EVERY BOX WINS!

I was walking down the cereal aisle at Co-op looking for something good which means I was looking to see if there were any cereals with toys in them.  There wasn't any!   A box of Honeycomb caught my eye with a "EVERY BOX WINS" logo on the corner.  If I'm guaranteed to win then I can't lose!  The contest is called "Flip the Flap" which is reminiscent of Tim Horton's "Roll Up the Rim" and I'm sure that was the whole idea.

The thing about contests now is that on the inside of the packaging there is a PIN which you then have to register online to find out what you won if anything.  But first you have to register at a website and give them your name, e-mail, address and then look forward to many a junk mail.  I remember the good old days when you looked under the cap of your Pepsi or on the inside of your chocolate bar or chip wrapper and it would say if you won.  Instant gratification!  It's too much of a hassle to do all this PIN number & website business I wonder if all these prizes are getting claimed or not.

Since Honeycomb guaranteed me that I was going to win I registered all my info on their website and put in my PIN to see what I won.  Yes, I won!  Unfortunately, it was a free Puretracks download, just one download of one song.  Can't I at least have one album?  I looked around Puretracks for about one minute before I closed the tab which means my free download is up for grabs.  Grab it fast before anyone else.  Does anyone else even read this

Puretracks^® PIN code: 9882903931

Puretracks^® serial number: 3637501

The old college try.

After the debacle that was my last post I figured I should e-mail Fiona and apologize or something.  I went to her website, but she doesn't have her e-mail address listed on it.  But let it be known that I tried!

Funny books

If it's the end of April then it's time for the annual Calgary Comic Book Expo.  Last year I went both Saturday and Sunday, but this year only went Sunday because there wasn't that many people I want to go see.  They double the size of space, yet there were still a lot of people crammed in there.  It seemed like every time I saw something I wanted to look at like twenty showed up to stand right in front it.  When we first walked in we walked by someplace selling some vintage G.I. Joes and I wanted to get a original plain old blue Cobra grunt or "The Enemy" as labeled on the package.  I went back to find the table later and couldn't find it!  I wandered around that place like fifty times and couldn't find it unless it was just my imagination.  I'm getting old.

As I said there wasn't that many people I wanted to check out, but I did get a few things signed and got a couple sketches, but that is about it.  I didn't even spend that much money which is cool because I can spend it on some other stuff I don't need.

Every year the Expo puts out an art book with stuff from the guests with the proceeds going to charity.  In past years it was done with a "western" theme, but this year they went with a sci-fi theme.  I picked up my book and never really even looked at it, but just got a few artists I liked to sign it.  After I went home I had time to look at it and there is lots of cool stuff in it.  I wish I had a few more of the artists sign their pages.  I was getting a sketch book and signature on my art book from local artist Gerald Garcia and he asked me if I ever filled an entire art book with signatures and I was like, "No, I'm not that ambitious."  That is too much work!

Mini Marvels!  I got my Mini Marvels signed by writer/artist Chris Giarusso.  You may have seen his work when I posted a commission he did for me of the Punisher.  I also got him to do me a Spider-Man sketch.

The comics above are signed by colorist Christina Strain.  You'll notice the Mary Jane ones are also signed by artist Takeshi Miyazawa making them twice as cool.  Daughters of the Dragon is also signed by writer Jimmy Palmiotti.

Tiny Titans signed by Art Baltazar.  I picked up my art book after getting him to sign this and forgot to go back and get him the art book.  Oops.  Nice guy though, and he was wearing a Superman costume.

A couple things signed by local artist Fiona Staples.  I tried to buy a $3 comic from her, but all I had was a $20 and she didn't have any change.  I said I'd come back later which I did with a $5 and she still have the change.  How unprofessional, that is the last time I ever buy anything from her.  Good thing Cody gave me $3.

The Mighty Skullboy Army signed by creator Jacob Chabot.  Another nice guy and mad props to him for recognizing my L4D2 Midnight Riders t-shirt.  FYI, the new L4D2 DLC is now out.   Take notice he drew a little Unit 2 aka the monkey in the bottom corner.  He also did the Marvel mini series X-Babies and he did me this kid Wolverine picture.  I also bought an old Spider-Man picture off him that for some reason he has had since 2006 and nobody wants.

