Happy Haunting!

October hasn't gone as planned here on the blog, of course it didn't do so last year either, so I shouldn't be too bummed about it, but alas, I kind of am. I had ideas, lots of ideas, none of which ended up coming to fruition... again!

Even today's post won't be what I wanted it to be, instead of a grand celebration of what's still my favorite day of the year, you get a generic salutation, accompanied by a HORRORific autograph from my collection:

Like most horror hosts, The Creeper's (also sometimes known as "Jim Sullivan") run was relatively short, lasting but a few short years during the mid 1960's. But also like most horror hosts, no matter how obscure, he will never truly be forgotten. As long as there are people, even those who did not grow up in southern California, and who were never fortunate enough to see an episode (aside from the two clips on YouTube) of Jeepers Creepers Theatre (under any of it's many hosts), there will be fans, and collectors, of all things horror host... this humble blogger being one of them :)

Happy Halloween (scare 'em dead kids!), and thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Why can't everyday be like Columbus Day?

It's not very often that I have what I'd call a 'perfect' day out, and by 'out' I mean, out amongst the masses. I can head out into the woods all by myself for a couple of hours and have a great time, but when other people are involved it doesn't take much to ruin, or at least lessen the fun of, an excursion.

Crying babies, whiny children, whiny adults (is it just me, or does this particular group seem to be on the rise?), not too mention traffic issues, namely all of the people who've gotten their license from a box of Cracker Jacks; any and all can make me wish that I had just stayed home. This being said, I just so happened to have had one of those rare 'perfect' days out a couple of weeks ago - Columbus Day to be more specific- when I went to Knoxville to go to McKay's (heaven for lovers of all things physical media), and then hit the "local" bookstore, and a thrift store on the way home.

Traffic was a little dense in a few places, being a holiday, this was expected, but other than that I had absolutely no issues with anyone, or anything, during the rest of the day trip. I took some stuff in to McKay's for trade, and ended up getting $44 in credit, which was more than I was expecting, so that certainly was a good thing. I then spent $28 of said credit on some really neat things (including two Christmas presents!), which would've been good enough for the day, but I also ended up grabbing a couple of things at the bookstore, and the thrift store, so all in all, it was a pretty good day for this lover of STUFF.

Seeing as how this post is loaded with STUFF, I'm going to cut the intro short, and just jump right in...

Doing some time traveling with these. I realize that very few people will care about these books, hence the group photo, instead of picturing them (and their synopsis') individually. I'm not sure why exactly, but ever since this year got started I've been feeling awfully nostalgic for all things Christopher Pike, Bob Stine, and Nicholas Pine; all of who's books I read as a kid/young teen. I've been trying to pick up anything that I didn't already have, as long as it's cheap, everywhere I go, pretty much all year, and did really well this time.

I've mentioned more than a few times on here that Kolchak is my all-time favorite television show, but what I haven't mentioned is that book adaptations for the two original television films, The Night Stalker, and The Night Strangler, have been eluding me for years. Sure, I could've long ago paid the stupid-high online prices to get them, but that's not my way, so I've waited, and waited, waited some more; and have now been partially rewarded for my wait by this finding of the first adaptation, and for a very reasonable price I might add. 

This book has definitely seen better days, but was still a find. Now if I can just 'find' a better copy at some point :)

I remember checking out this series (as they came out) from the library way back when, but never owned any of them. I own some of the newer Predator books (the good ones), and am now endeavoring to go back and get all of this run.

That concludes the book portion of my purchases, so let's head to the bargain DVD/Blu-Ray section, shall we?

Seems kind of funny that I'm just now upgrading my VHS copy of Predator 2 to DVD, I guess that means that on my current trajectory, 2045 should see me upgrading this DVD copy to Blu-Ray.

Just another upgrade here, albeit this time on a film that I haven't watched in far too long.

Here's one that was new to me. I'm not sure how it could've flown under my radar for so long, but it did. Still haven't watched though, so I don't have much else to say about it at this time.

