Note to Myself: Mystery Boxes Not Worth the Mystery

So, my obsession for Funko Pops led me to seeking out the season's Mystery Boxes from Gamestop and Walmart. Note to self: don't do that again!

The Walmart boxes were easy enough to get -- they appeared at my local store in Stow a few days before Black Friday. At $20 each, I picked up three, hoping to get the Killer Croc Impopster Pop Vinyl. The first box I opened held:

Huzzah! The Pop I wanted and some other stuff that I didn't care about. The next two boxes held the same thing. All the Walmart boxes had the same pop, despite the multitude of logos on the outside. Had I known this, I would have settled for one box.

Then on Thanksgiving night/Black Friday morning, my buddy Nick convinced me at 2;30 a.m. to drive to North Canton and wait outside the Gamestop store until it opened at 5:00 a.m. I bought three of the boxes, again at $20 each, hoping for a metallic yellow Power Ranger Pop. What I got was:

Two different Dragon Ball Z Pops and other stuff I didn't care about. Neither Nick nor I ended up with the Yellow Power Ranger or the chase gold variant.

Other than the one Impopster figure I actually wanted, I sold the rest on eBay. After making some poor selling choics, I ended up breaking even and (hopefully) learning my lesson. Screw Mystery Boxes.

We'll see if I remember that lesson the next time Hot Topic releases some cool ones...

I went to the Dark Side. They had cake.

I find your lack of ice cream disturbing...

The Darh Vader on my cake actually makes the respirator sound! I posted the video on my Instagram and Facebook.

So yeah, the year, my birthday falls on Thanksgiving, just like it did the year I was born. Huzzah.

In other news, I am actually contemplating doing a bit of Black Friday shopping. I have obviously lost my damn mind.

The Country's Current Mood:

Strange Brew by John Deering nailed it.

The Story of My Life...

This says it all...

I Voted Today

But I'm worried tomorrow I might wake up in a Simpsons cartoon...

Dr. Strange is Worthwhile, Trippy

I caught Marvel's Doctor Strange last night. Benedict Cumberbatch is Stephen Strange in the same way that Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. He owns the role like he was born for it. Serenity alum Chiwetel Ejiofor was excellent as Strange's fellow pupil/future enemy Mordo. Tilda Swinton won me over to allowing the sex change for The Ancient One with her serious yet quirky performance.

All the elements from the comics are present: the sanctum in New York's Greenwich Village with the odd skylight window, the Eye of Agamotto, the Cloak of Levitation (animated so that it most resembles Aladdin's flying carpet), Dormammu, Wong, the works. (No Clea, but they had to save something for the inevitable sequel.) Marvel Studios did a couple of cool things to tie this film into the larger cinematic universe including having Surgeon Strange turn down the chance to operate on James Rhodes after the events of Civil War and the after credits scene with Chris Hemsworth's Thor.

The visuals on Doctor Strange take the world rending from Inception, multiply it times one hundred and throw in a small hit of LSD. And while the special effects are dazzling, as we have come to expect from science fiction films in this day and age, the story is a familiar one. Arrogant lunkhead learns humility, finds love and uses his gifts to save humanity with a dash of humor. Iron Man? Thor? Doctor Strange? Yes, all of those. As origin stories go, this is pretty typical.

I have heard it argued that Doctor Strange doesn't belong in the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I disagree. This movie belongs as surely as Guardians of the Galaxy. In the same way that Star Lord and friends battle interstellar threats, Strange battles mystical and interdimensional ones.

Thumbs up from me on Doctor Strange.

Cataract Surgery

Almost two months ago, I woke one morning to cloudy vision in my right eye. Not unusual, but blinking and drops didn't make it clear. At first I thought I had a sinus infection that was affecting my vision. A trip to my GP got me a referral to Dr. Beyer at the Novus Clinic. He confirmed that I had a fast-growing cataract, unusual in someone my age and often brought on by steroid use.

The soonest I could get scheduled for surgery was over a month away. It has been a long month, unable to see out of one eye, having difficulty reading and driving at night.

Surgery was this morning. Here is the last photo of my eye as natural created it:

And here it is, post-surgery with the stylist eye patch I have to wear until tomorrow:

Follow-up appointment tomorrow...