Nerd Week Day 2: a Box of Star Trek TNG Season 3

Not every post can be a Fresh Prince. Sometimes there must be an Urkel post, that being a post that is just a little (lot) bit nerdy. I happen to have a few such posts waiting in the wings, so I figure why not shoot them all over the Internet in a single week of unforgiveable nerdiness I am lazily referring to as “Nerd Week.” Enjoy!

I bought this box a few months ago in a Dave & Adam’s binge. It was only six bucks, and my curiosity got the best of me. Plus Season Three was so good – new uniforms, the return of Beverly, everybody starts having (or building) offspring, the seeds of numerous continuing storylines, and an absolute explosion in general character development.

Let’s look at the inserts first:

The big pulls from this set seem to be foil weapon art cards and embossed character cards. I pulled a Klingon disruptor as my weapon art card, a reasonably cool-looking card with a fun Klingon aesthetic. The one Klingon aesthetic there ever was and ever will be is a lot of pointy things in red and black. Sometimes brown, too.

The character cards include a pair of the cutest ladies ever to grace a deck of the Enterprise D, Data’s daughter Lal and Worf’s special lady, K'ehleyr. Both characters are super adorbs and possess high butt-touchability. While K'ehleyr has that tall, athletic, lobster-headed she-beast thing going for her, I’m more of a fan of android-next-door Lal’s sporty bangs and ability to use contractions.

There were also a few cards in every pack that featured little foil Federation logos. With no research at all I gleaned that each season’s set of cards concentrated on two regular cast members, giving each their own small subset. Season three included Mr. Worf whose Alexander and Dad-being-a-traitor-to-the-Empire-at-the-Battle-of-Khitomer storylines began this season. The other is Beverly who had just come back to the show after being replaced by Dr. Pulaski in Season Two. Good to have her back, too. Nothing against Pulaski, but Beverly fills out a jumpsuit like no other ginger MILF I’ve ever seen.

Here's the base set:

Star Trek Season Three Title Card

Checklist

For the purposes of the set, the Season is divided up into three-card runs, one run per episode from that season.  The checklist design is reminiscent of the computer interfaces from the show.  Pretty cool.

The base cards are exactly what you would expect: screen shots taken from episodes back before high-def was a thing. They’re grainy and of questionable quality, and they make the show appear dorkier than I remember it ever being.  The superimposition against a spacy background also comes across a little campy (like the show itself), so I absolutely love it.

The space shots featuring ships look a lot better than the character cards. The same was true in the show as well. You have to admit that for its time, the special effects of Next Gen were pretty outstanding.

Did Geordi get some?  Yeah, I like to think he did.

Did Picard hook up with Vash?  Yeah, pretty certain about that one.

That Menage-a-Troi card is amazing on so many levels.  Great scene.  There's Lal again, looking cute as can be.  She ended up playing Lizzie McGuire's mom.  I didn't already know that - IMDB told me when I checked to make sure she wasn't underage so I could be legally attracted to her.  She was 28.  Phew.

Anyhoo, I was able to pull two complete sets out of that box.  How often does that happen with baseball boxes?  I also got a stack of dupes.  They're yours for the claiming, gentle reader.

Am I going to collect the other Seasons?  Not actively.  I guess I wouldn't turn them down if I happened upon them at some point.  Perhaps I'll find a super cheap box at a show or something.  Can't count that out.  But no, I'm not in active pursuit of them.  That's like a whole other level.

See you tomorrow, fellow nerds!

Nerd Week Day 1: Mystery Science Theater 3000 Superfan

Not every post can be a Fonzie. Sometimes there must be a Ron Howard post, that being a post that is just a little (lot) bit nerdy. I happen to have a few such posts waiting in the wings, so I figure why not shoot them all over the Internet in a single week of unforgiveable nerdiness I am lazily referring to as “Nerd Week.” Enjoy!

I am a massive MST3K fan. I was a huge tape circulator back in the day (I still have hundreds of source tapes I would dub episodes off of), and I have a few items in my collection that kind of put me over the top as a hopeless Mstie.  In fact, this post is by request.  Movie sign...

