Goodbye 2025!

Well, I'm ready to close the book on 2025.

At least my December went better than the one last year. Car is intact, nobody got hurt, I fought off the sniffles a few times, but I'm pretty much okay. I'm gonna miss this year. The number, that is. I like it when things are in multiples of five. After that, the math gets trickier.

Without further adieu, one last entry to close out the year:

I had the Grinch fries from McDonalds!

The special "Grinch Salt" was McDs attempt to get in on the pickle craze that took the fast food industry by storm this past year. The dust tasted pretty good, but once it got on your hands, it took forever to get it off.

Here's the box it came in.

And the socks that came with the meal. I got the blue ones! They came in four colors: blue, green, red, and yellow. At least I got one of the colors I wanted. I would've loved green, but blue goes with a lot of what I wear. And at least I didn't get the yellow ones.

And it snowed not once

But twice this month! 

We didn't have a white Christmas, but more of a white-adjacent Christmas. And thankfully neither time hit while I was at work and melted relatively quickly.

We also lost a few good people this month, like Rob Reiner and his wife.

Bob Burns, famous "monster kid", and "trainer" of Tracy the Gorilla from Filmation's Ghostbusters show.

Anthony Geary, who played Luke (of Luke & Laura) on General Hospital. But to me, he was Philo in UHF.

Betty Reid Soskin, the Country's Oldest Park Ranger

The woman who famously botched the restoration of that Jesus painting.

Jim Ward (Doug Dimmadome) 

and Jeff Garcia (Sheen from Jimmy Neutron) dying on the same day.

And what shocked me most of all, Adam The Woo.

I watched his videos all the time years ago, but sadly I hadn't kept track of him in a while. He just got back from Disneyland Paris and uploaded a video about his neighborhood the day before he passed, so this was a real sudden one.

I forgot if the Nickelodeon Studios video or the River Country one was the one I saw first, but I was hooked immediately.

He dared to go places where the rest of us wouldn't (or shouldn't) and ultimately got banned from the parks for it. Disney eventually lifted their ban, while Universal...did not. It's a trip reading that people watched him "when they were kids." Just speaks to how long Youtube's been around (turned 20 this year!), and how long Adam's been doing his thing. There's so many travel vloggers now, especially Disney ones. Frankly, they're all copying him, and I'd say a fair amount of them would say the same thing. Or at least admit to being inspired by him. He was just that good, and a unique voice has now left us.

I was hoping to meet him someday. But alas. No more daily uploads is what's getting to me most of all.

But on a different note: Christmas came just the same!

The tree! The ornaments were in a bit of a hodgepodge this year (it was mostly put up by the time I got home from work one day), but you gotta admit it's charming as hell. There really is nothing like a lit Christmas tree at bedtime on Christmas Eve.

Besides the requisite gift cards and new barbecue sauce from my favorite local place (seen in just about every other Christmas entry), my main gift this year were new portfolio books! Perfect for someone who goes to a lot of conventions. I recently started investing in 5x7 books too, since I've picked up a lot of smaller prints and art pieces over the years and the first book filled up as soon as I got it.

I'm 38 and have no immediate family left besides my parents. I don't ask for much anymore. Leftover Christmas money went to new work clothes and shoes. If anything, my dad was the one that made out like a bandit this year, getting lots of new shirts and a new pair of glasses.

My annual advent calendar of scratchers netted me thirteen bucks and a free Take Five ticket this year.

I did, however, get an Amazon gift card and immediately spent it on getting this Solus Prime figure. The Transformers sets that haven't been geared towards the little kids have had some pretty good releases, with the Age of The Primes line releasing figures of the Thirteen Primes for the first time. I already have Micronus Prime and Megatronus Prime, and I'm waiting on finding a good price on Alpha Trion (who for once finally got a figure that looks like how he did in the G1 Cartoon) before I bite the bullet on that one. My shelves are too full of Funko Pops or else I'd be investing more into these toys. 

Mattel's been finally playing nice and allowing Hot Wheels and MOTU collabs. These two were, uh, a bit pricier than I was expecting but I was NOT gonna let them slip through my fingers.

I've had Legends Z-A since it came out, but I bought the DLC on Christmas with the Nintendo gift card I was gifted. Naturally, it's dominating what spare time I have. Was $30 a bit too much for glorified time trials? Maybe, but it got me the shiny charm not fifteen minutes into playing it, and that's worth it in my book.

And I KNEW that there was a new Christmas Vacation themed chocolate bar this year, but it was never put on the shelf at my job for whatever reason. And I bet the reason wasn't good, so I didn't buy it.

For the best, really. I never got around to eating the one I got last year. There was no expiration date on it, but I wouldn't trust anything I hadn't opened from Last Christmas to begin with.

As for New Year's plans? For once, I actually got started on this blog entry early this time, because I am NOT spending another NYE trying to bang out an entry before the ball dropped.

And apparently they're gonna drop the ball twice this year, the second time to mark the 250th birthday of the USA. That totally doesn't sound like an omen at all.

Once again the Honeymooners marathon doesn't start til 12:30, but I at least have that to look forward to.

