Thankful

I don't know if it's still the same with today's kids or not, but when I was growing up we were still taught that this was the time of year to reflect on the things that we were thankful for. I'd be lying if I said that younger me ever spent even a single second doing this, but it is something that I try to remind myself to do more often as an adult. And while I personally don't believe that such reflections should be limited to just a month or two at the end of each year, this post will probably make it seem like I do.

Sometime during this past summer, my laptop started showing signs that its end may not be too far off. Before going too much further, I should probably mention that it is around twelve years old at this point, and still operating on Windows 8. Its been very good to me over the years, and I've developed more of a rapport with it than I ever would've thought possible. Anyway, after the initial troubles, things seem to have improved, enough so that I, as a non-computer person, started to think that maybe it had just been a temporary hiccup. Unfortunately, recent events have proven otherwise. Seemingly out of nowhere, its operations became considerably more wonked three weeks ago. My mom is more computery than me, and after she told me that its end was nigh, I started scrambling to get all of the important things off of it while I still can. Most of my photos/scans, and more importantly, most of my obscene amount of newspaper related downloads were moved to flash drives (provided by my mom), and the one's that wouldn't transfer (something about them having properties that couldn't be transferred to a flash drive?) have been temporarily moved to an Adobe account that I created. And since I don't trust any of these things, I've also spent a bunch of time printing out hard copies of all of my genealogical research; which is quite considerable at this point. 

I'm done with all of the above as of this writing, which I'm very thankful for, as it took even longer than I thought it would. I feel like I should apologize too, to my fellow bloggers for the lack of comments left on your posts in recent weeks. I can only do so much. I have been reading posts on my phone at night, but it's much more difficult for me to type out longer comments on that little keypad.

I was kind of hoping that my laptop would outlive me, but since clearly it isn't going to, I'm thankful that A). It held up as long as it has. B). That it waited until this time of year to start dying, as sales on laptops are plentiful right now. C). That despite not wanting to have to get a new (and probably inferior) one, I at least have the money to do so (still a bit of a stretch though). If all goes well, I should have a new laptop, or at least have one ordered, by the time this post goes live. Hopefully it won't take me too long to figure out how to start using it.

In other news, the vertigo that was causing me so much trouble at the beginning of the year, that had been mostly under control, has returned. Not quite as bad as it was, but still enough to start making a few things more difficult again. I've already talked about this in multiple posts across two blogs, so I won't be getting into it again; other than to say that since this issue might be permanent now, my posting will probably continue to be highly irregular going forward, as computering seems to be the quickest way to trigger it. I've been told that the vertigo coming and going like this isn't uncommon, and when it's here, blogging is not easy. As an example, the previous post on here took me almost six hours to put together (spread out across eight mornings). That's a long time to work on what to most people was probably consider a throwaway post (after nine years though, I probably should've known better than to spend so much time on a non-sport card post). As sucky as my bouts of vertigo have been, I'm thankful that they haven't been worse, as they very well could be (and might be in the future).

Now that I got the boring, and depressing, things out of the way, I'd like everyone to know how thankful I am that folks still come around here. My posting has dropped off considerably this year (see the paragraph above), but that doesn't seem to stop a few people from showing up and supporting my efforts when I am actually able to get a post out there. Heck, people even still send me stuff from time to time. Unfortunately, because of the lack of posting, I've really really fallen behind in giving public thanks for the items that have shown up in recent months. I won't be able to get caught up by year's end, but hopefully I can get to a decent chunk of it here today.

Chris, aka The Collector, has gone MIA... again! Unfortunately, it looks like it might be permanent this time. His blog is gone, his TCDB account is gone, and as I found out last week, his email address is no longer valid either. Chris and I have had a good relationship over the years, and have spoken many times away from the blog about non-blogging things, so this turn of a events has come as a bit of a surprise. The last time we spoke, which was probably around the time of his last post, he relayed some very good news about the situation that his family has been dealing with, so aside from his losing interest in blogging (join the club), I was under the impression that all was well in the world of Chris. Something's obviously changed though. Since there's no other way for me to contact him anymore, I put a letter in the mail the other day; hopefully he'll reply. 

I received an envelope of odds and ends from Chris right around the time we last spoke, stuff that was held out from the large batch of cards he was sending to another friend to sell for him. 

