Rattled by McKay's

I got a lot of stuff to get to here today, so please forgive the lack of buildup. For those that need something though, okay, I got you -- my once a month yearning to go to McKay's (heaven for lovers of all things physical media) came upon me a couple of weeks back , so I made the trip to Knoxville in order to satisfy my desire. Cool? Cool.

I though I'd start with something different for a change. I struck out on toys, I mean they had a bunch, but nothing for me. I did however find this really nifty slammer in one of the two very full fast food premiums bins. I know for a fact that I never saw one of these way back when, and looking around online, it appears that One & Only Toy and Games Inc. only made a couple of pog related items, including at least three different slammers that were packaged like this -- though this is the only one that "rattled". I think that it's partially filled with BB's, or something very similar to, which makes for a fun effect, but would've made for a sh*tty slammer. Something that's shifting it's weight while being thrown down would have been less than ideal, and wouldn't have had the desired effect, i.e. flipped over very many caps. And it may have sucked as far as Pog playing goes, but it does look cool, and I enjoy seeing it hung up on my wall everyday.

I remember being in a Border's (anyone still remember that bookstore?) back in '02 (I had to look inside the book cover to get the year), and coming across this book while I was perusing the new releases. It seemed like such an odd book at the time, but did sound really interesting nonetheless. The new release price was much more than I'll ever spend on a book, so I had to settle for checking it out at the library not too long after. It was an excellent book, very well researched, and I had planned on buying a copy once they started going down, but than the usual happened, I ended up forgetting all about it almost immediately after I had to return it. And it stayed forgotten until sometime around this past Christmas when I came across a reference to it in another book. I started looking for a copy online, but couldn't find one under $7 (not including shipping), so I held off and hoped that I could find a cheaper one the next time I went to McKay's, and I did! $1.50 is heckuva lot better than $7. I've got about 50 pages left to finish my long overdue reread, and I'm happy to report that it's just as good now as it was almost twenty years ago, possibly even better. I don't recommend things very often, but I'd so with this book, or at least I would to any history lovers out there.

I recently spoke of my first experience reading Graham Masterton, which I concluded by saying that I'd have to read something else of his, as I couldn't quite gauge his abilities from that one book, so this was me getting another one of his books to try.

Is it weird for someone who wants absolutely nothing to do with large bodies of water, to get great joy from reading maritime stories? Asking for a friend ;-)

I'm fairly certain that there are no Forever Knight fans reading this, so I won't bore anyone by going on endlessly about it, but will mention that the show was a childhood favorite, and would still make my top 10 favorite shows list. The books started up after the show had ended, and are usually terribly difficult to find, especially for a budget-conscious reader. Finding one that I don't have for 95¢ was pretty cool, of course like a lot of things at this point, nobody remembers the show (or the original television movie), and nobody cares about the books, so there's really no reason for them to still be expensive.

I was more than pleased to find that they had marked down a bunch (100+) of compilations and added them to the bargain CD section (95¢ or less), took me quite awhile to look through them though:

I think I've already discussed these before, but back in the glorious pre-internet days, the Living in Oblivion series was tops among 80's compilations, and used to be rather pricey, key word(s) "used to be". Nowadays they can be had for the price of a song, literally... assuming that that song is a dollar. That's how much it costs to download a song, right? I don't know, I've never downloaded music before, but either way, this was less than a dollar, so if a song costs a dollar, this was less than a song.

Most of the compilations were of the 50's, 60's, and 70's varieties, which is why it took me so long to look through them. This was the only one that I ended up getting though. I have the Charlie Feathers tracks on vinyl, but don't think that I own any of the others, in any format.

It's funny, the 90's were my prime era for music, but as I've gotten  older, I've begun to dislike the music from that era more and more. I think it's mostly just because I've heard a lot of the radio staples too many times at this point, and don't really need to hear a lot of them anymore. Of course there are some exceptions, some of which are contained on this album.

I wasn't of "clubbing" age during the 90's, but I did spend a lot of time in arcades, and this album reminds me of arcades in the late 90's, more specifically, mall arcades in the late 90's. I really, really, miss those days!

Moving on to the bargain ($1.95 or less) DVD/Blu-Ray section...

