trade
bait. Now I just feel like a chump for passing up that Wico 5200 stick I
found a few months back.
So, needless to say, I'm a believer. Now, why does this feel like one
of those creepy episodes of Gilligan's Island or the Brady Bunch? Guess
i just gotta shake this guilty feeling from worshipping graven images!
Seems to me BIRA BIRA is currently a rather benign god who deigns (count 'em, scrabble
buffs, 2 'gn' words in 1 sentence!) to favor collectors because it amuses him. I hate
to think what'd happen if anyone either tried messing with his head or arming him.
Imagine an echoy James Earl Jones laugh eminating from him...you'd better run like hell.
HMmmmmmmmmm.
(but, admittedly, I hit 4 thrifts that day and found nothing. Perhaps
Bira was not amused that I was taking him back to his old 'hood. [G)
Boxed Vectrex
I WILL NEVER DOUBT AGAIN!!!!!!!!
Today, after scrounging around the 'net for a bit, and after visiting the
Bira-Bira page (and praying to it of course), I decided to enter a chat
area that I frequent and casualy bring up the subject of old video
games... A few people responsed w\ the usual "yeah, in my basment
somwhere". After further inqueriries, it turns out that alot of people
wanted to just get rid of them. Here's what I came up with:
4 Atari 2600 systems (two of which I belive are 6 switch)
About 50 common games (including doubles)
20 Uncommon\rare\ and 1 ER games.
All for 15 dollors total (from diffrent people though of course). Yeah, I
know this isn't nearly as exiting as the other Bira-Bira posts, but I
just had to share my joy.
More Intelly games.. best being Kool Aid Man (complete) .. I now have
almost 70 Intelly carts.. and I've only played about 10 of them. Before
you scream "Plastic box collector!" let me explain: I'm saving them..
Dunno exactly why.. but I am intentionally putting off playing these
games until I get completely in the mood.. then it's going to be
Intellivision-fest for a week! It'll be a blast going through huge
amounts of classic games I've never played before..
A complete original Wizardry I (Proving Grounds) .. in the cool black box
with reflective red and green writing. Now just to hook up a 5.25"
floppy.. Got this for $1
A complete original Zork I ($2) .. these are cool really just for the
manuals and boxes.. (the game can be had in the Infocom pack)
NES Bubble Bobble, Gumshoe, Venice Beach Volleyball, and Sqoon for $4 ea.
What the hell is a Sqoon?
SMS Rastan, Ghost House, Alf and Shinobi for $2 ea
My first Panda 2600 cart: Stunt Man. No main label.. do Panda carts have
main labels, and if so, anyone have a scan online?
Snoop and the Red Baron LP.. TEN TWENTY THIRTY FORTY FIFTY or MORE!
A steal at 50 cents..!
Not a bad week.. It's definitly nice to have varied interests when
hunting.. you can usually find *something* .. ;)
2600:
5200:
INTV:
I also found a non-working Microvision...
All carts were $1/piece except for the 5200's and Microvision, which I payed
$2/piece for.
Sure, these finds may not seem all that great to many of you, but you don't
know my area(South Central PA). The fleas around here have been pretty much
dry for the last two summers! I didn't even think I'd find anything at all!
All hail Bira Bira!
Long Live BIRA BIRA!!!
Bira Bira just blessed me the other day with a Real Sports Soccer.
(Now I've got all the Real Sports titles except Basketball, of course).
Maybe his blessings are a promotion for his upcoming movie?
Bira Bira!
So I explained to my girlfriend my reading about Bira Bira...she said she
would ask Bira Bira for a find on our thrift outing....
we hit new thrifts in a new town, our find: 2 combats...blah!
wait, what is this! an Atari Stunt Cycle...in box...very clean...
get it home...doesnt work! WAIT! just a bad power supply! It WORKS!
Last Saturday, I mentioned to my girlfriend that I had a Smurf game for the
Colecovision. After having to explain what a Colecovision was, she was
determined to
play that Smurf game, so lucky me, I had to go dig in the garage for the old
Coleco and set it up. While I was doing that, I came across my 5200 and 7800
and figured I might as well dig those out and test 'em, see if they still
work. After an evening of cleaning dirty carts (yuck!) and playing plenty of
great games, I wanted to see if there were lists available of all the old
games for those systems, just to get an idea of what I had compared to what
was made. Hoo boy. After seeing VGR's comprehensive 2600 list, I started to
build my own little database of what I had, it's relative scarcity, and what
I need. About that time I basically decided I needed as many old games as I
could get my hands on, be it from swap meets, yard sales, over the net, or
whatever. Then a couple days ago I shuffled into RGVC for the first time and
and saw all of these references to Bira Bira. My first reaction was "what are
these goofs babbling about?". But I figured what the hell, if it brings them
luck, then God bless 'em. Then yesterday I saw your post about the Bira Bira
homepage and figured I might as well see what all the hubbub is about. After
reading your initial post and seeing the photos, I decided to give Bira Bira
a try. So this morning I set out to see what Bira Bira had waiting for this
spudboy, and here's what I found:
2600 carts-space canyon, circus atari, congo bongo, millipede, human
cannonball, fast food, crystal castles, dig dug, skiing, planet patrol, star
raiders, swordquest
earthworld, venture, warlords, and space invaders
colecovision carts-popeye, root beer tapper, mr do's castle, defender,
centipede,
burgertime, and q*bert
not to mention 2 2600 joysticks that work perfectly, a coleco joysick adapter
(the # pad that 2600 sticks plug into), and manuals for over half the above
games (I even got
manuals for games I didn't find today!)
And I got all that for $17.00!!
But Bira Bira was also cruel in a way...I lost a $10 bill (I suspect Bira
Bira took this
as my initiation fee) and he didn't give me the guidance to avoid bad swap
meet soda
(ooh, my stomach!). But with the good comes the bad. I haven't any regrets
except that Bira Bira led me to more 2600 games than I can afford!! (I was
forced to pass up about 20 games I didn't have at $1.00 each. None were too
spectacular, but I did not have them, therefore I must get more money and go
back for them).
Hopefully Bira Bira will some day lead me to the Strawberry Shortcake game,
because my girlfriend likes her even more than the Smurfs. :(
Again, thank you for providing the wonder that is Bira Bira, and hopefully my
weekend mornings will continue to be bountiful from this point on.
MINT Vectrex, in full working order, no screen burn in, scratches, DIRT, nothin'
Controller, fully working
Built in Mine Storm game
Star Trek: The Motion Picture cart (the one under the lawnmower)
Heads Up cart
Berzerk cart
SpinBall cart w/overlay
Hehe! So I finally got a Vectrex! Looking to trade for more carts now, especially
Rip-Off...ALL HAIL AND PRAISE BIRA-BIRA!
2600 carts:
With a Working 2600 (4-switch and joys)
1 Wico Command Control Joystick
1 Colecovision w/two working controllers
River Raid
Total bill for the all above $28.00
I was so high, I coulda bought the O^2 that has been there for the past
few months, but the guy wasn't there today...
All hail BIRA BIRA!
And you know how logic works...one example proves your hypothesis.
You see there is always a logical answer to everything.
Ridding your house of this manifestation of Mr. Friendly greatly pleased
Bira Bira and he blessed you with a find of E.T. Go Home (pirate) and
Star Wars:TAG.
