Toy Overload, Part 2

The thing that had been waiting the longest to reach my hands from Rish's was the skiff guard 3-pack.

As per Hasbro's MO, they wanted a lot for this thing. These days, you can get a 3.75 inch figure for about $15, but when Hasbro puts them together in a 3-pack, then for some reason they charge you $60 instead of $45. Apparently the box they shove the figures in is worth $15 too, I guess.

So, needless to say, it was too expensive for me to buy new, and as I discussed in a previous post, around here, things don't make it to clearance very often. Not unless it's a garbage tier property like Black Adam or The Eternals. However, where Rish lives, there's a much greater opportunity for things in more respected lines to show up on sale.

He has this store...I've never been there because it didn't exist when I still lived there, and I can never remember the name of it...that sells second run stuff. He often finds good deals on Star Wars figures there, and one day I was talking to him on the phone when he saw the skiff guard 3-pack. I begged him to get one for me and set it aside, and, since he's a nice guy, he did.

It was set aside for a long time, but our chance finally came to get them to me, and they made their way across the USA in my daughter's ancient Mini Cooper. And here they are:

They came on cards inside that box, because there's a lot of weirdo collectors out there that would rather keep their toys in the box instead of taking them out and displaying them.

I probably shouldn't share that video...it hits a little too close to home. *Stares off into space as the force theme plays hauntingly*

Anyway, they came out with a skiff toy years ago, and I jumped at the chance to buy one, put it on the shelf, and just look at it. However, I didn't have the figures necessary for the ship. I had a Boba Fett that came with the Slave I ship I'd gotten in 2017, and I managed to get a Jedi Luke and a skiff guard Lando, but I had not a single skiff guard for them to fight.

For the time being, I had them battling with aliens from the cantina scene in Star Wars, but when Rish got me that skiff guard set, my problems were solved.

I packed them on my skiff, and now it looks great:

Oh, whoops, that's not the right picture. Those dancing girls came from Rish in the package as well. He didn't want them, and I told him I could surely find a place for them on my space station, so he sent them along to me. Here's the correct picture.

Looks pretty good, right? I'm excited anyway, even if no one else cares about the things that I like. *Stares off into space as the force theme plays hauntingly*

Hem Dazon used to guard the skiff, but now that he's free, he's out on the town, hoping to get him some strange (and yes, I had to look the guy's name up. I'm not that far gone yet).

 

Toy Overlaod, Part 1

If you're not into my toy blog posts, then you probably don't need to stop in for at least a few days (as if anyone stops in, I'm lucky if I can get people to read the blog if I physically grab them with one of those big canes and yank).

My daughter came back from college for the summer, which meant that it was the perfect time to get all the things that Rish has been buying and saving for me for the last while, because he could get it to me with no shipping charges. My daughter just threw it in the back seat.

So, what did I get? Well, let's start with these.

The vintage X-Men wave Storm and Dark Phoenix. These are two characters that I lust...oops, I mean love. As far as Storm goes, I get every version of her that I can. Usually, I try to stick to on difinitive version for each character in my collection, but she's one of the few characters that I don't mind having several versions.

By no means is that a definitive collection, but it's a lot for me. A while back, however, I found another Storm that I didn't have on BigBadToyStore. I was feeling frisky, I guess, and I pre-ordered it. Then it suggested I might like this Dark Phoenix, and I don't have any version of her, so I pre-ordered that as well.

Later that day, I mentioned it to Rish, and he said that he already had both of those figures, and I asked him if I should cancel my pre-orders and buy them from him instead. He was willing to do so. I hope he didn't lose out on money on them. I'd like to help him now and then by buying figures I want from him, but I can't pay exorbitant prices, so if he thinks he can get exorbitant prices down the road, I hope he tells me no, and sells them to the suckers who can.

Anyway, he sent me Storm, and I got her up on my shelf.

He told me this was just a black suit repaint of the white suit Storm I have above, and I insisted that it wasn't. I was certain that the white suit one didn't have the shoulder pads with the X-Men symbols on them. Of course I was wrong:

I should have known. Arguing with Rish about the minutiae of Marvel Legends is like arguing with a mathematician about which of the two of us got the problem on my kid's homework right.

The other figure of the batch, Dark Phoenix, just looks beautiful, doesn't it?

I haven't got her on the shelf yet, because I want to pose her flying like this, but I need to make a flight stand to put her on, so for now she just waits, but soon, my pretty, soon...

More to come tomorrow about what else Rish sent my way.

Speeder Bike

I found this at Walmart on clearance the other day, and I figured it had come down enough in price that I'd be willing to give it a shot.

Looks like it could be a cool speeder bike on a multiversal space port, right? I could care less about the Black Adam figure, because I don't feel like it fits in well with the aesthetic, but the other silver and black guy does. So that's a bonus.

I think it would be really funny to have a character riding this speeder bike, and being chased by a biker scout on an ROTJ speeder bike. They even have one available to purchase right now!

But yeah, they want $45 for it. Forty-frickin'-five dollars! Not for the AT-AT. Not even for the AT-ST. For a frickin' speeder bike.

