The Good, The Bad, And The Future

The Good

That image up there is the new Spook Central Headquarters. Click on it for a look at the full-size image (if it's scaled down to fit your screen, click on it again). As you can see, I have a new 100% working fast computer - and I assembled it entirely myself! You can read the full specs here. That means, computer-wise, I've *FINALLY* recovered from Hurricane Sandy. Normally, I'd be ecstatic to get back to business as usual, and present all of the Ghostbusters updates that this site has lacked for the past 16 months. Sadly, all is not good.

[UPDATE - 4/2/2014]
I finally framed one of the three Dapper Dan Schoening signed art prints I've had for years (the other two have been sold on eBay) and put it up on the Spook Central Headquarters wall. Here's a look at the revised Spook Central Headquarters, and a close-up of the "This Chick Is TOAST" art print.




The Bad

After my father passed away three weeks ago - God, has it been that long already?!? - I knew that I had to stop dragging my feet, get over my worries about screwing it up, and finally buy a new computer bundle while I still had the money to buy it, and while I still had a place for it to be delivered to.

When we lost my father, we also lost his money, which was paying the rent on the place where I'm staying. His entire Social Security check and half of his retirement check was needed for the rent, and now we don't have either. I'm not sure at this moment what the combined household income is going to be starting in March, but I know that it's going to be a LOT less than it was in January. If we can get rental assistance, the landlord is willing to accept it and keep us here. I think he realizes how much we are good tenants, though compared to the noisy, crazy low-class undesirables living below us, cockroaches would be good tenants. In spite of the people downstairs, we like living here, we like the neighborhood, and we want to stay for more than just 14 or 15 months. Plus we don't want to have to pack everything back up, and go through the stress of finding a new place to live and moving everything there.

Losing my father and inheriting all of his DVDs has opened my eyes as to how I have WAY too much stuff that I don't need - thousands of DVDs, VHS tapes, CDs, comic books, trading cards, autographed/signed photos & memorabilia... I was quite a collector, and maybe a bit of a hoarder. Having all of this stuff doesn't make for an easy move. Since I don't need all of it, and quite honestly I've only watched probably 5% of the thousands of DVDs, I will have to start selling or giving away most of it. Ideally I'd like to sell as much of it as possible since I will need every bit of money I can get. To give you an idea as to just how much stuff we have, look at these photos of the boxes sitting up in the attic that I photographed four months ago.


The Future

Normally, having a new fast computer would mean that Spook Central would permanently be removed from hiatus status and operations would resume as they did before October 29, 2012. Spook Central will remain on hiatus for the time being. The next post, or bunch of posts, will be listings of items I've put up for sale to raise money for rent ($1,475), electric ($204), cable/tv/internet ($140), food, transportation, laundry, medicine/medical, and other assorted living expenses. (If you ever need proof that life enjoys crapping on me, the electric bill went up $50 this month, and the cable bill went up $20 last month.)

Some listings will be on eBay, and I may try to list a few directly here using PayPal (since eBay limits 50 free listings per month). There will be a bunch of Ghostbusters stuff for sale, such as full sets of comic books, some toys, some t-shirts, an original Ecto-1A model I assembled in the early 1990s in a GB-esque display case, a few copies of the Real Ghostbusters Complete Series DVD set in various conditions (some are disc only), and maybe a few other things as I find them. There will also be a huge lot of complete sets of Garbage Pail Kids cards from the original Series 1 to the All-New Series 5 (or maybe it was 4). Some autographed Wrestlemania plaques signed by Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, and The Undertaker. The last issue of WWF Victory magazine and the first issue of WWF Magazine from 1983/1984 (Victory was a two-issue series that ran before it officially became "WWF Magazine"). Not to mention lots of DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, and out-of-print VHS tapes. I have a LOT of stuff, and I know that some of it is quite valuable.

The first listings may go up sometime next week. That's the plan right now, though I've learned not to plan too much because shit happens that I couldn't possibly predict.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the PayPal donation button that was created for me to help my family. You can donate by clicking on that image, or you can wait until I have my stuff up for sale and donate by buying my stuff. Either way, if you've enjoyed anything you've found on Spook Central over the past 17.5 years, please help the guy who brought it to you. Thanks.


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