A Package From the Trash Man!

So on the exact same day that my package from Miss M arrived, ANOTHER awesome package from another of my Podcasting comrades (and honestly one of my very best friends) Brian Farrell, of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame, arrived! 

So here's a preliminary glance at the contents of said package. But as usual, we shall plumb these depths together! Dive! Dive! 

Brian knows that I am an educated gentleman of some distinction. So he always includes reading materials that will educate and elucidate. In this case, he sent me a Choose Your Own Adventure gaming book, "Return to the Cave of Time" (which is the 50th book in the series, and a sequel to the very first book in the series, "The Cave of Time") AND "HOBGOBLIN," a HORROR NOVEL that combines HALLOWEEN and ROLEPLAYING GAMES. This has given me an idea for next year's Halloween countdown... Let's just see if I actually remember to carry through with this plan as next October creeps towards us. 

Included were these licensed books as well! Check out this awesome vintage Go Bots coloring book! Brian knows my INTENSE loyalty to the Bots. I think it's mostly due to the fact that I realized as an adult that all the toys I owned as a kid and loved, and had been told were Transformers... were actually GoBots. So they're what I know. 

I have a very clear and distinct memory of my Grandmother buying me a Turbo as a kid (one of the red car robots) and breaking him on the way home from the store, She exasperatedly turned the car around and exchanged him for a new one, which I got all the way home before breaking him a second time, at which point my Grandmother told me I was s**t out of luck. 

I know that I got Baron Von Joy, Leader 1, and Flip-Top as gifts at some point... and I think Future Machine. And of course I had (and LOVED) a crap-ton of Rock Lords, which I may have mentioned in passing once or twice or a MILLION times. 

Another toyline I was obsessed with back in the 80s was the California Raisins! I loved the Raisins. I had their cassettes, I had their Commodore 64 video game, I watched their clay-mated Christmas special and actual please-buy-raisins-to-eat-them-PLEASE commercials with a kind of rabid fanaticism I can only describe as "Intense". I also had a veritable army of the PVC figurines put out by applause. I did not however, EVER own a California Raisins comic book (put out by Blackthorne Comics in the late 80's) which had me nearly peeing my pants when I pulled it out of the box! 

Also in the package were these They Might Be Giants cassettes! FLOOD is probably one of if not THE ONE favorite album put out by TMBG for me. With songs like "Birdhouse in Your Soul," "Particle Man," "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," "We Want a Rock," and the self-titular "They Might Be Giants," you really can't go wrong with this one. 

Apollo 18 is not as EPIC in scope, but the cover art is AMAZING and with songs like "I Palindrome I," "Spider," "Dinner Bell," "Which Describes How You're Feeling," and "Hypnotist of Ladies," you definitely get some hardcore TMBG classics. 

Now we're into the toys! Going from right to left (as people do...) we have a Big Boy Caprice action figure from the Dicky Tracy line put out by Playmates in 1990! I really enjoy this line, probably more than I liked the actual movie itself. I mainly liked the hideously deformed villains in the line, like Lips Manlis, Flattop, The Brow, Rodent, Pruneface, and of course, everyone's favorite, Steve the Tramp. I basically used these guys as extra villains for my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to fight. Big Boy here is one I never actually had as a kid. But boy does he look swank on my shelf next to Flattop! 

On the left we has Sully from the Spinmasters line put out (I believe) to promote Monsters University. I am a BIG fan of the first Monsters film, Monsters Inc. And this figure is deee-luxe! Take a look at him compared to the Happy Meal version of the character: 

And you can see why I'm struggling with whether I should toss my old Sully for this one (I settled on keeping them both because I am a hoarder and will most likely be found dead under a giant pile of collapsed toy shelves someday... IF I'M LUCKY!!!) 

Next up... THESE guys. I've already gushed over the California Raisins, so that giant bendy guy should come as no real surprise as something I would love.

The Ronald McDonald hijacking a United Airlines plane is also a gem, as I love random cross-pollination of brandings when it comes to my Happy Meal toys! I've seen message boards that claim back in the mid-to-late 90's these were served in-flight First Class in branded McDonald's Happy Meals. Other sources say they were from restaurants in the airports. I want to believe these were given out on the plane, as a bizarre version of a kids' mile-high club.

