Grumpy cat is always right.

Can't argue with that.

Pictures of pictures...but different

I've done the "pictures of pictures" bit on here a few times, but this time I'm doing it a little different.  I e-mailed Murray the other day and told him about some Archie comic art I got at the flea market and he said I should send him a picture.  I also told him I would take care of his Mars Attacks art and his crinkly Flash sketch by putting them in my portfolio book I have.  I got a big portfolio book for my small collection of art, sketches and whatnot because I wanted to keep them safe.

Over the next few posts I'll be showing pictures of the pictures that I have in my book.  If you've been reading my blog since the beginning then you've probably seen a lot of them, but some you haven't.

This is the portfolio book which came from Michael's and I recently had to go out and buy some more pages for it.

Spider-Man commission from Takeshi Miyazawa.  The photo doesn't do it justice, it looks crazy awesome in person.

Some Betty and Veronica art from Archie artist Dan Parent who drew the Archie Meets KISS crossover a couple years ago.

An original page of art from The X-Files by Calgary artist Claude St. Aubin.  It's page 4 from the issue, "The Silent Blade."  I picked this up at the crummy little comic show back in 1998.

A sketch from Fiona Staples from the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 2009.  I asked for something "girly" and this is what I got.

A print signed by artist Jo Chen.  This image is a cover of Marvel's Runaways.  Got it when she came to the Calgary Comic and Ent Expo.  Hey Murray, she's from Taiwan!

A water colour painting of Joss, the main character from Faith Erin Hick's graphic novel, Zombies Calling.  She was selling art a while ago (years ago) from her website, so I bought this.

A print for the comic Done to Death signed by writer Andrew Foley and artist Fiona Staples.  They gave it to me for free which was nice considering I was all weird and junk.  It's hand numbered 93 out of 100.

Yep, that is just plain old Hives poster.  Seems a bit out of place...and it is!

Sorry everybody, but that is all the pictures for now.  If I did everything in one post it would like ten miles long.  That is ten internet miles.  See ya soon.

Grey Thursday

I had planned on a different post for today, but then decided to do a quick rant on something a bit more topical...Black Friday.  Black Friday has always been an American thing where we Canadians would turn on the TV to watch scenes of people stampeding and trampling each other, sometimes to death, in search of the almighty deal.  We would shake our heads and say "What the hell America?"  Unfortunately, now businesses in Canada want in on the action and Black Friday has officially here.

It started out small, slowly growing, but this year seems the worst and every where I turn it is Black Friday deals.  Every major retailer has Black Friday deals, I see ads on TV, I'm getting stupid e-mails about Black Friday.   I saw the cover of the Calgary Herald this morning and the front page was a giant Sport Check Black Friday ad.  What?!  Shouldn't a newspaper have something like, oh I don't know, NEWS on the front page?  I can see ads/flyers/inserts inside the paper, but do we really need ads on the front page of the paper?  This is something I'd expect from the The Sun, not the Herald.

It's pretty annoying, but when all is said and done I may buy something.  At work we have a 4GB XBox 360 for $129.99 and you get a $50 gift card when you buy it.  I'm considering getting one for Logan for Christmas, so he can set it up at the lake.  I work that day, so when I go home I might get one, but I haven't decided yet.  I'm not gonna get one first thing in the morning and if it's busy later on it's too much of a bother.  It's not much of a priority.

In a protest to all the big box retailers and their Black Friday deals I went to the thrift store today.  I bought a raffle ticket where the first prize is airfare to anywhere Westjet flies.  If I win I will have no excuse not to visit Cam.  I will also accept the second prize of a 51" TV.

I also bought the Captain America on DVD!  I'm not talking about Chris Evans Cap, but the old 1979 Captain America TV movies.  I got the double feature from Shout Factory which has Captain America and Captain America II: Death Too Soon.  I've heard about this set before, but wasn't that interested in to try and track it down, turns out the movies are pretty terrible.  Isn't that great!

I wonder if Americans are going to adopt Boxing Day now?

Ask Keith

Welcome to my first and probably last instalment of "Ask Keith" where I answer any manner of questions from my loyal readers.

Hey Keith!
We've had an alarming development at our local Superstore. It turns out Galen and his Loblaws punks have decided that we don't deserve any more pre-packaged white-guy curry at our Kelowna store! It's good with chicken and udon noodles, quick & tasty. But we only care about the green curry, not the red.

We need you to see if you can work the system from the inside and grease some palms to get this product back in our store! Do you still have it in your store? If so, there may be hope for us yet. It's been gone for months, and they re-arranged the shelf so there's no spot for it anymore. I assume that's a bad sign?
Any advice?

