February 17 – February 23 (2025)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

Since this week’s Wally’s Week took on a very nostalgic vibe, I figured I’d also post this list I found of the top songs of 1972…a banner year for music! Just look at that #1 song of the year!!!

With all of the magical goings-on with my new Darth Vader costume this past week, of course the “Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme)” kept running through my head. What a wonderful piece of music!

Monday the 17th – THE MIGHTY THOR! – In all of the craziness of getting my computer issues solved, and looking into getting a new system for Planet Wallywood, my pals Brittney and Emily both suggested I give their friend Thor a call. Not only does he live very close to me, but he’s a computer genius. The problem is, as I had discovered in the past, his talents are in very high demand, and he’s very VERY busy! Luckily my computer issues have fallen directly in the middle of projects for him, so he’s able to help out. I wanted him to drop by and give me his professional opinion about a great new computer system based on my needs. I explained everything to him in regards to how I use my machine, and he’s going to extrapolate that info, do some research, and give me three options for a computer that meets his recommendations. Neat! I drove over to In-N-Out for lunch, and then headed to Best Buy to buy a new “mega” drive. This 20TB drive will contain all of the data from my retired drives. I wanted “one stop shopping” in case I ever needed to go back in time and restore certain things to my system. I got back home and immediately began the transfer process. Based on the enormity of my data it will likely take most of the week to complete the migration of data. I typed out Wally’s Week, relaxed for a bit, and then headed outside to take my nightly WOG (walk/jog) before coming back in and completing Wally’s Week. Since my computer has been down I’ve been saving up info and stories with pen and paper (the old fashioned way), so now I have to translate all of those hastily scrawled notes into a document to catch up on two weeks’ worth of Wally’s Weeks!

Tuesday the 18th – SLEEPY CLOUD!? – The day started with a couple of last-minute auditions I recorded and emailed to my agent. Then I drove to the bank to make my monthly deposits, and then I headed to my area Ross Dress For Less. I had seen a post on social media recently that people were finding some of the Riddler puzzle boxes (that came out last year) at their area Ross for about 15 bucks. I thought it might be worth stopping by to see if I could grab some to sign and sell in my on-line store. But no go on the puzzle boxes. I found out a few days later from my pal Officer Mark that the social media post I saw was from last December! So they’re most likely all sold out by now. I went next door to Joanne’s, which will be closing in April. I’m not sure why the Joanne’s chain is closing 500 stores across the country, and I’m REALLY not sure why they’re closing the one in our area. It seems like it’s always busy! There won’t be any place to buy fabrics in our area after they close. It’s totally bizarre to me. During their closing sale they have lots of stuff marked down at a discount, so I took the opportunity to buy some of those super soft t-shirts in their craft department. Not only are they good for going on my WOGs with, but they work very well underneath my custom-bowling shirts when I wear them out to appearances. I got a few other odds & ends as well. As I was perusing the store I came upon a model kit that took my breath away. When I was a kid I always loved going to Woolworth and Ben Franklin and seeing the original Aurora monster model kits on the shelves. I bought several of them and built them up as best as I could. I had the main monsters; Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy, Phantom of the Opera, Creature, but there were others that Aurora released that I never got. One of them was “The Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare.” It was mostly a skeleton clad in the rags of a deteriorated uniform, and it was chained up to a wall. A new company called Atlantis has bought the rights to the molds and artwork, and they have re-released some of the model kits in the same type of boxes that used to be on the shelves when I was a kid. Walking by that shelf and seeing that model kit really took me back! It was an amazing feeling! Also quite nostalgic, was buying the last two packs of Teaberry gum at the checkout counter. Back when I was a kid, Teaberry was very popular. Thanks mostly to their great commercial campaign. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk11Acjofu8 They used the Herb Alpert song “Mexican Shuffle” as the music, and the commercials showed how you would do a little dance as soon as you put a stick of gum in your mouth. Amazing. I was explaining to the young gal at the checkout counter all about the ad campaign and she thought it sounded amazing. I haven’t put any of it in my mouth yet, but I’ll be ready to dance when I do! I’ll certainly miss Joanne’s! Sad. Since I was in the area I phoned in a pizza to-go at Barone’s. I hadn’t had their pizza in a long time and it’ll be a treat. I got my pizza and then went back home to take care of Spook, eat my pizza, and check up on news. My computer guy Brian called in and said my personal cloud system was off-line again. Which is odd since I just turned it back on recently. For some reason, it keeps losing power. Neither Brian nor I can figure out why. But it will take some investigating. I asked Brian if maybe the battery back-up it was plugged into needed a software upgrade, and he said the kind I had didn’t have software. He’s already changed the preferences inside the cloud system to never go to sleep, so I’m not sure what’s going on. I did some accounting work with my personal bank statement, relaxed for a bit, and then suited up and did another nightly WOG. I’m looking forward to when it warms up so I can spend some time outside in the anti-gravity chair after I finish my exercise. Whether it be to enjoy an iced tea or a nice cigar, I really miss those days. But they’ll be back soon, I feel.

