ONWARD

TO VICTORY~!

Olin Kreutz, the Gift that Keeps on Giving

If you're weirdly obsessed enough to remember this post from Christmas last year, you'll know that I like to accumulate stupid pieces of cardboard, often times with Chicago Bears on them. So what with yesterday being my birthday and all, I went on a MASSIVE $13 Ebay spending spree, and ended up with this, that came in today:



Awwwwesome. Another card with a piece of a Pro Bowl jersey attached, his only officially autographed card, and at a $35 book value, it's his most valuable card. And the autograph is directly on the card, instead of the way they'll have a dude sign a sticker to put on the card these days, so that means that the hand that broke Fred Miller's jaw has held this card. Woah.

I spend money sometimes.

Whenever a Bears player I like gets traded or signed by another team, (which is usually the case) I always start checking places like NFL Shop to see if that guy's jersey has gotten cheap yet. That's how I picked up $75 Anthony Thomas and Marcus Robinson jerseys for $20 apiece. Well, the bottom hasn't fallen out of Thomas Jones jerseys yet, but it has fallen out of Super Bowl XLI jerseys. So for about 50 bucks less than what it should have cost, I managed to pick up a reminder (in the incorrect color, no less) of the day the Bears sucked and the guy who got traded as his reward for not sucking. I love this game.

I just spent ten bucks on Ebay and got this

DOUG MOTHERFUCKING ATKINS

A fine day of purchasing.

Today, not only did buying two packs of football cards net me three Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart rookies with a total book value of $75, (have you been reading Cardboard Downfall lately?) but I bought some hamburger buns, and in addition to the eight buns regularly included, there was an extra half of a bun inside.

Ooh, that's not good...

Got the Transformers the Movie special 20th anniversary edition DVD yesterday, and while the special features are awesome and totally made it worthwhile, there's a huge problem with the whole "widescreen for the first time in 20 years" thing. Check it out:
Full-screen version from disk two:

Widescreen version from disk one:

Notice anything missing? Like perhaps the TOP AND BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN?
Also, the "color correction" job they did on the super-enhanced widescreen version mainly just brightened everything and turned Hot Rod pink. D'oh.
But there's two commentary tracks, so it's all good.

A work in progress

Coming soon: FISH!

Meanwhile...

Got my jacket back, (the part of me that still has faith in humanity thinks someone grabbed it by mistake yesterday and brought it back, but my brain tells me someone stole it and was stupid enough to wear it to work today and leave it on the same coat rack they stole it from) and I might be getting hooked up with a new job that starts out at like a buck more an hour, and could be as much as 30% less soul-draining than Wal Mart. Also, Bully is awesome.

Good times.

hey, dvd collection

R U JEALOUSE??

So yeah, I just spent like almost fifty bucks on DVDs.

But now, I have like every Nightmare on Elm Street movie ever. Except Freddy vs. Jason. But still, it's not like that one's going to be out of print any time soon. It will come in due time. But yeah, the new super-special Infinifilm version of the first one, with special features and stuff just came out, and the rest were on sale for $4.88 apiece. What was I to do?

Also, like a week ago, I decided to drop five bucks on a used copy of No More Tears by Ozzy Osbourne, because it just seemed odd that I didn't have it already. And all it did was serve to remind me that there might as well only be one song on there, because the rest of the CD isn't very good. And don't mention "Mama, I'm Coming Home" to me, because I can't be bothered with boring lighter-in-the-air ballads for Sharon Osbourne. Oh well. Totally should have gotten the $5 used copy of The Ultimate Sin instead. Because it's a shot in the daaaaaark, ooooone steeeeepp awaaaayyy from yooooooouuuuu. Yeah.

But while I'm typing, here is a more-than-likely-incomplete short list of songs about Freddy Krueger, in some attempt at chronological order:

S.O.D. - "Man of Your Dreams"
Hirax - "Raging Violence"
M.O.D. - "Freddy Krueger"
Dokken - "Dream Warriors"
Sacred Reich - "Man of Your Dreams"
Fishbone - "Freddy's Dead" (honestly, this one's not really about Freddy at all, but it's the title track for a Nightmare on Elm Street movie soundtrack, so that counts, dammit)

Are there any I've left out?

I just bought a guitar

Been thinking about it for a while, and found one of those crappy beginner kits for a good deal today. Fifty bucks off, and the regular price was fifty less than what those things usually cost. And I figured that I had random spending money for a change, so why not? So I got it, and it comes with the guitar, a whammy bar, some extra strings, a few picks, a little practice amp, a battery-operated tuning thingy, a fairly cool bag to put most of it in, and an instructional DVD with one of those dudes who's probably in some will-never-be-known local band but makes a ton of money anyway off instructional DVDs showing you the basics. But after I spent some time with it, watching the video and tinkering around with it for a few hours, I think it serves an entirely different purpose than what was originally intended. I think I just spent $112 on a "your fingers are much too fat to ever properly play a chord, jerk" starter kit.

Fuck.

Maybe I should look for a Dino Cazares guitar instructional video. That guy can play, and his fingers have to be like ten little Grilled Stuft Burritos.