I think that this was the third copy of this Jim Brown reprint that a blogger has sent me over the years. I'm not sure why exactly, but everyone seems to think that I need many copies of this card.

I like getting sent SLU's, unfortunately I already have a really nice copy of the Boggs (it's currently sitting in a draft), and the Lathon is from one of the sets that I'm not collecting. I've found out recently that it's near impossible to give away free cards on the blog anymore, but if anyone needs either of these, please say so. As for the Bo, that was actually a need. I could've swore I already had it, but apparently not.

Optic is one of those modern sets that's not really something I ever look for, or even think about, but both of these cards are fairly nice for what they are.

The Thomas sticker was a dupe too. The David Robinson Patriarchs was my favorite of the envelope, mostly because I'm working on the set, and didn't already have this one.

I completely forgot to ask Chris about this card when I thanked him for the mailing, as I have no idea what it is. I know what it isn't, and that's an original Philadelphia rookie of Bob Hayes. You can't tell from the scan, but the coloring is right, on the front, and back, but it's got a slight gloss to it, which original Philadelphia's don't have. There's no "reprint" anywhere on the back, and after searching around online, I don't see people selling reproductions (i.e. counterfeits) of this particular card on any of the usual sites, so at the moment I'm at a complete loss as to what its origins are.

Chris, if you're out there, come back... if only so you can tell me what the hell the Bob Hayes is! Kidding aside, I very much hope that you will return to us at some point; the blogs will be a much poorer place without your presence.

Despite having them on my want lists, which are sometimes public, for a lot of years, Bo, he of the always present, Baseball Cards Come to Life!, became only the second person to ever send me a Hostess card. I don't know if it's because I rarely talk about them, or what, but despite all the one's I see exchanging hands on the blogs, they just don't ever come this way. I'll live though. One did, and it was a very nice one at that. I don't think most folks normally associate Bo with basketball cards, but if you collect them, he does send them from time to time. My 1989-90 Fleer set build was helped along with this addition of Chris(tian) Welp.

I've talked about Larry Johnson, and why he was my favorite non-Blazer as a kid, multiple times on this blog, so I won't bore everyone with that again here today. Needless to say though, I still have a strong affinity for him, and his cards, all of these years later.

Many years ago, don't ask me how many, I came across this exact 1977 Argentinian Zorro card on COMC. I can't remember if the price was too high, or if I just wanted to look into the set more, but I put in my watchlist in the morning, and by that night it had already sold. That always sucks when that happens. Fast forward some years, and I had pretty much completely forgotten about it until a semi-recent post of Bo's where he was offering some unwanted stuff from a lot that had been bought; one card of which was this one. Needless to say, I couldn't reply soon enough. My mom and I use to watch the old Disney Zorro series when I was growing up, and over the years its remained a favorite of mine. This card makes an excellent companion to the couple of cards that I have from the Topps set.

Many thanks to Bo for this eclectic mix; those are usually the most exciting for me.

Not too long after I received Bo's mailing, Jim, he also of the always present, cards as i see them, became only the third person to send me a Hostess card, and the first to ever send multiple Hostess cards. And if anyone's gonna have an extra Steve Garvey to send, it's gonna be Jim. Rounding out the Dodgers trifecta was a needed, and greatly appreciated, 1961 Post. Despite it being on my want list, this Roseboro is another one that I could've swore that I already had, but I didn't. I guess I've come across it so many times during my Post searches, that I just assumed that I already had it.

Jim followed up this solid trio with another PWE not more than a week later. There was only one card in the second envelope, but geez was it a fun one...

Jim mentioned that he had found this wonderfully mis-registered Play Ball reprint, and decided to take a chance and see if it met my criteria for such cards. It did. Staring at it too long makes me want to puke, which is usually a good way to tell if it's "off" enough for my collection. As much as I enjoy the card, I appreciate Jim even more just for remembering my little collection of wonked up cards. That's not the sort of thing I expect anyone to ever remember, so when someone does, it gives me the warm fuzzies.

