Sun days are fun days

With gas prices slowly coming down ($3.21 as of this writing), and no longer fluctuating wildly from day to day, I've been able to resume my monthly trips to Knoxville. Trying to find days to go hasn't been all that easy though, somebody like me should not be this busy. Nevertheless, I was able to get out on what was supposed to be a rainy day about two weeks ago. The weather people were a tad off and instead of rain it was around 90° and very sunny. I'd like to know how those people can consistently be so wrong, and yet never be fired? It seems like it's almost a running gag at this point. But I digress, as I'm sure you didn't come here for weather talk, no, you came to some things of the stuff variety.

Anybody that knows anything about me, knows that if I'm going to Knoxville, my primary reason for doing so is to go to McKay's (nerd heaven); and this time was no different than any other...

I've talked about my love for V a few times over the years, and while I'm sure that nostalgia plays a huge part in that love, it's still love, and I can watch the original series today and still get just as much enjoyment out of it today as I did back whenever I first saw it. One thing I haven't seen before though, is the novelization for the series. There were three copies, all in the exact same condition. I would've preferred a slightly nicer copy, but for 90¢ a reader will do.

I know from past posts that nobody cares about Christopher Pike or Predator, hence the group photo. I will say though that this Pike book is a bit of a rarity, in that I had never even heard of it before. Given my interest in his books when I was a kid/teen, I didn't think that were any that I wasn't familiar with by title or cover image. It appears too that this book is more sci-fi than horror, which is kind of interesting for him as well. The Predator book #3 in the original AVP trilogy, and is an upgrade to my beater copy.

I've wanted to read this for a long time now, but had just never come across a cheap copy out in the wild prior to this. In case anyone wonders what I consider to be "cheap" for a book like this, it was $1.25. And as an extra added bonus, I found two things tucked inside the book, one of which (spoiler) will be featured in the next post.

The bargain DVD/Blu-Ray section ($1.95 or less) was loaded with all kinds of different stuff this time, and while most of it wasn't for me, I still enjoyed looking through everything a lot more than I had the last couple of times I've been there. This is the second month in a row that I've come across one of Alpha's old Light's Out releases, which I'm all about. I'm hoping that this means that we've reached the point where no one else cares about such things anymore, and I can now get the rest of the discs that I still need on the cheap. Everyone else can have their Netflix and Hulu shows, I want these!

When TV show seasons first started being added to the bargain section, it was just stuff like ER, Friends, and Seinfeld, which were not created for the likes of me. I was interested in them when they were new, and am even less so now. Over the last few years though, the quality of shows has gotten better, but for the most part are still things I have no interest in, even for a buck. Even so, I was kind of surprised to see the kinds of shows in there this time, especially all of the newer stuff, The Walking Dead, Weeds, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, etc. They're still not for me, but given their popularity, I don't expect to find multiple seasons of them for under two bucks apiece. I wasn't looking to get any of The Simpsons on DVD, but for 95¢, I couldn't resist getting one of their better seasons. And I haven't seen an episode of Murphy Brown since probably the late 90's, can't say that I've thought about it since then either, but my mom and I used to watch it when I was a kid, so I guess at this point I've got a bit of nostalgia for it. Hopefully the show holds up.

Is anyone familiar with Lord Peter Wimsey? I'm guessing not, but am still curious. I have been wanting this set for many years now, but was always too cheap to shell out the necessary amount of bucks to get it. This was not from the bargain section btw, instead it was rare splurge on my part. If I didn't have a lot of trade-in credit, I wouldn't have got it, but since it was cheaper than all of the online prices, I decided to go for it. One should treat themselves from time to time.

That was it for McKay's. Not the biggest of hauls, but I found a couple of much wanted things, so it was worth the trip.

Since it was still early, and I wasn't going anywhere else in Knoxville, I decided to hit a few places in Crossville on the way home.

First up was the thrift store, Hilltoppers, which is a place I only go to maybe 2-3 times a year, as there isn't usually a lot there for me.

Their book section at this store is a hot mess. They have the space to separate everything into categories, but instead it's all just jumbled together. Very difficult to look through like that. I just did a cursory run through, and while I'm guessing that this isn't going to be Bobby Stine's definitive biography, it was hard to pass up for 33¢ (pb's are 3/$1).

Why didn't I already own The Evil Dead? I don't know, your guess is as good as mine. I do now though, so all is right with the world.

And that was it from there. Not much, but also not bad for ten minutes or less of my time spent looking.

From there it was off to the Book Cellar, which having just been there two weeks previously, I wasn't expecting to find much; I was wrong.

I remember hearing David Grann being interviewed on, I believe, OPB radio, before this books release some years ago. I was already fairly familiar Col. Fawcett's story, but this new work sounded like something that I'd still want to read anyway. I never buy books when they come out (too expensive), so I knew that it might be awhile before I got to read it, but I didn't think that it would be this long! This is what happens when you can't remember anything. Oh well, better late than never.

Normally I would stay away from something with this kind of staining, but I so rarely come across these old Hitchcock Anthologies that I bit the bullet and paid a buck for it. 

Somebody seems to have brought in a bunch of movie/TV books at some point during the previous two weeks, because that section was loaded with new blood. I was able to pick up a couple of old gossipy books, as well as a couple of....

... old trivia books. 

That was a couple of bucks well spent, or in my case, a couple of bucks in credit well spent. I'm glad I stopped in again, sometimes it's nice to be wrong.

And last but not least, the Paws thrift store. Paws is the place that benefits the local animal shelter. Given where the money goes, I should try to buy from them more often, but they just open so darn late; I'm never around there by the time they do. In fact, I haven't been there in a couple of years now, and in that time they've moved to a bigger building about a block down from where they used to be. The layout of the building is a bit wonky, but they've got a lot more room to put stuff out now.

They've got a pretty big area for media stuff now, and had quite a bit of it too. The first thing that caught my eye were the couple of milk crates full of records. With most things vinyl being red hot these days, I never hold out any hope of finding anything at thrift stores, but always still look anyways. I thought I had heard this album before, but apparently I hadn't. This wasn't the Ventures best album, but for a buck it was still plenty worth it.

This is pretty standard thrift store fare as far as records go, as it's one of those genres that isn't red hot with the influenced masses. Thankfully I'm immune to such things. Depending on who's performing the numbers, these albums can be very hit or miss, and I will only occasionally take a chance on them. I did here, and it paid off. I would highly recommend this record if you should ever come across a copy at your local thrift store.

To say that "Suddenly" was a big album for Billy Ocean would be a massive understatement. Without looking, I'm pretty sure that it made into the top 10 (U.S. charts) back in '84, and I don't think that he ever had an album go higher here in the States. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though. I was surprised to find that I had never heard this one in it's entirety, but once again, it was well worth a buck. This record will be getting many replays.

And thus ends yet another "look at all of the stuff I got" post. The drive to Knoxville is starting to get to me a bit, so I think that I'll be skipping McKay's this month, and probably won't be going anywhere else of note, so this should be the last post of it's kind for a month or two. This won't necessarily be a bad thing either, as I've got plenty of other things that I've been trying to get to on here...