Lavender Town covers a topic rarely broached in modern poke-literature, the deaths of pokemon. Apparently pokemon can die, and this is where they go when they do. Or, at least, this is where we bury them. Lavender Tower is a multi-storied building packed with gravestones and mourning trainers. I'm not sure what can kill a pokemon, other than the town's gossip about Team Rocket. Old age? Advanced Pokerus?

The Tower is currently reset by evil spirits and a squad of psychic channellers are in there trying to Ghostbust the place. It's not working. I had to battle all the channellers instead, while avoiding random attacks by unnamed ghosts. However, it was easy. My Meowth's Bite attack is super-effective against all the Gastlys and Haunters fielded by the trainers, and my Raticate's Run Away ability guaranteed that I would not get caught offguard by the "ghosts." I'll have to come back to clean out the tower, since you need the Silph Scope to battle the spirits, and those come from Saffron if I recall correctly. I also ran into Liquid again.

I can't stop loving my Meowth. Pay Day is making me rich, and Pickup is amazing. I had Lavender's Name Rater change his name to Katamari. I have cancelled his evolution several times because becoming a Persian erases his Pickup ability.

The other exciting news is I stopped by for yesterday's Trade and Battle Day at my local Toys R Us. Which was only barely being operated. Although Nintendo's email promised free stuff and game demos and the titular trading and battling, there was nothing on display, no special table, no banners, and no demo monkey. We figured it was another example of the local franchise just not having the staff to support these nationally-based special events, but then Rhonda noticed a fellow patron clutching a Pokemon poster. Turns out you had to go to the customer service desk and make an ass of yourself begging to see the free Pokemon stuff.

So I did. The counter woman, harried and missing someone in electronics, called over her shoulder to someone else "They want to demo the Pokemon game." Then "Red or Green" to me. Uh, Red?

OK, so this is sort of what was promised. I feigned interest and fired up FireRed. The game's PC has about 10 boxes filled with one type each. Like, a box of Ekans, a box of Slowpokes, a box of Haunters. Nothing I would classify as awesome, like the unattainable starters or a Moltres or even a damn Kingdra (which I would immediately transfer over to Sapphire.) Of course I had my SP with me, so I had Rhon pretend to play while I turned my LeafGreen on and hooked up the link cable. Stupidly, Toys R Us had no mention of the wireless adapter, which is probably one of the big reasons Nintendo tried to orchestrate these little events: show off the new tech.

With Rhon manning the demo copy, we traded over a Haunter, Machoke and Shellder to my game. I gave up some extra lowlies... a Zubat, Meowth and Geodude. Bye, guys! Naturally, the Haunter and Machoke evolved on transit, so my pokedex got a +5 boost after all was done and powered down. I'm sure the counter women weren't impressed, but I'm happy to have a Gengar.

After handing over the demo unit, we got a free poster, promo card (the same Beldums they were handing out at Origins), and a coupon for $5 off $20 of Pokemon merchandise. Done.

Time: 13:09
Badges: 3
Pokedex: 33 (Seen: 70)
Party: Geodude lv20, Gengar lv26, Katamari (Meowth) lv29, Wartortle lv25, Mankey lv25, Raticate lv26