With Chris gone, I think Jim is now the leader of the pack when it comes to active bloggers whom I've exchanged the most cards with. Hopefully he won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

I've mentioned more than a few times that I'd love to participate in Matt's, he of the Diamond Jesters, Time Traveling Trades more often, but stuff that I'm interested in just doesn't show up very often. And even when something does, I'm usually too late to claim it about 50% of the time. A few months back though, I was a bit earlier than normal to the most recent update, and was able to claim what I thought were two very nifty cards.

I already had two copies of the Ed Charles, but it's a card that I really like and could see myself trying to fill a page with, so while I technically didn't need it, I did very much want it. The Butkus game card was new to me though. I only had one other playing days card of his, so it was neat to be able to add another one.

From what I've seen the TTT has been a bit lean recently, but I think that a number of folks are thankful for Matt's willingness to power through the temporary slowdown and keep what's been a very popular blog series going.

I just recently got a surprise envelope in the mail from Randy, who most blog readers probably know from his comments as RJ Sahl. He's not a blogger himself, but can be found on the TCDB as rjsahl.

I've mentioned more than a few times that my original card collecting run stopped around 2000, but it very nearly stopped a few years earlier. I want to say that I didn't buy any packs of cards, or at least any new cards, during all of 1997. I don't remember why exactly, maybe I was done collecting and just hadn't realized it yet, but whatever reason, I went through a brief stretch there where I stopped buying cards and stopped paying attention to any of the new releases. Then, for reasons also unbeknownst to me at this point, I bought a basketball repack at the Lloyd Center (former mall in Portland, OR) Toys "R" Us in 1998. My friend Nate was with me at the time, and even though he had never collected anything up to that point, that repack sparked an interest in him (he was obsessed with basketball), which in turn, renewed my interest in cards. His collecting story is one for another time, but long story short, it only lasted about a year. I hadn't had a friend who collected cards in a number of years, so even though it didn't last very long, it was pretty fun to have one who did, again. As for that repack, I can only remember one card from it, and that was a 1997-98 Hoops Antoine Walker rookie. It was my first time seeing that year's design, and I immediately fell in love with it.

There were a number of shops still around at that time, but I think I was only able to find a couple of packs of Series 2, and with singles being even harder to find in the pre-internet era (that is, the internet as we now know it), I never got very far in my late attempt to build the set. Whatever I had was donated along with the bulk of the rest my collection in the early 2000's (yet another story I've told on here more than once -- I really need to mix in some new stories!). I did acquire a few singles from dime boxes a few years back (an MJ, Kobe, Duncan RC, etc.), and that those set aside, but it wasn't until last year that I decided to try and build the set again. I know that it would be infinitely cheaper to buy as a whole, but I know me, if I did that I'd look at it once, put it away, and then never take it out again. My new build hasn't gotten very far yet, but thanks to Randy, I am now five cards closer to completing it.

My mom bought our first VCR in 1987. And one of the first videos that she bought was Creature from the Black Lagoon. 1987 was also the year that I got chicken pox. And for whatever reason, it hit me hard. Considerably harder than most kids. I was pretty miserable for a couple of weeks, and about the only thing that brought me any relief was watching Creature; which I did, over and over again. I don't remember much from that time, but my mom says that I watched it 3-4 times during that entire stretch (for those that weren't alive at the time, or for those who were, but have forgotten, videos were still terribly expensive at that point, so we only had a couple for the first year or two). Even though she's a big fan of the film to this day (as am I), I still don't know how she dealt with a very sick me, and having to watch/hear the same movie over and over again for multiple weeks. I guess that's moms for you. They're made from better stock. 

It's also worth noting that the set that this card comes from, 1994 Topps Universal Monsters, is one that my mom (she collected cards too) and I were collecting back when it was new; though we never were able to finish it.

These six cards really packed a wallop. As the kids might say, they hit me in the feels. Thank you, Randy!

The most recent surprise envelope to arrive came from, Matt, the rising star across multiple platforms, whose probably best known, at least currently, for Cards Over Coffee. 

A pair of serial numbered Bo's led the way. Unfortunately, both have a mirror finish, so neither scanned particularly well. These are not the sort of cards that arrive on my doorstep very often, as it seems like any slightly rarer Bo Jackson, new or old, usually carries a premium; one which I'm not usually willing to pay.

I have a few of Bo's A&G cards that show him as a baseballer, but never knew that he had gotten in there as a footballer as well. It sure is a neat little card.