The worst part is that Star Wars fans are kind of chumps. They'll pay whatever Hasbro asks, so these things never go on sale...at least not around here. Only garbage tier toys like Black Adam or Lightyear make clearance around here. Rish always makes fun of me for paying full price on things like Star Wars Black Series, saying I should just wait and they'll hit clearance. He might see that on his shelves in his state, but I never do.

So, I'll probably never get this speeder bike, but you never know. I'll take Rish's advice in this case and wait and see. I can't afford to do otherwise.

Hot Cha Cha

Anybody ever have the candy called Red Hots when they were young? You remember these?

I used to eat these a lot when I was a kid, but I haven't seen them in probably thirty years. I didn't know they still existed. Talking about the Red Hots meant you were talking about the band Red Hot Chili Peppers now, not the candy.

I don't much care for either version of Red Hots. The band hasn't had a good song since 1991, and the candy is made from cinnamon oil which makes me sick.

My wife likes cinnamon oil-related things, though, and sometimes flaunts it on me. For example, she bought that box of Red Hots when she saw them at the dollar store the other day.  The joke was on her in the end, though. She thought they were Hot Tamales instead. She likes to eat Hot Tamales mixed with popcorn. It's something that a friend of hers put her onto years ago. She saw that box of candy above at the dollar store, and thought she would have some popcorn with them, but Red Hots are crunchy, not chewy like Hot Tamales. So, she didn't get to have her disgusting treat. Take that!

The Batwing

I had to drop my daughter off at the airport Friday morning, but it wasn't the close airport, it was the one that was almost as far away as driving to work for me. Once she was gone, I had three hours before I needed to be at work. I could have spent that driving an hour back home, having one hour there, and then driving another hour back to work, or I could just hang out near the airport and then go to work when the time was up.

I decided for the latter, if just to save gas...although hanging around the airport meant finding the stores that had toys to see what kind of stuff they had, so saving money turned out to not be all that integral.

In fact, not long after starting my rounds out there, I went to a Target, and saw the Batwing toy from the new Flash movie that I've heard the toy collecting community talking about online.

It's a pretty big ship, and it came with two figures. I thought the Batwing would be cool in my future space station with the Star Wars ships and other ships around it. I usually try to wait until things go to clearance, and then take advantage of the great prices. That works sometimes, but often, I never see the things I really want on clearance. This ship was only $25, which is how much I paid for this guy:

That's right, a figure that is half the size of the two that come packed in with the Batwing cost the same price. So, I've been far more reckless in the past over certain toys. $25 didn't seem too out of line for once. Maybe I should support this company just for pricing their toys in a reasonable manner. I texted Rish and asked him if he thought I should get it, but he didn't get back to me right away, and I gave in.

Rish eventually texted back and said that he thought there were probably millions of these things produced, and I could certainly get it on clearance later, and I had to text him that picture above and tell him he was too late.

I probably will find it on sale, because that seems to be when I find things on sale, after I've already paid full price  for them.  I don't feel ripped off, though. I'd be willing to say that the price offered legitimate value.

Here's the ship flying around my study. I wonder if I could clip it out and put it on a different background...

Had to take a another picture, because that background was too busy for Photoshop to select just the ship, but here we go:

Looks pretty decent. It'll be even funner when it's in the space station, which I've never worked on. Speaking of that, though, I was looking at this picture by Empire Toy Works today and it made me think.

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I know that Empire Toy Works has built his entire space station out of wood, and it's basically a giant playset, but looking at this picture made me think that it didn't have to be like that. If you look at that picture, it could just as easily be a modular set, where you make several building fronts, and then shift them around to make picture after picture.

This realization sent me out to the dollar store, and I bought a bunch of foam core boards (and some goofy tchotchkes that I could use in the creation of the space station). I actually have some supplies. This space station thing may actually happen. HOLY <censored>!

Best Movie Soundtracks

I love movie soundtracks. I have most of John Williams' repertoire, as well as James Horner, Thomas Newman, Alan Silvestri, and even a few of Hans Zimmer's (despite the fact that I hate what he's done to the film score scene). My all-time favorite soundtrack is the one James Horner did for the movie, Glory.

The other day I was thinking it might be fun to see what some other people thought were great movie soundtracks, so I searched for it on YouTube, figuring I'd click on a playlist and see if I agreed. The weird thing was what came up. Right on the side, ready to play, was this list that YouTube suggested.

Anybody else see the problem that I see? The list calls itself Best Movie Soundtracks, and then just tries to dump a bunch of TV theme songs on us. Do they not know what a movie is?

Come on man!

As Seen On TV

They put up one of those standee things in Walmart a month or so ago that is filled with model kits. A few of them I was interested in. They have a B-wing and an X-wing kit from Star Wars, for example, and if they were cheaper, I definitely would have bought the B-wing by now.

Yesterday, when I was walking by, I saw this model kit, and it kind of cracked me up.

I got nothing against the Green Hornet, but even I'm too young to remember when it was a popular TV show, and I'm older that dirt. The only hornet I remember was the Brown Hornet from Fat Albert, which certifies my credentials as older than dirt.

So, I had to wonder, just how old are these model kits? Did they find this standee in the back when they cleaned out the corner where they always throw their boxes and then just dusted it off and put it on the floor? Or do the model kit makers just know that mostly retired people put models together, and they used the box art that would grab them right in the feels and yank them in to buy? Probably the latter, I suppose.