Jackpot!

I was at Chinook Hobby West today buying some old hockey cards.  Last time I was home I figured out I was actually missing two cards from my '92 O-Pee-Chee Premier set and it's driving me nuts.  CHW has some old sealed boxes for $9.99, so I bought one in hopes of finding those two cards I need.  Sad part was that back in the day you could only get 3 packs for what I just bought an entire box for.

Anyway, they also got in some old school Transformers and had them out for sale including a couple cool ones like all the Contructicons and Omega Supreme.  Even though they were loose, they were still in good shape and had all their accessories.

Cam and Mike, you guys can look forward to retiring early because if you can't make out the price tag on that bag a better picture is below.

Holy what?!  Yep, that's the correct price and in Canadian dollars.  You guys don't forget your old pal Keith when you go to sell your Omega Supreme.

Happy Halloween!

Story time

When I was back in Cranbrook last week and Willie and I went up to Kimberley we were disappointed that the thrift store there wasn't open.  Not content to go home with only a picture with a R2-D2 fire hydrant we stopped at the thrift store in Marysville and hit the jackpot!

We found a bunch of old storybooks and they still had their cassette tapes and records. They actually had a bunch of them, Willie got the classic Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back while I got five(YES!).  The Star Wars Colors and Shapes actually had three books in the baggie, but only one book had the record still in it.  I gave Willie one the extra books, so now he knows his colors and shapes if he didn't already. 

These are the other books I got and the Tarzan bag had two books and records in it.  The best part was that they were super cheap.  The box that they were in said $1.50 each and I thought that was crazy cheap as it was.  When we went to pay for them the old lady asked how much they were, so we told her the box said $1.50 each.  She said "Are you sure?" and I thought it was going to be more, but then she ended up charging us only $1.00 each for them.

Whoever owned the storybooks before we did took pretty good care of them as they all had tape on the spines of the books to protect them from falling apart.  Even though it's on crooked!

All the books still had their corresponding records or tapes with them and the ones that we were on records had a bonus cassette.  The previous owner even transferred the stories from record over to cassette as to probably save the record from wear.  It worked because the couple records I got were in mint condition.  It like how they used "heavy duty educator cassette" which probably means they recorded the stories on cassette with one of those portable cassette player/recorders and placed near the stereo while they played the record.  I should probably try listening to the cassette to see what the quality is like.

Once I got back to Calgary I dug out my storage box of storybooks, so I could add my recent finds to my collection.  I have all the books with records bagged as to not lose the records and keep everything together.

I have all the old classics like Star Wars, ESB, ROTJ, Raiders, Temple of Doom, the Black Hole, Tron and more. 

There was a Story of Asteroids?  That one is still mostly still sealed in the original wrapper and I'm not opening it, so I guess we'll never hear or read it.

Pretty much all of the books in the box above I had found at thrift stores or flea markets.  The nice thing about the books and records is that the books had a storage sleeve at the back for the records.  The books with the cassettes lack the storage obviously, so they are mostly liked to be incomplete.  A couple books I don't have tapes for, but I have more than a couple tapes with no books.  This is only one box of tapes as I have more buried somewhere back at my parents' house.  I wonder if they ever made storybooks on 8-track?

Here is a fun fact!  Back in the day when I had my old crappy colouring book website I had a dream to make a website that had all the old storybooks on it along with the accompanying audio.  You could flip through the "book" looking at the pictures and then listening to the audio for each page.  I even got Cam to record a few storybooks from cassette over to CD to get me started.  My web programming skills were pathetic back then(still are!) as I never finished that class I took at COTR, so I lacked the know-how as to put everything together.  Still I was a great idea!

Laundry Day

This morning I threw my bedsheets in the washer as it due time for some cleaning.  After a nice cold cycle with a cap of Era (Chuck Norris approved!) I took out the sheets, but when I was doing so I heard a metallic sound coming from the bottom of the washer.  It thought maybe it was a coin, but when I looked inside I pulled out a .22 caliber round.

When Cody was back home in Moyie during Thanksgiving he was outside and found the bullet on the ground.  He put it in his pocket and then forgot about it.  He then washed those pants and the bullet fell out in the wash.  I wonder what would happen if the bullet made it in the dryer?  Would the heat set it off?  Would the entire house go up in a fireball?  Somebody e-mail the Mythbusters!  Just a reminder to empty your pockets before you do your laundry.

Haha, doody...

