This morning wasn’t that
great. I know I usually open these this year with amusing but ultimately
insignificant woes attached to bootsailing but y’know, they’re not THAT bad,
it’s mostly just comic exaggeration to get a laugh out at you at my expense (except
Collier Row bootsale, that really is that shitty), being dusty or temporarily
bored can be funny but it’s not a terrible situation. This bootsale sucked
though, not because of the bootsale itself (though it was somewhat
unproductive) but because I ended it by having an hour long panic attack, now I
did have a surfing shark to cuddle so it wasn’t the worst panic attack I’ve
ever had but it really does put a damper on an outing, it’s also pretty hard to
concentrate on, or care about, stalls full of other people’s old crap, it’s
hard to concentrate on to care about anything actually. You’d think that, as I
have them once a week at least, I’d be able to recognise panic attacks coming
on way in advance, but it still takes me a good five minutes of thinking ‘I feel
really weird’ before I cotton on because sometimes I’m fucking daft, anyway I’m
very used to having panic attacks and can suffer them well but that doesn’t
mean I like having them and I like having them in public places even less and
in public places I visit regularly even less than that, I feel very
self-conscious next time I go even though I know, rationally, no fucker noticed
in the slightest because they were all too busy looking at old crockery and second
hand handbags but y’know if the rational part of me was in charge I wouldn’t
have random panic attacks in fields. Today’s take-home was also fairly
middling, not terrible and certainly not un-exciting, just meh. Maybe it’s the
lead-up-to and after effects of panicking for an hour, it’s hard to really
enthuse about Flintstones candy containers when you’re acutely aware of how
terrible and worthless your life is and that most people think you’re a loser.
I will try though, and also to those people: I’m a loser with a surfing shark to cuddle actually,
bitches. I took a photo anyway, not because
it was an impressive haul worth commemorating but more because I just
wanted to see a group shot that included Master Splinter, Will Smith, Bart
Simpson, an evil clown and the happiest Venom ever:
I was right wasn’t it? It’s
delightful. Venom agrees with me, but then he thinks EVERYTHING is delightful.
So are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin:
The Surfing
Shark!
£2 ($2.61)
Or Frank, as I’ve dubbed
him. Thought I better throw some context out about that reoccurring surfing
shark gag up there as early as possible, I really did buy a cuddly surfing
shark – he’s from Hawaii and it was love at first sight. I think I’ve pinned
down why I was so taken with him, at first I just thought it was his perfect
‘walking down the beach to the waves’ stance and grumpy little face but I’ve
since decided it’s because it’s a massive middle finger to Surfers and its
existence is wonderful in its wrongness. Sharks are famous for eating two
things: surfers and Robert Shaw, so tourist shops in Hawaii decided to make
their target audiences’ only natural predator into one of them and sell it to
them to remind them of the good times they had because the cuddly toy’s
inspiration wasn’t eating them. Frank is the guy who steals your girlfriend and
then turns up to your birthday party with her only with blood in the water and
missing calf muscles, he is flagrantly flaunting his fuck you and I love him,
and alliteration.
A Really Dirty
Tusken Raider!
33p (43¢)
approx.
I have never done a before
and after comparison on these posts, I’m sure you care. Why am I doing it now?
Because this is the dirtiest toy I’ve bought in a looong time and I wanted to
prove to you that I have no shame, that I know what I’m doing when I buy old
toys and point out how utterly fitting it is that a Tusken Raider, a character
who spends all his time in the desert, was the toy that looked like it’d spent
three years buried in someone’s litter box. Why did I buy this though? Cos I
knew I could clean it up - I’m not that clever, you do something often enough
you remember things about it, in this case if you clean enough dirty toys you
get a good idea of what you can wash off and what you can’t (I have had to
leave behind three Monday Night Wars-era Goldbergs because of this, why are all
the Goldberg’s so irreparably scuffed up? Did kids just Spear them into
everything? They did didn’t they? I just answered my own question didn’t I?).
A Smorgasbord
of Reading Material
£7 ($9.13) all
together
I have a very… wide range
of subjects I like to read about; sure I often stick to rock ‘n’ roll,
murderers, theme parks, ghosts and comic books but sometimes it’s fruit with
faces, sometimes it’s natural disasters and sometimes it’s what it’s like to
live through the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Third Reich. My
bookshelves allow me to be the number 1 suspect in any murder in the county, as
well as stock the quirkiest of doctor’s waiting rooms. Anyway the books
themselves? Well the Real Ghostbusters comic is because fuck you Ghostbusters,
Hollywood Babylon is a pretty famous piece of muck raking originally published
in 1959 (this is a reprint obviously, especially as that version was in French)
and was banned after only 10 days of being released in English back in ’65.
It’s sensationalized bullshit from cover to cover but I’ve never read it and
have longed to for some time. Savage Land is a fairly old Marvel trade
paperback collecting the first few issues of Marvel Fanfare, which was launched
to clean out all the inventory stories Marvel had amassed at the time and
featured an original X-Men & Spider-Man story with art by such greats as
Michael Golden, Paul Smith and Dave Cockrum. As for the Munch Bunch? Well fun
fact, The Munch Bunch illustrations are all gone, lost to a fire, so every time
you buy a Munch Bunch book, be it the small Mr Men-esque series of an Annual
like this, you’re not only buying a book that’s way too young for you and
contains some questionable racial stereotypes you’re technically preserving a
piece of history.
