[See the first day of NYCC here, and the second day here! A gallery of the experience can be found here.]

The third and final day of NYCC was set to be a final day of shopping, observing, and finally, a long-awaited performance by MC Chris at the Variant Stage, located at the rear of the Javits main floor. I’ve been an MC Chris fan since my college days, and his song ‘Fett’s Vette’ was something of a Dorm Room National Anthem for my roommate and I. Who wouldn’t love a well-paced rap about the perils of being Boba Fett?

It wasn’t long before I ran into a couple of booths selling Re-Ment miniatures, which are like the filet mignon of miniature, dollhouse-sized items. Re-Ment has produced countless sets of minis, with themes ranging from entertainment to food, to domestic items and gardens, and even into things as specific as ‘meals that you can get and certain Japanese train stations’ or ‘desserts of prefectures’. The specificity gets pretty intense. What makes these sets even more awesome is that each mystery box doesn’t contain just one item, but about a dozen tiny items relating to a theme. Spread out over a set of 10 different boxes, it usually adds up to about 100 unique miniatures, all created in an unusual theme. A ‘Fun Meals’ waffle set will include an articulated waffle iron, a waffle that will fit into the iron, two kinds of berries (and their containers), syrup, a stack of decorated waffles, and a plate. All this for $5.

I was enamored with the idea of taking photographs using these detailed miniatures, so I bought way more than I should have. Would my Aquaman action figure sit down at a perfectly-sized sushi meal? We’d find out soon! Dollhouse enthusiasts, look up Re-Ment! Thanks to Hammen Home for being an awesome booth, too - they had a swell selection of goods.

I also found my way around to the DC Direct and Hasbro booths, who both had a few new figures on display. Most notably, DC Direct had a second set of New Gods figures on display - a series that I’ve been excited about since their debut at Toy Fair. As a Jack Kirby fan, I’m all about the New Gods and any sculptural items that try to capture his kinetic art style. This second series will include a Kirby-styled Superman, Kalibak, Metron, and an exceptional Big Barda (pictured at left) - a figure that just needed to be made. We’ve been seriously shorted on Bardas for years now.

DC Direct also debuted their figures from the upcoming Watchmen movie, which seem pretty okay. Of course, it’s hard to get excited when we’ve been waiting for comic-accurate Watchmen figures for a decade or so. Comic-accurate and movie-accurate are two completely separate things to toy collectors - it’s not enough to have the ‘movie’ Spider-Man, with the raised silver webbing details on the costume. No, we need a Spidey with flat, black webbing, a skinny spider logo on the front, and a fat spider logo on the back. I can only assume that Spider-Man’s back-logo is an engorged tick. Gross, Spidey.

We also got to see DC Direct’s 13” Black Canary for the first time, as well as a 13” Sinestro. Unfortunately, the Sinestro has been dressed in his ‘modern’ outfit, and not the ridiculous purple-frilled-collar outfit of yore. No costume variants have been announced, but I’d still like to see a classic version. After the recent release of DC’s 13” Green Arrow, reports of breakage have been almost universal, so while the 13” line seems steady for now, such a high-end line (at $70 per figure) runs the risk of collector disinterest if quality control isn’t improved.

Hasbro had a mess of Marvel Legends figures on display. Given their lack of comic-specific Marvel stuff at Toy Fair, the sudden inundation of Marvel Legends stuff was a bit overwhelming. On display was a Target Exclusive wave of Legends, which will include Spiral, Black Spider-Man, Red Hulk, Silver Savage, the notable Adam Warlock and more. A few new 2-packs were on display, including some much-desired army builders, consisting of classic Nick Fury & a SHIELD Agent, as well as a 2-pack of Hand Ninjas. Give the recent Elektra battle in New Avengers, in which thousands of Hand Ninjas populated every panel, I think that these will be bought up quickly and in vast amounts. Completists, note that an exclusive Sunfire figure is available only from HasbroToyShop.com.

Odd additions to the Iron Man and Hulk movie lines include an Iron Man in Captain America colors, which references some promotional art from the comics’ Civil War storyline, and a Bi-Beast Hulk figure - a creature that will not appear in the Hulk movie, but the video game.

