So Finally, My Trip to Bangor a While Back...

So just a while back I talked about my most recent trip to the Brewer, ME Goodwill. That had a couple of nice finds. I like getting out of the local store from time to time and seeing what shows up at other stores in the hour radius around my home.

But then that same weekend, I actually went to the Bangor Goodwill, and I found the following loot:

Little Golden Books! There were actually a TON of Little Golden Books I was tempted to bring home... but I didn't want to spend 20+ dollars on a bunch of them that I wasn't really sure I actually wanted. I ended up paring down to a couple of Sesame Street books (always a must-have), some Disney and Looney Tunes books, and some oldies but goodies I remember from when I was a kid. All of the Golden Books (and similar ilk) were .99 cents apiece.

Of particular note, were these three. The Raggedy Ann book I had as a little boy and I loved it. I think I remember having both the Benji and Wizard of OZ books as well, but how cool is it that Benji has a LGB? The one that really stands out of the three was the Wizard of OZ book, which looks like it was actually manufactured incorrectly. As you can see from the picture above on the right, the back cover was attached upside down. I don't think it makes it worth money or anything, I just thought it was really weird and interesting. 

I was particularly excited to find this little piece of history: It's not a Little Golden Book but a similar concept: It's a Rand McNally Elf Book from 1956: Sergeant Preston and REX. The best way to describe the condition? Beat up. It's been written on a bit, and the price tage took off some of the foil spine-cover... grrr... but it's still a great little treasure from days gone by. 

Just some random YA books here. The Island of Time is a CYOA book from 1991. I like the concept behind sort of rebooting Tom Swift (he's a Jr.) as a daredevil modern day inventor/adventurer... And Tentacles is the second in a series of books about Cryptozoologists I've been meaning to read. All three of these books were .99 cents as well. 

The cover of this "Grimm's Ghost Stories" is pretty darn creepy. I LOVE IT.

Saw a bunch of pretty cool old comic books while I was there... but boy, if Goodwill has one really weak-spot price-wise it has to be comic books. They seem to think people can't just go buy old cruddy comic books for .50 cents apiece anywhere else. 

The ones for sale at the Bangor store were all 1.99 apiece! So, sadly, even though there were a bunch of kind of semi-cool old books I thought about picking up... I only ended up leaving with the 2 pictured here. These 2 just called out to me to buy them. I don't care if those books were worth a FORTUNE (I'm telling myself) I just wasn't paying that much.  

QUIK BUNNY COMIC BOOK!

So Quik Bunny and Grimm's Ghost Stories made it home.

Yes. I paid 2 dollars for a comic book about the Quik Bunny. Spider-Man does make a guest appearance. 

All right, we're officially past the books (Mostly. I have one more to share later) and into the toy department. THIS set of four toys was in a grab-bag together and was only priced .99 cetns! The Jetson's Toys are Wendy's premiums from 1989. 

The Evil Queen from the 1993 run of Snow White Happy Meal toys is EXCELLENT. She has an old lady up her skirt. I wish everyone in the world had this feature.

Not necessarily an old lady I guess. We could keep plumbers down there, or tax accountants... or whomever. You have to admit this toy is cool as heck though. I keep mine in Queen mode right now, but the old witch is sure to rear her ugly head sooner than later. 

Up next is a grab-bag of die-cast cars I found for 7.99 on regular price... but because it was the half-off color, I got it for 3.99. You'll notice some of the Tail-Spin vehicles in there (which I already had) and some Barney and Baby-Bop cars in there too... And a Minnie Mouse... But the real reason I picked up this bag was for these:

From 1984, the four pull-back cars are in slightly rough shape, but still fun. There were 3 of the Big Mac cars included, one missing a tire. And the really cool part is, I have vague memories of actually owning some of these when I was a little boy. I think these were the exact sort of toys that were pulled back, let go of, and promptly lost forever under my Grandmother's stove. The dragster on the left is from 1993, from Hotwheels. I love this car. It's got a bit of paint wear... but it just looks so money baby. I paid under a dollar for each of these guys (since I did not really want the other cars in the bag).

Finally... there was one last find I made that day that REALLY had me excited. And here it IS:

A copy of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Pop-Up Book from 1980! I paid .99 cents! I thought this book was a genuinely exciting find that left me hopefully digging for the other 2 books for the next 20 minutes. To no avail. But still... Yay! The genuine "pop-ups" are actually kind of scarce in this book, including only the title page with Luke on a tauntaun, and then a ship flying past Cloud City later in the book. The rest of the book is of the interactive "pull here" or "slide tab" variety. But they're all fun! A favorite of mine is Luke retrieving his light-saber in the wampa's ice cave. I took shots of every single spread in the book (and two of Dagobah because it's pretty cool to see both versions of the pages). I'm not going to comment on them. I'll just let them speak for themselves. 

That's it for me tonight folks! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Hey! I did some Charnel Chatting over at The Grim Reader!

I talk about horror literature just like I know about stuff!

