Payday Friday... Bumped to Saturday

 So Payday Friday got pushed off to Saturday this week... not insomuch that I got paid on Saturday... just that I didn't get to Goodwill until Saturday morning. It was absolutely NOT the most exciting trip I've ever made to Goodwill, but there were a handful of highlights.

First a handful of Little Golden Books made it home. None of these are vintage, but let me explain:

I've decided that any Pixar properties in Golden Book Format (as long as it is a straight movie adaptation for the most part) will be coming home. I love the in-house style they use for the Pixar Golden books. It looks retro and stylish and is bursting with color... and well, it's Pixar. So Toy Story made it into my purchase for .99 cents. 

These are interesting because they are Chick-Fil-A premiums. Now, I am no huge fan of Chick-Fil-A with their recent public shenanigans. I don't believe that brands should pretend to be people with opinions on political, social, religious, or personal affairs. BUT I found it interesting that a fast food franchise had decided to distribute Little Golden books as premiums, even if they're nothing terribly old. 

There are 7 in the set, though sad to say I could only dig up 2 looking through the books at Goodwill. I would have loved to have brought home Rumpelstiltskin or The Nutcracker... or the whole set of 7. At .99 cents apiece, I wouldn't have minded. 

Here's a Choose Your Own Adventure from 2007 updating a book from the 80's with some big full color illustrations. It was also .99 cents. 

It's fun for me as a collector, seeing some of the stuff they did with the series to try and keep it current. 

Here's a collection of Star Trek stories from 1976 The New Voyages. I'm not a huge Star Trek fan, but thought this looked interesting. I have enough of an appreciation of the series to enjoy this collection. For .99 cents I didn't feel the risk was too great. 

The crown jewel of this trip was this pair of Great Muppet Caper glasses from McDonalds, circa 1981. I always cruise the glassware aisle in the specific hope of finding glasses like these. My Holy Grail would be a set of Goonies glasses, but I'll settle for any character glasses really, including the original McDonald-Land gang. I've taken three different shots so you guys can see all the way around them. These were .99 cents apiece. 

So that's it for this week's haul. With my Goodwil discount card, I got out for under seven dollars. Not my most exciting discoveries, but I got to add to a couple of my book collections, and found a couple of really nice vintage McDonalds Glasses. Not bad in the end. 

I'll be back soon with more Goodwill Goodies. Until then, Happy Hunting!

Geektastic Goodwill Literature

So I'm still currently reading Cherie Priest's "Boneshaker" which is pretty addictive now that I'm into the thick of the story. But I'm always thinking ahead to the next book. As you all may or may not know, I buy a lot of books from Goodwill. Every trip I make into Goodwill, regardless of whatever else I may discover, no matter what else I may bring home with me... there are always books. 

So I thought I would start focusing a bit on books I've found at Goodwill that Geeks should read. These are the classics that if you want to consider yourself a card-carrying member of the Geekist society... you may want to be familiar with at least the Cliff's Notes. 

Up first are two volumes in Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga. There are something like 17 books or so in the entire collection of Elric books by Moorcock, and these two volumes collect the first 6. Elric of Melnibone, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, and The Weird of the White Wolf are all together in Part 1. The Sleeping Sorceress, The Bane of the Black Sword, and Stormbringer are the books collected in Part 2. 

I have in fact actually read the first of these two collections, and I genuinely enjoyed the books therein. This is my first exposure to Moorcock's novels, though I understand he has a body of work that is incredibly deep and complex, weaving his various stories together (even those not involving Elric) into a tapestry about his Eternal Warrior concept. 

But leaving all that behind for a moment, I just want to talk about my experience reading these first three Elric novels, with no strings attached, and no previous knowledge to fall back on. 

My first observation is this: Michale Moorcock, in these first three novels has such a deep understanding of his character that he sometimes has a hard time getting that across to the reader. We know what sets Elric apart from the common people of the world he inhabits, but understanding his motivations and empathizing with him is sometimes hard. But for all of that, Elric is truly a great character, and the reader enjoys reading about his exploits, and has no trouble rooting for him, even when his moral compass takes a few dips into gray area.

My second is this: It is OBVIOUS how much of an influence Moorcock's writing had on Role-playing games like TSR's original Dungeons and Dragons supplements. People point at Tolkein and Howard a lot when they site the influences of D&D... but Moorcock's Elric with his magic use, and environments, and intelligent magical weapons, and plane-hopping, and several other elements... is just so completely a catalyst for role-playing as we know it. And I love that about it. It almost deepens the experience for me in a pilgrim-visiting-the-holy-land sort of way. You can very clearly see the bloodline of outsider D&D heroes like Drizz't Do Urden tracing directly back to Elric of Melnibone. 

