Christmas 2023, Part 3!

 

With family gone, my girl and I were able to sit down to a nice quite day after Christmas, watch a movie together, and open our gifts to each other. Well...So we thought.

Unbeknownst to us, we had created a monster over the years. He was hyper, ready for gifts, and tore them all open like a rabid stray going after a meal.

Despite receiving over ten gifts from us, this simply wasn't enough, and he soon turned his attention to helping us open ours.

Excuse me, that's mine!

When paper wasn't available, he took to chewing through boxes.

And when it was all said and done, whew...there was a mess.

We weren't upset by any of this, though. See, recently our pup went into a critical diabetic condition, and we thought we were going to lose him. This was how we learned he had the disease, and is now very diet regimented, as well as insulin dependent the rest of his life. We were glad to see him so energetic and happy. We know the reality of the disease, and the unfortunate "side effects" which can lead to other issues, so want to enjoy as much time as possible with him, and ensure he has a good life.

What I could wrestle from the dog, I found that I had received some great gifts from my girl.

Apparently, the Christmas elves were talking, because she got me a bunch of mylar bags to re-bag my comic collection. I used to use standard poly bags, but after seeing how much better they display in mylar, and knowing I won't have to change the bags again in my lifetime is necessitating the change. Plus, as I slow down from physical collecting, I'm finding myself just wanting to organize, and present my things in the best manner possible, while keeping them well protected. Mylar accomplishes all of this.

She also picked me up a (second) copy of the Fallout 4 Vault Dweller's Survival Guide. She had already bought me a copy of this last year for my birthday, but knew the used copy she picked up was missing a component that I really wanted.

That component is this map. I'm going to frame this bad boy, and hang it up.

She also got me a custom nuclear blast model which includes a miniature city. It lights up via USB.

Those of you who know me well, know I cook. I've been wanting a good salt and pepper grinder for a while, because I've had two which were made of plastic in the past, and broke them both. They would either fall and bust, or simply snap into pieces when unscrewing them. Hopefully, these wood ones are more durable.

Again the Christmas elves huddled, and I also got an additional case of BCW plastic comic boxes.

I got Weird, The Al Yankovic Story on DVD, and this was the movie we ended up watching. While I knew it was a parody of a biopic, it sadly wasn't as funny as I was expecting. You expect the unexpected from the artist, but this was so far out in left field that it actually derailed itself. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story definitely did parody biopics better.

In hindsight, it was rather stupid of me to go to Baltimore Comic Con this year, and buy Ultimate Fallout 4, get it signed by Brian Michael Bendis, and not pick up the other five issues in the series and do the same thing. Well, thanks to my girl, I at least have the books now.

In part 2 of my Christmas 2023 series, I stated that G.I. Jigsaw may have won best Christmas gift ever with his little people renderings of Spider-Man characters that he gave me. Well, sorry, George. You have been unceremoniously dethroned. As much as I love those little figures, and I'm still going to hit you up for a wave two...and apparently beyond with the 75 characters I wrote up yesterday...My girl has taken the title from you.

I have wanted something signed by Stan Lee for a very (VERY) long time. Even when he was still alive it was my goal to get something. Sadly, he never seemed to come to my neck of the woods, or even within driving distance. Then...well...he kind of passed away. Prices on his autographs skyrocketed, and though I still wanted something, couldn't justify the cost.

Well, now I don't have to. My girl took care of it for me, and presented me with this awesome 11 X 14 signed poster of Amazing Fantasy 15.

I went out frame hunting the next day, and after not being able to find one that suited my wants, specifically with the mat, I decided to do a little custom work with some red and blue paint, and a white and black gel pen. It turned out great! I mean, I like it.

Then I went back to bagging and boxing comics. As you can see from the pictures below, the upgrades make all the difference.

Before

After

And I'm only about half way...

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Christmas 2023, Part 2!

As I was celebrating the holiday season, I came into an unfortunate scenario. My external drive, the one that keeps my history of photographs, recipes, Toy Box posts, and MP3's of CD rips flat out died. No warning. No abuse that lead up to it. It just stopped working. That is a ton of data lost.

Ugh...

Well, it sucks, but I'm not going to let it ruin my holiday. Instead, I'm gonna keep plowing forward, showcasing the gifts I got from friends and family this year, which were fortunately still on my phone.

From my mom, I got two cases of BCW short comic boxes. These are the hard plastic shell ones, which I've been wanting to upsize to for a while. In general, I'm looking to better protect my comics, and have been switching all the old poly bags to mylar. These cases were inevitable to happen, and I'm grateful to have received ten from my mom.

Mom also got me four 80's based cartoon DVD's. As I mentioned in part 1 of my Christmas 2023 posts, I have been grabbing the Hanna-Barbera manufacture on demand DVD's here and there. Adding The Biskitts, Monchichi's, Paw Paws, and Space Stars to my collection is awesome!

From my co-worker Pete, I got a set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirts. With the voice actors of the turtles, and April O'Neil coming to Big Lick Nova 2024, these are definitely a must for me to take with me, and get signed.