Wednesday the 19th – JUST LIKE BEING A KID AGAIN! – Not to put too much of a nostalgic note on this week’s entry, but Wednesday was another great day that reminded me a lot of being a kid. First I recorded a quick audition, and then my pal Officer Mark came by to pick me up for some fun and laughs. First stop was a store called Galco’s World Market, which sells a great variety of hard-to-find sodas and vintage-brand candy. The kind I used to love as a kid. They also have a great sandwich shop in the back. We got sandwiches, some soda, and then ate them outside in the parking lot. I also stocked up on a few cases of soda and some candy. Then, since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped over to see my friends at the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre. My pal Alex Evans, who runs the theatre, was just stepping into a meeting, but he invited us into the theatre to see a performance of their current show called “Something to Crow About.” The entire show was originally mounted in 1958, and the puppets used are mostly all the originals from back then. They’re all in remarkable condition, as the theatre staff do a wonderful job keeping them upgraded and restored. They were doing a performance for a busload of school kids who were on a field trip, and it was amazing to watch how engaged the kids were in the show. The brilliance of the Bob Baker presentations is that the kids never seem to get bored. Each of the segments are short enough so that the kids’ attentions never waver. It’s amazing. When the show was over we said our goodbyes and headed over to the local CVS to get some supplies. Then on the way back to Planet Wallywood we stopped at my box. I had recently ordered a new LED lighted sphere to replace the other one that broke a few weeks ago. The other one was a glass sphere, but this one is plastic. So it’ll most likely be more durable. When we got back to my house we set up for a video shoot I wanted to do that featured the new Darth Vader Primalux costume from Jazwares. The finished video can be seen here… https://youtu.be/sQ-vN7axLsA Since I used to do Darth Vader around my hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota from 1980 to 1984 with my homemade costume, I wanted to splurge and get a deluxe costume. I may use it for a convention someday, or perhaps a last-minute Halloween costume idea. But I needed to have it. Particularly since it comes in a nifty hard-sided carrying case. It’s a great costume, but since it’s made to the size of an average guy who wears XL clothes, it needed a bit of customization. I’ll have my friends at Alex In Wonderland take it to their shop for the upgrades. I hope you enjoy the video. Having this costume and putting it on again, really took me back. When I finally took it off after the video shoot was over, I was drenched in sweat. Mark commented that it was probably good to finally have it off, but I said it didn’t matter…I would keep wearing it because it’s so fun. Having it on sure brought back some good memories, but the upgrades Jazwares have included are definitely a step up from what I used to wear. I look forward to putting it on for a convention, walking around for just an hour, and then taking it off. Perhaps I’ll wear it again after that…perhaps not. But I did want to do it for full-circle “closure.” I started with a homemade costume, and now I want to put on a deluxe costume for a bit just to finish that chapter. It’s kind of like why I did Tony Clifton at Monsterpalooza a few years ago. I used to do it in the old days, and then I stopped. But now that I have the perfect Clifton costume, and the fact that my make-up was done by the amazing Kenny Myers, let me put my Tony Clifton chapter to bed in much the same way. I just wanted to do it one more time in the most perfect way possible. And then…I’m done with it. After Officer Mark left I relaxed for a little bit, and then went on my WOG. I checked in with my computer to see how the transfer of data was going. As expected, it will take a few more days to finish. The nice thing is, I found out from the data recovery company that the data on the drive that failed on February 4th is recoverable! NICE! When I get that new drive I’ll add that to my “mega” drive and stash it away. I made a salad and watched another episode of “Have Gun – Will Travel.” The character of Paladin is amazing! And the guest stars on this show (many of them before they were famous) are terrific. Strother Martin and Angie Dickinson were in these episodes! Seeing as how I usually make a salad to watch these vintage TV shows, and in consideration of the lead character on the show simply called Paladin, I’m renaming my salads to…SALADIN!

