Counting

 Go out and take some pictures! It's your right and duty as an American citizen! Oh, wait... that's voting? Did you vote? Can you guess how long ago we took some of these pictures?

This year they changed the "checking who you are" part to computers, and "the system" was freezing. So our quick stop to vote during our lunch break turned out to be much longer than expected. But what are you going to do? You gotta wait. It's not like you can come back tomorrow.

Thanksgiving Leftovers 2021

 There were too many pictures from our recent Thanksgiving travels for one post, so have another bunch of 'em. Is this a little like having Thanksgiving leftovers for Xmas?

Still had a few more pictures from the big gaming store. My friend has a few fond memories here from playing the collectable card games oh... about 20 years ago. So yeah this place has been here for a while, and I'll try to make this quick so my friend doesn't start to feel ...old, or anything.

Thanks for the Pictures

 A few pictures from our Thanksgiving "vacation" trip.

We reached the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel when the sun was going down, so we hopped out real quick at the photo-op spot. I thought you had to go all the way down to Florida to get a "sunset over the ocean" view, but this kinda works, too!

Thanksgiving Feast

 Happy Thanksgiving! We went down to visit the family for about a week, and here's a big bunch of pictures of all the food we ate! Since it's a holiday all about feasting, this is mostly just food pictures, so a little warning if you're hungry right now.

At least this first picture is not very apetizing. Unless you are a squirrel. We made sure we put out a full fresh piece of corn-stuff out for the squirrels, so that they could also have a Thanksgiving feast while we were away.

No Time

 I'll post pictures soon of the Thanksgiving things we did, but in the meantime, have a bunch of random stuff.

Went to see the newest James Bond movie, No Time For Movie. This was supposed to come out YEARS ago, but then Covid hit, and they simply REFUSED to release the movie "some other way" as they were determined to get "blockbuster theatre money" with every bit of stubborn-ness that a James Bond villain would have had.

Forbidden Pictures

 Another bunch of random pictures while out shopping and stuff. Hope you don't mind the boring intro, I'm sure there's something here you'll find funny or interesting.

How can they sell it, if it's "forbidden"? It's been a long time since I've taken any kind of grammar class, but surely this type of word mis-use has a term for it. I want to say "snarky" but I know that's not right.

Um... Pictures?

 Back with another bunch of random pictures. Can I think of a more interesting set-up? I guess not.

One boring Saturday we went out to the flea market but did not take a bunch of pictures. Still got a few. Here's a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure game for the... regular old Playstation? I wasn't aware it was THAT old of an anime series, how long ago was Playstation 1? Flea markets are awesome for discovering old neat stuff you never knew about.

Summer Bike Leavings

 It looks like I had a few bicycle-riding pictures saved up from late summer. So keep in mind these pictures are from warmer days, and maybe imagine being warm, too.

I don't remember what name was on the storm that blew through here, but it made a mess of things and we got some pictures of it. The water looks extra "muddy"; probably also caused by the storm.

Relaxing Squirrel

 Chill out with us and enjoy some fun picture comments.

It's extra cute when the squirrels are so relaxed around you. I'll share a fun squirrel story: Not from this picture, but recently, we gave a squirrel a treat and it quickly turned around and buried it, and turned around expecting another treat right away. Like, it was faster to bury it then eat it, and it was trying to maximize the amount of treats it would get. The little clever cheater!

More Halloween Stuff 2021

 Happy Halloween! One more bunch of pictures we took of fun scary-whatever stuff.

It was odd that this banner inside the store seemed to be larger than the one hanging outside. Maybe they were having trouble fitting it outside and well, they bought it, so might as well hang it inside the store instead!

Halloween Spirit 2021

It's that time of year again! There's always fun stuff to check out in the "pop-up" Spirit Halloween store. It's here for a few months, so check it while you can.

It's also fun to see where these stores wind up. Any giant recently-vacant place will do. Sometimes they are in the same empty place as last year, but often they move around. This used to be an A.C. Moore arts store, I think.

Another Brick Store

 Not really a full adventure, but this bunch of pictures is mostly from this new Lego store that opened up in the mall near us. I didn't take enough pictures in there, so there's also a few random ones at the end.

