Returning from a respite

After taking a couple of weeks off, I think I'm ready to try and start blogging on a regular basis again. I don't really feel any better than I did at the time of my last post, but if I wait too much longer to come back, I might end up not doing so.

Before getting started with this one, I just wanted to thank everyone for all the support that was given in my last post, it's really nice to know that the kind of people who would leave such comments are stopping by on a regular basis. And an extra special thank you needs to be sent out to Josh... he knows why :)

Okay, so everyone that read my last post knows that my monthly collecting budget has been substantially reduced, with that in mind, I thought it might be "fun" to see how I did during my first full month of said lower budget, so the following are all my non-essential purchases for the month of April:

My first purchase in April was this Jimmy Smith 2001 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Ground Hoggs, which at $7.99, would end up being the most expensive item bought during the month.

Going into the month of April I had $3.10 in eBay bucks, the only problem was, they don't give it to you until the 4th (I think) and this card ended on the 1st or 2nd, so I couldn't use those bucks on this card... which was kind of annoying.

I'm still just as infatuated with this set as I was when I found my first one at a show last year. Since they show you the actual pair of shoes, part of the fun for me is trying to figure out which part of the shoe that the piece came from... I didn't have to do too much investigative work on this particular one. These don't come up very often, and when they do, they're often a bit pricey, so I haven't been able accumulate nearly as many as I would have liked.

My NFL knowledge from the mid 90's to the mid 2000's is pretty sparse as I didn't pay much attention to the pro game during that time period, so I wasn't familiar with Mr. Smith in the least. It looks like he had a pretty solid career, five Pro Bowls, led the NFL in receptions one year (1999), and still holds a number of Jacksonville team records.

I haven't ever talked about here on the blog, but I absolutely love the Nano Metalfigs toy line that debuted last June, so much so, that I've probably acquired at least half of the line so far. I haven't been able to find any from the most recent wave, but I did find this Penguin from the previous one.

They had already released an Adam West Batman and a Burt Ward Robin, so it was pretty cool of them to do a Burgess Meredith Penguin as well (there's a Caesar Romero Joker in the newest wave). At .98 cents, this was my cheapest purchase of the month.

Does anyone know how to play the violin? If so, can you cue up the sad music for this one? Right after it had ended, I mentioned on Twitter that I won this auction for the first three seasons of The Sopranos on VHS... for the paltry sum of $2.20 (free shipping)! Not only was the price great, but I was able to pay for it with this now accessible eBay bucks.

Unfortunately, after waiting a week, the seller decided to cancel the sell, which didn't surprise me too terribly much -- as I knew they were going to be losing money on the shipping -- but that doesn't make it any less sucky. It's not my fault that they decided to list a couple of seasons of a show on VHS for $2.20 w/ free shipping, I mean seriously, did they really think that there was going to be that much interest in an old show on an obsolete format?

I had only ever seen the first episode of the show, and that was only because way back when the pilot first aired, we had one of those free HBO weekend's going on, so I was really looking forward to seeing what I had missed out on... obviously now it's going to be a little longer before I can do that.

After "winning" The Sopranos auction, I had .90 cents left in eBay bucks, so I just went ahead bought this DVD of Darkness Falls. This is one of those movies that I've been hoping to come across in a thrift store for years now, and considering that's not out of print or particularly well liked by the general public (I think I might be the only person who genuinely likes it), it's been kind of weird that I haven't ever found in the wild. After the bucks, this one set me back $2.67.

Thinking that it might be of use to me, Oscar suggested that I try to find this book at a local library during a recent conversation. After reading all the positive reviews on Amazon, and Oscar's recommendation,  I just went ahead and bought a copy off of Abe Books for $3.92. I've been struggling to get through the current book that I'm on, but whenever I finally get done reading it, this one will be next in line.

The $2.99 DVD bin's at the various Walmart's that I've been to in the last couple of months seem to be better than they had been in awhile. I've already got both of these on VHS, but it was nice to be able to get a cheap upgrade.

Two Boss Hoggs... huzzah! And this time it was even a hall of famer!

There's a few more options than the Jimmy Smith as to where this piece could've come from on the shoe. Since I got $2.20 in eBay bucks refunded from the cancelled Sopranos, I was able to put that towards this purchase, which made the final out of pocket price just $3.07... which was pretty awesome, because I thought for sure that this one was going to get a lot more attention, apparently I was wrong, but this was one time where that was a good thing.

This seller had a Brett Favre that I was going to try and bid on, but it ended up going for $32.15, and since was kind of a boring part of the shoe, I just ended up not even bothering with it.

My last purchase occurred while grocery shopping at the Kroger (for those on the West Coast, it's like a lesser Fred Meyer,) on the last day of April. Another movie that I've never been able to find in the wild. Normally I won't pay this much for just standalone movie (i.e. no special features), but I really wanted it, so I bought it. Normally I show the synopsis on the back of any movies on the blog, I forgot to do so in this post, so...

My final total for the month ended up being $27.61, which definitely wasn't too bad, although it helps that I didn't go to any antique malls, card shows, thrift stores, etc.

I've sold a number of things in the last couple of weeks, so I do have some extra paper folding money to spend if I end up coming across something really great, it'll also come in handy if I do decide to go to the card show at the end of the month.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.