The two serial numbered Bo's probably would've been the highlight of the envelope for most folks, but for me it was this pair of needed Golden Age Playing Cards. I just posted about this set not too long, and Matt was the only one to inquire as to which cards I still needed. I appreciated him doing so, but didn't think that he, or anyone else reading for that matter, was gonna have any of my remaining needs laying around. Turns out I was wrong. With these now in hand, I just need seven more to complete the set. I was hoping to get a few more during COMC's Black Friday sale -- which hadn't started yet at the beginning of this post, but now is -- that plan hasn't worked out very well so far, as the discounts on my needed cards haven't been as large as I was expecting.

And speaking of being thankful, only Matt would know what I'm talking about here, but I'm thankful that he and I were able to repair our friendship (quick synopsis: I was an asshole, Matt forgave me, thus proving, not that I had any doubt, that he's the better man), it has been one of the better parts of my year. As much as the cards were appreciated, they pale in comparison to the renewed friendship. Many thanks to Matt for both though.

And with that, I'm about 75% caught up with thank you's now. I have two more people to get to, one that has sent multiple envelopes (too much to fit in here), and one that deserves their own post just because of the sheer magnitude of what was in the bubble mailer that they sent. I'd like to think that I'll be able to get to both before the end of the year, but judging by the way things have been going, I'll be thankful if I can even get one of those posts completed by year's end.

This post is going live a few days later than planned. Now that its going out when it is, I just wanted to wish all who celebrate it a Happy Thanksgiving. And for those that don't, I still hope that you day is awesome too!

An early birthday present

When it comes to birthday presents, my birthday presents to be more specific, I've made it a habit over the last couple of years to wait until my birthday has come and gone, usually letting a few weeks pass, before getting around to showing any of the presents. I also rarely mention it beforehand, and never post on the day of, mostly because I don't want anybody to have to feel like they have to leave any sort of well wishes down in the comments, well, that I'm not big on birthdays, or my birthday to be more specific.

This year is different though, as I received my birthday presents this past weekend, so the only reason I'm mentioning that my birthday is tomorrow (please forgo any well wishes), is because it's pertinent to today's title.

I only receive birthday presents from one person anymore, my mom, and it's highly unusual for her to give them to me early, but she hit up a hot estate sale late last week, and didn't want to wait to show me what she had gotten for my "special" day.

The bulk of the present(s) ended up being LaserDiscs, which are kind of a rarity here in Tennessee, at least from what I've seen over the last 4+ years.

Apparently this person had had quite the collection, but I was told that a lot of it wouldn't have been of much interest to me (Disney, RomCom's, etc.), I'll take my mom's word on this, as she does know what I like when it comes to movies, she is after all responsible for a large percentage of what I do, and don't like. Thankfully though, there was a few things that she thought I would like, and for the most part, she was right!

Before I jump in to the meat of the post, I wanted to note that while I usually make it a point to show the front and backs of the films that I do posts about, no matter the format, but today you'll just be getting the fronts. As mentioned in my previous post, taking pictures by natural light hasn't been very easy as of late, and trying to do so on these was proving to be just as difficult. I got the fronts done alright, but before I could flip them over, dark clouds showed up, and within moments it was thunderstormmageddon. I haven't had the opportunity to go back and finish what I started, so it was either hold off the post for a little bit, or go with what I got, obviously I chose the latter -- most of these however are fairly well known films, so you should already have some sense of what they're about, and if not, they'd be easy enough to look up.

There are few things that remind me of childhood more than the Universal Monsters, in fact if I made a quick list (in no particular order) of the top five things that take me back to wee me, it would probably look a bit like this:

1. G.I. Joe: ARAH
2. Universal Monsters
3. Godzilla
4. TMNT
5. WWF (WWF Superstars in particular)

Universal's entire horror catalog is like comfort food for me, no matter how bad things are, or how stressed out I am, I can always pop in one of their offerings and everything else will disappear for the next 70-90 minutes. Thanks to my mom and grandpa, I started watching these (and Godzilla) when I was probably 3 or 4 years old, although I do seem to remember my grandpa saying once that he/we would watch Godzilla movies when I was still just a baby (literally). In retrospect, I wish that I could've had just one friend during childhood who would've been into such things. I always had a lot of friends when I was kid, but none of them were ever interested in old horror movies, just once it would've been nice to talk to someone my age about Creature from the Black Lagoon without their eyes glazing over. I did know plenty of adults at the time that I could discuss all things geek with, and I am eternally grateful for that, otherwise things would have been considerably worse for me.

