And so it continues...

I mentioned either in my last post (or in the main Stupid Movies Collection blog post) that I was going to start creating blog entries for each of the movie sets I have.  Well, I've gone and created a whole new blog specifically for this.   

I present "Darrin's Movie Collection".   

As explained previously, each movie pack will get a blog entry and the blog entry will consist of the checklist that I typically make for each movie pack.  This checklist contains the name of the movie, the year it was made, it's IMDB rating, three or four of the main actors in the movie, the running time for the movie and if it's in B&W or Color.  I've added some additional information such as what the packaging is like (including photos), how many of them were unique to my movie collection when I purchased it, the total movie count and run time for the entire movie pack, total movie count and run time for only the movies that are unique, when and where I purchased it and how much I paid for the movie pack.   All the good things that an obsessive collector does.

I started with my newest acquisitions since those were the first to be in the latest checklist format, however I am now starting back at the beginning and redoing the checkoff lists for the older ones.  I even managed to track down old emails and receipts for when I purchased each collection.  Starting at the beginning also gives me a chance to correctly reassess which movies were unique to the collection when I bought them.  This in turn allows me get a better estimate on the number of unique movies I have and the total running time and how long it would take me to watch them all if I watched non-stop or if I watched one a day.  Silly things that I like to keep track of.   The last pass will be to mark the online versions of the check lists with the movies I have actually watched.  

The Movie Collection blog currently has the five most recent and the first two movie collections (well, technically the third and fourth but I don't want to get into that).

Now, if you don't mind, I have some madness to get back to.  Only 66 more movie packs to go!

Apologies for my stupidity... and more stupid movies... Early 2023 Update

First off... I need to apologize to my friends who have commented over the years (past decade?) and not heard diddly from me.  It wasn't until this evening that I noticed that anyone had even commented.  I thought that when someone commented on your blog that you would get some kind of notification.  That is incorrect and I'm sorry for being dumb.  I have turned on comment moderation so this will not be a problem going forward. Thank you to my friends Tom, Todd and Ian for the comments. It is nice to know that y'all are checking in. 

One major update is that the sister-in-law ended up having to sell her house and moved back in with us last year.  It is what it is I guess.  We are getting paid rent this time so that does help things.

On a sad note, we had to say goodbye to one of our cats on Saturday March 4th.  Abby was around 12 or 13 years old.  We adopted her in 2014.  A that time, the place we adopted her from thought she was probably born in 2010 or 2011.  She had been having some issues lately, so we had to make the tough decision before things got really bad and she was in a state of constant suffering.  We'll miss her and so will the other 3 cats, especially Taylor.

- - - - -

In the stupid movie department, I have another six collections.   Here is the long drawn out story on those.  Another apology for the verboseness, but it's a story and I haven't talked to you all in a while so get over it.  😜🤣

It all started on a sleepless night on February 20th 2023.  It was 1:30am.  I had run out of games to play on my phone, so I went through my email where there were some eBay search results from the previous day.  One of the searches was for a the 250 movie packs that were becoming more rare to come by.   It was also a form factor from Mill Creek that I didn't have yet and even though I probably had a good number of the movies, I still wanted to have one like that.  A bucket-list item if you will.  I didn't even care what the category was.  There was a Mystery one, a Horror one, a Western one and a Family one.  If I had my choice of them, I would have wanted to have the horror one.  However, that one was both the hardest one to find and also the most expensive.  Horror movie fans are crazy like that.  They love their weird and hard to find movies.

There was one that I had my eye on for a while, a Mystery 250 movie pack.  It wasn't the greatest price ($34.95 including shipping), but was still ok if I had to buy it.   However on this night, when I checked the search results.... it was gone.   Checking the Completed eBay listings showed that it had been purchased 4 days ago.   At that moment I went into 'fear of missing out' mode.  Most of the other similar 250 packs were going for $40 or more which I thought was too expensive.  But there was one which looked to be in decent condition with a price of $39.99 with free shipping.  Of note, however, was that it was the only one with the Make An Offer button.  I figured I might as well go for broken and send a low-ball offer of $29.  If they accepted, yay me!  If not, I could still try to make another offer of $35.  

I then moved my thoughts to some 200 movie collections that I also been running a search on.   I had cross referenced these sets (Tales Of Terror, Cult Movie Collection, The Trail West) a while ago but hadn't done it recently so I had no real idea what the overlap was going to be.  .  Of the ones that were available, there was one for the Western pack which was an old-fashioned auction with the starting $23.40 w $3.65 shipping.  There were no bids.  The auction was going to be over at 1pm the next day.   Not wanting to possibly have the seller bump up the price, I decided to not make a bid then but instead to try to snipe it the next day.  I finally fell asleep after doing some more eBay searches but not really finding much else that interested me.

I woke up the next morning and checked my email.... and at 2:15am the seller had accepted my offer.   I guess someone else was having a sleepless night and thought the offer was good enough.  So yay for me.   Knowing I had purchased the Mystery Collection 250 movie, I felt good with the buyer's high.

I then went about my work day.  At lunch time I met up with a co-worker.  Towards the end of the meal, I told him about the 250 pack I had just purchased.   I then remembered about the Western 200 movie pack auction.  It was already like 1:45pm and I thought it had ended at 1pm but I checked anyways.  To my surprise there was 15 minutes left.  So I waited and waited until there was about 2 minutes left and put in my bid.  I anxiously watched the time count down to zero and, Hooray!, I was the winning bidder.  Later on that day, I redid my cross-reference homework on this set and found that there were only 10 that I did not have.  While I could have gotten those movies on two other smaller packs (Ten Thousand Ways To Die 12 movie pack and Ten Thousand More Ways To Die 12 movie pack), getting those two sets would have set me back about $10 each and I wouldn't have gotten the cool 200 movie box, so I am not too disappointed.  The front cover it pretty cool in that it is like a layer shadowbox kinda thing where they are different layers put together to make it seem 3Dish.

A couple of days later, I was checking in on my purchases to see if they had tracking numbers yet and if they had shipped.  While doing that, eBay recommended an item that looked interesting.   It was called Fists Of Vengeance and contained 16 movies.  I did some cross referencing with the movies I already had and found that there were 5 movies that I didn't have yet.  Seeing how it was $3.75 including shipping, I clicked Buy It Now.  Mine!

The next day, the wife and I were watching TV.  The set I had purchased recently were all from Mill Creek.   My brain then started wondering if the company that made my Fists Of Fire and Legends Of Kung Fu had any more sets.  I searched for a little while but was really only finding those two... until I tripped across the King-Fu Crusade 10 movie pack.  I went downstairs and cross referenced everything (including the new Fists Of Vengeance that I bought the previous day) and to my surprise I had none of these movies.  The price tag was $13 w free shipping, and while it was above my dollar per movie 'limit', I decided that since everything in that set was new that I would buy it.  I then went back upstairs to watch some more TV and continue surfing eBay.