Mr. Friendly doesn't always take his cutesy Shmoo form. Sometimes he will
try to pass himself off as Bira Bira type idol.
If you pick up an idol and find nothing in a few weeks then you know you've
been duped into accepting a manifestation of Mr. Friendly. If you are, on
the otherhand, blessed with a good find then you have found a manifestation
of Bira Bira and are truly blessed.
If you find a Mr. Friendly manifestation the proper way to dispose of it is
to tie it and an OC cartridge to a rock and throw it into the nearest
large body of water. This will cleanse your house of any residual negative
Mr. Friendly energy.
Be careful. Mr. Friendly is a trickster. He will take on different forms to
fool you.
Subject: Re: Bira Bira is a false god
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LOL! :)
This sounds reasonable... and good thing I have a lake nearby. I wonder
what would happen if I found a manifestation of Mr Friendly, and sat him
on my monitor here next to Bira Bira. I'd think the powers of Bira Bira
would always win, but I would be a bit hesitant to put it to the test. :)
Bira Bira!
Don't be fooled by Johnny-come-latelys: Bira Bira is where it's at. I
can't even count how many games he has gotten me for FREE in the last
couple of weeks.
All Hail Bira Bira!
F-You Mr. Friendly!
Hey.. didn't you read in the group charter "thou shalt not persecute
someone over Classic Idol Belief" ..?? Anyway, I got some of my best
finds this summer after reading about Bira Bira.. I shall put Mr.
Friendly to the test and keep him and him only in my mind during my next
thrifting run. If he doesn't deliver, he's outta there.. (war's hell in
the Idol department ;)
Havn't you heard the old Cart Hunter's Prayer?
"Bira Bira, I may be to busy to remember you today, but please don't forget
about me."
Bira Bira remembered you even when you wern't thinking of him.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
Bira Bira had already blessed you. Whispering his name was the least you
could do in thanks.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
Mr. Friendly is the Anti-Bira. He plays upon the doubts in your minds
or as he says (he steals in your mind) and he leads you to doom.
Before you know it you will be one of his dollar store zombies, paying
Mr. Friendly 50 yen for an "etiquette brush".
Repent now and embrace Bira Bira before it is too late.
If you want to see who Mr. Friendly is there is a link to the Bira Bira
webpage off my webpage.
As a relatively new collector, I'm open to trying anything
that's likely to improve my chances of getting some good finds,
so with this in mind, I carry a colour print of Crackers' 3 in 1
Bira Bira composite whenever I'm on the hunt.
Up till Sunday, Bira Bira seems to have been ignoring my pleas
for help, but I kept the faith, said a few silent "oh Bira Bira
please help me"'s, and was grandly rewarded.
I went to one of my usual car boot sales, and the first thing
I picked up was a 7800 Karateka and a 2600 Galaxian, both in
reasonable condition. "Thankyou Bira Bira, how about something
a little bit more substantial next time" I silently said.
And he came thru! Just around the corner, a boxed Fairchild
Channel F (known as the Grandstand Video Entertainment System
in the UK), complete with boxed Videocarts 1,3,12,13 & 17.
The boxes are a bit rough, but the carts are all in mint
condition, and all instructions are mint, plus all waranty cards
(inc the system one) were there. "Oh Thankyou exalted Bira Bira"
was my next communication with the mighty one.
Just as I was going to head off home, I turned one last corner
and spied a slightly familair box at the back of one stall.
Closer inspection revealed a boxed, German version Colecovision,
box is mint, console is mint. Included in the price, 10 carts,
Space Panic, Mouse Trap (inc overlay), Space Fury, Carnival,
Donkey Kong, Gorf, Cosmic Avenger, Zaxxon, Mr Do!, and Lady Bug.
All carts are the German release of the game, and come complete
with German language labels. All are absolutely mint, although
none are boxed, and I only got the instructions for Mouse Trap
(but they're German as well, so not much good to me).
Cost of total finds, £11. Not a bad haul if I say so myself.
So, after again thanking Bira Bira profusely, I took my stuff
home to test it out.
The Fairchild F/Grandstand works perfectly, no problems at all. Games
are pretty poxy though; still, pretty good for their time.
If that fails, just follow Atari's lead and take 'em to New Mexico...
This worked for me: To thank Bira Bira on the day I found my Vectrex, my 30 yr.-old
brother, my mom and I took a Star Raiders cart (this is }my{ OC) outside onto the
sidewalk in front of the house and did the following: (no lie, we really did this!)
1) Sacrifice the cart using the ceremonial hammer, save chip for trophy belt
During the next 10 days, I found 7 ER-IR carts, a ton of R's, filled in many gaps in my
U's and C's. Things have slowed down a tad the last few days, so this may indicate the
need for the ritual to be repeated in a fortnight. Notice the absence of a smiley in
this post...I am }not{ kidding!
strobe
Friday night must have produced good BIRA karma, Saturday while hitting
the thrifts/flea markets..i see the typical SEGA/SNES carts...and a few
intellivision carts blended in....COOL--SEWER SAM and BLOCKADE
RUNNER...boxed with instructions....so after shelling out the $4 for both,
I ask the guy, any 2600 stuff? "OH YEAH, big suitcase full..."
Managed to dig out a Montezumas Revenge and MOGUL MANIAC....so of course I
am excited and out of money...I hit the ATM and head back for his second
suitcase....blah all pac man, space invaders...I must have been
greedy...but wait...Colecovision mixed in with the mess? XONOX Sir
Lancealot, and Robin Hood, and Frogger Threedeep....
Not a bad day...Thank you BIRA....
Praise be to Bira Bira.....he rewards those who believe......
I got a "Spaghetti-ball" box. You know. It's that big box with maybe
one or two interesting items near the top, but evertyhing else is
either tangled up in or hidden by an enormous knot of cords. Rather
than dump it all out there and then, you buy the whole thing to sort
through later. A gamble, yes, but it can pay off, which it did for me
*in spades.* This box contained:
Next stop got me another Commodore 1702 monitor. It came with a C64
and disk drive in dubious condition (beware hardware that's missing
every screw that held it together), but all I was really intersted in
there was the monitor, which works superbly. Oddly (though
understandably), he had thrown six VIC-20 carts in with the C64 setup,
five of which I didn't have.
Next was the Goodwill where I spotted a Turbo Grafx 16 setup last
week. No price sticker on it at that time, but the lady told me
$25, so I took a pass. Today it was in the display case and had a
price sticker. I'm not telling how much I paid, except it was far
less than the price I was originally quoted. So much so that I
thought it was a typo at first, but I wasn't going to argue.
Another two thrifts were pure Combat zone. I was kind of relieved,
since I couldn't keep up the established spending pace.
Stopped at another thrift store where I had never seen a single
blessed cart. This time I asked the kid working the electronics
section if they had any Atari games. He looked thoroughly amazed that
anybody would ask. Said nobody ever seemed interested in it, so they
stopped wasting time checking any of it out and pricing it. He
dragged box after box out of the back room for me to peruse. New
additions to my collection: 2600 Congo Bongo, Atari Video Cube,
Zaxxon, and Spider-Man; INTV Tennis, Q*bert. They had a fistful of
5200 carts, but nothing new to me (*sigh*), but I grabbed another
Miner 2049'er for tradebait. Also snagged two standard 5200 sticks
(untested), and *two* 5200 Wico sticks, one with the keypad. {more
gloating}
Damn. That's the best day I've had in a long time. So good I had to
curtail the day's hunting because I'd run out of cash.