As part of Logan's birthday present I bought him a couple packages of Topps' Wacky Packages from the comic book store.  They weren't quite as funny as I remember them, but there were a few decent ones especially the Call of Duty parody sticker.

Yeah, a poop joke! 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo.....

I forgot my pogo stick in Cranbrook! :-(

Willie!

I did get to see Willie today and we ate lunch at Wendy's.  That might not seem like a big deal, but I haven't eaten at the Cranbrook Wendy's and now that I have I can cross that off my bucket list.  Afterwards we drove up to Kimberly again to check out the thrift stores and we went to the Hospital Aux(?) off the Platzl.  Turns out it was closed even though on the sign it said it was open on Mondays from 11am to 3pm.  WTH?!  Last time I was back we went there on Monday and it was open, but this time they screwed us.  We drove all that way for nothing!   Or did we?

"These aren't the droids you're looking for."

When we were walking back to the truck I spotted a fire hydrant that was painted just like R2-D2 and since we had driven all that way we had to leave with something.  I took a picture of R2 and Willie doing his best C-3PO impression and he nailed it!

Once back in Cranbrook we stopped at the Tamarack Mall, not to go the mall and check out the swanky new Bulk Barn, but to hang out in the parking lot and pogo.

I think you may recognize that pogo stick!  Making that gif was a bit of a pain as I kept fiddling around with it trying to get it perfect, but in the end I gave up and said "Good enough."  Even though that pogo stick is old and definitely worn, it's surprisingly fun.

We did have a couple more cool finds, but those will be posts for later, so look forward to being mildly entertained by those.  I'm off to relax because it's going to snow 5-15 cm in Calgary and Southern Alberta overnight and tomorrow and it's currently snowing here in Cranbrook.  The drive back tomorrow looks like it's going to suck.

The good old days???

Because absolutely nobody demanded it , it's back and even more old schoolier than ever!  I have about three different boxes with pictures in them in my parent's basement.  While looking for one box of pictures I found a different box of pictures.  Here are few of those pictures and for some reason they are mostly of Cam.

I know I tucked my shirt in only for comedic purposes.  It worked! Also, those shorts (Cam & Joe) are ridonkulous!

I completely forgot we had picture ID at Parkland.  What's the point?

Cam luvs kittens.

 Cam throws down!

More Cam?  This is getting weird.

Potatoes 4 sale

Did I mention that I'm back in Cranbrook?  It was my mom's birthday this week and next week it is Logan's birthday so I came home in the middle of them so we could celebrate both.  I was gonna post this last night, but it got bumped by Cam's Finish picture.  It was better and funnier (yeah, Cam looks funny!) so I put it up instead.

I drove back to Cranbrook on Thursday and the drive was pretty mellow.  The roads weren't very busy, so it was smooth sailing.  That was until I got to Cranbrook!  They are doing road construction from the edge of town to the Fernie/Fairmont junction.  I guess it was planned a while ago, but they just decided to start on Monday, typical Cranbrook.  What happens when/if it gets cold?  They can't be paving when it's cold.  They are working, but it looked a bit unorganized, but that's probably because of the ass clowns from Kelowna doing it.

So I drive into town and I'm going down Victoria and there is a sign of the corner on of the vacant lot beside the Save On Foods area.  It's on red paper, handwritten and reads "Potatoes 4 sale" and just off that side road there is a big trailer full of potatoes and some guy just selling them.  I know when I buy potatoes I always get them from some guy's trailer in a vacant lot.  Anything bought in a vacant lot is a quality product.  Then I'm driving up to my parent's place and there is some guy walking down the road dressed in full body suit like those guys from the Canucks games.

His suit was all black and he was wearing shorts, a jacket and a hat, but still...????  On top of that I was at Safeway later and some people were getting movies from the Red Box kiosk.  WTH Cranbrook?!

I didn't do too much today and just checked out the thrift stores.  I saw so much cool stuff I couldn't decide what to get.

I thought this thing would be strictly for ladies, but that's clearly a dude on the box and it's on his head?  I'm confused.

Everybody pogo!!

A box of plums?

I also got an e-mail from Willie as I will probably be seeing him later on at some point.  I got his e-mail just after 11am this morning and he was just going to bed.  He had just gotten back from waiting in line to get Tragically Hip tickets.  I guess some people waited over night for tickets and some guy even came from Calgary to get in line at 4am.  I could see Willie doing that as he did wait in line overnight to see the Phantom Menace.  I'm glad I never did that because I would've been pretty pissed afterwards.