As for episodes of the show, there are ten seasons plus the original TV broadcasts from KTMA in Minnesota. The first three episodes, KTMA01-03, do not exist in any format, allegedly. Every other episode was recorded and passed along from Mstie to Mstie over the years. I have them all in digital format that I keep in a single, massive file on an external hard drive. In addition to every single gettable episode, I also have a large number of episodes in wonderful SP mode (better quality than EP, LP, or SLP – real Msties know what all those mean) still on VHS with personalized labels. I also have several VCR’s that still work which I keep in storage for if I ever need to dub again.

I’ve done a lot of dubbing in my time.

There are also a number of super-rare, fan-club-only releases of which I have the original VHS’s. These include The Last Dance RAW, The MST Scrapbook, Tom Servo’s Favorite Host Segments, and even some fan footage from one of the few Expo-Fest-Convention-Con-o-Ramas. That’s only a few of them. These are irreplaceable except on eBay and for probably way too much money.  That Rhino copy of The Amazing Colossal Man used to be the "forbidden episode" and go for a fortune ($60 +) on early eBay.  I found mine at Hollywood Video for $9.99.

This is the first release of the DVD.  It was discontinued for years before being re-released a few years ago, but in that in-between time it went on the 'Bay for over $100.  It was crazy, and lucky for me I found it used for incredibly cheap.  Looking back perhaps I should have sold it when it was going for a lot.

Nah.

These I doubt I'll ever sell.  They are original silver-bottomed discs you could only get through the MST3K Info Club.  They are hilarious listens to this very day.  Check out the backs:

How perfect is that?

Here is the original theatrical double-sided marquee poster.  It's massive at 41" x 28", and I have two of them.  The one in worse condition hangs proudly here in my home office.  The good condition one is stored archivally and flat.  You should see that box.  My wife hates it.

This is a limited-edition lithograph sold through Wizard magazine (remember that?!).  It's unframed right now, but the quality is excellent.  I used to have two, but Lord knows what happened to the second one.  Someday when I have more walls...

Here's an 8 x 10 of the original cast with fake autographs.  I bought it already matted and framed for ten bucks at a garage sale.  A local neighborhood garage sale with this.  What are the odds?

And, of course, the obligatory Amazing Colossal Episode Guide.  I laugh hard just reading descriptions of the host segments in this book.  It is a gem and sits on my evacuation shelf with all my photos.

That stuff is fun, but the best evidence of my MST3K nerddom is in my prop collection:

In 1999 when Best Brains, Inc., the company that made the show, went out of business they started taking things from the set and selling them on eBay with signed certificates of authenticity from the prop diva, Beez McKeever. You remember her from the credits, right?

I won three of the auctions and ended up with Pearl Forrester’s glasses, a baby monitor used as a bomb detonator, and a real, genuine, authentic, honest-to-goodness, camera-used Tom Servo head.

That Servo head is one of my prized possessions. I bought a special case for it and everything. It has come with me on every hurricane evacuation I’ve ever been on. That’s thousands of miles and many days’ worth of hours in the car.

I won’t say what I spent on the three props I bought, but I will say it was a lot of money to me back then. If those auctions happened today I would happily spend triple what I did. There was also one prop I missed out on by just a few dollars due to a computer error. It was a basketball covered in spray paint used as a planet during the opening sequence. There’s not a lot I regret in my life, but man. I really wanted that basketball…

I still occasionally do a search for "MST3Kprop."

I also have several t-shirts, a fan club pack with membership card, a few actual signed photos as opposed to the fake-autographed one above, all the bumper stickers and magnets from the info club, and tons more random stuff.  I also printed out hard copies of the Sci-fi part of the series which is not covered in the Episode Guide (which only goes to Season 7, I think).  Someone actually wrote the rest of the book and it never got published, but you could read it online for free.  I wonder if it's still there...

MST3K taught us a lot of lessons about life:  Make the best of a bad situation.  Don't take everything so seriously.  Stick with your pals to get you through a rough situation with a smile.  When your friends are not around, just build robot friends.  When life gives you lemons, make fun of those lemons.  And finally, it doesn't take a big budget and fancy special effects to produce quality results.

