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!

Countdown to Halloween day 30: The Very Last of the Halloween Goodwill Finds Posts for 2015

Well... this is it folks! The last Goodwill Finds post of the 2015 Countdown to Halloween! I'm not too sad though, because there's always next year to look forward to, and with the end of the Halloween season I get to go back to looking for items in general that tickle my fancy. Halloween, like all good things, must come to a close. 

I have to say too, that I think for a post I wasn't sure I'd even be writing, since I just found all this stuff last weekend... I kind of saved the best for last. Here's a shot of the whole pile, (anything that was actually in with the Halloween merchandise was 50% off) so let's dig in!

First up this little folding screen-thing made up of three black cats. I kind of wish they hadn't done two pumpkins and a skull. Wouldn't a skull, a pumpkin, and a witch have been cool and colorful, and reminiscent of Halloween III? Either way, I think these cats are cool. Serene, majestic... almost stoic.

When I picked this up I thought it was a night-light, but then I realized it was actually an air freshener. I love that he's got an eye patch! He's practically a pirate jack o' lantern!

I think they sell the filling for these at Bath and Body works. I'll have to see if they have some pumpkin spice ones.

This was a surprise! I was really hoping to find the entire set of KISS band members in vinyl toy form... but all they had was The Demon, Gene Simmons! He's pretty much the one you want to find if you're going to find one though, so no complaints. Ever since seeing KISS on the Paul Lynde Halloween special this season, I can't NOT think of KISS as a Halloween band!

This is Ghost Rider's red-headed step-child, Vengeance! He's on one of those bikes that is supposed to have a ripcord to rev up the bike before you set it off on the floor. As an unabashed lover of s**tty 90's comics, there is a soft spot in my heart for ol' vengie here. He's one of the Midnight Sons characters, and he's basically Ghost Rider on bath salts. Plus the colors here are just perfect for the season!

I was pretty excited to find a McDonald's Halloween pail that features the McDonaldLand gang circa 1999. I was pretty chuffed to see that the lid is intact, the handle was on there... and this thing is in great shape!

While I'm not a huge fan of the pails as they creep closer and closer to modern day, THIS bucket features both Birdie and Grimace in that animated style they were doing for the "Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald" at the time.

I know next to nothing about vintage Halloween masks. Like how to even tell if they are, in fact, vintage. But these two masks just look way too old, and way too oddly familiar for me to leave them behind. I'm using the McDonald's trick or treat pail here as a model, which I think lends an appropriate level of eeriness to the eyes that I really like. This green guy is just absolutely gorgeous.

I should mention that both masks do actually have markings near the bottoms that should be telling me what the companies are that made these. This might make it easier for me to trace them to a specific time period... but unfortunately they are impossible to read. So... no dice. This devil guy's mouth opens up sideways I guess? Not sure. I love the use of blues and yellows here to make the red look crazy bright. Both of these masks stink like old Halloween masks should. Just smelling their weird cheesy gasoline odor takes me back to the Halloween section of Ames as a kid.

This is another interesting looking book about monsters that I may save for next year's Halloween Read Pile... or I may just read it now. Not sure. But "Scare Scape" by Sam Fisher looks like fun.

I was pretty excited to find this comic book, which is a cheap, indy comic done by creator "Madman" and is touted as:

"Eternity's Halloween Special" which I realize now is the name of the publishing company. "Lunatic Binge" is kind of fun, but kid of rough around the edges. We're talking super cheap end of the old indy comics pool here. It's mostly fun to own for the novelty's sake.

This was another fun find! "World's Worst Monsters & Villains" is another of those weird compendiums that collects monsters from movies, cartoons, myths, fairy tales, video games... whatever, and includes them all with equal fervor... and a equal lack of correct information.

But it's fun to flip through and look at! Here are some particularly monstrous entries in Cthulhu himself and something vampire-y called a Camazotz. If you're an RPG enthusiast like I am, these kinds of books are our bread and butter.

Well that's it kids! I'll be back one more time for this countdown with a final wrap-up post to see us out of the countdown! I won't be hibernating this year during November before my Creepmas and Christmas countdowns in December... so I'm not really going anywhere! Ummm... anyway...

I'll be back soon with more Goonie Goodwill Goodies! So until then, Happy Haunting!

A Couple of Grab-Bags, A Couple of Cassettes

Hey all! Today I'll be focusing mainly on some toys I found in a couple of Grab-Bags I found at Goodwill... and then talking about a couple of cassettes I found. 

And my feelings. 

So you have that to look forward to. 

But first... TOYS!

All right, here's the first grab-bag, with all of it's contents already freed. Let's pick through the relevant items, shall we?

