Not Dead... Just not Blogging Much Right Now

It has been... a rough year so far. And I don't mean the "Man it sucks that David Bowie and Prince died..." kind of rough (although aaarrrggghhh!!!). I mean the "Wow, I may be changing absolutely everything about my life in the next few months and my entire future is uncertain..." kind of rough.

My collection has taken a major hit as my lifestyle has changed, and so has the cave. I would say I have dumped a good 65% of the collection that once stood here in the Goodwill Geek Cave. My trips to Goodwill have dropped off significantly. In fact, in the past almost-four-months I only started going back out thrifting in maybe the last two weeks or so at all.

If you've been following my Instagram account, you'll know that I've certainly still been collecting toys (I know it's lazy blogging to just screen capture my Instagram pics and repost them here... but I'm cutting myself some slack... Please follow suit.):

I've certainly been adding more Funk POPS! to my current collection. Roller-Derby Harley Quinn, April O'Neil, Snakeyes, Cobra Commander, Ms. Pac-Man, FN-2187, Watson, and Sherlock all came home within the last month or so. Other recent additions not pictured here: Pinhead, Twisty the Clown (from American Horror Story: Freakshow), and the Crow. 

My daughter and I have started collecting Tsum Tsum toys together. These little guys are addictive! She loves them and there are characters that I consider must-haves like Perry the Platypus, Eeyore, Stitch, and Baymax. Since I had a HUUUUGe crush on the Little Mermaid when I was younger, I wanted hers, and Dumbo, the Chesire Cat and Bing-Bong were too cool upon noticing them that I decided I NEEDED them. The classic Disney characters like Minnie, Mickey, and Goofy don't really do much for me, and neither does Olaf from Frozen... but I gotta have complete stacks of three. It's a weird thing for me with these toys. Also not pictured are recent additions, Hiro (Big Hero 6), Flounder, and Scrump (Lilo's doll from Lilo & Stitch)

I'm more in love with these two new Bebop and Rocksteady action figures from the new movie line than I care to admit. I genuinely feel like these are the Bebop and Rocksteady that we DESERVED on the Nicktoon. The Nicktoon and I are not currently speaking anyway. My interest dropped off intensely when the Turtles took off into space and left behind everything they've spent the last few seasons developing. I am in no way interested in seeing either of the recent live-action TMNT movies, but I'm developing a taste for nice looking action figures based on moves I have no intention of seeing (more on this later).

I like the new Force Awakens Galactic Heroes figures from Hasbro. They don't go well with my classic Galactic Heroes figures from years ago... but I don't feel like they all need to interact anyway. New generation of Star Wars heroes... new generation of minifigures to represent them (not pictured are Captain Phasma and the First Order Stormtrooper figures I also own... and I am still hunting for the Kylo Ren single pack).

I've started a new love affair with Marvel Legends figures too. Until recently, I only owned a handful of figures, mostly gifts from friends or stuff I found at Goodwill. I tracked down a complete set of the Guardians of the Galaxy figures when those came out, but haven't really felt the need beyond those. And then... I got Captain Marvel sometime last year... and then Spider-Man 2099 was a MUST HAVE. And then the beautiful Spider-Gwen! After her, I picked up The Scarlet Witch and Machine Man on clearance. And at this point I own 14 of these things.

I am verrrry selective when it comes to what characters I want to add to the flock however. But I think if they do a 6 inch Spider-Man Noir, I will have to own that puppy.

Also pictured here are a couple of Wonder Woman toys. As I mentioned with Bebop and Rocksteady above, I've been falling in love with some toys that represent movies I have no intention of seeing. All of the Wonder Woman toys from the new Batman vs. Superman lines fall firmly into this category. I love Wonder Woman, and I really love the design of the character in these toys. I even snagged a PEZ dispenser!

I haven't completely lost my will to thrift... I hit the antique mall a couple of times in the past few months, and found some really fun stuff, like these puffy Michale Jackson stickers, and this old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Dragonlance Adventures Hardcover! (I also got REALLY vicious trimming down my roleplaying manual collection... maybe a little too vicious. I'm regretting some of the stuff I dumped... but I think I'll be fine in the long run.) 

I still haven't lost my taste for random crap either! I love this little Teen Titans GO! minifigure pack, and as Poe Dameron demonstrates here, I am still collecting Star Wars Action figures. I picked up the Kroenen and K-9 figures the same day as the puffy stickers and Dragonlance book above.

