Of Ramen Bowls and Detours

 Welcome My Friends,

Well we've come to the last post of the year, possibly, actually may finish with a Thrifty Geek Library New Years Eve Wrap-Up post, but don't hold me to it! We had a good holiday this year, except a minor issue of our truck battery dying and making us all late, but it was still good. I hope everyone's holiday was well.

I'm going to back up to five days before Christmas, due to  my therapy appointment, Amber and I decided to go and hang out in Asheville that day afterwards. This was my first official in person visit since the start of the pandemic. It was okay, not bad, not stellar, and the usual getting a little annoyed with my therapist.  After my session we headed out in search of lunch and ways to wash off therapy.

Itto Ramen Bar and Tapas

Fangirl has been wanting to go to this Ramen Bar on Haywood Street for a while, well Tuesday was the day we finally went. It was a lovely restaurant, the waiter was good about coming to check on us, and I like there was a window where you could see the food being prepared. I guess it's because of the book I've been writing about a restaurant, but I've been finding being able to see into the kitchen a cool thing. The menu was on the place mats, and filled with a nice selection of ramen and tapas. We started with appetizers of Takoyaki balls, which we were happy to see offered. 

 

For the uninitiated we also call them octopus balls. They are these deep fried balls that have chopped octopus in it, and these also contain seaweed powder and brown rice flour, their capped off with bonito flakes. These came out nice and hot. These large balls had some great flavors to savor, I  savored them so much I was eating the left over bonito flakes because it was so good. I will say those flakes are hard to pick up with chopsticks, to think I use to pick up M&M's with ease with chopsticks.

For our main course we each got a ramen bowl Fangirl went tithe the Itto Seafood Ramen:

This dish contains their original broth, fresh ramen, grilled shrimp, fish cakes, crab stick, scallions, and a seasoned boiled egg. 

I went with the Itto Deluxe Ramen, because I'm so deluxe. *laughs*

This delectable bowl has the same broth, noodles, scallions and egg like the previous dish, but this one contains black garlic oil in the broth, chashu pork, and bamboo shoots. This was so delicious, best ramen I've had. You have to keep in mind the only ramen I've had before this was the little packets you find in grocery stores, which is good, but this was epic. This was also my first time having bamboo shoost, they were so good, they really absorb those glorious flavors.

Now they do offer forks for the chopstick challenged, but I wanted to give eating noodles a go despite being given a fork. I managed to splatter my shirt, which had the upside of me smelling like my awesome lunch, downside I was hungry all day. Luckily this broth makes two servings, and we had some take out for later, this still tasted great reheated for my supper, I just got to remember next time to leave some pork and some more bamboo shoots so I can have a fuller experience with my second meal.

Retail Therapy and Detours

Down the road from Itto's was Morgan's Comics, which you know we love them here. So I made a few purchases here. One was the Wonder Woman: Come Back to Me Comic. 

I've yet to read it since I was caught up in the holiday and all. My second find is one I've been trying to find for a few months since I noticed they had a stack of Magic the Gathering single cards for sale. 

Now I don't know much about what are good cards or rare, except maybe Black Lotus, is that even right, but the reason I searched months through this stack wasn't for the rarity, it was the artist. This card was done by Pete Venters, who is the husband of the Lady of the Manners of the Gothic Charm School. I love this blog and follow her on Tumblr and Instagram.  I'm not Goth, but I have Gothy Tendencies. I don't know if there's a title for what I am in the Goth community, but some of my interests align with Goth interests. I've been looking through these cards a little at the time searching for it and I have been victorious!

So from there we decided to hit up Comic Envy, though the journey wasn't so smooth getting there. Fangirl missed the exit and then thought she was on the right street to get to Merrimon Avenue, this lead us to a lot of side streets and neighborhoods in and around Downtown Asheville. Upside I saw some sides of Asheville I don't often see, like one person's yard that had an archway filled with wind chimes, I also discovered the location of Chicken Alley.

It's a haunted alley with amazing murals including this chicken one by artist Molly Musk. I'd always been drawn to it's art that I'd see online, but on the local news one Halloween they had a segment about the ghost, which you can read about in the above link. This made it even more interesting.

We eventually made it to Comic Envy and perused the store. I didn't find any comic offerings to tempt me, but I did internally squee over the Grogu figures and this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Gift Box with apron and cookbook inside.