We also stopped by the controversial Shocker Toys booth and saw their new sculpt of The Tick, which actually looks pretty great. I’m eagerly anticipating seeing their first line of Indie Spotlight figures, which should be appearing any day now. Really. Any day. (I love you guys!) Other figures from Wave 2 will include Dick Tracy and Ignacia (from the comic WildGuard).

Shawn Smith’s ‘Shawnimals’ art-toy booth played with the idea of customizable toys and was selling a blank plush form, appropriately called ‘Plushform’, which was stuffed and could be decorated with any number of materials. A variety of artists had contributed designs to Shawn’s display, and it inspired me to pick up one to make for myself. I’ve been back into customizing toys lately, after Mimoco generously donated a case of blank Vimobots to my art class so that I could share the joys of toys with my students.

At this point, we were all pretty shopped out and my ATM card was had decided to forbid me from spending anymore, so we retreated to the folding chairs by the aforementioned Variant Stage and waited for MC Chris to appear. We happened to sit down in the middle of a demonstration by the NY Jedi Academy, who were stage-fighting with plastic lightsabers, dressed in full pseudo-Jedi regalia. You’d think that as a Star Wars nerd, I’d be kinda excited to see such a full-on Jedi experience, but you’d be very wrong. I appreciate the desire to live within a fantasy world, because heck, even in the most desolate, scary fantasy world, gas is probably cheaper, but the NY Jedi Society didn’t do it for me. I can even appreciate stage fighting - I dated a beautiful, toned stage-fighter and learned plenty about the artistry of it. Glowy, plastic swords slapping together didn’t equate to the visceral fantasy glory of clashing metal.

Each ‘Jedi’ had assumed a persona that spanned many fantasy worlds, and the ‘main Jedi’ guy was dressed as a Predator. There were Dr. Who Jedi, a Green Lantern Jedi, and even a Star Trek Jedi. Pick a team, guys. Everyone knows that as a Green Lantern Jedi, you’d have to answer to both the Jedi Council and the Guardians of Oa, and there just isn’t enough time in the day! Jeez. When the stage was opened to Q&A, most of the questions were to the tune of ‘Why didn’t you pick REAL Jedi, you dorks?’. The Jedis weren’t to thrilled and some responded with suitable petulance. It was like being at a Renaissance Festival and seeing that the Elven Barmaid has a tattoo that said ‘Thug Life’ across her knuckles. Things just didn’t fit.

We stayed seated because the schedule of events promised an appearance by Fat Momma and Major Victory from ‘Who Wants to be a Superhero?’, but the schedule of events was a liar. Fat Momma made an awkward appearance on stage, spouted a Miss South Carolina-styled speech on self-confidence which vacillated strangely between ‘not telling adults when you’re bullied’ to ‘eat healthy but being overweight is okay too’ - all while wearing doughnuts on her belt. I couldn’t make sense of it, and before long, a line of little kids was on stage, reciting the Fat Momma Song into the mic, until the whole presentation kinda trailed off into a pit of awkwardness from which no one will ever recover. Major Victory, my personal hero, never appeared. He could have saved the day.

MC Chris finally took the stage, hilarious and charismatic, even though sound and mic troubles that never seemed to get fixed. After two songs (one of them entirely about Reese’s Pieces), he sat down with a moderator for a few minutes and continued to riff on our nerd culture, finally ending out the show with Fett’s Vette, all while two Slave Leias performed an impromptu dance with each other at the edge of the stage (which even prompted MC Chris distractedly to stop in the middle of the song and declare, “that’s ridiculous!”) Indeed, it’s hard not to notice when the entire audience is no longer looking in your direction, but toward something just offstage. The show was worth the hours-long wait, even if some socially inept nerds decided to stand up right in front of me as the final song started.

Overall, NYCC was pretty awesome, and still an improvement over previous years in scope and organization. I would have liked to attend more panels, but waiting on lines and finding out that they weren’t lines at all delayed attendance at too many events, and could have been avoided by an informed crowd control staff or some velvet ropes between things. It’s a Con that’s finding its feet, but I came away inspired by meeting and listening to the people I admire. I’ve been drawing and painting feverishly all week, I bought some neat stuff, I got the heck outta the house, and I added to my bank of neat experiences without getting too violently annoyed. Really, what more can I ask for from any weekend?

Looking forward to next year.

