A Surprise Box For Me!

  As the few readers of my blog(s) know, I am obsessed with the movie Trick 'r Treat, and I have the corresponding obsessive need to collect Sam merchandise as I can. Back in May I received a Sam Funko Pop!, and in the comments of that post, Dex over at AEIOU......and Sometimes Why remarked that he had an extra Sam plush doll that he would be willing to part with. I declined for reasons, but, unbeknownst to me, my husband contacted Dex and purchased plush Sam anyway. The box arrived last Monday (on my husband's birthday, no less) and not only was there my newest adorable Sam, but Dex had sent other goodies as well. So I'm going to show them off, because it was totally unexpected, and awesome! But first, here's my new Sam:

  Look at the adorableness! After I shift the height of a shelf or two, he will be joining his kin on what I suspect will one day be known as the "Sam shelf."

  I have seen cups like this, but never one that had a zombie on it! And it says "Zombie Blood." I love that! I plan to use this as my "I have to leave the house but I need to take a drink with me" cup.

  A handful of creepy-crawlies, pumpkins and a skull. I actually collect skulls- fake human ones and real animal ones (as an aside, I feel the need to mention that I have never killed an animal for its skull, I've just lived near woods and marshland my entire life, and so I find them) so this little skull cutie goes right up on the shelf. The pumpkins now reside on the "Sam shelf" and the spiders, adorable purple bats (I really love the purple bats) , and millipede went into one of my "Stuff Jars." The ant sits next to the black rat, and the black rat, well, he joined his family:

Pardon the dust- these rats are so old the dust is, literally,

a part of them now.

  The dusty rats (whom I always referred to as "my three blind mice") are part of a witch costume I wore when I was 9 or 10. I still have the spiders from the same costume, but they are shoved into one of my Stuff Jars. Anyway, my three blind mice now have a new friend, Willard. (And before another horror nut sees this and goes bananas, yes, I know that Willard was the guy and Ben was the name of the rat.)

  Anti-bacterial "vampire blood" hand gel. This is both awesome, and practical, as I always carry hand gel with me in my purse. Also, it smells pretty delicious. 

 Sorry for the flash, it was a bitch trying to get a clear shot. 

  Bottle stickers! These are awesome, and with two of each sticker in the pack, I have an idea for an art project utilizing a couple of them.

Again, pardon the flash.

  Halloween stickers! I love stickers, and Halloween stickers are the best kind. I've been dying to open them up and start putting them on stuff, but had to wait until I had taken photos for this post. 

  And lastly, this fantastic pirate skull key chain. As soon as I pulled this out of the box, Alaska claimed it. ("It's a pirate key chain! That's mine!" I believe are the words that he used) And since he's a great husband who provided me with a plush Sam, he loves pirates, and it was his birthday, I couldn't say no. 

  There we are- my surprise box full of goodies. Thanks to my husband, and double thanks to Dex! 

Shelf Expression

  Our League Topic of the week from over at Cool and Collected: Shelf Expression!

  From top to bottom:

 Alaska and I are still unpacking*, so my Rogue shelf is currently a bit bare. That gargoyle on the left I've had for 19 years.

  Eventually, I suspect that third shelf will be nothing but Funko Pop! characters.

  Marvin the Martian was one of my first loves, and I've been collecting him for about 25 years, now. This is less than a third of my total collection, I just didn't have room for everything. (The water in that snow globe isn't really that yellow in person, although it is 20 years old)

  Scooby lunchboxes and "Stuff Jars." The lunchboxes were all gifts from different people, there's some more Marvin stuff mixed in, and all of the jars are what I call "Stuff Jars." Basically, I get a clear jar, I put small random stuff in it (ex: Native American pipe pieces I dug out of my grandparents' field, small weird toys, quite a few things from my childhood that I have managed to hang onto, the occasional animal bone, things my baby sister has given me, empty liquor bottles from my trip to Amsterdam, small rocks and shells, etc) and when it's full I seal it up and put it on a shelf. It's kinda like a jar full of memories, I guess.

