Randomly Received: A Timely Valentine's Day Post

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 28th, 2014.

There's nothing like posting about Valentine's Day two full weeks after the fact. And the sad thing about this particular post is that I received its contents BEFORE Valentine's and I honestly had plenty of time to get it up on the blog days before V-Day even GOT here. But erm... I seem to making a habit on this new blog of posting about holidays waaay after the fact. (I assure you that my Halloween Countdown will NOT be taking place in November)

So anyway, I received this in the mail from Tommy Day of Tophat Sasquatch fame: 

He had posted on his site that he'd tracked down a bunch of old vintage Valentine's packs, and he wanted to give them away! I signed up immediately. He even gave the option of selecting the properties I wanted included. There were a LOT of great properties to choose from so I tossed a few ideas his way and promptly forgot about it. Then the envelope above appeared in the mail just a few days later! (Take a moment to appreciate Tommy's pixelated self-portrait on his address labels). 

First up is this AWESOME Top Hat Sasquatch (.com) sticker! Someday when I find a beat-up old Trapper Keeper at Goodwill, I'm totally going to cover it with all the cool sticker's I've collected from sites like Tommy's! 

Next, a Valentine from the Rescue Ranger, Gadget! I was SUCH a huge Rescue Ranger fan when it was a part of the Disney Afternoon. It took second place only to Dark wing Duck when that came along. And Gadget? Well I'm not going to ADMIT to having a weird little crush on an anthropomorphic mouse now am I? Let's just say I was a fan. 

I specifically requested a "Muppets TONIGHT" Valentine because I genuinely feel like it was under-appreciated in its time, and there are a lot of great characters that we've forgotten about from it. When I asked for a Muppets TONIGHT Valentine I was secretly wishing that Tommy would send me one with Clifford (The host) on it... and HE DID!!! In fact, it has both Clifford AND Kermit together!!! Awww KMUP TV... I miss you. 

For some folks, Charlie Brown, Snoppy, and the Peanuts in general define their Holidays. For me, it's Garfield that defines my holiday childhood experiences. The Halloween and Christmas (and to a much lesser degree, Thanksgiving) specials are force-fed to my children absolutely EVERY year. So getting a Valentine with this stripey orange guy on it is especially awesome. It's a great, iconic shot of him too, so I LOVE this one! 

Here's one with just Kermit, which as regular readers of mine probably know, is one of my absolute favorite Muppets and characters in general, of all time. 

And finally, here's a Californian Raisin Valentine, which just BLEW MY MIND. Again, regular readers of my old Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks blog probably already know, the C.Raisins are one of my absolute favorite childhood properties. There is NOTHING I don't love about this valentine. 

So a BIG thanks to Tommy Day, who always has something cool going on over at his Top Hat Sasquatch site. And Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

That's it for tonight kids, but keep your peepers peeled here for more randomness to come!

A Package from Miss M!!!

I have been a little MIA blog-wise for a little longer than I usually like to be... and there are several reasons for that, some real-life in nature, others blog related in general, as October creeps closer and closer. But it was not my intention to fall completely off the face of the earth in the meantime! I still have some content I desperately want to get posted before the last day of September... and I fear I won't get to it all. I will be trying to blog through November this year, so hopefully I'll get to a bit more of it before December and its prerequisite countdowns kick into gear. 

For now, I want to post about this awesome package that came to me in the mail from one of my absolute best friends on the internet, and my podcasting comrade-in-arms, Miss M!!! We along with our other good friends Brian (The Trash Man) and Jason are the forces combined behind the Eclectic Mayhem Podcast. 

Let's take a look at what the amazing Miss M of Diary of a Dorkette fame sent me, shall we? 

Here's a quick peek at the box itself. (Miss M always includes a card or handwritten note, which is extra awesome) Now let's look inside!

First up, M knows I have a lot of love in my heart for The California Raisins. So to express this love, she sent me a box of Valentines featuring the raisins, and four of the classic PVC figurines, two of which were Valentine's Day themed as well! I owned both of these heart-hugging heroes as a kid, and having them back in my collection really has me pleased. The two mallrat Raisin gals on the right were Hardee's premiums from the period of time near the end of the Raisin's run. These were some of the last figures produced as their popularity was beginning to wane. LOVE THESE!!!