Here's an Animaniacs Happy Meal toy from 1993 that features Slappy, The (now retired) Slap-Happy Squirrel and her nephew, Skippy. Not in love with the design of this particular run of toys, which had the weird, extending accordion tubes as a feature in every toy. I would much preferred to have found the Mindy and Buttons toy as they were a couple of my favorite characters from this show.

Here we have a Fozzie Bear as Squire Trelawney in Muppet Treasure Island. The toy says it's from 1995 but the movie came out in 1996 so I'm not sure what to believe. Either way, it's Fozzie, and it's from Muppet Treasure Island, which I'm not a huge fan of so on one hand... meh. On the other hand... Muppets!!! So that side wins out. I really love the octopus stuck to Fozzie's barrel's left side.

A wind up Thing 1 and Thing 2 toy? Back in 2003 when they put out the GODAWFUL Mike Meyers Cat in the Hat movie, they did a series of toys at Burger King. Luckily, the toys resemble the characters from the BOOK not the MOVIE. So they're all pretty awesome honestly. These are no different.

This is a Lowly Worm toy from Burger King back in 1995. I'm not a huge fan of Richard Scarry's Busy World or anything... but Lowly Worm is a children's book icon in my mind, and the image of a worm driving a car made of a half-eaten apple has always resonated with me.

This is the first Gadget from Chip n' Dale's Rescue Rangers McDonald's Happy Meal Toys I ever found. I found more of this exact toy (in better shape) later, but this is my first. Had a whole set of these as a kid, and LOVED Chip n' Dale's RRs!!!

Next up we have a Burger King Kid's Club "Bug Rider" toy, this one being Kid Vid riding a scorpion. These were put out in 1998, and the whole gang got in on the action. Sort of a BIZARRE concept, honestly, but hey those are some of the best, right?

Finally, there was this PVC figurine of the kid from "All Dogs Go to Heaven II". I never saw that movie.. but I found this kid's existence in toy form here to be somehow significant. Apparently there was a set of these released by Subway back in 1996. I think this kid is named David (Google confirms this for me) but I would have been a WHOLE LOT more excited to find Anne-Marie or Charlie or Carface... or just about any of the characters that show up in the original movie. Sigh.

Here are the contents of the second grab-bag. I'm not going to bore you to tears with all of the contents, instead...

I'll just focus on these ones. There's a Goof Troop toy that I passed on to a friend, a Birdie the Early Bird pull-back car from 1985, a Koopa Paratroopa toy from back in 1989, and the BEST TWO ITEMS: A McDonald's Employee Barbie from 2001, and an... old looking Big Bird Toy from I-don't-know-when (there are no markings). But I LOVE HIM IN HIS LITTLE SAILOR HAT.

All right... when I picked up these tapes, it was before the big Bill Cosby controversy had hit. I was genuinely exited about these comedy tapes starring Mr. Cosby. But now... I don't know how to feel. Have you guys found yourselves soured on things like the Cosby Show? Or Ghost Dad? Or Jell-O Pudding Pops? What do you think? Do we look past the artist and still love the art? Myself, I'm having a hard time doing that, and frankly, a BIG part of my childhood is withering in my heart because of it. C'est la vie I guess.

Well that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies, so until then: Happy Hunting!

A Package from Laura Huey!

So I turn around for just a moment and 9 days has gone by since I posted to the blog! Argh! Can't even use the excuse that I'm gearing up for the Halloween countdown... because I'm totally winging it this year. But I wanted to take a moment a thank my good friend Laura Huey from the BooBobby blog (no she's not dead, she's just not as into blogging these days as she once was) for this excellent little package I got in the mail a while back: 

Laura is incredibly giving and knows exactly how to put a smile on my face. 

First and foremost there was this beautiful piece of artwork included in the package! I think this is probably my favorite item in the package. Check out that mustache! 

Next up is this McNugget chick. She looks entirely TOO happy to be joining my shelf of McDonaldland toys!!! 

Then we have this pull-back toy that is what appears to be something like french toast sticks. He's not officially affiliated with any fast food chain but he gets to join the gang on the shelf either way.

UPDATE: Actually, having done some deeper research, it turns out this is a Lickety Splits toy (of which I already own one other) which most of the internet seems to agree was put out by Burger King. The markings on it are from 1989, Graphics Int'l INC.

And finally pogs! Nothing better that a bit of 90's ephemera with yet more McDonaldland characters on them (I sense Laura had a subtle theme going on here)!!!

So there you have it! Laura and her family have been great online friends of mine for a good long while now. I am always thankful for any contact with her, toys or no toys involved! She's currently over on instagram so be sure to check out her feed!

