Random Stuff

Who wants to win a set of Dinosaur Dracula trading cards? Yes, Dinosaur Dracula trading cards! After teasing them for over a year, it’s finally time to give them away! Between now and Halloween, there will be at least fifteen winners of the full 30-card set! The cards feature gorgeous ar

Remember last month, when I went into tremendously long detail about some total stranger’s ancient Halloween photo? Let’s do that again! This photo was another eBay find. I don’t know who that house belongs to, nor even what part of the country it’s from. I suppose some of you ar

It’s time for Volume 6 of Classic Creepy Commercials, and wowza, what a great batch this is! Just a perfect mix of Halloween nostalgia and absurd spookiness, along with at least one instance of Troll dolls shooting missiles at each other. Maybe two. I’m giving you six ads this ti

October is here, and you know what that means. MOOD TABLE TIME. This is a yearly tradition that many of you are aware of, but for the few that aren’t, I’ll explain. I’ve been running the Halloween Countdown since 2003. The only Countdown that I fouled up was in 2007, owing to real l

It’s time for our fifth batch of Classic Creepy Commercials, provided once again by my friend Larry. (Not that Larry. The other one.) If you’ve found your Halloween spirit weakening under the weight of the real world, these grainy old commercials will fix everything. And if

As you can guess, running a site with this much content and on-hand reviews takes a ridiculous amount of time and a ridiculous amount of money. I wouldn’t be able to do it at this level without the help of readers willing to buy stupid things from me! So, welcome to Dino Drac’s tiny-si

This one means a lot to me. Weeks after it became a regular series, Unsolved Mysteries aired a special Halloween episode. They’d only cop to it being an “all ghosts” special, but given its debut date — October 26th, 1988 — I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider it a

I never expected 2014 to top last year’s incredible Halloween season, but man… I think we’re coming close. I already feel like I’m drowning in awesome Halloween shit, and we’re not even halfway through September. …and if I was on the fence about this possibly becoming an

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This one was good for 1174. No, it’s not mine. I do not know these people. I bought the photo from someone on eBay of all places. It spoke to me in ways even my own photos rarely do. It’s from 1992, and it perfectly encapsulates

Hi, I’m Matt. Child’s Play fan. I was a late bloomer with horror, but Chucky was an exception. From Day One, I was on his side. Of the right age to clearly recognize him as a riff on Hasbro’s My Buddy dolls, I stupidly assumed that the Child’s Play franchise was at least partially

I took a break from the yard sales this week, wanting to try my luck at a flea market at least once before summer was over. I begged Jay to tag along so I wouldn’t have to haggle alone, and off we went to Englishtown, New Jersey. I’ve written about the Englishtown flea market before.

I now possess what I’m calling The Ultimate ‘80s Sticker Album. …but the truth is, it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong; as you’re about to see, it’s crazy awesome. But to say it’s the “ultimate” ‘80s sticker album is kind of fudging things. The real appeal of this book i

I’ve been dancing around this subject for years, referencing it in throwaway paragraphs that have done little to capture its supreme mega greatness. Today, finally, I’m going to give Dinosaurs Attack cards everything they’re owed. Dinosaurs Attack (formally styled with an exclamation

IMPORTANT: If you’re looking to subscribe to the Funpacks, this is an older post. Check out the new subscription page here! Dino Drac Funpacks are back! And this time, here to stay. At least for the foreseeable future. Here’s the deal. I’m coming into that stretch of the year whe

So after a month’s worth of pleasant experiences, I was finally reminded of why I stopped going to yard sales to begin with. I did find some nice things, but between the sellers and the buyers, every stop brought five new annoyances. Sellers were the big problem. I lost interest in yard

Another weekend spent shamelessly rummaging through strangers’ trash! We only went to a few yard sales this weekend, owing to a late start and temperatures that could melt steel. Even so, my luck held. This is the third time in a row that I found dusty gold on foreign front lawns. Side s

After my success at last week’s yard sales, I wondered if lightning would strike twice. It did! The gods of trash blessed me even harder this time, with cheap, geeky goods that I might have expected to find at yard sales 15-20 years ago. Much of this week’s haul came from a multi-famil

We went yard sailin’ on Saturday morning, and I think I hit the jackpot. (No, that’s not the jackpot.) I don’t go to yard sales as often as I did before everyone turned into a wannabe antique dealer. These days, you can barely buy paper plates without hearing about how they’re

I started searching for mixed lots years ago, when it was still common to find good deals on eBay. Generally speaking, mixed lots go hand in hand with sellers who have no clue what they have. When you catch something desirable in the spread, it's rarely mentioned in the auction title or de

Remember those book club flyers that we used to get in elementary school? I lived for those. Dinosaur books with ten words and fifty pictures! Sticker sheets starring ballerina bears that shouted various encouragements via word balloons! The errant Garfield bookmark! Most of the time, the

Refrigerators are private places. Intimate places. It’s hard to let strangers peek inside. I don’t want to be judged. I don’t want people to see Tupperwares full of sludge, and forever associate me with Tupperwares full of sludge. I don’t want people to know how much I like Lau

It’s been a long time since Dino Drac’s last Comic Book Ads review, and even longer since I dived into my specific favorite type of them: The tiny-sized ads that were all mashed together on the classifieds pages. That’s where the real treasures were! Fifty antique coins for a dollar

Was there such a thing as Ecto Cooler Twinkies? Well, NO, but bear with me. Old news: Ecto Cooler was the Slimer-fronted Hi-C flavor, made to capitalize on the popularity of The Real Ghostbusters. The flavor overachieved, and Slimer seemed to remain on those boxes even after his superstar

We spent New Year’s Eve in Atlantic City, with The Sexy Armpit’s Jay and his girlfriend Corinne. All I really remember is punching balloons and getting my ass handed to me at three card poker. And walking past some guy that I swore was Johnny Torrio from Boardwalk Empire, even if, in m

Back in 1998, I was definitely a collector. I’d been a collector for years by then, but you know how it is when you’re a careless kid and everything else goes to shit. You focus on your happy hobbies and pretend it’s okay to ignore everything else. In 1998, I was in DEEP.