Jason Hughes and Luke Crisalli (with guest Pat Harmon) over at the Ghostheads podcast released their 16th episode this past Friday, and I am honored that they spent a couple of minutes talking about Spook Central's 14th Anniversary in the broadcast (from 25:55-28:06). It nearly brought a tear to my eye listening to what the guys had to say. I'm touched...really.

You can listen to the Spook Central excerpt by clicking on the little play arrow/button above, or if you have a desire to hear about Ghostbusters, Bjork, and liquefied gummy bears - and who doesn't? - head over to the Ghostheads site to listen to the entire 36-minute episode.

I have a few sets of Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary and Spook Central retro logo stickers left over and have decided to give them away to the first 5 people to make a $1.50 donation to Spook Central (plus an additional $0.35 to cover PayPal fees). $0.50 of the donation goes towards the cost of shipping the two stickers to you, while the other $1.00 goes towards the site. To keep the postage costs as cheap as possible, this offer is only valid to residents of the United States. Also, one set of stickers per person, please. (After the sets have been sold, the button below will no longer work - it will just take you back to this website.)

To help celebrate the 14th anniversary of Spook Central: The Ghostbusters Companion, one of the longest-running Ghostbusters fan sites currently online, I held a prize giveaway from August 1st to August 7th 2010 to honor the momentous occasion. I reached out to a few of my corporate friends, and dug through my personal collection, to gather up a few prizes to give out to fans. The prize giveaways included a gift certificate good for 2 tickets to On Location Tours' "New York TV and Movie Sites" tour of New York City, free custom sticker sheets at StickerYou.com, a copy of TimeLife's The Real Ghostbusters Volume 2 five-disc DVD set, Gamer Graffix's No Ghost Logo and Ghostbusters Text Logo wall graphics, and more!

The contest was a great success. Below is the full list of winners, along with a brief description of what prizes they won. For more information on the prizes, check out the prize image gallery. For legal and reference purposes, a copy of the original official rules can be found at the end.


2 tickets to On Location Tours' "New York TV and Movie Sites" tour of New York City (valued at $76 USD)
-- Jack Hensley, Belmar, NJ, USA

1 free custom sticker sheet at StickerYou.com (valued at $6.99 USD each)
-- Christopher Rhea, Hampton, VA, USA
-- Tony Stafford, Dovecot, Liverpool, ENGLAND
-- Dan Mattucci, La Grange Park, IL, USA
-- Nathan Bonner, Springfield, MO, USA
-- Scott Silver, Orem, UT, USA

TimeLife's The Real Ghostbusters Volume 2 five-disc DVD (valued at $39.99 USD)
-- Joshua Minetree, Baltimore, MD, USA

Gamer Graffix's No Ghost Logo 19.5" x 17" Wall Graffix
-- Allan Nicoletti, Croydon, PA, USA

Gamer Graffix's Ghostbusters Text Logo 23" x 3" Wall Graffix
-- Samantha Cornell, Millis, MA, USA

Ghostbusters II Homemade Pog (1.5" in diameter) (this is an item I made in the 1990s)
-- Trey Lansford, Amarillo, TX, USA

Filmation's Ghostbusters #4 comic book
-- David Varner, Rothschild, WI, USA

Spook Central retro logo sticker - custom printed at StickerYou.com
-- Lucas Ackley, West Jordan, UT, USA
-- Matthew Rude, Columbia, IL, USA
-- Gary Tabar, Waynesville, NC, USA
-- Delfin Aponte, Philadelphia, PA, USA
-- Andrew Stewart, Beaufort, SC, USA
-- Michael Sedoti, Reading, PA, USA
-- Adam Anderson, Rochester, MN, USA
-- Mike Sopronyi, Miamisburg, OH, USA
-- Brian Rippee, Concrete, WA, USA
-- Matthew Dusing, Lancaster, OH, USA

Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary sticker - custom printed at StickerYou.com
-- Adam Skinner, Kitchener, ON, CANADA
-- Austyn Brown, Bournemouth, Dorset, ENGLAND
-- Daryl Klinger, Sanford, FL, USA
-- Jeremy Neff, Mooresville, NC, USA
-- Vincent Montenegro, La Quinta, CA, USA
-- Jay Wilson, Louisville, KY, USA

OFFICIAL RULES
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. The "Spook Central 14th Anniversary Prize Giveaway" starts on 8/1/2010 and ends on 8/7/2010. The contest is open only to legal residents of the United States, Canada, and all other countries, 18 years of age or older at time of entry. A vaild e-mail address is required for the contest. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

Limit one entry per person and/or e-mail address. Any additional entries will be discarded. All information provided by entrants will not be sold, given away, or used for any other purpose than for this contest - though a winners list will be posted after the contest has ended. Winners will be chosen at random using The Hat random name-selection software. Winners will be notified via e-mail at the address provided in their entry, and will be required to reply to that e-mail and verify their information before the prize will be sent to them. If a winner does not reply within three business days, they will forfeit the prize and it will be given to someone else via another random selection.