That's all I've got for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Another Trip to the School House Antiques Mall in Brewer, ME

So, I made another trek out to the School House Antiques Mall in Brewer, ME. Here's a shot I took of the outside. The next time I go, I need to get pictures of the interior, but I was in a hurry this time around, and simply did not have the time to get shots of the amazing toy areas they maintain upstairs. 

And I did not come home empty handed! Take a look at muh loot! Here it is:

Let us take an in-depth look at each item individually, shall we?

Look at this pair of dastardly dinner-swiping ne'er do wells! A Hamburglar glass from 1976 and a Captain Crook glass from 1977! Each of these cost me 2.50 apiece. They look great up on my shelf with my other McDonald's collectibles, especially the other glasses I own, including a Ronald I found at Goodwill, an Officer Big Mac I found at the Dream Catcher Antiques Mall in Ellsworth, and the Grimace glass sent to me by my good friend Brian (aka Trash Man) over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture. 

In 1988 Fisher Price put out a Happy Meal Playset. This was the box from that set. You can see there's representation of almost all the McDonald-Land characters on this thing. Hamburglar, the McNuggets, the talking burgers, Grimace, Fry-Guys (and gals) Ronald himself...

Captain Crook, Early Bird, the talking beverage and fry pack, and the Professor. Pretty much just Mayor McCheese and Officer Big Mac are missing (unless you count the Apple Pie Tree) and in fact, the inclusion of the Professor and Captain Crook have me scratching my head a bit... because they had been all but forgotten by 1988. Love this box though! It cost me 3.00 and it looks incredible on my shelf. 

This little stuffed Ronald McDonald from 1981 is in pretty great shape. He makes yet another lovely addition to my McDonald's shelf. He cost me a cool 2 bucks. 

This Fisher Price Adventure People figure was 3 dollars, but I didn't bat an eye, even consider he is lightly... chewed. I've become obsessed with these little fellows. I have a few more from the Sci-Fi space adventures line (a handful I haven't shared on here yet for some bizarre reason... need to correct that) and this one brings the total up to four (six if you count the regular earth-folk I also own). This guy was a real nightmare to photograph, so I apologize if his face is hard to see.   

And finally, a McDonalds Happy Meal Muppet Babies Miss Piggy figure. She's meant to ride on a little nursery vehicle, but it was nowhere to be found, so I'll just settle for her sitting. I have the three other Muppet Babies in this quartet, so even though she was 2 dollars on her own, I bit the bullet and bought her. 

Ths School House Antiques Mall is almost NEVER a disappointment to visit, and I already had my eye on a few other items I just might pick up the next time I head out there... so stay tuned! That's all I have for tonight kids, but I be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

Goodwill Geek Mailbag: Holiday Cheer from Boo Bobby Blog!

So the other day I received a padded mailer envelope from my friend Laura, over at the Boo Bobby Blog. It contained these:

Here we have an Applause PVC figurine of Bert carrying Christmas packages while ice-skating (and people accuse him of being boring?). He has no date stamp so I'm not sure when this was produced. He's just adorable though, and he is most likely going to end up being turned into a Christmas tree ornament. 

The little pink dust-mop to the right of Bert is a Fry-Gal, from a set of bendies produced by McDonalds back in 1988. These are actually really hard for me to find info about online, but apparently there was a set of six, including Ronald, the Professor, Hamburglar, Birdie, and Captain Crook. 

The point though is, THANK YOU LAURA!!! As anyone who has read this blog for any length of time should know, mini-figures are a sweet spot for me. Mini-figures based on Sesame Street and McDonald Land just push me right over the edge. I was so excited to receive these awesome little guys! 

For anyone semi-new to the community here, PLEASE check out Laura's blog. She's a part of a great network of bloggers I've met around the internet who specialize in thrift-shopping, and writing from their hearts. These include: 

- Laura herself over at Boo Bobby Blog

- The Trash Man at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture

- Mason at D.I. Treasures

- Jon at Clawful Punch

- Miss M at Diary of a Dorkette

- Rob at Robbie Go Easy on the Pepsi! (Appears to be... doing something... to his site, which is sort of empty at the moment. I'm leaving the link up for now, because he's got some great stuff to share)

- And Op Shop Mama over at... well, Op Shop Mama.

There are others, LOTS of others, and if I left you off the list, please don't be offended, just pop a URL in the comments below so folks can check out your site!

This is it for me today guys, but I'll be back with more Geek Goodwill Goodies in no time! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Payday Friday!

So here are the spoils of a payday Friday past... the payday Friday of August 30th to be precise... I went in expecting very little... And actually came out with some pretty great finds!

