Lemon Grove, just outside San Diego. There's not really even a division except for the political boundary.

Southern VA, in the Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News area.

NY, NY.

dsumner wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 5:28pm:


How long were you here?  Did you play V&V?  I think it was kind of popular around Augusta at the time...

Just south of Birmingham, Al.

Display Name wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 5:44pm:


About six months, at the time I was a Single Channel Radio Operator assigned to an Army Reserve communications unit in Florida. I was 19 and had been in the unit for two years (I joined at 17). I went down to attend some training course on new cryptologic gear (thanks to John Walker selling us out to the Russian), and we got to be the first people to use the new stuff they were coming out with. We field tested it, and wrote out little comment cards to the "civilian" instuctors (everyone new they were NSA).

I got back home just as things were coming to a head in Panama, and they were rushing around trying to field a bunch of new gear for all of the units deploying for Operation Just Cause. I ran into a guy I'd gone to AIT (Advanced Individual Training - It's what the Army calls the schooling you get after basic training), as he was there getting training on a satellite communications system, and before he headed to Panama.

Ranger wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:06pm:

Except for the four years that I was in The Marines, I have lived here.

Originally from Seal Beach, CA, currently serving a 20-year sentence in the Wonder County bighouse for "operating an unlicensed radical dodecahedron in a population zone" (I was framed, I tell ya! They got the wrong guy!)

I get computer privileges for good behavior. 

tell no one

Like Ypsilanti Jackson said I'm here in Atlanta but I used be up in Chicago, IL then over to Flint and Grand Rapids, MI. Before I moved back down here I worked at a Blimpies that was owned by the father and son that the main characters on the American Pie movies were based off of.

Kap wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 10:33pm:



Back in 1987, it was a "Comic Castle," a small local chain.  This one was located in a strip mall a half a block down from the corner of Midway and Rosecrans (itself just a couple of blocks from where I-8 intersects I-5).  For years thereafter, the shop was an independent, and then moved a few storefronts down to the right, to a bigger space. But I can't remember it's name....

My "main" comic book store back in the mid-1980s, though, was "Thrill Books" on the PCH in Encinitas.

Kap wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 1:27am:


Exactly.  That Target is in a bigger mall on Sports Arena Blvd. The street behind it is Midway Ave. A few years ago, that entire strip mall on Midway Ave got a facelift. It's almost unrecognizably cleaner now.  Today, there's a Taco Bell in there and a Wings N Things.  And the storefront where that comic book store was last located remains entirely empty. Has been for years now.

For whatever reason, back in the mid-1980s, that Comic Castle had the best selection of V&V materials anywhere in the San Diego area, at least in my experience (even better than Game Towne in Old Town, just a couple of miles away).

I bought "The Secret In The Swamp" at that Comic Castle in early 1987, my last ever V&V purchase.

Kap wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 11:41am:


That did indeed used to be a Comic Gallery 'back in the day,' Kap. When that chain folded, it continued to be an independent comic book store for many years. And the little strip mall it was in got more and more decayed over the last 25 years.  I stopped by there a few times in the summer of 2009, for old times' sake.  Somewhere around the start of 2010, I went in there again and the clerk told me that they were no longer going to carry new comic books.  Instead they were going to focus on 'online sales,' the guy said.  I've never been back. 

Galaxy Boy wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 1:10pm:


Best pizza I ever had was at this little hole-in-the-wall in Brooklyn called Di Fara Pizza.

dan2448 wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 12:11pm:


Have you ever been to Southern California Comics on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard? They have a pretty decent dollar-bin section. That's the only shop I go to now, on the rare occasions I go at all.

dan2448 wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 1:47pm:


Good pizza are a dime a dozen in NY. The worst pizza here is probably better than the best pizza where you are.

Funny, I worked for NYPD when I lived in Sand DIego for a summer.

service brat who has lived in many places. Now I live in Kokomo Indiana