Miss M also knows ho much I LOVE Sesame Street, and not only did Applause do some great PVC figures for the aforementioned Raisins, they also did a wonderful line of figures for the Street! I think my absolute favorite of the bunch is the Christmasy (or at least Wintery) Snuffleupagus.

Next up were these incredible Disney themed figures! I am a HUGE fan of Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, so getting Sunny and Cubby Gummi here is very exciting! That Mickey figure has an awesome retro vibe to him as well that I just love.

Next up we have this groovy Frankenstein's Monster (I think it's him anyway... this may just be a ghoul or a zombie honestly... he's holding a skull and looks suspiciously stitch-free now that I look at him closer...) push puppet. I have a Halloween collection of these things that this will go along with beautifully!  And check out this Choose Your Own Adventure book "Terror on the Titanic!" I think this is the one where you get to choose if it's Jack or Rose that freezes or floats at the end. Based on the cover, Jack floating while Rose is left to freeze just may be the popular vote.

But this guy... THIS GUY. This is the true gem of this package. I loved EVERYTHING, don't get me wrong, but this is the item I was most tickled to receive. I mentioned wanting this guy on the episode of Eclectic Mayhem where we discussed Robots in pop culture. Miss M said she had an extra one she would toss my way, and MY DAY WAS MADE. This, for the uninitiated, is a Z-Bot from 1993. This specific one was from the series of Z-Bots given out as Burger King Kid's Club premiums:

And honestly, because of this, these are the only 5 Z-Bots I am interested in owning. Thing is, this guy here, "Bugeye" was the fifth and final Z-Bot I needed to complete the quintet! 

Back row, left to right: Skyviper and Turbine. Front Row, left to right: Jawbreaker, Bugeye, and Buzzsaw.

My deepest gratitude to Miss M for all the Geeky Goodies!!! She's got to be one of the most genuine, generous, honest, and friendly folks I have yet to meet in internet land. I am so lucky to be able to call her one of my friends, and I'll be putting together a little thank you package for her soon enough!

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back sometime soonish with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies (or maybe another package...) soon enough! In the meantime, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Finds: Turtles, Ducks, Sesame Street

Welcome once again to another fun edition of: junk I picked up secondhand!!! I can't even begin to tell you when I picked up this lot of stuff... it was a while back. BUT it all did come from Goodwill. And I was pretty excited about some of the finds in this post! Let's take a look, shall we?

First up I found a grab-bag with these three Sesame Street beanie-friend-things in it. If it weren't for Grover and Oscar this would have gotten a pass as you can clearly see that in trying to keep up his youthful appearance in today's cut-throat entertainment biz... poor Ernie had a botched rhinoplasty procedure (I did not end up keeping Ernie, sorry to say...) and will never look the same.

This was an interesting find. I'm always on the prowl for interesting-looking horror anthologies, and this one, Between Time and Terror, seems to be focusing on horror stories with a sci-fi bent. This is just what the Doctor ordered! Barker and Koontz rubbing elbows with the likes of Heinlein and Asimov??? Interesting...

This is a particularly fun find. It's an illustrated adventure detailing Flash Gordon's exploits on Mogo, the Sand World. Actually picked this one up to pass on to a friend... but it looks like so much fun! I even just love the simplicity of Flash on the cover here, his skin almost blending in with the featureless background until we get some bright pops of color in his clothes and weapons. And check out those little shoes!

I'm a sucker for Jack Prelutsky, and ESPECIALLY Jack Prelutsky's collections about specific holidays. I already have Halloween, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. Nice to add Valentine's Day to the pile.

This Duck Tales coloring book from 1987 only had a couple of pages colored on! I absolutely love the Disney Duck-verse. Duck Tales and Darkwing Duck were some of my favorite afternoon shows when I was growing up.

I am ALWAYS excited to find TMNT stuff from the times when I Would have been a kid. This book "Return of the Shredder" is waaay more interesting for its portrayal of the "Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang"

And April O'neil's brave decision to teach people about recognizing the warning signs of a stroke on TV.

Finally, I found another Little Golden Book that I had as a kid (not the literal copy I owned of course) in The Three Bears, This thing is an electric-pastel romp of colors and images that I just love.

The greens are so green! The pinks so pink! The clashing colors layered over and around each other in a chaotic yet stylish display! Love this thing!

That was it folks!  a quickie but goody. The whole pile cost me about 7 bucks and some change. I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Hunting!