2014's first (and greatest) installment of RANDOM NOTES! (Teddy and the Yeti, Toonseum, Hero Initiative art, Pac Man, Beast Wars, Franks and Beans and MORE!)

Well, hello there.  It's been a while but it's time to wind The Yeti Speaks! blog back up with a heaping helping of RANDOM NOTES!  In all caps.  Let's get started!

- I got a nice Christmas card from friend of the blog and one of my favorite artists, Karin Rindevall!  The card contained a nice greeting from Teddy and the Yeti.  Thank, Karin!

- I backed the Kickstarter Campaign for Chipolo...which is basically a tag that links to your phone.  If you lose stuff, and it's within a certain range, you can find tagged items by looking for them on your mobile device.  I had the opportunity to label the different tags...and I went the obvious route.

- I took another trip to Pittsburgh's Toonseum recently and had a nice time.  Here are a few pictures from the jaunt!

I might have shown this picture before (from my last trip), but I love that Mark Schultz dinosaur with the Pirate hat.  Classy.

A fun surprise was seeing a page from one of my favorite issues of "What If...?" on display.  Despite this page being filled with Captain America, it was a Fantastic Four-centric issue.  The angry cap in the last panel really spooked me as a kid.

If only I had animation and comic art to possibly contribute to a future Toonseum gallery...such as...*cough*...this newly framed animation cel of the Thing from the 1960s FF cartoon!

The Thing artwork isn't the only item I had framed.  I also got my ticket sheet from the 2006 MLB All Star Game under glass.  It's been a long time coming and I think it looks really nice.  I had to buy partial season tickets for two years just to get the opportunity to buy All Star Game tickets.  It was a fun time, though, for sure.

- I got a few items of original art in the mail.  The first is a series of rough sketches from Pittsburgh's own Tom Scioli!  The image on the right is a Brian Hitch-inspired team shot of the Fantastic Four.  The image on the left, I assume, is a goof, but still pretty cool.  There were three more equally cool FF images included in this art buy.

- I recently renewed my Hero Initiative membership for 2014.  Included in my "thank you" package was an original sketch card - and just my luck, it was the Thing by Marvel Two-in-One artist Alan Kupperberg!  What a find.

- A few weeks ago, I posted about the closing of California, PA-area comic shop Evil Genius.  Since the store was closing, I had to haul away my Ms. Pac Man arcade cabinet, but lucky for me, I didn't have to toss it in the river.  The game is now sitting comfortably in McMurray at Pittsburgh Comics!  It was a trial, of course, getting it there (just because the game is not particularly light), but I hope to house it there for years to come.  If you visit Pittsburgh Comics, be sure to say hello.  To the video game cabinet.

- As I was taking the game from Evil Genius, I made one last find and picked up this early '90s-era Marvel comic box.  On the very top is a nice image of the Fantastic Four.  The box itself has certainly seen some use, but I managed to reshape it fairly well once I got it home, and now it holds all of my comic convention programs and related material.

Oh, and here's a picture of my cat sitting in it.

- I got this Avengers-themed card for Valentine's Day, which includes all of the movie Avengers...and the Falcon.  The message is interesting..."Hope your day is a HIT!"  Nothing says "I love you" better than a metaphor for being punched.

- In case anyone was wondering if I still make comics, here's a panel from the upcoming "Naked Man at the Edge of Time" one-shot.  Pencils by Kurt Belcher, inks by Alan Gallo.  I'm still considering whether or not this will be colored or just grayscaled.

- Keen readers of the recent Thunderbolts #20.NOW (what a weird numbering system) will notice this veiled "Weird Al" Yankovic reference.  I wonder what the third song is.

- Hey, let's list some links to cool comic book-related websites.  The first is for the Longbox Graveyard, which took the time to review and rank every single issue of Marvel Two-in-One, which is no easy feat.

It also brought us this image of the Thing saying "It's clobberin' time!" in Spanish:

Our second link is of the ever-popular "I Love the Yeti" site, which recently updated the Yeti timeline...

If you look at the very end of the "00s" line, you'll see the Teddy and the Yeti version of the Yeti.

Henry, if you're reading this, keep up the good work, and also take a look at this Garbage Pail Kids yeti...

Our last link goes to Multiversity Comics, for writing a very interesting and thought-provoking article titled "Comics and the Diminishing Role of Artists in a Visual Medium", linked here without comment.

- One of the many commercials to air during the blowout that was Super Bowl XLVIII was a trailer for the new Transformers movie.  Transformers 2 was so bad that I've given up on watching any further installments in the series, but the trailer was interesting in that it included mechanical dinosaur Transformers.  This is probably just an adaptation of the G1 dinobots, but wouldn't it be cool if it was instead a reference to Beast Wars?  Yes, it would be cool.  Very cool.