No prize substitution or cash redemption allowed by a prize winner. If awarded, prizes will be awarded without any warranty of any kind. Odds of winning a prize depends on the total number of eligible Entries received for the Sweepstakes.

All federal, state and local tax liabilities, if any, are the responsibility of the winners. Spook Central/Paul Rudoff shall not be responsible or liable for entries that are entered by other than human means (such as by an automated computer program or any non-human mechanism, entity, or device), in excess of the stated limit, or for entries that are late, forged, destroyed, lost, misplaced, stolen, misdirected, tampered with, incomplete, deleted, damaged, garbled, or otherwise not in compliance with the official rules, and all such entries will be disqualified.

By entering the Sweepstakes, each entrant agrees: (i) to be bound by these official rules and by all applicable laws and decisions of Spook Central/Paul Rudoff which shall be binding and final; (ii) to waive all of his/her rights to bring any claim, action, or proceeding against Spook Central/Paul Rudoff in connection with the Giveaway.

I recently used Sticker You to print out sheets of Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary and Spook Central retro logo stickers to give away to my fellow Ghostbusters webmasters and to include as "consolation" prizes in my Spook Central 14th Anniversary Contest. (The stickers and prizes will be given/mailed out next week, as I'm still waiting for replies from a few winners and webmasters.) Since Sony didn't give the Sticker You staff any 25th Anniversary logo clip art, I figured that I would share my created sheet with everyone, so you can purchase your own stickers.

I have also decided to put up links in case anyone wants to buy sheets of the Spook Central retro logo stickers. I don't know why anyone would want to, but I don't mind someone else paying for the free promotion :-)

The quality of the printed stickers are great. I'm rather surprised by how well they came out considering how small the source images are (the images displayed below are the actual source images). If you'd like to order the Ghostbusters sheet I put together a few months ago, or you'd like more information on Sticker You, read my previous Sticker You entry.

As you've undoubtedly have already noticed... The incredible Tristan Jones has put together a collection of new Spook Central title logos in honor of this site's 14th anniversary this month. There's a whole bunch of them, which should display randomly when you browse throughout the site (or reload the page). If you don't have Javascript enabled in your browser, then you'll just see one image. Though if you'd like to see more of them, Tristan previewed some of them on his DeviantArt account last week.

To go along with the new title is a new site design. Well, it's more of a tweak of the old design, but it's a pretty significant tweak. Since computer monitor resolutions are usually 1024x768 and higher these days (very few people still use 800x600, and much less use 640x480), I decided to give the site content a set width of 900 pixels. To fill in the empty space on the sides for resolutions larger than 1024 pixels in width, there's a background image showing the temple atop Spook Central, pulled straight off of the Blu-ray Disc. People with widescreen monitors will see more of the background image than those without. I was rather shocked at how well the 900 pixel site fit atop the temple background image - right between the two pillars on the sides of the temple doors! The symmetry is perfect. It's like the movie shot and the site were made for each other.

I really hope that this new design displays well on all browsers as I did not get a chance to thoroughly test it. Heck, I probably did a really sloppy job with the coding, as someone with real design skills could probably streamline all of the backend code into CSS and make everything run smoother. If there's anyone out there who'd like to give it a try, let me know.

I originally intended on finding a free pre-designed website template and going with that for the new design, but I couldn't find one that I liked, and I really wanted to get these new title logos up while it was still August (the 14th anniversary month). I'd like to give a quick shout-out to Jason Fitzsimmons from GhostbustersNews.com for the inspiration and encouragement to give the site a set width and use a background image on the sides. I got the idea (and a tiny bit of CSS code) from his site, and when I ran the idea by him a while back, he encouraged me to go for it. Thanks Jason.

Finally, a very special shout-out needs to be given to Raffaele Ruffaldi for providing me with webspace for the past seven or eight years (since either 2002 or 2003), for all the helpful technical assistance, and for putting up with me and the problems I have every now and then.

It was fourteen years ago this month, in August 1996, that I created Spook Central in my rinky-dink Geocities account. It was nothing big - just a picture of the library ghost, on a banana yellow background, with some links below it - but it was a start. To help celebrate the occasion, I've reached out to a few of my corporate friends, and dug through my personal collection, to gather up a few prizes to give out to the fans. The Spook Central 14th Anniversary Prize Giveaway runs from now until August 7th, which should be plenty of time to get your entry in (one per person and/or e-mail address).

