He was a little shook up, but fine. I did get to see it, and it was beautiful!

Yes! I used to buy all this shit at a magic store in the Burlington Center, a NJ mall. Even got the cigar charges and put one in my brothers cigarette. Hilarious, but it led to a pretty epic beating.

And how long before this guy bursts into the study room wearing a low-cut nurses costume?

That really looks like an old school glass stinkbomb. Except the liquid isn’t yellow.

Edit: added image

Thanks for the nightmares

My wife and I have already started collecting vinyl. My FIL gave us a really nice setup he was using and a few records, and we’ve gone from there.

At first, I didn’t really get it, but then I was reminded of how nice it was to listen to a whole album. I wound up rediscovering songs I loved as a kid that I haven’t heard because you can now just make a playlist of your favorites. It’s also really nice to actually own my copies. Empire is probably long gone, eaten by another company, but my player still works just fine. I can also repair it myself in the unlikely event that it breaks.

I also like going to music stores and browsing again. People in the stores are typically nice and love talking about music and, honestly, anything else you want to chat about. You get to share the experience with strangers face-to-face and be a small part of a moment in their lives.

Like any kind of collecting or niche interest, it’s hard for a lot of people to understand why others do it. Hopefully, this helps.

Also, CDs are typically waaay cheaper, so we will be supplementing with those.