You know it's bad when...

I don't really have much to write about right now, to be honest, but I wanted to make myself do it anyway. I can't think of a better reason to start blogging right now than the fact that we're experiencing some terrifying stuff, hiding from a virus in our homes while the world seems to be literally trying to destroy itself. 

So here it is. A return to the blog. This may not end up being what it ever was before, but I am not the same person I was when I was writing this blog before anyway. Be gentle. I'm just dipping in my toes here. It will take me some time to focus up and get some good ideas for actual posts. Until that happens, I thought I'd just share some fun pics from my Instagram account. 

I really just wanted to post some fun pictures today and be able to say: "There, I did it. I blogged again." So that maybe I will keep doing it and keep adding a bit of positivity to the world instead of being scared of it. Here are my two potato heads. They were both Goodwill finds. The one on the left LOOKS like he's super old, but he's actually a reproduction released somewhere in the early-to mid aughts. The guy on the left is practically BRAND NEW and I bought him mainly because I wanted one that looked more like the guy in the Pixar Toy Story films. They look ridiculously happy together and that's what I wanted. I don't ever really remember caring all that much about Potato Head toys when I was a kid, but they have so much nostalgia wrapped up in them anyway!

Here we have a couple of the NECA "Toony Terrors" action figures. These guys were NOT thrift finds. Sometimes I buy new if the item is exciting enough, and boy do I love these figures. They are colorful and goofy and menacing in all the right ways. I own Pinhead, Leatherface, Jason, and Freddy as well, but this one pic encapsulates everything I love about this line.

When Amazon finally put the Luke Cage/Claire Temple 2-pack on sale for 20 bucks, I snapped it up. Then I promptly bought Luke a tiny hooded sweatshirt to wear like he does on the show. He looks great up here with Matt and Jess. Jessica Jones was absolutely my favorite show out of these three series... but Daredevil and Luke could hold their own for sure. I've kind of made it my goal to stop collecting so many different scales and versions of characters... and to star focusing MOSTLY on 6 inch scale figures like the Marvel Legends and Star Wars Black Series figs. It makes it harder for me to track down the figures I like... but I think in the long run it will help make my shelves look nicer. 

There was a classic Fisher-Price wedding at my apartment! Two of my Fisher Price Husky Helpers have discovered that they are more than just co-workers or even friends. There was a huge Fisher-Price celebration with all kinds of Adventure People, and a few other Fisher-Price characters in attendance. What's funny is that I had to travel to a Maryland fleamarket to find one of these construction workers in order to unite him with the other that I found here in Maine. So it's a true story of love and triumph. 

Whelp. I think that's enough dipping my toes in for now. I'm shaking off dust and stretching muscles I haven't exercised in quite some time. So I'm striving more for repetition and habit building than quality right now. I hope you guys will be patient with me. 

But I'll be back sooner rather than later this time, with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until that time... Happy Hunting! 

A Trade With Adam Nori!

You know how I'm always cracking wise about how "timely" my posts are... like when I post about Christmas a month after the fact, or Valentine's Day in April or some crap? Well, yet again, this is one of those posts that are WAAAY past due, and this time it is almost criminally negligent. 

I received a package from Adam Nori of Who Ya Gonna Collect, as well as the author of a book, Adventures of a Ghost Hunter, in which he details some of his career as a professional Ghost Hunter! It is safe to say that Adam has a bit of an obsession with 1) ghosts and 2) Ghostbusters. 

I don't originally remember what put Adam and I in contact, but as happens with the many folks I interact with online, a trade of goods was discussed at one point. So we sent each other packages full of junk, and you can see what Adam ended up with over on his blog. 

So I received my package from Adam sometime last SUMMER. Like in JUNE. So this one is WAAAY overdue. I genuinely owe Adam an apology because this one got forgotten about and I hate to think that he for a second thought that I wasn't INSANELY grateful to receive this package:

First off, kudos to Mr. Nori for repurposing his Nerdblock box for this package! He made a lot of stuff fit in this space! Let's explore.