Go check it out!

http://macabrebookshelf.blogspot.com/2013/04/charnel-chats-with-derek-ash.html

Goodwill Made it Possible for me to go to an 80's Themed Drag Show

So... my wife and I and several of our friends often like to go to drag shows. Usually they're done locally at the Ellsworth Elks Lodge (?) but occasionally some travel is required and we have to go an hour or so out of our usual neighboring towns and make an evening of it. 

When we heard that there was going to be an 80's themed show in March at the Hollywood Slots Casino in Bangor, we knew we wanted to go... because.. 80's. It was a benefit called "March Dragness" and the funds went to setting up the Pride Parade this summer, as well as other LGBT awareness programs. 

So anyway... the date was barreling down on us like a freight train, and I realized I had not prepared myself to dress in any kind of 80's fashion whatsoever. I own nothing that even remotely evokes 80's style. Someone suggested I wear one of my Hawaiian shirts and go at Magnum P.I. but I felt this just smacked of laziness. 

I'm someone known for putting no small amount of effort into my Halloween Costumes, so I didn't want to just phone this one in... even though it was looking more and more like I was going to have to. Then I had the bright idea that everyone does whenever they're trying to put together some sort of "retro" costume, be it 60's, 70's, or whatever. 

Goodwill. 

They have all the old clothes right? That's where old clothes go to die! There must be racks upon racks of shirts with Rubix-Cubes and Cyndi Lauper-style lace vests, and all the whatever else people wore back then. It should be easy to find 80's stuff there, right? Right!?!?

Turns out no. They have old clothes, but they don't have a neat and tidy rack of clothing labeled "80's clothes here". It was mostly old grandpa's-just-passed stuff and Lobster-festival t-shirts. So I had to get inventive. 

I wanted to do something Don Jonson-esque... 

Brace yourself for an eye-F**KING.

Or sort of a...

Fist!

Or even a...

I do this like... EVERY night.

SO when I saw this:

I feel like this jacket is belching at me.

I felt it might have potential.

I wanted to roll up the sleeves, so I took off all the weird gold buttons, tore out the shiny beige lining inside the sleeves, and rolled those suckers up. 

I accessorized with some neon pieces, a Kool-Aid Man T-Shirt, some sunglasses (I could't wear over my actual glasses, but like the douches I was emulating, they were more for show than function, so I hung them from the pocket), a fingerless glove, and a wrist-band made with the collar of my wife's neon pink t-shirt. 

I tossed some pins on there, some Muppets, some random safety pins, and a Close Encounter pin (which I remembered later was actually from the late 70's... but whatever). 

And I ended up with this:

Oh yeah!

Which I have to say made me feel like this:

Just some chick I picked up at the show.

Yep. I was pretty excited. I even got an earring in my ear for the first time since high school. It was pretty rad. 

The drag-show was okay. Oddly, most of the music was from either the 90's... or it was modern club-remakes/remixes of 80's songs by current artists. Only a couple of genuine 80's songs actually got lip-synced. The host was hilarious though, and some of the performers went all out performance and costume-wise. A fun night was had by all and I photographed this sign on the way home, which I feel sums up the moral of the whole night:

I feel it's kind of like a fortune cookie where you just have to take from it what you take from it.

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

A Timely Easter Post for Your Sunday Viewing Pleasure.

Well, Easter is swiftly disappearing in the rear-view mirror, and there was something I wanted to post before it was just too late (apparently 2 weeks after the fact is NOT too late for me). 

It is a family tradition at the Goodwill Geek's house to paint wooden eggs at Easter to keep throughout the years. Everyone in the family paints one (this totals 5 between 3 kids, my wife, and myself) and we display them with pride every year. We missed years 2009 ans 2012. But all the other years from '05 to '13 are present and accounted for.

The boys, being little guys, tend to keep theirs pretty simple, but my wife, daughter and I get pretty creative/occasionally geeky with ours. My eggs are at the very end of the post. And they are the very geekiest!

Pictured above are the eggs painted by my 2 sons. 3 of them belong to my 4 year old and 2 of them belong to by 2 year old. The first ones they each did were some eggs with their hand and toe prints on either side. 

'05,     '06,     '07,     '08,     '10,     '11,     '13

Here are my daughter's eggs. You can see she started to really get creative with the last 3 years worth. The pink egg with the gray/white bunny is supposed to be a skel-animal. Then some sort of devil-bunny. The last one there, the on the right is one of the announcements they shine on the sky during the Hunger Games to let you know one of the participants is dead. My daughter is morbid. 

Here are my wife's eggs. For the most part she's all hippie-dippy with her eggs, making them all stuff from nature. Trees, moons, lady-bugs, birds, and strawberries. With the occasional TARDIS.

2005

2006, 2007

2008, 2010

2011 (TARDIS!), 2013

Here are my eggs. Spider-Man, a cymbal/fez monkey, Nosferatu, a robot, a Chinese Dragon, a Jelly-Bean Monster, and Raphael! (Raph was this year's egg, and the boys FREAKED OUT because we all love the show.)

2005

2006

2007

2008

2010 (Dragon)

2011 

2013   

I'll be back soon with some actual Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!