  *I have an idea it will be interesting to revisit these shelves in six months or so, and see what else I have unpacked/added/removed.


Be sure to check out some of the other awesome shelves!

Cool and Collected

Stunt Zombie

Goodwill Geek

Sam Funko Pop! Has Arrived!

  I have posted before about my love of the movie Trick 'r Treat, and of Sam. And yesterday, after months of waiting, my Sam Funko finally arrived. And look at him!

  How cute is he, I ask you? (I feel like I should mention that I have read some unfavorable reviews- apparently the paint jobs on some of these toys can be sloppy, but I can honestly say that I have zero complaints about the Sam that I received)

  And he fits in so nicely with my growing Sam collection:

  And so nicely with my growing Funko collection:

League Topic: My Life In One Square Foot

  I've been away from posting for a couple of months, but am so happy to, finally, get back into some blogging. And what better way to kick it off than with the latest topic from The League? Alaska and I are still in the throes of unpacking, but I didn't have much trouble finding things to fill in a square foot of space, either way. Without further ado....

  Starting at the top, from left to right, we have:

  1. The Mystery Machine. I love all things Scooby Doo (Alaska has been adding to my Scooby Doo DVD collection pretty much from the moment we began dating, so I now own just about every incarnation of the show, with the exception of the original series "Scooby Doo, Where Are You!" And that waits for purchase on my Amazon Wish List) Scooby Doo has always been one of my "go to" shows for the days when I don't feel well and just want to curl up on the couch, watch something, and forget about life for awhile.

 2. Jason Voorhees Funko Pop! This serves two purposes, actually. Number One, I love Jason Voorhees and the Friday the 13th movies (they are also "go to" movies for bad days) Number Two,  I have found a new collecting obsession by way of the Funko Pop! line. I own several, but with the slew of Tarantino based figures about to be released, I suspect that my collection is about to get a lot bigger.

 3. Zombies. I love zombies, and have many figures and pictures, etc. This Dis-member Me Plush Zombie (whom I named Morti) from ThinkGeek was a gift from a friend. (I own this awesome zombie jacket from them, as well)

 4. This is a Rogue figure from the "Famous Covers" series. I mentioned in a previous post that Rogue has been a nickname of mine for about 15 years, and since I was dubbed as such I have been given action figures, playing cards, books, and comic books featuring Rogue.

 5. Mine and Alaska's wedding picture (For the record, I am wearing flats, purple Doc Marten boots in fact, but yes, I am taller than he is by a few inches)

 6. Supervillains: The Joker's Last Laugh DVD. I do not particularly care for Batman (seriously, do we have to hear about his parents death/his origin story in every goddamn movie/cartoon that they make? My three year old niece knows that Batman has no parents, for pete's sake) Now that I got that rant out of my system, I can say that I love the villains of Gotham, The Joker, in particular. And Poison Ivy. Harley Quinn. The Mad Hatter. Etc. (All of my love is based on animated shows and live action movie personas, as I have, admittedly, not read many of the comics)

 7. Tony Furtado- American Gypsy Tony Furtado is an award-winning banjo and guitar playing prodigy, whom Alaska and I discovered the first year that we were together. In the first several months of our relationship, Alaska and I would sit in the office at his house and listen to the Pandora music station while we talked. Alaska has an immense love for Cowboy Bebop, and the music, and it was on a station dedicated to The Seatbelts that Tony first popped up. We got lucky that year, Tony was touring and had a show about an hour away from where we live. So we went, and it was fantastic (that's the show where we got the above cd, which Tony signed) We had to wait over two years until Tony came back to do another show in our neck of the woods. And that time around, Alaska proposed to me while Tony played the first song that we had ever heard together in the background.

 8. Nintendo controller for my NES, and my main man, Mario. Mario was my first, and really only, video game love. I played for hours. When we got the Super Nintendo system, I blew my way through Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3. Then came Super Mario World, and Dr. Mario. These days I play on a Wii, but I've added Paper Mario, Mario Kart, and Super Mario Bros Wii to the mix (I haven't purchased Super Mario Bros. 2 yet, but I do plan to add that in the near future- I still love my classics!)