Comic books, trading cards, and VHS tapes are all standard-issue staples for these sort of trades. A lovely assortment was included, and if I'm playing favorites, that pack of Rocketeer cards had me drooling at first sight!

There were some awesome fast-food and cereal premiums in the box, including this Guardians of the Galaxy bag from Subway, and these Dinosaurs toys from McDonald's! In an ultimate act of heresy, I removed the hoses from Fran and Earl and used them as figurines on mt Henson shelf (they go back in pretty easily, so I'm not too worried).

So many toys!!! Here's the first of three pics detailing all of the toys included. If I had a gun to my head and had to pick some faves from the picture above, I'd single out bendable Shaggy, the Inspector Gadget figure, and the two Busy Town cars in the very front. But there's so much here! Muppet Babies! Toy Story! LEGO!

This fleet of vehicles is AMAZING! from some awesome Hanna Barbera characters, to Fraggles, Rugrats and Robin... But again, if I'm being super honest, my absolute FAVE in this shot is Snaps of the Burger King Kids Club riding a purple cricket/grasshopper/locust/something. I already have Kid Vid riding a scorpion and I/Q riding a millipede, so now that I have Snaps, I only need two more toys to complete the set! (Jaws riding a Spider, and Boomer riding a dragonfly, if you're curious...)

Finally, I sorted out some of the crème de la crème of the package for this final shot. I now officially own one of the movie-Turtles which I've been eyeing but not pulling the trigger on. The C3-PO is a bobbler and looks great on my Star Wars shelf. Solomon Grundy, Snap from Rice Krispies, a McDonald's Changeable, Snoopy in his flying Ace outfit, a Rizzo Disney Vinylmation Muppets toy, a Mr. Burns from the Burger King Treehouse of Horror line, and a couple of DC Scribblenauts, Blue Beetle and Bizarro are all welcome additions to a bunch of other collections I have stacking up in the Geek Cave.

This package was SUPER generous, and full of fun! I can't thank Adam enough for sending me these things in exchange for the box of junk he received!

I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies to share! So until then, Happy Hunting!

Random Reads: Star Wars Books!

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 February 19th, 2014.

A real blink-and-you'll-miss-it post tonight kids! Here's a handful of Star Wars books I've picked up secondhand:

Here are a couple of highly educational books starring C-3PO and R2-D2. I always find it exceptionally weird when they use fictional characters from other galaxies to teach kids about things from the here-and-now. I mean, I get that they're using characters that appeal to kids... and in a backwards sort of way it does make sense that the droids from Star Wars would be the experts on both robotics and space travel... but they seem a little over-qualified right? Like Earth robotics and space travel both seem a little beneath them when you compare them to protocol droids and hyper-drives. Both are a pretty fun flip-through however, as the ideas behind both robotics and space have come pretty far since these books were put out. 

Next, this pair of novels I picked up at Scottie's Books. I picked these both up for half the cover price (which was originally 1.95). I've never been a huge fan of the ideas behind the "expanded universe" for Star Wars, and these two novels make the second time I've really gone outside of my comfort zone and picked up books based on the original trilogy. They look goofy enough to enjoy, and the price was right, so I figured, "why not?"

Finally, we have a book that I almost didn't buy: Star Wars A More Wretched Hive: The Mos Eisley Cantina. At first glance I almost just dismissed this as a part of the drek that came out around the re-release of the (remastered) Original Trilogy in the late 90's. And in fact, this one is from 1997 and features a few of the "improvements" that George Lucas shoe-horned into the film. But then I noticed two things: 1) It's about Mos Eisley, which is quite possibly one of the absolute best things about the original Star Wars (even with the alterations). and 2) IT IS A SCRATCH AND SNIFF BOOK. And boy it does NOT disappoint. If you've ever wondered what a wookie's "strong, swampy odor" is like, or what the "sharp electrical scent" of a lightsaber might smell like right after it slices off Ponda Baba's arm, well then this book is for you! Also included? The general odor of the Cantina from outside, a frothy fruit beverage from the bar' "The only pleasant smell in the whole place!", Greedo's breath (!), the exhaust of THE one-and-only Millenium Falcon, and of course, Jabba the Hutt's morbidly-obese-shut-in-corpse-from-SE7EN body odor. 