We then invaded the Asheville Mall where we ogled the the fandom things at Hot Topic and Box Lunch while their scanners went wonky. Fangirl had a blow to her wallet. She's been really getting into One Piece an she saw a large Luffy plushie at Hot Topic that she bought, then a grab bag themed around the show. Upon opening the bag she found a smaller plushie that was practically like the bigger one, if she'd only known. 

After that we hit up one of the local Asian Markets, so Fangirl could stock up on her snack food. I think I need to save a little money to get me some snacks, I love Pocky and Red Bean Moochi, it'd be nice to have in addition to my regular snacks. We then went to the big Goodwill in Asheville. I made a couple holiday purchases there.

I heard from some customers there was the possibilty of snow that night, I had planned on getting the rest of my Christmas when I was going out shopping with my Granny the next day, but if it snowed, a bunch of Christmas wouldn't happen. So I had Fangirl take me to Dollar Tree and I finished my holiday shopping. 

After a slight traffic issue, I enjoyed looking at what Holiday lights I could since we didn't get to go looking this year, I even had her drive through one of my favorite areas. 

All in all it was a fun preChristmas outing. Sadly it was the first domino that killed my sleep which made the next few days rough mental health wise, but I got through the crazy moments.  

Well there's another venture posted. I hope this final week of 2022 treats you well, it's been a rough year for me, but it's had it's good moments. I hopefully will see you all back here New Years Eve! Have fun, eat much, God bless.

*Thrifty Geek*

Free Comic Book Day 2022

Hey My Fellow Comic Book Nerds,

Today is all about Free Comic Book Day.  It's that day special day of the year comic book store offer up free comic books from some best in the game. Comic companies make special comics to offer up that give fans a taste of their comics. It was started as a way to introduce new readers to the comic book genre. It's always held the first Saturday in May, with the exception of last year due to Covid and it was in August. Well this year was back at it's regularly scheduled time, and while I still masked up and was careful despite having all my shots, I found it less Covid Anxiety inducing than last year. 

Outfit:

So first things first I needed the right outfit, now I don't usually cosplay for FCBD, but I do like to geek it up. Take last year I heard there was going to be a Critical Role comic so I wore the shirt I have from the show in honor of it, and it made a great picture. So this year when with my hat Fangirl made me that's adorned in nerdy pins. I did a variation on my yellow newsprint nails, and actually did comic print ones, that heart ring in the pic was made by Fangirl as well. Wore some Legend of Zelda socks, my Docs that recently got a hand colored pink skull upgrade, my Mom decorated "My Geek is Showing" shirt, I wanted to do something with a plain red shirt, unfortunately my handwriting is crap. Then I finished off with some geeky jewelry first this necklace, made by you guessed it Fangirl, she gave this to me on what I call my "Bad Wolf" birthday and since Doctor Who was on my mind I see a blue box with stars two hearts and thought aw it's Doctor Who themed! Well until I found out she hadn't made it with those intentions years later, oh well it still reminds me of Who. Which congrats to Ncuti Gatwa on being named the new Doctor, look forward to Traveling through Space and Time with you! I also wore this beaded bracelet I received as a favor from the Marshmallow Rainbows Maid Cafe at AARC one year. If this con returns next year with the maids you should check them out.

The Places:

Comic Envy

Our first stop was Comic Envy in Asheville on Merrimon Avenue. Of the two comic book stores we frequent this is the one we've been going to the longest. We were greeted by this lovely lady who I'm almost certain is Jean Grey, let me know in the comment if I'm off:

X-Men have Comic Envy Covered

 

There were comics a plenty to choose from. I didn't have a huge list I wanted this year, but I managed to get all I want, and there was plenty to choose from.

One of the special guests was set up, sadly I didn't get a picture of him, and I'm not sure which one it was. I conversed with one of the workers their who was nice. I really had a great time.

 

Some of the great worker at Comic Envy

 Morgan's Comics

Our next stop was to Morgan's comics in West Asheville, where we can be found at least once a month. 

 

 We were greeted by a couple interesting this the storm troopers pictured above, and this two headed snake skeleton pictured below.

 

 

The ever trusty sandwich board that gives us the deets.

At the store was Morgan herself (pictured above). This is an awesome woman. She's runs this amazing store, she's the first female owned comic shop in Western North Carolina, and she's literally the store's hero she came in an saved it. I'm not kidding you can read about it in this Citizen Times article. She's always a pleasure to talk to.

