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i'm not sure i miss them, but i do enjoy seeing the buildings that had very specific architectural flourishes unique to defunct businesses from old eras, where you can still tell exactly what store it was. there's the husk of an old circuit city in town with the huge rounded cube built up over the entry way. i think there's an antique mall inside now. there are also a couple of red-roof brick pizza hut buildings that are usually empty but occasionally have some other restaurant move in until they also go out of business.
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 03:34 |
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funcoland
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Also not really a chain but I wish there were more small used bookstores in my city. There are a couple but I feel as though they were a lot more ubiquitous when I was a kid. This is probably just nostalgia though
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I used to walk through the construction sites of homes and shops and watch the trees shrink away and be on some night walk and see on the edge of darkness, the reflection, the glow of eyes Maybe an emissary Could we ever make peace?
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While it's good that they're gone for ethical reasons, I sure do miss going in to pet stores as a kid and being able to pick up all kinds of furry or exotic animals that 90's of were sold to people who didn't know how to care for them and wold be dead within the year
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MettleRamiel posted:While it's good that they're gone for ethical reasons, I sure do miss going in to pet stores as a kid and being able to pick up all kinds of furry or exotic animals that 90's of were sold to people who didn't know how to care for them and wold be dead within the year the people or the animals?
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Fry's ![]()
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thomawesome posted:CompUSA. I'm at least lucky enough to live nearby a microcenter, but big box computer stores rule. Oh for sure it was fun to browse PC games and sometimes roll the die on something with cool box art. Been chasing the joy of buying Myth: the Total Codex for decades.
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There was a video rental chain here in Ireland called XtraVision. In the small town I grew up in there was an XtraVision branch on one end of the main street, and a mom-and-pop video rental store at the opposite end called Hollywood Video. Friday night was always the same process: go to Hollywood Video to rent the movies we wanted, and if they didn’t have what we were looking for there then we’d try XtraVision. I have very strong memories of the fact that Hollywood Video had the poster for Striptease up in their window for much longer than anyone cared about that movie.
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CD Warehouse Record & Tape Traders Egghead Software (I remember looking at boxed copies of daggerfall and phantasmagoria in there holy poo poo) Sunny's Surplus Incredible Universe funcoland + all other pre-gamestop used game stores Kenny Roger's Roasters (still exists?)
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Tower records too
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Bad Purchase posted:i'm not sure i miss them, but i do enjoy seeing the buildings that had very specific architectural flourishes unique to defunct businesses from old eras, where you can still tell exactly what store it was. One of the classic pizza huts just closed in my little town and I'm looking forward to seeing it blossom into a loan shark place/vape shop/tattoo shop with garish signs bolted to the roof
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Spencer’s sold my favorite flavors of edible underwear
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I've never been too much of a "browser" but there were some exceptions: Fry's Electronics from about a decade ago, before the shelves got overrun with knock-off perfume and "As Seen On TV!" items Tower Records is a good choice... there were a lot of nights I was bored and would just drive down there and listen to new music for a couple of hours Going back further... woolworths. Great browsability cuz they had such a random assortment of just about everything. I have happy memories of hunting down the latest series of Garbage Pail Kids at every woolworths in the area
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Hastings. They had cool junk but also almost every kind of magazine and book. I'd go there look around grab something to read and maybe buy and be there until they started playing happy trails. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ejFquEi-uI Also, I really wish Toys R Us was still open. I have a six year old and he has no idea what he's missing.
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JnnyThndrs posted:Tower Records, I miss them so much. Yeah, it's this. So many music stores gone over the years and I miss them all. Our Price was my local growing up, then there was HMV, - which only persists online now, it's great OG store now turned into some kind of hideous American candy money laundering op - and the Virgin Megastore, which also had the first comic shop I ever saw, never even considered such things existed before then, and nearby was Selectadisc for less mainstream stuff. And of course, Tower Records. They stayed open crazy late, had rare imports from all over the world, sections for everything...drat, it was great. Yeah, I can get hold of just about any track I want in no time now, I can rip albums if I like but it just isn't the same somehow. Of other stores, while I liked the idea of Toys R Us on paper, it was often disappointing in reality, soulless barns in the middle of nowhere with a lacklustre selection. Never used the big rental chains so no attachment to Blockbuster, my rental place was a local guy running the general store and a import videogame business who mysteriously disappeared a few months after 9/11. Always wondered what happened to him... Miss Woolworths as it goes, the pick & mix section was dope. The most recent store I miss was called Joy, I think? Dunno for sure but it sold me a loving class Unknown Pleasures t-shirt better than any other ever made so respect.