If you love Pulp Fantasy, you will love Michael Moorckock's Elric novels. I am already dying to get my hands on the next couple of volumes in this collection, and I haven't even started the second one yet! I paid 2.99 for each of these books. 

Next we have Richard Bach's Illusions "The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah". This book is one that blew my mind and broadened my word view, and made me realize that the concept of "religion" vs. "faith" is a tricky, tricky thing. 

Illusions is almost all about belief and perception, and how our faith should not be in just some higher power... but in our own personal reality and our own personal effect on it... to the point where that can be a religion unto itself. The funny thing about this book is it reads very much like a modern tale of fantasy, with a couple of small-time pilots who drift from town to town meeting and having a very-similar-to-magic sort of effect on each other. There's nothing preachy or pushy about it. It's simply stated and well characterized, and makes you think without forcing you to think one simple thought. 

If the name Richard Bach sound familiar, it may be because you've read his other slightly more famous book, Jonothan Livingston Seagull. And the weird thing about it is... it's the same story. Except one is more openly metaphysical and about sea-gulls, where the other is about a couple of barn stormers. 

Our narrator "Richard" meets reluctant messiah David Shimota, who he enters into a sort of student/teacher relationship with. He finds out why David is a reluctant messiah, and why he's become jaded with his duties. They help each other grow past some issues, and David ends up following a pretty typical path expected of a messiah who challenges the world to think past its fears and innate need for personal limitations. 

I actually read this book back in high school, and have read it 2 or 3 times again since then. It never feels old or irrelevant to my experiences. I found the copy I currently own at Goodwill in hardcover for 1.99. 

I'll be back real soon with more Goodwill Goodies! Until then, dear readers, Happy Hunting!

Imaginext Jungle... Found in the Wild: Kids Go Without in the Interest of Geekiness

So here's a Goodwill find I made shortly before Christmas. It's the Imaginext Gorilla Mountain Playset. It was found for 1.99 completely sans accessories. 

Aaaand... full disclosure my original plan was to give it to my boys to play with. But as I was scrubbing the thing down (I may love Goodwill but I don't love the filth that can sometimes be found on the things you buy from Goodwill. I want to bring geekiness home... not cholera.) I started to have second thoughts. 

I had an idea... since I've moved into the new house, and I set up the cave, I haven't had room to display my Indiana Jones Adventure Hero figures. They're cute versions of almost all the important characters (The only really major omissions being the villain Toht from Raiders and ally Marcus Brody) from the 4 movies. 

The more I looked at this playset... the more I realized I was going to keep it to do this: 

There... that's better.

I'm pretty happy with it, overall. I even stuck a few other critters and characters in there for flavor. 

My Final Word on Christmas: The Christmas Haul

Okay guys, so this is going to be a long one. It's the final Christmas Haul wrap-up, and I've got some ground to cover. I want to high-light the cream of the crop of the gifts I received this year. 

First up I'll start with some of the gifts I got from my wife. This new belt for one. It is kickin' and it juuuust fits me, and clamping shut around my girth instead of buckling like a traditional belt. It's made of seat-belt material and it is incredible. The 6 Marvel greats are all in attendance, including Thor, Wolverine, Iron  Man, Cap America, Hulk and Spider-Man. 

Next up is this beautiful "Crows of 2013" calendar. I am a big blackbird fan, and my wife surprised me with this collection of gorgeous shots of crows throughout the 12 months of the year. 

  

No Christmas is complete without the arbitrary DVDs found at Black Friday. These were all movies I told my wife she ought to pick up if she found them on the cheapie-cheap while she was out that infamous morning. 

This one was all her idea. Now I'm torn: Do I buy season 2 on DVD to have the whole collection? Or do I just skip it and wait for season 3 to come out? What would you do? 

This set of Toy Story Hotwheels cars will make a nice addition to my wall of pop-culture cars. I really like the ones where the packaging features the large, blown-up pictures of the characters. I need to see if I can find a Buzz Lightyear somewhere. 

Next up are the gifts I was given by my wife's cousin and her husband. They are the closest family we have on my wife's side, and we always do a Christmas-after-Christmas with them. This skeleton couple cuddling is and awesome addition to the cave. They also gave me a bobbling "dashboard zombie" too but I couldn't seem to find it in time to get a good photo. Odds are its in a box somewhere waiting for me to set it loose on an unsuspecting Geek Cave. 