This place is called K&B Brick Store and is a close copy of the other place, Andy's Brick Shop, in the Oxford Valley Mall which is not too far away. Quaker Bridge Mall is much closer to us, so it's a all good! The basic concept here is like a 2nd-hand store, but exclusively for Lego stuff.

Marvelously Random

 Whew! That was a lot of vacation pictures! During the time I was posting up those pictures, I was still taking "regular" pictures while out. So have a nice regular batch of fun things we caught.

Busted! Again! Clearly the name used on this box from a new Avengers: Endgame Lego set says "Scarlet Witch" which is a name they had not yet used in the "universe". At this point she is just Wanda Maximoff. Which is an odd continuity flub for a Marvel product, considering what a big deal it was in the Wandavision series. For example, if that really was "Scarlet Witch" instead of simply Wanda, Thanos would not have stood a chance.

OBX21 Sunrise

One final small amount of pictures from our vacation last summer in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

It's very unusual for my friend to wake up before the sunrise, but how else are you going to... see a sunrise? We're up this early, of course we're going to get some pictures to share.

OBX21 Stuff

 This bunch of pictures from our OBX vacation is a little random. Sometimes when I'm sorting pictures they kind of group together nicely, and sometimes you wind up with stuff like this.

Awkward? This vacation was at the end of August, and I still have pictures to post. I've taken this picture before. It's at the Border Station rest stop and this line is supposed to be where Virginia and North Caroline meet. Does it really matter which state you are in, since it's ALL "America!"?

OBX21 More Thrifty

 There was too many pictures taken on our thrift shop tour in the Outer Banks, so have some more fun pictures of crazy stuff. I'm almost done with the vacation photos, but there's still a couple batches left.

Place a coin in the hand and the lever in the back flips it into the mouth. Is there something oddly poetic about Uncle Sam eating your money? How about the robot? These are banks, so you can get the money back later. You don't even have to imagine where it came from after getting eaten... ewww!

OBX21 - Thrifty 1

 Still have vacation pictures from like, a month ago! There are many thrift shops along the Outer Banks, which is cool since I like searching for treasures, so let's see if we can find some pirate booty around here.

This was a new place my friend spotted. We visited here right after we got done fishing on the boat. We had planned on going thrift shop hopping the next day but got an early jump on it here.

OBX21 Fishing

 Still posting pictures from our vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This bunch of pictures is from a particular highlight of the week, when we rented a boat and... went fishing!

It's odd that waking up early on vacation brings up feelings of excitement rather than sleepyness. We planned on renting the boat for 4 hours, like... all morning. There's a small bait shop up there, too. But I totally forgot to snap a couple of pictures in there.

OBX21 Too Much Shopping

 There was so many pictures we grabbed while out regular-shopping on vacation, that they spilled over into two batches. Enjoy the fun comments.

If I could have time in a bottle... Okay how about we spell it "Thyme" and put it in a jar? Close enough? Now which jar has "Vacation" in it? Can I have that in a bottle, too?

OBX21 - Shoppin

 There was more than a few shopping trips we went on while on vacation in the Outer Banks this year. I grabbed a few pictures each time and there wound up being a lot more than we thought! So enjoy some crazy things I saw.

I've never gotten the point of the "Property of" merchandise. Once you buy it, it's yours, right? Can some Outer Banks bureaucrat just take it away from you? Hey, it's property of Outer Banks, fool! You knew that when you bought it.

OBX 2021 Kayakin'

 One thing my friend has always wanted to do while on vacation was go kayaking. Every time they go to the time share orientation meeting, there's a guy promoting the kayak tours enthusiastically, and yet we never went before.  This time we put it on our "must-do" list, despite the irony of the kayak guy not being at the meeting this year.

The brochure was still in the lobby, so we have numbers to call and stuff. We originally wanted to go on the closer Maritime Forest & Marsh tour, but there was a terrible moment when we called to check availability, decided to book it online (for credit card reasons), then... it rejected the online reservation, and we called back to find out... oh! Somebody called right after we did and filled it up before we could complete the online form. They were sorry for the mix-up and offered the not-yet-full Pine Island Audubon Sanctuary for the lower price. It was further away but we really wanted to go, so we booked it right there on the phone this time instead of trying to do it online again.