StickerYou is a new site that lets you create and purchase your own custom high-quality, removable, vinyl stickers. They have many different sticker designs, including Ghostbusters designs officially licensed from Sony. Using their system, you simply drag-and-drop designs onto a sheet, resize them, add text if you want, and when you're all done, check out. For just $6.99 a sheet (plus a small shipping & handling fee), StickerYou will print out and cut your sheet of stickers on-demand, and ship them right out to you. You can have a sheet filled with one large design, smaller versions of the same design, or as many different designs as you can fit onto a sheet. If you're lazy, them even have a pre-designed sheet of Ghostbusters designed for immediate purchase. It's your choice! (The banner seen above has been permanently placed in the right sidebar below the Community Links box.)

I just placed an order and everything went smoothly. It was nice being able to create a sticker sheet with the stickers I wanted on it, instead of being locked into someone else's design. Below is the sticker sheet I put together and ordered (click to enlarge). If you like it, you can order a copy (click on the page image to get the option to add it to your cart. Once in your cart you can edit it or buy it as is.)


Sharing sticker sheets is easy. Once you have your sheet designed and saved, click on the preview image and a box will pop up. At the bottom of the box is the text "Share with Friends", with icons for e-Mail, Facebook, and Twitter. For the more advanced user, I will tell you that the end result will be a url in this format: http://www.stickeryou.com/StickerPage/IMAGE-ID/. Replace "IMAGE-ID" with the image's ID number. You can find this easily by right-clicking on the preview image, selecting Properties (or something similar), and copy-and-pasting the file name of the image. For my sheet, this was the url of the preview image: http://resources.stickeryou.com/scratch/sheets/1006221256431543682.png?rsize=233x310. The actual file name is 1006221256431543682.png, so take off the .png and you have the image's ID number.

My only gripe with the StickerYou site is that I would have preferred not to be forced to create an account just to checkout. I'm not saying that I won't buy stickers in the future, I just like having the option to checkout as a "guest" and create an account at a later date, at MY choosing.

[UPDATE - 7/6/2010]
I received my sticker sheet in the mail today. It took exactly 2 weeks to arrive, coming from StickerYou HQ in Canada (Toronto, Ontario) to me in New York. Normally it would only take a week to arrive, but there was a slight mix-up with my order, which caused it to ship out a week later than ususal. Anyway, the sheet is actually a little bigger than I expected - close to 9x12 inches (it's a tad under 12"). The stickers look really good. The sheet is laser-printed on 3M Scotchcal Graphic Film with Comply Adhesive (Series IJ40) - a flat white vinyl page that's somewhat glossy (light shines off the page). At the bottom of the sheet is a small StickerYou sticker, the StickerYou slogan ("Got an idea? Make it stick!"), some info text ("The place for making custom, die-cut, vinyl stickers - the really good ones."), my name, my order number (with a large bar code), and some legal text (such as "Not intended for children under 3 years old."). I very pleased and highly recommend you use the banner above or on the right sidebar to create and buy some stickers today!

[UPDATE - 8/6/2010]
Remember how a month ago I told you that my order took two weeks to arrive (one week to actually ship out)? Well, this time I most definitely did NOT have that problem. The order I submitted on Sunday August 1st arrived on Friday August 6th. Five days is pretty damn fast from Canada! Granted, Toronto is very close to the New York border (looking at Google Maps), so that helps, but this was an incredible improvement over the last order. I'm very pleased.

Just a quick note to officially premiere Spook Central's new Tabs feature, which technically premiered a few weeks ago...I just didn't bother to bring attention to it.

On several pages of the site the content is now divided up into tabs, as seen in this miniaturized screen shot of the Ghostbusters III News Archive page:


As long as you have Javascript enabled in your browser (and usually it's enabled by default), clicking on each of those tabs would change the content shown in the box below. You can even link to a page with a specific tab already opened, like so:

Opens the "2000s" tab when the page is loaded:
http://www.ecto-web.org/~spookcentral/gb3_news.htm?tabs=1
http://spookcentral.cjb.net/gb3_news.htm?tabs=1 - the forwarding version

The tabs are numbered from left to right starting at 0. So in this example "1990s" is "0", "2000s" is "1", and "2010s" is "2".