Until then, I'm gonna watch Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper get progressively drunker until the ball drops.

And I got New Years Sushi once again and got way stuffed. Not pictured: everything else I ate.

So what will 2026 bring? Well, hopefully something better. But the march of the passage of time is something I keep thinking about, and I don't like it.

If things go well, we'll be all back here ringing in 2027.

Follow Me on Twitter!

Follow Me on Bluesky! 

Follow Me on Instagram!

"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!

Finally. It's Done.

So April is over, so it's time for Justin Timberlake to say "me" in a way that everyone swears sounds like "May."

So what happened over the past thirty days?

Well...the Pope died.

This sucks. I actually liked Francis. I mean, he was 88 and been in poor health for a while. He'd been at death's door for months, and it took one visit from JD Vance to decide it was time to be with the other popes in the big conclave in the sky.

Definitely the best pope in my lifetime, and most likely ever. Definitely better than the one who exploded after he died, or the one that exhumed a different pope to put his corpse on trial, or the one that went all William Henry Harrison and died after 33 days on the job.

The man walked the walk when it came to his faith and humility. He actually preached compassion, snuck out of the Vatican to wash the feet of the poor, and was ultimately buried in a simple wooden box with his old worn shoes. Hey, if I was facing eternity, I'd wear my trusty comfy shoes, too. 

This of course made many so-called Christians here in the States angry. Since the majority religion in this country is some version of Protestant, it's not surprising. Catholicism is weird, but not the weirdest form of Christianity.

But that's a story for another time. Time to show off something I got.

The Ren & Stimpy Show comics #43! Why is this one so special? 

Well, it took literal years, but this was the last issue I needed to complete my collection of the original main run of 44 issues. I've had a lot of the early stuff as a kid back when it was being printed in the 90s, but about six or seven years ago I sought to finish the set.

Not my image, fyi

I actually already HAD issue 44, bought it right off the newsstand when it was new at an airport as I was leaving for some vacation, and was horrified to learn it was indeed the last issue.

And since it was the last one, it fetches a pretty penny these days. I got it for the low low price of roughly two bucks in 1996 money.

You see, for licensed Marvel comics, especially the Ren & Stimpy run, the early issues are incredibly common and thus, pretty cheap. Like, three dollar bin cheap. Issue 1 of course being the exception, for being a Number 1 and that it had a scratch-n-sniff feature that was sealed and the whole thing is worth more intact. It's when you get to the later part of the run, past issue 30, is where you run into trouble. 

And so for years I scoured every comic shop and comic con I could find, I found comics here and there. coming up empty on the later stuff but ultimately finding most of them. Except issue 43. 

Last week I finally cried uncle and went to eBay for this one. It feels like I cheated. I like hunting on my own, finding booths and stores that carried these comics was challenging enough, and it was an even bigger gamble to find specific books. There's that real rush that comes from actually finding one. So going online feels...less special?

Either way, it's finally in my hands and I can rest easy.

...except I went down a rabbit hole and discovered special issues I hadn't even heard of and now I need THOSE to finish the real complete set.

I did manage to score a few on that same eBay binge, but thankfully they didn't run me too much. Like, "pretty much just paying for shipping" cheap.

You got your requisite Christmas special.

An issue filled with mazes, puzzles, and craft ideas. Naturally, it's important if it's intact like this one was.

And a mini comic that was included with an issue of Wizard.

Incredible to believe that Dan Slott worked on this before becoming the Spider-Man guy.

It comes to no surprise that he wrote my favorite issue, number six, where a mind-controlled Powdered Toast Man fought Spider-Man. The very first time he wrote for Spidey!

Of course Powdered Toast Man wins.

All in all, there's about four specials I'm missing (Four Swerks, Frankenstimpy, Powdered Toast Man Special 1995, Sports Special), so the hunt continues.

And on the subject of comics and hunting for them, this Saturday is the annual Free Comic Book Day!

So if you have local comic shops, swing by and buy stuff from them, and pick up some free comics! I'm lucky that I have three shops within five minutes of my house. I'm gonna clean up.

Follow Me on Twitter!

Follow Me on Bluesky! (new!)

Follow Me on Instagram!

"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!

Come On Down!

This past week we lost the legendary Bob Barker.

He came as close to 100 as he could without going over. (Yeah, yeah, I'm not the first one to make this.)

To folks of a certain generation (ie, anyone older than 25), The Price is Right was synonymous with sick days and summer vacation. It certainly was for me. My grandma and I would watch him all the time. He was old in the 90s, and he managed to outlive Nana by 13 years. It's still crazy to think about.

Day in, day out, you'd hope that they'd play Plinko.

Or, barring that, Cliffhanger.

But usually they'd play High or Low or that golf game and I'd tune out until it was time for the old ladies and college students to spin the big wheel.

And we can't talk about Bob Barker without mentioning his appearances in Futurama

and Happy Gilmore.

He was also a filthy old man that harassed his Barker's Beauties, so he wasn't leaving behind a stellar personal life.

But with that out of the way, some positive stuff!

I met a duck! Well, not just any duck, it was Wrinkle The Instagram Duck! You might know her as the duck that ran the NYC marathon.

