The Glad Hatter

While I'm a bit backed up on posts and vow to catch up soon, I thought I'd do a smaller post today.  My family celebrates Christmas in January since we don't all get together all the time and we sandwich a get together between Christmas and my mom's birthday at the end of the month.  This year we plan to have it the first weekend of January.  Part of that decision was based on the assumption the Kansas City Chiefs would have a bye during Wild Card weekend, so if they could not screw that up, that would be great!

Since we plan it later than normal sometimes the Christmas decorations don't go up very early, but I finally put the trees up this year and have a decent display.

Hey I like this little trees, that I got from Dollar Tree.  THEY ARE LITERALLY DOLLAR TREES!  The lights on them also came from there.  The red decorations on the trees came from a second hand store where I got like 10 for a nickel.  The round things were connected to the beads when I got them.

The cards were ones my mom and I got in the mail this year, with the snowman one coming from my sister who always sends a funny card.  The Christmas Vacation popcorn tin took a while to find but I finally got it at Walmart.  When they first put out the tins this year they only had one, but it was dented really bad.  So last time I went they had more and I grabbed it.

Keen eyes might also notice Star Wars wrapping paper on the right of the photo as well as a Perry The Platypus ornament on the left.  He is sitting in front of Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy from the 1988 McDonald's Christmas toys.  I really should order the Kermit to finish the set.

Since I'm talking about Dollar Tree, before I show a couple gifts I've already got, I think I'll share some deals I got recently.  One of the things I've wasted my time on this year is watching movies and becoming a member to a forum discussing movies and having a 50 Movie Challenge.  The basis is you watch 50 movies a month.  I reached 40 last month, and might hit 30 this month.  The reason I found the site though was to find out about movies sold at Dollar Tree.  Since July, I visit the site daily to find movie deals, and get info when sales are about to begin.  A few days ago I got a tip that Dollar Tree might have a new stock of movies for sale, so we took a trip.  And honestly, we'll probably go again tomorrow or Friday.

If you thought card collecting was addicting, so are movie collecting.  At this point I don't need more movies, but honestly, how can you pass up $1 movies?  What members on the site call "blind buys" spending a buck is still cheaper then renting a movie, and if its good you can keep it.  If it sucks, at worst you could donate it somewhere.  As I walked in, other people were checking out the movies, but I found a spot and dug in.  My nephew is a huge Scooby-Doo fan so when I saw these, I knew I had some gifts to give him.  The one I did keep was the one with Kiss, since, you know, its Kiss.  I'm not their biggest fan, but I do want to see it.

Then I found Friday Night Lights.  I've never watched the show, but oddly enough I once owned the first half of season one.  I think I gave it to a friend.  However, FOR ONE DOLLAR, I could get the entire first season.  15 hours of entertainment is worth that.

Then I found Miami Vice season one!  HOLY CRAP!  I watched most the series recently on one of the streaming apps, but now I can watch it anytime without it possibly buffering or sitting through commercials.  By the way I believe the NBC app on Roku has the whole series, but again, while its free, it does have commercials, though I could live with that.  On a side note if you have CBS All Access or want to do a trial of it, most of the Nash Bridges series is on there and it was fun to revisit recently.  My trial just ran out, but I thought it was worth the 5-10 bucks a month to watch older shows and even live TV if I need to.

Here's the thing though, as I may have discussed before, I'm trying to stop buying DVD's especially since I have a Blu Ray player now so I'm looking to possibly upgrade movies and hoping to find digital copies as well.  So I was quite pleased I made this trip.

I found a nice amount of Blu Rays this time, though from this picture of the ones I bought, the only one I've seen is The Marine 3.  I liked the movie and have been wanting to get it on Blu Ray since I have parts 2 and 4 as well.  I have the first one on DVD and would like to upgrade soon as well.  The rest of the movies were called "blind buys" but again, I think I'll watch all at some point and all came with digital codes.  However The Warriors Way and Take Me Home Tonight were from a out of business company so I had to do a workaround and the digital codes only worked on Itunes, but oh well, I still have physical copies.  I've stayed away from the remake of Robocop but I thought I'd give it a shot and also wanted to build up my collection.  My goal next year is to watch at least one movie a week, and most the time them being ones I've never seen before.  With these additions as well as free streaming apps like VUDU Free, Tubi, and Roku Channel, I think I'll have plenty of options.

