Countdown to Halloween Day 28: Goodwill Finds, Brewer Store PLUS a Potpourri of Other Finds

Welcome back! I know it's going to be hard to top the incoherent ramblings about a random pile of comic books that was my last post... but I will try. This is the penultimate "Goodwill Finds" post of the season. I have one more planned for the day after tomorrow, but I gotta admit, I'm already getting misty at the idea of not reporting on all the Halloween-y goodness I've been finding this season. What makes it all even more bittersweet is that these items were all picked up the weekend before Halloween, and everything was already half off! Now, I'm not complaining about saving more money, believe me. But when they're trying to liquidate their stock a week ahead of the holiday itself... Man. 

Alright, enough jibber-jabber. Here's the pile-shot. Before we dig into it, I want to let you know as well that at the bottom of this post, I've added a few other miscellaneous items that I picked up here or there that I wanted to share before the end of the season, but didn't really have a good place to do it before. So BONUS material! Yay! This is a pile of stuff I picked up in the Brewer, ME store.

First up is this light-up skull wand. It reminds me SO MUCH of the lightsabers they make for roleplaying and the skull on the end is so cheap and classic looking that I HAD TO OWN THIS.

As if it's not enough that this beautiful jack o' lantern fella is beautifully orange and green... and as if it's not enough that the bendy limbs that end in leafy hands and feet actually support his weight... and as if it's not enough that there's a CAT ON HIS HEAD!!! He ALSO has one of those push-button bottoms that makes him play that spooky theremin-wannabe tune that all cheap Halloween toys play! I think his eyes are supposed to light up as well but they don't work any more. This is mildly disappointing, true but OH MY  GOSH I LOVE THIS THING.

The picture of this rubber proton pack makes it look much bigger than it actually is. Think like.. a baby Ghostbuster... or a dog... I'm not even sure what this originally went to. The pack is on weird, like fake leather straps... and even weirder, the thing opens up on the side that would go on your back, like you can put stuff inside it. Maybe it originally had a foam insert? Or... you can use this thing as a purse maybe? I don't know. I just know it's a freaking proton pack and I wasn't going to leave the store without it.

I've maybe mentioned that my son is going Goosebumps crazy all of a sudden? So I of course brought home four of these books. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for "The Blob that Ate Everyone" specifically for myself. I'm starting a Blob collection. I don't have to justify myself to you.

Even though that's pretty much what every single line of this blog actually is. Just one big justification of... well pretty much everything I do. Let's not examine all this too closely. Let's move on.

I picked up a fun looking cookbook called "Gross Grub" that has all kinds of disgusting looking food inside. There are all kinds of fun recipes inside... although I don't think I'm ever going to be able to make convincing-looking tongues out of meringue like they do in the book. I might take a stab at it someday though. If I do I'll post pics here.

Finally, I found a couple of anthology horror story books. I think one of these may be a last minute squeeze-read in the ol' Halloween Read Pile. I need a book I can finish in just a couple of days so I can be reading my final book by Halloween. So one of these might work. "Bones: Terrifying Tales to Haunt Your Dreams" is actually one of those two-sided, flip-over books where there's a whole other book on the other side. In this case it's the book "Bites" that I read as a part of my Halloween Read Pile last year. I didn't like that one very much, but that's the magic of anthologies. You never know what you're going to get. Or maybe that's a box of chocolates. "Nighttime: Too Scared to Sleep" is an collection of stories by Todd Strasser... whom I've never heard of. This one may actually be the winner though. Because it's only about 90 pages long and I am really intent on hitting 31 books before Halloween gets here. So... yeah. Quantity over quality and all that. 

All right! That does it for my trip to Brewer. But that wasn't all I wanted to share tonight! As I mentioned above, there were a few odds and ends this season that I wanted to wait and see if there was a post (like this one...) that needed some... beefing up. So, even though these items are all from assorted other trips to Goodwill, I thought I'd collect them together here just to show them off. 

I found this AWESOME framed poster of Mel Brooks's "Young Frankenstein" at the Ellsworth store awhile back. they actually had a whole bunch of other Gene Wilder posters there as well, but this was the only one that interested me. Had they had "Haunted Honeymoon" I would have been all over that too... but it was not meant to be. This is actually hanging u in my living room because I don't have this kind of wall real-estate in the cave anymore.

I made several rules about collecting cassette tapes that I promptly broke for various reasons. I swore I would not collect stupid looking cassettes ironically. Broke that rule. I swore I would not collect novelty tapes just for the sake of owning them. Broken as well. I also swore I would not buy cassettes based on cool cover art without knowing anything about the artists. So this is an example of that rule being broken... and why I should have stuck to my guns. While "October Project" is a KICKASS name for a band, and a creepy kid in a paper bag jack o' lantern mask is KICKASS AS WELL... the music on this cassette is just so not kick ass it hurts:

So I don't even know how to describe this genre of music other than "bait-and-switch."