This was at a small convention called LI Tropic Con a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea they were even gonna be there!

I might've been a little too excited to get a picture with her. I even got to pet her! She was really soft.

I also got to see a real Kid's Choice Award. I did not pay the thirty bucks to pose with it. It was a bit steep to cross off "hold a Kid's Choice Award" off the bucket list.

I also met Matt Hill, the voice of Ed from Ed, Edd n Eddy! He was real nice and surprisingly cheap (only twenty chickens!) His Ed voice is not too far off from his real one, either, and kept talking in that voice. I got to talk to him about Captain N and Cartoon All Stars to The Rescue.

And finally, I managed to fill up my pin board! And this isn't all of my pins. There's still the ones that hang on my NYCC lanyard, plus a few more I couldn't fit on this one. So that means a trip to Michael's to buy a new pin board is coming soon.

Follow Me on Twitter!

Follow Me on Instagram!

"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!

"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!

Nine Years Old!

Hard to believe but the blog turned nine years old this month!

Yeah, I make no promises that this blog will be updated more than once a month, but I really should start doing that again. Having a "real" job plus the instant gratification of Twitter kind of puts the kibosh on those plans.

Now for the monthly "what have I been up to, lately" stuff.

Another blizzard happened! Well, I don't think it was a blizzard, it didn't snow nearly as much as last year's big storm, but it sure screwed everything up around here for a while. Work was cancelled for one day, and because of that and other factors, I had to work the next eight without a single break. Joy.

And then the temperature reached the sixties and about 90% of that snow is long gone, Keep in mind that this was February, and I live in New York.

It did, however, lead to some good weather and I went driving around Fire Island and caught some local deer.

I don't know why, but don't you get strangely happy when you see wild animals while driving your car?

I've been wanting new weird fast food offerings after Taco Bell's Naked Chicken Chalupa from last month, and White Castle's crab cake sliders were just what I needed to fill that void. Lent creeping upon us, and this is prime time for fast food joints to roll out their seafood offerings for the two months out of the year they care about it. For ages, White Castle has had the fish sandwich and fish nibblers on the menu (whatever those are. I've had them and still don't know whats in them), and lately they've added clam strips and their version of popcorn shrimp, but the crab cakes are new.

If you're wondering how these things taste, good news: they're good! Do you like crab cakes? Do you like weird creole sauce? Then you'll like these.

And I found this abomination of nature in the supermarket the other day. You're not getting a review out of me for this one. I usually say "science has gone too far" when I find the latest weird Oreo flavor, but now I'm certain science has officially gone too far this time. Thanks, Mr. President.

Oh yeah, Pokemon Go finally updated to add the Johto pokemon! Well, most of them. The legendaries are not present, and for some reason Smeargle isn't available, but it's a big update nonetheless. It was freezing cold the week this update happened, but this didn't stop anyone from hunting Pokemon around my neck of the woods:

This was at the local park not far from my house a few weeks ago. It hasn't been this active in months, everyone was freezing their asses off, but dammit there are Swinub everywhere and they;re a bitch to catch and I got a lot of them.

Oh yeah, finally picked up one of my Funko grails! The Dorbz 3 pack of Count Chocula, Boo Berry, and my boy Frankenberry that was only available from Toy Tokyo's booth during New York Comic Con. I've written about this before, but I was at that convention and this item was near impossible to get. Seriously, I had people wait in line for me to get it and even they didn't have luck. You folks know that I love Frankenberry and wanted this at all costs.

Well, most costs. This pack doesn't go for less than 80 bucks on eBay, but through some miracle, a tip from a Facebook group led me to a collectable store in a mall twenty minutes from my house that sold it for $55. After taking a few deep breaths, I bought it before anyone else could get their grubby hands on it. Seriously, the store is Emerald City Collectables and it'd be my bedroom if it was a store. That's how much I fell in love with the place.

All I need is the Frankenberry Pop figure and I can say that I'm done. For now.

Speaking of impulse buys, I bought this genuine cel from Rocko's Modern Life off of eBay. Can you believe it was only 40 bucks? I forget the name of the episode, but it's where Rocko and Heffer to go a baseball game to catch a foul ball. I already own a Ren & Stimpy cel, and finding an affordable Rocko cel just popped out of nowhere. There's a few more cels on eBay, but they're all over 100 bucks, I just went for a cheap one. Hell, there was another cel I was eyeballing from the episode "Bedfellows,"  But I love it all the same.

My goal is, as always, to own a cel from the Simpsons. By the way, I've checked eBay, they're not cheap there, either.

And on the subject of the Simpsons, I stumbled upon an old episode of Family Feud on Buzzr that featured old celebrities such as Betty White, Audrey Meadows, Caesar Romero, and as seen above, The Man Who's Always Standing And Walking.

It's an odd bunch of episodes, you can view one here:

That'll do it for February, folks, It's been a wild nine years, let's hope the world is around enough to do this for nine more.

Follow Me on Twitter!
(NEW) Follow Me on Instagram!
"Like" Beaming For Bunnies on Facebook!
"Like" my Simpsons Quote of The Day Facebook Page!