Why Not?

I was at Ross the other day, and by chance I happened to look in the clothes section. I almost never do. I just go in, check out the toys, and leave. This time I did, however, and a shirt caught my eye.

I took a closer look, and realized that it was a hockey sweater. In fact, it was a throwback jersey from the the late 80s and early 90s, back when I really got into hockey, and watched a fair amount of it. 

In those days, I had several favorite teams. I loved the Hartford Whalers, the Minnesota North Stars, and the New Jersey Devils. All of them had cool logos and good looking uniforms. I would have happily worn a hockey sweater from any one of those teams.

Wouldn't you know it, thirty years later, and here it was right in front of me. A New Jersey Devils sweater, and a throwback to the design and colors they used when I liked the team. I looked at the price tag, and it was only $20. I'm pretty sure these things usually sell for around $100. If nothing else, I might be able to sell it on eBay for a tidy profit.

So, I thought, why not? And I bought it. I took it home and put it on, and it fit perfectly...although, speaking of "why not?" I think I look like I'm trying to wear a Kevin Smith costume.

I probably wouldn't wear it much, but it was only $20, so I wasn't wasting too much money. I wore it to the space center this week. That's something.

It's not bad, although I'd still really love to get a Whalers or a North Stars sweater. I preferred both of those teams to New Jersey.

A few years later in the 90s, I settled on an actual favorite team. The Whalers and the North Stars no longer existed, moving to Carolina and Dallas respectively and changing their names. Another team that moved was the Quebec Nordiques. They came to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche. They were really good, and they were the closest professional team to the city I was living in while attending college.

When I went up to Canada to visit my wife the first time (back before she was my wife), I decided I had to get a hockey jersey, I mean, when in Rome... So, when she took me to the West Ed Mall, I bought an Avalanche jersey.

Of course, if I really wanted to do the when in Rome thing, I should have gotten an Oilers sweater. It's all right. At the time, I think the Oilers had some shitty updated design on their jerseys, so it was better that I didn't get that garbage.

So, that was a useless and all too extended history of the hockey sweaters that I liked and have owned. If you're still reading, I'm sorry to have wasted so much of your time. Get back to life, and forget you ever bothered to read about my Kevin Smith costume.

There's Always Room For One More

I thought I was done, but my wife says she got a little too excited and bought one present too many. The last of which arrived in the mail on Tuesday. She was going to save it till next year, but changed her mind and just gave it to me. So, here’s my last Christmas decoration that I will share this year, now that I’ve got it assembled. It’s knock-off Legos, but it’s pretty nice. I really like this one.

 

Bye Bye Arctic Blast

That crazy cold weather is finally done with us and we’re celebrating by going to the beach in Galveston.

I've had nicer days on the beach, but it was pretty wonderful to be able to sit in the sun and be relatively warm. The water was pretty cold, which isn't the way it tends to be in the Gulf of Mexico, but it was  no worse than the water in San Francisco is year round, let alone in December. And, if you're tough enough, you can get used to it after a while.

Another Christmas Present

Here is another one of my Christmas presents. I wasn’t able to show it off before, because it was still just a pile of bricks, but now it’s assembled, and it’s really great. You can even open up the garbage compartment in his stomach. Little used some of his plain old brown Legos to make a cube of garbage for me to put inside.

I love Wall-E, though now I feel like I need an Eve to go with it. What am I thinking, I don't know if I even have a space on the shelf for this one, let alone a second one beside it.

Christmas Present

My wife got me this whole set of Princess Bride figures. All five! That’s about four more than I ever dreamed she might get.

I told her that I wanted them in early December. I thought I'd found a great deal on them on Amazon, but I failed to notice that they weren't part of the Prime shipping deal, and the shipping the seller wanted was exorbitant.

"Oh, whoops!" I said. "Forget it, I guess."

She didn't want to forget it, though. I'd given her an idea for a present, and she was going to run with it. Instead of giving up, she scoured the internet, and found an actual great deal. It was on a toy site she'd never heard of, and had no idea if it was reputable or just an identity theft front, but she took the chance, and got all five of the figures that I figured I would spend months trying to collect the whole set.

I have to admit that I was totally blown away to get them all at once today. It was a really great present. One of the best I've ever gotten.

Intemperate

It’s not supposed to be this cold down here. Not even in the winter. It's one of the things that makes living here in the summer bearable. You can look forward to the spring and fall when it's absolutely gorgeous, and to the winter which is always really mild.

Are we in for another disaster like February 2021? Looks like the power should stay on, so hopefully not. It’s my last day of work before I’m off for a week for Christmas, please let it be a normal day and not crazy as can be.

Last Minute Gift

Okay, this is for real my last decoration that I will share for the season. Not enough time left in the season to add more. These came in the mail today.

I love that Santa comes in what is basically a Marvel Legends box

I preordered them last year, and had given up on them arriving before Christmas. Better late than never, I guess. Can't display them for very long, but I can pull them back out next year.