I found a couple more sets from Brentwood, Tough Guys Of Kung Fu 10 movie pack and Return Of The Warriors 20 movie pack.  They were both around $11.  It was late and I didn't feel like running back downstairs so I decided I would do my cross referencing the next day.  However it wasn't the next day.  I was still on a buzz, so I couldn't sleep, so as I lied there sleepless I did a little bit of research and found that all of the movies from Tough Guys was on Return Of The Warriors.  I also found a couple more older Mill Creek 20 kung fu movies sets (Martial Arts and Kung Fu) and got the movie lists for those as well.   Then I finally fell asleep.

The next morning I got up and did my cross referencing.  As expected, I already had the movies in the Mill Creek 20 movie packs on other Mill Creek martial arts movie packs I already had, so I didn't need to worry about those anymore.   When I checked the Warriors 20 movie pack, I found that I didn't have half of the movies.   Since it was only a little more than my one dollar a movie threshold, I decided to buy it.  I was a little surprise when it came in.  Instead of it being hard clamshell like my other 10 kung fu movie packs, it was in a paper one about the same size with a fold out where you could read about the movies in the collection.  Inside was a smaller 10 DVD 'wallet'-sized clamshell.

All of my purchases quickly had tracking numbers and they all started showing as being received for shipment by USPS.... except for the Mystery 250 movie pack.  It just sat there in 'shipping label printed, USPS waiting to receive the item'.  After about 5 days, I started getting nervous.  As has happened to me before, I was growing concerned that the seller was not going to be able to find the item and have to issue a refund.   But I tried by best to keep my cool and not start emailing the seller 'cause I could 'spook' them and they would immediately refund when they simply just hadn't found it yet.  I started to panic a little bit and started looking for a replacement, but of course, it was the same 250 movie packs that had been there for the past week with the cheapest one being for $39.99 with shipping and none of them with a Make An Offer button.

As Monday rolled back around, 7 days after purchasing the 250 movie set, I was starting to lose hope.   I had told USPS to text me when there was a change in the status (and had also been frequently checking the eBay site) but there was no change: SHIPPING LBL CREATED USPS AWAITS ITEM.  The wife and I sat down that evening to watch our daily YouTube videos and TV shows and whatnot.  Around 8:30pm, my phone buzzed.  I checked... and it was USPS... 'USPS picked up item, San Diego, CA'.   It was on its way!  Thank you Jesus!  The next day it made it to the Los Angeles Distribution Center.  The next 5 days involved me constantly checking for the updates.  After that, I knew I probably wouldn't get any updates until it got into Cincinnati, and I was right.  It got scanned at the Cincinnati Distribution Center around 2am on March 3rd, and was delivered to me on Saturday March 4th.  The box was bigger than I though it would be.  The shipping box was a bit roughed up with a whole punched into one side, but thankfully it was in the empty area of the box and my precious 250 Movie Mystery Collection was in my possession.

I had off and on looked throughout the week for other movie packs but only one other one struck my fancy and from eyeballing the list of movies, I knew I had most, if not all of them.  The buzz was wearing off and I was feeling a bit... stupid.  Just like my movie collection.  At this point, I'm not sure what else I would get.  Most of the other movie packs that I know about I already have all but like 4 or 5 out of 50 of the movies, so unless I can get them for a steal, it's just silly.

I still need to cross reference the Mystery set and do the checklists for the Mystery and Trail West collection which involves looking things up on IMDB.  I'll update the main Stupid Movie Collection blog entry then and ......    

Oh... before I forget...  As I was showing my Stupid Movie Collection blog entry to my co-worker, I thought I noticed that one was missing.   I eventually checked and, yes, I forgot (and almost forgot again as I was typing this up) about a collection I had bought back in the flurry of activity in 2017.  The set I forgot to mention was Mill Creek's 'Song & Dance Classics Film Collection' 20 Movie pack.  I had purchased it at the Half Price Books in Montgomery for 3 bucks, which was good since it only had three movies which I didn't have yet.  Most of them were in the original Musical Classics 50 Movie Pack.

- - - - - 

If you're curious (or if you're not... too bad!), here is what a typical checkoff list looks like.  This is the most recent template I have been using.  The first movie on the disc start with the disc number.  This is followed by the IMDB rating, the movie name (and any common aliases), the year it was made, the top three actors in the movie, the running time and if it is in B&W or COLOR.  Many time the set will contain mostly movies of one type, so I usually put at the top of the checkoff list that a movie is in COLOR unless otherwise noted.  Sometimes when I am checking IMDB will list different running times, so occasionally I have to plunk the DVD in and check to see what the running time on the version I have.  Most times it is shorter but every now and then it is longer.  I print these checklists out and put them in with the DVDs for the set and check them off as I watch them from that set.  I still don't have a good system for getting the dupes checked off in the other set.  I think a few years back I went through all the sets I had then and did the dupe work then.  I haven't done that in a while.  I also haven't watched any of these movies in a while which is also why this whole thing is a bit ridiculous no matter how you look at it.

Anyhooooooo.....  This example is how the checklist for Return Of The Warriors starts out: 

Return Of The Warriors 20 movie collection - All movies in COLOR - Total Time: 1746 minutes

Movies (10) marked with a comma(,) were unique to my whole collection at time of writing (2/26/2023)

1___ (5.4) The Screaming Tiger (aka Wang Yu, King Of Boxers) (1972) Jimmy Wang Yu, Ching-Ching Chang, Fei Lung - 85m

___, (6.4) Sister Street Fighter (1974) Etsuko Shihomi, Shin'ichi (Sonny) Chiba, Asao Uchida - 85m

2___ (7.1) Street Fighter (1974) Shin'ichi (Sonny) Chiba, Etsuko Shiomi, Goichi Yamada - 90m

____ (6.4) Return Of The Street Fighter (1974) Shin'ichi (Sonny) Chiba, Masafumi Suzuki, Yôko Ichiji - 88m

etc etc etc

I have been toying around lately with the idea of creating a dedicated blog entry for each of the movie packs that I have.  In that blog entry I would repeat the story about getting and then include my checklists in the blog entry.   Then, if I was out shopping somewhere and found a movie set, I could do a search on my blog to see if a collection that I currently owned contained a certain movie.   Just a thought for future me I guess.  How else would I know if one my sets contained the sci-fi movie 'Laser Mission' starting Brandon Lee?  (The answer I would find out is that it is contained in both the Sci Fi Classics 50 Movie Pack and the Excellent Eighties 50 Movie Pack.)

If you made it this far.   Good for you.  I hope all is well with you.  Again, I apologize for not responding to your comments in the blog.   I honestly didn't see them.  :(   As always, Take care!

