Batman 20" Swim Ring

Things I buy on late night runs to the grocery store. Hey, it was only 49 cents! I could have used it last friday when I sat on the shop stool all day routing pipe fittings. Now what to do with it?

Star Wars; Trinto Duaba and Dice Ibegon

When you are late for a bye one get one free sale for Star Wars figures, you get the ones you never planned on getting. I did want these two, but a deal had to be in play, and so there was. Its almost a buy one get two free sale when you think about two figures in one small pack

So which one is which? The back indicates that Trinto Duaba is the humanoid. He is a bounty hunter, who is a 'Stennes Shifter;' able to blend into crowds. Or blend into Star Trek Insurrection as the lead bad guys.

Dice Ibegon, my favorite of course, is a Female Florn Lamproid who likes the Rebellion, and can move small eating utensils with the Force.


They were immediately drawn to my only other Cantina background alien, guy with a mask from the movie Scream. Dice was more social than Trinto for sure.


Dice can really hold her own too. Loves the blue stuff.


I was thinking today that a bartender in the Star Wars universe almost has to have pharmacist status to work. Think of all the Aliens, and different drink combinations. That is some serious responsibility.

Imaginext Lost Creatures Stracosaurus

If I added extra wings to the house, one of them would be a Dinosaur wing. Imaginext Dinosuars by Fisher-Price are so fun and playful. I picked this one up for my Nephew who instantly became friends with it.


He was using the Dinosaurs spikes to eat raspberries off of. Very funny.


The simple movement controls make these dinosaurs come alive. Yes, the control lever is in an awkward spot, but its well hidden. When watching a kid play with it, it fits perfectly in their hands, and is easily activated.


This little dino made sure to bite everyone in the house.

See more of them here.

Toy Pie Chart

I made a Toy Pie Chart to document the violent swings of my toy line addictions. It's pretty safe to say that GI Joe, Star Wars and Transformers make up 75% of the plastic I own. The other 25% being Super Hero stuff, Lego, Micro Machines, Thundercats, He-man, etc...

I would say the last couple months have been all GI Joe, thanks to the new Movie, and remaining 25th anniversary line stuff.


I recently caved to cable tv (tired of mooching BSU games off other people) and now can finally watch Star Wars Clone Wars and Ben 10 on a regular basis. This has caused the arrow to flip down into Star Wars territory for a few weeks. That and the nice buy one get one sale I caught the other day. Expect some upcoming posts on that.

Tech Deck #156 Bob (Ross) Happy Trees!

I can't believe they made this toy! How funny and artistically weird!


His head is a little top heavy with all that plastic for hair. Maybe that's why so many figures are going to 3 3/4" nowadays.

Toy Museum 4 years and counting...

So the blog hit four years today, that's crazy. I remember how the first few months seemed like an eternity, and then the rest flew by in a couple days. As always I had big plans for the day, but then things go to strange, more on that later.

So I start to reflect today on how many toys I probably 'boughton' over the last four years, and what I could have invested in instead. I started a spreadsheet a few weeks back to try to see how much I really had. After a few pages of just main themes, I gave up. If I listed everything, it would be at least 20 pages of stuff. Yikes!

So then I start thinking, what if I did something crazy, and sold everything except for 10 toys that I truly thought were the best of the best and would never want to give away. It usually Starts with my first Optimus Prime G2 version, and then ends at toy #355 Squidicus from Beast Wars (note how I went WAY over 10). Maybe I will start a ten toys I will never sell post list, to stay grounded.

So yeah, I had this plan today to get ALL the toys together for a family portrait. Just kidding, not ALL. But I did want to do a strange battle scene with GI Joe vs Transformers. After hours of trying to get the big Transformers retransformed into robots, laying down the sod, kicking the cat off the sod, trying to restand GI joes for the 100th time, I finnally got to shoot some pictures. And yes, after all that hard work, the photos all came out horrendously craptastic. I just don't have the studio space/ best camera, any kind of lighting, and patience to pull it off today. I was debating on even showing this photo, its THAT yucktactular. But, since I wasted the afternoon playing, I better well document it. Maybe for year five I can pull it off better.



Happy 4th Anniversary Toy Museum!

GI Joe tRoC; Target Snake Eyes Arashikage Cycle is Awesome

One can only have so many Snake Eyes action figures in black, gray, or purple, so I went with the half blue camo pants version. That way I get a spiffy cycle too. It took a few trips to Target to finally get in sync with this exclusive, but it was well worth the wait.