This was pretty crazy, I was looking at this show last time I was there, and was semi-tempted to pay $6.95 for it, but ultimately end up passing on it. Fast forward a couple of months, and now I find it for $1.95, which was much more my kind of price. Sometimes patience/cheapness does pay off!

I've mentioned in past McKay's posts that they seem to be including a lot more television show seasons in with their bargain stuff than they used to. Normally though they're shows that I'd never watch, and will never watch, but this time there was a few things of interest (Ip Man being the biggest). I don't know if I had ever planned on watching the Hannibal series or not, I mean I certainly heard enough about it, but for $1.95 it's worth trying. I've never been big on the films, well, save for Manhunter, that one was good, so I will not be surprised if I don't end up liking the show.

This is the slightly edited version of Phenomena. I never knew that a retitled cut existed, and having still not watched it (this version that is), I don't know what has been edited out, but I'll pop it in and find out at some point. This was more of a curiosity get than anything.

I hadn't planned to upgrade my Secret of the Ooze video, but some of this stuff is getting so cheap on Blu-Ray, it seems like I'd be losing out by not doing so.

Like with the Turtles above, AOD was just too cheap not to upgrade. I've had both on video for over 25 years now, and both tapes still work as good as the day I got them, and now with me not needing to put any more wear and tear on them, they'll probably still be in great working order when I'm gone.

Quick fun fact regarding AOD: A former longtime friend of mine's uncle was an extra in the film. Unfortunately I can no longer remember which scene he appeared in, or even what he looked like.

That does it for the actual purchases, but I did pick-up a few freebies on my way in, so...

Current YA fiction doesn't usually do much for me, but this one had catchy cover, and sounds like it could potentially be something. I'm in no hurry to read it, but I know that when I do get around to it I'll probably know within like ten pages or so whether or not it'll be to my liking. It just has the kind of feel to it to me.

Aside from the corner wear, I'm kind of surprised that this would've been out in the free boxes, as it seems like the sort of thing that certain people might've paid at least a dollar for. Heck, I don't even have much interest in things pertaining to New York City, and I would've paid a buck for it.

I'll be starting this one after I finish "Salt", hopefully it'll be as good as it sounds.

Not bad haul this time if I do say so myself. What made it even better too was that my mom had given me list of books that she was looking for, and I was able to knock some of those out as well. Oh, and I took in a bunch of stuff for trade again, and the credit from that took care of everything.

It was relatively early when I got done, and still was by the time I got done eating lunch (I always take my own and eat it in the car when I come out), so I decided to make a few more stops on my way home, the first of which was the Book Cellar:

Young Jon used to LOVE these kind of books, and old Jon still buys and reads them to help hang onto what's left of young Jon. Also, it's a Scholastic book from 1965, so I kind of had to have it.

I had no clue that there was an Elementary book series. I was gonna wait until I read it before looking up how many books there were, as I didn't want to have it spoiled by seeing what kind of rating it's received by random internet dipsh*ts (I've gotten to the point where I absolutely loathe reviews and ratings, especially those of the internet variety).

Not shown is the half-a-dozen more books found from my mom's booklist. My two books were added to by these cassettes that I found in the free boxes on my way out. I knew quite a bit of French at one time, but most of it's gone now. I'm hoping that these tapes might help bring a little of it back. As for Dutch and Russian, well, I don't have a great deal of interest in trying to learn either, but if I can learn a few words, or more importantly, learn to recognize a few words when I hear them, than these will have paid for themselves (which isn't hard to do since they were free).

Besides having the time to do so, the other reason I wanted to stop before getting home was because my mom had mentioned needing another bookshelf, and I just had a feeling that if I went to the thrift store that's across the parking lot from the Book Cellar on this day, that I would find one. And you know something, I was right, because I did, and it was a good one too! I also managed to find another little something for myself...

There aren't too many Humphrey Bogart films that I don't own, but this was one of them. Awesome movie for those of you who dig the older stuff, it had been a while since I last saw it, but it still holds up really well, or course most of his stuff does, so it's not like I'm breaking new ground by saying that this one does too.

Much like last time, this turned out to be basically a perfect day for me. Nothing went wrong, and I was able to bring home plenty of cheap entertainment. It's probably a good thing I don't live too close to Knoxville, otherwise I'd be at McKay's multiple times a week, and all you'd see around here is recaps... so I guess it's good thing for you too that I don't live any closer to Knoxville!