I also got a variety of gift cards from folks, which I'll probably be using to get more mylar bags and the remaining BCW storage boxes I "need".

I also got a sketch book and some art supplies from my girl as a Christmas eve gift. These will keep me occupied when I'm sitting in bed at night watching cartoons.

Lastly, and probably the winner of Christmas 2023, even though I haven't opened anything from my girl, is my gift from George of G.I. Jigsaw.

When I opened this box, I was like, "Are you kidding me?!?!!" I immediately walked away from everyone in the living room, and went upstairs. Christmas over, no need for anything else. Thank you all, good night.

Spider-Man, Symbiote Spider-Man, Green Goblin, Mysterio, Sandman, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Vulture, and Doc Ock! That's a lot of the key Spider-Man cast right there in one box! Thanks so much, George! This truly was my favorite gift...maybe even ever.

I already asked him if I could start throwing out names for a wave two, which he was totally down with. I don't think he's realized the work he just created for himself. But, seriously. These are freakin' awesome! I can't wait for this whole shelf to be full of them all!

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Christmas 2023, Part 1!

 

Those of you who know me already know that I am a firm believer that if there's one person who should get "you" a gift for your birthday or Christmas, it should be yourself. You know what you want. You work hard for your money. Reward you for being you!

This year I picked up comics and DVD's for myself. Trying to keep it cheap(er) than past years, and a little more reasonable.

First up is some Spider-Man goodness. Though I don't typically stray past 1998, there are a handful of story arcs which I was interested in reading. Technically, this one is part of volume one, when the series returned back to the normal numbering after volume two (yeah, it can get confusing). Shed tells a brutal tale of the Lizard over a four story arc starting in issue 630, and ending in 633. The only reason I picked up issue 629 was because the cover blurb eludes to a prologue lead in. I won't spoil the story, but someone close to Doctor Connors, aka Lizard, dies in a very gruesome way.

This next set of books may have been a rabbit hole I opened for myself.

I had been toying (no pun intended) around with the idea of collecting some of the original Marvel run of G.I. Joe, but never took the plug. The reason being that every time I saw the older issues, specifically 2 and 3, they were always the second prints. Well, a fateful trip to a local comic shop during a lunch break at work found me coming across a stack in the stores new acquisitions bins. The prices were too good to pass up, and the fact that they were first prints kind of sealed the deal. This could get out of control fast.

Next up were three DVD's.

I've been selectively picking up some of the Hanna-Barbera print on demand cartoon collections which were a staple of my childhood, but outside of the realm of the 80's. This year, I decided to pick up the complete collections of Josie and the Pussycats, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, and Jabberjaw.

The last two items I picked up were ones I'd wanted for a while, but could never bring myself to commit.

If you read last week's post, you may have seen these two.

I'm a big fan of the Spider-Man symbiote suit era. It may very well be my absolute favorite point in history for the character. Well, these two preview books showcase the first (came out before The Amazing Spider-Man 298) and third (came out after The Amazing Spider-Man 298)  appearances of Venom. Not personally in my wheelhouse of the symbiote story arc, but something I definitely wanted to add to my collection. That Todd McFarlane cover on Comics Scene is worth the price of admission on its own!

And from there, Christmas only got bigger and better! Tune in next week for more!

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Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas, all!

As we spend time with friends and family, we first and foremost rejoice the true reason of the day. Though we will exchange many gifts today, none is more precious than the gift of salvation offered by our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. We thank you father for all you have provided, and celebrate you, the true reason of this, and every day. Amen.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 24th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

The Christmas countdown wraps up with a DVD.

It's the greatest live concert of the 80's, and possibly of all time. Live Aid filled stages in both Wembley Stadium in the UK, and John F. Kennedy Stadium in the US for a whopping 16 hour show. All proceeds went to famine relief for Africa, raising over 140 million dollars when it was all said and done. The lineup featured more than 75 acts, including Elton John, Queen, Madonna, Santana, Run DMC, Sade, Sting, Bryan Adams, the Beach Boys, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Duran Duran, U2, the Who, Tom Petty, Neil Young and Eric Clapton. Like I said, possibly the greatest concert of all times. Unfortunately, it's never been released on CD. But, I suppose with the DVD's I can make that happen for myself.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 23rd

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

This is the only soundtrack I picked up.

I've never been a fan of Whoopi Goldberg, and honestly never saw what the appeal was. I tell you what though, this soundtrack excites me. Bananarama, Kool & The Gang, The Rolling Stones, The Supremes, and more feature tracks on this. I'm definitely looking forward to this one.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 22nd

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

Today we have a single, and by no means an amazing one.

It's a perfectly horrible song for all the right reasons, and so 80's. Frank and Moon Zappa's Valley Girl is one that you play when you want to give someone a taste of oddity from the era. 

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 21st

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

Of all the albums I picked up, this one excites me the most to listen to.

