Monday, December 31, 2018

Christmas Toy Decorations Supplemental

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from my holiday decorations show.







Sunday, December 30, 2018

Lazy Or Controlling?

Saw these at Costco and couldn't help but remember what Rish said in our last episode about Crimes of Grindelwald about there being no book from the Fantastic Beasts series.


Who wants to read a screenplay? Aside from an aspiring screenwriter, I can't imagine anyone who would do it. It makes me wonder why there is no novelization. Is that a thing that people don't do anymore? I've got my share of novelizations of movies that I love on my shelves:


Okay, I don't love all those movies. I wonder if I should keep those prequel books, now that millennials have come of age, people are trying to say the prequels are good. Maybe I could sell those off for a profit, and I might be able to forget about that time that I got swept up in the fervor. The Terry Brooks book is signed even. Oops, I'm getting off topic.

I also have plenty of Harry Potter on my shelves:


And I'll be adding each new edition as they come out.

Do they really think people would rather read a screenplay than some journeyman writer's novelization of that screenplay? Is it lazy? The screenplay is already written, so there's nothing they need to do to it before they can release it.

Or is it J.K. Rowling being super controlling of her property. She wrote the screenplays. Does she want to make sure no one else's name appears on the spine of a Harr...er...Wizarding World book? I can't imagine that it's greed. She's got money coming out her ears. She uses bundles of $100 bills...oops, I mean £100 notes to stoke up her fireplace. So, it seems unlikely that she's grubbing for money. In fact, I think Rish said that all the proceeds are going to charity. So, why not do something worth reading? Hmmm...

Monday, December 24, 2018

The Christmas Minefield, Part Three

Another day of the minefield. Today we had a big bucket of cookies.


And the huge bucket of fudge as well.


Argh! Can I make it to the end? Is this the end? Or will more show up tomorrow? Yeah, I've gotta be there for that too.

Eraser

I was at Aldi the other day, and I saw this box of soda on the shelf:


Is it just me, or does it seem like someone just went in with the eraser tool on Photoshop, and removed just enough stuff from this package to keep them from getting sued?


I suppose it's always been that way, and I shouldn't even notice it, but for some reason I did. I think it might have been the font.

Saturday, December 22, 2018

Fant4stic

Here's a bunch of pictures from my Fantastic Four show.



Glitter Bomb

If you haven't seen this video yet, which is probably unlikely considering we've even talked about it on the news now, then I want to suggest to you that you do so. It's really funny, and entertaining.

I suggested it to my wife and kids, and they, of course, ignored me, and watched everything available that wasn't it. Since the suggestion was coming from me, they knew not to take it. It was probably another intermittent fasting video, right? So, I forced them to sit down and watch it.



They enjoyed it, as pretty much anyone who watches it does. So much so, that my daughter asked if he had other videos like it. I told her to go to his channel and see. Now they are binge watching all of his videos...and they're pretty good too. Probably worth checking out as well.

Christmas Toy Enthusiast

I said in my post yesterday that I was minutes away from posting my next episode. Well, now it's ready, so I figured I'd post it here so you all can check it out.

In it I talk about how an Amazon toy catalog made me nostalgic for those department store catalogs from the 1980s. Rish makes his longest appearance yet, as well.



I actually have one more Christmas one that I was going to post this month...I'm never going to get it done before Christmas however. It'll have to be a little later than that. But I'll definitely get it in before December is over.

Friday, December 21, 2018

Gamorrean Guard Highlights

I got an Instagram account to share pictures from my toy show. Here's a bunch from my first show, the Gamorrean Guard.

View this post on Instagram

Highlights from my first show.

A post shared by Bigg Anklevich (@biganklevich) on



I think I'll try to embed most of my posts from it here on my blog as well, but you could also follow me there and see them if you do the Instagram thing.

The Christmas Minefield, Part Two

Day two of the minefield posts. Let's see what I had to avoid today.

Two more pecan pies:


What'd I tell about the pecan pies last time? This is probably the 19th and 20th pecan pies we've had in the station this month.

Then there was this candy and chocolate covered pretzels:


And this cake:


Also, one of my coworkers gives a Christmas gift to almost everyone. She says it's a thank you for all the help you've given her throughout the year. I don't know if I deserved one, really, but I got one all the same. It was this giant bag of candy:


This bag is heavy. I figured I would set it aside, and use it to load up the kids' stockings on Christmas Eve. The worst part was that I opened the bag to share with someone I work with, and for the rest of the night, I kept smelling those peanut butter cups. It was the strongest when I was driving home. The scent filled my whole car with deliciousness. I wish I could be one of those lucky people whose metabolism still functions properly, although I get the feeling that the only reason there's works right is because they didn't spend their lives eating as poorly...and more importantly as frequently...as I did.



It's possible that I might be in the clear now. Most people are taking vacation next week. So, I might have a better time of it. At the very least, I'll have a weekend of relief.

Toy Enthusiast

I thought I'd see if I couldn't get the word out about a new thing that I'm doing these days. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've probably noticed how often I post something about the toys that I've gotten, or how I've got them displayed on the shelves of my study. My study is my pride and joy, and collecting toys is a hobby that I've enjoyed for pretty much my entire adult life. For about the same amount of time, I've been involved in the creation of films and TV. Now, I've decided to merge the two things, and start putting out videos about the toys that I love on YouTube. So, I started a channel on YouTube called Big Anklevich on Toys.

I've got two videos out so far that you can check out, and I'm seconds away from posting my third.





