Blog Bat Around: What I Collect - An Addendum

A few months ago there was a blog bat around topic brought up by Night Owl about what you collect. There were a number of things, card wise, that I listed in that particular post that I talked about, however, sitting at the office last weekend on a rare Saturday that I had to work, I looked around my cubicle and realized there were a number of things I had there that I collect that I failed to mention. So, here's a quick addendum to that blog post from a few months ago with more stuff that I collect ...

Starting Lineup Figures

If there's one thing I love to get if I can get a good deal on them, it's Starting Lineup figures. I haven't added more to the collection in about a year though but if it's a player I like from the past or a cool figure from any sport, I'll add it to the collection. I've only got two baseball ones right now but these four hockey ones are my favorite. I think the one that wins for most awesome is the Gretzky/Messier double pack with the Stanley Cup floating between them. 

Bobbleheads

Oh how I love bobbleheads. While they definitely can be expensive (and I flat out refuse to pay $25 or more for one), I've always liked them from when they first became popular again in the early 2000s. These two above are an old Joe Nuxhall one and next to him is Howler, the Coyotes mascot. While he got damaged somehow, it's still a pretty cool piece to have a sometimes mascot bobbles aren't all that easy to come by. Also, there's a Chris Sabo Starting Lineup figure hiding in the background.

Speaking of mascot bobbleheads, here's my newest addition ... it's my high school mascot, a cougar. I got this from the school registration office when we signed my five year old up for kindergarten a few weeks ago. It was sitting on a shelf in front of some framed high school team photos of the past season. I made a remark about how it was neat and the registration lady said "take it if you want, I think we've got a bunch of them". Well, she didn't have to tell me twice!

And here's the last of my current collection, Tony Perez and Mat Latos. While I'm not a big Mat Latos fan, he was a pretty decent pitcher when he was with the Reds and was part of the awesome rotation we had at the early part of the decade with Cueto, Latos, Bailey, Leake, and Arroyo. 

Funkos

Ok, I'll finally admit it .... I collect Funkos. These crazy little things finally got me to start buying some en masse and while the typical going retail rate of ten bucks is enough for me to go crazy, I have to actually be interested in something to buy a figure of it. Case in point, the Big Lebowski figures. It's one of my all time favorite movies so I just had to get a figure of both The Dude and Walter. Mr. Redlegs came from the flea market and the mascot line is the only baseball Funkos I know of that they've done. Also, while I'm not a huge fan of the Penguins, the Sidney Crosby figure was a Secret Santa present from a co-worker last year.

I don't always keep them in the box either. That's the nice thing about the Funkos is that they look good both in and out of the box. I forget the name of the tall Ghostbusters figure of Ray at the left but it know it's made by the same people who make Funkos. Plus, of course there has to be Ecto 1 and Winston nearby.

I do like the fact that Funko has a line of figures from horror movies and I just couldn't resist taking them out of the box. Previously, these had been part of my annual Halloween "mood display" at home but I took a different route to that display last year, so I made these part of my Halloween decorations at work. They were such a hit with co-workers I decided to leave them up the whole year round.

And since they all didn't fit it one picture, here's the rest of them. I've really got to find some more of the Universal Monsters figures and I hope there's one of Dracula floating around out there somewhere.

So, that's a quick addendum to the "What I Collect" blog bat around from a month or so back. While I know this stuff isn't exactly card related, it's still some pretty neat and fun stuff that I probably should have included in the original post.

Halfway to Halloween

For those of you who have been regular readers of mine for a while, you know that my favorite season is fall and Halloween. Sure, Christmas is great and all but Halloween is the only time of year where you can load up your front lawn with spooky and macabre decorations, find a horror movie on nearly every channel, head to festivals and load up on apple cider, among other things. Heck, back in 2016, I did my own mini-"Halloween Countdown" of sorts where for two months I featured posts about nothing else but Halloween and fall related material.

For Halloween nuts like myself, the end of April marks the un-official "halfway to Halloween" point and, judging by early indications, it'll be one for the record books with Lemax already announcing their "Spooky Town" decorations for the season and an October release date for the new film in the Halloween series already set. Hopefully this trend continues. Oh, what I wouldn't give for Burger King to bring back the Halloween Whopper.

Anyway, for those of you like me who can't get enough of the season, here are a four Halloween things you can do right now to mark the halfway to Halloween point and celebrate accordingly.