- Here's an image that has been sitting on my desktop for far too long.  It's the Fantastic Four as Angry Birds.  Great.

- Your friend (and mine), Larry, went to the Royal Rumble a few weeks ago...and sat next to Ben Roethlisberger of your team (and mine), the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Here's video evidence.

- Speaking of Larry, there's some new content on the Franks and Beans website.  You should check it out, because...it's Franks and Beans, guys.  That should be enough of a reason.

Requiem for Evil Genius Cards and Comics

Evil Genius Cards and Comics in California, PA, has closed up shop.  This is a shame because the store offered friendly service in a convenient location, which for a comic shop is often hard to find.  I found out about this last week and the dismantling has already begun.  Owning a comic shop is, and has always been, a risky proposition, but it's still too bad that this one had to go out of business.  The guys who owned the shop were good natured and they were supportive of my comics work from the beginning.

If there's any good news to take out of this situation, it's that I talked to one of the owners and he said that the decision to close wasn't purely a financial one; rather, he just needed to take a break from the daily grind.

There's been talk of relocating and rebranding the store at some point in the fall.  We'll see what happens, but I hope the store reopens in some form before too long.

This, of course, means that my Ms. Pac Man machine is also on its way out - but don't worry, I'm not wheeling it down and throwing it into the Monongahela River.  I'm pretty sure that I've been able to place it at another familiar location, though I'll spill that news once it's finalized.

Oh, and the neon "Inky" display will be coming with me, too.

As the shop was closing and a lot of the hardware was being taken away, I made one last purchase from the store, and it was a doozy.  This baseball came in to the store last spring or summer, and I've looked at it lustily every time I've seen it since.  Since the store was in something of an "everything must go" phase, I inquired about the ball and made off with an absolute steal of a deal (note: I did not actually steal it).

The baseball is autographed by several prominent Pittsburgh Pirates of yesteryear, including...get ready for it...

...Roberto Clemente.  HOLY CRAP!  Roberto Clemente!  One of, if not the, greatest Pirate to ever play the game, and a cornerstone of MLB lore.

But Clemente isn't the only signature on the ball.  It's also got signatures from other stars and Hall of Famers such as Willie Stargell (the Pirates all time home run leader), Bill Mazeroski (who won the 1960 World Series in the 9th inning of game seven), Steve Blass (who was the winning pitcher of the deciding game of the 1971 World Series), Danny Murtaugh (manager of the 1960 World Series team),   Dock Ellis (who supposedly threw a no-hitter while on LSD), Manny Sanguillen, Nellie Briles, general manager Joe L. Brown and a host of others.

What a treasure this is.  Thanks for the ball, Evil Genius, and for all of the memories.

The haul, 2012

Perhaps one year, I'll ask for practical things for Christmas.  A nice potato masher, for example.  But not this year.  Every year I show off some of the cool things that I got for Christmas to share the excitement with random people over the Internet, and this year is no different.  So sit back and check out some of the stuff I got for Christmas!

In the picture at top, there are actually two Thing toys, though one isn't as obvious.  Larry (your friend and mine) got me '90s-era Marvel Universe Thing figure, denoted with a Roman numeral because he comes with his "disguise" outfit.  On the right of the picture you can see a "Bonk Zonk" Thing toy, which is part of a large game that I have no interest in.  Both of these are really cool!

As you all should know by now, I love me some TV shows on DVD, and I did all right this year.  I got the final two season of Star Trek: Voyager, which means that I now have every season of every Star Trek series (including the cartoon) ever created.  Took me long enough!  I also got "Freaks and Geeks", which I hear good things about.  I hope it lives up to the hype.

Hey, it's a new Wii game!

My friend Caitlin from Alaska (that is her designation; if you had a friend from Alaska, you'd call that person something similar) got me this great Adventure Time figure!

More DVDs: the latest volume of Futurama and the second volume of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast!

Remember when I predicted that the Steelers would win the Super Bowl this year?  Boy did I have that wrong.  I'm not quite sure what happened to produce an 8-8 season, but I still love the black and gold, and I got a few neat Steeler items for Christmas.  First on the slate is the Hines Ward Dark Knight Rises figure, which is soooooooo awesome.  I also picked up the new Steelers DVD, highlighting the impenetrable defense of the 1970s.

I can finally start reading the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen thanks to these two trades!

This gift was completely frivolous - more so than most of my other ones, even, but it holds a special place in my heart to be sure.  It's a neon light-enhanced Pac Man sign!  This one is Inky, if I remember correctly.  Since I've got my Ms. Pac Man arcade game set up at Evil Genius Comics in California, PA, I took this there and asked the folks there if they'd be willing to hang it up and display itin one of their windows.