Gosh, next to that I have very little to say about the kid's book version of the Ewok's complete ruination of the final film. (Actually, I'm not an Ewok hater by an means. I was totally on the Wickett bandwagon as a kid.) Ummm... it was nice? Both of these books ran me .99 cents.

Countdown to Halloween Day 20: Clones, Campbell, and Costume Contests

Welcome once again to the Countdown! Day 20 marks our final descent into the bottom third of the month, leading us into the final 10 days before Halloween arrives. Since this is such an auspicious occasion I thoight I'd show you some more junk I picked up at Goodwill in order to celebrate! 

Here is the pile of loot in all its glory. Shall we tuck in and see what there is to see? Very good.

A heavy Attack of the Clones theme running through this lot of stuff, and I'll open it up with this Jango Fett mask and inflatable jetpack combo that had my boys pretty excited. They know Jango mostly from the Star Wars LEGO game, and one chapter book I read to them about Boba Fett's childhood that features Jango prominently as his dad through the first half. They know this guy is the Dad to one of the most prominent Star Wars villains of all time... and they love him for it.

Also in the mix were this Clone Trooper helmet and General Grievous mask. There were a few other offerings to be had, such as a hard plastic Anakin Skywalker mask and an incomplete rubber Cad Bane mask, both from the Clone Wars cartoon... but I decided enough was enough and picked up these four items. These were the ones I knew they'd appreciate anyway. I've never seen Attack of the Clones to be honest, and only a couple of clips from Revenge of the Sith... so I've never seen Grievous in action in the films... but I have watched some of the Clone Wars with my kids and I have to admit to like Grievous at the very least as a visual. The prequels era had some distinctive looking villains going for it, even if they were all criminally misused. Maul and Grievous, and I am a fan of the previously mentioned Cad Bane as well. Not enough to love the prequels or anything, but enough to wonder what could have been had the plot, writing, characterization, acting, and EVERYTHING been as equal to some of the awesome visuals.

I almost passed on this book, even though it's a Ramsey Campbell novel, and I have in recent years grown to appreciate his work... the cover just looks kind of dopey to me if I'm being honest. But then I read the back cover...

A horror novel based around a cursed, never-released Karloff/Lugosi film? Say what? I knew as soon as I read this that if I did not bring this home I would regret it forever. This is probably going in next year's Halloween Read Pile, if I can wait that long. 

This stinking thing is hilarious but also incredibly hard to photograph clearly. I think the two shots I have of it here are clear enough to get the point across though. This is a Best Costume trophy that features a decapitated skeleton holding its own head!

It's like a Halloween Oscar! I felt a little weird buying myself a discarded trophy... but it's just so clever that I had to have it.

And speaking of costume contests... I picked up this piece for my Halloween village! And the good news: It works perfectly! There are lights, an announcer's voice ("Featuring Our Emcee Sir Robin Graves!") introducing all three of the contestants on stage, and all three characters move on stage! The vampire and mummy pivot left to right back and forth, while the witch spins in a circle, round and round. This thing is probably the biggest piece in our Halloween village, and it really classes the whole thing up. (There'll be more of the village featured in a future post)

That's it for tonight kids, but I'll be back soon with more Gargoylesque Goodwill Goodies! 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.

RETURN of the BIN OF AWESOME!!! 2015 Summer (Canadian) Edition!!!

So for the past two Summers, I have been ridiculously lucky to somehow have a bin of toys almost drop into my lap. And every year I try to chronicle the contents of the bin over the course of several blog posts, (Part 5 of the FIRST bin can be found here, with links to the previous 4 entries, detailing the rest of the bin... and Part 3 of the SECOND bin with links, etc, etc) with limited success... And both of those Bins Full of Awesome came from the same neighborhood guy who sold them to me.