Cam and Cara.

If the store still carried your curry there should be a spot for it on the shelf even if it is currently on re-order.  The fact that it's regular slot on the shelf is gone and it's been gone for months probably means it has been discontinued.  I looked for it at my store, but couldn't find any on the shelf and when I asked PI Cody if we carried it, he said no.

You could try filling out a costumer card from customer service where you can write down the item you are looking for and have someone you contact regarding whether or not the item is still available.  Jerks do this all the time at our store.  Be sure to fill out a card as often as possible as they usually just end up in the garbage anyway.

You best bet would be a complete boycott of Superstore and all Loblaw's retailers like Extra Foods, Real Canadian Wholesale Club and No Frills.  Go shop at Safeway, Sobey's or Save On where their stores are much nicer, cleaner, well stocked and the staff are a lot more friendlier and more helpful.

Hope this helps!

Have you seen this curry?

Filler post

It's time to dig into the backlog of posts I meant to do, but never got around to writing.  This one I was all pumped to write then realized that it is incredibly boring and decided not to do it.  I changed my mind, so  enjoy!  I'll tell you right up front this is one of my "crap I bought" posts, but more specifically it is one of my "crap I bought at Phoenix" posts.

I was checking out the $1 comic/magazine bins at Phoenix that are located in the area between Phoenix and Melodyia.  I was looking at a big stack of magazines and found a bunch of X-Files magazines, some were sci-fi/TV genre magazines with X-Files and some were the actual Official X-Files magazines.  I didn't get them all because there were too many, so I just picked out the most interesting looking ones.

I got that TV Zone magazine because it had an article about the X-Files and Scooby-Doo.

There weren't just X-Files magazines in the pile, but also some promotional stills from the TV series and the first movie.  There weren't too many, so I just ended up getting them all.

For some reason mixed in with all this X-Files stuff of magazines and pictures were a couple promos stills from Gleaming the Cube.  Seems a bit odd and out of place, but I'm complaining because I got those too.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, "Why isn't this movie on DVD yet?!"  It's almost as good as Kuffs.

Scooby-Doo has already popped up once in this post, so we'll close it out with more Scoob and another (new) picture of the Mystery Machine.

Now I can finally delete these pictures off my phone!

Chocolate isn't always good

President's Choice has their brand of chocolate chip cookies dubbed, "The Decadent" Chocolate Chip Cookie.  I wouldn't eat them, but apparently they're a big deal because they're been around 25 years and have spun off into ice cream novelties, pancake mix, cheesecake, the actual chocolate chips themselves and now soda.

I walked by this at work and at first wasn't even sure what I had seen.  It can't be real?!  I had to walk by it again just to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me.  When I went home I bought a bottle because chocolate soda is something you just have to try no matter what it tastes like.  It's not "diet" and therefore full of sugar, so I thought I'd just get Cody to give it a try on my behalf.

What the hell?  What a jerk!  It's not like I'm asking him to drink Fresca or anything.  I guess it wouldn't hurt if I had just a little sip.

The verdict?

And there you have it.

Annie may

Tonight I took a break from Wonder Woman and watched a classic in the Japanese animation genre, Akira.  Akira has just been released on Blu-ray (again) in time for it's 25th anniversary.  I haven't watched this movie for a while, so it was nice to watch it again.  It also helps that I'm watching it on my 47" TV in hi def.

As I said I haven't seen Akira in a long time, but on Blu-ray it certainly looks really pretty.  It's not perfect, it's 25 years old and I'm not sure if it's going to look any better.  In addition to the upgraded video the audio hasn't been redone, but ported over from various releases.  There is a TrueHD English 5.1 track that is the same as the one on the 2001 Pioneer special edition.  There is also another TrueHD 2.0 English dub which is the Streamline dub done 1988 and the one we are familiar with as it was how we all experienced Akira the first time.  Lastly, there is a Japanese TrueHD 5.1 track from the 2009 Bandai Blu-ray release.  I watched it in Japanese.

The special features are a little disappointing as this being the 25th anniversary there isn't much new material, most of it ported over from the Pioneer special edition of 2001.  They didn't port over all the materials, just some of them, so don't be throwing out your old special editions just yet!  I guess they are holding out until the 30th anniversary to make some new stuff.

Some people complain that Akira might be "weird" or "confusing" or "doesn't make sense" and they just "don't get it", but I say "so what?"  It doesn't have to make perfect sense, and why should it?  Just roll with it.  Besides with Akira the story is almost secondary to the imagery on display.

You dipstick!!