Santa needs some Christmas trees behind him with lights, but it’s too cold to go out to Walmart to get them. I have to say that I absolutely love these guys. Such great figures. I may need to get some of the other variants like cyborg Santa and zombie Santa for next year. Great stuff.

I couldn't figure out what to do with the cloak that came in the accessory pack. It didn't look good on Santa, but then I found who it would look good on. 

I got this Evil-Lyn because it was on sale and had an alternate head where you could see her white hair. I thought it would look good for Christmas as a kind of a winter witch character.

It wasn't bad, but seemed to be missing something. It needed that holiday flair. Now it's perfect.

Champs

 I was driving to work today when I got a text from my boss.

Of course, as soon as I got the text, the traffic came to a standstill.

It was supposed to be there for thirty minutes after I normally arrive, but now I was certain to be late...how late? Would I make it?

I screamed at the other drivers, swore like a sailor, and cursed my awful luck, and then I finally made it to work. I got there with a few minutes to spare.

That's a terrible picture of me, however. I look like I'm a little bit crazy...which, I suppose, I probably am.

It was pretty cool, though. I bet there's few people who get to touch a World Series trophy. It's not the trophy I'd really like to touch, though. I like baseball okay, but my favorite sport is football, and what I wouldn't give to touch a Lombardi trophy won by my favorite team the Minnesota Vikings. I'm old enough to realize that such a thing will never happen, however.

Snowman Army

This will probably be my last Christmas decoration to share with y’all, but maybe not. Anyway, this guy in front is the Slushie Soldier from Fortnite. I made a few snowman friends for him with styrofoam and some other techniques. I think it turned out pretty good, but I do wish I had more differently sized styrofoam balls to make the snowmen different heights.

 

Anklecast 49: The Spirit Of Christmas

Back in 2009, Rish and I put together a Christmas special on the Dunesteef called "The Spirit of Christmas." It was an audiodrama, which is a bit of a useless beast when it comes to writing. You can just as readily publish an audiodrama script as you can a screenplay. However, I didn't want the story to go to waste because I liked it a great deal, so I converted it from script to short story. I present the finished product to you today, and it's coming to you on the...13th anniversary of the original. Wow, I'm getting old.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Festive Festivus, and Happy New Year to all! I hope your new year will be bright and wonderful, and I hope that you enjoy the story.

After the story, Rish Outfield (he's back from Europe!) and I talk about changing the story from script to prose...at least, when we're not being distracted by a thousand tangents we do.

My Christmas story collection (which includes this tale), available on Amazon

Right click HERE to download the episode, or just listen by pressing the play button below. 

Trolling

I’m so excited. Out of the blue, a big toy that I’ve been wanting for years just arrived.

I preordered it back in 2021 probably, maybe January of this year. Looks like Christmas came early for me. Behold, the ice troll!

I've been wanting this guy for years. Probably ever since I did one of my first Big Anklevich on Toys videos back in December of 2019.

And also when I saw this amazing photo of the troll a few months later.

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Now I have all the components to make that picture myself if I wanted to, remember this picture from a few posts ago?

I probably won't, however, because mine would look pretty inferior to that guy's professional-looking shot.

Oh, I guess I don't quite have everything, because there was a mix-up at the factory, and they didn't make the regular head for the troll (which is the one I wanted more). Four Horsemen said they will have the heads produced, and then make sure they get sent out to everyone who ordered a troll. Don't know how long that will take, but I look forward to when it finally arrives.

Red vs Green

What do y'all think of this one. I was hoping that two figures, one red and one green, would say Christmas, but I thought they needed more, so I gave them candy canes. 

Is it even worth having? Or do I junk it?

Maybe I need to take it further and get them Santa hats or something. I don't know. It just feels like it's lacking something.

Another Reminder

Just thought that I'd remind you that my Christmas story collection is available in eBook on Amazon.

I suppose I probably should have done this more during December. 

Grab a copy and enjoy the stories before the holiday season expires.

Heilung

My daughter sent me a video by this band a little while ago with no comment more than a smiley face.

I watched it, and really enjoyed it. I asked my daughter why she sent me the video. Was she a big fan? Her response:

And they have become one of my new favorites over the last few weeks. I sent a video to Rish to ask him what he thought, and he said it was like talking on the phone with Satan...funny thing is that if you only listened to the first minute or two of the song then I could see that as a pretty apt description. I guess I sent him the wrong video. Here's one that's more standard, leaving the Satan guy mostly out of it.

More Christmas Decorations

Here's a couple more pictures of displays that I hadn't finished yet, plus some pictures of the whole study now that it's mostly back in shape.

Christmas Decorations

I'm almost 100% done with my Christmas decorations in my study. What is your favorite thing? What do you think I should change? What do you think I need to add? It's a poll of sorts. Go!