I went out today for a quick run and came home with a greyscale VGA monitor.
So now another one of my poor, monitorless Atari STs has a monitor (albeit
monochrome).
So anyways, I have a few minutes to kill before work so I have just
enough time to go to an out of the way store that I don't go to very
often (last time I went I got Star Wars the Arcade Game for Colecovision!!)
I thought of Bira Bira while going through the front doors. I head for
the record section, and right away I see the beautiful sight of the CED
caddies sticking up over the records in front of them. (Thrift stores
almost always keep these with the records because nobody knows what the
hell they are.) I flip past 3 I already have, and find, in stereo, the
cheesy Japanese animated version of "The Wizard of Oz" (with the girl who
played "Annie" as the voice of Dorothy). This looks unmercifully bad,
making it a must-see in my book. After that I find- "The Adventures of
Robin Hood," not the commonly found RCA version, but the one from CBS/Fox
Video that is in dual language format! You get to hear it dubbed in
Spanish if you select audio B on your player, and if you have one of the
older manually-controlled stereo players you can actually play this in
true stereo and hear the English soundtrack from the front and the
Spanish from the rear channels on your Dolby system! This was the first
"featured" disc on the "CED Magic" web page. They also had the "Mickey"
volume of the Disney Limited Gold Edition series, but I've already got
it, but that would've been a hulluva find otherwise. I checked the game
cart section next and all they had this time was the usual common 2600's,
but still not a bad trip at all. I even got to work in time too!
This has made me forever a believer, and shows that Bira Bira also aids
the preservation of this failed video format as well as game cartridges.
(Sorry if I bored anyone by getting a little off topic!)
I got the following loose 2600 carts:
Plus, C64 carts: Kickman, Omega Race, and a labelless cart.
(and a tape of Fine Young Cannibals (The Raw and the Cooked)) :-)
All for $1.01 ea.
What do you think?
Well, only a short week or so after doing this, I have had a great day of
hunting. I haven't had a chance to list everything yet, but I can sum up
what I got today... for a grand total of slightly under 30 bucks:
7800 System w/ps, and two controllers - as of yet, untested (crossed fingers)
Like I said, I haven't had a chance to examine these puppies yet, but
everything looks really nice... and to top it off, I also found some
cassettes that I had been wanting, and for only .25 a piece:
Cyndi Lauper - She's so Unusual
Does anyone know much about this game? I haven't seen it in any
auctions, and although I'm definitely NOT interested in parting with
it, I'd be interested in how it ranks with the other UR carts (is this
the most common of the most uncommon?).
PRAISE BIRA BIRA!!!
I see it like this: Bira Bira is already being parodied through the
Macarena song. This puts the little idol on the same playing field as
la chupacabra... imaginary, kind of fun, even a party animal.
The moment someone *actually* sacrifices a Combat or Pacman cart, it's
time to start a soc.support group or something.
Someone rmgroup soc.support.chupacabra now please, come to think of it!
:)
- Jim
Bira Bira? Nah!
Now praying to Mr. Friendly (The Anti-Bira) on the other hand... well...
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
Heaven, shmeaven! When I suffer terminal Bit-Rot I want to got to the Reef
Store.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
Well, if you want to avoid the dangers of EMP then the best thing to do is
to avoid playing with thermal nuclear devices while indoors.
Nuclear warheads can be great fun, but always remember to play safe.
Well, he hasn't quite yet achieved La Chupacabra status yet. When
non-collectors know who he is and what he's about then he'll have made his
debut into folk icon society.
Hmmmm.... maybe somebody needs to contact the World Weekly News and get them
to do a story on Bira Bira.
"Whacky Internet Cult. Atari Collectors Worship Bira Bira."
"Bira Bira's Face Seen In Clouds Over Sunnyvale California."
"Bira Bira Saves Game Collector From Being Crushed By Truck Load Of ET Carts"
"Bira Bira And Elvis Seen Performing Together At Vegas Club."
"Teenage Cartridge Collector Says: 'I'm Carrying Bira Bira's Baby'."
"Bira Bira Battles Mr. Friendly In Skys Over Texas."
"Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, La Chupacabra and Bira Bira seen partying on
Sunset Boulevard with Clinton's Alien Prostitute."
First off, I'll start with my conception of the power of Bira Bira. It
seems to me that there is a power that guides and watches over all of
us who look for classic video games. Bira Bira is a magnet for this
power, and he grants those who acknowledge him good finds for their
faith in him. He has worked for me many times, and I've no doubt I will
continue to benefit from his power. However, recent events have led me
to believe that Bira Bira is not the only spirit that can channel this
power. (And no, I'm not talking about that limp dicked pantywaist Mr.
Friendly. He's a whole other story. But I digress). A few weeks ago, I
found a little totem I bought on a trip to the Grand Canyon that has
more than a passing resemblance to Bira Bira. I set him on a shelf, but
didn't think much of it. The following weekend, on my way out the door
to check out some thrifts, my eye caught the little fellow. I gave him
a thumbs up (hey, why not?), made silent prayer to Bira Bira, and set
out on my day. I had much better luck than I had had in a while. But I
still wasn't sold. I didn't want to anger Bira Bira by not placing
faith in him, so I just chalked it up to coincidence. The next week
rolled around, and on the way out the door I gave the little guy the
thumbs up, praised Bira Bira, and headed out. I found 3 working 5200s,
lots of INTV carts, and just a bunch of stuff I needed. At this point I
was fairly convinced that Bira Bira and this guy were working together
to get me stuff. The next week rolls around (at this point the little
guy has taken a position of honor atop my monitor) and before heading
out I run my finger along the feather on the little guys head and ask
Bira Bira for a good day. What did I find at the swap meet that day? A
shrinkwrapped copy of Custer's Revenge for just $3.00. At this point I
am absolutely sold. I also for the first time found out the name of the
little guy. (It never occured to me to look for a name). There it was,
on the base: Tuhavi!
I have had quite good luck by calling upon the powers of Bira Bira and
Tuhavi in tandem. They seem to work quite well as a tag team on my
behalf. In the last 3 days I have found the following:
2600 - Cosmic Commuter, Alien, Megaforce, Fast Eddie, Title Match, Coco
Nuts (2 of it), River Raid II, Star Trek, M.A.D., Gangster Alley, and a
whole bunch of others I needed
Colecovision - Mr. Do (2 of it), Pitstop, Time Pilot, Victory, War
Games, Jungle Hunt (whoohoo), Star Trek (whoohoohoo!), and a few others
I needed
Vectrex - Berzerk (shrinkwrapped), Blitz! (shrinkwrapped), Rip Off
(Shrinkwrapped), Armor Attack (w/ box & overlay), and Scramble
Intellivision - AD&D shrinkwrapped
and a swell chicken doll among tons of other things!
Now, I certainly don't want to upset any Bira Bira purists out
there...I absolutely believe in his power and he still continues to
reward me. However, I firmly believe in the fact that he isn't the only
deity out there able to harness this power for the good of loyal gamers
everywhere.