Tina Turner was at the top of her game in the 80's, and I imagine she brings all her high energy to this double CD live album. The track listing is jam packed with hits. What You Get Is What You See, Typical Male, Better Be Good To Me, Private Dancer, We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome), What's Love Got To Do With It...And all those tracks are just part of disc one! 

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 20th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

Oddly enough, I used to own this one, but tossed it out with a bunch of other CD's I just decided one day that I didn't want. That was a stupid mistake, and one I still regret to this day. 

It's frequently touted as one of the greatest live albums of the era. Is it true? I don't know. I've never heard it. It seems to have a pretty decent track listing. I suppose if there's a silver lining to rebuying it, this one is actually the target German pressing. Those are always fun to have.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 19th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

There's a song on this album that prompted me to buy it, but for the life of me, I don't know what it was.

 I guess my listening session of Steel Breeze will be a fun surprise. I wish I could say more, but I truly don't remember a thing about the album, other than it's been on my want list for quite some time.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 18th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

It's blamed for ruining live albums for everyone.

When Bruce Springsteen released his definitive live box set known as Live: 1975 - 85, the music industry turned upside down. It's rumored that this contributed greatly to why many artists didn't release live albums in the 80's. They simply couldn't compete with the massive tome Springsteen unleashed. Of course, the other side to that matter was that MTV ushered in an era where fans wanted to see the artists, not just just hear them. Despite not releasing albums, many did go on to release VHS tapes of full concerts.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 17th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

I'm torn on this one. It's technically an 80's album, being recorded in 1981, but contains songs from the 60's and 70's.

I'm talking about Simon and Garfunkel's The Concert In The Park. It's touted as one of the greatest live albums of all time, and fit in with my desire to get more live recordings from the decade. But, again, there's not exactly any songs from the era. They all come from the due's original studio albums. Does it still count as an 80's album? 

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 16th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

I love when I stumble across a song I knew from the 80's, but forgot about.

Feargul Sharkey scratched that itch perfectly when I came across his 1985 hit, A Good Heart. He's got a Rod Stewart kind of vibe going to him. It took me a while to actually find this album on CD because it was actually never released in the US. I final found one from a seller in the UK. Man, that international shipping is ridiculous these days. 

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 15th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

This one was on my want list for about a year before I finally got around to picking it it.

I wanted this one up for the title track, which is the only new track on the album. The rest feature songs taken from Schilling's prior two English language albums.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 14th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

It's been a long time since I bought an album based on the cover, but this one certainly fit the bill.

Pointed Sticks is an early punk band who came and went in the blink of an eye in the 70's / 80's. They formed in 78, and disbanded by 81, releasing only four singles, and one studio album during that time. Their album, Perfect Youth wouldn't be released on CD until 2005, and even though it was released in the new Millennium, remains hard to find.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 13th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

I have zero knowledge about the songs on this album, and picked it up solely to complete my 80's collection from the band.

Um...The cover's unique. Beyond that, I don't know what more to say about it until I've had a chance to hear it. 

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 12th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

I don't know if this will ultimately be my last album from this band.

When Ministry released their first two albums, they were actually a synthpop band. Of course, this all changed in the late 80's, and while some would argue it was better for the band, personally, I prefer the older stuff. This is ironic, because apparently the band don't, and try as hard as possible to distance themselves from their earlier albums. Twitch is their second, and last synthpop release. I already have their debut.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 11th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

This one has been on my want list for the longest time, but been relatively unobtainable. It doesn't help that it's release region (on CD) was limited to Europe.

Though it would go on to be a platinum release, when it first came out, Nik Kershaw's 1984 debut was negatively received by critics. I guess that just goes to show that they don't always know what they're talking about. I am quite looking forward to this one. I hope it turns into one of those situations where it leads me to want to dig in further to the artist.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 10th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

I don't know why I picked this one up.

Journey is nowhere near my top ten, twenty, thirty, or beyond list of favorite bands. The sole reason I bought this was to pad out my 80's live albums. Reading the seventeen track listing, I know a whopping four. Of those, I "like" two of them. Mmm boy...this should be a torturous listening session.

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Christmas CD Countdown 2023! December 9th

  

A couple years ago, or maybe just last year, I can't remember, I started packing away CD"s I was buying between October and November to have myself a CD a day Christmas countdown. It's like getting a gift every day leading up to the holiday. It helps tied over the excitement of the coming day, and well, it's just fun.

This year's focus was live albums, and 80's discography clean up. The latter meaning that it wasn't necessarily an album I had on my want list for a specific song, but rather to have an entire decade collection of a specific artist.

For as much love as Elton John gets, there are a lot of people who call him out frequently for his albums that they consider to have been unnecessary. There's no denying that despite the shear volume of releases he's had over his multi-decade career, a lot of that music isn't good to the vast majority.

1981's The Fox completes my 80's collection of the singer, and I'd be lying if I said I knew any of the songs off of it. I'm willing to give it a chance, and hoping to find something that stands out. But, I'm not holding my breath.

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