OBX 2021 Ghost Walk

 One of the nights on vacation in the Outer Banks we went on a walking ghost tour. Not a tour about ghosts that are walking, it was a tour that we walked on and heard stories about ghosts.

The tour was in the town on Manteo. This poster is for a different tour, not the Ghost one we went on. That's not going to be confusing, right? Turns out I did not have an "intro" picture for this blog post, and this was the closest we could find. Just pretend this has the word "Ghost" on it somewhere.

OBX 2021 Food 2nds

 More pictures of the meals we had on our Outer Banks vacation week. There was too many to fit into one post so have some more! We were on vacation, so absolutely no worries about prices or calories, just eat tasty stuff.

After we went kayaking, we went out to find a place to eat lunch and wound up at another Mexican place, Taco Loco. Yes I said "kayaking" those pictures will be posted later. See on this menu you can get a Coke with 2 refills for $2.50 or Coke from Mexico in a bottle for $3. Um... math? Is Mexican Bottled Coke that much better?

Outer Banks 2021 Foods part 1

 One of the best parts about vacations is all the yummy foods to be eaten. So of course we'll get some pictures to share.

The night we arrived we went to La Fogata, which translates as "The Fire". It's a Mexican place. Is there a name for these face-hole picture boards? Whatever they are called, they don't seem to work very good for me.

OBX 2021!

 VAY-CAY! Is that how it's spelled? Looks odd. That's short for "Vacation" Look at me, trying to use a short and exciting intro and then ruining it with a lengthy explanation. Let's start over. Woo Hoo! A whole WEEK in the Outer Banks!

In case you didn't know, the "Outer Banks" is the thin stretch of islands off of the North Carolina coast. Often abbreviated as "OBX" One of the first things to do is to grab a local coupon-filled guide and plan what you want to do all week. This year 2021 was extra-required to plan, because plenty of places and things were closed periodically due to the heard-about worker shortages.

Back to the Antiques Mall

 Another round of pictures from the Antique Mall in Virginia Beach. Technically we did go there twice, since the first day we went was cut short because of backyard barbecue scheduling. It really is a big place worthy of not rushing through.

I did do a picture of the outside this time. Yawn, nobody wants to see the outside, let's see the cool stuff inside!

Itsa Antique Mall

 These pics were from our trip to Virginia, there's an Antique Mall we like to stop in, and it had been a while since our last time. Let's get some pictures!

This sun-faded Mario statue invites you into the new section. There used to be a model train shop over here, but that whole area has been assimilated by the giant store. Like the place wasn't big enough already, I say sarcastically, but... in like a good way.

No Scans

 Another batch of random pictures from shopping trips. Not exactly an adventure but there's fun stuff to see.

Bam! Looks like someone else is more upset than we are, about the apparent extinction of the price scanners in Walmart stores. We were curious enough to ask an employee why they are getting rid of them everywhere, and were told it's a deliberate attempt to push some kind of phone ap. Who would have thought that Walmart would lead the way into forcing you to use your own technology? They already make you ring up your own orders. How much more can you work for them for free? 

Bikie Bikes

 Another nice summer day for a bike ride. It's getting to be that time of the year when we don't know how much longer before it starts getting cooler, so let's enjoy this while we can.

Since we avoided the D&R Canal Trail last year, due to mask restrictions, this year we made sure to go a few times. This group of pictures is from a trip when we went in the south direction. I guess you can't really tell that from this picture though.

Big E's Pics

 There's a big thrift store that we've passed a lot, but have never gone into before. It's on the way back from a big flea market, so usually when we pass it, we've been antiqued-out already. We knew eventually we'd stop in, so of course we got some pictures to share.

This guy on the business card doesn't have any name that starts with an E, so we don't know who "Big E" is, but this is his thrift & antique store! The place looked pretty big from the outside, let's wander around and see some stuff!

Shoe made of Bricks

Back with another kickin' hip-hop round of pictures.

Lego releases a set based on a... shoe? Classic Adidas Sneaker set, the box looks like a real shoe box instead of Lego's regular packaging. If you didn't know, there are people who collect shoes, and also people who collect Lego sets. And in the middle... is this!