Our local newspaper, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, publishes a syndicated column titled Mr. Music by Jerry Osborne. It’s one of the question – answer type articles that I find entertaining and informative.

While not an ardent music collector, we do have Edison to vinyl to tape and disc formats and a working Victrola in our Deco room.

One item caught my attention in the last edition of Mr. Osborne’s insiteful column,  included a question about the lyrics of the Pat Boone song “Speedy Gonzalez”.   Speedy said: “Hey Rosita, Come Quick!  Down At The Cantina They’re Giving Green Stamps With Tequila.”

The questioner had no idea what green stamps were. Well I’m old enough to remember the saver stamp craze.

Today we receive “Rewards, Points, Miles”, or what have you, for inducements to use the same service, product or credit card over and over. They are recorded and presented on our screens or monthly printouts in snail mail from a host of companies.

This concept is not new folks, and what Pat Boone was wailing on about in that 1962 recording was trading stamps from Sperry & Hutchinson, known as S&H Green Stamps or more commonly just Green Stamps.

Started in 1896, the trading stamp craze reached its peak in the 1960s, when all sorts of stores and services offered stamps from a slew of vendors.  A set number of stamps were dispensed based on the dollar amount of your purchase with slow sales days titled Double Stamp Day. Local gasoline companies offered their own stamps, such as Super America and Clark Oil Co.

Top Value (TV) stamps were common as well as Gold Bond and I remember 3 Star stamps also.

I have stamps from a local Dutchland Dairy Store and The Boston Store.

The National Tea had the S&H books with their own advertising on back.

The Plaid Stamps evoked the thriftiness of the Scotch.

Redemption centers for the stamps could be found in cities around the country and in its hay day, the merchandise catalog from S&H was the largest catalog of any type printed. Wisconsin law did not allow residents to redeem the stamps for anything but cash, so a Sunday drive was needed to visit our closest location in Waukegan, Illinois.

The range of goods offered was truly stunning but much of the super high end items were most likely just for show, while the average redeemer received a cooking pan, Nesco, set of bar glasses, ice bucket or knife set.

Today collectors like the oldest and most obscure examples of these stamp books and it helps to have a rubber stamp imprint on back, placing the book with a special local merchant, as the stamps and books, especially the green ones, were distributed in quantities to rival movie tie-in giveaways from a fast food chain, and are often found when digging for treasure at an estate sale.

As advertising collectibles the counter signs and larger metal or plastic outdoor signs are often available at flea markets and antique malls with pricing all over the board, but with any outdoor advertising, color fade and damage affects the pricing.

Lastly, a rememberance from the past.  As a young’un, it was my ”reward” to lick and paste the stamps in the redemption books, Yuk, double YUK.

Yesterday, the Wifey and I had a couple sawbucks in our pockets and decided to go hit the thrift shops and antique stores. At the Moorhead Antique Mall, one of our favorite ratting-around stops, we found a booth with an appropriately-labeled “junk box” — everything inside $5 or less. It was, of course, mostly junky things, small stuff that didn’t deserve being locked up in the glass cabinets. One of the items in the box is pictured to the right: a small baggie, about 4″ x 7″, labeled “Bag of misc pictures $4.00“. “Misc Pictures”? I’m all over that like stink on our terrier (but that’s another story). In the end, of course, $4 was just the tip of the iceberg, but the mystery of a little sealed baggie of photos is worth sharing.

From the outside, the only really recognizable thing is a photo of a large, art deco style building identified by the huge “FORD” sign over the doorway. The Ford building is the top of a stack of a bunch — 20 to 30 — of small 1-½”x3″ photos. Underneath them are several larger, odd-sized photos, and stuck in the middle are some loose color-printed paper. We’ll start at the top.

The Ford building is one of the many buildings build for the Texas Centennial Exposition — the size and format of the pictures would indicate that these were purchased as a souvenir set, and probably would have originally had a custom sleeve to hold them. The corners of these pictures have glued paper remnants, indicating that the owner had probably moved the pictures from the sleeve to a scrapbook. If you want a better look at these pictures, I’ve uploaded some of them as a collection here at CQ.

