The Lovers, the Dreamers, AND me? In This Economy? (February 2026)

February 2026 is over and in a year that has already felt like it's moving super fast and agonizingly slow, why not add another war to make things worse? But I'm not here to talk about even more added looming Armageddon right now, I'm here to talk about stuff I watched and played in February. Time to pump out at least a thousand words before I'm ready to let this month leave and likely enter a just as shitty March.

I'll admit that I'm not the biggest Muppets fan out there. I love the movies and the shows, but it's not a priority franchise. But I did have cautious optimism when a new Muppet Show special was announced in September. And, sure enough, it was great. Feeling as true to the original as possible. Sabrina Carpenter as the first main guest was also a perfect call and her interactions with the Muppets were perfect. I hate to be the kind of person who has to be hard on the Matt Vogel Kermit but it does feel off-putting for a lot of his appearances. I think it's a case of having to get used to it similar to how I imagine many had to get used to Steve Whitmire's Kermit. The special did well in ratings and views so now it's a question of if Disney will continue with the series going forward. I believe that it won't be a normal series but rather a series of specials instead, which I think fits the franchise much better and helps make the Muppet Show in general feel like a big deal whenever it does return. Here's hoping.

This month's collecting front was mainly NES related this time around. I'm slowing on VHS pickups for the moment. Hell, a copy of Bill and Ted that I picked up almost broke my VCR somehow. Thankfully it still works fine but it was concerning. eBay was my main area this month as I started the month with quite a few orders. But more importantly the one that straggled last month came in shortly after. That being the original Mega Man. I like Mega Man 1. I don't love it, but it's become one I appreciate despite its shortcomings, and I'm not just talking about the legendarily horrible cover art. 

Next up was a round of four pickups that came in quite quickly after. DuckTales is one of my favorite games of all time, and was a part of another pickup later in the month that I'll get to. Little Nemo is frustrating but still a solid platformer. Turtles III is an amazing beat-em-up that got overshadowed by the far superior Turtles in Time for the SNES. And Yoshi's Cookie is a really fun puzzle game. Not as solid as a Tetris, but still a fun time killer. 

Tiny Toon Adventures and Gremlins 2 followed that. Tiny Toons is a fun and easy runthrough of a game that does somewhat take its visual style from Super Mario 3. Gremlins 2 is a top down action game that's fun for like 60% of it with those last levels being hell to platform in.

And bookending my month of eBay pickups is Mega Man 6. It's honestly one of my all time favorites in the series. A perfect finale for the NES era in my eyes. And if you've followed the last couple months you know this means I'm down to one Mega Man game left from the NES and that's Mega Man 5 which can go for over 300 bucks. Suffice is to say it's not priority one right now, at least until I find one for a much better price. I also picked up Contra, T&C Surf Designs, Double Dragon, Double Dribble and Nintendo World Cup to take the collection to a nice 80.

I've been playing Backyard Baseball a bit more this month after some time off it. For someone who isn't great at sports games, this works so well for me. The only downside being the inanity of the commentary. I'm so, so tired of Vinnie the Gooch telling me why Halloween is such a popular holiday. But the swell of interest from me is due to the announcement of the new Backyard Baseball game coming later this year. The series going 3D this time around, which I'm mixed on, especially seeing how amazing the animation for both the trailer and the recent special looks. But I trust Backyard Sports in making something really good here. Definitely should give the other sports games a go eventually. 

After nine years of it looking like it was never going to happen, the Switch and Switch 2 finally got the Disney Afternoon Collection. One of the best compilations of all time with some of the greatest NES games ever... and TaleSpin. I have a soft spot for TaleSpin but it's not a game I'd go out of my way to play over anything else. The biggest change to this collection after a decade is the addition of the SNES titles Goof Troop and Bonkers. Bonkers is fine but nothing memorable and Goof Troop is a straight up hidden gem. All the NES games have time attacks and boss rush modes and I was #1 for Rescue Rangers for all of an hour, which was cool. 

Pokemon Day was Friday and with it came the releases of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen for the Switch. And people were mixed on it. Many mainly angry that Nintendo is charging 20 bucks a pop (30 here in Canada) for 20+ year old ROMs. My feeling on it is that this gives me some optimism that if these do sell well (which they're Pokemon games which feels like a given) maybe it will finally lead to the GBA carts finally leaving the $100+ range. There's precedent to it with some of the more expensive GameCube games in the past finally dropping like Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for example. I also might just want to screw around with them, maybe Nuzlocke, who knows? There was also a Nintendo Partner Showcase that really offered little of anything interesting aside from a Super Bomberman collection.

That pretty much covers my interests this month. Wrestling-wise things are okay. WWE's booking of Wrestlemania is a shitshow, but AEW Dynamite has been consistently good for a while now, culminating in the wild "Mile High Madness" main event. Revolution is live in the middle of the month and the card looks great. I do have WWE 2K26 on the way next week and hope to do some more rebuilding next month maybe for other consoles since I'm at a very strong number for NES right now. We'll see what strikes my interest. I have low expectations for a decent March, but we'll see.