I also don't expect any converts. I'm not saying Tuhavi won't work for
anybody else, I'm just saying I don't want to get blasted because he
didn't grant you a Good Luck Charlie Brown prototype when you called
upon him on a whim. Bira Bira doesn't look kindly on people who call
upon him just as a goof, and I doubt Tuhavi would appreciate it either.
Thank you for listening. And a big thank you to the twin towers of game
hunting, Bira Bira and Tuhavi, for the treasures they bestow upon me
for being a swell guy.
Good night.
All I know is, Bira Bira has blessed many people with some really good
finds, and if there is another idol out there that can do the same thing,
more power to him. Hail Bira and the idols of classic games!
(I think they would be peaceful to each other, don't you?)
There are many manifestations of Bira Bira as there are many manifestations
of Mr. Friendly.
There's only one way to tell if the idol you picked up at a thrift store
is a manifestation of Bira Bira or Mr. Friendly.
1)Place the idol in your home near a computer or video game machine. This
will amplify the energy signature of the idol.
2)Each day, before heading out to "chase the chuckwagon" say a chant to
Bira Bira before your idol. Some things that may help enhance the flow of
energy from the Reef Store to your home are things like making a toast to
Bira Bira with the beverage of your choice, or placing a thimble of rum
infront of your idol, or laying a wreath of flowers around the base of your
idol. but a simple "Bira Bira" will suffice.
3)If two weeks go by and you haven't found anything that excites you then
you have brought a manifestation of Mr. Friendly, the evil cart energy
stealing Spapa Mart Imp, into your home. Your house is now infused with
negative energies. You'll have to purify your home of this. Here's how.
Take an O.C. (obnoxiously common) cartridge and tie it around the
Mr. Friendly icon. If the icon is light and will float then tie the icon
to a heavy object. The O.C. cart will draw all the negatice cart energy
into itself. Now take the icon and cart to the nearest body of water and
cast it in. This final act will completely cleanse you of any residual
negative cart energy.
4)If you find anything interesting during the two week trial period then
you've found a manifestation of Bira Bira. Continue to pay homage to the
power of Bira Bira before going out thrifting and blessings will be yours
when the time is right.
5)Remember, you can never own a manifestation of Bira Bira. Bira Bira is
not a possession. He is a cherished guest in your home. Always treat him
as such.
Tuhavi, it would seem, is most definetly a different, cultural manifestation
of the power of Bira Bira. With this idol it can be addressed as either
Bira Bira, or as Tuhavi and it should make no difference. If you know the
name by which your idol is called, then you may call upon that name. If not
then you can call upon the name Bira Bira as it applies to all the
manifestations of positive cartridge energy from the Reef Store.
Perhaps people who find different manifestations of Bira Bira could send you
scans of their idol. That way we can keep a good record of what the different
manifestations are.
May you be kept safe from the negative energies of Mr. Friendly.
Bira Bira!
Subject: Re: --=={ "BIRA BIRA" REPOST - WITH PICTURES! }==-- (please read)
Well, maybe the fabled Reef Store is a
physically real place, and it exists in Bora Bora. The totem absorbed
a significant amount of rare-cart mana before and during its carving,
so a person who meditates upon its influence is drawn to sites where
other rare carts (or lots of not-so-rare carts) can be found.
From: btomlin@crl.com (Bruce Tomlin)
Subject: Re: --=={ "BIRA BIRA" REPOST - WITH PICTURES! }==-- (please read)
I BELIEVE! I FOUND A VECTREX TODAY! OH BRING MORE BLESSINGS DOWN UPON
ME MOST HOLY BIRA BIRA!!!
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: Re: --== "BIRA BIRA" REPOST - WITH PICTURES! ==-- (please read)
: I BELIEVE! I FOUND A VECTREX TODAY! OH BRING MORE BLESSINGS DOWN UPON
: ME MOST HOLY BIRA BIRA!!!
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.classic,alt.games.video.classic,alt.atari.2600
Update... Bira Bira now sits beside my terminal here at home, watching
all of the rgvc activity. I'm hoping he can still absorb it.... and so
far, he hasn't lost any of his power. Just tonight I went out for a
quick look-see at two of my haunts, and nothing at the first place, but
at the second place I found:
Cookie Monster Crunch
Alpha Beam w/Ernie
both of them with docs, 2 overlays for Ernie, 1 for Oscar,
*plus* the ugly blue "Kid's Controller" thing (which I had never seen
before today, btw)
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Bira Bira's 23rd Psalm
THE 23rd PSALM of BIRA BIRA
He maketh me to lie down in thrift store bins;
he leadeth me beside the piles of URs.
he restoreth my Supercharger; he leadeth me in the path of
functional 4k Rom dumps.
Yea, though I search through the bins of the shadow of Pac Man,
I will fear no OCs; for thou art with me; thy Q-Bert Cubes and
thy Cosmic Avenger they comfort me.
Thou preparest an Atari 2600 for me in the
presence of Mike Novak, Paul Smith, etc...; thou anointest my
carts with isopropyl alcohol; my VGR list runneth over.
Surely MagiCard and Tempest prototypes shall follow me all the
days of my collecting; and I will Chase the Chuckwagon in the
Reef Store of Bira Bira for ever.
From: cudabert@aol.com (CudaBert)
Subject: Re: --== "BIRA BIRA" REPOST - WITH PICTURES! ==-- (please read)
Hey, it must be true. After just *reading* Bira Bira posts and then having
a cart finding dream, I made some really good finds this weekend. First a
load of Jaguar games for $10 each, a Bible Adventures for NES for $4 and
some other NES carts including Elevator Action.
From: bwillard@mindspring.com (Bruce Willard)
Subject: Bira Bira experiment
Today I thought I'd put Bira Bira to the test. I blew up the image from
Robert Batina's web site and printed it full color. I inserted it in the
front of the book I carry with me. I hit three thrift stores (I was in a
hurry, and that may have affected the test). At the first, nothing. At
the third nothing. At the second, I found a no label PB cart. I had given
up on those, but with Bira Bira behind me...! I also found two O^2 carts
in boxes. Conquest of the World with all the tokens and board and
Smithereens in box with manual. The only problem is that I don't collect
O^2 anymore. I did take them for trades.
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: Re: Bira Bira experiment
Bruce Willard (bwillard@mindspring.com) wrote:
: I also found two O^2 carts
: in boxes. Conquest of the World with all the tokens and board and
: Smithereens in box with manual. The only problem is that I don't collect
: O^2 anymore. I did take them for trades.
: My concern is this: Can Bira Bira's power be diluted by the number of
: collectors searching for carts in his name?
From: ChristianCL@IDS.Net (Christian D. Carroll)
Subject: Pray to Bira Bira...it works!
After hearing about Rob Batina's Bira Bira Voodoo Doll and noticing
that I haven't found squat over the last month or so at yard sales,
thrifts & flea markets...I decided to say the words "Bira Bira" in
my car this morning right before I was to hit the yard sales. Hey,
I figured it couldn't hurt, given my luck as of late. Well, the
first yard sale I hit had an Adam computer system w/2 controllers,
the printer and some data tapes. Price...$5! Finally, something
good! The next yard sale had some Nintendo carts and one of them
was a Tengen Pac-Man (in Nintendo grey case) for $3! After a couple
more yard sales, the last one I went to had an Atari 2600 system
w/36 carts (mostly Cs & Us, but I didn't have Airlock yet) and
boxes & instructions to about 10-15 of them. Price...$7!