Dungeons & Dragons Magic

 While wandering the store, my perception roll was a success, and I spot the newest expansion set for the Magic: The Gathering card game. I quickly have to roll again, for a saving throw, to avoid passing out from excitement.

There's a few companies involved with the story, but Dungeons & Dragons was bought by Wizards of the Coast in 1997, which was then bought by Hasbro in 1999. The real mystery here is that nobody thought about making a D&D card set until... now?! Since it was never done, it was just thought that it would NEVER be done, so it was a shock to see it, in a good way.

Screwed-up Pictures

 How about another round of random pictures? It's been a while, let's see what we found interesting enough to get a picture of.

Yikes. I can probably point out a lot of things wrong with the title of this book, but that would mean that I didn't "get it". It's a joke, right? Chapter one: move. Don't continue to live with screwed-up people. Done. That took only a few seconds to read.

Bike Trips

 How about some pictures from when we were out riding the bike? These pictures are from a couple of trips not one big trip.

Right after we changed the flat tire, we stay close to home just in case the new one isn't good. That's happened before. The closer trail is totally rocked up. We tried to ride those rocks for all of two seconds before we couldn't stand it and got off!

1-Up!

 Are you aware that you can purchase a huge almost-real-sized arcade cabinet for your house? Normally these are sold for hundreds of dollars, but if you were lucky, you could have gotten one on clearance for much much less. Such a thing happened for us, except we were not the lucky ones to find it, but luckily someone far away picked one up for us. And then... BOOM! Pandemic! Nobody could travel anywhere. So it wasn't until our recent trip down to Virginia that we were finally able to pick this thing up and drag it back home.

The box says two-person lift! But it wasn't that bad and had very comfy handle holes in the sides, so my friend got it without my help, however much help a tiny pony could have given. This thing is obviously going to need some assembly.

Collectibles

 Still have some more pictures from our trip down to Virginia. I guess it's obvious by now that we have a hobby to hunt for collectible treasures, and we know of a few places we like to check whenever we get down to the home town. We might not find anything to buy, but surely we can get some pictures of fun stuff.

There was a new place we were told about called Yester Toys near the Sam's Club on "The Blvd". It was small but jam-packed with fun things to see, like this 2008 Futurama Robot Santa set. Due to a flaw in his programming, he judges everybody to be naughty. Your mistletoe is no match for his T.O.W. missile!

Long-Awaited Visit

 Happy 4th of July! Well, that's the weekend I took these picture. It had been the first big trip taken since Covid locked down the world. There was plenty of enjoying the family time, but I also found the time to snap some pictures.

Isn't this a thing of beauty? A festive Krispy Kreme donut. Let's not get all worked up over the treats, the family visit is the best part of the trip.

551 Days Later

 To quote video game legend Mario: Let's a-go! It's been a long time dealing with the Covid 19 World, but now that the whole family has been "fully vaccinated" it was time for a trip back home to Virginia! So lets get some pictures to share! This first bunch of pictures is from the general travelling, something we have not really done for about 18 months!

The traffic was forecast to be "the worst in years" with everyone finally free to move about. Already It backed up for a while on the NJ Turnpike and we made a stop at the last um... stop... before the Delaware bridge. No need to risk getting caught in traffic with... literally nowhere to um... go. Hehe.

More Fleas

 Another batch of pictures from our Saturday-wasting trip out to the Englishtown Flea Market.

Hmm... Should shopping in a dirt field make us imagine a different world? What if there was no such thing as Malls or Grocery Stores? Is it fun to think of that, or like... depressing? Should we appreciate society more? How about I cut it with the philosophy and stick to the funny comments.

Flea Pictures

 Englishtown Flea Market! This place is close enough to us, I wonder why we don't go more. It's a good weekend time-waster and you never know what kind of treasures you will see. At the very least, we can get picture treasures to share!

I don't know if they have auctions here, but that's what the sign says. Is there a technical reason they don't have to change the name to say "Flea Market"? That might reset the "Since 1929" date, maybe? Yikes, that's almost a hundred years ago!

Random Pictures Again

 Back to talk about the dirt on these pictures. 