But let's all face facts: The real star of this picture is that carded Ms. Pac Man toy from Tomy, circa 1982. That s**t is the BOMB. "Wind her up and she gulps, gobbles, and wiggles around. She's got cute little shoes and the biggest mouth in town," Now THAT is a write-up my friends!!! Once again, I will remind everyone that I wrote my very personal feelings about Ms. Pac Man in a post on this very blog about two years back... and I will leave it at that.

 Finally, we have these guys. I think these may top the list of favorite items in the box, believe it or not. These, for your information, are two action figures from the old 80s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons line. The tallest and blondest of the lot is Northlord, who was a giant (literally a giant, that was his race) barbarian. He was one of the "Battle Masters" of the line. I've seen pictures of this guy with all of his included gear, and have to admit I prefer him the way he looks above. The helmet he originally had looks a bit silly in my opinion. The horny short guy is a dwarf named Elkhorn. The dino on the far right is not actually from the same toy line. He's a hollow plastic dinosaur from Marvel Trading Corp. There was a whole series of these put out, but this is by FAR the most gorgeous one of the line. Look at his color! Look at his eye! He actually looks like a perfect fit to fight these brave warriors. Here's a look at my entire AD&D action figure collection, including some of the solid rubber monsters I've collected as well:

 They really put out some fantastic (and fantastically weird!) toys for this line back in the day!

A big HUGE thank you to Brian for the great package! Be sure to check out his site at Pop Pop It's Trash Culture, check out his Facebook Page for the site, and be sure to listen to us say witty and amazing things to each other (and our friends Miss M and Jason) on the Eclectic Mayhem podcast!

Welp! That's it for tonight kids! And probably that's it for September! I'll be dropping one more post the day after tomorrow for October Eve, and then with October 1st I will be full-on into my Halloween countdown for the month. So it might be a while before I'm back with the "Geeky" Goodwill Goodies (at least until November) but I won't be gone, that's for sure. Until I talk to you again kids, Happy Hunting!

My Blog As A Mixtape: A Completely Stolen Idea

This used to be a blog where I would occasionally just talk about stuff I like from time to time. For a while I felt like I had to do that in a whole separate blog, and I even stopped writing this one for period of time because of how I felt I "had" to produce content for Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks.

BUT.

I would like this to get back to being a place where I talk about more than just the stuff I bought this week, or stuff someone sent me in the mail. I want to put more of the "Geek" back in "Goodwill Geek" and with that in mind... I've found an interesting topic that is arguably blog related (because it is) but also just stuff I like that I want to talk about.

And that topic is this:

Image courtesy of Joie Fatale

"What would your blog sound like if it was a Mix Tape? 

Five songs on side A, and Five on B."

So back in May of last year, Steph over at Nerdjoy posted something awesome (she does this a LOT actually, so be sure to check out the rest of her blog too... but this particular instance informs the post you are about to read, so I'm singling that one out). She answered the question above. It was a question originally posited by Joie Fatale over at the Confessions of a Book Pimp blog, but it was through Steph that I discovered the idea.

Mixtapes were a HUGE deal for me back in highschool. I made them for ALL of my friends. I would make myself twenty or so just to listen to in the car, and I would carefully select tracks based on the kind of mood I was trying to achieve. I put a ton of thought into them, and I would often use collectible art cards as "cover art" for my mix tapes, taping them to the front of the liner notes, inside the case.

Might be why THIS resonated so strongly with me...

Making a mixtape that would represent my blog seemed like an awesome challenge that I wanted to try. So I sat down and thought about it. One really obvious song popped into my mind immediately. The rest I really had to go looking for. I discovered one of my new favorite songs by searching for songs for this mixtape. I want to clarify of course that this mixtape is supposed to represent the mood, philosophy, aesthetic, etc. of the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks blog. It is only meant to represent my musical tastes filtered through this blog. If I were making a mixtape for a friend with all my favorite music on it... I might go with a completely different 10 songs for instance.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

Below I have listed the songs, posted a video to accompany each one, and given a few brief reasons for why each was selected. I hope you don't hate them.

