Sometimes you win, and sometimes...

If you saw Wednesday's post, then you've already seen the best thing to come from my stop at the Book Cellar last week. If you're reading this post, well, let's just say that things don't always go as planned. Sometimes you find something that you think is going to be awesome, and it is -- while other times you're left wondering how you could've misjudged said thing so badly (Spoiler alert: 3/5 of the items in this post fit into the latter category).

I found this in the science fiction section, which might seem a little weird, but they don't have a science/nature section per se, so science fiction was probably the closest they could get. The book is a little chewy (literally), and I knew that I was going to already be familiar with some of what was in here, but I saw "anti-comet pills", and decided that I couldn't live without it -- have I ever told you that my decision making skills are a tad wonked up? I was already reading a book (When the Game was Black and White), but I had to know what was what with those anti-comet pills, so I started in on this one too. Without going in to much detail (I'm a bit short on time at the moment), I'll just say that the book was a bit of a letdown, and I found the author's snarkiness to be rather annoying -- if I didn't know any better, I would swore that it was written my modern hipster! It was bad enough to make me stop reading about halfway through, and it's definitely a book that I won't be coming back to.

I love that even in 2019 I'm still finding videos of films that I've never heard of, perfect example: Where the Heart Is. I don't know how a film with Dabney Coleman, Joanna Cassidy, and Uma Thurman could've flown under my radar for so long, but it did, and apparently the video has as well -- which is kind of amazing, because if I think it about it, whether it was when they were new, or now that they're used and on the extreme edge of the secondary market, I've basically been going places to look at videos my whole life.

I was really looking forward to this one, so much so that I decided to watch it the night I got it, at least that was the plan. After putting the tape in and sitting down, I quickly realized that something was amiss, the tape was playing, but nothing was happening. After staring at the blue screen for a few seconds, I fast forwarded the tape a bit, and still nothing. I knew that there wasn't anything wrong with the television or VCR, so I got back up and popped the tape out, and it didn't take long for me to figure out what the problem was... somebody had cut the actual tape! I know that it had to have been cut, because the actual tape doesn't break like that, heck, it doesn't ever break period. And even if one were to break, it wouldn't occur in a perfectly symmetrical straight line, only scissors are gonna do that. In all of my years buying videos, I've never encountered this before, and I've never had any reason to check for such a thing before buying before either, I always just make sure that the right video is in the box, and then just check the overall condition of video itself (I've found mold growing inside the cassette before). I don't think this one incident will make me start checking on the status of the actual tape, but even at fifty cents it was still disappointing to have happen, especially since I really wanted to see the movie. Now I just have to hope that I stumble across another copy sooner or later.

I'm not fan of Stephen King's books, and the films/mini-series' that are based on his works are very hit and miss with me, but I'm still willing the give most of them a chance (the films, not the books), such was the case with The Tommyknockers. I can remember when this mini-series first aired, I didn't watch it at the time, and all of these years later I can't recall why I didn't, but it's been on my to see list for a while now. Since the total run time is a shade under three hours, I had planned on watching it over two nights... turns out though that I only ended up needing one night to watch it!

And no, I didn't decide to binge watch the series (I don't binge on anything), it just wasn't very interesting. I gave it an hour and change, was bored by what I was seeing, and with the prospect of still over another hour to go, I just decided that I had seen enough and called it a night. I don't mind buying something like this and finding that I can't finish it, especially knowing that it was bought for less than it could've been rented, provided there were still places to rent videos of course.

A few months ago I was perusing the DVD aisles at Walmart and came across one of those 4-in-1 movie packs, with one of the films being King Ralph. After realizing that it had been forever and a day since the last time I saw it, I was seriously considering buying the set, but the other three films weren't anything that I would care to watch, and $5 just for King Ralph seemed like a bit much, so I left it behind. Looks like a few months of waiting ended up saving me $4.50 (plus tax), now I'm just hoping that it'll have held up since the last time I saw it.

Harry and the Hendersons is another film that I haven't seen in a really (really) long time, probably close to thirty years long! I can remember a time when it seemed like the movie was on every single weekend, KPTV I believe, this would've been around 1990, and we didn't have cable at the time, so the options were somewhat limited -- although looking back, I think what was available on those six television channels was still better than what you'd get if you had cable/satellite today. I know I watched a bit of the television series too, but I don't think it ever caught on with me. I know they tried, but the series just couldn't seem to capture the charm of the original film.

Given how some of these purchases turned out, I'm glad that I only had $7 to spend on this particular day, as things could've ended up considerably worse had I had more money to play with. But bad purchases do occur from time to time, after all it can't always be sunshine and lollipops, the trick is of course not to dwell on them, which I don't, because I'm fortunate enough to find a lot of cool sh*t on a fairly regular basis, so a couple of cheap duds aren't gonna bother me none.


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