4 Geeky Books for a Buck at Marden's Overstock and Salvage

So during another browse at Mardens, a chain of overstock and salvage stores here in Maine, I stumbled across a deal on books. There was a massive clearance going on, and they were selling books for four for a dollar. In the past they've done thinks like selling books by weight, selling books 10 for 10, buy one get one free, etc. But this was pretty much the best deal I've seen there in a while. 

Of course that meant the majority of the books for sale were nothing I was interested in. But I could smell a blog post here people, and with that in mind, I set out to find those four magic books for that one magic dollar that I could write about here. 

Here is the pile of four books I paid four quarters for:

First up, this one is sort of a cheat... I guess? But I posit that this thing counts as a book. It is in fact, a shrink-wrapped folder full of character sheets to be used in the Star Wars Role-playing game. For the record... I do not own the Star Wars Role-playing game. Nor were there any other books or supplemental materials on sale at Mardens to support my purchase of these character sheets. But when it comes down to desperation in wanting to put together a quartet of cheap books that seem even mildly "geeky" and the fact that I was basically paying yard sale prices for these things... it went a long way towards motivating me to take them home. Besides, this was my last-ditch pick and it was down to this or a book about desk lamps. I'm not kidding. There was a book featuring desk lamps as objets d'art.

And I just can't.

Here's a look at the back of the package. I like the art styles employed here. 

And here's an example sheet filled out on the inside cover. "Sia-Len Wezz" a Jedi guardian. I wish I had more to say about these things honestly... other than I LOVE role-playing paraphernalia, and that I used to have a bunch of source books for the old 80's-90's version of the Star Wars Role-playing gamefrom West End (especially the Galaxy Guide to Bounty Hunters...) that I wish I hadn't given away. 

I am much more excited about the next purchase. Toy Confidential: The Secret Life of Snarky Toys by Aled Lewis is a fun book, but definitely not one I would have ever paid full cover price for. Odds are good I would have passed this up at Goodwill for a dollar as well. 25 cents is well within my comfort zone for almost anything apparently.

A lot of the humor kind of leaves a bit to be desired. The majority of the images and gags are presented like the interior of a birthday card. The ones I have collected and pictured here genuinely made me laugh however. Like the meeting of two Wolverines, and this guy feeling his little horse.

An American Werewolf in Levis isn't maybe the funniest thing ever, but it got me. And this pony coming out to his parents is adorable.

Star Trek phaser humor never disappoints, and my probably-second-favorite joke in the entire book is the Jurassic park "Clever girl" reference.

But this one takes the number one spot. Just absolutely my favorite. It is both sad and hilarious and colorful but drab at the same time. It sums up life perfectly for me (some days).

I'm not saving the best for last for some reason. I'm going ahead and revealing my absolute favorite pick second-to-last. And that is this: Nerd Haiku by Robb Pearlman. Finding this and the Toy book above was what bolstered me into thinking I could complete my mission of finding four appropriately geeky books for a dollar. I gave this just a cursory glance at first, as I am not a huge fan of novelty haiku... but this thing is awesome. Let's look at some nerd haiku excerpts.

This one made me think of you, Jason Roberts.

Now, I look at this haiku and I wonder if it is meant, as it might at first seem, as an insult to the Go-Bots, as a "knock-off" brand of Transformers. But with a little research you will find that both Hydrox cookies and Go-Bots suffer from the same affliction: They came out FIRST (at least in the U.S.) and were surpassed in popularity by other brands... and then assumed to be knock-offs of those brands. Hydrox came out before Oreos and Go-Bots came out before Transformers (by a good 5 months).

Please. Post comments below.

This is a common confession among the geeks in the circles I travel. No shame guys... but let's work to correct this, mmm-kay?

Swap out "roommate" for "lover" and you've just painted a picture of my entire life story in three short lines.

This page obviously had a theme that I really got behind.

As did this one. I can't recommend this great little book enough! This is the one book I felt was really a steal, and that I would probably have paid more for outside of this situation. Check it out!

I'm not going to talk this one to death, as there's not a ton to say about it... but this book is pretty great. This was my scond-to-last find when selecting my geeky quartet. It is As Seen On TV by Lou Harry and Sam Stail. It's basically a museum-in-a-book of all those great infomercials both classic and recent.

