It was...fun to start the month with my parents and I coming down with a case of Norovirus or something. Thankfully the worst of it lasted a day or two, but it was just freaky for all of us to catch it out of the blue.
And I managed to catch The Looney Tunes Movie: The Day The Earth Blew Up while it was in the theater! WB's loss is our gain, I thought it was fantastic. Farmer Jim steals the entire movie, and he's barely in it.
But enough about that, it means it was time for my annual birthday trip to New York City!
And this time I took a stroll around Central Park! It's big, but this time I only walked up to the ice skating rink because my feet were already killing me from the trip there. Coulda went to the zoo, but that's a next time thing.
Some fantastic views.
And once again made it to Ichiran for lunch. That was real a real good bowl of ramen, no notes. Just right.
And had to snap some pics of a disappearing sight: Forever 21s that will soon be gone forever. 21. The one in Times Square used to be the Virgin Megastore and that's a hell of a thing to think about.
And finally the other reason I went into the city: American Woodcocks were spotted in Bryant Park! Apparently they show up there at the first sign of spring, and all the birding accounts I followed starting going nuts over sightings of them.
These are such borbs. They're the birds that go "meep."
It took a little while to look for one (there was a lot of brush clearing when I went and Bryant Park is not as big as you'd think it'd be), I found this one chilling under a bush. It was just sleeping when I found it, I didn't get to see it do its dance or anything. I never saw one in person before, it was such a rush when I spotted it. It's like "where is it?" then BOOM! It's right there.
And now as we say goodbye to March and welcome the April showers, here's some more random pics I took on that trip.
Can you believe it? This lil blog turned SEVENTEEN?!
There's really no good pop culture reference to "17." Nothing good, anyway. That Sesame Street image is the best we're gonna get.
17 is such a weird age, it's like it doesn't even count. You passed the Sweet 16, and you're not a legal adult until you turn 18. You're just a junior in High School and frankly, that's a year of my life I don't want to revisit.
As for what I've been up to since I last posted...not much. We saw Kendrick's diss track to Drake earn multiple Grammys and sung in front of the whole world at the Super Bowl, for one.
SNL had its 50th anniversary special
The world lost a few people, like Michelle Trachtenberg, Roberta Flack, Gene Hackman (the jury is still out on HOW he died. It's sad enough that he passed at 95), and just today Kingda Ka.
Man, just like the ride itself, it was over in about ten seconds. I only got one ride on it, and frankly that was enough. It also marks the end of the drop tower that was attached to it, Zumanjaro. The view at the top was incredible, and again, I only managed to ride it once.
And of course, we lost Lynne Marie Stewart.
Miss Yvonne from Pee-Wee's Playhouse! Decades in show business and she's one of those people I've never heard a bad word about. She'd been nothing but warm, sweet, and hilarious.
Pictured above is a signed pic I snagged off eBay the moment I heard the news. It was only a matter of days when other signed pics were taken off and relisted for double the price. Bastards.
And while I was there, I picked up this signed pic of Kurtwood Smith.
This was much cheaper, mostly because
1) He's still alive
and 2) Coming out to defend Danny Masterson really reduced the demand on his stuff. Don't think I paid more than $20 before all the fees and stuff.
And my mind was blown when I learned that Lynne Marie Stewart also played Mrs. Kelly on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
The show won't be the same without her, and I know she's gonna be in the upcoming season. It's gonna be tough when we see the "in memory of" dedication.
So farewell to the most beautiful woman in Puppet Land, and farewell February. Let's hope March is better.
Unlike the rest of the internet, I'm gonna leave this space with as few spoilers as possible, but that picture pretty much sums up everything.
Speaking of spoilers, with a movie as hyped as this one, I didn't take any chances and muted as many trigger phrases as possible on Twitter. You can thank Lindsey Ellis for "Fancy Glove Man Magic Beans Movie." It was hard enough trying to avoid anything about it until Saturday afternoon, and now spoilers are EVERYWHERE. Seriously, any post on the internet not even related to Avengers will have someone detailing every single plot point as the first comment. People are asses, folks. I got spoiled for the past few Star Wars movies mere hours before seeing Force Awakens and Last Jedi, and I'm actually proud of myself for being able to go in to this one as blind as possible.
It was good, but ultimately left me incredibly wrecked. You know there's an Avengers 4 and several other sequels coming and that cushioned the blow, but an manipulative emotional ending was still an emotional ending. Seriously, I was a wreck for the rest of the day, I don't know when a movie did that to me. Maybe Logan?
I also can't believe that this movie made me sympathize with Thanos. He is crazy nuts, wants to genocide half the universe, and has a warped view of love, but damn it, I didn't want to root or him, but I did.
