Lots of used electronics around here. At a fan convention, this is the area where there’d be tons of overpriced VHS tapes and bad comic books from the 90s for sale, but I think regulations are stricter here since it seems to be uniformly electronics, and mostly used ones.

As far as new electronics go: Amiga, long ago having ceased the production of new hardware, still has a section where it is selling its legacy computers. That’s something I find infinitely interesting: even so long after their last model, people still buy these computers, and millions use them every day. They are still in fourth place in market share, and somehow keep shipping the same models out over and over again.

This is what I mean when I talk about the way Atlanta’s stagnated, mired itself in nostalgia and complacency. People are so fine with what they already have that there isn’t much progress on anything, and new technology gets left by the wayside in favor of more of the same.

Of course, with me having played through Earthbound just last month with that kid Kobi, I’m hardly one to talk when it comes to cultural stagnation. If the world truly deserved to advance, we would have all bought 3D video games before the fad died.

The people around here are kind of what you’d expect. Collectors searching for rare finds from uninformed sellers, computer geeks taking a trip down memory lane in the age of technology’s past. There’s a particular smell that comes along with all these people amassing in one tiny space, too. It’s stinky.

If it’s already this bad on the first day of the convention, I do NOT want to be here on the last day. That sounds, er, smells, like a wretched place to be.

A voice calls out, “Why if it isn’t Morgan Harding. Heya!”

“Heya?”

Who the heck is talking to me?

I turn around and see Chuck Araragi, sitting at a booth covered in computer parts.