Welcome to Vault 1541!

I've never blogged before and putting everything together has been a bit overwhelming, though it has also been a long time coming as I've kicked around ideas in my head for nearly three years now. As the about section mentions, I started scanning my video game magazine collection in 2014 with a goal of building a website around that. However, after putting together a couple partial sites using web building services I decided it wasn't going to work out well and would likely be too expensive due to the storage space I require.

Just a few of my game magazines.

As I came across toy ads within the game magazines I also started thinking about my toy collection. I have a collection of toys from the '80s that sit in a basement in boxes and I thought it could be fun to explore them with others. Making YouTube videos might be challenging as I'm not the best speaker but my hope is people will at least get a kick out of seeing some of the old toys they played with when they were younger and perhaps enjoy viewing them with their own kids.

Although the focus is on video games and toys of the '80s and '90s, I play a lot of modern video games and will sometimes post about what I'm currently playing. As I write this I haven't set anything else up yet but along with the YouTube channel (I probably won't have videos up for a while), I expect to set up Facebook and Twitter accounts soon. There are likely newer apps people use but I don't want to have to run too many things.

Before I sign off let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in 1975 and grew up in a small town in Connecticut. Like many kids who grew up in the '80s I'm a big Star Wars fan. While I've got many Star Wars toys, my favorite is Hasbro's 3 3/4" G.I. Joe toy line. I should point out that when I do get YouTube started it will have many toys that were marketed toward boys but it won't exclusively be about action figures.

Myself surrounded by my game collection in the late '90s.

I got hooked on video games when my family got an Intellivision console which must have been in 1981 since we got the PlayCable service at the same time. After that I was mostly a Sega kid and don't have a lot of hands on experience with the old Nintendo systems. In the late '80s I inherited a Commodore 64 where I discovered what would become my favorite game of all time: Sid Meier's Pirates! 

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the blog!

-Jonathan