Nothing says early 2000's like DVD's of old, and somewhat obscure, low-budget horror films from Alpha Video. I had read about this film a few times over the years, but had never seen it. Now that I have, I can say that it's not quite what I expected, and definitely isn't for everyone, but I could see myself watching it again, so that alone makes it worth the $0.95 that I paid for it. As an aside, I feel like there might've been a few things that didn't make it past the censors in this one. I don't have it on any sort of authority mind you, it just seems like some of the sexual content was pushing the limits of what you could get away with at the time. It'd be interesting to know if there was anything that had to be cut, and if so, has the footage survived?

I don't normally spend a lot of time looking through their bargain CD's, mostly because they're all mixed up, and I just don't like having to sift through all of the crap. However, I did have some extra time before leaving, and decided to look through at least one multi-tiered shelves worth.

In case you ever wondered what my reflected fingers looked like...

I'm not a huge Tori Amos fan, a little of her goes a long way with me, but my favorite song of hers is on this album(Caught a Lite Sneeze), and even though I've never heard anything else off of it, I figured it was worth a go for 25¢. After listening to it, I'm glad I didn't pay any more for it than I did, it's terrible! Other than Lite Sneeze, I think I liked half of one other song and that was it. They can't all be winners.

I think it was either late last year, or earlier this year, that they added a big bin for small toys, mostly of the fast food premium variety. It's one of those deals where they have pre-priced bags that you can fill up, or if you only want one, or in my case two, you can also buy them separately (95¢ each).

Fast food premiums look like sh*t when left in their bags, and should always be opened, so...

I don't recall Burger King having the Gargoyles license back in 1995, but we rarely ever ate at BK, plus I would've been 12 or 13 at that time, and wouldn't have still been ordering kids meals anyway. I was still buying the toys however, especially when at the collectibles show that used to be held at the Expo Center in Portland. Looking at toy line now, I think that this figure of Broadway is the best of the bunch, not sure if his color changing feature still works though, I'd rather not muck him up trying to test it.

I never saw Disney's Hunchback, nor do I ever plan to see it, but I have a thing for gargoyles (and Gargoyles), so when I sees a cheap gargoyle, of any kind, I usually buys it. 

I struck out in the action figure department this time, so these were my consolation prize if you will

Broadway came with this cool foldout (which is currently being flattened out underneath a stack of heavy books).

In case you're wondering, Gargoyles shoes are really hard to find in 2020, I already looked :)

Not counting the presents I got, that's the end of my purchased haul from McKay's, but not my entire haul, as I grabbed a few things from the free box out front as I left.

This book is about as chunky as a paperbound book gets. I didn't notice anything wrong with it either, so I'm not sure it was free. It might be awhile before I give it a go, but it's always nice to have options around.

I'm fully expecting to dislike this one, but again... options!

Free cassette? Sure, why not. Too bad it f*cked up like three tracks in though, which of course the person who tried to trade in probably knew about, I really dislike those kind of people. They're the same ones who donate wonked videos to thrift stores, wonked videos that are then purchased by obsolete weirdo's like me.

Aside from the crappy free cassette, it was an awesome day spent at McKay's. But as mentioned, it wasn't my only stop that day, the closest bookstore was hit on the way home as well...

Every time I think that I've found all of the Alfred Hitchcock short story collections, I find another one! These are always good, and this one has by far the best cover of any of the ones I own. Hopefully I can find a nicer copy at some point.

Looks like I'm doing shadow puppets.

Here was a nice surprise, and another item that's been on my to get list for quite some time. Of the two Sherlock Holmes v. Jack the Ripper films, I prefer A Study in Terror, but I do like this one too. After re-watching it this past weekend, I realized that the last time I had seen it was on AMC, when the channel was still commercial-free. Any cable historians out there will know how long ago that was, for everyone else, that's over twenty years ago.

Here's another one that I haven't seen in ages, and have never seen for sale anywhere. I remember reading once that this film was only so-so as far as spaghetti westerns go, but I always thought it was a fun one, certainly not the best, but also nowhere near the worst.

And ending my bookstore goodies is yet another upgrade.

Even though it's not my favorite thrift store, more often than not when I go to the bookstore, I end up going to Threads of Hope, which is just across the parking lot. I didn't find anything of interest this time, but on the way out I noticed a table on the other side of their lobby(?) that I came in from, piled up with with wrecked books, and slipcase-less videos; color me intrigued!