Hopefully I can find more next time I go, but if I don't I think I'm good for a while.

So anyways, lets get into the heart of this post.  My friend stopped by on Christmas Eve bearing gifts as he always does.  I had some stuff for him as well as gifts for his kids.  First gift I opened which I didn't take a photo of was a giant magnet of the Kansas City Royals logo.  The KC looks really well on the side of my fridge which is next to my desk.  That however is one I bought last week when I first saw them.  Though I told him this would still get used because I wanted to put another one up on my filing cabinet, so that's where it will go soon.  Unlike the one I got, this one I might not tear apart from the rest of it, just displaying it as a whole.

Then he had a box for me.  He always finds great things to give me, and I feel bad my gifts are nowhere near as good.

Is that a... Wilmington Blue Rocks cap?  SWEET!  They are the minor league single A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.  Earlier in the year my sister got me an Omaha Storm Chasers cap which is the Triple-A affiliate of the Royals.  Getting this hat makes me realize I could potentially build to having caps for all the affiliates of the Royals.  My next goal is to find a Northwest Arkansas Naturals cap.  After he left I examined the hat more and was even more happy.

IT'S A SNAPBACK!  I'm not sure if he planned that or it was luck, but we've discussed how much I love snapbacks or even Velcro backs to fitted ones.  I guess I just like having the hole in the back.  That made this so much better.

However, he wasn't done, he had another gift inside the box!

ANOTHER Wilmington Blue Rocks cap?  WOW!  This one features their mascot Rocky Bluewinkle and if I ever bought one this would be the one I'd get.  Since this is the single A team and they are based in Delaware, I don't follow them as much, but I do try to follow them throughout the year.

This one had the Velcro back and again, I love it.  I hope they never stop making them like these.  I also love the color of this hat.  It will be tough to decide which hat to wear out in public now when I got out.  While I have a ton of hats, I've narrowed it down to the Royals and Storm Chasers before I got these.  Now I might have to get a hat rack or something to not only display these but so I can have them ready.  I might get my Reese's cap back out and wear on occasion next year as well.  Also when my nephew came over he asked me about a gift and alluded to he might get me a hat as well, so my head will be covered up nicely for a long time to come.

So that wraps up this post.  I can't think my friend Jason enough.  He finds great deals, and one day I will find something he will really enjoy.  Thanks everyone for ready and I hope you all had a great holiday season and Christmas.  I've read a few blogs lately and it looks like some of you hit the jackpot.  I'm hoping to do some more scanning soon and might churn out another post before the new year, if I don't I hope everyone has a Happy New Year!

Tripping Out: WRAP IT UP ALREADY!

The downside of not posting much is when I string out posts over a period of time and then never complete them.  A couple months ago I did two blogs on a trip to Kansas City, yet I left out the part that attracts the most readers: THE CARDS!  So now before I start scanning more cards and posting other stuff I've found in storage its time to wrap it up and show these cards.  There were some good ones.

I posted these last time to give you a taste.  I scanned a page for each pack, so let's get Looney first.

I wanted these when I saw them because it reminded me of Christmas either the first or second year I started collecting.  I got a mesh Christmas stocking with all kinds of random cards, and among them were a bunch of these.  It was fun to look through these again, and maybe one day I'll work on the set, but no rush now.

When cheap enough, I'll buy Police sets all day.  Being in the KC area its the best chance to find and buy them.  Since I don't carry a phone with me, I was mostly blind with what I knew I had, but I did make a quick list in case I found some team sets.  I remembered I had 3 KC Police sets already, and knew this wasn't one I had.  Check one more set off I don't need to find.

75 cents for a Bowman team set?  Great.... except I think I realized after I got home a couple cards were missing.  Not a big deal, but a little bummed.  I got George Brett, so I got the major card of the set, so it should be easy to finish when I decide to do it.

Another team set... and another one that might have been missing a couple cards.  Again, cheap enough to not mind too much.  I knew I had some of these, but getting to get the complete team set was a major point for getting it.  I think between what I had and what was included I did complete it, so I need to check into it.

The next pack was 25 Royals cards.  I knew I was going to find the quarter packs later, but I saw this pack with a George Brett Post Cereal card I didn't have, and $1.39 didn't seem like much of a risk.

