Rest In Peace - Carl Weathers

As I was pulling into Swan Quarter on Friday, about to make the line for the ferry to Ocracoke, my wife gasped as she was looking at her phone.  I said "What?" She said "You're going to have to get a refund!" I ask "For what?" Then she said something I really wasn't expecting: "Carl Weathers died!"

For context, rewind to last month when my buddy Jesse was sitting on my couch nonchalantly going through the list of celebrity signers at March's GalaxyCon in Richmond. Jesse said Carl Weathers would be appearing at GalaxyCon and I stopped what I was doing. "For real? Carl Weathers is going to be there? We've got to go, man!"  I bought tickets to the event and a photo op for Weathers as quickly as I could.

Weathers was on the very short list of celebrities who I haven't had a chance to meet but wanted to at almost any price.

Growing up, I probably watched Rocky IV more than any other movie.  Probably more than Aliens (believe it or not) and any Friday the 13th.  Over the course of my life, I've made it clear with anyone who would listen about the things I'm into and the pop culture influences I've had.  Apollo Creed is my second favorite movie character (Vasquez from Aliens is number 1 of course) and when the 2015 Topps Allen and Ginter Rocky cards came out, I had visions of getting the Creed signed by Weathers at some point.  I tried sending to him TTM, but never got anything back, sadly.  When the signing came up, I was super excited. Then it was taken away.

Carl Weathers passed away in his sleep Thursay night or Friday morning.  He was 76.  He has been all over TV recently; being in the Kick of Destiny ads with Rob Gronkowski.  He appeared in all three seasons of The Mandalorian.  I'll always remember his as Apollo Creed.  The Ricky World Champion from thr Rocky franchise.  Rocky's nemesis, but not a villain.  He's the one who gives Rocky a shot.  By part 3, they become friends and share an iconic bromance hug in the beach training montage.

Then there's always Predator, another awesome 80s movie where Weathers is featured.  One of the best scenes "Dillon, you son of a bitch!" muscle handshake with Arnold even became a meme.

Chubbs Peterson steals the show in Happy Gilmore.  Also, who could forget that, according to Weathers in Arrested Development, if there's still meat on the bone, you got a hell of a stew, baby!

Bill Paxton and Chris Cornell were two celebrity deaths that shook me and affected me deeply.  Having the opportunity to meet Carl Weathers taken away hits hard.  By all accounts, he was a great guy and I know I missed out.  It sucks.  It is going to take me a long time to get over this one.  It may seem silly, but it does affect me.  A huge piece of my childhood is gone, along with a lot of others.  It's part of getting older and adjusting.

Thanks everyone for listening and reading.  I appreciate the opportunity to let that out a bit.

Rest in peace Carl Weathers. #BePeace.

Birthday Present to Myself - Rocky Set

Because of the amount of money that I spent at the National, I told my wife that she really didn't have to get me much of anything for my birthday.  On top of that, I really didn't want her to re-gift a bag of socks that I had bought myself and forgot about (long story) either, so I bought myself one thing that I had seen advertised on Topps.com.  When it arrived from Topps a week before my birthday, I had my wife wrap it up to give to me on my day.

This Rocky 40th Anniversary card set was being offered by Topps at a pretty decent price, so I picked it up.  I didn't pull one of the randomly inserted Sylvester Stallone autograph cards, but overall, I was really happy with the set.

The set features scenes from each Rocky movie from the original to Rocky Balboa.  They did not include anything from Creed.  That's ok, though, because they had plenty of Apollo to go around!!

COMC Pickup - Apollo Creed 1979 Rocky II Sticker

I was looking around on COMC on Black Friday, trying to find some unique cards to add to my collection, when I found this Apollo Creed sticker.  It comes from the 1979 Rocky II series.  Because Apollo is one of my favorite fictional characters, I figured I should go ahead and pick this up.

I'm not going to go for the series or anything, but it was just a cool thing to add to my cart before I checked out.  Aside from the 2015 Ginter cards, this was the only thing related to Apollo on there.

Yeah, it is a little silly, but still pretty cool.  Also, I think it only cost me $0.35, so that's not bad, either,

Also, if you haven't gone to see "Creed" yet, you really should!  We went and saw it Thanksgiving weekend, and it was so good.  They did a good job in continuing the Rocky universe.  Obviously, he has a part in it, but he doesn't overshadow the movie, as it isn't about him.  Seriously, go check it out!

Ebay Pickup - 2015 GInter X Apollo Creed

Talk about a sharp looking card.  When I saw that Topps was doing the online exclusive Ginter X cards (essentially, black parallels to the 2015 A&G set), I was really excited.  That meant I had another Apollo Creed card that I wanted to add to my card collection.

The print run on these cards is unspecified, but they are supposed to be short-printed somewhat.  I picked this card up off of Ebay for $3.00, so I don't feel like I did too bad.  Now that it is scanned, I am happy that I got it.  Man, it looks good.  Creed, albeit a fictional character, was someone I wanted to see on a Ginter card for a long tme.  Now that the folks at Topps hve read my mind, maybe we will see a Xenomorph card in the future.  Then some of my favorite movies will have graced that cardboard.

Rocky IV is probably second to Aliens for the title of "movie I watched most as a child" and it still is one of those films that I am obligate to stop on when I am flipping through my channel guide.  Since there is a new movie being added to the franchise this Thanksgiving, Creed, I am really excited.

I may go ahead and pick up all of the other Rocky characters from Ginter X, but I haven't decided if I will, yet.  I have the 5 cards from regular Ginter.  Picking up 4 more of these shouldn't prove too difficult.

Rocky Memorabilia at The National

One of the things that I enjoyed most about the National, aside from spending time with my friends looking at cards, was the huge amount of memorabilia that was available at the various booths for the auction houses.  Heritage Auctions had a lot o Rocky memorabilia that had been put up by Sylvester Stallone for auction.  Above, you can see the belt used in the Rocky movies, as well as photos, gloves, etc.

They had the ring robe for Ivan Drago, which I thought was really cool. Rocky IV is one of my most favorite movies, so seeing this stuff in person was so cool.

With Rocky IV being one of my favorite movies, Apollo Creed is one of my all-time favorite movie characters.  I always enjoy his entrance in Rocky IV, to James Brown's Living in America, so this Uncle Sam outfit was so awesome to see.

It is really cool that a new Rocky movie is going to be released in November.  It seems that Rocky stuff is all over, and is even in this year's Allen & Ginter.  I pulled Drago in a pack of Ginter before I left for the show.  I bought a box at the show, and busted it at the Topps booth in order to get the redemption packs.  In that box, I pulled Thunderlips (Hulk Hogan).  I went to a vendor who had a bunch of singles to pick up the rest of the cards in the series, Rocky, Clubber Lang, and obviously Apollo Creed.  I want to get a 5-card frame and post these on the wall.  I was really happy to get them all, and being at the National made it really east to pick up the ones that I needed.

So A-Rod doesn't want to play for team USA...

All i have to say is:

Here is a guy who SHOULD play for team USA...