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Natural Wonders - they had cool poo poo
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Darth Brooks posted:Hastings. They had cool junk but also almost every kind of magazine and book. I'd go there look around grab something to read and maybe buy and be there until they started playing happy trails. Hastings was great. Got so many books, games and movies there.
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Oh for sure it was fun to browse PC games and sometimes roll the die on something with cool box art. Been chasing the joy of buying Myth: the Total Codex for decades. The all time high water mark for me was “oh wow this big box has a cool looking Matrix dude bathed in blue light being hunted by black helicopters sure just ring this up” leading to playing Deus Ex.
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YeahTubaMike posted:Genovese. I don't care that it's Rite Aid now. NYer spotted! I haven't heard that name or thought about Genovese in probably 20 years! that was my family's go to pharmacy in Brooklyn. We were heart broken when it closed. Although it was a (small)chain, it felt like a family owned spot where the workers there remembered the regulars. Sad that places like this barely exist anymore.
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Chicken Treat/Chicken Spot in Ferndale on Metcalf
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Going to Jordan Marsh, or Bradlee’s, or Zayre, or Caldor, or any of the pre-Walmart department stores.
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Borders, Child World, Tower Records. Same as others mentioned. Lechmere and Babbages were in one mall I had to drive almost an hour to get to. Going from game store to store when physical copies were the only option was an adventure in itself. Good times.
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Haverchuck posted:CD Warehouse Egghead software was awesome. PC game boxes were awesome. Extra huge like vhs porno boxes lol. Incredible Universe is when I first saw an N64 in person and it was magical.
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i miss circuit city because you could go buy something there, and they would just. fuckin'. sell it to you. none of this poo poo where they keep you at the goddamn register for an hour tryin to upsell poo poo. you'd just hand 'em your money and walk the gently caress out with your stuff, no questions asked, it was fuckin' beautiful![]()
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Flowers for QAnon posted:Spencer’s sold my favorite flavors of edible underwear sour cream & onion
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I bought my first AV receiver at circuit city, felt like a real adult purchase. I finally replaced it this year!
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Nae posted:the people or the animals? Yes
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The fuckin WIZ Though realtalk how the gently caress is PC Richards still kicking? And for a weirdly niche one? There used to be Chevy dealership they always had ads on the radio, ending with “Hustedt Chevrolet, yippie-I-yo-kai-yay.” I’m glad that it takes me a few seconds to remember my SSN but I can remember radio jingles for paving stones from 20 years ago nbd. Normal brain things! YeahTubaMike posted:Genovese. I don't care that it's Rite Aid now. good god this made me remember the random Captain N tape they had there that I wanted AND MY MOM WOULDN’T BUY. AIN’T MAD.
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arcades, in general
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teen witch posted:The fuckin WIZ Looks like nobody just rolled into town.
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kntfkr posted:Looks like nobody just rolled into town. Ain’t nobody
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"fftt"
CumBlast Radius Jr fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Nov 20, 2022 |
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Francine: What are they doing? Why do they come here? Stephen: Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.
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I remember eating lunch at Zaxbys with my mom and then going to Service Merchandise. I bet both of them are gone.
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A Strange Aeon posted:Francine: What are they doing? Why do they come here? if wanting a nice climate-controlled environment to eat a chili dog in makes me dead then i don't want to be alive
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bloodysabbath posted:The all time high water mark for me was “oh wow this big box has a cool looking Matrix dude bathed in blue light being hunted by black helicopters sure just ring this up” leading to playing Deus Ex. Oh man that owned, I think I got it from a contest on a Mac gamer forum so I went in cold and had a wonderful time. I successfully fought off Paul’s attackers in his apt then left through the window so he was flagged as dead anyway, good times.
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I'm oddly fond of Media Play. It was more or less Best Buy with less hardware and more focus on well... Media. It was a really fun store to walk around in.
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Please claim your child at the information booth. We will be closing in 10 minutes.
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 03:34 |
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Zeluth posted:Please claim your child at the information booth. We will be closing in 10 minutes. will you keep em if I don't?
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