Some of the other pages on which you can find the tabs feature include, but are not limited to:

• Ghostbusters Store
• Ghostbusters Multimedia (all of the Multimedia pages are tabbed)
• Ghostbusters Score Album
• Ghostbusters Song (most of the GB1 & GB2 song pages are tabbed)
• Real Ghostbusters Promo Pilot
• Ghostbusters Connections
• Ghostbusters Comic Books
• Ghostbusters: The Video Game Information & Multimedia (the News and Credits pages are also tabbed)

I've successfully tested the tab script in SeaMonkey v1.1.18 and Internet Explorer v6.0.2900.5512 under Windows XP SP3. Hopefully it'll work with other browsers and operating systems as well. The script's homepage over at Dynamic Drive says that it works on Firefox v1+, Internet Explorer v5+, and Opera v7+, so hopefully nobody will experience any problems. If you do have problems, feel free to post a comment, though there's no guarantee that I'll be able to do anything about it since I didn't write the script. Conversely, if you don't experience any problems, feel free to post a comment to that effect as well. Thanks everyone!

My next big multimedia project is an extensive look at the Ghostbusters Blu-ray. As an offshoot of that, I will put together a page detailing the methods I use to capture stills and video from VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray - because I figure some people might have use for that info, and if I don't put it up, I'm sure someone will ask me about it anyway. That video capture info page will also make use of tabs.

Before I get to the unboxing, two quick site update notifications. (1) I have moved all of the new IDW comic info and links to the Comic Books page. This includes links to all three covers for the Christmas one-shot. Let's hope IDW doesn't change them by the time it comes out. (2) I have moved all of the GB1 Blu-Ray info and links to the new Ghostbusters Blu-Ray page. I'll fill that page out with more stuff at a later date. Of note, though, is the outside link to the original press release from early 2009, which mentions a "collectible 32 page scrapbook" that was not included in the final product.

I just purchased the newly-released Ghostbusters 1 & 2 DVD Limited Edition Gift Set. It should be noted that I didn't purchase it for the DVDs, which is the 2005 Double Feature Gift Set (complete with movie scrapbook). I bought it for the bundled Stay Puft statue and set of exclusive trading cards. Now this isn't going to be a complete unboxing, per se, but rather a short lead in to a new Limited Edition Gift Set details page I just created. With that in mind, here's the quick unboxing. Oh, yeah, you can click on the thumbnails to view the larger images.


The free $25 gift card included in the box is for use on select items on the Sideshow Collectibles website. The gift card expires on December 31, 2009, which is two and a half months from now. So if you want to make use of it, you shouldn't put off buying the gift set for too much longer. Sadly, the gift card is not as good of a deal as it seems. You can't buy any item on the site with the card; you're limited to a small selection of items. Of those items, most are well over $25. Also, the gift card will not cover shipping, only the item price. On the Sideshow Collectibles website you can check your giftcard value/balance, and see all of the gift card-eligible items (all of the tiny icons on the right). For your benefit, here's a list of every item currently on the list priced under $30:

$04.95 - Sideshow Collectibles 12 inch Figure Stand (might be good with Mattel's 12" GB figs)
$09.95 - Indiana Jones 2-Decks of Playing Cards in Collectors Tin
$10.00 - Sideshow Collectibles' Catalog Volume 10 (Hard Bound Book with $10 Gift Card inside)
$12.99 - The Dead T-Shirt
$12.99 - Indyfans and the Quest for Fortune and Glory DVD
$19.99 - Chucky Plush Doll (available in Europe only)
$29.95 - The Art & Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Book)
$29.99 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit Opening Title Porcelain Statue

[UPDATE - 10/20/2009]
I've found that there are a few items not listed on the Gift Card page that are probably eligible for purchase with the gift card:

$10.00 - Black Essential Gear T-Shirt- SSC.com Arched
$10.00 - Black Essential Gear T-Shirt - Collect for Life
$10.00 - Black Essential Gear T-Shirt - SSC.com Seal
$10.00 - Black Essential Gear T-Shirt - Skull and Crossbones [PERSONALLY CONFIRMED AS GIFT CARD ELIGIBLE]
$10.00 - Black Essential Gear T-Shirt - Robot Logo: Black
$10.00 - Youth Robot Logo Shirt: Blue
$10.00 - Youth Robot Logo Shirt: Red
$10.00 - Black Essentials Gear T-Shirt - Distressed Logo
$20.00 - Storm Sideline Polar Zip - SSC.com 'Skull' Logo
$25.00 - Black Ultimate Flex Polo - SSC.com Logo

It should also be noted that you're forced to create an account in order to make a purchase, and you're forced to give them your credit card number (they only accept credit cards) in order to get far enough in the checkout process to see your shipping fee. However, the shipping cost you see when you check out is just an estimate and is NOT A COMPLETELY ACCURATE AMOUNT. You won't know the actual shipping amount until you get the "final invoice" e-mail a day or two later. Even after you get the "final invoice" e-mail, the order details listed in your account on the website won't have been updated to reflect the new amount. I've been told by Sideshow customer support that the "shipping amount you are charged are exactly what it costs to ship the package, we can not offer an exact cost until a final invoice is generated."