1. Watch a horror movie.

This is pretty much a given. Every Halloween season should be filled with as many good horror films as possible, anything from the classic Universal monsters like Dracula, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc to old school slashers like Michael Myers, Freddy, and Jason. Heck, even throw Ash from Evil Dead in there for some fun! If you're new to this world, a good entry point would be The Fog from 1980, which is a really under appreciated John Carpenter thriller. After that, then maybe check out the original Dracula with Bela Lugosi, George A. Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead or the original Halloween from 1978. If you're not into horror movies, it's all good too. I won't judge.

2. Listen to Art Bell

Friday the 13th was a sad day. That's the day when the long time narrator of the night, Art Bell, passed away. Way back when I used to work late nights and would be driving home in the late night/early morning hours, Coast to Coast AM was there with me working Friday and Saturday nights mostly it was typically Art Bell hosting. I joined the party late when it came to Coast to Coast AM, as by that time (2003), George Noory had taken over as the primary host. To me, those were the best days of C2C, with Noory, Bell, and the amazing Ian Punnett. On my long drives home, that show was there with me. I listened to all of Art's internet projects, including his ill-fated six week run on Sirius XM in 2013 and his return in 2015 with Midnight in the Desert, with great joy as it took me back to that time in my life. So, if you're into UFOs, science, aliens, crpytozoology, ghosts, the paranomal, and anything else in the realm of the unexplained, I recommend checking out the free U7 Radio stream of classic Art Bell content that runs 24/7.

3. Watch a Bob's Burgers Halloween episode.

I'll admit it, when Bob's Burgers first debuted I didn't like it. I though the whole show was annoying and Bob was the only decent character in the whole thing. Now, it's one of my favorite shows on TV and their holiday themed shows are especially awesome. They've done some killer Christmas and Thanksgiving-themed episodes but every year, when I see their Halloween episode on the schedule, I get excited because they know absolutely how to do Halloween right and the best one they ever did was episode 3 from season 6 called "The Hauntening" as the whole plot of the show it to somehow scare Louise as she mentioned that she'd never been scared by anything ever. Sure, they've done other Halloween episodes and most of them quite good such as "Fort Night", "Full Bars", and the most recent one called "Tina and the Real Ghost" but none of them are as good as "The Hauntening".

4. Begin reading a creepy novel.

Most of my reading can be found in the realm of sports history and while I do crack open a novel from time to time, it has to be from an author I know I like, such as Elmore Leonard. A few years ago, I rewatched The Exorcist from 1973 when it was on Netflix and I forgot exactly how violent and frightening the movie was. Suffice to say, I felt at that time that I needed to read the book. I found it at the local library and tore into it immediately. When I finished it a few weeks later, what I read was more terrifying than the movie. So, of course, I went and found Legion, the follow up book and while it borders more on on being a religious crime thriller than a horror novel, there is a decent amount of the supernatural thrown in. Starting a creepy or horror novel now would be ... well .... a novel idea as if you find a good one, it'll start leading you down the rabbit hole of other works and that will keep you well in tune until fall actually arrives.

There's always a bunch more Halloween stuff you can do like listen to Halloween music, watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and other wacky stuff and I could've added more to this list but I'm already getting super wordy in an article that wasn't supposed to be very wordy. However, I've just given you four awesome things to do to keep those Halloween blues at bay until right around the end of August/beginning of September when the Halloween season officially kicks off.

The 2007 Halloween Special

I mentioned back in my introduction to Project Halloween that my friends and I used to make hour long videos to celebrate Halloween every year. Beginning today and running through Oct 9th, I'll have a new post up each day with a link to each special, all the way up to the last special we did in 2014.

First up is our original Halloween special from 2007. It stars my friends Tim and Brian (with me popping up occasionally throughout the video). I'll be honest, it's not my favorite as we popped in some sophomoric and shock humor on occasion, something I'm not very proud of now. However, for 2007 I think it's pretty good. 

A few of my favorite segments in this are the intro with the fog machine, the Creepy Crawlers segment, and the fake Rap Snacks commercial. Enjoy the video!

PS: If it doesn't work let me know.

The 2016 Halloween Mood Display (and a Halloween Contest!)

It's that time again! It's time for the reveal of the annual Halloween Mood Display!

A bit of backstory first ... I started doing this in 2014 when my Halloween spirit was really low. Why it was so low that year, I'm not sure. So I took a spare table and got inspired by the Halloween mood tables that Matt from Dinosaur Dracula does every year and created my Halloween mood table. Needless to say, that was an instant spirit lifter. Last year, I wanted to do another table but seeing as my son likes to get into things within his reach, I opted to use a ledge on an archway between my living room and kitchen and it turned out pretty well.

This year, I decided to use the same ledge for the display ...