Thighmaster and "Hair In a Can" make appearances (also if you look closely at the cover shot above you can see the Flowbee! Vacuum haircuts for everyone!).

Also in attendance are Girls Gone Wild and The Clapper. I didn't take a picture of it, but Susan Powter and a bunch of the other usual suspects make appearances as well. This book is a reads like a who's-who of the Illuminati for sure.

Chia Pets! Life Alerts! They're all here folks!

Like I said before, I'm not talking this one to death because frankly, I don't feel like I have to. This thing reads like a highschool yearbook for TV advertisements. It's a study in trash history and I looove it.

So THAT is the quartet of geeky books that my dollar bought me at Mardens! That's all I have for tonight folks, but I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until that time, Happy Hunting!

The Polls are Closed. Mayor McCheese goes to...

So as you may or may not know, I had a contest that began here on August 21st and ended yesterday. I found an extra Mayor McCheese while I was out shopping at Mardens, and I decided to offer it in a giveaway here on m'blog.

Mayor McCheese here is from the Huckleberry McDonaldland series put out in 2008. To win him, my blog-readers had to submit a McDonalds memory in the comments section of the post. I had nine entrants in the contest... and sure enough today I am announcing the winner!

Except... here's a little surprise! The winner of the contest will not only receive Mayor McCheese... He'll get a Ronald McDonald toy from the same series as well! I made another trip back to Mardens and managed to find another Ronald that I hadn't seen there before. So my contest winner will receive BOTH Mayor McCheese AND Ronald! 

I'm Loving It!

But WAIT!!! There's more! Because I ALSO was able to find ANOTHER Mayor McCheese... allowing me to draw another name for SECOND PLACE!!! So my Second place winner won't be getting both toys, but they will still receive a Mayor McCheese! 

I Want You! To Get ME!

So who are the winners? Drum roll Please...

In First Place winning BOTH Mayor McCheese and Ronald McDonald we have: Tintod!!! Congrats man!

and In Second Place winning a Mayor McCheese toy we have: Hobgoblin238!!!

I need both of you to e-mail me at thegoodwillgeek(AT)hotmail(dot)com with your mailing information. I will be mailing these out just as soon as I can, and I will notify you via e-mail when they've gone out (and hopefully give you a tracking number as well). Congratulations you two!

I want to thank everyone who posted a comment with a McDonald's memory. I hope you all had as much fun dredging up old childhood memories of the Golden Arches as I had reading them all. Keep your eyes peeled on this blog in the near future because I'll be having another giveaway soon... this time I think it'll be Star Wars themed... but we'll see. 

Well that's it for me today guys! I'll be back real soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

Mardens Finds!!! Plus GIVEAWAY!!!

I made a quick trip to the Ellsworth Mardens just the other day... 

I was kind of hoping I'd find some of the Masters of the Universe Classics figures I've been hearing about lately showing up at Big Lots. After all, I a few years back I found the only-released-in-Canada third wave of the GI Joe Combat Heroes there: 

And it's also where I found those Marvel Family and Justice Guild Justice League Unlimited Matty Collector exclusives that I mentioned back in May:

 

So I was actually thinking my chances were pretty good considering that track record. I don't have any Big Lots in my vicinity so I take what I can get. Mardens is a Maine-based chain of surplus and salvage stock stores... sort of a local clone of Big Lots, hence the weird exclusive toys that show up from time to time. 

Unfortunately I was out of luck. BUT I didn't leave empty handed. I made some really great finds that almost-but-not-quite had me as excited as if I had!

First up they had a pile of these Spiderwick books. I really like this series by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, but the books are a bit light, and I've been saying for years that they should have just collected all five volumes into one big book and call it good. Well lo and behold, they did just that! I picked myself up a copy for 2.99. There's a lot of great extras included in the back, including a series of other artists' renditions of characters and moments from the series! The stories themselves are good. It's DiTerlizzi's illustrations here that make the world of the book really feel earthy and amazing. The movie that came out in 2008 just didn't do it justice. I think if Henry Selick ever got ahold of this and did a stop-motion version inspired by DiTerlizzi's illustrations... it would be EPIC. Not literally the movie EPIC... which is also about fairies... but the traditional use of the word. 