On Wednesday night I watched the last episode of The Dukes of Hazzard Season Six and with that I've seen every episode of the show!  I don't remember every episode, but I've seen every episode.  That doesn't mean I've watched everything Dukes because I've only seen one of the two TV movies and haven't seen a single episode of the cartoon series.  I didn't even know they made a cartoon until a couple years ago.  I'm slipping.

Everybody goes on about Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and I've never even watched a single episode.  I have no desire to watch them because I'd rather be watching The Dukes or The A-Team or Knight Rider or Wizards of Waverly Place.  I'm old school, so I guess that makes me boring.  The 80's weren't all bad.

Now that I've finished up The Dukes of Hazzard, I've just gone back to Wonder Woman.  I've already seen the first season and bought season two and three on the cheap a few years ago.  I just started watching season two again tonight in an attempt to finish the series.  I already have about five other TV sets laying around to get through after that.  But one thing at a time.

Mike, you need to get one of these for Eli.

Free stuff report

Time for the low down on the latest freebies and give-aways!

First up, more free stuff from cereal in the form of hockey cards from Post Cereals.  Post is giving away a CHL 24 card set in select boxes of Honeycombs, Alpha-Bits, Shreddies and Sugar Crisp.  Just enter the PIN inside the boxes and choose from one of six 4 card sets.  I like this idea because instead of random cards in the boxes you can select which ones you want making it easier to get a complete set.  I also hate this idea because you have to buy six boxes of cereal to get the full set and the PINs are only in the Family Size boxes.  I can't eat six family size boxes of cereal!  Why couldn't they just do 4 sets of 6 cards instead?   That being said if anybody buys a box of these and doesn't want the PIN (I know you guys hate hockey) feel free to send it to me.  If I win the trip to the 2014 Memorial Cup I will get you a t-shirt.  The offer ends the February 28, 2014.

The second offer is a free retro t-shirt from Pringles.  Pringles is old school and like the Pringles can speaker offer, the shirt offer requires you to go online, print out a form and then mail in the form with five foil lids from selected cans of Pringles.  I can't do six boxes of family size cereal, but I can easily do five cans of Pringles.  This one is doable!  Offer ends June 30, 2014, so there is ton of time left.



Lastly, I have an update on the General Mills toque offer!  Last night I was entering a new PIN and when I went to select my toque the pickings were slim because the Lucky Charms and the Cinnamon Toast Crunch toques are unavailable!  If you wanted one I hope you got one because if not you'll probably be paying like $100 on eBay soon.  When are mine going to get here??

Super cozy!

Cody had to go Memory Express today to get something for his computer, so of course we went to Bianca Amor's because it's right there.  I haven't started on any of my Christmas shopping yet because this year I'm completely clueless as of what to get anyone.  Bianca Amor's is a good start because it's loaded with cheap crap.  After wondering the store and marvelling at the many awesome deals I ended up getting my mom a Snuggie.

Don't worry I plan on getting her something good too!  Suggestions would be welcome.

They also had at least four other brands of Snuggie knock offs, imitations and variations.  They even had a Snuggie brand Snuggie for pets!  I could only take so fleecey overload and caved in and got one for myself.

Of course I cheaped out on myself and got a knock off Snuggie in the form of the Hoodie Blanket!  I've already gave it a test run and it is surprisingly "cozy".  Just like the box says!  I sat down in front of the TV for a marathon of Dukes of Hazzard, Castle and Almost Human and wore my Hoodie Blanket the entire time.  It was warm, almost too warm!  I took it off and when I got up I like, "Damn, it's cold in here."  I do have one complaint though and that it doesn't have pockets.  The Snuggie has pockets!  It's no Snuggie, but it's still $5 well spent.

The only thing more embarrassing than owning a Snuggie is owning a Snuggie knock off!

Excite bike

End of an era

I write this post with a heavy heart as I have bad news to tell everyone.  I'm not sure how to put this, so I'll just come out and say it, XBox gaming legend DiesEazy is no more!  Bow your heads and observe a moment of silence for one of the greats.

Everytime I go to log in to XBox Live it wants me to verify my account by entering my password and the problem is that I don't know my password.  I can't reset my password because my DiesEazy/MS account is linked to my Hotmail e-mail which is the same password, again I don't know that password.  I haven't accessed my Hotmail account in like three years.  A long time ago my account was accessed or someone tried to access it, so I changed my password, deleted all my old e-mails, contacts, etc just in case someone got into my e-mail.  Then I promptly forgot my password, but I was using gmail by then, so I didn't care at the time.  Now it's all coming back to bite me in the ass!  I can't reset my Hotmail password because when I fill out the form it always tells me there isn't enough information.  Dammit, I set up that Hotmail account way back in 1996 or 97.