- Side A -

1. "Thrift Shop" - Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

This one was the one... I mean ONE no-brainer for this list. I have sort of adopted this song as a theme for my blog anyway. Making thrift-shopping cool in a song? Yes please.

2. "Raspberry Beret" - Prince

They're not allowed to have this song on Youtube
so I found this picture that I think may have inspired Prince to write the song.

Now, I went with SEVERAL different Prince songs before settling on this one. I almost went with "Starfish and Coffee" just because it's so fun and upbeat. But ultimately I settled on Beret because it's one of my favorites from back in high school. I actually went so far as to name a role-playing character from Vampire: The Masquerade "Raspberry Beret". But ultimately (eye roll) it was the mention of a second-hand store in the lyrics that made me slap my forehead and add this one.

3."Birdhouse In Your Soul" - They Might Be Giants

Again, this is another band that had too many songs to count that I wanted to include. I could almost make an entire mixtape out of only TMBG songs to represent this blog... but I didn't want that. I VERY NEARLY went with "Seven Days of the Week (I Never Go To Work)" (and also the Mesopotamians, I'm Impressed, Dr. Worm, Man It's So Loud In Here, and ROY G. BIV) but I just love Birdhouse here so much more. It's been my favorite for longer and has such an upbeat message that I HAD to include it. Ignore the intentionally confusing video and just focus on the lyrics.

4. "Everything is Awesome" - Tegan and Sara

Because the LEGO movie was amazing, and this song is incredibly fun and everything IS awesome. That's why.

5. "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" - Annie Lennox and Al Green

So this one I picked because I wanted something that made me think of the holidays without being an overt Christmas song. This one comes from the movie Scrooged, and as 80's supernatural comedies starring Bill Murray go, this one's a winner. I'm justifying not having anything Halloween-y on here (Like say... "Ghostbusters") because of this song from one of my favorite Creepmas classics.

As the uplifting swell you got from "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" starts to die down... you hear the tape-player click as it automatically switches directions and begins to play:

- Side B -

6. "Lonely Little Thrift Store" - Jonathan Richman

I am literally only aware of this song thanks to this blog post. I was curious to see if there were any other songs about thrift shopping, or antique stores, or secondhand stores out there that were also in ANY way worth listening to. And I stumbled upon this song about a lonely little thrift store. 

As tasteless as it is, I can't help but count: 

"Well the avocado green appliances/

with the smell of domestic violences/

and the dusty Farberware/

and the rusty dinette chair..." 

as one of my favorite and most surprising lyrics ever written. Awful... I know. But you have a pretty distinct image in your head now, don't you?

7. "Hooked on a Feeling" - Blue Swede

Yes I am obsessed with Guardians of the Galaxy. But there's more to it than that. This song also screams "Reservoir Dogs" at me, and that memory is more deeply ingrained in my membrane than my fondness for Chris Elliot being brutalized in an alien prison is. The Reservoir Dogs ST was one of my MAIN draws for mixtape fodder in highschool. Soundtracks almost always were. (Great Expectations, The Crow, Pulp Fiction, Batman Forever, the list goes on and on for weird soundtracks with hidden gems amongst the track lists). Aaaaand... it also just happens to be in the Guardians of the Galaxy, which doesn't hurt. (But damned if there wasn't a bit of aural inspiration given to GotG's Awesome Mix, taken directly from Tarentino's own playlists).

8. "Frank Sinatra" - Cake

Cake is one of those weird bands that I played to DEATH. There's just not enough trumpet rock out there IMO. I had a hard time picking a song by them too... but finally settled on one that always evoked hauntingly clear pictures:

"We know of an ancient radiation

That haunts dismembered constellations,

A faintly glimmering radio station.

While Frank Sinatra sings Stormy Weather,

The flies and spiders get along together,

Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record. 

Beyond the suns that guard this roof,

Beyond your flowers of flaming truths,

Beyond your latest ad campaigns,

An old man sits collecting stamps

In a room all filled with Chinese lamps.

