Starting the year off right

This season's La Niña is proving to be quite the little minx. The daytime highs were in the 60's for two straight weeks to close out the year, culminating in a wonderful, albeit very windy, 72° day this past Saturday. Fast forward about 30 hours, and it started doing this:

It's only a couple of inches, but still, it was just 72 DEGREES like a day earlier! As of Monday morning, when I took this photo, we were sitting at a much less comfortable 25º, with a real feel of 14º. This dramatic change in temperatures brought all of the usual goodies with it, high winds, torrential downpours, tornado watch's, and minor flooding. As sucky as those things are, I'd still take them over snow. In case I haven't mentioned it enough times in past years, I really hate snow! And if this isn't bad enough, we're supposed to get more later in the week, huzzah!

Thankfully for you, this post isn't about Miss Niña, or the kooky weather that she's bring here to middle Tennessee. No, it's just another "Check out this crap I bought in Knoxville" post. I do have a few traveling pics to sprinkle in this time though, so hopefully that'll spice things up a bit.

I guess it was about two weeks ago now that I made my monthly trip to Knoxville. As per usual, McKay's was the primary reason for going, but I also planned ahead of time to go to Bargain Hunters  again too. 

As one might expect, heading towards a decent sized city two weeks before Christmas, much traffic, and many crowds were encountered throughout the day. I survived though. No Rona either. 

Since McKay's is the closer of the two places, and is the one that would see the most people as the day went on, I stopped there first...

Anthologies of this sort are usually very hit-or-miss for me. Given the lineup for this one though, I'm pretty confident that it'll be a hit. And I don't usually judge a book by it's cover, but do give this one a few extra points for it's rendering of American Gothic.

Not much to say about this one. It's the second book in this trilogy, which I should've already gotten at some point in the almost two decades since it came out, but I didn't, so I'm buying it now.

And that was it for books this time, more on that in a second though, first...

When it comes to CD's, compilations are pretty much my bread and butter these days. It's getting harder to find ones that contain enough tracks that I don't already have on other albums to justify the price. This one had 11 songs that I don't already own for $1.95. That's not too bad. Even if I knew how to download songs, I don't think that I could 11 of them for $1.95. I always enjoy seeing old price stickers from other places too. Judging by the "Firm" being added to this sticker, I'm guessing that this particular album spent some time in an antique mall at some point in it's past. I'm gonna go out on a limb too and say that this didn't ever sell for $7.98, and that the person brought this one, and probably some other overpriced CD's, to McKay's to get what they could from it/them.

Here was 15 that I didn't have for $1.95. Even better! Both of these CD's had just recently been marked down from $3.95. I don't think that there'd be a big demand for either of them at this point, but still feel like I was there at just the right time to get them.

And that was this times McKay's haul. Four whole items. On any other day, I would've been a bit annoyed over going all that way and only getting four things, but I still had one more stop to make, so there was still hope that the trip could be salvaged.

I never expect anyone to remember posts that have appeared on this blog, or at least not any that are more than a couple of days old, so even though I did cover my first trip to Bargain Hunters on here, it was over two years ago, and I'd be kidding myself to think that anyone remembers it. With that in mind, Bargain Hunters bills itself as a flea market/antique mall, and is located about 15 minutes from the McKay's. It's in a fairly large building, and if I had to guess, houses a couple hundred booths/stalls.

When traveling to Bargain Hunters via McKay's, you have to skirt along the edge of downtown Knoxville, and even though I don't like being in any cities downtown, this particular trek affords one of my favorite Tennessee sights:

I'm sure that to most people living or working in the area, the Sunsphere is old hat, but to this particular blogger who's only now seen it in person twice, it's still pretty awesome. And for someone who doesn't travel, I think it's kind of neat to be able to say that I've seen two World's Fair structures in person. Seeing this one again, reminds me though of how unimpressed I was by the Space Needle as a kid. Of course, other than Key Arena, I was never very impressed anything Seattle. The best part about going to the Space Needle was the keychain, which has long since disappeared, that I got. It was of the Space Needle, and was one of those deals where it's filled with some kind of liquid, probably baby oil, and depending on which way you turn it, the elevator goes up or down. I'd like to go to the top of the Sunsphere one of these days, I think they let people do that, but I'll have to look into that some more.