Also, if you’re wondering
‘do you actually read these shitty kids’ books you buy dwitefry?’ the answer is
yes. I think we’ve established by now I have a nice list of problems and I keep
things like these around because they provide a nice easy shot of relaxation
and happiness, I doubt that, say, Johnny Rotten or Matt Stone & Trey Parker
would approve of my methods but they’re not living with my mental problems nor
have they spent years working out the best ways to deal with them (in the case
of the latter pair they have their own mental problems, being a pair of cunts
is a mental problem right?).
Space Combat!
10p (13¢)
I think we can all agree
this is the best purchase of the day (sorry, Frank). Let’s unpack what we got
for 10p shall we? A partially transparent space ship, a dart board with only
one dart for turning darts into sci-fi themed coin tosses, a plastic cassette
tape, a small robot that looks just enough like a Ninja Turtle to be wonderful
and an action figure which you can’t tell from my photos but is actually
knocked-off from a Trendmasters Battlestar Galactica Cylon wearing the console
from Inside Out - all on card art featuring knock-off ships from two separate
franchises. 10p, half a Freddo, for all of this, bargains can be had at
bootsales, especially if you standards are as low as mine. The bloke actually
had two different sets, the other came with a little gold Millennium Flacon but
also came with a shitty plastic watch and I was way to weirded out by my
oncoming panic attack to be dealing with plastic jewellery (makes me feel sick
remember) so I just stayed with the dart board, I’m never too weirded out for
darts…well technically letting me play darts during a panic attack would be
dangerous-ish so I guess I could be - but it’d only injure other people, I’d be ok.
Fred the
Mutant!
25p (33¢)
Is Fred creeping you out a
little bit too? I’ve never seen him that close up in such sharp focus before, I
think I’ll scroll down a bit. Biker Mice from Mars was awesome: it was about
battle scarred freedom fighting alien Metalhead mice and their hot mechanic
friend who rode space bikes to fight corporate fish-men, yeah it was another
TMNT-alike and not as good as Dragon Flyz or Skeleton Warriors but did you just
read my description of it? And the show did justice to the concept too, it was
surprisingly dark. And it had a kick-ass theme tune. Fred was the comic relief
sidekick for the villains, a drooling science experiment Dr Karbunkle put
together wrong one afternoon when there was nothing good on telly, I think he
may have been my favourite character (oh no, there as an Elvis impersonating
skeleton, scratch that Fred was my second favourite character). There were two
Fred figures released in the original Biker Mice toyline, this version that
came with Dr Karbunkle and an all green version that came with the Transporter
Playset, I had the green version but somehow lost the playset and had Karbunkle
but had lost this version of Fred, now I just need the playset again, I’m sure
it’ll cost more than 25 pence but it’s a giant purple post box of doom so it’ll
be money well spent.
TMNT 3-D
Trading Cards!
£2 ($2.61) for
all four packs
I have no prior experience
with these 3D trading cards, I mean the concept is pretty easy to grasp –
they’re either holographic 3D cards featuring Ninja Turtles or cards that are
tiny pop-up books featuring Ninja Turtles and both of those things are just
fine thank you but before today I’d never encountered them nor knew of their
existence - it’s nice to find a new TMNT thing to obsess over temporarily.
These were the last things I bought and my panic attack was starting to set in,
my panic attacks give me a pain in my chest that feels like someone pushing the
heel of their boot through me and I get very hopeless, very nervy, very out of
it and sometimes I pass out, imagine if I’d’ve passed out and my new TMNT
trading cards got muddy? Or worse yet, if Frank did? Wait, he’d be a mud shark
then right? Ha! Fun with words. What was I talking about before I became Comic
Book Guy then a side-character on Sesame Street? Oh yeah, panic attacks, as
well as all those symptoms I forget large lumps of the panic attack, that’s why
I’m bringing this up because I don’t remember giving the bloke the money
directly nor saying thank you, so bald version of Simon Pegg who was doing the
deal over the robo-pets? Thank you for the trading cards and your two pound was
near the Minecraft toys, hope you found it, sorry if I seemed rude, I was
having a mental illness moment.
Bonus Chap
Mei Octopus!
Free
Remember my friend who
gifted me the psychotic mushroom that ate genitals?
No? That’s ok you don’t really exist and I wouldn’t expect you to retain the
crap I post in these things if you did but she gave me this over the weekend
and even though it’s not from a bootsale it is second hand and it’s a kraken
and so needs to be highlighted. This is
the large Chap Mei octopus, one of the biggest and most impressive of Chap
Mei’s sea beasts (it probably comes in third in size? After Mighty Mo and the
Sea Serpent? is the Killer Whale bigger?) and like all the large beasts was packed only in one or two
expensive sets so it now hard to find, I’ve been looking for it for literally
years because it is that awesome an octopus (it squirts water too). My one has
the expression of really fucking hating you and that only helps his new role as
a killer of random water-themed G.I. Joes (poor Shipwreck). Also because I’m a
shit photographer it looks like that Batman: The Animated Series fast food toy
is shaving foam hair, maybe that’s why the Octopus is so angry, it knew this
and knew that as soon I saw him looking like he had an ice-cream’s judge’s wig
on his head I’d use that picture. Or it’s just cheap paint apps applied by poor
over-worked and underpaid sods for a company that makes discount toys for Toys
‘R’ Us and Animal Planet. Anyway thanks lovely Annie for getting this for me,
it's... well it’s a giant Octopus that squirts water - that’s high praise in and
of itself! I wish I was that.
On that fine octopus I
shall stop yammering about crap I bought second hand and my panic attacks and
fuck off to bed to watch something nice and soothing, I think Battle Royale’s
in the player at the moment, what? I find jailbait killing each other soothing.
Thanks for reading, all.
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