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Bira Bira works in mysterious ways.
Well I went out cart hunting today, and before I left I raised a glass of
Dr. Pepper in salute to Bira Bira. Along the way I failed to encounter
any Atari 2600 stuff at any of the yard sales. I was begining to wonder
what I had done to displease the mighty Bira Bira (I accidently erased
his image from my hard drive. Could that be it?). Made it to the flea
market where one of the ladies had said the previous week that she would
bring in some carts. Well she forgot (Oh Bira Bira! Why hath thou
forsaken me!?!?). But there was something neat in her booth that I
bought. Two framed wooden boxes for mounting on the wall. Each divided
into 16 equal compartments. Her mother used them to hold a bell
collection but each compartment held perfectly 4 Atari 2600 carts. Well
I'm desperate for cart storage. The two stacking bins I use are
overflowing and discontinued, so I need to find something else. PLus
they're not that attractive and clash with the decore. Well, each of
these wooden wall boxes hold 64 carts, so 128 carts in my collection are
now nicely housed which means the rest fit nicely into one of the
stacking bins (I'll have to find something to house them too).
From: snapsnar@juno.com (Snap Snare)
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA IS MY GOD!!
Although I have been following the threads for a while, after reading
this post I finally decided to try Bira Bira for myself.
Unfortunately, it was late and I could only reach one thrift store in
time -- the most evil diabolical store I know. They have never had
carts separate from systems and always want at least $20 for a 2600
and 3-4 carts. An employee once told me they kept everything in piles
in back but only when they could match it up and sell it did it go to
the floor. But things would be different now!
From: Scott Cherven [scherven@skidmore.edu]
Subject: Amazing Vectrex Find! (Bira,Bira helped!)
Well being skeptical of the powers of the great Bira Bira - I
said what the hell - My classic gaming luck can only get
better..........
From: bwillard@mindspring.com (Bruce Willard)
Subject: Bira Bira experiment continues
Well I now believe that Bira Bira is for real. But I'm not sure what
reality he comes from! I have had incredible luck, but it's very strange.
See, I collect Atari stuff. Anything Atari is what I'm looking for. I
have my Bira Bira picture in my book as I go to thrift stores and chant as
I enter the store.
From: leftyle5@delphi.com
Subject: Bira Bira vs The Tag Team Duo: Sum Guy & Sum Gal... The winner is...
Well, it has been pretty dry for me as far as cart hunting for the last
three or four weeks, so I desparately wanted find some worth while carts
in the various Garage Sales I was about to set forth on last weekend.
I sort of had Bira Bira in my head when I started out on my first garage
sale (All the while thinking, "Too bad I don't have a picture of him"),
and after arriving there and checking around, there were no carts to be
found. I decided that Bira Bira may just need a little help of some kind,
so at the next garage sale (after againg coming up dry), I decided to
ask the person in charge of the garage sale if he had any old video games
like Atari, Coleco, etc. He says "Yea, sure, I got some Atari stuff up
in the attic somewhere.". I asked if he wouldn't mind getting it out for
me and with a litle persuasion on my part, agreed to get it. I waited
about 10-minutes for him to bring the stuff down, but it was worth it.
He had one large box and in it was a 2600 with 2-common carts, joysticks,
paddles, and PS, and an Atari XE system which included the game unit and
keyboard, and all for $5.00. I never would have known what I passed up
if I hadn't asked the magic question. My policy in the past has usually
been "If you don't see it, they ain't got it!" --- WRONG!!!.
Eggomania (Duplicate. Nice! - Keeper - My other cart is a handle one)
King Kong (Duplicate. Nice! - My old one up for trade)
M.A.D. (Duplicate. Nice! - This one up for trade)
Pooyan (NEW addition - Great label! - A definite all around keeper)
Plaque Attack (Duplicate. Good cond! - This one up for trade)
Sorcerer's Apprentice (NEW addition - Mint - A definite keeper)
Star Gunner (NEW addition - Mint - A definite keeper)
Trick Shot (Duplicate. Nice! - This one up for trade)
Worm War I (Duplicate. Fine Cond! - My old one up for trade)
Casino
Codebreaker
Golf
Maze Craze
Pac-Man (Yea, she had two of those)
Backgammon
Baseball (White Label - Mattel)
Gorf
I Want My Mommy
Journey Escape
Masters of the Universe: Powers of the He-Man
Oink
Solar Fox
Wizard of Wor
Word Zapper
Contra
Ninja Gaiden
Friday the 13th
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Monster Party
Gunsmoke
The Rocketeer
Metal Gear
Mafat Conspiracy, The
Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight
World Wrestling
Bionic Commando
WrestleMania
Karate Champ
2- "Do you have any old video game cartridges, such as Atari,
Coleco, and so on?"
3- "You wouldn't by any chance have any other 2600 cartridges
laying around here somewhere, would you?"
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Made it to 200 today! Thank Bira Bira!
The blessings of Bira Bira were certainly upon me today. Before going out
cart hunting today I wrote as Bira Bira post (What is the Reef Store).
Then My son and I rubbed the belly of a picture of Bira Bira and said
"Bira Bira" three times.
Subject: Bira Bira-ing
From: brian.hammack@rook.wa.com (Brian Hammack)
Alright, I decided to try it. I haven't picked up the picture, but the
I figured the mere chanting of Bira Bira's sacred name would do some-
thing for me (much like the old joke about the airplane and saying "Help
me Buddha" when the 'chute doesn't open). So my test...
From: btomlin@crl.com (Bruce Tomlin)
Subject: Bira Bira be very-very good to me
The day started out well. I woke up before 7AM, wrote a little Vectrex
demo program, got online, found out that Slackware 3.1 was *finally*
released, then after sucking a lot of installation disks, I went out to go
find stuff.
Though the prices may get very steep
When I dream of the Reef Store in my sleep
If I trust in him, the carts I might keep
From: Kirk Prodzinski [kprod@infinet.com]
Subject: BIRA BIRA.. Your good, but not focused.....
Well, I'll tell of my BIRA BIRA finds this week.
1. found a colecovision roller controller mint condition $6
2. colecovision driver with gas pedal mint $6.
3. intellivision with 24 carts (most with 2overlays and inst)..a few rares and 2ERs
$5.00
4. Commie 64 with floppy. Books, and wrapped CP/M cart with book for $2. (That cart is
like huge and must be worth somthing.)
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA.. Your good, but not focused.....
You know, I was thinking about copyrighting the name and image of the
mighty one, but then that would kinda be against the whole spirit of the
thing, and thus would probably kill the power. [G] (just kidding)
From: "A.P. Hilliard" [pash@en.com]
Subject: Bira Bira comes through again!
Well, I gotta admit I was scepticle about this whole Bira Bira thing,
but now I'm starting to think it works!
:)
From: Ben Strobel [ccspres@cris.com]
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA.. Your good, but not focused.....
