Vaccine troubles, McKay's, and Harry Hulk Woman!

I've been meaning to get the rona vaccine for months now, but for one reason or another, just kept forgetting to do so.

Some may wonder how that was possible, and to that I'd say it was easy. A). I've been busy all summer, B). Goldfish brain, C). I rarely pay any attention to the "news", D). I kind of live in a bubble out here in the sticks, and E). I haven't been overly fearful of catching the rona.

Despite all that, I really did think that I should get it, not necessarily for my well being mind you, but I figure that in the long-run, it would be beneficial to society as a whole for me to get it (and I don't even care about the general public all that much!).

The original plan was to get the J&J jab, but apparently I waited too long, because when I finally went to get it back in August, I was told that that particular option was no longer available around here. I could get the Moderna locally, or drive to somewhere like Knoxville or Nashville for the J&J. I'm not a big fan of needles, so only having the two-shot option at my disposal was a tad disappointing, but I also didn't feel like driving for a couple of hours just to get stabbed by a faceless whitecoat. Despite my dislike of needles, I swallowed my disappointment and went with the local Moderna.

The first shot was fine, just a sore arm for a couple of days, and I was back to my usual plucky self. Having not read about any of the other potential side effects, I assumed that I was basically in for the same thing when I got my second shot last Thursday... and I couldn't have been more wrong!

The shot itself was okay, and I felt fine right afterwards. I had the day off, and thinking that only a sore arm was coming, I spent most of the day outside hauling wood. I felt fine after that too, not even a sore arm. It was almost exactly 8pm that night when things started to go to shit.

The first side effect to come on was the chills. I went from just a little shaky, to teeth chattering in less than an hour. I could tell I was gonna be in for a long night. Despite it being over 70° in the house, I turned off my ceiling fan for the first time this summer, and went to bed wearing sweats, socks, and a t-shirt. I was wearing all that and still needed multiple blankets to fall asleep (I usually just have a sheet on my bed during the summer). I fell asleep quicker than I thought I would, but woke up two hours later amid a nuclear meltdown. I was sweating profusely, and had acquired an incredible headache. I never did go back to sleep. When I finally got up in the morning, I did so despite the headache's increase. And let me tell you, even for someone who grew up with migraines, and still gets frequent headaches of varying degrees, this was a headache for the ages!

Friday was fucking miserable. I couldn't get the headache to go away, and spent the whole day either feverishly sweating, or trying to shake out of my skin from the chills. I tried to play through it and do some stuff around the house, but I couldn't stand confidently for any length of time, so very little ended up actually getting done. I ate as little for dinner as I can remember in recent memory, and then my whole upper arm started turning red. Apparently that's not uncommon, but was still a little off-putting. Being dead-ass tired, I went to bed at the unheard of hour or 8pm Friday night, fell asleep immediately again, and slept for eight straight hours, which is also unheard of for me. Saturday was considerably better, only a minor headache, and only one bout of sweating. At least I was able to finally to some stuff again. I really hate not being able to do things!

I was mostly back to normal on Sunday, but I'll come back to Sunday in a moment. First, I wanted to point out that I never planned on telling anyone publicly that I got vaccinated, that's not my kind of flex. I only decided to do so after I had so much difficulty with it. I think it's good for those that still haven't gotten vaccinated to know that this kind of reaction is possible, but you know what, as sucky as my experience was, I'm still alive, and if you by chance have as much difficulty with it as I did, it'll be sucky, but you'll live too! Normally I'm not one to tell people what they should and shouldn't do, but this is one instance where I think it's necessary: If you haven't been vaccinated yet, and are able to be vaccinated, STOP BEING A SELFISH PRICK... and go get that prick!

PSA over, now let's get to some fun stuff.

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As mentioned, I was mostly back to normal Sunday morning, which was good, because I had a thing I had to do in Knoxville on Sunday. It might've been able to be pushed back, but I didn't want to do that. So, since I knew I'd be able to drive, I went and did my thing. Knowing that I'd be in Knoxville, I knew I'd have to make time for a stop at McKay's (a Disneyland for lovers of physical media) while I was there too, and I did.

It's been a few months since I was last there, and I've never gone on the weekend before, so in terms of people, and potential finds, I didn't really know what to expect. My other thing didn't take too long, so I had almost three hours of time blocked off for searching.

Normally I like to save the best for last, but if your a sports card fan, and you read all of that opening jibber-jabber, I think you deserve to see what I'm pretty sure was the deal of the day first...

I'm not much of a Twitterer, and I rarely tweet about anything before it shows up on the blog, but I thought a few people might get a kick out of this, so I went ahead and mentioned on there Sunday night. Turns out, more than a few people got a kick out of it, as I think it might've been my most liked tweet ever, for whatever that's worth.

