Post-Christmas post

Since I haven't seen anyone say otherwise, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that everybody had a pleasant enough Christmas? Mine was fine, a little different this year, but still okay.

I've mentioned it in year's past, but my mom and I have sort of developed a tradition in recent years to go on a hike Christmas day, which is also her birthday, but we didn't do so this year, at least not yet. She was a tad under the weather (not the Rona, or anything else serious) for a couple of days there, so we didn't go out, but are gonna try to go out sometime next week and make up for it. Temperature wise, it's been pretty good here for the last week or so, and was a relatively pleasant 64° on Christmas day, and while the hike was off, I did spend a couple of hours in the afternoon outside doing, well, outside stuff -- much to the awe of the many people that drove by and had to look at me as they did so. 

As far as presents go, there weren't any, at least none that I can show off here on the blog. Some months ago my mom and I agreed to not exchange gifts this year, and would instead go halfsies on a six-month premium subscription to Newspapers.com. We waited until their Black Friday offer, which I think was for $54, to sign up. And I know that for my part, the subscription has already gotten plenty of use. I really love that site! Despite this year's "ban" on traditional Christmas presents, I did still get her a couple of birthday presents, both of which went over well, yay me!

I think that this was the first year, or at least the first year in the last couple, that I didn't post anything on Christmas itself. I had intended to, but after thinking about it, I decided to give everyone a break. It was the right decision. 

Speaking of posts, today's was originally gonna be another homemade solution to storing tricky sized cards in binders (overly thick cards this time) but I've tweaked my original idea some, and needed something that the Dollar Tree apparently doesn't carry anymore to try and complete that prototype. So, it'll probably have to wait a few weeks until I can go to the much further away Hobby Lobby, which also means that the planned post will have to wait a little longer as well. I'm not the sort who's able to write multiple posts in advance, and rarely plan even one post in advance, so when the planned one falls through like this, I'm kind of shit up a creek. It's not ideal, but I do have two boxes of cards from COMC to tap into, at least the ones that haven't already been paged away before getting scanned (that's way too easy of a habit to fall into). This being my only option to fall back on this week, I think I'll just pull a few out and try to make a post out of them...

I think it was just a couple of posts ago that I was talking about wanting/not wanting to collect this old Helmar Seals and Coats of Arms set, and now here I am saying that I guess I'm gonna go for it. My Black Friday Mecklenburg will be the last single I get for a bit though. Collecting a 150-card set one piece at a time isn't very cost effective, so I'm gonna have to start keeping an eye out for a good lot on eBay. Having seen a few of those lots in the past, I know it'll be difficult to find one in my price/condition preference range, as most of the time the cards in these lots are pretty beat up.

Great card, terrible scan! After buying six 1966 Topps Superman cards at a show a few years ago, I've wanted to get three more just so I could have a page's worth. I'm trying to pick out the best 9 cards from the set to do this too, and #7 here is definitely one of the neater cards in the set. I know which two I want to complete the page with, it's just a matter of them showing up at a reasonable price. I can wait though.

This came out of my box from November that had two years worth of purchases in it. I think when I bought this I was still pretending like I'd ever have a chance to complete the '57 set, but have long since given up on that silly notion. Mack doesn't fit into any of my current collections, but I still love the image, so I'll find a place for him.

Rando Rheaume! I had never owned a single Goodwin Champions up until about a month ago, then I bought two during the Black Friday sales. Manon's base card has about 143 parallels in this set, but I only wanted this blue one, which by the way is the best one. That's a hill I'm willing to die on!

Crappy scan aside, this was one of my favorite cards gotten during this past Black Friday. Tippi doesn't have very many cards (most are parallels and ugly Leaf stickergraphs), but that's okay, I just needed one for a Alfred Hitchcock themed page that I've got going (technically I have two Hitch pages in progress though).

70's and 80's Topps stickers are always fun. I don't have any 80's for this post, but do have this...

... nifty trio of...

... 70's stickers to show off. Richard Kiel here is my favorite of the group. He's found a nice home on a Kolchak themed page.

It's always a good day when the great Christopher Lee is able to make an appearance on the blog. Despite it's awesome cast, I've never liked Gremlins 2. Try as I might, I just can't get down with it. As for the card, I already had a copy, but needed another one for a different project.