I'm not disappointed.  The main card was the Brett card, and was happy to get the Greg Gagne since I remember getting this card signed by him before a Royals game once.  I'm not disappointed by this pack.

Okay... so the reason I really wanted to go back was the chance to get quarter packs.  While I could have spent more time looking and buying more packs, I bought 12 packs for 3 bucks, and I'm happy with the packs I found.

This seemed a bit bait and switch seeing the Pro Set card on top and the rest of the cards from the same set of Score.  However, I'm not mad because I really like that Score set.  I also got cards of some Chiefs as well as Art Monk, Jerry Rice, and Richard Dent.  FOR 25 CENTS!

Seemed like another bait and switch, but again, I found a few cards I liked so I can't complain.  I didn't do the Ickey Shuffle finding the Woods card, but I was happy.  I also had Tecmo Super Bowl flashbacks finding the Emile Harry card.  Again 25 cents, no issues.

I didn't realize I bought so many football packs until I got home, but oh well.  The cover card was the Pro Line card which looked odd to me being a football card, so that was worth the quarter.  Going through the rest of the cards, I was happy to find a new card to add to my Barry Sanders PC.  I think I pulled my first Ed Too Tall Jones card too.  Then I pulled that Aerial Threats card.  Did I really get an autographed card stuck inside a quarter pack?  I was pretty excited to be honest, but then I noticed in another pack or two that I pulled 2-3 more autographed cards and I realized I was either really lucky or these weren't real.  It would be really cool if I got lucky, but I found those odds to be outstanding.  I tried to compare the signatures but didn't get anywhere, so I figure at worst I have a few cool cards they have a story behind them.  The other cards were Pro Set ones that were "signed" on the back.  Still, a good pack.

Another football pack, and I was pleased with the variety even if I didn't collect too many of these guys.  Overall I bought 4 football packs for a buck, and I will never complain about that.

A baseball card disguised as a hockey card?  Sure why not.  Glad I got it for that, but also found a few Royals cards, so that was a great pack.  I think the sticker card was even a bonus card, so that made it better.

Tom Glavine doesn't really fit into a PC, but I liked that card so I got it.  I was glad I did since the 92 Fleer of McGriff was included as well as all those Triple Play cards.  While basic, that is what the newer Triple Play cards should look like.  Though to be honest among the three years the Triple Play cards came out in the 90's this was my least favorite set.  Still its one I would chase one day.

I got excited finding the Sean Newcomb card since it was newer than most the other cards I saw in the bin, but was disappointed more from that set wasn't included.  I wasn't a fan of the Leaf set prominently featured in this pack, but some good names were included.  Cecil is a PC so that was a bonus.  Also glad to get a Biggio as a catcher card.

If I could replace any pack I picked up, it might be this one, but I still can't complain since I got the Bonilla cards as well as a once Royal Kurt Stillwell and the Chris Sabo card so the pack wasn't a total bust.

Senior Portrait cards are always cool to see but I'm glad the majority of the pack was 93 Topps.  I also can say I got Bipped.  I think Juan Gone is a borderline PC but after getting these packs, I could really add to it if I start one.

Lance Johnson is nowhere near a PC to me, but it was Bowman's Best, like the Glavine, I had to get it.  Though the best part is the minor league cards as well as the Coleman and Henderson cards.  This might be the best pack I got to be honest.

Kirby Puckett is vastly underrated in my collection, so much so that I don't PC him, but this card I really wanted so the pack was worth it just for that card.  However finding the Jefferies, Pagnozi, and Slaught cards really added value to this pack in terms of happiness.  Plus you know, another Royals card, but I think I had that one already.

Last pack and really, I was hoping this pack was full of those Nolan Ryan cards, but alas I came up short.  Still though, some very solid names in this pack including a guy who's been talked about a lot lately- Mr. Harold Baines.  I think I did good with this pack.

Overall, 12 packs for 3 bucks, I think not only did I get my money's worth out of it, but I had more fun opening these packs then I do buying a 10 pack box of current product for 20 bucks.  Sure most if not all of the cards were from the "junk wax" era, but it reminded me of my youth and I had no hopes of possibly pulling a parallel 1/1 card that could be worth hundreds.  I got 300 cards for a penny a card and you can't have much level of disappointment in that.