-----------------:darrin

2022 Update

For some reason, I ended up going back and looking at my original Stupid Movies post.  And for some reason, it bugged me that I mentioned the two original 10 movie packs which started the movie madness, but that those collections weren't in my possession.   

So I went and bought them...  again.   

Mercifully and thankfully Amazon had a couple of used copies that I was able to purchase for $10 each, shipping included.  So now I own 'Legends Of Kung Fu' and 'Fists of Fire - Swords of Death' collections again.   They definitely aren't in as good of shape as my originals would have been.  A clasp on one of cases is broken, the spline artwork on both of them have a bend mark and one disc in Fists Of Fire looks like is has a small scratch, but other than that they are in pretty good condition.  Yay me.

Guess I'll have to add them to the Stupid Movies counts.

There is other life stuff I could talk about... but nah.

2020 / 2021 update

Hey, it's been a while hasn't it.   3 Years!   Just wanted to give a few quick updates.

Item #1 - After three years, the sister-in-law has moved out of our basement to go back to living at her house. There's much bigger story there, but I'd rather not relive any of it.  While she may not exactly be in a better situation, things were not going to improve unless she moved out.

Item #2 - I'm still hoarding music.  I was on the letter R back in 2018.  It's now 2021 and I'm actively working on the letter U and sitting at 172 volumes.  The letters S and T were massive and combined were 60 volumes (vols 112 to 172)

Item #3 - The daughter's braces are off.  Yay!  She has two missing teeth, so we're still trying to figure out if she should get a plate or actually have implants (though that can't really happen until she stops growing).  Speaking of growing, my 12 year old son is as tall as me now.  By the end of the year, I think he'll be the tallest in our family.

Item #4 - We got a new car since our previous car decided to start having some issues.  We got a 2020 Ford Escape and are very happy with it.  Granted, I'll be paying on it for quite a while but I think it was worth it.  The 2012 Fusion that I mainly drive it still driving along after 160,000 miles.   Since I work from home now, I put way fewer miles on it.  In the past year, I only drove 3,000 miles.  

Item #5 - I can't believe we've been in Hamilton OH for 5 years.  I finally stained the deck and the 'stairs to nowhere'.  I went through 4 and 1/2 gallons of Valspar stain and sealer.  I think it looks decent enough.  The water is beading up again, so I know it's doing it's thing.  I got my driver's license renewed today as well.  I went ahead and got the Federally Compliant ID.  They stared at the birth certificate for a while.  I got it when I went to Mexico with my school's Spanish club back in 1990 or 1991.  Considering it's age, it actually looked pretty good, but I could tell they were having a hard time reading the embossed notary stamp which obviously wasn't done hard enough.  Thankfully, they ok'd it.  I really didn't want to have to go through the hassle of getting another copy of it from the county.  BTW, going to the BMV right when they open is the way to go, though checking in electronically is pretty nice as well.

Item #6 - I've added another set to the Stupid Movie Collection.   It's the Definitive TV Western Collection.  

I had been eyeing this one for a while.    This set combines four of the TV Western sets from Mill Creek into one (Essential TV Westerns, Ultimate TV Westerns, Western TV Classics, and Western TV Treasures).   This collection comes in a nice wooden box and consists of 48 discs and contains a total of 600 episodes.  Reading the reviews on Amazon, a few people had busted cases, but I was fortunate and mine was in great condition.

I already had the Ultimate TV Westerns box set, so for a while I was trying to gather up the other three.  I discovered that they had bundled them two at a time in two collections called Western TV Heroes.   Vols 1 and 2.  But no matter how I much I looked on Amazon and eBay, getting the other three was going to cost me as much as just buying the box set itself and I wouldn't have gotten the awesome wooden box.  So I decided to just raise the money taking many surveys. I finally broke down and just bought the darn thing since the other collections and this particular set started to be more and more scarce on eBay and the prices started to go up both on eBay and Amazon.

I occasionally like watching tv westerns, though I think the completist in my took over and I knew I had to have it.  I'm so weird.  In theory this should be my last addition to the Stupid Movie Collection.  Mill Creek has moved on to bigger and much better things.  Glad to see that things are working out for them!

Anyways, I'm pretty sure that no one but me reads this blog and that's okay.  But in case someone is reading this, I hope things are going well for you.  Take care!

2018 End Of Year Update

Well, 2018 has flown by like no ones business.

I've been mostly biding my time collecting music of all sorts.  Nothing new there really.  I have may more than I know what to do with.  I am in the process of archiving it.  I'm up to 112 DVDs full of stuff which is up to the letter R.  Of course, I now have a 'take 2' folder collecting stuff which missed the first pass.  It's a bit much.

Also, I added 3 more movie sets to the Stupid Movie Collection.

Back in April I added two more sets which were pretty much the last ones I wanted to collect. The first is Box Office Gold.  Out of 50, this set had 12 movies that I still did not have. This is one of the few 50 movies box sets which was not contained on 12 discs and instead was on 13 discs (similar to the All Stars Collection).  I had been eyeing this one for a while, but the price point was always around $30 which I refused to pay.  Eventually, I saw it pop up for $10 shipped and I nabbed it.  It was in pretty good condition with the exception of one minor tear on the cardboard box right where the velcro closure is (which is common).

In short order, at the end of April I purchased the Family Fun 50 movie pack.  This one came in a cardboard box. Based on my research, this one had 12 movies that I did not have yet.   Once a set gets below 10 movies  that I don't have, I pretty much ignore it since the price point to get those remaining 10 or less movies just doesn't make sense unless I can get it for under 10 bucks which is difficult (but not impossible) to do. I nabbed this one for $11 bucks shipped so it just squeaked in under the dollar per movie (that I don't have) threshold that I've set for any remaining sets I don't have yet.

The last one I got was from my wife for our anniversary, Great Adaptations.  I originally thought this was pretty much the Historic Classics set repackaged, but about only 15 came from that set.  The others came from a smattering of other sets.  The interesting thing about this set is that it comes with a code so you can get a digital copy straight from Mill Creek.  Interesting!

This past year has definitely been trying with the sister-in-law having to have a quadruple by pass and then moving in to our house, the daughter having to get braces and the father-in-law passing away.  Plenty else has gone on as well which has put strains on everyone.  But I guess that's how life goes.  Hopefully 2019 has a lot less suckage in store for me, my family and the in-laws.

Take care everyone!

(Stupid) End of the year update...

Well, another year has come to close.  I hope everyone has had a decent enough year.  I know that for me it falls into that category.  There were some good times (FINALLY getting to Walt Disney World) and a fair amount of 'not that great' times.  But we all survived so that says something.  Cincinnati is finally starting to feel a little bit like home now.  Still miss everyone.

This was one of my busiest ever when it comes to my stupid movie collection.  I'm not sure what got into me.  Maybe it's because I actually did my homework to an insane level and truly knew EXACTLY what I had and what I didn't have and how that related to all the stupid movie sets I didn't have. 