I don't know if anyone cares or not, but with this most recent addition, I now have Dracula on: 8mm (200'), Beta, Laserdisc, VHS, and DVD. I'm running out of formats! I don't really care for Blu-ray, so unless I find one crazy cheap, I probably won't get that one -- I definitely wouldn't mind getting the rest of the 8mm version's though.

There was a thing that was going around on the Twitter a couple of months ago about perfect films, or something to that effect, like a choose you're top five kind of deal. I didn't see it until a couple of days after it was a thing, and knowing that everyone had probably already moved on by that point, I didn't bother to respond, but if I had, Psycho would've been on my list... it's that good! Not only is it flawless, but it still holds up really well. It's one of those movies that's so good that I wish I could go back and see for the first time again (that would be fun a list to make as well).

I saw the Dead series at pretty young age as well, probably too young, I think it was at a friend's house, and it would've most certainly been without my mom's consent. I have no shame in admitting that I had to avert my eyes during a couple of scenes from the series, one of them being the infamous evisceration from Day of the Dead. A few years later my grandpa and I watched a show on the Discovery channel about cinematic special effects that had a bunch of behind the scenes stuff in it, and one of those just happened to be the Day scene in question. At that particular time in my life I was still very interested in the idea of possibly working in the film industry at some point, so a show like that was always a must see for me. Future viewings of the movie were made considerably easier after I saw how that scene was made... still kind of gross though.

I always tell people, at least when asked, that I don't collect movies, in any format, I just buy what I like and what I think I might like -- and if I buy something that I think I might like, which turns out to be something that I didn't care for, I get rid of it, either by donation, or if it's a film that's out of print or hard to find, eBay. I have absolutely no interest in keeping everything just so I can go post on a message board somewhere, or make a YouTube video, to try and impress a couple of people with my "collection" of mostly unliked and/or unwatched movies (I have a few specific people in mind here). With that being said, I'm not a fan of John Carpenter's The Thing, but I'll still be keeping this laserdisc, if only because it was given to me, and more importantly, because it was given to me for my birthday... by my mom!

The Thing is probably my second least favorite John Carpenter film (only behind Ghosts of Mars). I know that there are a lot of people out there who love this film, I'm just not one of them. I mean it does have it's moments, some of the special effects were pretty groundbreaking, I like Kurt Russell, and I enjoyed the Lovecraftian elements, but overall, it just wasn't for me. It probably doesn't help too, that I was, and still am, a big fan of the original -- and still don't understand why it was necessary to remake it?

Here's a bit of a rarity from Starlog Video, aka Starlog Magazine. It's a behind the scenes retrospective of Tom Savini's career, at least through 1986. According to my mom, this was by far the most out of place LD at this sale -- I guess one could say that it stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, or rather like the proverbial machete thru the head :)

As just a film, Species is really quite average, one could even refer to it as below average and not have to worry about offending too many people. However, as an event and/or moment in time, it was kind of a big deal, well, at least by 1995 standards it was (I really miss those standards BTW). There was so much hype over this film, most of which was probably the studio's doing, but still, it was everywhere! And then of course there was Natasha Henstridge, the hot (in more ways than one) young actress who was taking Hollywood by storm (how'd that work out?). God, she was everywhere, between gracing the cover of literally every single magazine cover in existence at the time, and her many appearances on the late night circuit, you couldn't get away from her if you tried. I'm not overly fond of the film itself, and I never did see the appeal of Ms. Henstridge, but I am very nostalgic for the time period (the good and the bad), so even though I wouldn't have bought this one for myself, it'll be nice to have around, if only so I can hopefully never completely forget all of the doings from said time period.