Er, Kirk,
Don't know if it's such a good idea to supply BIRA BIRA with a weapon...if that's what
it appeared to possibly be. That scenario reminds me of a hokey movie I saw on the late
show not long ago...this woman got a carved BIRA BIRA-type figure from a friend, and it
had a chain wrapped around its middle. The instructions said *never* to loose the chain
as unimaginable horrors would be unleashed. You can figure out what happened... that
little bugger came to life and stalked the woman around her apartment, sharp pointy
teeth biting, sharp spear-thingy stabbing... when she wrestled the spear-thingy away, it
grabbed a paring knife and continued stalking... the movie ended after it got a shot at
her neck with those wicked pointy teeth... she was shown sitting at the phone, calling
her mom, inviting her to come over... and when she turned around after hanging up, she
smiled (read snarled) and there were all these little razor-sharp pointy teeth looking
at you.
From: Kirk Prodzinski [kprod@infinet.com]
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA.. Your good, but not focused.....
Kinda like that episode of the Brady bunch (cough) where they found that
wooden idol and all this curse stuff followed them... I wonder if BIRA
BIRA will soon need to be back in its comfy tupperware bowl back at the
flea....maybe Rubbertoe's UR carts will start to die...slowly..until
BIRA is again in the spiritual bowl...
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA.. Your good, but not focused.....
Actually, I took Bira Bira back to the very thrift store he came
from... not inside, mind you, but outside in the car. I went inside
and the bowl was still there, but it was filled with mega-commons...
lots of pacmen, combats, space invaders, and crappy m-network carts. And
at 1.99 a pop, no less. There were actually many more games there now,
then there was when Bira Bira was found in it, but the games there now
were so common... I think that shows something...
From: ribbit@netcom.com (Tony Mason)
Subject: Ah, Bira Bira :-)
...so much for the doubting Ribbit :)
Boxed 3-D Glasses
Boxed Light Pen
Boxed 3D Crazy Coaster
Boxed 3D Narrow Escape
Boxed Polar Rescue
Boxed Melody Master
...and on, and on, and on......
All hail Bira Bira!!!
From: Paul Smith [rajsmith@execpc.com]
Subject: Bira-Bira's magic works in Cyberspace
Oh happy day..
From: metallik@iglou.com (Larry Scott Ii)
Subject: More Bira Bira finds..
That Bira Bira must be boosting everyone's luck.. I only thought of him
(her? it?) once or twice, and still had some decent luck this past week..
Between the usual thrift route and the local fleas, I got:
From: mezmaron@twd.net (Stacy J. Dunkle)
Subject: Re: Ah, Bira Bira :-)
Ah, yes. That Bira Bira certainly does seem to work. Heck, I found all you
really need to do is THINK the words "Bira Bira", and you get results!
Here's what I got at the fleas Sunday:
Lost Luggage
Basic Programming
Star Strike
China Syndrome
Sky Jinks
Swordquest: Fireworld
all with manuals!
RS Baseball
H.E.R.O.
Pitfall II
Frogger II: Threedeep!
Ice Trek(picture label)
Safecracker(silver label)
Sub Hunt
AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin
From: Scott Cherven [scherven@skidmore.edu]
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.classic
I am starting to think that the great Bira Bira has been mistaken as the
Atari God, and is really the God of Vectrex.
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Re: Bira Bira Brady Bunch Episode on today
I wonder if Bira Bira is going to be in the new "The Brady Bunch Goes to Hawaii"
movie that's comming out later this month.
From: Justin Jernigan [jus10j@worldnet.att.net]
Subject: new bira bira find
what a dry summer....I have up to my ears in combat cartridges, and
thrifts who believe that even a combat is worth $4.00....
From: KingGK@aol.com [Lee Kruger]
Subject: Thank you, Bira Bira, for your guidance and kindness
Silly little story for you:
Subject: VECTREX FIND! (was Japanese version of Bira-Bira found)
From: Ben Strobel [ccspres@cris.com]
I truly believe in the power of Bira-Bira. Yesterday on IRC I publicly denounced Mr.
Friendly, calling him the 'bad idol', and 'Bad for cart hunting and thrifting' in a
conversation with Ant Chapman. I also had a discussion with my mom, in which I said,
'The only system I'm missing now that I really want is a Vectrex'...this morning, I went
and looked at Crackers' Bira-Bira beating the crap out of Mr. Friendly pic (very cool,
Crackers), once again praising the power and glory of Bira-Bira. Then, about noon, I go
out garage saling for the first time in months. I look around at about 30 sales, nada
except a TRaSh -80 with about 400 disks, 2 drives, a lot of books for $20. Then, at the
last sale I go to, I found IT. My brother was with me, and as I said, we hadn't found
ANYTHING. We go up to this house, and my brother starts digging through a box of books.
I looked in a box of toys , nothing interesting. Then, while my brother was still
digging in the box of books, I walked ionnto the garage. There, in the corner, was a
hardwired Odyssey^2 unit with The Voice, PS, switchbox, and eleven games. System w/Voice
was $20, carts were $5 each, or everything for $30. (? Huh ? Five dollars a cart or all
for $10 if you buy the system?) Anyway, I did through, there are a couple of cool
looking voice carts, a few others I need. Pocket Billiards and Type and Tell were the
coolest ones there. Anyway, I told my brother to come over, and he pushed me outta the
way to look through the carts. As I already got an O^2 with The Voice for $1 earlier
this week (Heh!), I decided not to go for it at $20. I looked around for something else
to play with while I waited for my brother, and then I saw IT. It was under a basket of
silk flowers; a MINT Vectrex, with three cartridges, one controller. I IMMEDIATELY
pushed the person next to me away from the silverware on the table, and dove on the
Vectrex. I grabbed it up, got the carts, turned around and grunted, 'Roygetoverhere' to
my brother. As he turned around, I looked down at the price tag-$20 for all. Hehehehehe!
So he turns around and freaks out, but manages to hold it in enough so as not to make
the people withdraw the Vectrex from the sale. Between us we have about $18.25, so
that's what we offer for the Vectrex. The woman jumps at the money, then cackles like
she's taken us to the cleaners...little does she know...;) Just then, she mentions to
her son that 'There's another tape under the lawnmower, isn't there? And one of those
clear thingies for on the screen?' He's like, 'Oh, yeah' and goes under the table and
lawnmower to get the cart...and grabs the overlay from on top of the table. 'Here ya go'
Heh, heh. I got:
From: cbartz@ugc.com (Chris Bartz)
Subject: More Bira Bira
I would like to add my confirmation of the little totem's powers. I finally
got around to viewing his highness before lunch and returned with my first
Tomy Tutor setup -- complete with 8 carts including Scramble, Jungler and
Pooyan! All hail the the wooden man!
From: rworne@primenet.com (Robert Worne)
Subject: Re: Bira Bira comes through again! or: I was Sumguy for a day!
Bira Bira works at my local flea, which usually has squat in the way of
carts/systems, however I hit the motherload (for someone just starting out
collecting) after chanting his name this morning:
Tutankham
Armour Ambush
Congo Bongo (Mint!)
Pele's Soccer
Wizard of Wor
ST: Empire Strikes Back
Atlantis
Barnstorming
Miner 2049'er (Mint!)
Space Attack
Q-bert
Pitfall!
Combat (it was part of the deal, only my 3rd)
Street Racer
Dodge'em
1 Wico Joystick "The Boss"
Pitfall!
Wargames
DK
DK Jr.
S.A. Baseball (no controllers!)