So if this kind of stuff interests you at all, I'd love it if you gave it a look. Check it out, like, subscribe, hit the bell for notifications, and whatever else it is that YouTubers say.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

The Christmas Minefield, Part One

December is always hard for someone who is trying to keep their blood sugar down, and take care of themselves. I suppose it's probably bad everywhere, but I get the feeling that it might be worse where I work, because we have shows that air every day that are dedicated to making food or promoting restaurants. There's always treats around to tempt the weak-willed. And if there's ever been a word that describes me well, it's weak-willed.

For fun, I started taking pictures of all the stuff I have to avoid. Here's day one.

Cookies:


Pecan pie:


There's always pecan pie. I guess pecans are a specialty of Texas, so we get pecan pies like...I don't know, Germans get schnitzel or something.

This is some kind of homemade peanut brittle or candy or something like that. I can't tell you any better, because I didn't try it:


So, that's just one day, and I think there was another gift basket at the other end of the newsroom that had a bunch of candy and cookies too, but I didn't go past it, so I didn't take any pictures. We'll see what they have for me tomorrow.

Pushers

Since becoming a diabetic, I've become a lot more cognizant of things like advertising campaigns designed to keep you at the trough, with your head down, chogging away, and never noticing what is happening to your health. There's a lot of them out there, sometimes they're more shameless than others. Like this one from Doritos that I saw at the convenience store the other day:


Is it just me, or are they coming out and admitting that they've got you addicted, and they're encouraging you to keep at it?

I've been reading this trade paperback from Marvel Comics of the original appearances of Cloak & Dagger. I was pretty unfamiliar with these characters, but they always interested me. I discovered that one of the effects of Dagger's light powers is that she can cure junkies of their addiction. We need a real life Dagger to cure America of its carbohydrate addiction, because we're all riding on a train over a creaky old bridge that has collapsed just ahead. We're going to plunge into the canyon headlong soon. There's so many, many ways that it's going to destroy our entire society if we don't turn things around. Sigh...

Vegetarians

We went to the Christmas party at my wife's work the other day, and there was so much food to be had. My six-year-old was happy to eat the brownines, and chocolate chip cookies, but he didn't want to try these cookies at all:


Why? I couldn't believe he said it, but it was because they were green...so they looked like vegetables.

Kids are funny.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

People Of Walmart

I was at Walmart the other day, and I saw these two walking the aisles.


I know there's that website called People of Walmart where they post pictures of all the outlandish, startling, and even downright horrifying things that people do at Walmart, but I definitely do not lump these two into that category. No, these two are quite the opposite. I think they are completely awesome.

I don't know the story behind the outfits. I did walk by them and tell them that I liked the duds, and the Dad said, "Thanks. They're jammies." I said they looked comfortable, then went on to find what I was looking for. My guess is that the kid was wearing his dinosaur jammies, and didn't want to take them off for the trip to Walmart. Maybe he asked his dad to wear them too, maybe the dad volunteered so the little guy wouldn't feel weird wearing them at Walmart. Hell, I don't know, maybe the dad wanted to wear his jammies, and begged the son to join in so it would look like it was all his idea.

All I can say is that they were having fun, and they were doing something together as a family, and it warmed my heart this Christmas season. My heart grew two sizes and all that. Hear, hear for the people of Walmart!

Friday, December 7, 2018

TGMG 215: The Crimes of Biggenrish

If you haven't seen this one yet, Rish and I did a podcast talking about the new Harry Potter...er, I mean, the Wizarding World of J.K. Rowling movie. Check it out at the link.

Monday, December 3, 2018

Episode 204: Bunnies Of The Apocalypse by Gregg Chamberlain

As per my goal of pimpin' the show more, here's a reminder that we put out a new episode, and you should check it out if you haven't already!


You can find it on the feed, or go to this link to listen as well. Mr. Chamberlain would love it if you did...and so would I.

The King Of Christmas

At my work, we are one of the few places still allowed to have a holiday party for the children of the employees. My wife says it could never happen where she works, because the people without kids would complain so much that they didn't get an equal amount of money spent on them too. Of course, the answer to that complaint is ALWAYS to spend less money all around, and NEVER to spend more. But I guess people like math and how we can break things down to the lowest common denominator or something.

Oh, crap! This post is supposed to be about the king of Christmas, and not people who ruin things for other people because of envy, and instead I went off on a rant. Let me get to the point.

So, they were setting up the lobby for the party, and they got out this chair that Santa sits on during the party. Only, this is not just a chair. This thing is a freaking throne. Check it out:


I don't know why, but the sight of this thing made me think of that picture of Notorious B.I.G. with his crown:


Me and Biggy don't really have that much in common. Just the one thing really. But I saw that throne, and thought of the picture, and felt compelled to try and pose like a badass on it. A Christmas badass. I'm the motherf***ing King of Christmas y'all!



Right, right. I know. I don't look like much of a badass at all. At least I tried.

The funny thing is that they have this throne in the station all year long. It's the same throne every year for the kids' party. I wonder if the big boss is ever tempted to pull it out and sit in it during meetings or something. Good thing I'm not a big boss, because I would totally do that.

Rest Assured

You can all rest assured. It's still here, and it's still safe. Completely unbroken. It made it through another year in a box in the garage in one piece.


The spirit of Christmas lives on.

Aitch Two Oh

My daughter was thirsty the other day when we were visiting the "Specialty" grocery store, and she found this on the shelf. She wanted to buy it, but I didn't think snake oil was a healthy drink.

Seriously, hydrogen infused water?


Somebody explain to me how this can possibly be a thing? Does the H in H2O not mean anything? How did they infuse the water with hydrogen? If they put extra hydrogen in water, doesn't it stop being water? What is H3O? I know that CO2 changes substantially when it becomes simply CO.

Anyway, humans don't need crap like this. We evolved to eat and drink certain stuff, and snake oil was not one of them. There just wasn't enough snakes around to be a large part of our diet.