I also picked up this dvd of "Trick Or Treat" (not to be confused with "Trick R' Treat" which I discussed just a few posts ago) about the undead rocker Sammy Curr. Watching this movie has been on my to-do list ALL MONTH and I just haven't gotten to it. Not sure I will before Halloween gets here either. I wanted to watch it back to back with "The Midnight Hour," but the night I watched that I ended up watching "Late Phases" on Netflix instead. I regret nothing. Maybe I can still squeeze this bad boy in before the season is over... even if I can't, I may not be able to wait for next Halloween to check it out. November is notorious for late Halloween viewing around here (December and January can be too, depending on what movies I receive as Christmas gifts...) so it's not impossible.

Finally, I just wanted to show off the Mega-Bloks Black Pearl that I got in a 3 dollar grab back in pieces. There are a couple of pieces missing... but I would estimate that this thing is like 80-95% complete. I JUST watched "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" with my kids, as my older son was very curious about them. He desperately wants to see the other two now, and I'm more than happy to oblige, as soon as I can track down copies of them. I don't hate those movies by any means.

I've gone into great detail as to why skeletal pirates are such a MUST for Halloween in the past, so I won't your time or mine by reiterating here... but I think this thing is just amazing to look at. I'm totally going to load it up with skeleton pirates.

Alright, that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more Grievous Goodwill Goodies soon enough, but until then, Happy Haunting!

Countdown to Halloween Day 26: Goodwill Finds AND Scottie's Books!

Welcome back! So I have been able to hit up a few more Goodwill stores this past weekend so I now have enough posts to get me right to the end of the countdown, and still do my anthology (and other) posts as well! 

So let's take a look at the Halloween goodies I brought home from the Ellsworth store, and then I want to share a handful of books I brought home the same day from Scottie's Books.

Halloween or not, my 6 year old son has been bitten by the Goosebumps bug, and so now any time I see Goosebumps at Goodwill, I pick them up. There never seems to be any lack of Goosebumps at Goodwill, so I think this one will become a running theme over the next few months. What I found particularly funny is that the "Planet of the Lawn Gnomes" book was printed so recently that it is actually promoting the new movie! Someone got done with this book pretty recently. I don't know if that's a glowing endorsement. 

Just in case there was any confusion as to what Goosebumps movie was being promoted on the cover there... 

This is a glow-in-the-dark skeleton hand on a stick, used for pointing. I actually use a dry erase board to teach things at my place of work, so I think the next time I have a class I have to give, I will whip this guy out for effect. 

Once thing gets a good washing, it will be filled with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I considered Candy Corn but then I remembered...

So peanut butter cups it is! 

I never watched Aah! Real Monsters on Nickelodeon... but I LOVE the concept, and the character designs. So I never pass up a chance to bring something home if it has the characters in or on it. The book, "School Lunch" looks like fun, and I may just read this one to my kids.

I love the look and color of this mask! Had it been yellow instead of green I would be fashioning a Skeletor costume out of it for a party I have to go to on Friday night. Instead I think I'm actually going to go with a different concept, but this thing is gorgeous. I'm actually considering painting it yellow for next year, but I'm not sure I want to risk messing it up.

This little candy dish (pretty sure it was meant to be a coffee mug, bug I am 100% sure the paint is not warm beverage resistant so...) is cute and fun and since I don't have enough witch things in the Halloween collection, I knew she had to come home.

Her goofy, cutie little face is really what sells the whole deal.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the small pile of books that I picked up at Scottie's books. I've talked about Scottie's here a few times before, and I even sort of began a tradition of looking for books for the Halloween season each year. But alas, alack, Scottie's will be closing its doors for good in just a month or so. ANOTHER USED BOOKSTORE BITES THE DUST. 

But at least I got to pop in there one last time to find some Halloween-y treats before the doors shut for good. The book on the left here is "Whipping Boy" which is a horror novel written by John Byrne. Yes, THAT John Byrne. Comic books John Byrne. And if you look carefully at the blurbs on the cover, you'll see that one of those is by Chris Claremont. Yes THAT Chris Claremont. I don't even remember now what this book is even about. I just knew I WANTED it. The other book, "The Beast Within: A History of the Werewolf" is a history of werewolves. Plain and simple. And I have loved werewolves since I was a kid. So this was a no-brainer. Plus the author's name is Adam Douglas, which is technically NOT Douglas Adams... but is close enough for me to get confused and excited.

