Closets of the Museum of the Weird

Weekend Assignment: Show off a personal possession of yours that you are reasonably certain other people don't have. Note this is limited to possessions: Don't haul up the spouse and go "neener-neener." Pets are also off limits unless it's a truly bizarre pet: We're talking like a hyena or an ocelot or something like that. Otherwise it's best to stick to physical objects. Also, as I've done a similar Photo Shoot in the past: don't recycle. Come on, you've got more than one odd thing in your house.

Extra credit: Pictures! I mean, obviously.

I'm telling you, you guys are insatiable! Or, at least, our friendly neighborhood Blogfather is. Here we are with another assignment that's tailor-made for showing off the latest round of exhibits from Casa Blocher, a.k.a. The Museum of the Weird. Things are still torn up around here because of the Library Conversion of Doom*, so I dug into a couple of closets for tonight's offerings.


I'm sure you can't tell what these are, and I'm equally sure you don't have one, although you may have a tiny component of one. These are "bricks" of minor chase cards from the Doctor Who trading cards, from the Premiere Cards subset. Both bricks contain quantities of the same particular card, featuring The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker). The logistics of managing trading card distribution quantities meant that these were printed but never meant to be distributed. To do so would mess up the integrity of the series. John even wanted to throw these away, but I rescued them - repeatedly. These are the trading cards I wrote and John designed back in the mid-1990s. I'm still very proud of the work we did on them. However, I didn't write this particular card, because it had no text to speak of. It had a puzzle back instead.


Next we have a celebration of a bad president. No, not that one, but one from about 80 years ago: Herbert Hoover. I found this at a yard sale or auction or sometime during our eBay days. The eBay auction was won by John's best friend back in Ohio, but he forgot to pay the postage, or I was holding it until he paid for the unfinished Charlie Brown rug, or something. Maybe someday I'll ship it. It's only been a decade or so, maybe less. I suspect that the only reason West Branch, Iowa would commemorate Hoover with a coffee mug is that he was born there. Aha. Wikipedia confirms it: that's his birthplace. The article has some rather good things to say about the guy, so perhaps I shouldn't mock him.



Poor old Snoopy! This broken plastic Snoopy came in a box of stuff I got at auction. I've tried to reattach the legs several times without glue, but it just gets worse. The plastic has gotten so brittle with age that just trying to turn Snoopy's head for this photo resulted in the body cracking all the way around (where I was holding it). Still, I can't stand to thow it away, and John agrees with me on that. We once sold a 1969 Snoopy Astronaut for over $100 to someone in Japan. This wouldn't be worth anywhere near that, even mint in box, but, well, it's Snoopy!



Why, it's a milkmaid, and her google-eyed, furry dog! Actually, I have no idea why it's a milkmaid, but I'm sure that's what she is. She and the dog came in the same box-o'-junk as Snoopy. The dog is covered with real hair, or something very like real hair.



No, you haven't seen me on Quantum Leap, but I have interviewed a number of people who can make that claim, assuming they're talking to someone who watched that show a lot. We gave buttons like this to Liz Torres and John Cullum, and lots of other actors. This particular button is probably still around because it's defective. Notice the missing bit of black on the "m" in "Quantum". Still, it's a cool artifact of what Quantum Leap staffer Harriet Margulies used to call "a moment in time."



This is actually still in a closet as pictured here - not in the closet in my office where I found the other stuff, but the bedroom closet where most of the Halloween stuff is stored. The black thing on the left is one of those plastic cauldrons, and the fabric is from my Queen Cathma costume, but that's not important right now. John wanted me to show you this lamp, filled with Happy Meal toys from 20 years ago. Now I have. Taa-dah!

That's enough. Good night! (Look, Carly! I got the pictures to load on the third try!)

Karen

* We're converting one of our storage rooms into a library. So far, that's consisted of John hauling many boxes of stuff out to be stacked anywhere they'll fit, spending many weeks trying every possible technique to hang wallpaper, only to have it fall down immediately, painting the walls instead, and unpacking the tiles so they can "breathe" before being laid.


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