And with this update, I have to announce that I have 4 more movie sets for my Stupid Movie Collection.  (For the record, I added a total of 26 movie sets this year.  Waaaaayyyyy to many.) I took a tiny little break from the movies until some time in September when I got an eBay notification (I hadn't turned them off yet) which had a nice and low buy it now price.  With that, I got Hollywood Comedy Legends.  This 50 pack had 18 movies that I didn't have yet.  Not quite stellar but at the price it was hard to pass up.

My birthday came up and the Mrs. got me a set that I had been longing for (and that I had added to my Amazon list):  B-Movie Blast.  It had a little overlap with the Excellent Eighties collection, but still had a decent amount of stuff I didn't have.  Based on my notes, it appears that 29 were unique to my collection.  Not bad!

Somewhere shortly thereafter, I got a notification on a set that I knew still had a decent amount of movies on it came up and of course, like a turd, I bought it.  Thanks a lot eBay.  This set is called Tales of Terror.  It had 18 movies that I didn't have.  I have to admit that the cover creeps me out a little.

And finally, for our anniversary, the Mrs got the other pack that was on my Amazon list, Historic Classics.  This one had a fair number of movies that I needed (35 to be exact), though the theme for this one really isn't something I would normally gravitate to.  Regardless, I have it now and can check it off the list.  I can say that my eBay notification for 50 movie packs have been turned off.

I wish everyone the best in the New Year!   Take care!!!

D.

Stupid End of July update

I know I said I was done.... but I think I really really mean it this time.   I couldn't help it.  I still had the eBay search results showing up to my email.  I saw some prices that were really good.  Honest.

So I have three new sets for my Stupid Movie Collection:

Cult Classics (20 movies), Drive-In Cult Classics (32 movies) and Night Screams (50 movies).

Cult Classics 20 movie pack literally contains a bunch of what were considered some of the original cult classics: Reefer Madness, Cocaine Fiends, Test Tube Babies, etc.  Good stuff.

The Drive In Cult Classics 32 movie collection, contains stuff that would be considered to be Grind House type of stuff, I think: The Pink Angels, The Pom Pom Girls, Malibu Beach, They Saved Hitler's Brain, etc.

Night Screams is what I could consider a typical Mill Creek collection.  This is a collection of movies with a horror-like theme: Anatomy of a Psycho, The Devil's Sleep, I Killed That Man, Murder At Midnight, The Tell-Tale Heart, etc.  Most of it is in black and white.  This one surprised me the most because the artwork for this one is reminiscent of the kind of artwork used on the Treeline / early Mill Creek sets which came in the cardboard boxes.  However, when it showed up, I was pleasantly surprised that it was in a sturdy plastic case.

Anyway, that's what I got at the end July.  All of these collections I got used.  Some were a little more beat up that I am used to but I got a good deal on them and the discs seemed relatively unscathed.

I hope all is well with everyone.  I know that I'm really the only one looking at this page, so, um, yeah.  :)   Yay me!

------------:D.

No really... I think I'm done for the moment!

I know I said I was done getting movies for a little while in the last post.  I meant it.  I really did.

But then I went to Half Price Books in Hamilton and spied a couple more things that were reasonably priced.  And I left them there.

And then Father's Day came along and I went back out and got them. LOL!  I mean you could say that this was my Father's Day gift to myself, but I think I've been getting alot of gifts as of late, so... yeah.  Things.

One of the sets I got was John Wayne - The Tribute Collection from Mill Creek.  25 films with The Duke!  I got this one for 8 movies that I didn't have yet.  There was a 50 movie collection featuring John Wayne and various western trios.  I pretty much had 40 of the movies in that pack with the exception of a handful of John Wayne movies.  This movie set picked up all but 3 of them.  (Still need to find a collection which contains 'Range Feud', 'Texas Cyclone' and 'Two-Fisted Law')

The next collection is a mundanely named collection called '15 Martial Arts Movies' from the newly discovered TG Direct.  They were the same company that did the Samurai Warriors collection.  I did my homework on this one and determined that 9 of the 15 would be new to my collection. Now here is where it gets amusing.  When I opened up the set, all of the discs were marked 'Samurai Warrior' but still had all the new titles on them. It's like this company pretty much brands any of their martial arts box sets 'Samurai Warrior'.   Weird.

Both of those were 5 bucks each so I didn't feel too bad.  The next set I got only cost 3 dollars from the bargain bin: The Best of Chaplin.  This set contains 28 features!  Most of them are short movies, but still, pretty cool find.

So, for realz this time.  I think I'm done for the moment.

Have a Happy 4th everyone!

-------------:D

Record shows are cool (or Justice has been served)

Yesterday I went back to my old stomping grounds of Columbus Ohio and went to the Colleen's Collectables Record show which has been going on for decades.  The went to my first one with Todd and Ian in 1992 I think and it was at the Veteran's Memorial building in the main section.  It was crazy huge and crazy packed and it was awesome.  Fast forward to June 10th 2017 (hey, it's my 25th anniversary of going to record shows!) and the record shows are a little smaller and held at the Haimerl Center on Morse Road but they are still awesome.  With the resurgence of vinyl, they probably could get a bigger place but they've been holding them at the Haimerl for probably 10 years so why change something which works. 

I met Todd at the show we chatted briefly before going on our individual hunts.  Todd was looking for Concrete Blonde's Bloodletting on vinyl while I was on the hunt for Bobby Sherman's self-titled first album and the 6-sided die-cut soundtrack for the movie 'The Andromeda Strain'.  I was about 3/4 the way through the show and fully in the zone, blinders on, not seeing anyone in my path really, just records. I walked up to one of the tables and starting perusing the CDs that a seller had out (along with some LPs) when the seller said 'I wouldn't look too closely, so of those might be yours'.  I looked up and wouldn't you know it, there was Ian.  He was peddling his goods (as he has on several occasions in the past) at today's show.  So all three of us were back at the show again!  I ended up buying the Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe CD from him.  Good stuff from some people who were members of Yes at one time or another.

My haul consisted of the following:
LP - Bobby Sherman - Bobby Sherman (I got it in MINT condition.  Awesome!)
LP - Styx - The Grand Illusion
LP - The Alan Parson's Project - I Robot
LP - Jonathan Edwards - Honky-tonk Stardust Cowboy
LP - Elvis - Moody Blue (on clear blue vinyl!)
LP - Elvis - Elvis' Christmas Album (on the budget Pickwick label. I grew up with this one!)
LP - Ted Neely - 1974 A.D. (portrayed Jesus in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar)
LP - Jesus Christ Superstar movie soundtrack (See what I did there?  Came from the same seller.  $2!)
CD - Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe - Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (from Ian!)
CD - Queen - Greatest Hits I & II

After the Show, Todd and I went to B.C. Roosters and got some chicken and talked for a couple of hours.  After that we went to the Ohio Thrift Store and wandered around for a hour, Todd of course taking several photos of items that were too bizarre to believe.  Good times and conversation!