So I can actually still play as DiesEazy, but only offline. If I can't verify my account then I won't be able to play online again which sucks because I still have over six months of XBox Live left.  All my hard work, my gamerscore of 44,570 and my awards are history!  I'll admit I suck at video games, I'm a below average gamer, but I worked hard for my unlockables and some of them took some effort to achieve.

I don't know why, but I started a new Microsoft account with the gamertag, keefguy.  I'll have lot of catching up to my old DiesEazy account which will never happen, but I guess it's a fresh start.  Just to break in my account I started playing one of the most underrated video games ever, Rogue Warrior.  Dick!

I also restarted playing Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon just because I had a lot of fun the first time and I wanted to play it a second time.  I just finished Saints Row IV too, maybe I'll go back and do it again.  I have gotten rid of a lot of games I've played as DiesEazy, but that's okay because now I have all the good games that I don't mind playing again.  I wonder what it will take to get Cody to play Burger King's Pocketbike Racer again?

Re:cycle

I have mentioned that I have a Tumblr account which I briefly kept going mostly with junk recycled from this blog.  At first I was going to have original content on both, but it quickly became clear that it would be a lot of work, so I just copied/pasted stuff from here to there.  Although there have been one or two original Tumblr posts that didn't cut it here.

One post I put on Tumblr with the intention of using on the blog eventually as part of my Friday the 13th movie marathon.  As your know that didn't make it too far off the ground as I only got to The Final Chapter and the photo set I did was from Jason X.  Anyway, Jason X aka "Jason in space" isn't that great of a movie, but this one scene saved it for me.  Oh yeah, it's NSFW.

Jason X tumblr photo set.  It also has like 143 notes on it which is 143 more notes than most of my tumblr posts ever get.  Go Jason!

Scary stuff kids!

SCARY AWESOME!!

Ch-check it out

Finally getting around to mentioning that I got my Beastie Boys Nixon watch.  It's pretty "sick" and even the nautical themed packaging is "dope".  Peace out!

Chesty LaRue

Remember that metal chest of Murray's?  I was going to do a blog post about it and it ended up turning into a movie?  Well, I'm finally getting around to writing about what is actually inside it other than a General Lee.

In case you forgot what it looked like there is the chest.  It's all metal and incredibly heavy, but not because it's metal.  Because it's full of stuff!

With the lid open you can see a couple CD wallets, a box, wire 7" record holder, the General Lee, an Astro Boy figure and a Planet of the Apes VHS boxset.

The white thing under the General is actually a dirty old Star Wars t-shirt.

I tried washing it and it mostly came clean except for one stain on it.  It's not that noticeable...from the back.

Once I cleared some of the stuff off the top you can see the CD wallets which are full of CDs and DVDs, some are legit and some are bootleg.  There is also a box with my old OLD address on it, but there is nothing for me in it!  It is some stuff Murray sent me a long time ago to take of, but then he took it back, but I have it back again.

Once that layer is peeled away you can see the left side is all vinyl records and there is also a Marantz turntable in there too.

Under the turntable is a bunch of old VHS tapes consisting of movies, music stuff and copied tapes.

I did some house cleaning on Murray's VHS tape collection and that is the pile of tapes I got rid of.  I got rid of all the ones that are easily and cheaply replaceable on DVD and/or Blu-Ray.  I took them all to the Hospital Auxiliary in Cranbrook.  I had hoped that getting rid of all those tapes would make the chest less heavy, but I was wrong.  Damn, that vinyl!

Tucked in front of the records were two framed Star Wars 8X10 pictures.

A still sealed cassette tape of Contemporary Renaissance by The Shotgunn Symphony.

A slightly bent page of original comic book art from Topps' Mars Attack The Savage Dragon issue #3.

A signed comic book and a very bent original Flash sketch.  I remember when Murray got this as I was there and had my own set of a sketch and signed comic.  It was the very first comic "show" I went when I first moved to Calgary back in 1998.  It wasn't much of a show, but the gymnasium of some community centre just off MacLeod Trail. 

That is about everything, so were the contents of the chest everything you hoped they would be?

Tonight on The Dukes!

Birthday Zombie sez

This is his favourite cereal, but...

...it needs moar brainz!

Birthday Zombie sez

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Cam and Willie!!

Poll

I had mentioned before that Willie and I did some Steele O'Neil promo shots while hanging out at Jim Smith.  I already posted one them when I teased that we had filmed something.  Well, now you get see all the pictures!  Don't worry there are only five.

I'm asking all my loyal readers to pick their favourite Steele pose, so we can use it on stuff like posters, ads, t-shirts, cover of the novelization and pogs.  I know you don't have anything else to do and I don't ask that much from you.  Thanks!