> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.

Thank god for Micro Center. Bought a cheap first Gen Threadripper and a board for it, turns out the board needed a firmware update to get the CPU working. Called the Flushing Micro Center, asked if they could help me and They said "Sure thing! bring the CPU and board over, no cooler needed." Dropped it off and they called me back in three hours, board was ready. Amazon can't do that.

I also love spending a bit of time walking the aisles and always stop by the clearance table to scrounge for cheap fun stuff.