I then went and had dinner with my friend Kevin at Potbelly.  we talked for about 3 hours, closing the place down.  More good times and conversation!

Then I drove my butt back to Cincinatti to my wife who was waiting up for me so she could see my haul from the record store. 

What a great day!

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In other news: In the previous post I mentioned how I was planning on getting a 50 movie pack called Frontier Justice but that the seller sent the wrong item and I couldn't get an answer from them about if or when then were going to be sending me my set.  So, after 2 1/2 weeks of crickets from the seller I put in a refund request with eBay and it was granted.  This was on Wednesday.  So on Friday, I get this email from eBay: 'Your package has been delivered' and this was confusing because I hadn't purchased anything else.  So I clicked on the link in the email and it referenced the order which I had been refunded for.  It was a new tracking number and everything.  Sure enough, when I got home, there was my Frontier Justice box set.  So now I have the box set but really haven't paid for it (well, other than the $2.63 cents that I paid to ship back the wrong item.)  After much deliberation, I decided that I would pay  the seller the remaining money due for the purchase.  It just seemed like the right thing to do.  I don't need the bad karma. While their communication could use a great deal of work, the seller, at the very least, did provide me the product which I paid for.  And for that, they deserved to get paid.  Justice has been served and I have 50 more movies to add to my stupid movie collection.

Thanks for reading.  Hope all is well with everyone.

Later!

-------------:D

This stupidity is a crime

Well, I had no more than created my last post when I was already out purchasing more movies for my stupid movie collection.

One of the first things I did was to get the Iron Fist Frenzy 50 movie pack.  In the last post, I mentioned the 'Kickin' It Shaolin Style'.  This was basically 1/4 of the Iron Fist Frenzy.  I started figuring out that the cost of picking up the other 3 sets was probably going to be more than just getting the Iron Fist Frenzy set and getting two extra movies to boot.  So I got a good deal on Iron Fist Frenzy eBay using the Best Offer option.

 The next set I got because the wife was at half Price Books in Hamilton and saw a couple of sets while she was perusing the DVD section.  One of them was a Mill Creek collection which was 20 movies from the Warriors 50 pack I already had.  The other was a 12 movie pack called the 'Samurai Warriors Collection'.  At first I figured that it was probably going to just have movies either from the Martial Arts 50 movie pack or from Iron Fist Frenzy.  But when I started researching, I figured out that 1) it was wasn't a collection from Mill Creek, and 2) there was very little overlap with my other martial arts collections.  'Woo hoo!  Pick it up!' I told my wife. And she did 'cause she's awesome like that! The transfers in this collection seem to be pretty decent, but the packaging is just awful.  It's basically a piece of folded cardboard with slits that the DVDs sit in.  At least Mill Creek makes individual cardboard cases for each disc. I've relocated the DVDs in this collection to some old Microsoft sleeves to better protect them.

About that time, there was another 50 movie pack that had no overlap in my collection called Frontier Justice that I purchased on eBay.  More on that later.

Then I started looking farther down on my lists of sets.  The next candidate was a set called Crime Classics.   I picked that up on, you guessed it, eBay.  This set had only 10 movies that overlapped with my collection.  I got an ok price on this one if I remember correctly.  It's kind of the sister set to the Dark Crimes 50 movie pack I already have.  Not sure which one came out first, though just based on it's simple name, I'd guess that Crime Classics came first.  As far as I can tell, this Mill Creek collection never got a plastic case release; only a cardboard case like the original Tree Line and early Mill Creek sets.

Then things went a little sideways.  In my research, there are some 50 movie packs which I already own 85% of (ie, I already have 35 of the movies).  For some reason, I got it in my head that there were some older 20 movie packs which might be able to fill in the gaps instead of having to purchase a 50 movie pack (at a 50 movie pack price).  I didn't get very far in researching this, but did stumble upon one collection called 'Billy the Kid' which was a 20 movie collection of Billy the Kid movies.  I picked this up on eBay for a cool $4 and it contains 14 movies which are new to my collection.  Yee haw!

So, what about the Frontier Justice set.  Well, things got a little complicated.  The seller sent me a DVD set but not the one that I wanted.  I'd like to have 4 Laurel and Hardy movies, but I really wanted to have the 50 movie set that I ordered.  So I opened up a ticket with eBay and promptly sent back the erroneous collection with word that another person got my order and was shipping it back to the seller the next day.  So, I waited.  After a week I sent an email letting them know that per USPS they received the DVDs I sent back and wanted a status on if the other person shipped back my DVD set. Another week went by with no reply from the seller.  I sent another email asking for status.  And more crickets.  So I had to escalate to the eBay Police who within 10 hours (while I slept) got my money refunded.  So, I should have had the set, but things didn't work out.  I truly believe the seller had the collection and simply sent it to the wrong person.  And maybe the other person who got my order just held on to it, or hasn't shipped it yet ('cause they wanted to rip the movies first) or it got damaged or lost in the mail.  I dunno.  But I hold no ill will to the seller.  Stuff happens. And after more than 100 eBay transactions over the years, this was the first one which went wrong, so, I'm okay with that since I got my money back (sans the return shipping price since I did that outside of eBay's return system).

So, yeah, another (50 + 50 + 20 + 12 =) 132 movies for my stupid movie collection.  I'm sure there will be more in my future, but I think I've got enough for the moment.  Plus, I need to leave some collections for other people to buy me for various holidays which might involve presents for me!

Take care everyone!  Hope you all are doing well!

--------------:D

Getting stupid at wholesale and warehouse prices

So as sometimes happens, when you awaken the collecting beast there is going to be carnage.   I had innocently enough went to the Ollie's in Sidney and picked up a couple of sets.  I told you about that.

What I have to tell you about is what has occurred in the past month.  I had no more than written my last blog post about picking up those two sets when I had a little bit of spare time at work and innocently enough went on eBay.  The next thing I knew, I had 4 more sets (Combat Classics, Timeless Family Classics, Cowboy Legends and the Legend of Rin Tin Tin) coming too my house.  The sad thing was, I had just done my homework.  But I didn't have my homework with me at work, so I was trying to go off of my memory.  Well, that worked out about half was well as it should have.


The Combat Classics had about 50% overlap (ie, I got 25 new movies).  The Timeless Family Classics didn't fair so well.  Out of the 50 in that set, only 11 were going to be new.  Luckily I got that set for a sweet $3.09 with shipping.  The Cowboy Legends had very little overlap (somehow, I've lost my original list which contained which ones I had and which ones I didn't).  And the Rin Tin Tin set which contains 4 movie serials which each contained 12 little fifteen minute episode I picked up since I could save 20% my ordering it with the Cowboy Legends.