Bump 'n' Jump
Centipede
Zaxxon
Ladybug
Ken Uston BJ/Poker w/Overlays.
Mousetrap
From: kcassidy@zoomnet.net (William Cassidy)
Subject: Almost great finds... by BIRA BIRA
Today when visiting the same thrift, I made sure to call on BIRA BIRA
before going in.
I walked in and shot a quick glance at where the carts are kept, but
didn't see anything. So I went to the shelves where they keep the
consoles.. saw nothing but the same broken down INTV 1 system and
bare computers that usually have a few keys missing. I thought BIRA
BIRA had failed me, and then I saw it. An unusual black cardboard
box--I thought it was for one of the computers at first, until I
read what was printed on the box: MICROVISION! I was especially
excited, since I've been intrigued by this nifty device recently, and
had really wanted to get one. Inside the box, the inside of which
was apparently used as a scatching post by a cat, was a Microvision
unit with Block Buster cart inserted, and Block Buster's instructions.
From: jvmatthe@unity.ncsu.edu (John Vivian Matthews)
Subject: Bira Bira is a false god
I just wanted to say that this summer I found a box of 7800,2600,and
Intellivision games near my apartment at a "junk" sale and when I
got home there was a little black idol in the bottom of the box. I
let it sit on the table for a while until my wife told me to throw it
away and after I did I found my E.T Go Home pirate cartridge and
a Star Wars:TAG. I didn't find much while I had the little idol,
but shortly after I threw it away, I found those two neat-o
cartridges. I just thought I would throw this in.
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Re: Bira Bira is a false god
Well, that little black idol was obviously not a manifestation of Bira Bira
and was, infact a manifestation of Mr. Friendly the Anti-Bira.
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
But I would bet that the idol was not *thee* Bira Bira. You chose to
worship a cart idol that was not Bira Bira, and brought the results on
yourself.
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: Re: Bira Bira is a false god
Chris Cracknell (ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca) wrote:
: Mr. Friendly doesn't always take his cutesy Shmoo form.
: If you find a Mr. Friendly manifestation the proper way to dispose of it is
: to tie it and an OC cartridge to a rock and throw it into the nearest
: large body of water. This will cleanse your house of any residual negative
: Mr. Friendly energy.
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Re: Bira Bira is a false god
Bira Bira will ALWAYS triumph over Mr. Friendly in any of his diabalical
forms, however, the energy discharge from the battle might not be too healthy
for your monitor. Best to lock them in a room with nothing valuable inside it.
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: GREED and Bira Bira! (theory)
I have seen many post lately, about how people are having really nice
finds, but then going dry later. And it seems that more and more, the
blame is going to Bira Bira. What is it? Do you all expect Bira Bira to
provide for you every time to go thrifting? Do you expect him to provide
you with unlimited ERs? I think that maybe Bira Bira can tell who is
just using him, and who really appreciates him. Those of us like myself,
and Crackers will definitely reap the rewards in the long run. Fools are
those who turn to the evil ways of Mr Friendly.
From: kinggus@ix.netcom.com(Timothy F Krueger)
Subject: Re: GREED and Bira Bira! (theory)
Anyway, here's the way I view it: Do you want Bira Bira, who seems to
be very pissed off all the time (just look at the guy), or do you want
Mr. Friendly, an apparent nitrous oxide freak who is obviously sitting
on his joystick. Who would win in a fist fight? Please.
From: metallik@iglou.com (Larry Scott Ii)
Subject: Re: GREED and Bira Bira! (theory)
: Larry,
: I don't think you have to limit this comment to the newcomers.... but
: that's exactly what I'd expect from someone who worships the false idol Bira
: Bira. I'm not a devotee of the Mr. Friendly cult either (although I will
: support his followers just to tweak the Birational types), don't get me wrong.
: I am part of the West Coast cult known as the BAVE Day Adventists.
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA can BYTE me. Mr Friendly ???????
In article [3220D12F.759A@infinet.com], Kirk Prodzinski [kprod@infinet.com] wrote:
]Ok, so yesterday and today I totally forgot about BIRA, BIRA..didn;t think of him or
]anything. Until early today After I found.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
]Now the BIRA point here is this.
]After my early morning pigs,etc find this AM, I though of BIRA and whispered his name.
]After that and a long day...nothing.. Its a curse, or BIRA is horseshi*.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
]Whats with this Mr. Friendly guy. Who is responsible, and where are the pics ??
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
From: Colin Woodbridge [colin.woodbridge@uk.sun.com]
Subject: The Power Of Bira Bira is Worldwide!! (but has he foresaken me??)
Hi,
From: kcassidy@zoomnet.net (William Cassidy)
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA - How should I sacrifice my COMBATS ???
This got me speculating as to the true nature of Bira Bira's power.
Crackers has suggested that Bira Bira is the guardian of the mystic and
sacred Reef Store, which exists in the realm of our dreams and houses
untold quantities of ERs, URs, and NRs. Only the power of Bira Bira
can cause these treasures to depart from the Eternal Reef Store to
manifest themselves in our reality. Thrift stores and flea markets
and boot sales and other places are merely our plane's reflections
of the Reef Store, and they are connected by the power of Bira Bira.
Invoking Bira's name can sometimes cause the aforementioned ERs and
URs to appear in your local thrift store; why couldn't it work both
ways? Couldn't Bira Bira take your OCs from a thrift TO the Reef
Store? Perhaps, any offering (of say, a Combat cart) you leave IN a
thrift store can be taken by Bira Bira back to the Reef Store, where
it can be transmuted into something more valuable. I have noticed
that even the Combats have been disappearing from my favorite thrift
since I began calling on Bira Bira. I believe he may be using them to
open the void between ours and the Reef Store's dimensions, forging
a path for more ER's to enter! So why not "sacrifice" your Combats and
Pac-Mans by donating them to a bunch of thrift stores? Hopefully,
Bira Bira will smile on your generosity!
From: Ben Strobel [ccspres@cris.com]
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA - How should I sacrifice my COMBATS ???
Kirk Prodzinski wrote:
] I am planning a ceremonial (sp?) sacrifice of several combat carts to the great
] BIRA..he will probably also get a few pac-mans.
] Can someone please reccomend the best way to do this ? Since there are no volcanos in
] the mid-west.. I cannot throw them down the throat..
2) Burn the remains
3) Drop to knees and speak in foreign tongues, kowtowing and praising his name
4) Do the Dance of Joy around the bier
All praise the Most High Bira Bira!
From: Justin Jernigan [jus10j@worldnet.att.net]
Subject: BIRA BIRA...I LOVE YOU MAN
Just when you think all the Bira brag post are over....Friday after work I
stopped off at the local thrift...7800 carts...wow, a Food Fight, needed
that..but not without punishment (must have been for bad Bira Bira
thoughts)...looks like this thrift has aquired a Shrink Wrap machine...6
carts, shrunk together...$4....of course its like 5 combats and a Food
Fight...but what the heck...it was worth it...
From: kinggus@ix.netcom.com(Timothy F Krueger)
Subject: Re: Struck it Rich! Praise Be To BIRA BIRA
Bira Bira made me a happy guy this week. I picked up an Intellivision
with Intellivoice, an Intellivision II (those controllers suck!), a
system changer, about 20 Intellivision games (with books & overlays),
and 4 2600 carts for $20. And to top it all off, everything worked!