Thursday the 20th – A MUCH-NEEDED DAY OFF! – Given the fact that I’ve been on the go so much over the past few weeks, I just wanted to take a day off completely for myself. But when I got up later in the day I had a voicemail from the doctor’s office that will be performing my endoscopy this coming Monday. They said that they called my insurance company for preauthorization and my birthdate they have on record wasn’t matching the birthdate that the insurance company has in their records. Good grief. I went on to my profile on my Screen Actors Guild health insurance page and my birthdate was correct. Was it the doctor’s office that had erroneous information? That would be odd because I’ve used this doctor’s office many times before and I haven’t had any problems. I’ve also used my insurance for my regular doctor, my dentist, my chiropractor, and my physical therapy – and there was never any problem. I’m thinking that some fat-fingered data entry person probably missed a digit or two. But since it was so late in the day I couldn’t call the doctor’s office back because they were already closed. I’ll call them first thing on Friday morning. But I hope it gets solved soon, because the procedure is set for Monday! I did a little work around the house, recorded a few auditions, and then started editing the Darth Vader costume video. Later that night I took my usual WOG, and it was really nice out! Wonderful! I’m over winter and I’m looking forward to spring, and then summer! I went downstairs to where my cloud system is stored and discovered that it was off again. I keep turning it on, but then a while later it’s turned off. What the heck is going on?! So I did an examination from soup to nuts. Since the computer unit was already off, I decided to shut the battery back-up down for a bit. Maybe it just needed a reboot? As I was unplugging things, and plugging them back in, I noticed that there were three cords. One was the power cord leading from the electrical outlet in the wall to the battery back-up. The other one was the power cable from the computer that was plugged into the battery back-up. I pulled that out of the outlet on the back-up and plugged it into another outlet. I’m not sure that individual outlets on a battery back-up can fry or not, but I figured I’d swap it just to be safe. But then I noticed a USB cable that was going from the battery back-up to the computer itself. What was THAT for? Brian had told me that the back-up didn’t have any software, but that cable was for communicating with the computer somehow. Hmmm…a real mystery. I plugged everything in and booted everything back up again. So far so good.Friday the 21st – MYSTERIOUS MYSTERIES! – At 11am I called the office of the doctor who would be doing my endoscopy on Monday. I left a message for the gal who told me about the birthdate problem and asked that she call me back. Perhaps she was on lunch. So I waited an hour or so. Figuring that her lunch would be over by 1pm I called again. But she didn’t answer, and I left another message. I rang up my pal Chris Malmin to see if he wanted to meet for lunch at 2 at Paty’s. After we finished lunch I called the doctor’s office at 3 from my car. Still no answer…just a voicemail. Frustrating. So I called the office back and started punching in other extensions, hoping to at least get a human being on the line. I talked to another lady at the office and she told me that the gal who left the original message was out of the office. What?! That’s rather inconvenient, considering that my procedure would be on Monday. I told her that given that my insurance company was based in New York, and it was already 3 Pacific time, the likelihood that we were going to get the birthday issue solved at this point was not possible. She agreed that we should cancel the procedure until we can get this mystery solved. As soon as the original lady gets back into the office and can tell me who she spoke to at the insurance company, and their number, I can begin my investigation to correct the error. Even though I had to cancel my procedure, I started thinking that God had done me a favor with this whole thing. What if I ever have to go to the hospital for an emergency? I might be out of it, but the insurance wouldn’t have the correct information to give to the hospital. This may have been a cosmic “heads-up” to force me get this critical information corrected before something bad happens. In my life I’ve found that God will do me a solid like this from time to time. And I’m always ready to listen and act on it! In the other mystery that’s commanding my attention, my cloud system is still on-line! So whatever I did with the reboot worked. I talked to Brian and he said that, while there’s no intelligent software in the battery back-up itself, the USB cable was to let the computer know that it’s using the battery to power it. I thought back to when this whole thing started, and it took me back to when my new dishwasher was installed. The tech had to cut the power to a few areas from the circuit breaker. If one of the circuits he turned off for a second powered the battery back-up, then the battery back-up would have kicked into gear – thinking that we had lost power. But once the house electricity was restored, the battery back-up may not have told the computer that it should go back on wall power…which would have continued to drain the battery. Knowing that the battery back-up is good for about 20 minutes of emergency power with each charge, this would make total sense. As the battery started to run down, it told the computer to shut down gently, so as not to lose any data. The battery would recharge, I would turn the computer back on, and the cycle would continue. That makes total, logical sense. But when I powered everything down and rebooted it, the back-up must’ve told the computer to start sucking wall power, and not to drain the battery. Good to know. If power is ever interrupted again, I’m going to need to do that reboot every time, apparently. That mystery is solved, Scoob! I picked up a few packages at my box, mailed off some stuff, and then headed to the data recovery place to pick up the new drive that contained all of the data they retrieved from the internal hard drive that went back on February 4th. When I got home I did some work, and was actually feeling relieved that my endoscopy was canceled for Monday. I may or may not reschedule, since it seems that my acid reflux issue has been fixed with a doctor-prescribed increase of medication. I’m due for my colonoscopy in 2027, so I may just wait and get both of them during that time. I am going to enjoy this weekend fully! Later I took my nightly WOG, and then I came inside to begin cataloging all of my drives. I had no idea I had so many! But I pulled them all out and set them in front of me, made a detailed document about each one of them; their storage size, the data they contained, etc. – and then stashed them. It’s nice having them all organized now and put away in places I can easily find them if need be. I recorded some more voice tracks for my character Wally the Elf for this year’s “Christmas Across The Lands” radio broadcast. Yes, the producer and host Randy Sherwyn likes to get a VERY early start on things! I made another “Paladin saladin” and watched a few episodes of “Have Gun – Will Travel.” One of the bad guys was played by a very young Mike Connors (credited as Michael Connors) who in the future would become a superstar in the show “Mannix.”