That's it for now and I'll keep you posted if anything cool or exciting happens.  Like that'll happen!

Viva La Revolucion

Looks like Cam has taken up arms in the Finish Revolution.  I can't believe how that filthy dish turned sparkling white in only 10 minutes with the food stain busting power of Finish, the diamond standard of dishwashing.  When I do my dishes in the sink by hand it usually takes me at least three hours.  I wish I had a dishwasher.  Stay tuned for more hilarious hijinks from Cam and Cara in the next few days.

Blowin' in the wind

I was going to write a post Monday night, but then I said "I'll do it Tuesday."  Then along came Tuesday and I was like, "I don't wanna.  I'm lazy."  I will do a post, but since I'm lazy it'll be something easy like just posting a dumb picture. 

"Dumb picture"

I bought some new socks at Winners because I liked the camo-ish design on them.  It wasn't until I was standing in line that I noticed the sticker on them saying they were made with 100% wind power.  And it wasn't until I got home that I noticed that they are a limited edition benefiting Architecture For Humanity.  Man, if I knew they were granola type hipster socks I never would've bought them.  The cheap sweat shop made socks are so much more comfortable.  To make matters even worse was when I actually looked at the pattern it's just a bunch of lame whales.  I want a pair of socks with guns on them.

More catz

I went out this morning I needed to get some groceries, return some broken junk to Future Shop and buy some sexy new pants.  When I got home Orangey aka Orange Alert was hanging around outside as it was nice and warm out.

Looks like he actually lost some weight over the summer.  He used to be fatter and so fat he couldn't properly clean himself, so his fur was a bit matted on his back.  If whoever owned him would brush him it wouldn't be a problem.  Anyway, at the start of summer instead of brushing him, his owners just gave him a hair cut.  The fur on his back was all buzzed and cut real short.  It looked pretty funny and I meant to take a picture, but I didn't see him much.  It's grown back now, so the other cats don't make fun of him anymore.

I made some bad animated gifs with good ol' GifBoom.

Got it covered

When I got my phone the guy at Best Buy threw in some freebies for it like a screen protector, HDMI connector (which didn't even work for my phone) and a protective cover for it.  It's a fairly simple case, black!  I guess the colour doesn't matter as long as it does its job.  Luckily so far I've only dropped it once when I was getting it out of my locker at work.  It didn't fall too far.

I will give props to the iPhone because they have so many different protective sleeves/cases/covers.  I was looking on eBay for a case a little more interesting that just black, but the pickings were slim.  There are two different models of my phone as one has the camera horizontal and the other has the camera vertical.  Most of the cases on eBay are for the model with the horizontal camera and of course my phone has the camera centered vertically.  I was hoping for one that looked like a NES controller, a Game Boy, ghetto blaster, cassette tape or something like that.  I couldn't find any of those to fit my phone so I had to settle for...

THE AWESOMEST PHONE CASE EVER!!!!

Check out my package

I bought a bunch of stuff off eBay and other online stores last month and at the end of August and was wondering when it was going to get here.  When I got home from work today I found 5 packages stuffed in my mailbox.  Sweet!  Three of the packages are for me and the other two are Christmas gifts.  I'm trying to get some shopping done early this year.  Wondering what's inside them?  Well, none of your business!  I will show you one, but you'll have to come back tomorrow night.  The suspense!

Radio Down

When my parents came to visit me a few weeks ago on my birthday they also brought me my present.  It's not like I need anything as I already have way too much junk filling up my place and my parent's place.  I didn't want to hurt their feelings so I took the gift and I'm using as I type this post.

They got me a Sirius set that has the car kit and the boombox dock for listening in your home.  I haven't even tried to set it up in my car as it looks like it will be a mess of wires and stuff hanging around cluttering up my car.  Instead I just listen to it in my room.  There are a lot of channels to choose from, but I managed to fill all my presets.  It was hard work and unfortunately Willie's Roadhouse and the trucker's channel, Road Dog Trucking didn't make the cut.

1. SiriusXM Hits 1

2. Top 20 on 20 (For some weird reason it's not actually on "20", it's on channel 3)

3. 80s on 8

4. 90s on 9

5. The Pulse

6. 1st Wave

7. Lithium (90's alternative grunge!)

8. Alt Nation

9. Faction (The Sirius channel guide says "Music of action sports, Tony Hawk.)

0. bpm

I remember back when my dad had XM in his old truck as this was before the Sirius/XM merger and I always used to listen to Fungus, the punk channel.  It looks like they dropped that channel for Faction which is still punk but seems a little watered down.  Tony Hawk and Marky Ramone both have shows on Faction, but haven't been able to catch either one yet.  They both come on Tuesday nights, so I'll try tomorrow if I remember.