I also got artist Marcio Takara to sign my art book and I got a Spider-Man sketch and a Invisible Woman print from him.

That is pretty much it.  There was a lot to do I guess and a lot of movie guests this year like Leonard Nimoy,  Brent Spiner, Malcolm McDowell, Billy Dee Williams and Lloyd Kaufman.  I didn't learn until about 5 minutes ago that Garry Chalk aka Vice Principal Grimes from Scooby-Doo: The Mystery Begins was there.  I totally missed out!

There didn't seem to be as many people in costume this year or maybe it just seemed that way because there were more people in general.  One of the best costumes I saw was some girl dressed as one of those blue aliens from Avatar which looked totally professional.  The best wasn't the fanciest, it was a little girl dressed as Hitgirl from Kick-Ass complete with cardboard knife.  I wonder if she even knew what the character was about because the comic and the movie are way too adult for her.

I carried all my comics around in a messenger bag and my back is killing me from standing/walking all day with a bag hanging on my shoulder.  I'm getting old.

??????????

Cody came home on Monday and saw my Moo Mixer and said, "Where did you get that?!"  Yesterday he went out bought his own and after trying it out set it on the counter right next to mine.  Now we can't tell which cup belongs to who.  I guess the only way to sort it out is to throw both of them in garbage and go buy new ones, making sure to label our own mugs.  Problem solved?

Chocolate milk!

One of the good things about living in Calgary is that I can miss someone's birthday and it's not a big deal because I wasn't "there".  Last weekend was Avery's birthday and since my dad is coming to Calgary in a few weeks I figured I'd better start looking for something for him to send back.  I went to Toys R Us, but didn't really see anything exciting.  I was looking for something he could use outside, but he already has a bike and my parents got him a scooter, so I'm running out of ideas.  Lawn darts?

I went up Bow Trail because there is an educational toy store up there I thought I'd have a look in.  They didn't have that much that looked interesting except maybe some marshmallow guns.  As I was leaving I spotted something that any kid or adult would love to have.  It's not really a toy, but you can still enjoy it.

A cup that mixes your chocolate milk for you and moos at the same time?  Sold!  It's a pretty neat idea, but I think I'll just give it to my sister for both Logan and Avery.   Kids love chocolate milk (or anything chocolate) and that fact that the cup moos is fun.  The Talking Moo Mixer features the mix, moo, and drink from the same cup convenience.  It runs on two AA batteries and has a nylon mixer that is safe for little hands.

 They also had a Supreme Moo Mixer which is a bigger cup, but lacks the "mooing" action.  I can live without the moo sound and like that fact that it's a big 10 oz cup, so consider it sold!  I'll save lots of money now that I can mix my own chocolate milk instead of buying the pre-mixed stuff at the grocery store.  Homemade chocolate is also such a hassle when you have to mix it yourself with a spoon. 

Ingredients assemble!

Adding the Quik.  Strawberry Quik can also be used.

The chocolaty vortex of awesomeness!

The more you mix it the more foamy it gets.

When you add the milk you can't add too much or when you mix it, the milk will rise up over the edge of the cup.  Good thing it comes with a sip top lid, to prevent that.  But half the fun is watching the milk spin around!

The cup and base that hold the batteries could have attached better and the handle and wrap around B&W cow pattern are a cheaper plastic, but it does what it says it does and it does it pretty good.  I'm pretty happy with it.  While the box states it has a detachable base for easy cleaning, wouldn't it just be easier to mix some soap and water right in the cup to clean it?  I'm so smart...and lazy.  Finally, technology has brought chocolate milk into the modern age!

Protip

I got that spare cassette case I needed the other day.  I went to the thrift store near our place to get it.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any sealed blank cassettes, so I had to get a used one.  If this ever happens you and it probably won't, but if it does here is the way to get the best case.

I wanted a case that was all clear, not the really old ones with the black backs.  Since they were all old and used a lot of them were scratched and damaged.  The easiest way to find the best one is to go through them and pick out the the crappiest and/or most obscure albums. 