Saturday the 22nd – CUSTOMIZING A SITH LORD! – Though I hadn’t really gotten much sleep, I got up around 4 in the afternoon to meet up with Mike and Alex from Alex In Wonderland. They dropped by to have a look at the Jazwares Darth Vader costume, and to make notes about the customizing I wanted to have done. After hearing all their suggestions I realized that this costume is going to turn out VERY nice! After paying $1k for the costume itself, if I have to spend a few hundred more to get it made to my specifications then it’ll all be worth it. I drove over to Randy’s Donuts to pick up a few items for dessert later, and then I met Alex and Mike over at Little Toni’s for dinner. We got there before the rush so we were seated right away. It’s always great food at Little Toni’s! When I got home I continued working with the cataloging of all my drives. The internal drives that I had retired were easily readable thanks to a little dock that Brian had me buy last summer. You plug the internal drives into the dock, plug the dock into the computer via a USB cable and it comes up on the desktop. NEAT! I took my nightly WOG, and came back inside to work on the drives some more. It took all night to finish, but I got them all stored, labeled, and organized. I felt like I had accomplished a lot! I recorded some auditions for Monday, then I made a salad and watched an episode of “Boris Karloff’s Thriller.”

Sunday the 23rd – PUPPET PEOPLE AT PATY’S! – As is usual, Sunday is my “comatose” day. After snoozing the majority of the day away, I met my pals Drew and Nikki at Paty’s for dinner. I hadn’t seen them in a while, as they’ve been traveling the world. They’re both puppeteers with the Coldplay concerts so they’ve been all over the place! It was fun catching up with them! When I got back home I did some work around the house, and I noted that things are slowly but surely getting back to normal. I did my nightly WOG, ate some leftover pizza from Little Toni’s, and turned in.

And how was YOUR week?!

PIX FROM THE WEEK