Dressing For Less

I don't know if you've ever been to a Ross store at Christmastime, but if you have, then you know that they usually look something like this:

They tend to be so ransacked and destroyed, that even if they had any worthwhile merchandise, you probably wouldn't be able to to find it.

This year is different than others I've dealt with in the past. Now, don't get me wrong, they're all still generally ransacked and destroyed. They look like they were robbed by somebody who was looking for the hiding place where the money was kept, like someone's house always does after they've been robbed in the movies.

However, they have merchandise this year. Enough merchandise to make it worth going back again and again. They have good stuff, and they keep getting more on a near daily basis.

I've been finding stuff there all month, but it just keeps happening. I figured I'd share with you a few of my most recent discoveries.

As always, I'm looking for stuff to put in my upcoming space station build, Ankletown Station. I'd really like to have a large army of Stormtroopers, but those darn Vintage Collection figures are so expensive. Well, enter Ross to my rescue. They put out a Stormtrooper figure that comes with the E-Web cannon from the final episode of Mandalorian season 1. He was horribly overpriced, and therefore, didn't sell well. So now, Ross has them for waaaaaaaay cheaper. I've been checking Rosses as often as I can in search of them, and the other day, I finally found some. 

Two, to be exact, for $6 a piece. 

So, I got the deluxe figures for less than half of what they normally charge for a regular, non-deluxe release. I got two, but I would have bought as many as they had. If they had ten, I would have bought them all.

I'm still hoping that I'll find more of them at other Rosses, and can build my troop size up higher. Usually, once you find something at one Ross, you start seeing it at all of them. Although, I know that other collectors are keen to get their hands on them as well, so there's a pretty cutthroat competition out there for them. So, I guess we'll see.

However, they're not the only reason to head out to Ross. The other day, I also found this Fortnite figure for $3.

I believe his name is Eternal Voyager, if I recall correctly. They have earlier versions of the guy with his helmet visor down, and he looks like a cool astronaut. This visor up version is pretty good too. He definitely looks like someone who belongs on a space station, right?

Yesterday, I  found these two as well.

This is the Jada Toys Universal Monsters line of toys. They are usually $30 or so, but at Ross, I got them for $9. They will look awesome at Halloween...as long as I'm not too lazy to put up my stuff next Halloween. They come in a kind of small box, but they are six inch scale, and fit in with most of the rest of the figures that I own.

So if I wanted, I could pose them as if they were chasing my GI Joes or Star Wars guys or whatever. Rish told me that he saw several other monsters from the line last night while at Ross where he lives, so there may be a chance to add a few more, like Dracula, the Wolfman, or the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I know it's Christmas, and I should be looking for presents for others instead of myself, but Ross and its great prices on things that had been overpriced up until now, has got me in the mood to get everything that I can. I suppose that's the opposite lesson from what were supposed to learn and relearn each December, but this year, I can't seem to help it. Maybe there'll be hope for me next year.

Accessorizing

One thing I've wanted to do ever since I started decorating my study with Christmas figures was to put little Santa hats onto all the regular figures that don't get replaced by Christmas ones. Just because they're not Christmas-themed, doesn't mean they can't participate in the fun, right? I mean, there's way more spots that don't get any Christmas cheer than there are ones that do. Maybe we could change that with a few hats.

I looked on Amazon, hoping that there was a simple solution for my quest, but I can't find hats that are quite small enough. I found this set:

Which I thought might be the way to go, but I couldn't tell if they would fit my action figures. It said it would fit a lollipop in the title, there. Would that work? But when I looked in the reviews, I found this picture attached to someone's comment.

Perfect size for tall action figures they said. I don't know for sure, because I don't recognize those figures, but they look like Mego-style figures judging from their cloth outfits. Those are a good deal larger than what I have on my shelf. They run around eight or nine inches at least, and my figures are mostly six inches. I have a few twelve inch guys, but not thirty of them.

There was a second review with a picture that sealed the deal for me:

If they fit a bottle, then they were too big for a six inch guy. Seemed like I needed to look elsewhere. I watched a few YouTube videos, and saw how to make my own. The first one I did was a little large, and only fit those twelve inch guys.

I tried again, and it was a little better.

It fit better, though not perfectly still, but it was a huge pain in the butt. I got glue everywhere, and it took too long. If I wanted it to do what I was after, I was in for dozens of hours making these hats. So, I pretty much gave up.

Then there was this thing that I got last year at work.

Chick-fil-a sends crap like this into newsrooms all the time. There was a guy last year who had a collection of those Chick-fil-a cows that he would add to each time a new batch came in. Pretty much every time a new restaurant opened in Houston, they would send out some stuff, and last year they sent us some of their special edition Christmas cows that you could get.

Well, I thought I could grab one of those, and use it as a Christmas decoration on my desk at work,  like my coworker did with all his normal cows. When the Christmas season began, I got out my lights and my cow, and set them up on my desk. But that cow just kept drawing my eye.

You see, I don't give a crap for Chick-fil-a. I've almost never eaten there, and the few times that I have, I've done it with free coupons that they'd sent to the station. I didn't like Chick-fil-a enough to have some friggin' special edition cow plushie on my desk. It just felt weird.