You always remember your first... Bin of Awesome...
(I never got a photo of bin #2 because it was partially filled with rainwater
and time was a factor in salvaging some toys.)

This summer I was lucky once again to receive a Bin of Awesome... but this time from a very unexpected source: CANADA. 

Yes, I have altered the shipping labels to obscure my address.
That's why it looks like that. Just relax. 

Yes... you read that right... CANADA. I have a podcasting friend, Chris Gaida, from my days on Geek Fallout, who I THOUGHT I was trading just a handful of comic books with. I sent him a small parcel of comic books and a couple of months later... this thing lands on my doorstep. From CANADA. Thus, saving me from a Bin-of-Awesome-Less Summer! Let's rip the lid off this sucker and see what was inside it shall we? (Oh, and FYI, I'm going to cover everything in this one post and skip the multi-part nonsense because the Halloween season is drawing near, and I'm limited in the number of posts I can crank out between now and September 30th. So you get it all one-and-done, baby!)

Right after wrenching off the lid, a gust of cold, Canadian wind puffed out in my face, temporarily blinding me. But then I was greeted by the sight above. Goodies!!!  I'll reveal the layers of the bin as they were revealed to me. I had my camera in hand as I went through everything, so you are seeing pictures of the first moments I laid eyes on everything in the bin myself.

So, without further ado, let us dig in!

On the topmost layer, I was greeted by a crossover issue of the X-Men, featuring Power Pack (more on "The Pack" a bit later) an issue of "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" AND an issue of Amazing Stories ("Watch the NBC TV Series...") this is all EXACTLY up my alley so far... Let's keep on digging.

This was... unexpected... to say the very least. Not ONE... but TWO carded Dr. Killemoffs from the Toxic Crusaders action figure line. These were put out by Playmates back in 1991 and they were a very close rival to the TMNT in my heart. I was actually collecting these when I was 12 going on 13... so I was growing long in the tooth for action figures... but damned if I cared! One of these Doctors' blisters was separating from the card back so I shucked him and have since placed him proudly on my shelf! Dr. Killemoff was a high-ranking general in Hordak's army.

Aaaaaand theeeeen... A boxed set of the first four books in the Doc Savage novels set!!! This was one of my favorite items in the bin! I SHOULD have photographed the individual book covers because they are all AMAZING... but I'll feature them sometime in the future. There was also a news paper/magazine thing from the "Invasion" DC event, and a DVD of "Comic Book Villains" which I have never heard of but CANNOT WAIT to watch (Well, I actually can and will wait to watch it because all my spare viewing time is currently devoted to watching horror films for my October Countdown... But come... Novem... Decem... maybe January? I'll be popping this bad boy in right away!!!)

Chris also included this copy of "Star Trek: The Magazine" which features Jeffrey Combs! Chris knows I love me some Combs! Then I saw this "The Art of Star Wars Galaxy" book, which collects the art from the TOPPS trading cards. Oh man I LOOOVE me some Star Wars, and a lot of the artowork from those cards was ridiculously kick-ass.

So of course he included volume 2 as well! Chris proves several times throughout this bin that he's the kind of guy who pays attention to detail. He tailor suited this stuff to me PERFECTLY (which was the point, I know, duh... but it bears pointing out!) case in point being "Sesame Street Unpaved" which is an incredible behind-the-scenes book detailing one of my all-time favorite kids' shows. I've only had the opportunity to kind of flip through these books so far, but I'm planning a Sesame Street blog event for the future, and this book is just PERFECT.

