Decking My Halls.

When I Santaed (is that a verb?) on Wednesday, the kids and staff gave me a lovely parting present, a nasty head cold. Just a whole lot of snot, thank you very much. Last night, I didn't feel like blogging so I just watched this movie and went to bed.

Hey cool, Andrea Martin is back!

Today, I had a lesson with some adults out in Tagajo and en route home, I dropped into the Mandai there and picked up an ornament and caught a present to put under the tree.

 

Not a bad little flick, one can see where Bob Clark scammed some ideas for his Black Christmas two years later. I've seen that version a few times, mainly for Margot Kidder and the UofT setting. Maybe it's time for me to watch the sequel.

Silver Chewie will be given to my agent/manager/handler for Christmas when I see him at Royal Park Hotel tomorrow as their main Santa.

I watched the guy put this brand-new Superior Spider-Man in the UFO Catcher bin and figured out how to win it. I scored it in 5 tries!

Speaking of ornaments, I have two others from this series, BP and Grogu. I haven't seen an Iron Man for sale yet.

 

Black Panther is very well camouflaged in the tree, while Grogu perches nicely in my Halloween Tree. 

This display is permanently in place throughout the year, I think Jack needs some dusting.

I'm all huddled up in a blanket and my Gremlin socks and think I'll retire early. I have a full day of HoHoHoing tomorrow.

Gameraversary!

A last minute decision to take a quick trip to Morioka on Saturday meant no post on Saturday. A last minute bout of writer's block and and all-day apartment cleaning session meant no entry on Sunday. Now Monday is almost up and I have some catching up to do.

To help pay for the trip, I brought along a couple of items that would bring me some spare moolah. Such as a couple of large Gamera that were never opened and take up a lot of space. Did you know it was the 58th Anniversary of Gamera's debut?

 

 

Mickey Mouse turned 95 as well, this should get me a few bucks.

Last time, I had some success in selling some of my model kits (the doubles, naturally), so I tried again.

 

Our first stop heading north was at the Mandai in Furukawa that does not offer much cash for goods, so I saved my items. I did though make a purchase on credit with the hopes of making back that money. I bought 5 Kuji and was the first one to do so at this store. I chose my five and the first one I opened was the top prize!!!

 

Woohoo! I also received some secondary prizes such as three magnets, an art card, and an acrylic stand

I sold my goods at Morioka Mandai* (*not called Mandai, rather Yorozuya) and made 5400 yen. I bought a total of 6 Kuji at 900 each. Basically, the above items were free!

Not much else of note on this trip, it was rainy and foggy so sightseeing was useless. I did find a Family Mart that sold the Godzilla coffee and this time I got a medium which comes in a red cup!

On the way back, we discovered that another Yorokuza has opened up near Hanamaki so a fact-finding mission was in order.

They have the cutest little mascot, I wish they had one for sale.

 

I didn't buy one, though this tentacle goes in one ear and out the other. Cool!?!

I bought a towel and an enormous art card and got two acrylic movie titles. This place has the largest selection of Godzilla goods outside of Akihabara! Next time I go, I'll bring a list.

All in all, Saturday was a really good productive day!

Sunday was spent sleeping in, lazing around and then cleaning out my desk area, which took ALL NIGHT LONG (it hasn't been cleaned in a while).

So apart from this, I don't have any Godzilla goods to show off from yesterday.

I sure do wish that floppy discs were usable, those screen savers are nice. 

I need to watch the new Monarch Netflix show, so I can review it later...

Love Me Tendo.

Drove out to Yamagata yesterday in order to enjoy the changing leaves in the rain. (Not as enjoyable as you'd think.) En route, we stopped at HillSide Mall, which in the past has always been a lot of fun. BUT, the discount Toy Store has now become a trading card (mainly Pokemon) outlet. I did pick up a sticker and four cool postcards though.

Hey wait a sec! They're neither stickers nor postcards. Just printed off images on cardstock. I'm beginning to think that this kitsch store is not wholly legit. (Candy Land--still cool place though.)

Here are a few of the decorations around the joint.

Next stop, Otachi (Mandai-clone) in Tendo where I tried to sell some loot. They offered even less of a pittance than expected so I declined to give them a ton of items for peanuts. Therefore, they lost out on forcing me to spend my earnings on a chance to win this.

I did get a 9-tailed Kitsune* for my friend, Mr. Fox.

Normally, I would have picked up these Jumping Chinese Ghosts. But there were only three available, not the set.

Oh well, their loss. 

The next Mandai (Otachi) in Yamagata, had a pretty nice Halloween display. This gal is dispensing candies to little ones who won at UFO Catcher.

We decided to check out one more place, a Book-Off that we've never been to before. 

On the way there, it was slow going, so I had plenty of time to take photos of this Love Hotel.

The Hard-Off was very old school with lots of cheap and not so cheap items. On spec, I picked up this coffin for two bucks. No idea of its contents although its original retail price was close to 30 bucks.

 

It's a pair of Twisted Wonderland Towels.

At the Book-off across the street in an Aeon Mall, I found this Bat-Man.

Much to my surprise, they had a fairly inexpensive large pumpkin for sale. Details on that later...

I did pick up some nice Snoopy socks.

*Speaking of 9-tailed Kitsune, It just happens to be the Yokai of the day!

These powerful Yokai can be nasty or auspicious. It's best to stay on their good side.

Have I shown these already? I need to search through a few boxes for more Venoms.

Before bed, I just crashed and watched some Halloween specials I'd never seen. Such as Mad Mad Mad Monsters, fairly lame Rankin/Bass production.

Then The Flintstones New Neighbours (1980). Not bad, though I preferred the Gruesomes.

To top off the night, I watched a clip show of spooky Bugs toons. Bugs Bunny's Howl-een (1977). The clips were badly edited and the narrative between each clip was meh. Still, any Bugs is good Bugs.

Finally, I'll leave you with Garage Sale Finds, the kind of blog that showcases some eerie items one might find at a Garage Sale (or Mandai or Book-Off).

Later tonight, I'll show off the pumpkin I carved. Hopefully it'll photograph better in the dark, right now I'm not getting any correct guesses.