Dr Blood's August Pawn Shop Adventure

As I'm still struggling to get through a Spanish sci-fi movie which I started watching three days ago, let me tell you about my latest "Big Day Out" from Saturday instead.

I can't remember the last time I wrote one of these posts because I've been buying considerably less DVDs than ever before. I'm not rich enough to hit the big name stores for new releases, and I've got a little bit bored with seeing the same stock in the pawn shops, but owing to a very tiny windfall of Amazon affiliate money, I went to the largest swap shop in town for a snuffle round their "5 for $10" DVD section.

Here's what I got:

Yes, I now have the boxed (or slipcased) "2 Disc Deluxe Edition" of "Constantine" in perfect condition with the comicbook inside. I love this movie and already have the standard "rental" edition, but I'm going to keep both because I'm greedy like that.

I'm still missing "The Final Chapter" of the "Saw" franchise (aka "Saw 3D") because of a recently banned Listian who didn't send me my win (plus I had to go through the PayPal dispute process to get the shipping fees back), but now I have "Saw VI". Despite the Blockbuster stickers, the disc itself is perfect, so I doubt that anybody hired it before they sold it. I'll replace the case eventually because those stickers are a bitch to get off, and there's always a chunk out of the bottom corner of Blockbuster rental cases where some kind of security tag thing was supposed to go.

Moving on from horror, I grabbed the "Kill Bill" double-feature simply because it was there. Even though I moan about Tarantino a lot, I've got nearly all of his movies. I think I'm only missing that hotel one with Tim Roth in it and "Reservoir Dogs". I could have bought the latter when I got this, but it wasn't in very good condition.

The "Lethal Weapon" 4 pack has been tormenting me for years because I only like the first two movies and have them on VHS anyway. For $2 though, I had to make the upgrade. I now need to get the "Beverly Hills Cop" triple pack too.

Finally, although this was the first DVD which I picked up, I have the TCM Archives "Laurel and Hardy Collection". Really it's just two movies and a load of special features, but the word on the street is that this pack contains the best versions available of these particular movies. It sells on Amazon for between $25 to $99, so you can imagine how chuffed I felt to get it for $2.

I finished my day of adventure off by celebrating with a Chinese chicken curry and a litre bottle of Teacher's Highland Cream Whisky. Yes, a litre bottle of one of the top 5 brands in the world. I might not be much of a boozer, but when I drink, I know what I like.

Now you know why I haven't got any further with the sci-fi movie that I mentioned at the beginning. I got so drunk on Saturday night that it took me until half-way through today to be able to process more cerebral movies again. Having the intellectual capacity of every member of the Horror Lamers clique combined for three days has not been a fun experience. Never again!

Dr Blood's Big Day Out 2013

My "Big Day Out" for this year actually took place over Friday and Saturday, but what with one thing and another, I was too exhausted to write about it until today. I walked miles with the sweat pouring off me, got almost boiled alive by the humidity, and really had enough of going through rows and rows of dusty DVDs. There comes a point when you realise that you already have far too many DVDs and it's time to stop, especially when the pawn shops now have less horror DVDs than you do at home.

As you know, I used to love going round the pawn shops to see what I could find and usually tried to hit them whenever I had an abundance of "internet money" (from Amazon affiliate sales or whatever). Basically, it was like getting free DVDs so that I could do more blogging.

For those of you seeking online entertainment through my rants, you already know that I hate most of the DVDs I get. Somebody else hated them enough to flip them in the first place too. Unfortunately, with affiliate sales and blog traffic at an all time low right across the board, I haven't had one of these "Pawn Shop Adventures" for quite some time. I'm far from rich (at the moment) so most of my money goes on necessities such as Monster energy drinks, Funyuns, and cat food. Admittedly, I probably need to do something about my Monster addiction, but it stops my migraines. It's also a pity that cats can't eat Funyuns. At least we can share the tins of Friskies.

Anyway, here's what I got this time:

I know, I know... I said that I wasn't going to buy more "Midnight Horror" DVDs, but at $2.50 each (as part of a 4 for $10 deal) for another 16 movies, why not?

In the first pack, I have "Night of the Living Dead" (for the 15th time!), "Keepsake", "My Sweet Killer", "Interview with a Serial Killer", "Final Remains", "Dark Woods", and "Colour from the Dark". Other than "Night of the Living Dead", I have no idea what these will be like.

In the "Hatchets & Cleavers" pack, I have "Dirt Boy", "The Ridge", "Green River", "Animal Room", "Followed Home", "Loaded", "Hollywood Scarefest", and "The Killing Mind". The fact that I can't even find some of these titles on the IMDb doesn't bode well.