And it should have ended there.  But of course, it didn't.  Since I did a bad job on the Timeless Family Classics, I started wondering about what other sets were out there and what their overlap would be.  Some I knew about sets I hadn't done my homework on and also discovered some other sets I hadn't know about at all.  But the wheels kept turning and I kept doing homework.  I finally found out that there were about 3 or 4 sets that I could get which have very little (< 10 movies) overlap.  And eBay was on the mind, so I started looking around again.  I ended up finding Gunslinger Classics for a decent price.  I was set to click on the Buy It Now when I noticed there was a 'or Best Offer' button.  Figuring I had nothing to lose, I offered the seller $2.50 + $3.00 shipping... and 2 hours later they had accepted it.  Woo hoo!

And it should have ended there... but NOOOOO.   I found out that Half Price Books was going to be having their warehouse clearance sale.  Nothing over $2.  So today I took off work and me and the Mrs went there.  And I found a few more things.   I picked up three 12 movie packs (Gorehouse Greats, Under Fire (action/war movies), and Kickin' It Shaolin Style) and a couple other things (Victory At Sea which is a WWII documentary and NASA - 50 Years of Space Exploration).  I also picked up a book on Hollywood Musicals.

So, I've updated my Stupid Movie list.... again.

I'll admit, there are still a couple of sets that are on my radar.  I may or may not have searches on eBay that I am currently following.  But it really is ridiculous.  The latest calculations show that I would have to watch one movie and one TV show EVERY DAY for FIVE YEARS in order to watch everything that I have.  Now, there is a little bit of overlap in there, but I've done quite well so far in avoiding overlap, so maybe it'll only take FOUR AND A HALF years. RIDICULOUS!

I am a very silly, stupid man.  And I love my stupid movie collection (but not as much as my wife who puts up with my silliness).

Talk to you later!
=============:D

WWWW Sailing in a sea of stupidity WWWW

Hello nobody! It's been a while. Things have changed a bunch. About a year ago I moved to Cincinnati (more correctly Hamilton) Ohio. I have a new job, obviously. The world is as crazy as ever, which means my madness with stupid movies has not slowed down at all. I mean, why would it. It's the collector in me that just keeps going.

I actually posted a silent update a year and a half ago (Dec 2015). I added The Swingin' Seventies 50 pack and the Cowboys and Bandits pack to my collection.

The most recent batch came in April 2017. I subscribe to the Mill Creek YouTube channel and saw that they had started releasing some new 50 packs with cool titles like 'Mad Scientist Theater' and 'Killer Creature Features'. About that time as well, Coke was ending their My Coke Rewards points system which we had a few hundred points entered in already and needed to spend. With the points I knew I could get a $10 gift card and, at the same time, knew that Walmart sold many of the Mill Creek sets at a good price. So, I did my homework. Unfortunately, I own so many sets now that there was too much overlap (meaning only about 10 movies per 50 pack could have been new) so I didn't end up getting either of those (or any of the other 3 new 50 packs). But of course, they were also recommending some of the 20 movie packs. I took notice of a Musicals set among those. I did my homework and there was NO overlap with any of the sets I already had. Plus, it looked like it actually had some decent movies in it. I ordered for the swell price of $12.18. After it arrived, I did a little more homework. All of the movies were from Columbia Pictures and several of them were even nominated for Oscars. One of them even had 6 nominations including Best Actor in a Lead Role! Looking at the IMDB scores, most of them were in the mid 6's (out of 10) which is actually pretty good. I think the worst films in the collection had a 5.1, 5.7 AND 5.8 rating. Not bad.

Of course, whilst looking for a suitable boxset to purchase from Walmart, I did some much needed homework on the new and existing sets I didn't have from Mill Creek. The new collections on my radar are Iron Fist Frenzy, B-Movie Blast, and John Wayne and the Western Trios collection (in that order). The Iron Fist Frenzy collections contains all new stuff. The other two have a little over 30 new movies. Combat Classics, Cowboy Legends and Hollywood Comedy Legends are on the list after those three since they would have around 25 new titles each (so about 40% new stuff).

Once I started doing homework, the collector was awakened again. About a week after getting the musicals collection, I had to got back to Anna for some family stuff. In Sidney there is an Ollie's. I was a bit early to get into town (and I knew that they frequently have Mill Creek sets), so I stopped in. So glad I did. I picked up two more sets. The first is called Classic Sci-Fi TV which has 150 episodes of some sci-fi TV shows that cames out in the 50s and 60s. Good stuff. Very little overlap with the other TV pack and other Sci Fi packs I already had. I had seen it a few times at various Half Price Books stores but they always had it for 19.99. Too much for my blood. I picked it up at Ollie's for $5.99. Nice!

The other one is an odd ball. It was in the typical 50 movie pack, but once I picked it up I could tell it was different. It was simply called 'The Best Of Spaghetti Westerns' and was from a company called Timeless Media Group (I think they may be in cahoots with the Shout! Factory group). I already have the Mill Creek 44 Spaghetti Westerns collection, so I didn't hold out much hope for it. I turned it over and saw the price... $2.16. I didn't need to think any more. Even if it only had 3 new movies, it was still worth the price to me. Upon further inspection when I got it home, I determined it was a 10 disc / 20 movie set, there was only 1 or 2 movies I already had and the ones in the collection were usually ranked in the 6's which is pretty good. I put one of the discs in while writing up this post, and the quality on the two movies on that disc were impressive. Very bright colors, and widescreen with no cropping from what I could tell. I'm excited about this one!

So, another 40 movies and 150 TV episodes are getting added to the collection. Insane. I am really insane. But I'm sure the madness will continue on.   To see a full list of the stupid movies I have, go to my Stupid Movies post that I continue to update.

Hope all is well with everyone. Feel free to drop me a note or leave a comment.


--------------:D

And yes... the movies keep on coming.....

Well... it's time for my yearly update.   It's been a year since I started my latest job.  Things are going well there with things looking up for the company.  We still have a lot to do, but if luck is on our side, we'll be doing some really cool stuff.


I had a good Christmas with the music and videos overflowing!  Of course, one of my presents was another 50 movie pack called 'The Sensational Sixties'   Not too much overlap with the current sets I have (maybe a 20% overlap).    Later in 2014 (after my June post), I got two more sets: Alfred Hitchcock - A Legacy Of Suspense which has 20 of his earlier films, and 1001 Commercials which contains over 16 hours of commercials.   The quality of some of the commercials is pretty atrocious, though there are some which are decent.  Obviously, the B&W ones fair much better than the red/yellowed out ones from the 60s and 70s.  I've added my later acquisitions to my master list here.


Hope all is well with everyone out there.   Drop me a line and let me know how things are going.