MORE TOXIC CRUSADER ACTION FIGURES!!! This time around we get two of our verdantly virile hero, Toxie! and Dr. Killemoff's Major Domo, Psycho! I left one Toxie on his card and shucked both Psycho and one of the Toxies so they could join Killemoff on the shelf. It felt kind of wrong but it also felt kind of right. I just love playing with toys so much, I couldn't leave them trapped. Now I only have 4 or 5 more of these guys to track down before I have a complete set! But once those action figures were cleared out of the way... the most amazing thing was revealed unto mine eyes:

THIS THING. There have been hints as we've been digging all along. His purple body, his gloved hand... his.. be-spatted foot... all pointing to a California Raisin! But oh what a colossal Raisin it is!!! This thing is a monster! This is obviously one of those huge fair prizes that are almost impossible to win. Weird thing is... I think I remember these kinds of toys hanging from the ceilings of the dart games and whatnot at our own local Blue Hill Fair from when I was a kid! For those of you that don't know, the Raisins were a BIG DEAL for a few years back in the 80's. They were EVERYWHERE. SO it's no wonder that there would be questionably-licensed versions of the characters being given out as fair prizes back then. Good GAWD this thing is beautiful. And ridiculous-big. I have no idea where I will be displaying him, but its been mostly wherever he's least in the way for the time being.

But wait! We're still not done! The bin of awesome has yet deeper... depths... to plume! There was this gorgeous art print/poster of Mumm-Ra, the Ever-Living! The glare on the protective plastic sheath definitely steals some of the impact, but I assure you this thing is awesome.

Also included was this awesome Joker t-shirt! Is it worth anything? I don't know! I yoinked it out of the plastic and started wearing it the next day! I feel like I'm a terrible collector sometimes... but when somebody gives me a Joker shirt I wear that s**t. 

Ugh I didn't realize how blurry this photo came out when I took it... but I DID realize I was too lazy to go tracking these back down to re-photograph them, so you get what you get. "Power Pachyderms!" "Blip!" And two... count them TWO issues of "Sectaurs!!!" Because Sectaurs KICK ASS.

Sooo... now we're getting into the Power Pack neighborhood. I. LOVE. POWER. PACK. These issues here, "Skrulls vs Power Pack," are from a relatively recent mini-series put out around the "Secret Invasion" event back in 2008. I say relatively because the original Power Pack series was put out back in the mid-to-late 80's and early 90's. It had a bit of a renaissance under the "All Ages" series of books Marvel did from 2005 to 2010, in fact this one was the 8th miniseries out of 11. These are not really part of the mainline continuity of the Marvel Universe (like that even matters anymore), but they're still an excellent read. But honestly, they pale in comparison to...

Original Power Pack!!! Chris is actively trying to help me complete my original run of Power Pack. And thanks to this handful of comics (Including #1!!!) I'm finally down to the last 8 issues I need to have them all! This was such an incredibly AWESOME package to have received! Chris Gaida's generosity was ridiculous here, and I really can't thank him enough. I can only say that I owe him MAJORLY and I will do my best in the future to repay the gesture.

Well, that's it for tonight kids! I want to thank Chris Gaida one more time for being such an awesome friend and sending me my Summer of 2015 BIN OF AWESOME!!! Be sure to listen to him and some of my other good old podcasting friends over at Geek Fallout (They are also on iTunes so be sure to subscribe and leave them a review)! You can also follow Chris on Twitter. As per usual, I'll be back very soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies, so until then, Happy Hunting! (Only 19 more days until October Eve!!!)

I'm Skipping SOOO Much Stuff Just To Show You Guys Harvey the Wonder Clone...

So... this is all from a very recent trip to Goodwill, within the last couple of months I would say... and I'm jumping ahead of a LOT of content in order to feature this post for a VERY special reason. I want to get through the "finds" portion of the post before I get to what I'm so excited about though. 

Here's a pile of loot! Let's check it out!

This is my second time finding a "Sharp Tooth" hand puppet from Pizza Hut. The first one I sent out in a package to a friend of mine as a gift. THIS ONE I KEEP. 2 times is probably my limit on finding Sharp Tooths.. Sharp Teeth... this puppet.