Here's a before picture, a blank canvas, ripe to be built on with some crazy Halloween decor

And afterward ....

Behold, the 2016 Halloween Mood Display! Let's take a tour ....

A must for any Halloween display is activities. My blu-ray box set of the Halloween series is a must and I grabbed a few other movies as well. Even though it's hard to see, the other films are Friday the 13th, Signs, and Evil Dead 2. This is also the Ghostbusters portion of the program with the Slimer figure I bought at Horrorhound earlier this year, Winston hanging out in Ecto-1, and Ray looking from afar.

A closer look at Winston chilling in the car and sharing a word with Jason Voorhees.

Here's the centerpiece as I described previously, the Spookytown Gas N Ghoul. I went back to Michaels and grabbed a few accent pieces that were 40% off. I think the orange trees and the road sign give it an extra creepy feel. I'll admit, I'd be a little freaked out if I rolled up to this place in the middle of the night.

The land of horror icon Funko figures. Returning from last year is Billy from Saw, Ash from Evil Dead, and Michael Myers. New this year to the gathering is Freddy Krueger and the Mummy.

Finally, a Trick or Treat flavored candle, which really candy corn and butter cream, from Yankee Candle and my wife's melted wax warmer which she has loaded fall flavors into.

After building this, I definitely feel the Halloween spirit more than ever, and so will my living room as it will be covered in the glow of candy corn lights from now until I take this sucker down in November. I would definitely encourage you to take an afternoon and make one of these for yourself, even if it's not as big as this.  Speaking of which, I think I'll run a little contest for this ...

To enter, simply build a Halloween Mood Display of your own and write a blog post about it, similar to what I did here talking about the things you included, maybe even how it helps you get in the Halloween spirit. Leave a link to the post in the comments below. As a reminder, your building it for no one but you. It just needs to be something that reminds you to embrace the Halloween spirit and enjoy the season. Since this is a baseball card blog by heart, your prize will be a bubble mailer of cards from your favorite MLB team.

If you need some tips on how to build one, check out my mood display from last year here and also feel free to check out past mood tables of the person who started this whole thing, Matt of Dinosaur Dracula, here, here, here, and here.

This contest will be open from now until October 21st. Those who entered will be tossed into a randomizer that will be randomized a lucky 13 times and the winner will be announced on Halloween itself.

Let the fun begin!

The 2015 Halloween Mood Display

I love everything there is about Halloween ... cheap candy, wacky seasonal foods, fall festivals, the crispness in the night air, horror movies, and the old WCW pay-per-view series "Halloween Havoc". Last year, my spirit was at an all time low though. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why. So, in order to jump start my Halloween spirit last year, I took a page from Matt over at Dinosaur Dracula (where he has already started his Halloween countdown) and made what he calls a "mood table". The purpose of said table is to have one place in your house that is convenient with all things Halloween, be it scary movies, books of ghost stories, etc. and helps the Halloween spirit come alive.

This year, it seems, my Halloween spirit is at an all-time high and I was really excited to put together the sequel to the mood table. However, knowing how my 2-year old son likes to get into things, I decided it was a more logical idea to change it up this year and do a "mood display" instead. Last weekend, my wife and I didn't have anything planned so we got out the Halloween decor and got to work. I present the 2015 Halloween Mood Display ...

I took the archway on the wall between the living room and kitchen and turned it into the center of Halloween in our house. It's got everything you could ever need in one spot ... books, movies, and a Ghostbusters pail that will soon be filled up with candy. And yes, you have to have lights as you want it to be able to glow at night when the lights are off and you're watching Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.

Here are some close-ups going from left to right across the display ...

Here we've got three Funko figures from The Walking Dead, one of my wife's favorite shows, a green monster that exerts an evil laugh when squeezed, and a decorative pail.

Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees hanging out. I'm on the lookout for a Freddy Krueger figure to join them.

On the opposite end, it's Ash from Evil Dead and Army of Darkness and Billy from Saw. If I can find a Leatherface figure, then it'll be a party!

Finally, the fun section where my books of ghost stories and my horror movie collection awaits to be viewed with the creepy clown guy standing guard. Also, you can't have Halloween in my opinion without Snoopy and the timeless Peanuts Great Pumpkin special (which is the DVD in the orange case).

I feel the Halloween spirit more than ever this year and this or display is a big part of it. I hope you enjoyed reading about this and hopefully this will inspire you to do your own mood display, mood table, or whatever else. If you do decide to do one, and this post inspired you to do so, then I feel like I've succeeded in making the world a better place.