-----peace out!

Hello... I'm still stupid

Boy... life can sure be crazy.  Since it's been so long, I'm only going to attempt to give the world's most brief update.

I have a new job.

They kids keep growing. They are currently taking swim lessons.

I picked up a small set of Alesis electronic drums which are awesome and quiet.

I still go out on occasion to spot satellites but grew tired of trying to write about them all here.  I'm easily spotted over 1000 objects in the sky.  I still take note of them on paper.  I also put them into a spreadsheet, but I'm about a year behind at the moment.

And, in the past two years I've picked up another eight of the 50 movie packs (Sci-Fi Invasion, Decrepit Crypt of Nightmares, The Excellent Eighties, Dark Crimes, Martial Arts, Family Classics, Comedy Kings, and Pure Terror). You can read all about my collection of this movie packs HERE.

Hope all is well with everyone.  Sorry that I am so incommunicado.  There don't seem to be enough hours in the day.  It's all a blur at the moment.  Time passing by at the speed of light.  But I still think about everyone.   Drop me a line if you'd like, though it's very possible I won't see the email until a week or so later.  I barely check my email anymore.

Peace out everyone!

Hey..... I'm alive.... and back with something weird

Yeah... I'm still alive.  I'll post more info later on... but I came across something weird whilst listening to The Beatles 'Let It Be' using headphones.

In the middle of the song there is a guitar solo.  And in the middle of that guitar solo there was a 'boop' beep thing, like someone pressing a button on a telephone.   Well, the MP3 of that came from, well, I don't know where.  So I thought, maybe it's just screwed up.   I already had a MP3 previously in the day of The Rolling Stones' "Statisfaction" that sounded like it had been slowed down by like 10%.    Anyhoo... so I went out to youtube to find another recording of it from the album.  And.... the 'boop' was there too.   Have a listen (esp at the 2:20/2:21 mark --- boop!):
HERE

I checked for other videos on youtube and it seems there were two versions of this one.  Both seem to be studio versions, but the guitar solos are completely different.  But I did find yet another version with the 'boop' in it.   Weird.

Edit 01/27/2013:  I checked Let It Be from the The Beatles '1' album and it's not this version.  I also checked Let It Be from the Archives 3 album and it's not that one either.  I suspected it might be from the Past Masters Vol 2 album since there were alot of quirks with those albums, but I checked that one as well.  Not it.  I checked the Blue Album (The Beatles 1967-1970).  Not it.  I checked the Let It Be album proper... BINGO!!!!  Thanks goodness I figured that out. It was interesting to find the one the Let It Be, the album it came off of, is different than the one that was put on the Blue and 1s albums.  Weird.

Records and Xtreme stupidity

Note:  This post is not in chronological order :)
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Got to hang out a little bit with Ian on Sunday.  We went to Hound Dog's pizza.  It is always tasty tasty.   I got my usual, Hound Dog pizza (regular crust) with Bacon and Howlin' Hot Pizza Sauce.   I got the small (10") and still only ate probably half of it.  When I was still at OSU, I would get a LARGE and eat the entire thing myself in one sitting.   Things have come a long way since then.  After pizza and conversation we headed over to Use Kids Records.  It's Used Kids.  It doesn't change much.  I still really like the new store.  It's not as cramped and they are being more selective about what they put in the Dollar Bins.  I perused for ... I don't know how long and came away with an odd Barry Manilow album I didn't even know existed which had this terrible promo sticker on it which read something like 'Take the challenge: Listen to this Barry album with any current contemporary artists.  We think you'll see that song for song Barry is still relevant as ever." Or some weird shit like that.   I also got a few more Olivia Newton-John albums, which may complete my 'need' list.  When the albums went bad, I took photos of all the ones I had, so I need to check with the photos to see if there are any missing.  I also picked up five Bobby Sherman records.  I don't know why I pick them up, honestly.  I think it all started when I picked up that (horribly re-produced) Bobby Sherman Christmas album at Big Lots about 10 years ago.  It was so gawd awful that I loved it, so I've been picking up Bobby albums ever since.  I picked up a few more, to the tune of $22 bucks.  I went through the majority of their dollar bin stuff.  It's been a while since I done that (or even wanted to).  Poor Ian doesn't have a record player, so... in rare form... he bought nothing.  After we were done, it was 3pm and I had to head back to M-ville.  It was a good time!

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Last Tues, M and I had to head to Cinci to go to a funeral (no fun).  But on the way to Cinci, since we had a little time to waste, we stopped at the Half Price Books in the Fairfield Commons area (fun!).  While there, I found two movie packs I had been looking for.  One was the Burnt Rubber 20 movie pack.  This set features all movies about cars or racing.  I think I probably own 3 or 4 for them already, but I liked the idea.  I got that one for $4.99.  The other was Hollywood Legends 50 movie pack.  I think I paid $7.99 for this one.

Now, normally the story would end here.  I got some more movie sets and that usually would curb my appetite.  However, that was not the case that day.  I had just gone through all my vinyl LPs and found that some of them were toast due to the flood in my sisters basement.  And I was looking to replace them.

So, after the funeral we went to the Half Price Books that is in the Hamilton area.  Don't ask me exactly which one since I'm not from the area and my wife does all the driving.  Anyways, I went in looking for LPs.  And I found TONS of them.  I completed the majority of my Barry Manilow needs from the 49 cent bin, and all of them were in very good condition.  It was awesome.

And the story should end there, but it doesn't.   The last time we were there, I noticed the Warriors 50 Movie Pack, but it was $9.99 and the last time I watched one of the Hercules movies that was on the Sci Fi 50 Movie Pack, I just wasn't that interested.  However, out of curiosity I checked... and they had just reduced the price to $7.99.  *sigh*  I told the wife that I wasn't going to get and she basically "Just get it! Sheesh!".

And the story should end there, but it doesn't.  After (re)finding the Warriors set, I looked up a could of shelves and found another familiar looking box.   It was called Prime Time Crime - The Stephen J. Cannell Collection.  I had NEVER heard of this one.  And I have pretty much liked everything that Mr. Cannell has ever written.  This box set contained the whole of four series that he did which never quite caught on: Missing Persons (18 episodes), Broken Badges (7 ep), Palace Guard (9 ep) and UNSUB (8 ep).  Plus, an episode from a few other shows he did.  You may have heard of some of them: 21 Jump Street, Booker, Cobra, The Commish, The Greatest American Hero, Hunter, Silk Stalkings, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe and Wiseguy.  This one is AWESOME.   The Mrs and I are both giddy to watch these 'failed' shows.  This was also for $7.99 I believe.


And the story should end there, but it doesn't   As we were leaving, something in the discount caught my.  The familiar 'fatty' case.  And there sat another set I did not know existed, Spaghetti Western 44 Movie Collection, for only $5.  So I picked that one up as well.