My Stupid Ebay Activities

I won't bore you with the details, but if the post office can get their shit together, a financial windfall, at least by my standards, should be hitting me in short order. And after the car and the student loans are paid off, (don't freak out - It's an almost paid-off $2500 car and like a year worth of Delta State University) I'll have a hefty chunk of disposable income on my hands. So in anticipation of this, I spent some cash on Ebay today. What did I get? A new computer? No. Big screen TV? No. Kickass car stereo? Nope.

I spent 30 dollars for almost every Chicago Bears trading card released by Topps between 1981 and 1990.

By book value, it's a fairly decent deal, but not as good a deal as it would have been if some of the major rookie cards had been included. But of the seven cards left out, I already have the Dan Hampton, Richard Dent, and Doug Flutie rookies, the Willie Gault and Todd Bell rookies could easily be scooped up for like a buck, total, and only the Mike Singletary and Jim McMahon rookies are truly bummers by their absence. And I've already found a place selling the McMahon for like three bucks if I get some sort of crazy McMahon-rookie Jones going. But yeah, the final tally:
177 cards, with no duplicates, all Near Mint/Mint:
Neal Anderson - 3 (RC)
Trace Armstrong - 2 (RC)
Johnny Bailey - 1 (RC)
Brian Baschnagel - 3
Kevin Butler - 6 (RC)
Mark Carrier - 1 (RC)
Jim Covert - 6 (RC)
Ron Cox - 1 (RC)
Richard Dent - 5
Dave Duerson - 4 (RC)
Robin Earl - 2 (RC)
Vince Evans - 2 (RC)
Gary Fencik - 5
Dave Finzer - 1 (RC)
Leslie Frazier - 3 (RC)
Steve Fuller - 1
Willie Gault - 5
Dennis Gentry - 4 (RC)
Dan Hampton - 8
Jim Harbaugh - 3 (RC)
Roland Harper - 1
Mike Hartenstine - 3
Jay Hilgenberg - 5 (RC)
Noah Jackson - 3
Vestee Jackson - 1 (RC)
Lorenzo Lynch - 1 (RC)
Ken Margerum - 1 (RC)
Wilber Marshall - 2 (RC)
Dennis McKninnon - 3 (RC)
Jim McMahon - 6
Steve McMichael - 6 (RC)
Emery Moorehead - 2
Ron Morris - 1 (RC)
Brad Muster - 2 (RC)
Jim Osbourne - 1 (RC)
Alan Page - 1
Bob Parsons - 3
Walter Payton - 21
William Perry - 3 (RC)
Mike Richardson - 2 (RC)
Ron Rivera - 2 (RC)
John Roper - 1 (RC)
Thomas Sanders - 2 (RC)
Terry Schmidt - 2
Mike Singletary - 7
Revie Sorey - 2
Lemuel Stinson - 1 (RC)
Matt Suhey - 7 (RC)
David Tate - 1 (RC)
Bob Thomas - 3
James Thornton - 1 (RC)
Mike Tomczak - 2 (RC)
Keith Van Horne - 1 (RC)
Len Walterscheid - 1 (RC)
Rickey Watts - 3 (RC)
Dave Williams - 1
Otis Wilson - 3 (RC)
Donnell Woolford - 2 (RC)

Also, adding in the random extra stuff the guy threw in with the deal, you get:
Red Grange - 1 (from 1988)
Walter Payton - 1 (1991)
Adrian Peterson - 1 (RC - 2002)
Gale Sayers (1997)
Mike Singletary - 3 (2 from 1992, 1 from 2002)
Brian Urlacher - 2 (2002)

Ho-lee shit.

Neat Random Used CD Find

I was on the west side of town today, doing my usual weekly routine, where I go to Big Lots for cheap cereal and canned food, then head over to Hastings for a while, where I'll look at things I can't afford, then get bored and leave. But today, I had to actually spend money there. $8.99, to be exact. I was looking through the used CDs, and something caught my eye. It was Metallica's Kill 'Em All, but something looked wrong with it. The spine was WHITE. I've seen a bunch of that CD; hell, I actually own two copies of it. (one with "Garage Days Revisited" as bonus tracks, and one without that I had to buy when the first one got scratched too bad to play on a track or two) Upon closer inspection, it was the original Megaforce Records release of the album, with no mentions of Elektra or "E/M Ventures" on it anywhere. Not sure if it's rare enough to be worth anything, but it's definitely rare, and there's at least one guy trying to sell it on Ebay right now for 69 dollars. Anyway, here are some pictures:
First, the front cover. The colors seem a bit different, with the picture not looking so white, and the letters being a lot brighter, almost orange in some places. Also, the title of the CD is like twice as big as on the normal version. For a comparison, here's the front cover of the 1994 version.
Inside, there's a huge difference, as there's no booklet of lyrics or anything. It's just one white page with a few credits.
The back cover is where the huge differences lie. It doesn't resemble the usual version at all, and even has the Rich "Banger" Burch misquote, "bang the head that doesn't bang," (it's supposed to be "that," instead of "the") intact, and they leave the second T out of Kirk Hammett's last name.
And, in case you care, here's the actual CD, which sounds no different from the version everyone else has.

Neat.