I found a couple of these great, MEGO-esque McDonaldland  Characters from Huckleberry toys. These were produced in 2008 and I kind of LOVE THEM. They only had two out of the five figures available in the set. No Grimace... No Hamburglar... No Captain Crook... But they did have two! Ronald was the first one to catch my eye. To be honest, I'm not as huge of a fan of Ronald here with his rooted Barbie hair, as I am...

Mayor McCheese!!! I decided I would not be taking these guys out of their packaging as I really like the over-all effect of seeing them in there. Entombed. In plastic. Forever. I miss the old McDonald Gang... I wasn't around for the full-fledged trips to McDonaldLand with the Apple Pie Trees and the Burger Patch... but I remember Mayor McCheese and Officer Big Mac playground equipment! I especially loved Hamburglar and Grimace and Birdie the Early Bird... Sigh. Those were the days. Of course, I've already displayed my love for McDonald's themed Happy Meal toys on here before... and these two McDonaldLand characters look great on that shelf right alongside!

Anyway... I like Mayor McCheese here SO much that I picked up an extra one to give away! Yes! That's right! I'm doing my very first bona fide contest here on Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks! Mayor McCheese can be yours!!! All you have to do to enter to win is recount your favorite McDonald's memory in the comments below! It can be a commercial, a toy, an awesome visit to one of their restaurants... whatever you want. Just give me a memory and you're entered in the drawing. (And I'm sorry, but "I don't like McDonald's, so let me give you my favorite -insert other random food chain here- memory instead" won't cut it. If you don't like McDonald's wait for the next contest. What would you even want this for?) The cut-off is August 31st Midnight, Eastern time. THEN on September 1st I will draw someone who submitted a favorite McDonald's memory at random from the list (TRULY at random! I will NOT play favorites here, I promise) and notify them here on my blog that they have won their very own MAYOR MCCHEESE!!! It's that easy! OH! And I will mail this internationally if need be, so Hobgoblin of the Monster Cafe Saltillo (and any other readers I have outside the states)... feel free to enter this contest!

Well, I'll be back soon with more actual Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then Happy Hunting! And Good luck McDonald's Geeks!

Action Figure Weekend!!!

I have mentioned Mardens on here before. It's a salvage and surplus chain store here in Maine that sells overstocked items and fire-damaged, flood-damaged, and even sasquatch-molestation-damaged goods. My wife wanted to go wander around there for a while on Mother's day after we took her out for breakfast.

While I was entertaining the boys over in the toy department, my wife found herself an iPod 4 case for 1 dollar. I found... these:

I loved these at first sight. I have no idea when or where they were originally released, but the concept behind these is some sort of alternate Earth version of the JLA called the Justice Guild. They feature some awesome, pulp-style versions of Black Canary (Black Siren), Green Lantern (Green Guardsman), Superman? (Tom Turbine), and The Flash (The Streak...?) I'm not a huge fan of the Streak figure, but I LOVE the concepts behind the other three, and I couldn't buy just three out of the four. Checking their wikipedia page, these guys are from the cartoon show, and were not what they initially appeared to be. 

Next up a set of four members of the Marvel family... all carefully packaged to omit the "Marvel" title. Black Adam, Mary Batson, Shazam, and the Wizard. I love the wacky wild concepts behind the Marvel family stories. The magic and mayhem of the characters and their villains are excellent. Plus, having gone on a recent Batman: Brave and the Bold marathon on Netflix, I've gotten a huge does of Shazam!!! My favorites are Black Adam and Mary Marvel, though Captain Marvel's no slouch, and I love that they made a Wizard figure at all, even though he's not that exciting. 

I've got close-up images of all the single figures below. I'm hanging these up on my wall in the package because they just look incredible together. If anyone really wants a set of these, let me know and maybe we can work out a sale or trade if you can't find them around your area. They also have a set of four members of the Legion of Superheroes (Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Braniac 5) but I'm just not interested in those characters, so I didn't buy any for myself. 

That's it for tonight folks! These figures weren't from Goodwill, but they were a steal. I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!