Matt, Morgan's Husband, standing in the new Pokemon store.

The store was celebrating it's new section opening called the Pokemon Sanctuary, it's a little section in the back of their store dedicated to Pokemon.

 

It is a small but mighty store!

One of the people signing there was Hope Larson, who worked on some Batgirl comics.  

And can we talk about Morgan's personalized comic bags? They are so cute!

 

 The Rest of The Day:

Seems Morgan's was not the only spot having fun in West Asheville the Odditurium was also having this fun looking event.

We had a late Chinese Buffet Lunch, then hit up a couple Goodwills and then called it a day. Not a bad one at that.

The Haul:

I utilized my full comic allowance at each store, but only five were for me, the rest were for my comic loving sister who had to work that day. But all in all a good year.

 

  I hope you have a good day, read comics, and God bless.

*Thrifty Geek*

Silly Walks and Supernatural Plushies

 Hello Friends,

It's that time to regal you with another tale of an outing with Fangirl, cause you know we're always getting into something. The mental health hydra was raging this day, but it was beautiful day. I had an errand to run to Walmart, so Fangirl decided to lunch at nearby Huddle House where she's gone so often they know her. I was a littler wary of dining in with the latest increase of Corona cases (yes I wore my mask and used hand sanitizer).
I ran my Christmastime errand, which I thought was going to take forever cause every open aisle had a line. I managed to find an open self check out. Which made me uneasy touching, I have anxiety with a bit of the germaphobia side of OCD, I'm sorry. After that we headed out to Asheville to take in some geek culture, aka comic book stores.

In Transit Part One 

As we were on our way to the first comic store, we stopped at a red light, and as I was sitting there and a guy decided to walk across the four lane and as he started to walk he had this weird long gait that put me in the mind of "The Ministry of Silly Walks" skit by Monty Python. He made it across quicker the last two lanes.
As we walked the street to Morgan's Comics I came across some sticker graffiti that makes me wonder if they took lessons from Keri Smith's "How to be a Guerilla Artist". 

 

 Morgan's Comics or "The Nerd Sanctuary
I love this store. It hits all my geek areas. Merlin who works there came in and he had been there the last time we were there, but saw us and greeted us like old friends and he's only talked to us once. Morgan was rocking a thrift store Legend of Zelda shirt, which I had to complement her on. They have a TV in there that they play geeky YouTube music videos on and Fangirl got excited at one they played for Christmas called "Sammy, Baby" a Supernatural parody to Earth Kitt's "Santa, Baby." Speaking of Supernatural the store had a new display with plushies. They had some Sams and Deans, and Fangirl made off with one of each, I told her they were just early Christmas presents to herself. Had they'd had a Castiel she'd bought one of those too. My purchase was a Doctor Who comic. It's of the Thirteenth Doctor number 11 (In which 13 shows her 10 a bit, you Whovians I know followed that).

In Transit Part Two
*There will be Supernatural Season 15 spoilers is this section so avoid if you haven't seen it.*
As we were driving away from Morgan's we were in the turn off lane and some guy who apparently didn't know there was a turn off lane came up behind us like a mad person, about hit us, then honked at us. After we turned on to the interstate I heard Fangirl breath a little heavy, and of course I made sure she was ok, and we talked about it. I said the good Lord must have been looking out for us, to which my friend replied "Thank you Jack!"
 

As we turned on Merriman Avenue I looked across the road at Loretta's Cafe and the was a sign that said something along the lines of "Sandwich worshiping wrong?" With the way I was putting away turkey sandwiches after thanksgiving I was doing some sandwich worshiping.

Comic Envy
It was mostly looking at merch at this comic store today, there was nothing I wanted in my price range. I did see a K.K. Slider plush, some Studio Ghibli stuff, and a cute Stuff Jiggly Puff. It's one of my favorite Pokemon. I actually have one as my buddy in Pokemon Go. The topic of discussion at the store that day was The Art of Seduction that I first heard about on Geekologie. It's a KFC sponsored Lifetime mini movie, that I think spoofs both on Lifetime movies, and KFC. It looks hilarious I may actually have to watch it.