Even with all the adapting I've been doing to events in my life recently, I've managed to have an adventure or two. I didn't go to Monster Mania in New Jersey this year, even after purchasing my tickets, but I did get to go to a local comic convention in Bangor Maine. 

 It was my very first convention ever, and it was a blast!

 My friend Brandon came along for two reasons: 1) He is a classic game collector! NES, Super NES, Genesis, you name it, and Brandon collects it. I have a weekly date with him at his place where we play old games and bitch about our problems. (I'll fill you in on reason #2 in a bit)

 I loved the geeky photo opportunities! Here I am with the TARDIS and R2-D2.

There were Mandalorians in greater numbers than I expected in attendance...

 As well as different chapters of Ghostbusters.

Brandon was determined to meet Troy "Mini-Me" Verner. The above picture (the best shot I got IMO) is of Troy warning me not to take the picture yet because Brandon's card had not been run through yet. 

 Here's the official, "legal" shot. Brandon had had high hopes that he could get Troy to hang off his arm or sit on his shoulders or something... but he immediately got the vibe that these requests might be frowned upon. I also sneaked a shot of Troy from afar TOTALLY BY ACCIDENT while taking shots of the convention floor.

This booth was magical. It featured several vintage roleplaying game accessories, including the mounts for the Warduke and Strongheart vintage action figures, the "Good Destrier" and "Evil Nightmare" toys. 

I had to physically peel myself away from this table! Of course, when the guy saw me ogling his supplies, he let me know he had a box full of action figures under the table that he would let me pick through (more on that later...).

There was a healthy but-not-overwhelming amount of cosplay. Lots of Whovians because Colin Baker (the 6th Doctor Who) was in attendance... but still a lot of cool costumes and ideas.

I was particularly infatuated with this table of custom designer toys. I was severely tempted to buy this 40 dollar Muck Monster... but ultimately couldn't pull the trigger.

In the end, I walked away with this one eyed fellow from the same table. He was 5 bucks and adorable so he came with me. Limbless as he may be, he helped me wave goodbye to good old Paul Bunyan as I headed to Chili's for lunch with Brandon. 

This was the pile of stuff I ended up bringing home with me from the con... some respectable loot. Some Secret Wars figures, a Robo Cop with his helmet... a Super Powers Flash, a vintage Lando Calrissian, a Sectaurs figure, a Dreadnok, a pile of TPBs and dollar bin comics... AND a Hook Horror action figure to add to my D&D vintage collection!!!

I'm going to end this here because I've already gone way longer than I had planned to. Don't know when I'll be back again... or IF I'll be back again. I'm not going to quit blogging... but in the near future my blogging goals may be changing. My life goals certainly have. We shall see. No promises then, about being back soon with more Goodwill Goodies. But I will certainly still wish you Happy Hunting!

Randomly Received: The Trash Man Giveth

All right... the time has come. I am officially getting ready to delete the content from Really Rather Random Guy (dot blogspot dot com) and in preparing for that, I wanted to import a bunch of the content that I know will then be lost forever, by bringing the posts over here to Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks (dot blogspot dot com). So, with that in mind, I thought I would preface these entries with the fact that they are indeed OLD blog posts from an OLD, now DEFUNCT blog, and cross my fingers and hope that folks will still want to read them.

This post was originally published back on January 23rd, 2014.

I know this budding blog appears to be turning into the repeated tales of a blogger being showered with gifts from folks all over the internet... but these posts are LONG overdue. The folks who sent me all this great stuff really deserve a big thank you, so I'm dedicated to making sure they get it. 

I want to take a moment to thank the Trash Man over at "Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture" for the awesome package he sent me shortly before Christmas this past December. I felt like such a heel because not only did I not get him anything... I snuck into his house and stole his last can of Who-Hash on Christmas night. FYI Trash Man looks like this when he wakes up in the middle of the night:

"...there's a light on this tree that won't light on one side.
So I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear.
I'll fix it up there, then I'll bring it back--
You know what? Just shut up and get back in bed." 

