Putting Past Trauma To Bed

Rish Outfield has been plundering Ross stores for the last week or more. For some reason, they've stepped up their supply of toys that he finds worthwhile trying to sell. He's been buying Transformers, Star Wars figures, GI Joes, and more like a madman. He's filling carts as full as they can go with these toys, because...sometime in the not too far distant future...he will be able to turn those same toys around for a great deal more money than he is spending on them now.

I stopped doing that same thing with Rish back in 2007 or so. It was fun, but also came with a great deal of frustration and stress, so I let it go, and faded back to simply being a toy collector. I don't, therefore, go quite as crazy at the offerings they have available at Ross, but I'm still pretty damn impressed, and moved to buy stuff.

I just bought Tomax and Xamot a short while ago.

Then I bought a whole mess of those 3.75" Fortnite figures, because they had both the alien guys and the Doggo guy.

The other day, when I stopped in at Ross here locally, I was met with the sight of another figure I couldn't pass up. 

When I was a kid, I got the vintage version of Princess Leia in her Boushh disguise. I loved it so much. Sadly, while playing with some friends near a little stream in front of someone's house, her mask popped off, fell on the ground, and vanished into the brush. I looked forever, but never found it. For years after that, whenever I walked past that house, I'd go over and search anew for a minutes. Even long after I no longer had the figure, I would still remember how I lost the mask as I passed that house walking home. Years later I wrote a blog post relating the whole story while talking about finding the new Black Series version of the figure at Ross.

Okay, I think we're all caught up now. So, I saw the figure at Ross, it took me back to my tragic moment as a kid, and I jumped at the chance to finally have that figure with an intact mask again. 

On top of that, Ross has decided to price their figures back to the level that they used to price them at. For a while, it was barely cheaper to buy figures at Ross, because they were well over $10 a piece. Gone were the days when I was able to assemble an entire platoon of Snowtroopers from Ross for $4 a piece. Suddenly, though, they're back in that direction again. Those Fortnite figures above sold for $16 at retail, but at Ross they're selling them for $2.99. Same goes for Boushh here. She sold for more than $20 at retail, but they're only asking $5.99 at Ross right now. I jumped at the chance.

I took my traditional picture of my figure on the Dashboard, but since I got the new schedule at work, I'm hitting the Rosses at nighttime, and the pictures just don't look as good without better lighting. What a great figure, though, right? Amazing costume design. That mask...that I once lost and never saw again...that mask is such a cool design. I love it.

Should I see if I can't find a Chewbacca to pose her with, like she's bringing him in to trade? Or should I put her on the shelf with the bounty hunters from Empire Strikes Back? They're all bounty hunters, right? Or maybe I should give her her own shelf. She's cool enough to command her own place, after all.

Oh, since the figures were so cheap, I decided to grab one more. I picked up this figure of Grand Moff Tarkin.

I don't really want the figure of Tarkin, to tell you the truth, but I really wanted that torture droid he came with. It seems to me like it could work with 3.75" figures as well. It would be big, but no bigger than those astromech droids I got with Rish last week, for example.

I'll probably have to modify that stand to make it fit in with 3.75" figures, but I think it looks pretty good. Maybe, a year or two from now, when they don't have Tarkin for cheap at every Ross in the country, I'll see if I can't sell him for a few bucks. Or maybe I'll just put him on the shelf with the white dress Leia figure I have in a tote somewhere. I bought that one just because it was so cheap too, if I remember. Then the torture droid could migrate back to the 6" scale shelf to menace her. Good times, huh?

BBBE Carnivore | Vacation...Oh No, What Did I Do? | Journey to One-derland | Week 19 Roundup

I spent a whole week out of town to attend a wedding, and I decided to try a week without fasting, as well as eating whenever everyone else was...that may have been a mistake.

Too Scary To Pass Up

I went to the store the other day...Marshall's, I believe it was...and I came across a set of Fisher Price Little People figures. Normally, I don't buy Little People...at least not anymore. When my kids were little, we had a bunch of those things, but now, there's generally not much call for them...but look at these guys:

Someone like me who decorates for Halloween each year using toys couldn't just pass these things up. Particularly not when they are being sold for a nice cheap price...so I grabbed them up, and will add them to my spooky display. 

 Happy Halloween, folks!

ADF & BBBE Carnivore | Heading Out On Vacation | Journey to One-derland | Week 18 Roundup

It was a normal week this time, but at the very end, the family and I left town for a wedding. How did my numbers change when I hit the road? Watch to find out.

