The Bar Code Boy? You gotta love the Japanese.

In many ways, Japanese culture fascinates me. In others, it utterly confuses me.

My Pokemon valentines from 1999. (Not for sale)

Did you hand any of them out in '99?

Yeah. I was really the only Pokemon fan among my high school friends.

So...

I found one of these laying around the office today. I knew I recognized it, but could not remember what it was, or what product line it belonged to.

Once I finally did uncover the mystery behind this item, I was very surprised. It was mine, but I had no idea how it got here in the office, or where it came from.

So, can you guess what this is? Let's see who can guess first, using only the image provided (and, of course, some Google magic).

This is about what I do daily on my Instagram account, haha.

Here's something I found in my garage the other day that brought back lots of memories. It's the user manual for my family's old RCA Selectavision CED player. I call that the Video Format That Time Forgot. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's basically laserdisc, but more like vinyl. It didn't last long, but it's super nostalgic for me since we had one in the basement when I was growing up.

tophatsasquatch wrote : If you're unfamiliar with it, it's basically laserdisc, but more like vinyl.

Did this utilize a hard cover that once inserted into the player, "spat out" (for lack of a better term) the disc inside for play? If so, one of my mom's ex-boyfriends had one of these, and as far as I know, still does.

Vaporman87 wrote :

tophatsasquatch wrote : If you're unfamiliar with it, it's basically laserdisc, but more like vinyl.

Did this utilize a hard cover that once inserted into the player, "spat out" (for lack of a better term) the disc inside for play? If so, one of my mom's ex-boyfriends had one of these, and as far as I know, still does.

Yeah, that's it! And they were double-sided, so in the middle of the movie it would tell you to flip it over, hah!

I always wondered what that oddball format was, but never bothered to research it online. So, do these things catch a nice price on Ebay?