I've been intrigued by the Cutting Edge Cinema/Extreme collections from R Squared Films since they came out last year, but I have a feeling that they'll just be handycam crap. I wouldn't buy the one with zombies on it anyway. In this case, I now have "Extreme Monsters" which is made up of "Closet Space", "Dreams of the Dead", "Evil Offspring", "Little Red Devil", "Spirits of the Fall", "The Whistler", "Where the Dogs Divide Her" (I like the sound of this one!), and "They Must Eat". The DVD case was damaged (the clear plastic was completely gone), but the artwork is still perfect so I'll just put everything in a new double DVD case if the movies are any good... which I doubt.

I bought another Echo Bridge Home Entertainment 8 pack just to break up the monotony of horror even though three (maybe four) of the movies may be horror in this "Action Thrillers" set. Some of these I already have or have already seen: "The Faculty" (already have with "Phantoms"), "The Hole" (already seen), "Animal Room" (is on the other 8 pack above), "The Lookout", "Living in Peril", "The Road Killers" (really good Christopher Lambert movie), "Two Hands", and "The I Inside" (which sounds familiar to me for some reason).

From the more expensive "DVD and Games Exchange Store" next door, I found the newer "Special Collector's Edition" of "Pet Sematary" because I lost my older copy anyway. I wrote about how I lost it ages ago, and I still haven't found it. They also had the older version for the same $5 price, but I chose this one. The older version has the same artwork as the VHS but doesn't have Mary Lambert's commentary on it.

And finally, last and very least, I have a new double-pack of coasters to replace the "Halloween" coaster that I had to throw away after using it to scrape dried cat shit off the floor. Call me wasteful, but that's how I roll. I get used to things being a certain way, and using Rob Zombie's "Halloween" as a coaster for my cold Monster energy drinks is just one of the things that makes me special.

I finished my adventure off with a half-day at the local "Riverfest" where I ate a burger and three "Hello Kitty" ice lollies. I know you don't care about that (nor do I really), but here's the scan of two of the "Popsicle" wrappers because I'm a hoarder and they were still in my pocket when I got home.

Now it's time to start watching all these movies.

Dr Blood's End of September Outing

Contrary to what a Kentucky-based, former horror podcast which hardly anyone ever listens to anymore might like you to believe, I'm one Englishman who doesn't live in a dark basement surrounded by horror movies. Occasionally, I even leave my bright three-bedroomed house to work and buy things rather than ponce off my parents or welfare like they do.

If you don't know what any of the above refers to, never mind. I only know what was said through hearsay too. I have no time for the two talentless "Laurel and Hardy" wannabes who thought they'd be the new voice of horror way back in 2007 (although they always add a least one extra year onto the time they've been around), but, having failed miserably, now just take jealous potshots at other horror fans who they don't really know to claw back some credibility as "shock jocks" or something.

Did any of what they said bother me? No. "Dr Blood's Video Vault" has been around over a decade longer than they have and will continue to be long after they have disappeared back under the rock which they were stupid enough to crawl out from. They did give me something amusing to start this post off with though.

Anyway, yesterday, I had another long overdue "Big Day Out". I'm sure my last one wasn't when I went to the County Fair over a month ago, but it certainly felt like it was. The seasons have changed, there's new stuff in the stores, and there were even a few things to buy at my local pawn shop.

Finally, "The New Daughter" and "Orphan" turned up! I'd already hired them from Netflix and reviewed them favourably so I just had to have them. I'd never even seen "The New Daughter" for sale anywhere before but had picked up (and put back) "Orphan" several times in Target. At $2.50 each for immaculate DVDs (apart from slight security tape damage to the "Orphan" artwork), this was a done deal.

Then to complete the "4 for $10" ritual, I saw that "Van Helsing" and "Whiteout" were still on the bottom shelf so I grabbed those too. I know they weren't exactly brilliant movies, but I'm going through a phase of Kate Beckinsale idolatry right now which, hopefully, these will dissuade me from.

That wasn't all there was to my "September Outing" either. Once I discovered that I had more money in the bank account than I realised, I was off to "Dollar Tree" to check out all the Hallowe'en decorations and buy some of the foods I like which even dogs can barely stomach. I love their McRib clones!

I didn't buy any of the neat Hallowe'en stuff since every day is Hallowe'en for me anyway, but I did get three books which I had no idea about. I'm not much of a reader, but I'll give them a go eventually. I've looked them up now and I know I'll be disappointed, but for $3, it doesn't matter.

Here's a kind of collage of most of the things I bought from Dollar Tree:

I also bought more chocolate and a pound cake, but I'm sure none of that interests you.

I've bought enough snacks, drinks and sandwiches to least me for a little while now so my next "Big Day Out" will undoubtedly be just before Hallowe'en when my Aldi's $1.99 pizza supply runs out.

Now it's back to the dark room that I allegedly sit in all day being very English and watching 3D movies. That's much better than wasting a fortune on non-celebrity autographs at horror conventions or trying (and failing) to sell poorly-designed t-shirts and lame movie commentaries to some braindead podcast followers, right guys?