In closing, here's a quick story:  I put a "Movie Sign!" bumper sticker on my first car.  Once I came out of the Post Office to find a girl leaving a note on my windshield that read, and I quote, "Your MST3K bumper sticker rules! Keep circulating the tapes..."  I should have proposed on the spot.  I wonder what she's doing now. Probly bein' awesome somewhere.  I still have that note.

If you’re feeling saucy and want to check out a great episode of this show, allow me to recommend Space Mutiny. 

There it is, free, right now.  Do it.  Nerd with me!

See you tomorrow, fellow nerd!

Three-for-Three PWE: a Night Owl Trade Post

Night Owl killed it on the PWE front the other day.  Here's the proof:

Greg got a couple of these Puigs from his end of the Nachos Grande 2014 SC group break (he got lots of pairs of things, for that matter), and he was nice enough to set one aside for yours truly.  Cool shot of the Puigster being the Puigster, and a step closer to me completing the base set.

Greg is also a major contributor to my PC's of older guys due to his access to vintage.  This Vida Blue Kellogg's 3-D is absolutely gorgeous.  You should see the back.  Wait, why didn't I scan the back?  Anyway, the backs are really cool.

Finally we have a mini from last year's A&G set.  It also happens to be the A&G-back version which makes it an all-new addition to the Griffey collection.

So, yeah.  That PWE went three-for-three.  All new to me, all needed for the three different kinds of collections I chase the most: the occasional set, a handful of PC's, and all the Griffeys.  Great envelope, Greg!  Thanks again!

Voulez-Vous Echangez Avec Moi Ce Soir?

Kevin, mon frere d'une autre mere, has exploded onto the blog scene lately with his numerous 90's box breaks and silly post titles.  He's also making overseas trade look easy.  I got a little box of butterscotch Jello (literally) from him full of cardboard, and it's all quality over quantity.

First and foremost, the above two cards are both rare and stunning additions to my Buhner PC and my King Felix hit collection.  The Felix is #/18 and has a massive relic on it.  And we all know how tough gold signatures are to come across.  Wowwee.

Kevin threw in a couple of Juniors, too, which is hella-generous considering Kevin is also a Griffey man.  I can't get enough of that weird folding Collector's Choice insert on the right (that's the back).  I might actually unfold this one even though it seems wrong to break the seal.

To top it all off, Kev included a pair of unique action shots from '93 Upper Deck, a set that is renowned for its unique action shots.

Great stuff, Kevin!  I've already been hoarding Blue Jays for you.  I'll shoot 'em off to France as soon as my second mortgage goes through (just kidding, but shipping is expensive, non?).

A Trade Post From the Dollar Store

The more Griffeys I amass, the higher the cost of the ones I need; and I've been really embracing the set collector in me as the average cost of new Griffeys has been slowly climbing.  I've even gone ahead and added a whole page of set needs as you can see above (shameless plug), and it has not gone unnoticed.  Repack-master Doug of the always excellent Sportscards from the Dollar Store sent me the last seven cards I needed to complete my master set of 1991 Studio:

When I say "master set," I think I mean every single gettable card of any type for this set.  That's what I always kind of assumed that meant.  There are no more base cards nor promos that aren't represented in the binder - they're all there!  It's my first and possibly my last "master set."

Doug also acknowledged a few of my lesser-known wants such as T.J.'s and a Clutterbuck!  I never get these!

Not to mention a few from my actual favorite hockey player, T.J. Oshie.  There aren't many New Orleanians who can claim they know a single hockey player name let alone have a favorite, but Mr Oshie's been my guy since I saw him in a game against the Blue Jackets a few years back (before the Olympics that helped make him more famous).  I'm still on the hunt for a jersey....

Doug also included a pair of New Orleans players, the first being Mr. Colston here...

...and the second being this lovely Pistol Pete parallel #/60!  Pete remains the PC that is least acknowledged by other bloggers.  I suppose he just doesn't have that many cards, and not many baseball guys collect basketball.  So when one of these comes in the mail I get all fuzzy.

Thanks for the amazing trade package, Doug!  I've got some Delgado and Mookie love coming your way soon enough!

Happy 45th Birthday, Junior!

Mr. Junior turns 45 today!

What better way to celebrate than with a big ol' stack of new-to-the-blog Griffey cards?  Enjoy!

Happy birthday, big guy!