Not to tick yet another box on the neurodivergent checklist, but I really like collecting things. Most of my house is generally a receptacle for my various collections. You know that I'm a miniature collector, and I think I've mentioned my incredibly bitchin' toy collection a few times. I've got a gigantic book collection that I am still rather unsatisfied by, and a modest DVD collection that I hope to expand. I have a lot of collections of various kinds.

I'd like to talk about a couple of my more interesting ones that I don't get a chance to show off very often.

The first things I remember consciously collecting were pogs in the mid 90's. The pog craze is a bit wild to remember. Every kid was into it for a bit and then it vanished without a trace before you even knew it.

My Dad didn't like me collecting them. It was expensive and I was obsessive and I think he despised me doing anything so commercially mainstream. I also wasn't very resistant to bad trades and had trouble saying no, something that he didn't help me with in his tantrums about it.

I'm not sure if I still have any of my original collection in storage. I def didn't have any place in particular to store them, especially as I got more into other things as I got older. I think I might've forgotten they existed by the time I was in high school.

A few years ago though, I started collecting pogs again after finding a few here and there at various toy shows or from random junk sellers.

One of the jewels of this collection is a full set of SD Gundam pogs. I first encountered these at a quarter machine in the K-Mart near my house growing up. I thought they were so cool, even though I had no idea what they were. I would become rather obsessed with SD Gundam years later in high school, eventually building a small collection of models, but at the time I had no idea what they were, just that they were cool.

Another cool thing is a near complete set of DnD pogs. It's all just recycled artwork from stuff TSR published at the time, but it is cool artwork and it's neat seeing them in pog form.

I've got a couple kick ass slammers, including an extra thick one that I got from a friend selling junk out in the arts district. The ninja ghost with the katana is the first slammer I ever got, from the liquor store near my house, though this one is a replacement and is in much better shape than my old one was. I hope to find a torpedo slammer one day.

Yes, a single board game can be a collection. Talisman though is no mere board game. My first encounter with Talisman was at this game store in my neighborhood in high school called Full Blast. My girlfriend at the time and I were invited to play by some older gamers, and we fell in love with the game.

That was the second edition though. Later on when I went to college, the revised third edition was all the rage. It had a much more "serious" art style and definitely felt a lot more edgy than the cartoony designs of the second edition. But still, I got it and my college roommates and I would play it near weekly.

How is it a collection though? Well, that would be because of the massive number of expansions it had. I'm not sure if board games do it much anymore, but at the time, big thematic games like Arkham Horror and their ilk would have tons of expansions.

Some of the expansions would be big, and have entire add-ons for the board. Some would be small and have just a deck of cards. But all would include additional characters you could play, which was my favorite part.

My favorite expansion is the City, which can get you equipped and ready to kick ass with just a couple turns if you're lucky. My friend Kelsey really likes playing the sapient tree from the Forest expansion. I also dig the vampiress and highlander from the highlands expansion (we called it the Scotland expansion).

My personal favorite is the bar wench. I like to imagine she has a musical sequence with her patrons about why she should have the crown of command and rule the realms with an iron fist.

I have most of the expansions myself, still needing a few. I don't play it too much anymore since gathering everyone for a 4-8 hour board game is more challenging than it once was. Still, I'm always chasing that high of hanging out with my roommates Sarah and Kelsey in our underwear in our boiling apartment in the summer trying to kill each other on the battlefield.

So maybe you remember these little bastards. In the early 2000s, WizKids came out with a pre-painted, pre-assembled line of miniatures with all their stats on their base called Mage Knight. It was cool, with a more dark fantasy theme with them. The main neat mechanic of the game is that when a mini took damage, you would click the base to the side and a new set of stats would emerge. Most of the time, this weakened the mini, but some would have a berserk rage before the end.

Soon after though, they got the license to make superhero minis for both Marvel and DC and thus Heroclix were born. When I first moved to Arizona, collecting these guys was the first time I'd felt like a part of a community in a long time, since moving right after high school.

I loved collecting them but I felt bad playing, especially since many of the other fans were little kids and I felt bad to curb stomp them, though they never seemed to mind. The older guys always told me to play my best and pick strong teams, so I tried to, but never really could shed my guilt when I'd put together a top tier team.

My girlfriend hated how obsessed I was with them. They were something I poured entirely too much attention into, as I didn't have much else to focus on at the time, being extremely lost and sad. Eventually I sold the collection, though I eventually regretted it and rebuilt it only to have it stolen from me. Still had my Mage Knights, thankfully, and have kept those with me for many years.

During the lockdowns, I got into rebuilding the collection again. I think I've gotten most of the rare ones that I was most happy to have. They were a lot more reasonably priced than at the height of their glory. I'm probably the only person interested in the old game now, though I think there's a new version of Heroclix, but I don't know anything about it.

My favorite is probably the Kingdom Come Flash, who has a very simple but elegant design that I have always thought it conceptually cool. It is a part of a near complete set of Kingdom Come figs, which would be a grand jewel in anyone's collection. Mr. Sinister's sculpt is especially cool to me, and I find it so accurate and pleasing to the eye, despite me only liking the character a little. The chrome Silver Surfer was my white whale when the game was still at its height, and I remember thinking it funny when I ordered it for just a few dollars.

Not sure if anyone would be interested in playing the game with me anymore, but I'd be up for it. I'll even try to curb stomp you.

So I've definitely got a lot of collections just sitting around. Sometimes I feel like I live in a small museum of obscure toys, which pleases me to no end.

It's like a little gateway back to simpler moments.