THIS BOOK. I love this book. I added "Shudders" to my Halloween Read Pile (#HalloweenReadPile on my Instagram account) which I began reading back in July. This book was SO much fun! (Ten tales calculated to give you... SHUDDERS!) Whitman classics man! I had a whole pile of these cheap-ass books as a kid I remember a paste-board copy of The Wizard of Oz that I loved poring over because it had all the illustrations of the Hammerheads and the Mice, and a bunch of other stuff that didn't make it into the movie... What was I talking about? Oh yeah! "Shudders" has so many fun old horror stories in it! If you set aside books to get you into the Halloween mood, this is a TOP PRIORITY read people!

This one was a BIG DEAL to me! This is a collection of Berke Breathed comics from his college days, "Academia Waltz," where characters like Steve Dallas and Cutter John from Bloom County were born! These books are ridiculously hard to find, and this is still only the second book. The first one is still missing from my collection.

This giant-sized graphic novel collection of "The Death of Captain Marvel" was such an exciting thing to pull off the shelf at a Goodwill! Still need to just sit down and read this classic tale.

I almost didn't pick up this copy of Chris Van Allsburg's "Jumanji," simply because I was half convinced I must already own it. Once I had disabused myself of this erroneous notion, I picked it up. It's one of those BOOKS, man. One of those books that every family should own.

Probably the MOST exciting find for me on this particular trip full of exciting finds already was this trio of 12-inch scale Star Wars figures in a grab bag with some other junk. The IG-88 is marked 2000 the Tie Fighter Pilot is from 1997, and the Clone Trooper I didn't check the date on because I gave this one to my kids to play with (MUCH more on this clone a little later... BE PATIENT).

Get a little close up. I love these guys!!!

There was a second grab bag as well, and in it were really just a small handful of items that really got me going... a LOT of this stuff went on to become part of a recent giveaway pack I did via my Instagram account. But here were the keepers:

A Garfield Scooter sans Garfield (I'll find him later) a Push-down-to-make-him-go Rex from Toy Story, a Mac Tonight driving a red sports car (yay!) a classic Super Mario Brothers PVC figure, and a space communicator Happy Meal Toy! All fun stuff that no resides here or there all over the Geek Cave!

BUT LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THAT CLONE NOW!!!

Hey everybody. I'm Harvey the Wonder Clone.

Meet "Harvey" the Wonder Clone (His name may have been inspired by a particular Hamster from a Weird Al Yankovic song... but also maybe not...). I gave my 6 year old the Clone Trooper I found in the grab bag I featured above. Later on that same day when he was looking for something to do, I offered to let him use the camera. THIS IS A BIG DEAL. He is NEVER allowed to touch the camera. I also gave him an assignment: Take Harvey the Wonder Clone outside and take a bunch of pictures of him exploring the wilderness around our house.

I then promptly forgot the pictures were on the camera... until I started dumping the memory card onto my laptop for blog pictures. And there was ALL OF THIS. I have not edited these pictures in any way, except to add a caption or two throughout. Please check them out. It's pretty obvious in some of them that my son just ind of chucked Harvey on the ground and snapped a pic... but some have such finesse to them that they make me love them.

Harvey laying in a tree.
Just thinkin'.

Love the arms propped behind the long blades here. 

This one is kind of disturbingly like the opener of an episode of CSI or something.

More CSI.

I love this one!

PROBABLY MY FAVORITE PICTURE OF HARVEY THE WONDER CLONE!!!

The juxtaposition of the dead trooper and the bright orange tiger lily is... unintentional I'm guessing.
But striking. 

Kind of funerary.

In the clover...
Just thinkin'.

In the land of the gnomes. 

Tree climbing. The leg position in this one makes it look so lifelike! 

Sunning on a rock.
Just... thinkin'.

That's it for tonight kids! October eve is drawing ever closer! And I have yet to share with you guys this Summer's "Bin of Awesome!!!" (That might just be my next post, we'll see...) I'll be back with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! So until that time, Happy Hunting!