Anklecast 59 - Do Over (Part Four) Available on Patreon

Episode four of "Do Over" is now up on the Patreon. If you're not a member yet, what are you waiting for? Now's your chance to hear the episode sooner than everyone else who has to wait at least until next week. Go join up and check it out!

Oh, and if you've already joined up, thank you so much for that.

Droid Factory

While I was visiting Rish and we had lunch together, for old time's sake, we went to a few stores to look for toys. 

Ross had another one of those Fortnite alien guys, and I was going to buy it, but it didn't have its price tag on it, and the woman running the register didn't believe me that it is normally marked at $2.99. She said she'd do $4.99, but I wasn't about to pay two extra dollars for a figure that I have about ten of, so I left it behind.

We went to another store...I think it was called 2nd and Charles? It had was like a store from the nineties, with books, CDs, and DVDs on sale...except now that those things are generally worthless because nobody uses them anymore, they were very cheap. They also had a toy section, with second run toys, as well as things that people had brought and pawned to the store.

Hiding in the back, away from the toy section were a bunch of droids. Rish said they had been exclusive figures at Target back during the pandemic. They were the droid factory toys that you can generally only buy at Disneyland, but they'd put a few out for the hoi polloi who can't afford to get into one of those monumentally expensive places to buy.

Most of them were BB-8 droids painted in different colors. Those didn't interest me a whole lot. BB-8 was fine and all, but I'm not much of a fan of those films the robot appeared in, so I don't feel like I need any souvenirs of them.

There were, however, two astromech droids painted in very non-R2-D2 colors. I looked at them, found that they were only asking $10 a piece, and decided to go for it.

I particularly like the one with the drink serving tray attached to it.

It's pink, which I feel makes it pretty feminine, but I don't think there's anything wrong with having a girl robot. It makes perfect sense that a woman would want a pink robot as her sidekick, after all. It makes me think of this picture from Empire Toy Works:

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It makes me think of when Twiki met the girl robot on Buck Rogers.

"Booty booty booty"

"Bidi bidi bidi"

 "Booty booty booty"

Okay, moving on. The other robot is a pretty cool black and orange color scheme.

I don't know if it's supposed to be a Halloween robot or not, but it's cool no matter what. It came with rocket legs instead of a drink serving tray, so it's not nearly as good. It will never have those things attached, so it might as well have come with nothing. 

I hate those damned prequels so much that I'd rather have nothing at all rather than something that originates in them. I mean, come on, if R2-D2 had rocket legs, would he just have driven over the side of the sail barge in Return of the Jedi and had to be fished out of the sand by Luke? Of course not. He would just have flown over the side, and C-3PO could have jumped on and clung to him like Lois Lane.

*beep beep boop*

"You've got me? Who's got you? Ohhh my!"

Yes, I'm aware that the drink tray is a really dumb accessory too. If they needed a droid to serve drinks, they could certainly find hundreds that would be more functional than an astromech, but I don't care. That came from the good movies. Besides, I don't think they had Artoo serving drinks because it was the best thing for him to do. It was just that they didn't need an astromech droid, but they'd procured one, so they found a use for it, whatever use they could. He was probably vacuuming the floors in the palace like a Roomba until they all got onto the barge to go for a ride.

Anyway, one last cool thing. The black droid has a clear dome.

Underneath, it has this silver machinery looking stuff. As is, I think it looks a little weird and empty. But, I think with a little weathering to make the details pop, as well as a bunch of little wires glued in here and there beneath the dome, it could look really neat. Wish me luck.

Out Of Town Again

It's been a weird fall. Only a few weeks ago, I was out in Rish Outfield's neck of the woods visiting, because I had to help my daughter drive the 22 hour drive back to college there.

And now, here I am again, visiting for the second time in a month.

While I was here, we went out to lunch together, but sadly that was all we got to do. I was here with my whole family, and I had to keep them all pleased as well as squeeze Mr. Outfield in. I visited all three of my sisters and my stepmom while I was here, and we tried to do a few fun things as well.

We saw Dead Horse Point on the Colorado River:

We went up in the mountains to see the beautiful fall colors, both from a distance:

And from up close:

We went to a place called Cascade Springs:

And saw a big waterfall called Bridal Veil Falls:

And, the reason we were there was for a wedding. However, since I never show faces of family on here, the only picture I can show you is of the charcuterie boards that my wife made for the occasion:

There were a few things on there that a carnivore like me could eat...although I probably should have skipped it. My vacation turned out to be a huge step backwards for me in the weight loss effort. It'll take a couple weeks to regain that ground.