Recent (ish) Pick-ups! - (Part 3)

Okay! It's finally time for the last lot of recent-ish pick-ups to show you lot! Lots more readables in this batch, as that seems to be what I've been doing a lot of these last few months...

First up is the book I was searching for for years and mentioned in this blog post last year.... 

Yeah, I got my Giant Book of Fantastic Facts! It might not be the right cover on the front of the book, but inside is identical to the one I had as a kid. It's been great re-reading the stuff that isn't included in the random scraps of the original I still had after all these years, so thanks again to Tom over at Garage Sale Finds for putting me on the right path to be able to find it! Here's a couple more pics from inside...

After scouring a few charity shops, I found these three games for the Playstation 2....

Thrillville - Off The Rails is a theme-park-simulator, reminiscent of Theme Park itself...but this has a selection of mini-games to play when you visit the rides! And all the management stuff obviously...quite good fun it is too! Outrun 2006 - Coast 2 Coast is the semi-sequel to the rather groovy Outrun 2 and is filled with loads of drifty-driving wonderfulness. As is the rather more tricky, and less arcadey, WRC 3....I always love a good rally game! All of these only cost me a couple of quid each!

Next up in the book pick-ups is something I found lying slightly hidden behind other stuff on a shelf in a random charity shop. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but then I picked it up and realised I had to buy it...

Yup! It's a behind-the-scenes book of the 1979 Ridley Scott classic Alien. It's filled with loads of interviews with Scott,  H.R.Giger, and other people involved and has lots of pictures...best of all though are the oodles and oodles of design doodles! A great find for about 3 quid! 

Just along the road from where I found that book, there's another charity shop that's usually good for PS2 games and the like. I never usually look at the very back of the shop, as it's filled with clothes and stuff and things I'm not really interested in...One day though, I was leaving after not finding much in the way of games, when something on a bottom shelf at the back caught my eye.....

Looking closer, I discovered about 70 issues of Eagle comic from the early 80s, all bundled up in one big pile with string! A note on top said "Not to be sold seperately" and had a 20 quid price tag....but that was scored out, and there was a squiggle that looked like it meant I would get the lot for a tenner! Sure enough, that's what I paid for them, and the pile included the first 25 issues...then a few issues are randomly missing between the rest, but yeah...pretty much the first 70 issues of the 'new' Eagle's run!

There's a lot of cool adverts and stories inside these comics that set off all kinds of nostalgia bombs in my brain, so I'll save some scans from these for later blog posts...so keep an eye out!

More games now...this time on the Xbox 360!

Legendary has one of the most frantic action-openings I've seen in a game for a long time, with bad craziness happening all over the place...but then it calms down a bit into a fairly-decent-but-not-that-special FPS....Call of Duty - MW3 I haven't really played yet as I'm still playing through 2, but we know what to expect from that....and Wolfenstein - The New Order seems like another pretty damn good shooter, but what I've played so far I've found really tricky, so an easier setting might be in order! Hmmmm....Seem to be finding a lot of games tricky lately...maybe I'm getting to old! *shudders* Yipe!

Yeah, definitely getting old...because I found this in Poundland and bought it to see how much I could remember from watching it on TV!

Thankfully, I'm not that old..because I barely remember any of it! Still, that means I get to enjoy it like its new! This is from their later stuff and it has a couple of episodes with interesting commentaries from the Goodies themselves....

Not games next, but game-type things! Strategy Guides!

The GTA San Andreas one still has the maps, and that and the Halo 2 one cost me a couple of quid each..again from random charity shops! 

And another lucky find produced this massive pile of old issues of Fortean Times...50p each!

If you don't know what Fortean Times is, then you really should (click this link)....it's basically a monthly magazine that covers all the weird news happening around the world, and includes articles about paranormal stuff like ghosts, UFOs, bizzare happenings, etc. and other stuff  like conspiracies, cults, crazes and the like. 

A lot of people think it promotes all of this stuff as being 100% genuine, but it's actually pretty well balanced and looks at evidence and possible solutions to such events. Basically it keeps an open mind and doesn't really preach one way or another....in their own words the magazine "maintains a position of benevolent scepticism towards both the orthodox and the unorthodox" and "toes no party line"...Anyway,  go check it out...you can find it at most newsagents and randomly dotted around the infinite other universes....

The last couple of pick-ups can be put together as one, even though there was a gap of a couple of months between me finding them! Both were yet again found in charity shops, both cost me about 2 quid each and both are filled with an amazing level of seventies-ness!

These Puffin Annuals are filled with stories from authors and illustrators who have their books published by Puffin, and articles about various different things (for instance, Yehudi Menuhin and Prince Charles' favourite paintings) and games to play, stuff to make, etc. Grand reads that I'm as pleased to own now as I would have been as a kid!

So there you go...quite a few bargains, eh!? Now my flat is filled with even more stuff! Once I accumulate enough to fill another post, I'll update you with what I find. 

Feel free to let me know of any amazing things you've found by posting in the comments, and if you traipse round charity shops, flea markets, garage or car boot sales, jumble sales, etc yourselves, then happy hunting!

 Just remember to try to leave some stuff for me to find for next time! ;-)