…I closed my browser. Took a deep breath. Waited a minute, and then went back to work. I mean, seriously, I was going to drop $50 on the poster of a movie that I hadn’t even seen. Would it be one of my top 5 movies? Hell no! Would it be my favorite movie of the year? Uh huh. So there, I saved myself $50, and I felt proud of myself.<\/p>\n But then I began thinking about what\u00a0were\u00a0<\/em>my top 5 movies, and wondered how many of them did have Mondo posters. There was Tyler Stout’s\u00a0Kill Bill\u00a0<\/em>poster, which always struck me as a little too busy, too cluttered for my eyes. But it still had the nice grindhouse vibe to it. Too bad it was selling for upwards for 450$. Not my cup of tea at the moment. Then I remembered the Totoro poster, the one that got away. I was in Romania when the Mondo guys made the drop, sipping on a cup of rooibos and diligently clicking refresh on the page every few minutes. I was\u00a0determined\u00a0<\/em>to own that print at the cost price. But a colleague Skyped me about something important, and I headed out to respond to her without having to type a lot. I come back a minute later, and it was all over. My rooibos was not even cold, it was over\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>quick.<\/p>\n So I looked around a bit at the forums I hang out, and saw a bunch of Totoro prints for sale, at prices that lay somewhere between astronomical and batshit-insane. There was however a panic sale going on, and being the kind of ruthless low-baller that totally takes advantage of panicky merchants, I shot off a PM, asking him if he would accept my low-ball offer (which, come to think of it, was not\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>low-ball. It was the six-month average selling price for the piece. Thereabouts. Give or take a few tenners. Mostly take.) As it turns out, he did accept my offer, and I realized, with a silly grin on my face, that I had actually gotten one of my top 5 movies up on the wall of my future apartment. A definite improvement over\u00a0Looper<\/em>, I would say.<\/p>\n Then I sipped my coffee and flipped through my Facebook feeds, where an update about GTO: The Early Years\u00a0<\/em>made me pause. Apparently it was getting over with volume 15, out very soon indeed. Which made no sense, because I had always thought it was a 31-volume series. Hasty realization: the US reprints were oversized, covering two volumes’ worth of material in one. No wonder. This meant that I needed to get up to speed with the adventures of Onizuka before he became Onegai Sensei Onizuka as soon as I could. Not an easy task considering that the series had two publishers, one of whom went bankrupt and all its catalogue went out of print – that was Tokyopop, for those who came in late, who had brought 10 volumes of the series out last decade. Volume 8, in particular, was selling for 50$ and above in the secondary market. The others could be obtained second-hand, off Amazon sellers or eBay. Vertical publishing was coming out with the last 5 volumes of the series.<\/p>\n On an impulse, I looked up eBay, and hit a 20$ best-offer on a set of the first 4 volumes. The seller accepted within 5 minutes, and as soon as I completed payment, he changed status to “shipped”. That was…quick. The package got here 3 hours ago. Probably the fastest eBay shipping EVER.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/loopergoldarchive_thumb.jpg\" "\\"Looper")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/loopersilverarchive_thumb.jpg\" "\\"Looper")
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