My girl ended up taking two days off for my birthday, and in doing so, planned another full day of outings. Today, we were off to Frederick, Maryland to visit a bunch of comic and music shops.
First off, we needed to fill the tanks, and by that, I mean we were hungry. Since we like going to places we've never been, we opted to wait until we got into town. It was here that we spotted Mountain View Diner.
This place was straight out of the 50's!
While I wish I could say I loved every bit of it, sadly, I can't. I loved the decor, and the food was tasty. However, getting said food took forever. As you can see from the photos, while there are some people here, the place is far from packed. As such, it shouldn't have taken an hour to get in and out of a diner. We didn't make any big stink about it. In fact, we didn't even mention it to the server, as this wasn't going to set the tone for the day.
From there, we literally went across the parking lot to Wonder Books & Videos.
When we first walked up on the place, I was greeted to bins and shelves full of classical music and Christmas vinyls and CD's. It was here and then that I made the decision that there was no way I was finding anything in this store to buy. Let alone something that was on my want list.
If nothing else, I was going to use the bathroom, so we headed in. Which reminds me. I also didn't like the bathroom at the restaurant, which was dirty beyond use.
I ended up eating my words upon entering the store. Wonder Books & Videos has a lot of stuff, and with its spacious retail space, there are hidden gems to be found for those willing to look.
I will say that their comic books are not priced to go. I thumbed through a couple boxes, and found the usual dime fodder Image books that flooded the market in the 90's. Definitely no misplaced keys here. While I'm sure they think ninety-five cents per book is a bargain, it's actually not. This is the stuff many new flippers get stuck with when they buy in bulk.
Their used CD section is massive, and while they managed to (for the most part) keep them grouped by letter, they are far from alphabetized. Personally, I hate looking through stuff like this. If you can't be bothered to organize it, why should I waste my time looking?
After begrudgingly looking through the first few shelves, I surprisingly came across a disc on my want list. Both shocked and happy, I decided to go through a few more shelves. That's when I found yet another. This was all the incentive I needed to go through every single disc this place had.
As a funny side story, as I was finishing up and checking out, two people came in looking for CD's. I told them, "I just went through every single disc," and asked, "What are you looking for?" Let's just say I saved both of them a lot of time.
If I collected gaming systems, I might have gone in for a closer look at this Atari. Even if not complete, which I don't know if it was or wasn't, that box was mint!
But, like I said, you need to look at every inch of this store, because otherwise, you'd miss stuff like what was tucked in these cabinets. Mind you, these photos weren't even the tip of the iceberg.
Of course, Wonder Books main bread and butter are used books, and that's what 95% of the store is. I did peruse the DVD's hoping to find some hidden 80's cartoons, but alas, that wasn't fruitful.
Next up, we headed into downtown Frederick to the local CD shops. The first on our list was Record Exchange.
Upon entering, I took note of the size of the place and thought, "Well, this won't take long."
Then I ran into this.
Having just spent three hours in Wonder Books, I was a bit fatigued of CD's, and didn't really want to go through all of these. Especially with a meter running from the street parking.
It was both a blessing and a curse to find that this place has zero organization skills. All of these shelves are literally just piles of CD's in no given order. They basically just put stacks on shelves with no regard for what was where. This made it easy for me to say, "I'm not investing the time on this place."
As I was leaving, something did catch my attention out of the corner of my eye, and I'll share more on that below.
For now, it was on to an unplanned stop at Brainstorm Comics, which was two doors down from the music store. This location was not on our list of places to go.
What you see here is what you get. Nothing really exciting if you're looking for back issues. Though the shopkeeper was friendly, I didn't purchase anything here.
Then it was back to the car, and further down the road for one final music store, Rock & Roll Graveyard.
Though it has multiple rooms, this place is also tiny.
CD's, records, 8 tracks, and even laserdiscs are available, but much like the last place, organization is an afterthought.
It was only because this wall of CD's was a dollar each that I bothered looking. While I didn't find anything on my want list, I still grabbed a small handful. It was worth the fifteen minutes I spent.
Our last stop for the day was Beyond Comics. This location not only set us on our way back home, but also took us out of the city blocks of the past few locations. A plus on all fronts.
This place was organized to a "T", and the staff incredibly friendly.
I didn't honestly want to buy any comic books, but decided I would ask if they had any low number Amazing Spider-Man issues. They did not.
Still, it was fun to walk around the place, and I did end up buying something because I wanted to support the shop...after haggling, of course.
I once again almost took the plunge on the Marvel Legends Retro figures, but stopped myself from doing so. I also almost bought more of the trades for the Mighty Marvel Masterpieces, but again, stopped myself.
After that, we took the trip home, and called it a day.
Wonder Books was the most lucrative for CD's. There were definitely more there that I would have purchased, but like their comics, they weren't priced to sell. The average disc was six bucks, and that's not the price point I buy random CD's at. What did make it a bit easier to step out of my want list territory was the buy two get one free sale.
If you would have told me I would find volume one of The New Adventures of He-Man at Record Exchange, I would have told you that you were crazy. Yet, I did, and in pretty pristine condition. The guy wanted thirty dollars for it, to which I said that was a bit more than I wanted to spend. He immediately dropped it to twenty-five, and I decided to go ahead and grab it.
Like I said above, I didn't really want to buy any comics. After spotting these four Alex Ross books, which I kind of sort of wanted, and haggling the price down about a 1/4, I went ahead and grabbed them from Beyond Comics.
When I got home and added all of today's CD's to the pile from yesterday and the 15th, I had to ask myself to please not buy any more discs this month. I have hours of ripping to iTunes ahead of me. Then comes the part when I actually listen to them, and see if anything is shuffle worthy. Point being, I have plenty of music to keep me occupied for months to come.
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