 Stack of Books on the Left- top to bottom:

 1. The Fire Rose- Mercedes Lackey. I'm a big fan of fairy tale "reworkings," and this is one of my favourites. Alaska is a Lackey fan, I had never heard of her until he gave me this book to read. I love this book. I've since read others, and am actually reading Unnatural Issue right now.

 2. It- Stephen King. My father gave me this book when I was 11, as I have mentioned before. Stephen King was really my first horror author obsession, and that opened me up to all kinds of other horror writers. It's a love that I still have today.

 3. Alice in Zombieland- Lewis Carroll and Nikolas Cook. I love Alice in Wonderland. I love zombies. The most interesting thing about this book is that I bought the first printing of it, and when it sold out the second printing was entirely different (I do own a copy of that one, too) I love the insane cover art of the first printing, however. I have been known to buy books for  their crazy cover art, alone.

 4. FM 21-76 Army Field Manuel. I own a plethora of survival manuals, some tongue-in-cheek, most that are more serious. I'm not one of those hardcore survivalists, but I do like being alive, so I find them useful. Also, I use them for research in some of my writing.

 Intermission: Mini-Sam Funko! I have posted about mini-Sam before, but had to include him in this picture. Trick 'r Treat is one of my favourite movies of all time, and is currently my Number One "go to" movie when I am not feeling well: physically or mentally. (FYI, before Trick 'r Treat was my "go to" feel better movie, Natural Born Killers preceded it. I mention this only because NBK is what led to my current internet handle: Natural Blonde Killer- I love the movie, and I'm blonde. And there you have it.)

 Stack of Movies on Right- top to bottom:

 1.Night of the Living Dead, the original B&W. This was the first horror movie that my mother bought for me, when I was 10 or so (she bought it for me on VHS, which I still have but is packed away somewhere right now) So this movie has always held a special place in my heart.

 2. Halloween, 1978. This was also from Mom (again, on VHS) and was the first colour horror movie that she bought for me. (In between NotLD, I received the 1925 Lon Chaney version of Phantom of the Opera, and also the 1931 version of Dracula, with Bela Lugosi. My guess is Mom was trying to temper in some more classic horror to balance out what was obviously my love of blood and gore movies)

 3. Tarantino XX. I love Quentin Tarantino. I love his movies, I own several of his screenplays (I like to see the changes from paper to screen) and am working on collecting the others. I read books and articles and papers that try to break down his methods and his visions. I don't even hate him as an actor (although, damn, his Aussie accent was bad in Django Unchained ( I read that QT did the part himself because of time constraints, and that it was originally supposed to be that creepy guy from Wolf Creek, but he had to back out at the last minute)

 I guess that about wraps it up. This turned into a much longer article than I expected it to, but these things sometimes happen. Be sure to head over to Cool and Collected and check out some other great pics!

A few to whet your appetite:

The Nerd Nook

CoolandCollected

Achievements in Gaming

The 2014 "Blizzard" of the South

Our town in SC shut down for 2 days because of imminent "snow." I heard it was supposed to get to almost 2 inches! (can you smell the sarcasm?) This is what everyone was like:

This is what we actually got (pictures taken in our back yard the morning after):

No snow for Oliver Queen

Yep, that's it. That's all Mother Nature had in her for us. Obviously, things were expected to be a lot worse than this, but the amount of panic that snowballed (forgive me for that) out of control was ridiculous. But, that's just how we do things here in the South. Over-the-top, or not at all.


Also, just for comparison, here are pictures of snow that we got back in 2010. There was no shut-down of the South that year, despite there actually being enough to stick:

So, it might snow....

...and when it "might" snow down here in SC, everything shuts down, literally. Alaska got off of work early today, and does not have to return until Thursday (he works on one of our military bases, so, government) I look forward to seeing if all this hoopla is for naught. And if we do get some snow, well, it be will interesting to see how Oliver Queen reacts to it. Let the waiting begin!