But that is neither here nor there. What IS here? This pile of goody-goody-goodies:

As you can see, he was yet again very generous to me, and intuitive to boot as to what would make me squeal like a little girl with bladder control issues. Let's take a closer look shall we:

First up, Trash Man always knows that one of my greatest weaknesses is Choose Your Own Adventure Books. And so, here we have CYOA #66: Secret of the Ninja. In the same vein, we also have Wizards, Warriors, and You Book 2: The Siege of the Dragonriders. I am a HUGE fan of gaming books in general (gaming books = books that require you to make choices and turn to corresponding pages ala CYOA) and I've never read a WW&Y book before so I am intrigued to be sure. Nothing takes me back to my childhood and/or teen years better than a good gaming book. Nothing says "I have maturity issues" like an overweight 35-year-old reading a CYOA on the bus during his morning commute. Like a BOSS. 

Next up... another particular obsession of mine (of course) Golden Books! And not just any Golden Books, but Darkwing Duck and Sesame Street Golden books! I received two copies of "The Silly Canine Caper" starring Darkwing, and "The Day Snuffy Had the Sniffles". I'm not going to go into great detail over why I've become so obsessed with Golden Books right now, as I have a planned upcoming post about them... but suffice it to say that Trash Man has me dead to rights. Because that's what makes this the hottest blog on the NET. Golden books. 

Probably one of my absolute favorite themes in the package was the small collection of Garbage Pail Kids stuff! Trash Man sent me a pair of vintage GPK buttons featuring Crater Chris and Janet Planet. These are destined for the ceiling of my car where all of my other buttons live. There was also a 4-pack of GPK MiniKins which are sooo reminiscent of the old GPK Cheap Toys (With Crummy Candy) that I've made it my life's mission to own them all. I... don't have a lot of legitimate goals like most people. 

Speaking of... Trash Man also included THIS!!! I'm almost 100% sure it's some sort of bootleg... but that just makes it COOLER. This is Petey Graffiti (or New Wave Dave if you're into that sort of thing) from the old Cheap Toys line in a rubbery yellow that I'm certain the toys were never officially produced in. I'm showing him side-by-side with my flesh-colored Petey (He's not actually smaller... I just suck at scaling photos). The yellow is vaguely reminiscent of something produced by the human body... like phlegm or ear-wax or pus or something vaguely upsetting of that nature. I LOVE IT. 

Next up, Trash Man included a cannister of Trash Pack figurines. My two sons collect these like CRAZY so I actually let them have the figurines while I kept the packaging for myself. While I do have a handful of these of my own... I can't afford to go whole-hog into collecting them or I will literally drive my wife insane. But I appreciate their pedigree, to be sure, with ancestors (or at least inspiration) including Madballs and MUSCLE Things certainly. They're like the bastard descendents of Monster in My Pocket and Garbage Pail Kids. They are a welcome addition to my family, THAT'S for sure. 

Here you see a set of ghosts with the most! The two viloently purple and orange fellows in the front are a pair of Real Ghostbusters toys from when I was a kid. These are actually spring loaded traps that bite down on Ray, Egon and the others. Open their mouths to set them and then touch their tongues to snap the trap. I used to torture myself as a kid by snapping them on my fingers repeatedly. I was some sort of pain freak at an early age. Man those suckers left a mark on my knuckles. ANYWAY. Then we have Beetlejuice there in the middle. I remember Trash Man posting about this guy on his own blog at one point, and being fiercely jealous of him. Now he's MINE. This is Beetlejuice from the animated series, and he appears to be "snake-charming" a Sandworm. I love this rubber figurine with a fearsome passion that rivals the love of a mama bear and her cubs. Is that weird? It doesn't feel weird. It feels RIGHT.

Probably the most AMAZING item to come out of that box was this INTACT piece of glassware. Another of my fatal flaws is a deep love for all things McDonaldLand, and the collector's glasses are a HUGE piece of that. GRIMACE YOU GUYS. I don't even care that he seems creepily somnambulant in this image, in a sort of "I'm approaching you like a Romero Zombie but with NOSTALGIA" kind of way... I love this glass with every fiber of my being. I actually know right this moment where I can go and find a Hamburglar glass for 3 dollars... and now that I own Grimace and Ronald... I may need to make the 1.5 hour pilgrimage out to buy it sometime this weekend. Or actually next weekend. 

After I get paid. 

And I get permission from my wife. 