If it's not something that I saw in the theatre, I usually can't recall the first time that I saw a particular film, however, Predator is a movie that I didn't see in the theatre, but I have Total Recall (do you see what I did there?) of the first time I saw it. This memory goes back to 1989, I don't remember what time of the year it was, so I'd be roughly seven years old at the time. I was staying the night at a kid named Marcus' house, this was part of a birthday celebration -- it's funny too because he and I weren't the greatest of friends, he was more of a friend to my best friend at the time, but we lived in the same apartment complex, and there weren't a lot of other kids around, so I think I was probably invited because of these things, more so than because he and I were such great friends (he was a year or two older too, so that might've had something to do with us not being friends per se). Anyways, I don't remember the actual party itself, but what I do remember is his mom renting a couple of videos for us to watch that night, namely Predator and The Terminator, both of which I would be seeing for the first time. Both films had an impact on me, but Predator was the one that stood out more at the time, as I was probably a little too young to pick up on most of the nuances in The Terminator. Predator was much more simple, just humans v. monster, with lots of shooting and 'splosions, for a kid like me, things didn't get too much better than that.

On a loosely related note, as I'm sitting here typing this, another partial memory involving Marcus came to mind, so I might as well share it. This one happened a few years later while I was working at one of my uncle's comic book conventions. I was probably 10 or 11 at the time, and one of the guests at the show was a very attractive woman, who I believe may have posed for Playboy, but she would've had to have done more than that (actress? comic book model?) to be amongst the guests, because my uncle wouldn't have invited her just for being in Playboy, that's just the only part of her credentials that I remember (I wonder why!). I was much more social at that time, so it wasn't an uncommon occurrence for me to mingle with the guests, most of whom were great to me (save for Bernie Wrightson), including this woman (I sure wish I could remember her name). Anyway, the memory is just of her hugging me at some point, I don't why exactly, but it was a good thing, and this wasn't just a hug hug, it was more like bear hug/shake kind of hug, and it was long one (all of the fellows reading this can probably understand why I would cherish this memory so much, right?). Now the hug itself was nice, but here's what made it even better: After being released from her embrace (why did it ever have to end?), I looked over to see none other than Marcus, standing in the middle of an aisle, eyes wide open and mouth agape, staring at me and this woman. With her arm still around me, and Marcus still looking on in shock, well, I can honestly say that I don't think that I've ever felt cooler than I did at that particular moment in time.

I should note too that we moved away from those apartments the same year as Marcus' birthday party, but he was into comics, so I usually saw him a couple of times a year at the shows -- but hadn't seen him yet on the day of the hug, which made the moment just that much better.

Like a bunch of the other stuff in this post, I've seen The Maltese Falcon more times than I can remember. Humphrey Bogart is one of my all-time favorite actors, and as such I've seen a number of films far too many times, heck, I could probably recite 3/4 of the dialogue from memory on this one. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that this might be a nearly perfect film as well. Some folks, especially those of the pretentious variety, will claim that the original pre-code version is the better of the two -- and while I would agree that they were able to push the envelope a little more (it was pre-code after all), that alone does not make it a better picture. If it's a Falcon without Bogart, and the national treasure that was Sydney Greenstreet, I don't want it!

Raiders of the Lost Ark had such a big impact on me as a kid, not only did it fuel my imagination - playing outside, as well as indoors with my G.I. Joes - but it also ignited my lifelong interest in archaeology. As far as play goes, the only movie that I can think of that may have had a bigger impact was 1959's Journey to the Center of the Earth, unfortunately for me, I never had any childhood friends who had seen either film, and trying to explain either of them for playing purposes never went over too well. And as far as my interest archaeology goes, well, I'm fairly convinced that if I hadn't zigged when I should of zagged, I'd probably be working in that profession, and if by chance I had a blog, it would probably be very different from the one that you are currently reading.

Getting this on LD was pretty cool, but what made even better was that I was also given...

... the second film! And of course the only thing better than getting the first two films, would be...

... to get the third film as well, thus completing the trilogy! Like half of the other movies in this post, I now own these in at least three different formats too.

And if these weren't enough, my mom also gave me, courtesy of the same sale, a number of 100+ year old bottles. I don't think that I've ever mentioned it before, but I have an interest in old bottles as well, and do collect them, hence the gift of old bottles. The ones from this sale need some serious cleaning, and some research will need to be done, so whether or not there's any demand for it, you can probably expect too see at least one bottle post somewhere down the road.