Having not been to Bargain Hunters since the Rona got going, I didn't really know what to expect. Obviously much has changed (none of it for the better), and with a place like this, I expected some of those changes to be reflected in the prices. I'm happy to report that there's still a shit-ton of stuff to be found there, no empty booths that I saw, but it did seem like a lot of the prices had escalated since I was last there. Apparently some folks are the under the impression that every single item that falls into the "vintage" or "antique" categories have become hot again, and therefor must be priced as such. It's funny, sort of, but in recent years I find myself walking around places like this, and mentally picking out items that will never sell, no matter the price. There's no shortage of things that people once collected that have since fallen out of fashion, things that will never be in vogue again, and are almost certainly destined for a landfill somewhere down the line. Until then though, you'll continue to see people pricing these things like they're still in their heyday of collectability. It's at both times kind of funny and depressing, with a touch of sad mixed in for good measure.

I remembered there being multiple sellers with booths made up of nothing but books, but didn't remember that most of these booths have their books priced at "collector" prices. Some of these sellers have multiple booths linked together, and almost feel like a library as you're walking through them. It's kind of nice. I noticed plenty of books that I'd have wanted, but after picking up a few and checking their prices, I stopped pulling any more off of the shelves. I did however find one booth right before I was getting ready to leave that had it's books marked at "reader" prices (that's my price range). There were a lot of empty spots on the shelves, but I did find this nifty reference book. It has a few dust jacket issues, but after looking through it, and seeing how well it's contents were laid out, I figured it was worth the $2.50 price tag.

There are number of booths selling comic books, but only one that sells nothing but comic books. I remember this seller from last time I was there, but they switched booths, and added a lot more boxes of comics to their new booth. The majority of the booth is taken up by 30-40 $1 boxes, and then maybe another dozen "priced as marked" boxes. Everything is in alphabetical order, which is nice, but it was already getting late by the time I happened upon the booth, and I did not have time to go through a couple thousand books, so I just tried to hit some of the high points. I should've taken a picture of the booth for this post, but I'm thinking about going back later this month just to spend more time searching through the cheap boxes. If I do, I'll get a picture then. Anyway, I did find a few books, including this seasonal offering from The Punisher.

I should've probably taken these out of their old bags and scanned them, what with all of the glare and all, but I didn't. I think you'll live though. This is one of the series' that I've been meaning to go back and read for years, but always forget to look for it anytime I'm somewhere that has comics.

Here was the find of the day for me! This is one of the first comics that I ever remember getting, and reading. It's cover, which features Crossbones and Bullseye coming to blows over a prone Captain America, is basically THE cover that I associate with reading comics as a kid, and because of that association, is my favorite comic cover of all time. My childhood copy got damaged in a move about ten years ago (my fault for not having it in with the rest of my comics), and I've been trying to replace it off and on ever since. It's not a 'key issue', nor is it even that great of a story (it's part of a multiple book arc), so I never wanted to pay silly online prices for it. I have seen copies in person a few times over the years, but they're usually beat up and still overpriced. This copy is very clean, and was 75¢ more than my original copy, but I don't think I'm gonna find another one for a dollar anytime soon.

This stop at the Bargain Hunters really made up for a lackluster outing at McKay's, and the day wasn't even done yet, there were still two more sights to see...

One more shot of the Sunsphere on the way back, this time behind that cool looking church who's name I can't remember.

And here's something that you really don't see everyday.

I can't remember how far outside of Knoxville this was, but I caught up to this helicopter on a trailer on the way home -- and of course had to try and get some pictures of it.

Even if you don't care about helicopters, can we all just take a second and realize how great this photo was. I had been waiting for this guy to get out of the fast lane for about ten minutes, and when he finally did, I got me one hell of a picture as I was passing. Oh, and for those who might be wondering, my eyes were on the road. When I take pictures while driving, I just point the phone in the general direction of the thing I want to get a picture of, and try to take as many pictures as I can, all with both eyes focused on what's ahead of me. More often than not, I get blurry pictures of partial objects, which obviously aren't gonna be added to posts, but this time, I got a good one. This was by far the best picture that I took last year.

This was next shot taken during my set of bling clicking (the next one after this was just the front of the truck). I don't know anything about helicopters, but this photo captured a clear view of the model. A quick Google search on the R44 Raven II, tells me that what you're looking at here costs in the neighborhood of $200,000 to $400,000. That's an expensive toy. The trailer had a Texas plate, and the truck was headed in that direction, so it's entirely possible that whoever this was came east to pick up their new purchase, and were heading back home when I took these photos. If so, it's a good thing that they've got some money, because I would've hated to see what their gas bill was for that truck even to have come from Texas to Tennessee and back.

Between this trip and the weather, last year sure closed strong. The weather's a bit iffy so far this year, but at least I'm starting things off right on the blog, what with these being my favorite kind of posts to do and all.

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!