Nothing was priced, and given everything's condition, I suspected that they were free, but still went back in to confirm. I was right, free videos!

I grabbed all five of the recorded videos, three of which didn't say what was on them, and Touring New Zealand.

All the videos were dirty, like they had been stored in a garage, which is never a good sign, but hey, they were free! This was one that I was most excited for, being an old tape, maybe whoever had recorded this episode during it's original run -- but I'll never know for sure, because it was just static. Either they didn't record it properly, or the tape came in contact with a magnet at some point.

This 'Home Video' was intriguing too. And praise be, it works! I haven't watched much of it yet, but it's from someone's Christmas party back on 12/24/92, about 2 ½ hours worth. I'm not one to upload things to YouTube, but I wonder if there's any sort of moral, or legal, dilemma about uploading something like this?

One of the other unmarked videos seems to be a couple of hours worth of SoapNet programming, and from what I can deduce it was recorded somewhere between 2003 and 2005. It starts with new episodes of One Life to Live and General Hospital (both of which are god awful btw), which are followed by Soap Talk, one of who's guests was Darva Conger (remember her?). I stopped it when an old episode of Dallas came on, because I actually want to watch that, but didn't want to do it when I was previewing the tape. Who knows if there's anything after that. I still have two unmarked tapes to go, and won't lie when I say that my hopes are high.

So, like I said earlier, it was a good day, one that I'm hoping to duplicate on the very day that this post is being published, as I'll be in Knoxville again, and of course will be stopping in at McKay's again. I've got more stuff to take in, and am hoping that an item which I naively passed on last time (I didn't know what it was, now I do), will still be there. I also found out about another bookstore that's about 25 minutes north of McKay's, that I really want to go to as well. 

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Pink is the new orange

I'm not sure why October always ends up being so busy for me, but it does, and this year has been no exception. It seems like the days are just go, go, go, then come night time, I'm too tired to get anything done... especially blog posts!

I always have tons of ideas for Halloween related posts, but rarely get around to doing more than 2 or 3 of them, and this year has been no exception! Looking at my draft folders, I see that I've got 6 Halloween themed posts started, but at the rate I'm going, will probably only end up getting to 2 of them, 3 if I'm lucky.

One of the 3 posts that I've managed to finish this month was a 1-card pink themed post to try and help Brian spread the word about his annual Save Second Base event. It was nice to be able to try and spread the word (even though pretty much every one already knows about it), but it wasn't what you'd call a great post (1-card posts rarely are), a fact which I acknowledged in the post, and said that I'd try to do one more for him (and his cause), something with a little more eye candy if you will. Well, I had a spare hour earlier in the week, and found myself possessing the want to look through some cards, more specifically, to look for some 'pink' cards. 

I ended up finding enough for a top ten post, of sorts. It's probably more like "Here's ten pink cards that I own and am showing in no particular order, half of which have already been featured on the blog at some point". It should be noted too that I didn't even need to look through any of my baseball player collections (barely touched the football ones either) to reach my goal of ten cards, so hopefully since it's for a good cause, all of you 'baseball or bust' types will still stick around 'til the end (commenting wouldn't be a bad idea either, especially since each one equals a $1 donation from Brian).

So without further ado, here's ten 'pink' cards that I own, and very much like...

1971-72 Topps #48

The '71 basketball set has a number of notable pink cards in it, especially since it's the background color for both the Lakers and the Pacers (among other teams), so you've got all-time greats like Wilt, West, and Baylor representing pink for the Lakers; and rookies of guys like Roger Brown, Mel Daniels, and Billy Keller on the Pacers side. And yet, my favorite pink card from the set is this Em Bryant. Pink aside, it's one of my favorite cards from the set, period! I'll even take it a step further and say that it's one of the quintessential 1970's basketball cards, at least from an aesthetic standpoint. Disagree? Prove me wrong!