I was listening to 90s on 9 the other day and they started playing a song and I was like "Holy crap, it's Ugly Kid Joe!"  Of course the song was Everything About You which came out in 1991 which may be the last time I heard it.  Cam/Mike didn't one of you guys have their album?

I like the radio and it works fine, but the remote is too damn small.  When I'm putting in the numbers I'm always pressing the wrong one because it's all too small.  Even though I only use it inside, I might try and hook up the car kit on my next drive back to Cranbrook.  I'll need that Ugly Kid Joe pump up music for the drive.

Thanksgiving or whatever

Another Thanksgiving and another Thanksgiving I'm stuck in Calgary not having a real turkey dinner.  In past I've tried things like a turkey sub from Subway, turkey pepperoni sticks, a Swanson turkey dinner, but the worst was the canned turkey.  One year I even cooked a PC Easy Carve turkey and almost did that this year, but I didn't want to spend all that money and it would too much food for just me.  This year I went with the Butterball stuffed turkey roll/log breast.

I know Thanksgiving dinner is supposed to be on Sunday and if you aren't having it on Sunday then you are doing it wrong!  I have to work Sunday and I don't have time to "cook", so Saturday it is!  I even read the instructions and I was supposed to put it on a rack in a shallow roasting pan.  I don't have a rack or a roasting pan, so it wasn't exactly a smooth start.

After going to Safeway I bought this roasting pan, but is it shallow enough?  I was confused because they had roasting pans and baking pans.  What is the difference?  They look exactly the same and are made of the exact same thing.  I bought this one because it actually said it was a roasting pan on the label and it was the smallest they had.  They had smaller ones, but they were the "baking" pans.  I never did get a rack for it.

My turkey log in the "roasting" pan ready to go in to the oven.  The directions also say to oil the turkey to keep it moist so the netting on it doesn't dry out.  It will rip apart the meat when you remove it later.  I oiled it up (the turkey) and slapped some bacon on it (still the turkey) because the bacon grease will do the same thing as the oil right?

Four and a half hours later...

It's done!  It kind of, sort of looks edible. The light strip on the right hand side is where I ate a piece of the bacon.  The netting came off pretty easy without damaging the meat.  The bacon worked!

Thanksgiving dinner is served.  I made the gravy from a packet of Swiss Chalet gravy mix, the scalloped potatoes are Betty Crocker and the veggies I threw in the microwave.  It wasn't bad, but still too much work and too much mess for something that tasted like that.  Why can't someone make a turkey and gravy flavored cereal?  I hope I did everything right and suffer no ill consequences, but I guess only time will tell.  Cross your fingers.

The best part because I didn't have cook it!

BFFs

Heart warming isn't it?

Give me something I can use!

This was in the mailbox this morning when I went downstairs to eat my morning Oikos.  Free stuff and I didn't even have to go online and enter a PIN code to get it.  Unfortunately, we don't even have a dishwater.  Thanks a lot jerks!  I guess I'll have to flush it down the toilet to get rid of it.  I wonder what would happen if I did that?  Maybe I should take it to work and find out!

Should I or shouldn't I?

I've got some shopping to do!  It's both my mom's and Logan's birthday in October and I'm not sure what to get either of them.  My mom always says she doesn't need anything and Logan already has ton of crap.  I was going to get him the new Pokemon game, but my sister is already getting it for him so it's back to the drawing board.

Last time I was at Phoenix Comics they had a bunch of vintage Kenner Star Wars figures.  Remember the free little Boba Fett that I got with my giant expensive Boba Fett?  It was one of those.  Not all of the figures were cool ones, they didn't even have a Bike Scout.  I did buy an IG-88 with the plan to give to Logan as part of his birthday present.  But now...

I brought him home and set him on my dresser and every time I walk by him I think, "He's looks too cool.  Maybe I should keep him for myself?"  I'm so torn.  I could just get Logan a new Star Wars figure and he wouldn't even care.  Avery would probably break this one anyway!  They also had a Gamorrean Guard that was cool, I should get that for my mom.  Or maybe I'll keep it for myself?