Right underneath them, the color paper confirms the origin of these photos — here we have a ticket stub from the expo, and a tourist pamphlet. The ticket is beautiful, and the missing corner is a disappointment; I wonder if that’s how it was canceled, or if something important was there to identify the owner, but whatever it was it is sorely missed. The rest of the ticket is far from disappointing; the bright, vivid colors are excellent, showing banner carriers from the six flags that have flown over Texas in its colorful history. The pamphlet is cool, but is a little short on information — I’d have loved to have found a map, but, ah, well, I’ll just have to be satisfied that I now have a pretty full dossier on the Texas Centennial, all spilled from this little baggie.

There were a few things left in the bag, and these are my favorite: actual, person- photographed pictures that appear to be from the same time. The provenance would indicate that some antique dealer pulled these all from the same scrapbook, so while there’s no real proof they were taken any time around the Exposition, it’d be a reasonable guess to make. What especially appeals to me are the natural settings, not posed portraiture that dominates so many photo albums. These are, by far, the more valuable part of the baggie’s contents. My favorite? The Radium Spa photo to the left. When on your way to the Texas Expo, be sure to soak in irradiated water! The rest of the photos can be found in the Community as well.

So, was it worth the $4? Most definitely — although nothing was earth- shatteringly cool, the fun of figuring out what was in a mystery bag beats anything else I could do for $4, and I was happy to see that the photos fit into the rest of my photo collection.

In October 1883, Theodore Presser began publishing The Etude, a magazine of music for experts and students. Presser had studied music and led university department for years, but wished to spread the love and understanding of music beyond the conservatory and university. With $250, Presser started publishing his music magazine and almost immediately had to expand to larger facilities to keep up with the demand.

The Etude was published into the 1960s, and reflected the times it spanned. The earlier issues were primairly classically-focused, but as tastes and technology changed, Presser’s magazine evolved to include jazz, ragtime, modern composers, and encompass new technologies from the phonograph to radio to television. This progression is what appeals most to a non-musician like myself. While I wouldn’t pass up a copy of Radio Guide and its articles on performers and music, The Etude has always seemed a bit more stuffy and mechanical. While The Etude does include a good amount of training and technique, the magazines are usually quite readable. There are often articles on the quality of music itself, profiles on the lives of composers and performers, and stories about how instruments are made or advents in new technology as it applies to music. There’s a surprising amount of overlap between The Etudes of the 1930s and Radio Guides from the 1930s — their focus may be different, but record collectors like myself won’t be disappointed by the articles of this period.

An obvious crossover are the sheet-music collectors; while much of the appeal of sheet-music tends to be the cover art, amateur and professional musicians alike do collect sheet-music for the songs within. Each The Etude usually has 5 to 10 pages of sheet music inside, arranged piano. The amount of music sadly declines in later years. Each issue usually has several short tunes in a variety of genres; these genres change as time passes, but largely remain classical, or at least ‘music-schooly’ in that the 1950s issues don’t include Frank Sinatra tunes.

Another of my favorite part of these magazines are the advertisements — ads for player pianos, music schools, and girdles figure prominently in early The Etude, with radios and phonographs picking up prominence through the 1920s and 30s, then to tape recorders, amplifiers, and electric organs into the 1950s and beyond. The interior pages, sadly, were largely black-and-white, although the outside back cover was usually in color. The Etude’s covers changed in style as well over the years — in the beginning, each issue was page-numbered by volume, but this practice diminished by the 1920s and the magazine began to look more like a modern magazine. Earlier magazines measured 13-1/2″ x 10-1/2″ but in the early 1940s the format changed to a sheet-music-like 9-1/2″ x 12″. In my opinion, the cover art through the 1930s was the best of the magazine; after the smaller format change, covers were still creative, but by the 1950s covers seemed to use more clip-art, photos, and classic paintings. Before the 1920s, only the January issue had a cover, as the rest of the year was expected to be bound into a single edition.

Having all the resources of a publisher, Presser began to release sheetmusic, which, of course, had prime advertising placement in The Etude; The Theodore Presser Company he founded still exists today, continuing to publish the music of new and classic composers. The Etude may not be still published, but so many issues were sent out to schools, independent music teachers, and music afficianados, they are quite common at auctions and estate sales. Whether you are a musician, or just a dedicated listener, you shouldn’t pass up a pile of The Etude: you’ll probably find something more interesting than you think.