As always your best bet is to get something local or religious or both.  Most thrift stores will have some kind of religious albums in the form of records, tapes or CDs just because nobody wants them.  NOBODY!  That's why I got a Calgary Youth cassette in near mint condition.  I also recently picked up the OOP and hard to find Johnny Hanson Presents Puck Rock Vol 1, but the case was in rough shape.  While I was picking up a new cassette case, I also got myself a new CD case.

There you see it's local and religious and even still sealed.  They had like 6 sealed copies of it too.  My Johnny Hanson Puck Rock CD looks brand new and if anyone wants the Calgary Protestant Male Choir CD let me know as it's still lying on my floor somewhere.

Red with blue hands

Whhaaaaa?

Crap I got.

Remember how in a previous post I was talking about making a website about the old storybooks that came with the tapes and records?  Well, I have a few tapes sitting around and back then they didn't come with cases, so I need some cases to help getting them in NM condition.  I headed over the the Goodwill on Shaganappi with plans to buy some cassette tapes, so I could trash the tapes, but keep the cases.  Of course, I ended up leaving with a lot more than tape cases.

 I did find the tape cases and the tapes were brand new wrapped blank cassettes which was a bonus because at Goodwill all tapes, DVDs, and CDs have stickers on them.  Three of the four I got were even the slim line cassette cases too.  Unfortunately I should have checked to see how many cases I actually needed because I bought four when I needed five.  I'll have to look for some more because it's not like I can go to Wal-Mart or Future Shop to buy new ones.  Although, I think they dollar store might have them.  So does anybody want the blank tapes or should I just throw them out right now? 

I bought this weird DVD for Cody called Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning which is some kind of Finnish Star Trek fan film.  At IMDB it looks to have a decent rating, so maybe it's not that awful.  I'll let Cody watch it first.

In the "media" area I also bought myself a Prodigy single and a old school Walt Disney 45 record.  The record sleeve turned out to have two records inside, so it was a double score.

I wasn't even going to look at the clothes, but happened to be walking by the t-shirts when I spotted one with a monkey on it!  Everyone needs a t-shirt with a monkey on it.  And right beside it I got a Galactus shirt too.  I was a pretty haul as they were both printed on American Apparel shirts, but remember to hang dry them or they will shrink.

Cody just got back from spending Easter in BC and while he was there he went to Giant Tiger.  Bad news is that they are all out of Crunk, but the good news is that they were giving away Giant Tiger slinkys.  They were GIVING them away, how cool is that! 

 

I'm sure supplies are limited so get your ass down to GT and get yours today.  A while ago I took my dad to the Cranbrook GT because he had never been in there and I doubt he's been back.  We got free GT drink cozies which he then threw in box to give the thrift store.  The slinky is way cooler and way more practical.  Now prepared to be amazed by some awesome slinky action.

Go slinky!

I said, "GO SLINKY!!"

JUST GO DAMMIT!!

Okay, this is going to take a while.

Exact change?

Today at work I went outside to get a drink from the vending machines  and I went to the Coke machine to grab a Five Alive aka Deli Cinq.  I put in my toonie only to have it fall straight through to the change slot, so I tried it again with the same result.  The meat supervisor, Andre, was walking by and I asked him if he had any change.  We tried two on his toonies, but they also fell straight through as well.  Coke is for scrubs anyway, so I headed over to the Pepsi machine.

The Pepsi machine is better anyway as drinks only cost $1.75 compared to $2.00 at the Coke machine.  I put my twoonie in the machine and it got stuck!  I didn't hear it fall down, so I looked into the slot and I could see it caught on someone else's quarter in there.  I used one of my keys to poke around and knock it down.  The quarter was really jammed though.  I picked my selection of lemonade and picked up my change of 26 cents.

I'm pretty sure that if I paid $2.00 for a drink that costs $1.75,  then I'll get back $0.25, not $0.26.  Is this what they call the "new math"?  How did a penny get in the Pepsi machine?  Who puts pennies in vending machines anyway?  It all worked out better for me anyway, so I shouldn't complain.  That's one penny closer to $1 million.

One foot in the grave.

Last post was about my recently deceased Bruceploitation website and this post is about my other site which is even more neglected, but surprisingly still around.  I'm talking about Keith's Colouring Book and take note I spelled "colour" with a "u".   Spell checker on Blogger keeps highlighting "colouring" as being spelled incorrect.