And you know what? I thought it was freaking cool seeing so many characters on screen at the same time, and in some all-out brawls to boot. We're all sick of the "most ambitious crossover" meme, but man, did this movie deliver. I did want to see more of the Guardians of The Galaxy with the other characters (maybe next movie), and Black Panther needs to be formally introduced to Thor, he's like the only A-Lister Thor didn't meet yet. Well, I guess when they filmed the movie, Black Panther didn't make like eleventy billion dollars at the box office yet, but I know Marvel's got more screentime for T'Challa coming our way now.
And speaking of screentime, this sums up my feelings for another character:
You just know Hawkeye is the one that's gonna save the universe in Avengers 4, I'm putting my money down on it right now.
With that out of the way, there's my usual monthly update on the cool stuff I did.
And I did do cool stuff, like I went to the flea market again last week and saw some things.
Like this chair! It doesn't look like much, but these weird, round chairs are everywhere in motels up in Lake George and these yellow ones were used at the motel my family stayed at every summer, the Dutchess Motel (RIP). I honestly can't believe I found two of these things right at the local flea market! Well, if they weren't $100 apiece and if I was able to fit it in my car, I would've taken one home. It's not every day you find a literal piece of your childhood just sitting around with a price tag, but it happened that day. The guy told me these were Italian in origin and normally run for $200 for some reason. They're a bit heavy, but I'm calling bullshit either way.
I also went to Big Apple Con in Manhattan and found some cool, weird comics!
This infamous Flash cover was only $35, but it was in terrible shape, so I put it back.
THIS famous Superman comic was only ten bucks, and picked this up! The story inside is fairly straightforward, where Superman reveals his identity of Clark Kent to a dying boy, and he's upset that Superman even has a secret identity, so Superman shows him that, yes, he's somehow two different people to make him feel better.
Speaking of ambitious crossovers, DC once had not one,
But TWO Jimmy Olsen comics with Don Rickles in them. If you notice, these issues are issues 139 and 141, and might be wondering where #140 is. I thought the same thing, but after some research I found that issue 140 was a giant-sized issue filled with one-shot stories, so these two comics are all there is. I haven't read them yet, but they're probably disappointing. The Silver Age was weird.
And THIS was my favorite find of the day. For the past few years I'd been looking for an issue of Archie Meets The Punisher, one of the most famous comic crossovers of all time. In recent years, whoever's been running Archie comics have been getting lax to what can happen to the Riverdale gang, like killing off Archie, making them star in an edgy murder mystery on the CW, and crossing over with the Ramones, Sharknado, Predator, and Batman '66 (coming soon!). This comic predates all of that, and is considered to be better than you expect it to be. Sure, I could've bought a copy on eBay, but that takes all the fun out of The Hunt. I just found it in a longbox with random comics, and bought it the second I found it. And then I found two other copies, both cheaper than this one. Such is life.
One personal holy grail down, many to go. Now I'm looking for that Spider-Man team-up with the Not Ready For Prime-Time Players, the one where the Avengers team up with David Letterman,
And the comic with all the Colonel Sanders teaming up Green Lantern style.
I think I've made it obvious that I'm a fan of weird crossovers. One of my favorite comics is the issue of Ren & Stimpy comics where Powdered Toast Man fought Spider-Man for crying out loud.
As for anything else...I'm just not that up for it today. Oh, I had this whole, grand plan to make an even longer, more detailed post with more of the stuff I saw and what a weird week this past week was. But today kinda sucked as a profound disappointment, on top of a week that was mostly a downer. You guys understand, right? Okay. Thanks. I'll be back really soon, I promise.
Flea Market season is upon us once again, so last week I went down to the Bellmore Train Station once again for their weekly flea market. This time, however, I ended up arriving around 12:30, a bit late in the day. It didn't help that it started to drizzle, which was a fine prompt for vendors starting to quickly pack up as soon as I got there. I thought all the good stuff would be gone, but I was wrong. I was so happy to be wrong.
I might be burying the lede here and I might be using hyperbole but this was by far one of the best things I have ever found at this flea market. The famous Rappin' Rodney album! Back in the day, rap was the new music thing, and old fogies that tried desperately to be hip to the kids attempted to insert raps whenever and wherever they could. The most well known of these fogies to dip their toes into this craze was Rodney Dangerfield.
Even in the rap game he gets no respect. If you've been following this blog, you'll know my weakness for silly novelty albums, and this is as novelty as they come. Here's the back.
As much as I'd like to find out what "Rodney Continues Rappin'" sounds like, I had to leave the album there. I don't collect vinyl and even if I did I don't have anything to play it on. You have my permission to act disappointed in me.
Oh crap, vintage cereal boxes! Just the boxes. If I were to pay the 35 bucks for the C-3PO's, I wanted to make sure the hideously stale cereal came with it.
Same goes for this fifty year old box of Variety cereal. I'm actually amazed that the little boy on the box was letting his sister play with that model racer. Seemed pretty progressive for its time.
