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Monday, January 22, 2024

But otherwise, it was a fantastic weekend! The boys came down, of course, so I got to spend time with my fellas! Friday night, Ian and I spent some alone time, although we wanted Steve to participate, but he was tired and didn't want to. Saturday, all three of us participated, and then Sunday morning, it was just Steve and myself. But that's all private stuff. 😊 Saturday morning, we had breakfast at Ward's, then went to Sam's to pickup the order I'd placed for Steve on Thursday, then after dropping everything off at the house, we went to Laurel. By the time we arrived, it was time for lunch, so we ate at Pearl's Diner, which was wonderful as always! I had the rib plate with black eyed peas and mac & cheese, Ian had the fried pork chop, and Steve had the fried chicken. It was all good, but pretty damned expensive! Lunch cost the 3 of us $62.00! But, like I said, it was very good, possibly worth the money. The atmosphere is awsome! I didn't think to take any pics of the restaurant though! Bad me!

After lunch, we went to The Rusty Chandelier, which is always fun to stroll through. I found a couple of diecast cars there. In fact, I was the only one of us to purchase anything there lol. But Steve and I always enjoy looking around there, although I think Ian was disappointed that there weren't any, or at least not very many, dolls for him to look at. After we left The Rusty Chandelier, we then went to Peddler's Junktion, where I can't remember if I found any Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars or not. But I love Peddler's Junktion, although my main reason for going there back in the day was for their coin booth, which they no longer have. But it's ok, I enjoy going for other reasons now.

After we left there, we headed for the Laurel Walmart so that Ian could doll shop and so that I could shop for cars, of course! I found a few there that I liked and purchased, and then we headed home, all of us tired by then. Dinner that night was just a Papa John's pizza that we went and picked up, and then we were home eating pizza and watching Wednesday on Netflix.

Sunday morning, we went to Hardy's for breakfast, and it was pretty good. We'd thought about asking Jimmy, but we didn't get around to it. After breakfast, we went to Ollie's and Big Lots, and I found cars in both places. Unfortunately, the cars I got at Ollie's are defaced with their big red price stickers, and trying to peel those stickers off leaves the packaging damaged, so those cars will definitely come out of the package to be displayed naked, as it were. For the moment, I'm trying to keep them in the packages for their value, but honestly I'm not collecting them for their resale value one day, but just because I want to collect them. I originally was only going to collect Hot Wheels, but after some research, I discovered that Matchbox is older than Hot Wheels and that Hot Wheels came out about 15 years after Matchbox as a competitor (although both are now owned by Mattel), and Hot Wheels tend to depict more fantasy-type cars while Matchbox depicts more realistic cars, so each have equal appeal to me. I do currently have more Hot Wheels than Matchbox, but I think that ratio is becoming a lot smaller already. The cars from Big Lots have smaller, white price stickers on them, but it looks like those stickers will come off without damage, or at least the one test I did showed that, so hopefully those cars will retain some value. The ones I got at The Rusty Chandelier may have the same problem the Ollie's cars do, although those stickers are on the back and I haven't yet tried to remove them, so we shall see.

After Ollie's, it was Target, where I got a few more cars (my God, it feels like I tripled the size of my collection this weekend!). Then on to lunch at Steak & Shake, then back home so Steve and Ian could get on the road. After they left, I headed to Books a Million to find some books on Hot Wheels and Matchbox collecting, but they didn't have anything in the whole store. Then I went to Walmart for some groceries I needed and, of course, more cars lol. All in all, it was a great weekend!

Ok, pics below. The first 14 are from Wednesday morning when it was very cold out! I was a cold man out there! Some pics of Max walking around trying to find the ideal place to poop. Meanwhile, the other pics are of all the junk in my backyard (that used to be chicken pens) that I really need to clean up! And then another pic of me, later in the morning outside when it's not quite as cold. The next 3 are of Maggie on Ian's bed, both before I stripped the bed and after, when I put a sheet over it to keep Maggie off the actual mattress while washing the bedclothes. Next are pics of Ian and Steve while we're having breakfast Saturday morning at Ward's. For those of you that don't know, Ward's is a local chain of restaurants started by a pair of brothers who promote Christian themes, such as anime-like images of curvy white girls in skimpy, revealing clothing while blaring Faux News on the TV in the corner. The next pic is a cute little bird figuring I saw (but did not purchase) at The Rusty Chandelier. And then a pic of Max that Ian took, followed by a pic of Ian and Steve I took Saturday night. The next 6 are from yesterday morning at Hardy's. We got some good shots there!

Next are some images of Ian's dolls, first one by me, second by Ian, and third by me. He's gotten me into the whole doll photoshoot scene lol. Next is a pic of the desk calendar I bought at Books a Million, which I fell in love with. I've always had a love for Dungeons & Dragons, but rarely have I played. And next is a treat that Max hasn't had in years because his vet told me it was bad for him and he had high cholesterol from it once upon a time. However, Max is nearing his time, so I figured fuck the cholesterol, just let him have something he loves. Whatever day I end up taking him to be put to sleep, I plan to stop and get him a Krystal burger or two so he can enjoy it.

The next image is a pair of variants of the same Hot Wheels car, the HW Art Cars 10/10 Cloak and Dagger. Until this point, I wasn't even aware that there are variants of some of the vehicles, but I am now! It's awesome that they do that. I still need to figure out the Treasure Hunt and Super Treasure Hunt cars with Hot Wheels. My understanding is that those cars have a circle with a flame in it on the packaging, and possibly on the car as well, but I haven't studied too deep into it yet. Redlines is another sought-after type of Hot Wheels, and they have a red circle (not sure why it's called line lol) around the tires. I have a couple of those. Next, the same photoshoot urge I have with Ian's dolls, I used with one of the cars that I removed from a package. It's a Matchbox Porsche Cayenne Turbo; I have 2 of them, this one was in one of the Ollie's packages, the other is in an undamaged package and that one will stay there. Next is a special Hot Wheel's from Big Lots, the one where I peeled the price sticker off from the upper part of the packaging. It celebrates the 55th anniversary of Hot Wheels last year. Then there are more car pics. The first of these just shows the differences between Hot Wheels and Matchbox. The next four show the price stickers on the cars, Big Lots, then The Rusty Chandelier, and finally Ollie's.

Next is an image I took that I thought was pretty artistic of the sun as it was nearling the horizon. Not quite sunset, but it was "setting" behind the tree line behind my house and was nestled in the branches of one of my oak trees. The last 2 images are of Maggie Mae this morning on Ian's bed while I was putting this entry together.

And that's it for this entry! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and will have a great week coming up! Much love to you all!

George