This motley trio from left to right: Plutor from the Trash Bag Bunch, a Two-Face vehicle Happy Meal premium, and a Battle Beast that has been painted in some sort of bizarre black and gray camouflage pattern. I was convinced at first that the guy on the far left was a Z-Bot to begin with... and it turns out I was close. Galoob was responsible for both the Trash Bag Bunch and the Z-Bots lines. In fact Plutor here was produced in 1991 and the Z-Bots debuted in 1992. I'm genuinely shocked that Galoob didn't reuse the mold for the Z-Bots line. In fact, a number of the Trash Bag Bunch figures (yet ANOTHER mini-fig line that I failed to collect for some reason, and that would have been PERFECT for me... I mean I collected the HECK out of Monster in My Pocket, and they came out in 1990!) would have made perfect Z-bots. The Two-Face vehicle actually transforms a little so you can flip over the front and rear of the car to show good and evil qualities. Aaaaand... I'm seriously thinking about trying to strip the paint OFF of this Battle Beast... but I'm not sure I can do it without ruining the original paint job. I hope that Brian didn't paint this thing specially for me because I would hate to think that I am stifling his artistic voice. But hey. Omelet. Eggs.  

Who is the most adorable Anti-Life equation hunting lord of Apokolips? This Darkseid from the Funko Pop! line, that's who! What is hilarious about this you ask randomly without really knowing why except for narrative reasons? Let me tell you! I stood in Hot Topic the first week of December and AGONIZED over whether or not I should buy this guy for myself. I ultimately decided not to at that time because I don't have a ton of DC Funko stuff (or didn't at the time anyway) and even though he's a Jack Kirby boy and ultimately one of if not THE baddest BAD-@$$ of the DCU... I just wasn't sure where he'd fit in with my collection... and I wanted some Funko Horror Classics figures more. So I bought those instead. But I have never been so excited as I was the day I heard the BOOM and saw my package from the Trash Man drop from a tube in the sky because I knew that Darkseid was here to STAY. I have to say, he is beautiful. I plan on buying a Funko Hordak to go up with him and the two shall have an EPIC friendship to last the AGES!!! Plus, Darkseid rocks that go-go girl outfit pretty nicely. He looks like an Austin Powers fembot a little bit.

And HOLY COW IT'S... that OTHER... transforming... Masters of the Universe... rock guy... (Googles for a moment)... Stonedar! Now I have the pair!!! I have a pair of stones!!! They really have a great heft in my hands. This is actually, seriously one of my favorite things in the box (not counting all my other favorite things in the box) because I LOVE tracking down old MotU toys! And Trash Man gets that! I love that he gets that! And I love that I have the TWO transforming MotU rock guys now! (I recently found Rokkon in my HUGE MotU/Goodwill score back in mid-December) I love how stoic and disinterested he appears to be... as if he had a hard made of... something... hard and cold... I got nothing.  

And last but definitely NOT least... a Funko Horror Classics Mini-fig! This came sealed and they are blind-boxed, so Trash Man didn't know he'd sent me Jason Voorhees... but I couldn't be happier!!! There were only a very small handful of these that I really felt were MUST-haves... and Jason was one. I can now add him to my collection including Pennywise the Clown and Sam from Trick R' Treat! I wasn't initially a huge fan of what they'd done stylistically with these characters, but I have to admit having them in hand, in person, they look VERY cool. Jason here looks ready to go menace some of my other mini-figures, like the Indiana Jones crew or whomever... Ch-ch-ch... Ah-ah-ah...

So Oh MY GOSH that about wraps up this post! What a haul! The Trash Man is an incredibly generous gift-giver, and I will have to find the time and the resources to put together a fitting thank you package sometime in the future. Be sure to check out his blog over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture, and keep your eyes peeled for our future plans for a big Gremlins blogging event coming up this Summer! ALSO at the time of this posting, he is currently starting up another one of his EPIC Trash giveaways... which are filled with ANYTHING BUT TRASH!!! Go enter the contest right away!!! I really can't begin to thank him enough for all he's given me, stuff-wise and blogging-buddy-wise as well. I truly appreciate his humor, his heart, and his... h... he... haiiir...style...? Some other h word. Thank you man. I truly mean it.

The next post I plop on here will be about the package I received from a certain Texan Lady who I also adore... so keep your eyes peeled dear readers! It's gonna get random up in here.