I've had a page dedicated to Harold Sakata (weightlifter/wrestler/actor) for a couple of years now, and always knew that this particular card (1966 Philadelphia James Bond) was going to be the center square. I think I bought this one well over a year ago now, I just had to wait until COMC got their act together to put him in his rightful place, thankfully, they finally have.

Last up for today is this kooky error(?). I found this a few months ago while searching through the recently added TCMA cards. I was looking for pro stuff, so when I hit a big block of minor league cards I just sped through them. Even in speed scroll, this card stood out from it's other minor league brethren. After looking around online, I can't find any copies of this card (there's a wrong entry on the TCDB), so I don't know if this was a funny printing error, or if every copy went out like this. 

It would've been cool if the back was screwy too, but alas, it's normal. If anyone has the skinny on this one, I'd love to know what's what.

Kind of a lazy post today, I know, but they can't all be winners. I guess too this'll be the last post on here for the year. I'm gonna spend a few days working on a post for the other blog (I've been experiencing all kinds of problems with that one), so if all goes well, I'll have a new post up on both blogs next week. Until then, be careful with those fireworks this weekend, it'd probably be a little more difficult to bang out blog posts with some missing digits. Oh, and take it easy on the booze too. If you thought it was hard typing with a few less fingers, just wait until you try to do so with a pair of non-corporeal hands.

House cleaning

I hate to admit it, but a bout of depression got the better of me last week -- or rather, the low-level depression that I've been keeping at bay for most of the year decided to kick it up a notch, which, in case anybody was wondering, is why there weren't any new blog posts last week, I just didn't have the want to work on any.

And if that wasn't bad enough, I also got hit by a wave of home sickness, which is just stupid on so many different levels. a) After being gone for almost four years, you'd think I'd be past such things by now, b) Old people shouldn't be getting homesick, c) In my heart I know that everything here is better for me than it was back home, and dumbest reason of all, d) The Portland that I'm homesick for, hasn't existed for over twenty years! That's right, I'm longing for a city from another time... wonked up brain chemistry sure is fun, isn't it?

I'm gonna have to try and get over this pretty quick, or least pretend that I'm over it, because with Christmas coming up, as well as my mom's birthday, which is on Christmas, I'd prefer not to ruin her day with my mopiness.

Speaking of birthday's, oh, quick side note, today's post is going to be all over the place... kind of a cornucopia of crap if you will.

Anyway, birthday's... I had one back in July, and I never got around to photographing everything that I was given, so no post was ever done, but I do have a few pictures that have been sitting in a folder since then, including The Simpsons Rad Rollers above.

Does anyone remember Rad Rollers? Released in 1990 to very little fanfare, they wound up sitting in toy aisles -- most notably Kmart toy aisles -- across the country for over a decade, before finally being pulled from the shelves sometime in the early 2000's, in what can only be described as the retail equivalent of a mercy killing.

Even though I never played with them, or even knew anyone who did, I still have a strong affinity for them, if only because they are something from that era that I can still remember quite vividly. I want to say that there were around ten different sets made, ranging in subject matter from Batman to New Kids on the Block.

I already had the Dick Tracy and WWF sets, so The Simpsons was a welcome addition, someday I'll probably look for the rest, the keyword being "someday".

My mom had gone to the estate sale of a couple in Knoxville who had been selling on eBay for almost twenty years, which is where all of this year's presents came from. After seeing the pictures for the sale, I had planned on going too, at least until I realized that this was going to be one of those sales that would require a body to be lined up out front for hours in advance of the opening, which meant that I would've had to be getting up around 1am, drive an hour and a half, and then wait in line for another five hours... that's just too much for this particular fellow.

I have seen the Ronald McDonald figure many times over the years, but I had never seen any of the other characters from the 1976 Remco McDonaldland set before, a set by the way, that was the culmination of the McDonald's five year long ad campaign for it's McDonaldland universe.

This Hamburglar package has definitely seen better days, and even though I'm a dedicated package opener, I will be leaving this one unopened for the time being, as this one of those rare times where I get more enjoyment from the figure still being on card.

I've been showing a lot of California Raisins stuff as of late, so why not a pillow too? Oh, and I have mentioned lately that I'm still single... I just can't imagine why :)

Other birthday presents not shown: a Mr. Peanut promotional plush, a Snoopy wind chime, multiple Happy Meal toys from the early 90's, and a couple packs of cards that may or may not make it on to the blog at some later date.