Besides not being given the correct shipping amount until AFTER you've placed your order, there's something else that you need to be aware of. When they process your order, they will submit a pre-authorization to your credit card in the amount of the order and a shipping estimate which is generally higher than what the shipping will actually cost you. In my case, the pre-auth amount was $15.00, and the actual shipping cost I was charged was $8.56 (I paid nothing for the two items as the gift card covered them), even though during checkout I was quoted $7.86 for shipping ($0.70 less). I was enraged when I saw the $15 pre-auth, since that's double the amount I was quoted during checkout. As it is, I'm a little miffed that they billed me for more than I was quoted during checkout, but it's not worth making a big deal out of a mere seventy cents.

Now that I've used my gift card and went through all this trouble, you have the knowledge that I didn't have, which should help you decide (should you buy the set), if it's worth the hassle for you to use the gift card.

GBVG Cast & Crew Pages
I have added Cast & Crew pages for all Ghostbusters: The Video Game actors and writers. I had planned to do this for a while, but what pushed me to get it done now was that I needed to have a permanent place to put the link to GBTV's interview with Erin Grey, the voice of the Spider Witch. I was rather surprised by how easy it was to find photos of everyone. It's no surprise that most of the additional voice cast are Texas-based voice artists who've done lots of Anime dubs for Funimation. Both Funimation and Terminal Reality are headquartered in Texas.

Cast & Crew Audio CDs
Added sample tracks with scans of liners and discs as follows. Whole albums were not added becuase the albums can still be purchased. Pat Musick is the only one for whom the whole CD was added.
* S.H.E. CD added to pages of Tyren Perry, Jaimee Foxworth, and Jania Foxworth.
* Chunky A's Large and In Charge CD added to the Arsenio Hall page.
* Agoraphobic Cowboy CD added to the Rick Moranis page.
* Demo CDs added to the pages of Pat Musick and Mary Kay Bergman.

GBVG Stylized Version Collectibles Data
I have added a Ghostbusters: The Video Game Stylized Version Collectibles Data table. This comes from the Prima guide, but has been updated with all correct level names, LOTS of other corrections, and is sortable for easy quick reference.



Frank Welker's Movie In Theaters Now
As previously reported, Frank Welker, the voice of Ray and Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters, has a small live-action role in The Informant! with Matt Damon and Scott Bakula. The Informant! is in theaters now across the U.S., so go see it. Or wait a few months until it comes out on home video. Your choice. Either way, check it out.

Displaced Aggression In Stores Now
Issue #1 of IDW's new Ghostbusters: Displaced Aggression mini-series is in stores now. So go down to your local comic shop and pick it up, or head on over to the Graham Crackers Comics website. Just remember, there are THREE COVERS to collect: Cover A, Cover B, and Retailer Incentive Cover. A few reviews of issue #1 are already online, in case you'd like to read some reader feedback: RGB.com and IGN.

More Info On GBVG For PSP
   
Atari's Ghostbusters: The Video Game PSP minisite is live, and it's filled with lots of details, some of which I reported last month. The details, which are given below, tell me that (as expected) this is going to be the Wii/PS2 game, with the Wii's widescreen display and the PS2's lack of multiplayer (don't believe the "1-2 Players" notation on the mini-site, as it says the same thing on the PS2 page). The minisite also provides the box shot seen above, and the Atari Press site gives the 3-D box shot. The game is not yet available for pre-order at Amazon.com, but when it is, I'll add the link to the Store page.

Price: $29.99
Available: November 3, 2009
ESRB Rating: E 10+

• Blast and wrangle ghosts with an arsenal of unique and progressively more powerful equipment.
• Throw out a trap, hook a struggling ghost, and slam it into submission for final capture.
• Switch between 4 equipment sets to access 8 unique proton pack functions - different equipment are optimized for each enemy class.
• Use gadgets like the PKE Meter and Paragoggles to scan and analyze targets.
• Collect Scans and Art Pages to fill in your Tobin Spirit Guide and discover useful tips on how to defeat ghosts and other paranormal entities.
• Enjoy Ghostbusters on 16x9 widescreen while on the run...only on the Sony PSP!