He saves what others throw away.

He says that he'll be rich some day."

Sounds like someone I'm growing old into.  

9. "On My Way" - Rusted Root

I desperately wanted to find a video clip of this song being played in the movie "Ice Age". I really liked this song back when it originally came out. It's a feel-good song. But it perfectly illustrates one of the things I loved the most about the very first Ice Age film: It was quirky and unexpected and ultimately it made you feel good without being too manic. This song appearing in a kid's movie exactly a DECADE after it was released as a popular song was bizarre and unexpected... but it fit the movie perfectly. I love this song for its carefree feeling but I kind of hate this video because it makes the band look like a bunch of douchey idiots dancing on rocks and hopping around like they're being spontaneous when they're really just not. And of course now they use it as a Rental Car company's theme... but I forgive it.

10. "The Rainbow Connection" - The Muppets (2011)

And I'm going to end the mixtape on the Muppets. I love this version of the song because of the way it builds and includes so many members of the cast. I almost went with "It's Not Easy Being Green" but I wanted something with a little more oomph, a little more pizzazz, a little more excitement to the lyrics. "Rainbow Connection" while still feeling a little wistful, is definitely the more upbeat of the two numbers.

So that's it! I thought this was a fantastic idea, and so I chose to grab it and run with it. I hope if you're a blogger, and you're reading this, that you'll do the same! I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies another time... so until then Happy Hunting!

Quick Stop Books: From Troma Films to Teen Titans

I popped into Goodwill for a Quick Stop last week and am just now getting around to blogging about it. It was a better haul than I'm used to picking up in a Quick Stop, which is usually just a sort of drive-by for me where I skim the toy section, the book section, and then run for it with anything I find. 

So I found a nice pile of books, and even a handful of toys, but I'm just going to focus on the books first. I'll drop a post on here about the toys tomorrow or the next day.

First up is this awesome book All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned From the Toxic Avenger which looks like an EXCELLENT READ. From Class of Nuke'em High to Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD I love a good, trashy Troma flick. I was incredibly excited to find this book. This was 1.99.

Bed Bed Bed is actually the second They Might Be Giants book I've found for cheap recently. The other one is a book called KIDS GO! which I found at Mardens (a salvage and surplus store chain here in Maine). I am a huge TMBG fan from way back when so having books based on their works just makes me happy. I paid .99 cents for this, but the CD was missing from the back (which is okay because I already have the music that would have been included).

Next up a newer Dragonlark: Dragon Day Choose Your Own Adventure book that looked cute. I have a couple of the more recent, more fully illustrated books from this series that I've picked up at Goodwill. .99 cents.

This was a treat to find for me, because even though I am really not even a little bit of a manga fan (or manga-style fan) I am a fan of Adam Warren. He did a great mini-series for Marvel a few years back called "Livewires" and the art style didn't set my teeth on edge. The writing was clever and I loved the hyper-technology he introduced in that story. So when I discovered this Elseworlds version of the Teen Titans by Warren: "Scissors, Paper, Stone" I was interested to see his take. It was a nice surprise, and a great, short read, and since I paid .99 cents for the book I was not disappointed! 

As I've mentioned before, I like the Muppets, I like Golden Books, and I pretty much don't mind if they're not vintage as long as its a Holiday book I don't already own. So this Ho-Ho-Ho Baby Fozzie book made it home for .99 cents without having to think too hard about it. 

Another excellent find was this sometimes considered controversial Player's Option: Combat and Tactics book for the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition (or 2.5 edition, depending on which geek you ask). I LOVE finding role-playing books at Goodwill! I paid 2.99 for this book, but definitely felt it was worth it. 

The New Walt Disney Treasury: 10 Favorite Stories from Golden Books from 1971. I really like the look and feel of the book and its illustrations. Here are a handful of shots from the interior: 

Another excellent find for just 1.99. I'm really not a collector of anything classic Disney, but I really wanted this book. 

Well, that's it for the books from my most recent Quick-Stop. I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon, as I still have some toys from the same trip to share!