Not sure what I'm going to do with this. It's a Fisher-Price Grand Piano from 1986. It doesn't really fit my collection... but I couldn't leave it there! It only has a bit of mild damage on the top right corner of the front decal. The rest looks great! Still works perfectly with these little colored tiles popping up after each key is struck, with notes like "do" "re" "mi" and little animal faces printed on them. I actually have a pretty good idea of where this will probably end up already... hmmm.

Got this grab-bag for .99 cents! I'm not even a little bit excited about Jane from Tarzan, honestly (sorry Jane, you don't even have your parasol with a monkey on it. Maybe if you did... but you don't) I bought this bag for the other 3 items. This will mark my (if memory serves) first ever Bugs Life toy. Little Princess Dot is a cereal premium from 1998. Her paint apps are not great, but she's cute, and she is now enjoying a spot on the shelf next to my other Pixar characters. I also found one of those pretty-new Despicable Me 2 Minion Happy Meal toys! One I didn't have already! And he's a slide whistle! Since I refuse to put my mouth on a second-hand kids toy I will simply have to trust he still works. And I finally came up with a new robot to add to my robot collection! Look at that cute little "Galaxy" guy! 

The reason I always scan the glass wares aisle! Collectible fast food glasses! Ronald there on the right I have been hoping to spot for a while! Used to be a few years back that you couldn't throw a rock around here at a thrift store or antique shop without shattering just a whole collection of these McDonald's character glasses. Now they've become collectible and I see them NOWHERE. These and the two Muppets glasses I found there awhile back just make me feel justified in sweeping down this section every time I visit. Now... the Jack in the Box Hamburgers glass... is a creature of a different nature. I had no knowledge of this glass and it's collectibility when I bought it. We don't have any Jack in the Box restaurants around here, so I've never seen these around. There's a big Coca-Cola logo on the opposite side. Still can't any kind of idea from the internet how old it might be... but I don't really care. I like it. I bought these 2 glasses for .99 cents apiece.  

Yet another Simpsons comics collection! I've really accumulated a stack of these at this point. This makes the seventh tpb collection I've picked up at Goodwill! Maybe someday I'll actually sit down and... like... read them. .99 cents for this book! 

I am a sucker for interesting-looking travel books. so Ron Butler's "Dancing Alone in Mexico: From the Border to Baja and Beyond" looked like a quirk and interesting read. I've really tried to slow down on buying stacks and stacks of random books, but this one called out to me. I paid 1.99 for it

Next up are probably the two most exciting finds of the whole Payday Friday for a geek like me! These are a pair of old Invicible Overlord role-playing supplements from the late eighties (1988-1989). I bought them when I was at the height of my role-playing FEVER in the early 90's at the Ellsworth All-For-A-Dollar. There were three of them that I found back then, and there were actually three of them that I saw at Goodwill the day I picked these up. The third supplement was called "The Haunt" and it is the only one of the three that I still own to this day. I don't have the box anymore, however. I thought about buying the other copy of the Haunt from Goodwill, but with a 2.99 price tag on each one, I just couldn't afford it. So I brought home the two I was missing. Here's a picture of what the Briarwood Castle looks like on the inside:

Raiders of Ironrock looks pretty much the same, hence no picture included. Pretty standard fare for a role-playing game supplement. These are seamlessly adaptable to the AD&D 2nd edition system, so no core rule book required as long as you have the official AD&D stuff on hand. I couldn't begin to tell you if they are fun to play, but I know I was pleased as punch to find some old roleplaying game sets from when I was younger. 

Aaaaaand finally, this guy. I'm cheating a little bit here, as I actually picked this up on Saturday. I picked it up and looked at it on Friday and then for some incomprehensible reason I PUT IT BACK. It's a Sesame Street train with Big Bird driving! How could I not snap that up for .99 cents? I think I tried reasoning that it was a little too big for me to sensibly display (and it is... I still don't have a "spot" for it...) and so I set it down and bought my stuff... and went home. Then I went to Laura Huey's Boo Booby Blog, THAT NIGHT and saw that she had the EXACT SAME Big Bird Train on display at her house! And I WANTED IT SO BADLY. I even bemoaned this fact on her blog, that I had held this item in my hands and then put it back without buying it! She of course did the sensible thing and scolded me for not having picked it up. SOOOOO... I went back Saturday morning and bought it. I'm nothing if not obsessive. Turns out there's two other cars to the train, one with Cookie Monster, and one with Bert! Neither were in attendance at Goodwill, but I will be keeping my eyes peeled from now on. 

And that's all he wrote! That's it for me tonight kids! I'll be back real soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!