In Transit Part Three
Fangirl and I took one of our adventures through the back roads to avoid  traffic. We went through a tiny home community. I'm always fascinated by these homes. I myself have a kinda maxi tiny home I have in my dream homes.  We ended up near a dance studio, and I got a glimpse of a dancer performing inside.

Thrift and Dollar Stores
We hit up almost every thrift store in the county, but shopping wasn't with me today. Most of my purchases were Christmas or birthday gifts for other peeps. The only things I got was yet another pair of headphones from Dollar Tree, I'm so gonna invest in a better quality, and at one of the Goodwills a Buffy the Vampire Slayer™  called Spike & Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row by Christopher Golden for the Buffy collection. I did see a couple pens at Family Dollar I'd love to have. They looked like scepters but one had a diamond on top and another a pearl, all fake obviously.

We ended our day doing curbside service at Ammon's Drive-In. Fangirl made me hungry for her shrimp skewers. And the warmth of the day turned chilly. I got to see some Christmas light displays, so that was cool.  Got home and had a good night sleep. And that was about it to my day. Pretty full day and only one anxiety break down, well one outward break down. I hope you all have a good weekend, stay safe, and God bless you.

*Thrifty Geek* and Vampire >vv< Kitty

Of Sonic Screwdrivers and Doctor Who Comics

Hello Geeky Friends,

Fangirl and I ventured out to Asheville again, yes we were armed with our masks, hand sanitizer, and social distancing skills. We learned a night or so before that our favorite Chinese restaurant in Asheville, Shogun's. So we graced it with our presence once more. Yes they were taking safety measures. It's been nice to have one of my favorite foods again the last couple months.

Fortune cookie wisdom for today...

The Asheville Mall  

We paid a visit to the mall. I visited Gamestop, and then the two of us went to Boxlunch and Hot Topic. At the latter I purchased the 13th Doctor's Sonic like I wanted to this month. It made me so happy. It has two buttons one gives you the regular sound of the sonic, the other button has a different sound and makes the crystal in the end turn. I love it! I also did some Christmas shopping while I was there. I'm actually gonna have everything ordered and bought before December maybe. Yay me!

 

The random walking stick, what's it's story? Is it waiting for it's owner, or been abandoned. What adventures has it been on?

 

Comic Envy

We paid a visit to Comic Envy. Fangirl probably wanted to slap me. She got a My Hero Academia blind grab bag thing again and last time she wasn't happy with what she got, so she said she was gonna try again, and I said I was gonna laugh if she got someone she didn't like again. She got another she didn't like, I had to laugh, cause I said I would. I purchased Captain Marvel: The War of the Realms Issue #7. I was rather amused by this comic. First you have a body swapping situation and one of best scenes where in the foreground something serious is going on, but in the background something hilarious is going on. I got a good laugh out of it. I also purchased a Lego Catwoman:

 

 Isn't she purrrfect?

Morgan's Comics

We made a stop at Morgan's comics. We chatted Supernatural with the shop's owner. She's so cool. I love just browsing the shelves comic, games, and just geek stuff. I ended up purchasing two Doctor Who comics, Thirteenth Doctor: Issue #9 and the Tenth Doctor/13th Doctor Team Up Issue #2. Love me some Who! The Owner was trying to keep up with the election news. This was the day after the election, so the counting was still going on, actually in some places isn't it still going on?

 

Goodwill

 We hit up a couple Goodwills that seem to be providing signs that day:

 

So yes it was a nice day. Got some retail therapy in, hung out with one of my best friends, and had good food. 

 

Election

 

What about that election? Like this year hasn't been crazy enough. I don't really talk politics here cause it's confusing and I don't understand it most the time, that's why I hadn't registered to vote before. This year though I felt a need to exercise a right women of old fought for me to have. I did register as unaffiliated, despite being raised in a Democrat house I feel I don't fully support any party. Another reason I don't talk politics is my family. While the people in my house are Democrat, I got a bunch of Trump supporters in my family. We had a Trump supporter living with us when he won. He was a very loud supporter. Since the election has been decided I'm lucky I've only had to put one family member on a thirty day snooze on Facebook cause every post it seemed they made was bashing the decision and I love them so I decided to just temporarily mute them till around Christmas time and then they'll be moved on to the holidays hopefully. I'm just glad I don't have to see anymore political commercials.

 

 Well I'm gonna continue to binge classic Who and just chill out a while. I hope your Hump day is good, stay weird, and God bless!

*Thrifty Geek*