Adventures

Yesterday, I visited the house from Spookies. Stood right in front of it with the old VHS tape, like a big dummy: In real life, it’s the Peter Augustus Jay House, located in Rye, NY. It’s a preserved and protected landmark now, but it certainly wasn’t in the mid ‘80s, when Spoo

Yesterday, Burger King unveiled the UPSIDE DOWN WHOPPER, a special tie-in with Stranger Things. There were a few catches, of course. It was only available on June 21st, and only at eleven locations throughout the country. Fortunately, one of those locations was in Manhattan — so me

If you didn’t hear the big news, Coca-Cola is dusting off NEW COKE as part of a special partnership with Stranger Things. (The show’s third season is set in 1985, smack in the middle of New Coke’s shaky debut.) This past Thursday, thousands of us struggled to place orders on New Coke

For years now, I’ve been telling y’all that old greeting card stores are some of the best places to find ancient Halloween stuff. It was never a stretch: Locating these stores has been one of my Halloween rituals for a loooong time, and guys, they never disappoint. Since mom-and-pop gr

We visited a random party store in Jersey, and guys, this place was a goldmine. Looked like it hadn’t been renovated since 1992. The layout of their mask section was SO old school. Taking that as a hint, I dug deeper and found tons of vintage Halloween thingies hiding in the aisles. Tak

So last year I told you about six video stores that were somehow still in business. Me and Jay went all over Jersey and Pennsylvania to find them, and I was convinced that we’d hit every last one within reasonable driving distance. Fortunately, I was wrong! Welcome to California Video, s

One of my favorite things about the Halloween season is the constant encouragement to go on silly adventures. How else would I end up playing miniature golf in a glow-in-the-dark dungeon? In the latest Purple Stuff Podcast minisode, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit play a round of Monster M

After our successful trip to Heights-Terrace Video in Hazleton, we drove another 40 minutes into the bowels of Pennsylvania, looking for more old video stores. That led us to the city of Wyoming. If the little we saw was indicative of its totality, Wyoming is a mix of a sleepy college town

We took a trip to Pennsylvania on Saturday, hunting for more old video stores. My heavy foot shaved an hour from what should’ve been a 3+ hour drive, but it was still a long day on the road. The itinerary led us through parts of Pennsylvania that were only suburban in a borderline way. A

Apologies in advance for what promises to be a screwball article with narrow appeal. Sometimes I do these just for me. Over the last few months, several of my favorite local stores went out of business. Before their sad remains are forever lost, I thought I’d pay tribute to them with thi

In Dino Drac's latest Video Store Adventure, we're heading to 112 Video in Long Island, NY for a look at their incredibly huge and rare VHS collection!

Half a week later, and I’m still in shock. We found another still-functioning video store, and it was somehow even better than the last two! (…which you can read about here and here, if you haven’t already.) Say hello to Four Star Video. Part of a sleepy strip mall in Vineland, N

Thanks to our successes at that one video store, me and Jay vowed to hit every other video store within driving distance. After all, these places aren’t going to be around forever. It’s a miracle they’re still around now. First on the list was The Video Shop in Belmar, New Jersey. On

A little over a week ago, me and Jay visited what had been one of New Jersey’s last remaining movie rental shops. Located in the city of Brick, Bob’s Video Time was closing its doors after 27 years, finally conceding defeat to an increasingly digital market. And yeah, we did kinda go t

Today is my birthday. I’m super old. 900, basically. But it wasn’t always this way. On February 6th, 1987, I had a birthday party. A bunch of boys from my second grade class came over to do what boys do. One of them gave me Optimus Prime socks. That’s me, at the party. Back then, ki

The holiday weekend was an unending fiasco. Memorial Day marked the official return of Hi-C Ecto Cooler, and even though I’d already scored a few press samples, I needed to experience it the real way. I needed the personal shopping experience. (Also, I just wanted more goddamned Ecto Coo

We spent Sunday in Atlantic City, taking advantage of a free room offer from The Borgata. Sometimes you just crave a hotel bed, y’know? The cold, windy weather left the boardwalk pretty empty, but I wasn’t about to miss out on crane games and Atlantic City’s infamous souvenir shops.

On Sunday morning, me and Jay visited yet another comic book show, this time in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Honestly, the big draw for me was that the show was staged from a Holiday Inn. I am all about random hobbyist conventions taking place at minor hotels. Those are the types of show

Prior to yesterday, I hadn’t been to Seaside Heights since my sophomore year of high school. A friend invited me to stay with him and his extended family at some rented beach house. Never one to miss a chance at crane games and funnel cake, I jumped at the chance. The night before we lef

We celebrated Independence Day in Atlantic City, joining Mr. and Ms. Sexy Armpit for two days’ worth of tequila and gambling and fireworks. (In that order, come to think of it.) Between the blue skies and the straight flushes, it was an amazing weekend. Of course, we spent many hours on

On Saturday, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit visited the first-ever Atlantic City Boardwalk Con, a sort of generalized pop culture celebration that to me felt like a delightfully miniaturized version of SDCC. Held at the still-sparkly Atlantic City Convention Center, “ACBC” was my bes

Over the weekend, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit found ourselves in a church, or maybe an event center, or perhaps some kind of school. I’m not exactly sure, but some building in Clifton NJ had been commandeered for a comic book convention. A small comic book convention, I mean. This w

“Came, saw, bought a few things, made a fool of myself, went home.” That would be the summary of my experiences at the 28th Monster-Mania horror convention, which took place in Cherry Hill last weekend. I fear I’m not in any position to give you a full report, since we spent so much

This was a very short trip, so I can’t give you a full blow-by-blow on everything Wildwood has to offer. Even so, it seems I took just enough pictures and saw just enough interesting things to spend the next four hours writing loving tributes to dark rides and cereal-infused ice cream su

On Friday, we found ourselves back on the familiar floors of Cherry Hill’s Crowne Plaza, ready to drink through the latest Monster-Mania convention. This was the 27th Monster-Mania. The first one I went to was only their third ever. Almost ten years later, and I still get a kick out it.