One of the most interesting things about the holiday season is the inevitable "white elephant" gift exchange. To the person who conceived of the idea of unloading your old, tacky junk on a fellow human being as a viable gift-giving format, my heartfelt thanks and envy. There's nothing quite like sifting through crap and wrapping it up to give to someone else. Wish I'd thought of it.
But, what makes this exchange infinitely cooler is all the stuff you uncover in your place when you're searching around for an item to get rid of.
I figured the best place to start would be our office. The desk and shelves in the closet are so loaded with stuff that we rarely ever access, that there had to be something white-elephant worthy in there.
I was right... but I also found a bunch of other cool stuff that I'd completely forgotten about. Check this list out...
A roll of duct tape. Sweet! I was going to buy a roll because I didn't think we owned any. Now we do! Everyone can use a roll of duct tape. It's the universal fix-all.
A box containing about 50-75 comic books. The list includes Roman Dirge's The Monsters in My Tummy; Sock Monkey #1 & 2; Marvel Knight's Kevin Smith Daredevil arc including an alternate cover of issue 1 signed by Kev (I met him way back when); Daredevil #200 - the near-death of Bullseye (or one of many, actually); Amazing Spider-Man special wedding issue with the people on the cover (as opposed to the more common cover with the bad guys in the background and Peter dressed as Spidey), #238 - the birth of Hobgoblin, #240 - "The Kid Who Loved Spider-Man" (one of only two comic books that has reduced me to a blubbering puddle of tears), and #400 - the death of Aunt May (the other one that did; one of the most beautiful speeches I've ever read by Peter to his Aunt); Spawn #1; Frank Miller's 300 miniseries about the Persian-Greco wars; Miller's Sin City - "Just Another Saturday Night"; G.I. Joe #26 & 27 - "The Origin of Snake Eyes"; and Superman - his death at the hands of Doomsday still sealed in the black bag. I know I still have two long boxes of comics in my parents' crawl space. But these were considered by me to be some of my most valuable, both in terms of nostalgic appeal and monetary value.
But, mixed in with this box was a killer find in Neil Gaiman's Guest of Honor... a self-published collection of two-page vignettes from some pretty major comic artists including Todd McFarlane and Eddie Campbell, among many others. This piece is hand numbered 336/2500 (or, at least, it looks hand numbered) and is signed by Neil in silver paint pen. I forgot I had this. Wow. Nice find.
Also mixed in this comic box was "Atari Force" #5. C'mon! You gotta remember back in the days of the Atari 2600 and 7200 when they released mini comic books with some of the games, don't you? Well, I still have one of them and it's in nearly perfect condition. I read it. Complete cheese.
Lastly, in this comic box was a series of about 19 old National Geographic maps. I loved those. They were my favorite thing about having a subscription to that mag (aside from some killer pictures). I wish I had a place to hang all these maps. Framing is completely out of the question as it would be far too costly, but they are certainly frame worthy.
A case of 15 antique audio recordings -- they were recorded on what I believe they once called "audio cassettes." There is some classic stuff here, too. A deuce of Bob Rivers & Twisted Christmas albums, some Van Halen and AC/DC, Denis Leary's "No Cure For Cancer," and an old album from a band featuring two guys I went to high school with. The band was called Midian and it was classic heavy metal that broke on the cusp of the grunge revolution. This was good stuff that I loved listening to when I actually owned a tape player (in my case, a Sony Sport Walkman). However, I no longer own a tape deck and am looking for a way to transfer this tape to MP3 so I can put it on my iPod. Any ideas?
Oh, and if you're interested, I wound up with an old DIY stress-relief set including a book, bath oil and salts, and a massage sponge. I was so close to having a Magic 8 Ball, but someone took it from me with the last pick. Dangit! And I gave away a year's subscription to Wired magazine. No, not a year in the future, but, a year's worth of back issues. I wasn't going to read them again anytime soon.
