Tales from the Thrift Store vol. 9

  
Before I jump into today's post, I of course have to plug the Secret Santa real quick. As of this morning we're up to 30 confirmed participants, and there's plenty of room for more, so if anyone else is interested, you've still got until Monday morning to sign up.

This past Saturday was yet another one of the monthly 50% off sales at the Goodwill, and like everyone else, I was there bright and early, hoping to find some neat things at heavily discounted prices. [spoiler alert: I did!]

No matter how hard I try though, I just can't seem to get there when it opens. They're supposed open to at 8am, I arrived at 7:20, the parking lot was completely full, and it was already full on Supermarket Sweep inside (I have no idea what time they're actually opening).

As per usual, my first stop was the media section in the very back of the store. To get to this area, you've got to walk down one of 7 or 8 aisles/sections (knickknacks, holiday stuff, kitchen, etc.), it should come as no surprise to anyone reading this, but I always opt for the toys and games aisle.

Normally there isn't anything in the toy aisle for me to even stop and look at, let alone buy, but this day was different, as I noticed a bit of bright yellow sticking out from some sort of weird fuzzy stuffed animal-backpack thing -- turns out that that yellow thing was the base of a 1987 California Raisins bank.

If you're of the right age, you probably remember how big the Raisins were in the mid to late 80's. It seemed like they were everywhere for a couple of years there, and as a wee lad, I could not get enough of them, so much so that my mom even went out and got me the 45 of Marvin Gaye's " I Heard it Through the Grapevine" -- which also just happened to be my first record.

As far as the bank goes, I think it might of been a mail-away premium, but I'm not a 100% sure on that. There's quite a few on eBay, so that tells me that there were quite few of them made and distributed. One thing I know though, I absolutely adore this bank, and consider the $5 price tag to be quite reasonable.

Since this post is already starting to get pretty long, and I haven't even gotten to all of the assorted media that was purchased, I will skip over the part about the woman that literally tried to take this bank out of my hand, in what I can only imagine was some sort of fit of anger for not finding it herself (she's very lucky that she wasn't a dude trying that).

Finding that bank was only the beginning, and it was probably a good omen too, because the media area was absolutely packed with good stuff... stuff that nobody else was caring about.

It's not often that I come across a non-western Barbara Stanwyck film that I haven't seen, but apparently I did on this day, and I couldn't be more pleased about it!

I had completely forgotten about this picture, I've only seen it once, and that was many (many) moons ago. At this point I don't usually remember when and where I first saw something (unless it was in the theatres), but I'm pretty sure I saw this one on WGN sometime in the early 90's, my memory tells me that they were on bit of Chuck Norris kick (pun not intended) for a year or so, because I remember staying up late on more than one occasion to watch his older films.

There were an awful lot of sports videos there on Saturday, all of which were still sealed. As an aside, did you notice that old price sticker on the front of this one, apparently that was the bargain price too.

A lot of tapes were NBA related, but this was the only one that looked like it would be of interest to me, as a lot of the other one's were just like "The best of Shaquille O'Neal" or "The best of Charles Barkley" aka stuff I don't care about.

There probably won't be a single play shown on this tape that wouldn't draw a penalty flag in today's NFL.

This was just a backup copy. I think I might be one of the few people who can honestly say that they genuinely like this film.

I always enjoy finding movies that I hadn't heard of. The odds are high that I'm not gonna be digging this one too much, but for a quarter it's certainly worth giving it a go.

Somehow this one had flown under my radar too. As you can probably tell by the synopsis, it was yet another Invasion of the Body Snatchers clone, because there just isn't enough of those out there. Not a terrible movie though (I watched it Saturday night), without giving away any spoilers, I will say that the last ten minutes or so was completely unnecessary, but it's still worth seeing, especially if you're into these kind of pictures.

One of these days I'll actually remember to remove the plastic before taking the pics! This is a movie that you usually find in one of the public domain multidisc sets, so it was kind of cool to find a standalone copy (still sealed too).

One of these days I'll actually remember to... ! I thought the California Raisins bank was going to be the most obscure find of the day, that was until I found this sealed copy of Ladron De Cadaveres. Talk about unexpected, I mean I wouldn't have been overly surprised to find this in a thrift store back in Portland, but here in Tennessee this feels very out of place (like me). I haven't watched it yet, but I already know that there's almost no way that this movie will be able to disappoint me.

I thought I already had all of the PS1 games that I wanted, apparently I was wrong though! This is the second of a three game series, and while I vaguely remember the series, I don't remember ever playing any of the games -- which is a real shame, because I've played this for about two hours so far, and as much as fun as it is now, I can only imagine how much more I would've enjoyed it twenty years ago. I don't keep up with game prices anymore, but I would have to think that finding a copy of this game in such great shape (no scratches on the disc) for $3 was a pretty good deal.

I have to say that overall this was the best half-off Saturday so far, I just hope it's greatness doesn't spoil in any future trips, I'll just have to try and remember that this particular Saturday was probably an anomaly.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.