Ugh. I hate it when I start editing pictures that I've taken for the blog, and I realize one of them is fuzzier than I originally thought... and I realize that I'm too lazy to actually take another picture of the thing in question. This thing is that thing in question. "Monster Museum" is another one of those oversized Alfred Hitchcock Anthologies. I plan on talking about this particular collection in a later post, so I won't go into great detail now, but I owned it in paperback before I brought this thing home. I LOVE this collection. LOVE IT. And in the next few days, hopefully you will read about all the reasons why this is.

For now, that's all I got folks! I'll be back soon with more Gloomy Goodwill Goodies, but until then, Happy Haunting!

Remember, I'm doing this countdown as a part of the official Countdown to Halloween, so be sure to pop over there and look and see who else is participating this year.

Giant Storm Shadow and an Alternate Reality Flintstones Family

I've had a good run of luck lately finding a handful of books here or there at Goodwill and then a couple of Grab-bags full of fun little toys to boot. This always makes me happy, as it feels balanced. And when all is balanced, all is right in the world. 

It is possible I am making more out of this "finding some books and grab-bags at Goodwill" thing than I should. 

Here's a quick look at the pile as a whole before we move forward. Now heeeere we go!

These knights are produced by Papo I believe. I myself don't really care about these kinds of toys, but my Aunt collects them, and so I keep an eye peeled for her when I'm out on the prowl. These guys and their horses were in a bag by themselves for a buck. Their weapons are completely destroyed, one snapped completely off, and the other appears to have been (ugh) chewed. Luckily, the weapons are interchangeable, so I removed the handles from their little hands before passing them on to my Aunt.

I already own a Sword of Omens from the 2011 animated reboot of the show, and mine is in much better condition because I bought it on clearance instead of secondhand. BUT in a judgement call I may question myself on for the next couple of decades of my life, I bought this sword for my sons to beat each other with. It went about as well as you'd expect.

This is not my first Sigma Six Stormshadow either, but this one is in MUCH nicer condition, and has his sash, pants, and scabbard intact. Unfortunately, none of his swords or other awesome weapons were included, except for the big stick thing with holes in the ends for... what? blades maybe? The other stuff in the bag were not Stormshadow's accessories. I'll find some substitute weapons for him at some point, I'm sure. Right now he stands proudly on my G.I. Joe shelf!

HEre are the contents of the bigger grab-bag in the set. Let's take a closer look.

The aforementioned Aunt also collects Hex-Bugs of any shape, size, or origin. So I knew as soon as I saw these Happy Meal toys that this bag would be coming home.

Also included was an assortment of Mario Brothers toys! I kept the Bob-Omb but most of the rest of these went to my kids. I only have a very tiny collection of Mario Bros. toys at this point and that's how I plan to keep things.

Plastic army men! The one I found to be significant is that one big guy near the middle. He's HUGE and I feel like he might actually be from a set or something? Anyone out there recognize him? I'm curious.

I already have a hula-dancing Spongebob, so the fact that this one has a broken nose is just fine. This is actually a set of cake toppers that goes along with the plastic Pineapple House I found back in 2012. So now I have the complete set! Man... I'm creeping up on my third blog-aversary! I've been doing this blog since July of 2012!

Here's a shot of the happy trio, with the unbroken nose-Spongebob included. 

Finally, here are some other random toys included in the bag as well. A Pirates of the Caribbean watch, and a couple of quarter-machine monsters that ended up on my ROYGBIV shelf of tiny plastic toys (They're on the "IV" shelf. I know skull guy looks red, but he's more magenta, so I place him in the violet category. Indigo and violet share a shelf.)

To add to my cassette collection: Blondie! "Parallel Lines" This is the one with "Heart of Glass" "One Way or Another" and "Hanging on the Telephone" on it.

A couple of action adventure stars this time around in the book-haul... Batman in The Stone King, and Tarzan in The Return of Tarzan. I don't have a whole lot to say about either of these books as of yet... but I look forward to reading them.

A couple of Holiday books made it home as well! A kids' book adaptation of the Christmas movie, Elf and the Goosebumps book: Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns.

One of my all-time favorite books (and I love the film as well) The Outsiders. My bromance with this book begins waaay back in middle school. I actually already own a copy of this book, but I saw this one with the movie adaptation cover and I reeeeally wanted it.

Finally, I found this bizarro "Flintstones" Little Golden book. In this story there are no Pebbles or Dino, and instead Fred and Wilma have a sone named "Junior" and they get a pet dinosaur named Harvey that looks a lot like Dino, but grows to... well... dinosaur size over the course of the story.

This is bizarre. Did this book come out before the cartoon? I don't think that's possible honestly, but I can't otherwise explain the presence of Junior and Harvey. I'm sure I could figure this out if I did even a cursory Google search... but I like to pretend sometimes that I'm living in the 80's and that every answer to anything I'll ever have a question about doesn't exist on the internet somewhere.

Anyway! That's all I have for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies so until that tie arrives... Happy Hunting!