Of Sick Days, Too Much Sleep and SCREAMERS

Three days lost.

I spent a good 60+ hours in bed earlier this week thanks to a particularly nasty stomach bug. No work, sure, but also no television and no internet and nothing but drinking lots of water and trying to sleep for more than an hour at a time. It's been several years since I've been that sick and I'm not looking forward to a next time. Which unfortunately might be very, very soon. The last couple days were nice ones, feeling better and going out and doing stuff, but I woke up today feeling worse and all I wanna do is climb back into bed.

Since I've been trying recently to focus less on the negative in my life and take a longer look at the brighter, better parts, I thought I'd share some little goodies I picked up yesterday. An early work day meant getting out by noon, which left me with plenty of time to hit a couple of my usual haunts. Seven bucks bought me all the trash you're about to see.

We'll knock the VHS out first, because you should all know the drill by now.

I was pretty late getting around to seeing Mad Max (1979) for the first time; probably only three or four years ago when it happened to be airing on IFC. It's exactly the kind of movie that would have blown me away when I was an early teen. This isn't to say that I don't love it now, because I do, but it's certainly one that I wish I had grown up with.

Meanwhile, I've still never seen Screamers (1995), but I certainly remember the trailer and commercials for it when I was an early teen. The mid '90s weren't a good place to be if you were a horror film or a sci-fi film, and this one combines both and throws in Buckaroo Banzai, too. As the years roll on, though, it seems like film fans and critics alike are re-discovering a lot of flicks from that era, so why not this one?

The following few pics are going to include a series of mini-figures and cereal prizes that I scored in a single grab-bag for $2.99. I originally grabbed it without hesitation when I noticed the contents. I then set it down on a random shelf, picked it up, put it back on the peg where I originally found it, and picked it up for a third time. A half hour spent trying to decide if I really needed to spend three dollars on this crap.

I'm still undecided.

I mean, it's a fun assortment of toys that immediately transports me back to being a kid. There are cheap pieces saved from Happy Meals and the Burger Kings Kids' Club, ranging from Super Mario Bros. 3 to Beetlejuice to Batman: The Animated Series. A couple skateboarding Dinos taken straight from boxes of Fruity Pebbles. Toss in an incomplete but completely naked Michelangelo [Sorry, Miss M. It was never my intention to see your guy in the buff.], and it looks exactly like the kind of stuff I would have thrown into the shoe-box, tucked under my bed, when I was in grade school.

These were a total score.

Fright Flicks were released back in 1988 by Topps. It was a series of trading cards that took screen-shots from several R-rated horror films from that era. Everything from Aliens (1986) to Fright Night (1985) to An American Werewolf in London (1981) were included. These cards would have terrified me as a kid; they certainly don't hold back on the gore or unpleasantness. I've spent the last couple years looking for some, though, and it finally paid off.

And yes, I could have just bid on a box of 'em on eBay for forty bucks right this second, but that sorta' takes all the fun out of it. I enjoy going and finding this exact kinda' thing out in the wild. I adore the fact that a couple sealed packs of twenty-five year old trading cards were sitting on a shelf at a thrift shop only yesterday. I especially like that they only cost me .99 cents each.

Pumpkinhead looks a lot nicer for under a buck.