I know I didn't scan EVERY card, but these were the highlights, and just think if I did scan the rest, it would take forever to write this.  So I think I've posted enough for now.  Now that I wrapped this up, I can catch up on about two months of other stuff I've found or need to scan, so I should have plenty to write about, that is IF I decide to write at all.  A couple days ago I got some cards from COMC so I should scan those in a few day, so maybe I might have a couple more blogs before the end of the year.  Thanks everyone for reading and I hope everyone has a great holiday season.  I think my family will celebrate Christmas in early January so that should be a lot of fun.  I think I might introduce my nieces to Viewmasters and the tons of reels I have.  I even have a projector so you can view them on the wall.  Hmm, maybe that's another blog post... I guess I have more scanning and photos to take.  Have a great week everyone!

Missed It By That Much

I didn't make a post last month.  It was the first month I missed which actually surprised me since I know I've gone longer than 30 days without posting.  I could have slapped something together last night if I wanted, but I didn't.  Today I'm in a mood to post so I will.  I still need to post the cards I got on my trip to Kansas City in October, but I'll do that on another day since I have a lot of scans.  Today will be a somewhat smaller post, but still a fun one.  It is showing on some great finds I got at my local second hand store and even some freebies which might have been even better.  Let's dig in!

Recently I've been more interested in a website and forum about Blu-Ray movies.  It all started a few months ago when I found some Blu-Ray movies for $1 at Dollar Tree.  So I stumbled on this site and found a good community where each month they have a movie challenge with a goal of watching 50 movies or more a month.  I've done two now and the first time I watched 35 movies, and last month hit 40.  I don't think I'll ever hit 50, but it takes a lot of time to watch the movies.  Anyways since joining the site I've been on the lookout for cheap Blu-Ray movies, and on this day I found one.  I've never seen D.O.A. but it was still sealed and a buck so I had to get it.  The funny part is a few months back my mom's DVD player stopped working so instead of buying her a new one, I just loaned her my Blu-Ray player and I just used my Xbox 360 to watch DVD's.  On this day I decided it was time to get a new Blu-Ray and let her keep my old one.  I'll show it off at another time, but just wanted to give some back story about why I've been away and why I got a movie I've never seen.  I will watch this eventually and maybe soon, but I couldn't pass it up being still sealed.

Since some reorganization, I've dedicated two shelves to stuff like tins to display.  Long before I got this, they were already filled.  I've had to rearrange a few things since then so I have maybe one shelf of space at the moment, but I have this one displayed along with other Christmas type ones.  This set me back a cool 10 cents, and it was really clean.  It even had some original stickers but I decided to take them off.

Next I hit the CD racks which were a lot nicer than the last time I went and it looks like someone bought a bunch, which is pretty good too.  Here's what I found this time though that I decided to get.

I always made fun of my dad for liking Bob Dylan because you couldn't understand him.  My dad would always say "You leave Bobby boy alone."  Little did my dad know that at the same time I was a huge fan of "Bobby boy's" son Jakob and his band The Wallflowers.  Jakob at times sounds a lot like Bob in the sense that its tough to decipher his lyrics, but there is still some magic to me about this band.  Maybe its because 90's rock is my go to genre and while others loved Nirvana, I was rocking The Wallflowers and Counting Crows.  This was an easy grab and get.

Speaking of 90's rock, I also stumbled upon this CD which I remember having as a cassette.  Sad to think kids today don't know what cassettes are, and in a few years younger kids might not know what CD's are.  I wore out this cassette though and if you ever listened to the entire album you might find "One of Us" isn't even the best track on it.  Songs like Lumina and Dracula Moon as well as Right Hand Man actually got more play on my player than her most famous track on this album, but I still listened to pretty much every song.  I even had it timed when to switch sides so I didn't have to fast forward or rewind too much.  My best friend in school was also a huge rock fan, but he never cared for female singers, but I loved them.  In addition to Joan Osbourne, I also liked Fiona Apple and even some Sarah McLachlin, also diving into some Sundays, Cranberries, and Cardigans as well.  My favorite though was Garbage.  OH MY GOODNESS did I love Garbage.  If you ever need a reason to watch the 90's version of Romeo and Juliet and don't care Leonardo DiCaprio is in it, you can always look forward to hearing #1 Crush from Garbage on it.  Anyways off track here, but if you've never listened to this entire Joan Osbourne album, check it out.