They agreed!  And it's got a prime location in the window.  If you look at the bottom right of the picture, you can even see the Ms. Pac Man cabinet.  Hooray!

This item was actually bought for my wife, but it's too cool not to show off here on the blog.  It's a Star Trek Enterprise pizza cutter!  The saucer section is, of course, the cutter, and it looks ten times as awesome in real life.  It comes in its own case and everything!  It's almost too cool to actually use it...almost.

I bought this display piece for my wife, so it's not technically mine, but again...too cool to leave out, if I say so.  This is a metal-plated replica of the gun Mal Reynolds uses on Firefly!  It's got a nice heft to it and it comes with its own stand.

Even the box is great.  This beauty came from Quantum Mechanix, which makes tons of sci-fi collectibles, most of which I want to own.

Lastly, here's another item that's not mine, but it's something I thought really turned out well.  One of my nephews is a big fan of Jeff Smith's Bone from reading the Scholastic reprints, so my wife crocheted Fone Bone for him!  Needless to say, it was a big hit - she even made one of Bartleby as well!

That's a bunch of what I got for Christmas in 2012.  Great times, and thanks to everyone for the gifts.

Life goal achieved: I bought a Ms. Pac Man arcade game (play it at Evil Genius Comics!)

Goals are important for people to have in life.  Goals drive us to achieve great things and give us the focus to stay on task.  Some people have goals to do purposeful, meaningful things in life, searching for cures to diseases and helping mankind reach new heights.  Others buy arcade games and put them in comic book shops.  In response to this grand gesture to humanity, I can only say this: you're welcome.

Despite the unfortunate music and horrendous fashion, many great things were made in the 1980s.  Me, for instance.  Also, Ms. Pac Man.  Ms. Pac Man is one of the all time great arcade games, improving on the original Pac Man, a hall of fame game of its own.  While there are other arcade games that I'm fond of, it's always been a dream of mine to own an original Ms. Pac Man machine.  To that end, I would sometimes wistfully search eBay for the upright arcade game, skimming the results for machines that were reasonably priced and were in good shape.  Being thrifty is always a challenge, and I found out that Ms. Pac Man, despite being around 30 years old, is still a game that is in demand even though games have evolved and arcades are, with a few exceptions, a thing of the past.

A few months ago, I turned to Cragislist on a whim, and much to my eternal glee, I received an e-mail from nearby Washington, PA.  A video game enthusiast named Ted had a Ms. Pac Man game on sale, and as soon as I drove over to check it out, I knew that it was the one for me.  Ted fixed the cabinet up and gave me a great deal.  A few days later, Larry and I drove over to pick it up.

The cabinet is from the original run of 10,000 and is in just beautiful shape.  For a hunk of wood that's 30 years old, I couldn't ask for a better looking display.

The challenge with getting a Ms. Pac Man machine, after the cost and condition, was finding some place to put it.  Not that I wouldn't have been happy to set it up in the living room, but while I might have enjoyed that, I realize that not everyone wants a giant pink and blue arcade game flashing all hours of the day in the corner of the room.

That's why I'm lucky enough that the guys at Evil Genius Comics & Cards were up for letting me keep the game at their store in California, PA.  Right after I bought it, Larry and I drove it to the store, wheeled it in, set it up and went right into playing it.

AND IT IS AWESOME!  It really is.  I could play Ms. Pac Man for hours on end, but here's an extra bit of information that I omitted until now: the board inside has been modified with 59 additional games.  So if I want to play something besides Ms. Pac Man, I can choose from nearly every single one-player game that I care about.

This machine has Ms. Pac Man.  It has Pac Man.  And Jr. Pac Man.  And Super Pac Man.  And Pac Man Plus.  And Dig Dug (1 and 2).  And Donkey Kong (and Donkey Kong Jr., and DK3!).  And Space Invaders.  And Centipede.  And Millipede.  And Galaga.  And Frogger.  And Gun Smoke.  And dozens of other games!  Not all of them are great, but I've been surprised at how many games I enjoy, both familiar and those that I had never heard of before.

In short, this was a great find, and as trivial as owning an arcade game might be, it really is something I had wanted to do for a long time.  And since it's housed at a comic shop, other people can play it too, and whenever I stop in to get comics, I can lose an hour trying to beat my high score.

If you're in the area around California and you love classic arcade games, stop in at Evil Genius Comics and check out my Ms. Pac Man arcade game.  It's right across the street from California University of Pennsylvania.  I'm thinking of setting up a tournament one of these days.  That way, I could see if anyone can beat my high score on Ms. Pac Man.  Here's a warning: I've got lots of practice.

Thanks to Larry for modeling all of these shots.  I don't think he minded, as he got a key to the machine and can play Jr. Pac Man all he wants.  Now if only I could find someone with a reasonably priced Rampage game...