After spending a whole day shopping at NYCC, I decided that I wanted to experience the full Comic Con Experience, which meant attending events that weren’t on the main floor (as well at eating from vending machines and getting smacked across the face with a backpack full of hardcover comics). Luckily, Saturday had a numbed of panels in isolated meeting rooms.

[ Example of a panel ]

If you’ve never been to a ‘panel’, here’s how it goes : a handful of professionally related people sit at a long table with microphones and bottles of water. In a small meeting room, you might get squished into a folding chair in between a couple of larger gentlemen with breathing problems. If you end up in a theater, you’d be pretty lucky to get a seat where you could still see the stage without a telescope. The assembled professionals talk about an aspect of their trade or craft, and the audience asks questions. This lasts for about 30 minutes, or until the room gets hot and sweaty, and everyone squeezes out when it’s all over. Being given new and exclusive information is not an unpleasant experience, but the ‘panel’ is almost always a static, stilted presentation, with rare exceptions. PowerPoint never helps anything, guys, unless you’re trying to sap my will to live.

On today’s schedule was ‘DC and Mattel’ (a discussion of the ongoing line of DC Universe Classics action figures), a discussion with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, a panel featuring talent from Hellboy II, and a panel with the creators and voice actors from The Venture Bros. - my favorite cartoon of all time. Fortunately, and against all odds and disorganization, I made it into all four events, but not without a great deal of trouble and uncertainty.

The ‘DC and Mattel’ panel was held in the aforementioned hot, unventilated little room and featured members of DC marketing team, a few members of the popular sculpting team of The Four Horsemen, and a brand manager for DC Comics. The assembled crowd was given a PowerPoint presentation that featured lists and images of some of the upcoming DCUC and JLU figures, each ‘new’ item being greeted with the suitable ‘ooh!’ and ‘aah!’, or silence if the pictured item was a re-paint or re-release of something else.

We were informed that the JLU line (seen here in our gallery) has shifted from a kid-centric line towards being a collectors’ line, and as such, it would begin to feature characters that were never actually IN the show but are popular with fans anyhow. The line would also be sold exclusively at Target. Upcoming JLU figures include a great Jack Kirby-inspired ‘New Gods’ box set of six that will include characters like Forager and Lashina. Also new will be a classic Batman (in his blues and greys), Galatea (essentially, Power Girl in cartoon form), Captain Atom, a re-release of the rare Gorilla Grodd, and a San Diego Comic Con exclusive Giganta - in both ‘normal sized’ and ‘enormous’ forms. As someone who’s still seeking a few rare figures (and finding them, years after release, due to strange distribution), this was exciting stuff.

Mattel also revealed details about upcoming DCUC figures (also pictured here), which include Batman Beyond, Captain Atom (in two variants), and amazingly huge Ares, and a collect-and-connect Despero. Wonder Woman (from Wave 4) will have an Artemis variant, and there will also be a Wal-Mart exclusive wave, which will include Amazo, The Atom, The Riddler, Black Lightning, Eradicator Superman, and a collect-and-connect Brainiac. Anyone who’s collected toys for a while will shudder at the very mention of anything being exclusive to Wal-Mart, because ‘Wal-Mart Exclusive’ equates to ‘impossible to find and expensive on eBay’ - but Mattel assured the crowd that the wave will ship consistently throughout the year, alongside regular figures. Toys ‘R’ Us will also be getting an exclusive 2-pack of Lightray and an unmasked Orion, as well as a 2-pack of some Batman re-releases. We were also shown a glimpse of Hawkman.

The biggest news, however, is the release of a SDCC Exclusive Lobo. Now, Lobo is a fun character with a hilariously ultra-violent background. Because of this, DC avoids making toys of him at almost any cost, because they just don’t want to present the character to children if they can help it. Because the SDCC environment isn’t general retail, and assumed to be a mostly-collector event, Lobo will be sold there and only there. However, once the NY crowd collectively moaned and frothed at the Mattel brand manager, he promised to make the figure available online also.

Questions were fielded regarding this character or that character, and they were all answered openly and honestly. One thing that did surprise me was the tone of the complaining about not getting figures in NY as quickly as our West Coast brethren - an observation which showed a complete ignorance about how toys are distributed in the US. Most toys come in at California ports, and over the course of a few weeks, dependent almost entirely upon the distribution system of any given retailer, they make their way around, leaving Mattel with little say on what is sent where and in what quantity. To complain to Mattel is a fruitless activity, unless you’re asking them to just make more toys - and even still, the retailers need to order them. For a few minutes, it was like sitting in a whiny message board, and it was uncomfortable.