On top of that, the thing was wearing this great winter hat. You could almost call it a Santa hat, except that it was in stripes instead of plain red. I kept looking at that cow, and coveting the hat. If I just took it home and performed some surgery, I could probably give that to one of my toys, and add to the Christmas vibe.

At last, I committed. I took the cow home, performed some surgery, and I had a little hat...which would only fit twelve inch figures. Oh well, at least I had some of those. I put it on the Halo guys that I transformed into Christmas warriors by arming them with candy canes and trading their heads out for a Barbie and an unmasked Peter Parker.

I thought it looked pretty good, and those two needed a little something. I had hoped that the fact that one was red and one was green would convey Christmas, but it definitely did not. The candy canes just didn't do enough either. The hat adds a little more, but they're still probably stupid. Oh well.

But I wasn't done. I thought about how important it was that hunters eat the whole animal, and not just kill something for its tusks or its horns or its tail feathers, and I figured I could do more with this cow...okay, I didn't think about that, but I still figured I could do more. Look at the shoes the cow is wearing:

That looks like a Santa hat, doesn't it? Maybe some surgery could yield me a couple more hats I could use. Probably only fit a twelve inch figure, but still...I started cutting, and behold:

Those look great, don't they? You can't tell that it's only a Santa hat on the front half, either. The back side is just the bottom of the shoe, but nobody will see that. They were probably good as is, but I thought they needed a little poof ball at the top, so I glued one on for each, and here we go:

I love them. It makes me wish that these guys weren't up on the top shelf, because nobody will likely notice them up there. Oh well, they're still fun.

I think this was the point where I started getting greedy, though. I looked at the cow, and wondered if I couldn't do something with the shirt.

The front, with the stupid Eet Mor Chikin crap didn't do anything for me, but they had the same design with the lights on the back, but minus the writing. That might look like an ugly Christmas sweater on somebody, right?

So, I went to work, surgically removing it, and I tried it on a figure.

Okay, it didn't fit right, and looked like utter crap. I guess it's time to give up. I got an awful lot out of that free plushie, I didn't need to be greedy.

Funny thing is, while I was writing this post, I found a listing on Amazon for Santa hats that had this comment:

Alicia there is using those for six inch wrestling figures, and the don't look too bad. I could get thirty for $14 or insanely enough, sixty for $16. An extra thirty for $2. Thirty is probably more than enough, but with sixty, I'd never run out, and they look pretty good. I think I might have to invest in a set and just see what comes of it.

Although, the best way to go would be this:

BigBadToyStore has a line of figures called the Naughty or Nice Collection, and they have this accessory set of four Santa Claus hats that are made specifically to fit six inch figures. Unfortunately, they are much more expensive. $12 for four or $16 for sixty? I kind of wish I could go for the former, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to choose the latter.

December, Week Two

Okay, it's time for my second weekly report for writing in December (you can find the first one HERE). Once again, I managed to write every day, and hit my 1,000 word goal too.

My word counts were pretty similar to the week before's. Some of them were even pretty meager, like yesterday, when I checked to see how many words I still needed to write, and I saw that I was at 1,005 and could already quit. "Woohoo!" I crowed, and closed the program then and there. Then there were others where I went as far as 394 words past my minimum. So, you never know.

As far as my monthly goal goes, I'm over halfway there.

16408 / 30000 (54.69%)

But not significantly so. Of course, it's still not the halfway mark for the month yet, so I guess that means I'm doing pretty good. On the year to date chart:

I'm cruising along. By the end of next week, I should have passed 50,000 for the year. That's pretty cool. My average has dipped a little after the last two days. It was over 1,200, but two weak showings brought me back down a ways. It would be neat to get to 1,250, but I'm not making that a goal. I might make it a goal in a future month, but this month it's just an it-would-be-neat.

My meter says:

43321 / 304475 (14.23%)

14.23% so far, and we are13.11% of the way through the year, so I am lengthening my lead. It's now more than a full percent.

The writing has been fun, and I've been taking pains to prioritize it. I write in the mornings before going to work, and have only had to rely on my lunch break once this whole month to finish up, because I let my morning get away from me that day...yesterday. It's that thing that Chris Fox talked about in his book, eat that frog. Do the most important things first.

I've completed one story, that's the one called "Karma Is My Boyfriend." I'm 36,216 words into my next project, a book called "Caught Up in Christmas." It's been fun, and I'm enjoying telling the story. I'm afraid I probably won't finish it before Christmas. Will the Christmas spirit still move me to keep writing even after the season is over? I think it'll be fine. 

It's probably about time that I start thinking about what I'm going to write next, too. So far, I've had stories that had been started, but not finished to pick up on. "Caught Up in Christmas' had a full outline for me to follow. So, it's been a breeze. I did a lot of prep work on my book that will be called "Skeleton Crew" last year, and even wrote for one day on the first chapter, but it has not got any outline. It's got a lot of other supplemental materials that I can get myself back up to speed with, but if I want to write it next, I better start thinking about and working on its outline, so that when I finally get to THE END of "Caught Up in Christmas," I won't be stuck floundering with nothing to write the next day.