Back in 2010 io9.com chose Cherie Priest's steampunk zombie thriller "Boneshaker" as their Book Club choice for June. This Christmas, 2012, I finally held a copy of this book in my hands. I'm reading it now, and it's been great so far. Full of zombies and zeppelins, the story is so character driven it never feels like the author is going: "Hey look! Steampunk! Gears and stuff!" or "Hey look! Zombie book! Grr! Argh!" It's been a genuinely good read. What's funny is how it almost reads like a post-apocalypse story in the Civil War era.  Can't wait to see how it ends. 

Another gift from my wife is a Blu ray player I still haven't taken out of the box. I'm slowly succumbing to the pressure to convert... and admittedly she only bought it for me because I dropped a few hints here and there that I wanted one... and it will play my DVDs so I don't know what my problem is. I'm just dragging my feet. But the only Blu ray movie I received for Christmas was... kind of ironically I feel... V/H/S. It is a great movie, and I actually look forward to it being my first Blu-ray experience. 

Of course one of the best gifts I received this Christmas was this 23 disc collection containing all ten seasons of the classic TMNT cartoon series, plus a butt-load of special features, obviously including THE KICK-ASS VAN THEY COME IN!!! I don't really need to over-talk this one, do I? Probably not. Moving on. 

From my Aunt, I received a passel of cool gifts as well. This Jack Skellington statue completes my Halloween Shelf in a way I have always wanted it to:

See? Perfect. 

If you have not read Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist series... stop what you are doing, and go out and buy the first three books, and lock yourself in your home until they are all read. This is the third one in the series, "The Isle of Blood". What's incredible about these books is how one moment you can be marveling over the gore and questioning the nature of monsters vs. the nature of humanity... and the next you are swept up in the human emotions and relationships that build the true foundation of this series. It details the cases investigated by a Jack-the-Ripper era (this is semi-significant) Massachusetts scientist who hunts monsters, and his young... ward? apprentice? assistant? live-in slave? surrogate son? It's one of the most important questions of the books. 

A few DVDs from my Aunt as well. After I saw Jaime over at ShezCrafti feature a DVD collection of Roseanne Halloween specials this past Halloween season, I decided I had to have one. But I now notice that mine has 8 episodes, where hers had 7 (not that I'm counting). I'm not sure how to reconcile this. Apparently mine has the episode "Satan, Darling". So mine is obviously better than hers. I got Child's Play because I didn't own it yet, and I wanted it... so now I have it. 

Heinberg's Young Avengers were at one time, one of my favorite new Marvel books. his return to his creation was a bit of a disappointment, though I did enjoy it for the most part. This was mostly Heinberg being tasked with undoing the Scarlet Witch's villainous House of M debacle. But there were some fun moments, and a character I liked who lost his powers during the decimation finally got them back. I just wish a couple of my other favorites had slipped under the wire at the same time. Overall I don't hate this book, but I'm glad I received it as a gift and didn't spend my own money on it. 

This amazingly cute little guy was swimming around in my Christmas stocking. He's real tuff. 

My daughter shopped her school penny sale for my gifts, and she did all right by me. First up is this Christmas Story night-light. For... a penny. Isn't it great? Look at the craftsmanship! 

She also gave me this incredible rubber monster. It is honestly another of my absolute favorite gifts this year. He's glorious. He's magnificent. LOOK AT HIM. 

Here he is with the other gift my daughter got me... an almost complete set of Scooby Gang action figures. I'm going to track down a Shaggy to round them out. They are obviously feeling the menace roiling off of the rubber beastie to their right (our left). 

And finally... the BEST gift I received this Christmas, is the new iPod 4 I got from my wife. I can now snap surreptitious photos at Goodwill when there are items I want to share without actually bringing them home. I. Can't. Wait. This iPod is my new eye-stealing life sucker too. There on the screen you may notice my new favorite game, "Knights of Pen and Paper" which has taken over most of my free time. 

Phew. That's it. It's over. That's what I got for Christmas. What do you think? I think I was spoiled out of my mind... and I think I am a very lucky man to have family and friends that care enough to get me such great loot and put it under the tree. 

Anyway... Christmas is now done. No more Christmas on this blog until next Christmas. Which is a while off yet. In the meantime, I'll be back soon with more Goodwill Goodies. Until then, Happy Hunting! 