The second panel I sat in on was a discussion with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, who wasn’t given anything but a chair and a table. No moderator, no preface - just a guy open questions and answers. Despite the lack of preparedness on the part of NYCC, Mignola sailed through the questions in good time and gave great, casual answers regarding his many projects, inspirations and aspirations. He wanted to break into comics, he started inking things (poorly, by his own admission), and eventually decided that drawing monsters fighting was his true calling - and he never looked back. It really didn’t get more complex than that, and it didn’t need to be. Oh, and using lots of dark shadows on things meant that the comic’s colorist couldn’t screw it up too badly.

I arrived at the Hellboy II cast panel an hour early. As it turned out, the Lucasfilm panel was running 30 minutes late, so the insanely huge crowd of a line waiting outside of the IGN Theater didn’t even really know what they were waiting for, and no one seemed to be able to tell them. This was exacerbated by the fact that the only crowd control was volunteer teenagers in yellow shirts, none of whom could give an answer consistent with the guy standing next to them. I waited on the line for about 45 minutes before I was told that it wasn’t for Hellboy after all (even though it was scheduled to start), and that I wasn’t allowed to wait on ANY lines until 2 PM. Despite this, Hellboy fans started their own impromptu line off to the side, while we all joked and debated as to whether our line was an official line or if we’d again be dispersed by the angry grey-haired guy. I was chatted up by an anime geek while I mostly shrugged and indicated that I had no idea what he was talking about, but wrote down a few ‘suggested watching’ titles anyhow. We eventually wound our way in, sat through a few scenes of the upcoming action movie ‘Wanted’ and enjoyed a short talk with the Russian director - who seemed totally bewildered at the crowd.

The Hellboy panel, presented immediately afterwards, included director Guillermo DelToro, Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, Selma Blair and Mike Mignola, along with newcomer Luke Goss. After an extended trailer, the lights returned and the stage was filled with creatures from HBII, delighting and shocking the whole audience. After this, the audience lined up to ask questions - most of them directed at DelToro. In fact, I don’t recall Selma Blair or Luke Goss (who actually appears in both Hellboy and Wanted) saying a word during their entire stay on stage - with DelToro vibrantly and amicably (and crassly) responding to every inquiry. He expounded on his feelings as an independent director versus being a director working for a major company - and while the big bucks reside in major motion pictures, he likened it to trying to draw a picture while a dozen hands are holding your pencil. He gave out his personal e-mail address in a search for artists and interns, which I quickly wrote down and began to do sketches for. I’m far more enamored with creators than with celebrity, but it would have been nice to get a few more words out of the actors regarding how they felt about the filming process. Perhaps the most interesting revelation was that the voice of new movie creature Johann was to be provided by Seth MacFarlane - creator and talented voice actor from Family Guy.

The Hellboy monsters were going to stick around for photographs, and a limited edition poster was to be given out, but I bolted out of the theater to make it to the Venture Bros. panel on time. I was very surprised to encounter another ridiculously long line that wrapped around the small events hall. Everyone expressed doubts about the size of the line being able to actually make it inside, but after a quick room change and a couple of crowbars to squeeze everyone in (along with irate people from another mysterious line that also ostensibly led inside yelling at organizers), we managed to get a seat in the back of the room, right next to a curly-headed guy who was making every every to not fall asleep on my shoulder. And failing.

The Venture panel consisted of a few scenes from the upcoming Season Three, followed by a conversation with Doc Hammer, James Urbaniak, Michael Sinterniklaas and Jackson Publick. While it mostly consisted of in-talking and a debate about whether one would rather lose a toe or a finger (given the choice), I found the behind-the-scenes personalities very interesting. A couple dressed as The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend asked Doc Hammer to perform their marriage ceremony, and the panel launched into a hilarious and philosophical discussion about the souls of clones. Everyone associated with the show was really amicable, and even gave out prizes for excellent questions or costumes - though the prizes only consisted of really bad DVDs.

The effect of most of the panels was to come away inspired to create things, which is the most that I can ask from anything. There was still one day left, and I was going to round it out with a bit of everything.