On a somewhat related note, I made a few increasingly rare trips out last week. Two of the places, a local book sale, and McKay's, both yielded some pretty good stuff, so if you like the non-card content, there's more of that coming too!

On a completely unrelated note, I got a bit of a surprise yesterday when I went to the mailbox and found this:

People don't send me postcards very often, well actually that's a lie, it should read as no one ever sends me postcards, so imagine my surprise when I saw this Pedro card looking up at me from the bottom of the mailbox. Apparently, Jim (gcrl), found himself off of U.S. soil, and was kind enough to send me this postcard. I don't know if it's something that's supposed to be shared publicly or not, so I won't mention where it was mailed from, but I will say that it was very nice of Jim to think of me while so far away from home, receiving this really made my day.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

A card show, my first trip to Ollie's, and a tornado warning

Looking at the date of my last published post, I see that it has been a little over seven weeks since I last posted. Once again I ended up going far longer in between posts than I had intended, in fact this particular post was actually started right after my last one, and then for a myriad of reasons... I just never bothered to finish it (or any other post for that matter).

Much has been going on, most of it being of the not so great variety. So since it's starting to feel like I'm always complaining about this or that, I'm going to do everyone a favor and not start this post off with a bunch of negativity, instead trying to focus on the positive for a change.

It feels a little weird doing a post about a day that occurred almost two months ago now (the last Saturday in May to be exact), as some of details are already becoming a bit hazy with time, but as I said above, I had already started it by adding all the pictures and I really don't want them to go to waste. So...

I found myself once again in need of card supplies right around the time I was moving, but I couldn't justify going to a show and wasting half a day or more on something so frivolous when there was still so much that needed to be done before the actual move. So that was my primary reason for attending this particular show, finding anything of interest would just be an added bonus. Not surprisingly, I ended up with a few things other than the supplies that I had went for.

I'm going switch up for once and start with my two "expensive" purchases:

The majority of my 1970-71 Topps cards are in really great shape, so this Wilt, is now by far the worst card, condition wise, in the set. But since this was the last of the somewhat pricey cards that I needed from the set, the $4 price tag was too low to pass on. I may try to upgrade it at some point, but with continuing increase of vintage basketball card prices, this one might have to do.

No matter how many times I've seen wilt's stats on the back of cards, it never ceases to amaze me to see that 1961-62 stat line.

This card isn't perfect either, but at $3, I thought it was a pretty good deal. I don't know why, but I always enjoy getting the first and last cards form a set out of the way.

Moving on to the cheaper stuff. I was fortunate enough to once again be able to take care of some more needs from a few of the "players of yore" sets that I have been building exclusively through the ten cent boxes:

 

I know I've mentioned it before, but I don't come across the 2002 Sweet Spot Classics very often, in decent shape that is, so it was really nice to be able to pick up the four shown above.

There is one particular seller that always seems to have a few Broder/fantasy cards sprinkled throughout his dime boxes, and judging by the last couple of shows that I have been to, I am unable to not buy them. I'm not entirely sure how much I actually like these kinds of cards, so thankfully, this time there was only one that ended up coming home with me.

In case anyone is interested, here is the back of the card:

These 2014-15 Donruss swirlorama parallels set me back a quarter a piece.

I'm always down for ten cent 90's refractors.

There was a fellow there who had a ton of 2014-15 Prizm base cards in his dime boxes, so I was able to mark a few off the checklist, most of them being rookies:

Giannis was the only non rookie base card that I got, and the Avery Bradley is a refractor Prizm.

There was a seller that I hadn't seen before, who had a small box of mostly 90's basketball inserts and parallels, and while most of the stuff was a bit overpriced, I did manage to find a couple of things that I considered to be a good deal:

 

The 1996-97 Topps Hobby Masters inserts are by far one of my favorites from the 90's, so for $1 each, there was no way I was leaving these beauties behind. I have been putting off making some sort of inserts checklist for the longest time, but I think that with the addition of these two, I now have about half of the 30 card set.

I think I've mentioned it before, but if I haven't, I absolutely love me some 1997-98 Bowman's Best Atomic Refractors. I am of the opinion that this particular set was the peak of refractor technology, not that it went downhill after this, but it never got any better either. The above four cards were also a $1 each, which is a price that I definitely can't complain about. I have 24 of these now, and while I'm under no illusions as to ever being able to complete this set, it's still fun trying to acquire as many as I can.