LoeB Topic: Cowboys! (Probably the Least Macho Cowboys EVER)

It's League of Extraordinary Bloggers time once again! I missed out on last weeks one word topic: "Spies" but this week I'm back in the saddle for:

"Cowboys"

 So... I didn't feel like I could participate in last week's topic because... well I don't have any spy stuff... I don't know any good spy movies or spy books (I know of James Bond... but I've not seen any movies, except Casino Royale, the new one, and I didn't get into it... and I own one copy of one James Bond book... but I don't feel like I could feature it on here). I own not one single spy toy, or spy item that I have picked up from Goodwill. So... no spies for me. 

So when I saw that this week's topic was cowboys, I got excited, because who doesn't have something to do with cowboys laying around right? Who doesn't own a few western DVDs, or a Louis L'Amour novel or something... 

Well... apparently I don't. It occurs to me that I don't really do westerns... western comics, western TV shows... western anything. So I started scouring the cave... looking to see what there was for cowboy toys. I had to have something in there. And... I did find some stuff. Some of it has already been featured on here before. Like:

This guy... who I featured in a post back in August. He's a genuine Goodwill find, and one of the few I'm going to show today. Now that Hostess has gone under there is a certain poignancy in The Twinkie Kid's appearance here. Not enough though. I had to keep looking. There was also this cowboy filled graphic novel: 

Rapunzel's Revenge, which I also featured back in August. It's a rootin'-tootin' good time that takes the classic fairy tale and places it in the western environment. A pretty incredible read actually, and probably more than just a little bit the inspiration for the Disney movie, "Tangled". This was a Goodwill find as well. 

But as I got looking around the rest of the cave, I realized the painful truth: There was a disturbing dearth in the cowboy department. 

I did manage to find some though... and here they are: 

A pair of Woody and Jessie Toy Story 2 PEZ dispensers. They look like they're straight off the shelf of Woddy's Round-Up Merch from the movie. 

Toy Story Buddies! I have featured these guys before on the blog as well, but right now I'm just going to focus on the famous cowgirl and boy, with their trusty steed Bullseye. I also wanted the shark who ended up with Woody's hat to get a little face time to. Look! He's a cowboy! Howdy-howdy-howdy! I have an Old Prospector "Stinky Pete" figure, but I forgot to stick him in there... so meh. 

This picture is to feature yet another Woody toy I own, this one from the Hotwheels Toy Story Action Pack set that was released for the first movie. The set came with R.C., Woody, Buzz, and Babyface (the creepy doll-headed-erector-set-spider-thing from under Sid's bed). I left the Buddy-Series Woody in there for scale.  

Probably the most blatantly cowboy-style character from the Star Wars Universe... Cad Bane! I'm not a big fan of new the new Star Wars stuff so far... but some of the new show hasn't been awful... and I absolutely adore some of the designs for some of the newer villains like Darth Maul, General Grievous, and this guy. 

These dangerous-looking outlaws I'm not going to say too much about because they're really only here as a sort of preview for an upcoming post about a larger Goodwill find. But hey... a cowboy and his trusty steed. Can't beat that right? Even if he is an 8 foot tall primrose-yellow bird. And here is the closest thing I think I will ever own to a Buster the Horse figure (Forgetful Jones's trusty steed)... although he might serve better as Whatshisname. He's not quite the right shade of brown for either... So I think he's meant to be a generic Sesame Street Muppet Horse:

But a fella can dream. 

Probably my favorite find (and my favorite photo from this post) in among my many treasures are these two plastic cowboy figures, which I keep on a knick-knack shelf above my desk:

Play "Where're The Cowboys"!

I love the toys on this shelf, as they are mostly all cheap in nature, and the sort of toys you would find abandoned at the bottom of a toy-box. These guys also remind me of the artwork of Chris Cosnowski for I guess what are pretty obvious reasons... I am just this moment realizing the red cowboy from above is featured in one of his paintings:

So here's the complete cowboy collection in all it's glory... which isn't much glory, I'll admit... but I couldn't find my copy of Quigley Down Under on DVD... and this is what you get when you throw a one word topic at me, League:

This is where I went with "Cowboys" now go see what some of the other League Members Posted!

- Rich over at Fortune and Glory (Days) is all about the Spaghetti Westerns in movie and video game form!

- Jaime at ShezCrafti shares an oldie-but-goody Disney Musical short about the basic needs of all cowboys. 

- I'll gladly meet Shawn from Branded in the 80's at high noon for a shoot out to see who gets to walk away with his awesome vintage Lone Ranger action figures! 

- Hobgoblin of Monster Cafe fame waxes nostalgic about the classic silver-screen cowboys, and the Lone Ranger's masked visage makes another appearance. 

That's it for this post folks, but I'll be back with more Goodwill Goodies soon... so until then, Happy Hunting!