Anyway, I had never even heard of this book until everyone's favorite Owl blogged about a couple of weeks ago (sorry, I wasn't able to find the post to link up here?), but from the post itself, and all of the ensuing comments, I was able to gather that this book was kind of a big deal for a lot of people. Oh, and that it wasn't cheap on the secondary market either. It seemed somewhat interesting to me, but not enough for me to ever be shelling out big bucks for, so I basically just forgot about it -- that is until I was looking through the hobbies and collectibles section on Sunday, and noticed a massive book on one of the bottom shelves that said "Topps Baseball Cards" on the spine. I thought it might be the same book when I reached down to see the price, which by the way, going from Night Owl's post I thought would at least be $20. Turned out to be $2 (left the sticker so you could see it)! The dust jacket's seen better days, and a couple of the pages were dog-earred, but still, two bucks seemed like a pretty good deal (and the folks on Twitter agreed).

The one thing that I don't recall seeing mentioned in NO's post, was just how massive this book is, it's gotta weigh at least 10 pounds, and could easily be a murder weapon in Clue. I certainly got a workout lugging this thing around the store in one of those hand baskets for almost two hours.

I took a couple of pictures of the inside for someone on Twitter, and figured that I might as well show them here too, just in case I'm not the only one who hadn't been familiar with the book.

Anyway, I hadn't been seeking the book out, but it is kind of neat to have found a cheap copy. I have no doubt that it'll come in handy from time to time.

Everything else gotten was to appease my inner youth, and probably won't be of much interest to sports-only fans. Feel free to skip this next part.

I'm always on the lookout for cheap older film rags, and was fortunate enough to find a few this time.

This last issue here was the real prize, as I may be one of the bigger Captain Power fans you'll ever come across in the blogging world (I've got the entire toy line, all of the videos, and some other assorted paraphernalia). This issue had apparently been flying under my radar. And as a bonus, they're talking my episode of Star Trek as well.

The old 90's Marvel novels aren't cheap anywhere, and McKay's is no exception. The average price is in the $4-5 range, and as such, I rarely ever get any. I still look just in case though. Had some luck this time with one off condition book for $1.50, and...

... one nicer copy for $2.50. I'm very much looking forward to these!

It wouldn't be a trip to McKay's without bringing home at least one Christopher Pike. I've had the second book in this trilogy for a while now, but have been waiting to get the first before reading it. I started reading this last night, and am a tad surprised to find that it's kind of like I Know What you did Last Summer, ten years before that was a thing. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't think it would be along those lines.

It wouldn't be a trip to McKay's without getting at least one Bobby Stine as well.

At $3.50, this was my most expensive purchase. It's okay to splurge every now and then though, especially when paying with trade credit.

Overall, it was a good trip. The next one is gonna have some lofty standards to live up to!

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I received a fun PWE from, Greg, of Nine Pockets fame, earlier this week. I'm sure that most have already heard about it by now, but Greg has started a new business venture, and was doing a giveaway to celebrate (it may still be going on, I don't know, you'll have to check). Everyone got their choice of three of his recently printed customs, and for me it was an easy choice.

I'm a big fan of the Dirty Harry series (they're more relevant now than when they were originally released), so this was a no brainer. I never thought I'd see Harry Callahan on a baseball card, but here we are!

My scanner didn't do Greg's cards any favors, so if you haven't seen one in person yet, just take my word that they look way better than they do here. 

I grew up watching both of these series', in syndication of course. 

I only chose two cards, but Greg threw in a third...

CHiPs is one of a very select few shows from the "classic television" era that I've never seen a single episode of. I have seen Erik Estrada on quite a few other shows though, and do have his Adventure Time autograph, so now my Double E collection is two cards strong.

I really dig the '74 All-Star combos that Greg put together, and if he ever revisits the theme, I'm hoping for a Steve Austin/Jamie Summers pairing. I think that would be really neat.

Many thanks for the giveaway, Greg! Hopefully your new cards will sell like hotcakes, they're certainly gonna get enough publicity in the coming weeks to do so :)

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In other news, the COMC shipment that I requested back in April arrived last Friday. It actually wasn't that far off the original estimate. I thought it was gonna be considerably later though, given that the last time I looked at the counter, it said that there were something like 140,000 items still ahead of mine -- then I got an email two days later saying that my stuff had shipped. I've got 189 cards in here, and no idea when, or how, I might start showing any of them. 

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And one other thing of small note, I can never remember exactly when it is, and I don't feel like looking it up, but I do know that this blogs anniversary falls somewhere between September 15-19. I don't plan on posting anything else in the next couple of days, so I'm just gonna go ahead and congratulate myself now on being able to stick around for 6 years. I'm haven't been posting nearly as much as I used to do, but I'm still around, and I've outlasted a number of far superior blogs, so that's something, I guess?

If I come into any sort of windfall in the next couple of months, I might try to do a belated contest of some sort, but in the meantime, this'll have to do for now. 

I think I've gone on long enough for one post, and I've got about a weeks worth of blog reading to catch up on, so until next time...

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.