In the McDonald's drive thru, enjoying the show. That other parking lot over there is getting wrecked! Speaking of wrecks, this McDonald's I'm at right now is also being wrecked. A week later it was closed but I heard it was going to be re-built in 5 or 6 months. Fortunately there are other McDonald's nearby I can still get to for lunches.

More Princeton

 Happy July 4th! Not really holiday-related, but we were out on our bike riding trip to Princeton for nearly three hours, so... more pictures!

Here's the construction area. Do you think they are going to do these new buildings "all ancient-fancy-style" or simply make them modern buildings, so hundreds of years from now, those buildings will seem like from the now-past instead of the past-past? Did that make sense?

Ride around Princeton

 Return of the bike rides! Well, in directions we didn't go with mask restrictions. Now that it's "cool" to go without a mask, we got a good day and set out  towards Princeton. Of course we got some pictures to share.

All those things you remembered doing? Add one year to that. I don't really feel like doing the math right now, but it's been quite a while since we've gone this way, since the State Park required masks and all.

Summer Games

 Back with some more pictures! Random ones from wherever we felt like sharing.

I didn't forget this year! Every Summer the world of Neopets holds a tournament they call The Altador Cup. The soccer-like game is Yooyuball, and you can support a team of your choosing by playing various games. Go Virtupets! Reading the team bios, it mentions Sela Pretore's weakness is Inexperience, yet she's been playing for nearly 14 years. Hmm, time to update the bios?

Hot Ride

 More pictures to share! I don't know if taking these pictures is insane, or if taking these pictures maintains my sanity. But I like doing it, so I hope you enjoy them, too.

Finally! Every weekend this year was just too cold enough, or grey sky tempting rain enough, to prevent our bike riding hobby. It took until the start of JUNE until we got a "good day" to get out. Looks like this tree is trying to grab us. Maybe it wants to give us a hug? We missed you, too!

Shamrock Shake Time Travel

 More pictures from just stuff. This batch starts out with a fun story.

It's time! The crazy experiment to see if we could freeze a Shamrock Shake is upon us. My friend had planned on having this for his birthday, but expected "side effects" from the 2nd Covid vaccine shot changed the plans. If this experiment somehow upset his stomach, he'd rather not have that happen during "side effects" so we delayed this for another week. Feeling rather fine now, and excited to see if this would really work!

2nd Shot

 We shot some more pictures!

I find this pretty funny that I didn't realize this said "flu" shot on this sign. We were excited to be getting "The 2nd" shot for Covid, and I guess too much to even read the sign until now. Hahaha. Should we go back and get the flu shot? Give us shots for everything!

M'ask you somethin'

Another batch of pictures from shopping adventures. And stuff.

This is the time right before these masks disappear, probably just as quickly as they started appearing. Do you remember? Last year it was a struggle to find masks at all... and then BAM! Masks of all colors everywhere! If you want some, for whatever reason, get 'em while you can.

The Shot

 It's time to shoot some more pictures! Maybe...  some special shot? These pictures were taken a few weeks ago, when the limits imposed on the Covid Vaccine shots were finally lowered enough to get this little pony into an appointment. There's other random pics here, too.

We tried to use the web site to schedule an appointment, but that gave us trouble so we wound up calling a hotline which took a few minutes but was probably just as easy. I kind of feel like I need to explain how amazing the whole vaccine thing is, only because it's been made into a "political topic" and now it feels kind of awkward that I need to mention it. I'll just say I was excited to be getting it, and look forward to the return of the world the way it was.

Pretzels+

 Snack time! You may remember I bought a "kit" for Halloween that included melting wafers and Pretzels. I didn't get to fix them until Xmas but they were good enough for a re-run. Later when I saw an Easter kit available, I decided to try to assemble my own kit. And here's the snack story in pictures!

The Pretzels and Wafers Bag were $3 each. I tried to get some "Minty"-colored wafers, even if they taste like vanilla instead of mint. I already had some rainbow sprinkles, for ice cream, but decided to buy some special colors. I almost didn't, because I was thinking "who am I trying to impress? Sprinkles are sprinkles." But I AM going to take pictures of this, so I guess I AM trying to impress somebody! Special color sprinkles were $1 per tiny bag, I suggest you buy a giant cup of rainbow sprinkles for like $2. Like a mad scientist, I'm ready to cook!