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.