Switching gears for a second, you have to remember that I live in a small rural town, so country gets a lot of play.  So that means country was also big on my player as well.

In the 90's if I had to name my favorite country artist, John Michael Montgomery would easily be top 5, possibly as high as #1.  I liked him, Garth, Joe Diffie, and Tim McGraw, but JMM had so many songs I loved but oddly I never had one of his albums.  If I were to get one, this would be the one.  Life's A Dance would be my karaoke song if I ever decided to belt out a tune.  I Swear and later Sold (The Grundy County Auction) would also be high on my list.  At this point it would be tough for me to find another CD that I would be happier to find than this.

...

And then...

I found this!  RADIO STATION CD!  I love CD's from local radio stations, and this one has been on my wish list for ages.  KBXR is the local AAA station in Mid-Missouri and if I ever listen to live radio, its usually the first one I listen to.  In fact as we speak they are doing a yearly playlist that starts around Thanksgiving and continues until they run out of songs.  Each year they have something called B to X and what they do is play their entire playlist in alphabetical order starting with the first B song and ending with the last X song.  In the early years it took a couple days, then a week, now it usually takes a couple weeks.  It used to start around 9 AM until about 8 PM, but now they start at 6 AM each day and end at midnight until its finished with the only interruptions being when they have syndicated programming.  So if 5 artists covered a Dave Matthews songs and all 5 are in their catalog then you will hear the same song 6 times in a row by 6 different artists.  It may seem annoying but it's actually pretty fun to listen along.

Anyways, the reason I wanted this album is because not only is it my favorite station, but this album has live studio versions of songs you can't find elsewhere.  Whenever a local artist would come into town, like say Ani DiFranco or Los Lonely Boys, and they would do an interview at the local station (being BXR), they would also perform 2-3 songs before heading down the road to the concert venue.  This is volume two of some of the best performances, and when these first went on sale, they sold out quickly.  I've been looking for both volumes since they came out, so it is amazing I found one.  Since I don't listen to live radio near as much, I'm not sure if they still do live studio songs, but I know they don't make the albums anymore.  At least since they were bought by a major radio corporation.  This is at least 8-10 years old, but its definitely a keeper.

So with all these additions I felt pretty happy when I checked out with these and a few other items I'm not going to show.  Needless to say it was a great trip.  As I walked out I looked at the "free" items in the shopping cart.  I was holding a couple brown bags so my hands were full, so I decided to put them in the car and then check out the free stuff.  I usually pass on it but something caught my eye.

This isn't what I saw but I'm glad I dug down deep to find it.  I still need to check out the other VHS tapes I've gotten recently, but this was a no brainer.  I wasn't a big Mizzou football fan at the time, but its good to find something like this for free.  So why wasn't this visible and what exactly caught my eye?

TRADING CARDS!  Hmm, wildlife cards and nature cards?  Sure, so I grabbed the page... then another.. then another... then a few more.  When all was said and done I think I grabbed about 15 pages which most were still intact.  I felt a bit greedy grabbing all of them, but I did it for two reasons, first they were free and likely going to be thrown out, and second its been a bit rainy and snowy lately so having these exposed for much longer would have destroyed them anyways, so might as well save them.  I did grab some doubles, but most were different pages.  I can't find much out about them but they came from a 90's kids magazine called Falcon.  I am going to scan them all one day and hope to add them to the Trading Card Database, but it might be a while.  In addition I found a couple Falcon magazines, and also some other kids magazines like National Geographic for Kids and even Guideposts for Kids.  All were from the mid-90's.

This was the only different page of cards I found that weren't from Falcon.  Overall I think I was more excited for the free stuff then what I bought.  Again I will scan these at a later date, but it was pretty cool to find.

So that wraps it up for today, thanks everyone for reading and I hope to post another time or two this month, maybe even just a post of some movies I watched or to show off my Blu-Ray collection.  One thing I've noticed about collecting movies, its just as addicting as collecting cards.  Let's just hope I don't get too carried away.  Anyways, have a great holiday season if I don't post again this year, and if I do, I guess its my gift to you!