From: macker@akamail.com (macker)
Subject: Re: BIRA BIRA
Truly this is a worthy cause, might you enlighten me as to the great
Bira Bira (sp?)... truly there must be none higher than him and that's
why his greatness escapes me, for I am not as high as him.
From: tiltonj@erols.com (Jay Tilton)
Subject: Careful what you ask of Bira Bira; he might be listening.
I set out for a Saturday's usual hunting with low expectations.
It'd been two weeks since I'd found anything much, which I attributed
to the holiday weekend and Fran clobbering the area. As I pulled into
the flea, I remembered I've been shamefully neglectful of Bira Bira,
so I did a quick Hail Bira, sung a few bars of the hymn I wrote, and
chanted His name a few times. It must have worked, because only His
divine influence could have gotten me all the cool shit I found.
1. Colecovision with PS (works), three standard controllers, and a
wicked-cool aftermarket controller--Suncom Joy-Sensor.
2. Intellivision console (dirty, but works). Finally got one!
3. Sears Super-Pong IV with all four paddles (yet untested).
4. 2600 jr. (a bit mangled, but i can at least use some pieces to
revive another).
5. 2600 Controller assortment (sticks, paddles, touchpads).
Most intersting of these are an Amiga Joyboard, and a stick *very*
much like a Tron stick, except it's black and has a second fire button
on the top of the handle. No clue on the manufacturer of this one.
6. Power supply assortment. Yay! Now each of my 5200's has its own
PS.
7. Carts: Five OC 2600's, 2600 Space Shuttle, CoCo Checkers
8. 2600 Supercharger. Hooray! I've wanted to do Bob Colbert's hack
for a while, but didn't want to risk wrecking my only Superchager.
This one's going under the knife.
9. And . . . {drum roll} . . . a friggin Masterplay 5200 Interface!!
Or should I say, *another* Masterplay. Bwahaha! {shameless gloating!}
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Re: Careful what you ask of Bira Bira; he might be listening.
Bira Bira must be pleased in his new home. You've been truly blessed.
From: alnsmthe@crl.com (Jesse Skeen)
Subject: more PROOF Bira Bira works!(non-cart find)
I am grateful to the people who have discovered Bira Bira, I feel that he
has been sending me signals for a long time, now I know what they are. My
main reason for going to thrifts is for CED videodiscs, which are often
hard to come by. Even though I have over 900 of them I still get excited
when I see ones in a store!
From: "Matthew Brockman" [sawdust@thepoint.net]
Subject: Bira^2 Comes Through at Thrift
I thought about Bira Bira before going out and at a local
thrift store made a great find. (at least for me)
Tron Deadly Discs
Basic Programming (what controller do I need for this? the same as for
Codebreaker?)
Othello
Fast Eddie
Space Cavern
Basketball (atari)
Armor Ambush
Championship Soccer (atari, text)
Target Fun 27 (red lettering, did red come before gold lettering on the
Sears carts?)
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: Bira Bira is happy again!! (finds - 9/21)
Well, I was sort of hesitant to pass Bira Bira along to another
collector, but I see now that it was the right thing to do. When I first
got Bira, for many weeks I had several nice finds... then slowly, it
started to stop... to the point where I hadn't found *anything* for
about a month. That's when I decided to pass Bira Bira on to another.
30 to 35 2600 carts, including: Gopher, Egoomania, Sprintmaster, Lost Luggage
Kool Aid Man, Crossbow, Raquetball...
Two boxxed INTV carts Tron Solar Sailer and Bomb Squad...
Two Donkey Kong LED game watches
One Starfox LED game watch.
BBD - Poison
(.50 a piece and shrinkwrapped:)
Artch - Sake of Mankind
Fear of God - Within the Veil
Cryptic Slaughter - Speak your Peace
Intruder - Psycho Savant
From: snapsnar@pobox.com (Snap Snare)
Subject: Found: My first UR! Praise be to Bira Bira.
Yippie!!! After searching for soooo long, I've finally found my first
UR cart. It's Shuttle Orbiter by Avalon Hill, in realy good shape! I
paid $2 at a kind of pawn/junk shop near my house. Before I went into
the store, I hailed the mightly Bira Bira, and he must have been well
pleased with me!
From: Justin Jernigan [jus10j@worldnet.att.net]
Subject: Re: Found: My first UR! Praise be to Bira Bira.
After asking Bira I recently found Shuttle Orbiter also. (like 2 weeks
ago) -- It seems as thought any Avalon Hill game is quite a find, however
I think London Blitz may be harder to find, even though it is just ER.
Wish I wouldnt have traded mine....
From: jimn8@netcom.com (Jim Nitchals)
Subject: Re: Is Bira Bira considered praying to false prophets? Satan?
Steve Totschek [tcbconst@airmail.net] wrote:
] By praying to Bira Bira are you aligning yourself with Satan? Get you
] kicked out of Heaven? Maybe you might find a Quadrun one day, but then
] some other horrible thing like a Electro Magnetic Pulse going off in
] your house might befall you. Just a thought :)
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Re: Is Bira Bira considered praying to false prophets? Satan?
In article [324eb390.1503647@news.airmail.net], tcbconst@airmail.net (Steve Totschek) wrote:
] By praying to Bira Bira are you aligning yourself with Satan?
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] Get you kicked out of Heaven?
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] Maybe you might find a Quadrun one day, but then
] some other horrible thing like a Electro Magnetic Pulse going off in
] your house might befall you. Just a thought :)
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From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Re: Is Bira Bira considered praying to false prophets? Satan?
In article [jimn8DyHEIq.4vw@netcom.com], jimn8@netcom.com (Jim Nitchals) wrote:
] I see it like this: Bira Bira is already being parodied through the
] Macarena song. This puts the little idol on the same playing field as
] la chupacabra... imaginary, kind of fun, even a party animal.
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From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: Re: Is Bira Bira considered praying to false prophets? Satan?
I'm not too worried, since Bira Bira is still bringing me goodies. Just
today he brought me a couple more of those neat little Donkey Kong
game/watches and a few semi-rare carts. And I wasn't even looking that
hard... I guess Bira is happy after his trip to Canada. [G]
From: kinggus@ix.netcom.com(Timothy F Krueger)
Subject: Bira Bira and Tuhavi: Tag Team Champions of the World!
Hello everyone in video game land!
From: rbatina@infinet.com (Robert J Batina)
Subject: Re: Bira Bira and Tuhavi: Tag Team Champions of the World!
Great post, man! [G] Great finds too... I think it is very possible
for there to be other idols of gaming, or, what I think is even more
possible... (probably because I am biased, having given the actual Bira
Bira idol a home for a few months) I think maybe the "spirit" of Bira
Bira can be channeled into other things that bring people good luck.
Perhaps there is an even greater force that has given Bira Bira his
power, and has also given it to other idols... hell, I don't know. [G]
From: ad329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Chris Cracknell)
Subject: Re: Bira Bira and Tuhavi: Tag Team Champions of the World!
Yes, the power of Bira Bira transcends the mere confines of a wooden idol.
The idols are gateways through which the power of of Bira Bira are focused.
Naturally, different cultures have different idols and call upon Bira Bira
by different names.
From: Ben Strobel [ccspres@cris.com]