Guess I have a goal to work toward for the rest of the month.

Expanding The Parade

Just days after writing my post on the Legos I have in my Christmas display, it became outdated.

This thing came in the mail from the Chinese knockoff site Temu.

You see, I was unsatisfied with the tree that had a large open space to fill beside my Lego gingerbread house, but did little to fill that space.

It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. So, I looked through the options on Temu, and found a tree that was just right for the space...I mean, I even got out the tape measure to make sure it would fill it well. I didn't want a new tiny tree. I wanted a big one.

Once it arrived, I got right to work building it up, and soon, I was ready to put it in place. But then...

It wouldn't fit. The star stuck way up above the shelf. Hadn't I measured this thing? Was my measurement faulty or had Temu led me astray with what they'd claimed its height was? Either way I was in a pickle. Did I want to remove the star and put the tree up like that? Or was it better to rework the base to lower the tree.  I was pretty upset, and I didn't have time to anything other than pull the star off and stuff it in there for the time being. I'd think about it and deal with it the next day.

It didn't look terrible without the star, but it definitely looked better with it. Meanwhile, the base was not something that I cared about. I wanted a big tree. I didn't need a huge base raising it up too high, so I decided that would be the thing to get the axe. I sat down at my desk, and redesigned the base of that tree to a shorter one.

Tossing aside quite a few pieces in the process. I guess I'll donate those to my son's collection.

Now, it had ought to fit.

Boom, baby! Nailed it. Of course, I wasn't done yet. No Christmas tree is complete without some lights, and I had a huge set that I'd gotten on Day-After-Christmas-Sale price the year before.

I had to drive all the way out to the store to get some batteries, because this thing was so big it ran on C-cells rather than AAs. I started wrapping it up, and now look at it.

It looks great. You can't see it in pictures, but it looks even cooler with the lights flashing. The old tree looked kind of silly over there on the side, however, so I figured I'd add it to my other house. Its tree was pretty piddly, so giving it a second could only help.

So, there we have it, the final product. I like it so much better now that it fills the space.

Don't know why I hate the empty space so much, but I do. This looks miles better. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

A Present From The Cat?

I came walking into the bathroom today, and stopped cold. There was a curled pile of brown...something...on the floor.

Did the cat leave us a present? She's never crapped on the floor before. That was the other cat's specialty, but she's gone now.

Actually, it was too big even for that. It really looked like a pile of dog crap, but we don't have a dog.

It wasn't until I got a little closer that I finally saw what it was, and could breath a sigh of relief. My wife must have dropped it on the floor. It was one of those pony tail holder things. I believe they are called scrunchies.

Thank goodness. I know everybody loves presents, but nobody wants a present from a cat...or a dog for that matter. Now I need to convince my wife not to leave her poop brown hair accessories on the floor to startle me with...or I should go to the store and get one of those fake poop joke things and leave it on the floor for her. That might be the better course of action.

Showing Off More Decorations

This one is one of my favorites to put up each year.

It's a wampa family Christmas. I made this one back in 2018, when I first started my little YouTube toy channel. I did a video all about Christmas decorations, and made this cave as the centerpiece of the video.

It has evolved a little bit since then. I made a Lego fireplace for their cave, because I didn't have enough stuff to fill the space. In the video, I complained that I had to buy the wampa set at full price, but later, I found the wampa set at Ross and bought another one. I touched up the paint on one of them, and removed the horns, so that they looked different, and one could be the mommy and the other could be the daddy, and voilà the whole family is here to take their picture for their Christmas card. 

I now have a second Luke in Hoth gear that I can put in Ankletown Station or whatever I want to do with it as well. The one has to stay attached to the ceiling as a Christmas decoration, though. Captured in ice forever by the wampa family.

Since I'm talking wampas, I have one other wampa that Rish Outfield found for me at a thrift store and bought, since he knew that I love anything I might be able to pass off as a Christmas decoration.

He's one of those silly Galactic Heroes figures, but still fun. He even roars if you press the button on his back. When Rish and I went out to the Salt Flats in Utah, this was the only Hoth thing we had to bring with us, so we took several silly pictures that looked like us out in the snow, scared by this fearsome wampa.

The forced perspective thing didn't quite work, but it was still fun.

Since we're doing Hoth...and Galactic Heroes crap, I also put up this Tauntaun with Han Solo each year.

I have a tauntaun that is regular 3 3/4" scale figures too.

Luke's about to meet that wampa from the first picture...

Last and definitely not least, I add the nose and antlers to my AT-AT each year like some people do with their cars. I love it.

I still think it's my favorite thing from all of my Christmas decorations where the AT-AT is smashing that little tree covered in decorations under its foot. I love that.

OMAD & BBBE Carnivore | Not Bacon & Eggs Only This Time | Journey to One-derland | Week 28 Roundup

I was planning on another all bacon week, but when I checked my blood pressure, I got a surprise. I suspected the sodium from the bacon to be the culprit, but now what would I do for the week's food? Come with me on my ride and see what I do! And find out if it worked better or worse than last week's all bacon week.