A couple of months back I picked up this 2013 Golden Age Stanley Livingston auto on eBay for next to nothing, I guess there's not a lot of My Three Sons fans left out there, which is unfortunate, but I did need it for my set so I'm happy to have been able to get it for not very much money. And how great is that signature, it's like a f***ing piece of art!

This really isn't apropos, but it was super cute. Maybe a little over a month ago, before the cold weather started showing up, I went outside through the patio door and noticed that there was something dark on stuck to the side of the laundry room door, which is the only other door on the back of the house. Once I got little closer, it became obvious that it was a toad, maybe two inches in length, who was clinging to the part where the door meets the casing, about five feet up from the sill.

Oh, look his little eyes are closed! You can see the handle and deadbolt, so you can see how high he climbed. It was so difficult for me not to not pick him up, but I didn't want to wake him up, well, that and I didn't fancy the thought of getting peed on at that particular moment (toads pee a lot). We didn't need to use that door on that particular day, so he was able chill for the day, and as expected, he was gone the next morning.

Even with the depression kicking my butt all of last week, I still ended up going to Knoxville, which I was able to justify by telling myself that I was doing a good deed. You see, my mom was lamenting that she needed to go to Target to look for something, a something that wasn't on their website, and if you've ever tried to call a place like Target and ask them if they have something, well, let's just say that you'll never make that same mistake again.

The closest Target is in Knoxville, there's three of them there actually, two of which are about ten minutes apart, and one of those two is only about two miles from McKay's (next post) -- so knowing this, and knowing that my mom did not want to make the trip, I volunteered to go

I really dislike Target, but it's the only retail location that you can find figures from the recent Mego revival, so it's kind of a necessary evil, at least for me. I ended up finding the last figure that I wanted, as well as one that I didn't even know that I wanted...

... pretty cool, huh? Despite the fact that I really wanted them, these were not a good purchase at the time, what with me not technically having any money at the time. Thankfully the collecting gods smiled down on me the next day, by allowing two of my eBay items to sell.

Is anybody getting tired of seeing Classics parallels on here yet? I hope not, because I'm going to have more than a few in my COMC stash that's due to arrive today. These two came from eBay though, I bid on a few more from the same seller, but these were the only two that I won. The Mike Singletary was my first orange (#'d to /25), although Chris just sent me another one, which will be shown sometime in January. And I think the Chris Doleman is only my second blue (#'d to /10) now.

I went to the card show at the end of November, had to find some Secret Santa stuff you know, which I did, but I also found more than a few things for myself as well. I will be getting to that stuff in January, but in the meantime I thought I'd show my one non-sport purchase from that day.

Jim, everybody there's favorite seller, had a really nice looking stack of 1966 Topps Superman, about half of the set actually. He was asking for sixty something bucks for the whole stack, or $2 apiece for individuals. Not wanting to work on the set, I just went through and pulled out a few that I found visually appealing, and he ended up giving me an even better deal, as I got these six for $10.

Even though I don't want to work on the set, it's still kind of an interesting one, especially when you realize that Topps released this set in conjunction with the show's syndication, which was over ten year's after it's debut.

As nice as these cards are, they ended up scanning like hot garbage, putting them in a page only slightly improved the overall result.

Phew, that was one long post, I think I now need another week off! Just kidding, I'll be back on Wednesday.

Before I go though, one more random thing to mention. I don't know how often my fellow bloggers check their stats, namely the keyword search section, you know the part that tells you what phrases people are typing into search engines, which then ultimately leads them to enter your blog. Well, I try to check that part about once a week, but I usually end up forgetting to keep to that schedule, so I guess I should say that I end up checking it out every three or four weeks. Anyway, last week there was two main phrases that were bringing them in, the first one was "secret Santa scam"... WHAT? That's really not cool of Google to have my blog show up amongst those search results, but I guess there's nothing I can really do about it, other than to say that it is kind of sucky.

The other phrase used was "Satchel Paige bobblehead Portland", which is a little more interesting, but at least that one makes sense, since I did do a post with that particular bobblehead in it like two years ago -- makes me wonder why so many people would be looking for that bobblehead though, especially now? Okay, with that mentioned, I'm officially done for the day


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.