Everyone was into the POG scene back in the day, and it seems that Michael Jordan was no exception. I was never a fan of officially licensed pogs, I was always more partial to random nameless ones like these:
Like these. Sadly, this is not my personal collection. Hell, I don't even know what happened to all of mine. For all I know they're all in some storage bin in one of my closets.
It's even lamer for some officially company (in this case Topps) to try their best to create their own rules out of the classic "stack them all up, then slam them with a slammer and you keep whichever ones land face up" game that nobody really played to begin with.
This was a cool looking wastebasket. If I didn't already own a wastebasket...
Own a set of old, plastic Mounties! Yeah, I don't know why I took a picture of these. Maybe because finding anything to related to Mounties in the states is enough to stick out?
A kid bed that doubles as a tiger cage! At least I think it's for kids. No matter who sleeps in that, I guarantee that they'll be uncomfortable in it.
This booth was full of cool, vintage Batman stuff. Unfortunately it all looks like it's seen better days. Such is the gamble of the flea market.
See, here are those political campaign buttons I keep telling you guys about! Losers and everything! I'm actually sad that I'm just now paying close attention to this set, because there's some pretty old ones here, like ones for Taft and Coolidge and Woodrow Wilson. And you can't forget famous losers like Goldwater, Dewey, but no Ben Carson just yet. Stay tuned.
Above those buttons were some pretty rare vintage buttons for old comic strip characters that no one remembers! Maybe Gasoline Alley? Dick Tracy? Thimble Theater? I know that I see Little Orphan Annie's style in a bunch of them. I'll admit I was drawn to that rebellious "Dracula Sucks" button.
That sane booth had loads of old vintage stuff that once again I'll admit to paying attention to the wrong items. I'm sure I was drawn to the awesome vintage Batman cards, but look at those funky rings! You gotta zoom in, but there's something for everyone: Three Stooges! Howdy Doody! Mickey Mouse Club! JFK! Elvis! I even spy ones for Soupy Sales (kids show host from back in the day), McDonalds, even something for the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.
Something that really caught my eye was in this picture. No, not the $30 Schmoo on the right. If you're wondering what that is, Schmoos are characters from an old comic strip called Lil Abner. They were white blobs that were meant to be "all purpose animals." They were docile so they could be kept as pets, but every part of their body was useful. They dropped dead when you looked at them with hunger (yeah), and being boneless you could cook it for a hearty meal. Or you could cut the skin to use for shoe leather, or use their eyes for buttons. And for some reason they were cute enough to become cultural sensations, essentially on the same level of fame as Snoopy or Garfield. This is all real folks. All from a comic strip about a simple hillbilly town.
What I was interested in was that set of little Marx figures of various Disney characters from what I'm assuming was the fifties (note the Sleeping Beauty castle in the corner). Not only are the character choices odd (The Master? From Dumbo? Seriously?), the colors are all off. Back then nobody really cared about screen accuracy, and you weren't gonna complain about having the only physical figure of Panchito from Three Caballeros (I know I would've). But at $125? I'm gonna say no to that.
Mr. Peanut stuff! All stuffed into a box for easy pickings! As far as food mascots go, Mr. Peanut is pretty far down my most wanted list, but all that merch in one place is interesting enough.
When your establishment had to get red of cigarette ads, I guess this Mr. Peanut light was a sufficient replacement.
If this wasn't already dead, I'd swear that it's giving me the kind if look that'd be begging me to put it out of its misery.
Propaganda from when Hitler was just the crazy German guy with the silly mustache and before we found out about all the atrocities was just plain silly. I honestly would've gotten it but it was too rusty. Yeah, that and I really don't want to explain owning that. This is coming from someone that has a signed print of Discord from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic framed and hanging on their bedroom wall for all to see.
Let's move on.
Never even knew they made Heroclix of various SNL characters. Couldn't have been from no later than 1999, they have the Ladies Man and Mango there among the Coneheads and Land Shark.
Now here's one of the most unusual things I found that day. A windup sightseeing cart from the Wildwood Boardwalk. How a little thing from Wildwood New Jersey ended up in a box of old Hot Wheels at a flea market in New York is a mystery that I'm not gonna solve, all I do know is that it came home with me.
And here's the other things I bought. You folks are probably aware of my other weakness for weird Hot Wheels cars, and I couldn't turn down a toilet car. Every time I think I find the weirdest car Hot Wheels ever made, I come upon Hot Seat. It's from a few years ago, so the blister pack isn't in perfect condition but frankly I didn't care.
I also found a tiny bendable figure of one of my favorite advertising mascots ever: the 7Up Cool Spot! Yes, I hold this guy higher on my most wanted list higher than Mr. Peanut. Much higher. For one, I never thought I'd find a little figure of this guy. Now I imagine it coming to life Toy Story style to mess with my non-7UP sodas when I'm not around.
I love these guys. All in all this entire trip cost $3.50. Not too bad if I may say so.