2012 Panini Black Friday - Panini Collection Progressions (magenta)

You had to know that there was going to be a Progressions in here, right? Biz is my favorite of the rainbows that I'm trying to build, I've got 3 of the 4, and no, I can remember which one that I need off the top of my head (it's not like your sitting on one of these anyway).

2018 BBM True Heart autograph

I hate the thought of ranking things that people have sent me over the years, and would never do so, but still, I sometimes find myself reminiscing about the package that RAZ sent me a few years ago, it truly was that good. This Mochi Miyagi (no relation to Mr.) auto was one of the many great items in there.

P.S. RAZ, if you see this post, please come back to us. I know that you're on Twitter, but it isn't the same.. not even close!

2014 Cryptozoic Adventure Time Holiday Foil #HE-01

Did you watch Adventure Time? No? You should, it was a great show. It's not too late either, it still holds up, and will continue to do so for quite some time. These Holiday Foils were exclusive to the retail blister packs a bunch of years back. I couldn't find any of them in stores, so I bought a big lot of packs on eBay, maybe 10-15 packs, and since each blister pack (which contained two retail packs btw) had one of these foils on top of the packs, I ended up with a huge stack of them. For those that don't know, the show was set in a post apocalyptic world, where many traditions have been lost (big surprise, right), including Christmas. This card is from their two-part Christmas episode (Holly Jolly Secrets), in which the back story of one of the main characters is finally revealed, and Christmas is "re-created" (rediscovered ?), albeit in a slightly different manner than most of us are accustomed to. The episode had all kinds of heart, and is still very popular amongst the shows fans. The card has all kinds of heart too, even though it's foil-y goodness has been rendered null-and-void by the scanner.

1969 Topps #34

Other than Shawn Kemp's 1990-91 Fleer RC, I don't think that any other card has been shown on the blog more times than Merlin's Topps RC (not his true RC, but the 'geniuses' over at Beckett don't acknowledge that), so who am I to get in the way of a good cause, and not show it again :)

1957 Topps Hit Stars #80

Cyd Charisse has very few trading cards, don't ask me why though. If I was in charge, she'd have many. I freely admit to having a long standing crush on her, so I may be a bit biased.

See, I couldn't help it! Although, this photo does fit the theme that Brian's October posts tend to follow, so I'm just playing along, nothing else. It would make no sense for me to do so, but I've thought of doing a top 10 most attractive actresses/entertainers post before. If I ever did (I won't), Cyd Charisse would easily make that list.

1972-73 Topps #32

Is this a stretch as far as pink cards go? I probably wouldn't have used this one had I not seen an eBay listing for a copy the other day (during an unrelated search). Rookie cards seem to have gotten big again, and this one appears to have gone up in price a bit since I bought mine 5-6 years ago. Unrelated, can we refer to those as the 'good old days' yet?

2013 Panini Golden Age #DDG

This ones a bit of stretch, as it's more of a red card, but Ellie Mae is wearing a pink shirt, and does have pink ribbons in her hair, so? This is one of my favorite autographs from the Golden Age sets, so anytime I can find an excuse to show it, I'm going to. I watched a couple of episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies this past week, and while it's not my favorite program ever, I do enjoy a few episodes here and there.

1985 Topps WWF Stickers #3

Watch out ladies, Brother Bruti is on the prowl!

I haven't been a wrestling fan for quite some time now, and don't collect anything wrestling related anymore either, but the '85 Topps set, as well as the subsequent '85 O-Pee-Chee series 2 set, were amongst the few things that I held out back when I sold my wrestling collection. As far as wrestling cards go, those were the tops for me, it's been downhill ever since.

1984 Topps MOTU Stickers #20

Masters of the Universe has gotten big again too, and I'm thinking that it's like the tenth time that it's done so now? It's cool that so many people are into the various re-hashings, but I only care about the original. The new stuff just doesn't appeal to me, but of course I could say the same thing about everything from my childhood that's been reimagined in recent years, it all feels second rate, and I choose to have no part of it.

If by chance you haven't seen what Brian has been doing, I would highly encourage you to do so. He's doing lots of  good things, raising lots of money, and bringing awareness to a terrible disease. His dedication to the cause is very admirable, and he deserves all of the accolades that he has been getting.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.