Willy Wonka Collectible Cards

One of the great things about wearing your fandoms on your sleeve is that your friends tend to remember your loves when they happen to come across them in their regular lives. I remember an old girlfriend’s mother browsing a cookie store (in Vegas of all places) and, seeing a tin with the Wizard of Oz on it, remembered my obsession with the Judy Garland classic and brought it home for me!

In that same way, a friend of mine was taking his young daughter to the Shopping Mall’s Fun Factory to play games and ride rides. There was a ticket crane-type game where you could snatch up these hard plastic cards of characters from the 1971 Gene Wilder movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory:

After grabbing a few and seeing how nice they were, remembered, “Hey, Z was a really big fan of that Willy Wonka movie…bet he would LOVE these!”He then managed to get ahold of all 10 of the collectible cards and handed the whole deck over to me this past weekend, all bundled up with a rubber band.

MAN, these are some really beautiful cards! Not mere paper, they’re hard like credit cards and glossy. From what he said, you’re supposed to redeem these cards for ticket prizes but many opted to keep ’n’ collect ‘em instead!

Whooohoo, I sure lucked out! I’m the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted…and I lived happily ever after! LOLOL!

An Amazing Sci-Fi Series: BODIES

 Whoa, don't know HOW this amazing series flew under my radar, but the NETFLIX series BODIES grabbed my interest from the set-up alone, and kept me guessing and on my toes throughout its entire run!

Stephen Graham as the mysterious Mannix

A mysterious dead body appears in the same alleyway across FOUR different timelines, and it's up to four different detectives from each respective era to figure out who the person is ...and the greater underlying mystery beneath!

Amaka Okafor as DS Shahara Hasan (present day)

Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as DS Karl 'Charles Whiteman' Weissman (1941)

Kyle Soller as DI Alfred Hillinghead (1890)

Shira Haas as DC Iris Maplewood (2053)

Everyone excels in their roles, but for me, the show's scene stealer has to be actress Shira Hass in the role of futuristic law enforcer...simply stunning from her first introduction and most compelling character-wise as well!

True, the fact that her "arc" is in the future gives the writers more to work with, it's the human side of her that's most interesting: the support of a "big brother" system to ensure peaceful existence, or the unruly nature of free will. 

Wish they dedicated even MORE time for her, though there IS some buzz about a second season happening, Not sure I want that as the story ends so satisfyingly, but I would love a deeper look into the characters themselves!