joe randel's art dump

Are things really collectable these days? Everything is massed produced to such an extent that it seems redundant to say anything is a collectors edition. Are we just fooled in to buying these “special” versions and maybe the hopes of it being collectable. I can’t say I’ve never bought a collectors edition before though so I’m no better. I have special edition versions of movies and games and have even gone out of my way to get them. Only to feel kind of silly about the whole thing years later.

What does seem to happen is toys or games will become collectable with out meaning to. I’m still looking for the Fireball Island board game from my childhood, but can’t seem to find it with out spending over $100 bucks. Old NES games can cost some good coin. Even old toys from the 80’s have become collectable. But then get becomes the debate if those are really collectable or just hard to find.

What things are collectable to you? I love to get old NES, SNES and GameBoy games but I think you all ready knew that. ^_^

Ugh, I sure did feel like crap yesterday.  We’ve been having a heat wave here in Southern Ontario and I’m pretty sure that I let myself get really dehydrated yesterday.  I don’t remember drinking a lot during the day as I did my work.  I mean, I have a bottle of water at my desk and I remember filling it but I don’t remember drinking much of it.  I was so focused on my work tasks it never occurred to me to drink more.  Then I went home and helped Wife empty and clean out the pool because there was some glass in it (long story… don’t ask).  I might have had a drink then, but only one.  Anyway, by then end of the night I realized what I had done to myself  but it was too late.  I felt horrible and nauseous and went straight to bed.

It’s sort of crazy how we neglect our bodies sometimes.  It’s not like drinking a glass of water would have taken much time out of my day, and yet I kept on putting it off.  So let this be a lesson to you (and me), make sure you drink properly during the day or your body will hate you for it.

Happy Independence Day my American readers!  So what sort of festivities did you take in today?  To be honest I’m not all up on my American history or traditions regarding this day.  Didn’t Will Smith blew up some aliens on this day or some such thing?  Oh, and doesn’t George Washington come and leave fireworks under the American flags of good little boys and girls?  Am I right?  Anyway, I hope you had a great day today and spent it eating your fourth of July turkey with family and friends.  I spent the day cleaning up the house a bit and then went to see Brave with the family.  Maybe not the best Pixar flick, but still a great movie.  But then I’m a sucker for red heads. ^_^

I’ve been putting this post off for a bit so I could have some substance to it, but I think I can do it now.  For Fathers Day I received a new camera.  Yay!  It’s a Canon PowerShot SX40 HS and I think it’ll replace our old one very nicely.  It’s not a super high end professional camera, it seems to be just one below that.  So we can still point and shoot very easily but I can try some fancy stuff too. Looks like it has most of the features our old one did, with some news ones too.  Plus it has a 35x built in optical zoom.  That’s crazy awesome and just what I’ve been looking for too because I hate feeling like I’m to far away to get a good shot.

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Happy Canada Day everyone!  I didn’t get time to make this post earlier in the day so you get to read it now instead, which is probably July 2nd.  But really it should have been up July 1st.  Oh well, I tried.  Anyway, this Sunday was Canada Day and it ended up being a pretty awesome day.  I got some house chores done in the morning and spent the afternoon taking in some fun family things set up close to us.  Had a great steak dinner thanks to Wife and finished it off with a nice fireworks display at a near by park.

I gotta say that I feel pretty special being born in Canada.  I know there are pretty awesome places around the world, but Canada has this great friendly feeling to it.  I feel that there are fabulous opportunities here, we have a health care system that takes care of our population, there is some fantastic wilderness to the north of just about everyone and our political system isn’t all crazy.  We’re not perfect, but we’re pretty damn awesome I think.

Canadian fact:  It’s legal for women to go topless.  Not that any of them do.

Downstairs renovations are close to done, thank goodness.  So close in fact that Wife and I where able to fill up our new downstairs book shelves with our collection of reading material.  Even my Bruce Timm book found a home on it.  It was neat thought to go through all our books again and see which ones we’ve forgotten and which ones we wish to read again.  One of those books is called A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.  It’s about his life as a child soldier in Africa and how he made it out.  I originally saw an interview with him on The Daily Show and was so moved by his story that I had to buy his book.  It’s fascinating and horrifying at the same time.  You read it and think that this is a grown man in this situation and then stop and remember that he’s actually only twelve.

I can’t recommend this book enough.  It’s seriously fantastic and I couldn’t put it down.  I really must read it again.  What books do you own that you should read again?