Again, I'm not even sure how old the colouring page is, maybe 7 or 8 years old I'm guessing.  It is still around because I didn't put it up Geocities, for some reason I chose Fortune City and the only reason why I can think of is because it was free.  It's free because you have to look at banner ads, pop up ads and well all kinds of ads.  Yeah, it's annoying I know. 

I started the site because back then I wanted to do something a little original and different.  My original idea was to scan pictures from those storybooks that came with records or tapes.  You could see the scanned page from the book and then listen to the audio if you wanted to.  The whole thing was too complicated for me to pull off, although I still think it's a cool idea.  When that fell through I came up with the idea of scanning pages from my collection of vintage colouring books.  Another kick ass idea, but the execution wasn't that great.

After looking at the website after all these years, it's not quite as great as I remember.  I thought I had more pictures than I do and better ones too.  The quality of the images is straight up awful!  When I got my scanner I didn't really know how to use it that well, plus my computer wasn't all that hot.  If I tried to scan something with a large file size it would freeze the computer.  I solved this by scanning stuff at some black and white file setting that made the lines appear all blocky.  Eventually I upgraded a decent computer and figured out to use the damn scanner.  Look at the most recent pictures from Ultimate Muscle and compare them to any other pictures and you'll see there is quite a difference.

Despite the reason that I haven't update the site in about five years, it still manages to somehow attract visitors.  In fact, just last week I got an e-mail from some lady asking me if I knew how much a mint Happy Days colouring book would be.   I've also got e-mails asking me for permission to use the pictures for things and I just say I'm pretty sure I'm breaking all kinds of copyright laws just by having those pictures on the site so I'd recommend you use them at your own risk.

Colouring stuff is a young man's game though.  I did the Turtles maze, but screwed up when I accidentally coloured Leonardo as Donatello.  It was an honest mistake.  I started the Transformers picture, but couldn't remember Optimus Prime's exact colour scheme.  I know carrots are orange, so I did that and stopped before I messed up the pictures.  Now that I've stimulated myself mentally and artistically for the day, it's time to blow stuff up and kill dudes.

RIP

I'm not sure if you guys even knew it existed let alone visited it, but my kung fu film website, Bruceploitation, is officially dead.  If you still don't know that that is, it was my website about the movies and actors who cashed in on Bruce Lee's death.  It's actually been around for a long time, so long in fact that I can't even remember how old it is. I'm guessing 8 or 9 years old?

I originally put it up on Geocities because way back then it was the cool thing to do because they hosted websites for free.  Eventually Yahoo took over Geocities and just recently Yahoo shut down Geocities completely.  Thank you economy!  Yahoo gave me the option to switch it over, but it would've cost me way too much money, something like $160/year for a website I don't even update.  No thank you.  I have looked around at other places to host the site and I found some cheap ones that only cost like $4/mo. plus a domain name.  Still I probably won't update it much and my HTML skills are absolutely pathetic.  I took a HTML course at COTR waaaaay back in '97 and technically I never actually even finished the class.  I got an "Incomplete" which is weird because I thought I did the final project.  Then again I would go to class and spend the entire time surfing the 'net instead of actually working.  They still use HTML right??

I actually have a stack of movies to watch that I could review, but writing the reviews is that hard part.  Despite Bruceploitation not getting updated for forever, the site still gets visitors.  I still get, or I mean got the occasional e-mail from people asking questions about movies.  I usually gets e-mails with questions like this, "I watched this movie with this Bruce Lee lookalike who fights some guys who killed his master, so he's out for revenge."  Dude, you just described like 50,000 kung fu films right there!  After a while the movies all blur together and being the jerk that I am I don't even bother replying to e-mails anymore.  Sorry guys, ask someone else.

The really crappy thing about Bruceploitation closing is that it also hosted all the pictures I had on my old MySpace blog as well as the music for the Boom Box on this blog.  Yeah, the Boom Box is gone, as if anyone even noticed!  I didn't even have back ups for pretty much all of the pictures from MySpace, so they are lost forever which really sucks.  I guess that is why you are supposed to back stuff up I suppose.


End of an era.  RIP Bruceploitation 2001 - 2010