In one day, I picked up five movie packs.  Now THAT is Stupid Extreme!!!

SpaceX Dragon approaching

My wonderful lil N, who I normally curse at 4am, got me up just in time to rush outside and see the ISS pass overhead with the SpaceX Dragon trailing close behind.   AWESOME!!!!!!! AWESOME!!!! AWESOME!!!!  I didn't even plan on setting an alarm because, well if my wife WASN'T up at 4am, I sure as heck didn't want to be the one to wake her lil N up.  But, as habit would have it, Lil N was up at 3:55am (and quickly walked back upstairs).  I was smart enough to set out my clothes and gear and so I was able to quickly put on my clothes, head outside, get my bearings, check my cheat sheet, look up and see the two traveling overhead.

I'm watching the live feed of the rendezvous now!!!!  Live feed started at 4:30am.  The actual 'grapple' is set to occur at 7:59am.

Go SpaceX ... and other stuff

Congrats to SpaceX for the successful launch of the Dragon capsule towards the International Space Station (ISS) on May 22nd.  While the oroginal launch date moved a couple of times, this was due to SpaceX doing their due diligence, once to make sure that the docking software was fully tested and another time due to a faulty valve which caused out-of-range readings 1 second after ignition (which also proved that the auto-shutdown software was working correctly since it is all automated in the last 15 seconds of countdown).

On Weds, the Dragon did a flyby within 1.5 miles of the ISS and responded to commands sent by the ISS crew which are all milestones that SpaceX had to meet.  The Dragon is set to be berthed to the ISS sometime tomorrow (Thursday, May 24th).  It's a 'berthing' because the dragon is only going to get close enough for the ISS peeps to grab it with the robotic arm which will then maneuver it into position.  A 'docking' is when the spacecraft itself connects to the ISS without any physical help from the ISS crew.

Here is a video of Dragon flying under the ISS during the flyby (short 1 minute video)


Here's a link to the full SpaceX coverage of the launch.  I've cued it up to a point after Dragon is in orbit.  My favorite part of this video is seeing how HAPPY the employees are that the rocket launched, the Dragon was in orbit and the solar arrays deployed.  Happiness = awesomeness :)



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I got the IKEA shelves put together.  YAY!  I went through my records and am getting rid of aboutr 75% of them.  There were about 4 boxes that were damaged from the flood at my sister's house and, at first, they appeared to be mostly okay (showing water damaged) but quickly it became clear that they were funkilicious with my nose and throat not taking kindly to me unleashing that craziness.  So, I boxed and taped all of those back up.  Unfortunately, among the casualties were my Barry Manilow and Olivia Newton-John collections.  Luckily, before the move, I had separated out all of the albums I gre up with.  Those were all in a box which were untouched by water, thank goodness.  Upon inspection of the damage, I found only a few records which I grew up with that were not separated out (Kiss - Alive, Kiss - Alive II, Queen - The Game).  There were also LPs that I grew up with which belonged to my aunt.  Those too were spared the water onslaught.   All my 45s were also above the flood plane.

Those IKEA shelves are the shiz-nit and are PERFECT for LP storage (and other stuff too).  I found a few chat rooms where LP snobs concurred that the shelves were great.

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The Red Bull Stratos project is coming along.  I believe they are doign a test jump from 90,000 ft early summer and then making the world record / super-sonic attempt in late summer.   The site is still at RedBullStratos.  They posted a link to THIS awesome story which also goes over some of the history of high altitude parachute attempts, all the way from Joe Kittinger's still record attempt in 1961, to several other individuals who have attempted and failed, to the current Red Bull Stratos project.  Good stuff!  Best article I've read on it yet.

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 I don't think I mentioned that I will be getting a signed copy of Ben Fold Five's new album when it comes out.  They are funding it via PledgeMusic.  I was lucky enough to find out about it only a few hours after the site went live.  Some of the 'levels' of pledging are limited and they run out.  I think they may have ultimately done 100 signed copies of the new CD for $15.  I got in when there were only 50, which sold out quickly and then they posted another 50.  Anyhoo... HERE is a link to the PledgeMusic page for the new BF5 album.  There are still things to be had including some exclusive stuff coming out @ 3pm on Thursday 5/24 (including getting a personalized version of a song, which I'm sure will cost a pretty penny).  

Juliana Hatfield has funded a few albums this way as well.  I think she has one up right now for doing a covers album.  She's done this a few times so she has some unique stuff that you can get when you pledge X amount.  For example, you can have her personally answer 20 questions from you for 20 bucks... AND you get a download of the album when it's complete.  What else... you can get a 'Song to order' which I think means you tell her what song to put on the album.  That'll run you a cool grand.  She also does artwork, so she sells artwork, custom silk-screened T-shits, etc to get pledges.

Nataly Dawn from Pomplamoose did this as well through a different website with a similar concept called Kickstarter.com. KickStarter covers more than just music.  It covers everything.  Want to start a clothing line, set it up.  Today's featured KickStart is from a guy who does cheese and cracker plates called "Cheese and Crack".  No lie. For $5 you can get a personal Thank You on Facebook.  For $100 you can get a Cheese & Crack party plate which serves 10 people delivered to your home... well... as long as you live in Portland OR.

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I'm still losing a little weight.  I've kinda plateau'd again.  I was down to about 167, but then in 2 days the Wii claimed I gained 5 lbs, which means that the goal I set up to lose 5 lbs in a month is now more like 10 lbs.  *sigh*  Oh well, that's how it goes.  Luckily, the Wii allows you to change it part way through in case you've set too lofty of a goal, which 10 lbs in a month is at this point in the game.   I'm still shooting for 155, so at 172 (after my weird two day 5 lb gain) I still have a ways to go.  Luckily, I'm not delusional and thinking I can lose that in like 2 more months.  I will be quite happy if I can pull that off by end of the year honestly.  I lost TON of weigh in the beginning (20 lbs in about 3 months).  There are some people who have tried for YEARS to lose that much weight.  I've just taken a road that works for me.  In the beginning I was working out probably an hour a night, 6 days a week.  I work out closer to 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week now.  I have my little routine and when I feel I've been extra bad I'll throw in an hour or hour and a half workout.  The main thing is that I've stopped eating everything in sight.  I was pretty much miserable 24/7 and popping antacid non-stop because my body was unthrilled with what I was continually putting into my stomach.  I've learned to eat within reason and to not 'eat on principle'.  I still need to work a little bit on eating while I'm watching TV, but at least the THOUGHT is there that I shouldn't be stuffing my face, so I'll either eat something healthier (say a whole red pepper with some zesty greek yogurt dip) or I'll just have ONE bowl of chips.  It really is the little things sometimes.

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I'm officially yammering now, so I'll just STFU.  I hope all is well with everyone.   Have a happy Memorial Day!!!