After the card show (and lunch), I finally made it to Ollie's, which is somewhere I have been wanting to go for a long time now. I first heard about Ollie's a number of years ago, but since they don't go any further west than Indiana (I believe), and me living in either Oregon or Washington for my whole life, meant that it would have been a bit of a drive to get to one. But now being in Tennessee, and them just opening a store in Nashville sometime in the last couple of years, means that I finally had a chance to see what all the hype is about. And had I known that the new store was only a couple of miles from the card show, I would have been there much sooner.

For those that aren't familiar with Ollie's, it's basically store full of stuff acquired via closeouts and liquidations. There are items in just about every category that you can think of there. I was trying to think of a way to describe the appearance of the inside of the store, and the only thing that comes to mind would be if you were to cross Big Lots with Costco. I know that description probably only applies to folks on the west coast, but I've never been to anywhere in the Midwest so other than usual suspects (i.e. Target, Walmart, etc.), I have no idea what other kind of stores are there.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the store, and bought quite a few things, but since I don't think anyone cares about seeing crossword books, pva glue, and miscellaneous items, I will stick to the one item that seems blog worthy:

Funko's ReAction toy line seems to be one that people either love or hate, I tend to fall into the love camp. I enjoy the look of most of the figures that I have seen, although the late 70's/early 80's style of the figures doesn't always work, the Buffy and Firefly lines being two that immediately come to mind. The Universal Monsters line is easily my favorite of all that have been made so far, so I was very happy to find this Frankenstein, especially since I didn't already have it. They had about a dozen of this figure only, which is fine, one new one is better than none. You might notice that there are staples holding the bubble to the card, with the ReAction figures being well known for the weak glue used to package them, this isn't all that surprising to see -- but since I'm a package opener, it didn't really matter:

Here he is freed from his plastic prison! Overall I was very pleased with my first trip to Ollie's. For anyone in the South, or on the East Coast that hasn't been before, I would definitely recommend checking it out.

And finally, for what was probably the most interesting thing to happen that day -- that being the tornado watch warning (watch warning, as I've come to learn, means an imminent possibility -- A big thanks to Adam for the correction.)

So we've had some very volatile weather here so far this year, which has made for a lot of thunderstorms. Earlier in the year, there was pretty big threat of tornado's in the Nashville area, with I believe even a small one touching down briefly. Other than a boatload of rain causing minor flooding and some strong winds, I really wasn't effected by that particular threat.

Fast forwarding to the Saturday that has been the focus of this post. The day started off really warm which is usual for this time of year, I think by the time I was heading home around say 1pm or so, it was around 90 degrees with the humidity around 80-90%. The day started off with nary a cloud in the sky, but about halfway home, some really menacing looking clouds started forming, which usually means we were going to be in for a heck of a show (if you enjoy thunderstorms that is).

If I remember right, it started about 6pm with some really impressive dry lightning (meaning thunder and lightning with no rain), and continued to escalate in intensity. Around 8:30, the cell phones in
the household started blaring a shrill alarm (similar to the amber alert noise), which turned out to be a tornado alert which was advising everyone in our immediate area to seek shelter.

Now one of the few good things about this rental house that we are currently living in, is the second floor screened in porch, so not being the sort to take advice from a phone, that was where I headed with video recorder (cell phone) in tow.

After a couple of minutes of recording, the tornado sirens started going off, which was certainly interesting if not noisy. The sirens ended up going for about five or six minutes, and although the thunderstorms continued for a couple of hours with lots ground shaking thunder and lightning, high winds, and lots of rain -- no tornado's ever formed.

I'm sure for the folks that live in tornado country, none of this terribly exciting, but since this was my first time hearing the sirens and all, I thought it was kind of neat. I even spliced together a couple of videos and put it on YouTube, which you can see below. My cell phone doesn't record well in the dark, so the picture isn't great, however I think the sounds of the sirens, rain, and some of the thunder came out really well. Oh, and if you do give it a watch, the sirens start around the 2:30 mark.

Thanks for taking a moment (or two) to look at my page.