The bike is perfect, not too big, not too small. Snake Eyes fits okay, maybe a bit uncomfortably, but only because he has his sword out ready to cut watermelons thrown at him.


The back of the cycle has some pretty strong suspension, which if you press down far enough, shoots a missile out the front. Cheers to the designer who angled the missile launcher slightly up so that it shoots really far (and pretty hard for once too).


I am getting pretty close to the end of the movie figures that I wanted. Still looking for the blue camo pants Duke. Can't decide on Zartan, Heavy Duty, or Breaker as they just didn't do it for me. Well if Zartan had a better mask then almost the same as his normal head, I would have sprung faster for him. I do like his Mummy past adventures. Not too big on the upcoming waves, as I only want figures direct from movie now. It would be fantastic to see a young Snake Eyes vs. young Storm Shadow pack.

GI Joe tRoC; The Doctor Examined

Seems appropriate, on the night President Obama addresses the nation on Health Care reform, we take a look at The Doctor our country's next supreme commander (I am sure its in that new stinker of a bill).


This toy has it all, a wonderful rendition of our soon to be anointed one. I feel safe in his warm hands.


Or should I saw claws of doom. At least the new government will have a good back scratching program.

I am looking forward to the new green canisters we soon will be fed. I hope the transition into cobra's will be a long and painful one.


The Trick to being a good doctor is to be just titled, "the Doctor." vs. Dr Mindbender. He never gets any patients with that name.


Uh-oh! THis picture was supposed to be highly classified. You can't see that until we are all Cobra's marching for a united good of M.A.S.S. devices and Weather Dominators.


On the lighter side of things, if you prefer the Jonas Brothers look, turn the Dr's hair piece around.


So what does old Cobra Commander think of the Dr?


Hair and Helmet exchange, thats what he thinks!


Okay thats enough of the Doctor for now, we don't want this blog silenced just yet...

GI Joe tRoC; Delta-5 Accelerator Suit Duke

I wonder if there were some deleted scenes in GI Joe; The Rise of Cobra, where Heavy Duty introduced Duke and Ripcord to the Delta-1, 2, 3, and 4 Accelerator Suits? That would make more sense as to how they got so good using them in such a short time.


Looks like they refined Duke's suit with the spinning needle arm shooter, and dart cuff. He also comes with a neat looking rectangular ground mounted grapple, that just looks dangerous in function.


Could Duke be a Zombie under that helmet? Too bad they didn't make the helmets clear, and then paint them. The face shields where transparent in the movie. I guess they are on dark sunglass mode.


You can see some of the slight changes in paint, and arm cuffs when the two are together.


There's that grapple gun again. If you fire it, the grapple shoots away often taking the cannon with it across the table.

Watch Collection; Episode 23: Transformers Optimus Prime

Thanks to eating a series of foods that shouldn't be eaten in that order, I can treat to an early morning review on the Transformers Optimus Prime watch. Uh-oh... excuse me for one moment.

Okay, I start Saturday off with a new pledge to eat better; less soda more whole grains, maybe even an apple a day kind of thing. I started well with Frosted Mini Wheats, and later a DIET Pepsi. Things going good so far, right? Then a surprise barbeque invite, and things go downhill from there. Ate some really good, but over plentiful chips with dip, then a large tasty hamburger, and then some, yes, healthy corn on the cob. Now the fall to the dark side, a few drinks of questionable content (shot of Chocolate cake anyone?). Then some cookies made from possible old cookie dough, and then some more drinks of questionable content. Now it feels as if my esophagus is full right to the top. I took 2 Peptos, but they aren't working too well yet. I can't lay down, or everything will spill out my mouth. So the best thing to do, is sit upright, and wait for everything to settle down.

ANyhow, here is the new Optimus Prime watch that was sitting next to Storm Shadow in the kids watch area. I was really excited for this one as well, as Transformer watches usually mean high status in popularity.


For some reason, the watch face form of Prime looks like a face. There is a BumbleBee watch as well, and he looks almost like a cat face. The good news is that they modeled Prime after generation one style, but he is kind of flimsy.


I forgot to pull his hands out for this picture. I actually almost broke one hand off, thinking that they pull then rotate out. Overall the plastic is very cheap, and not to impressive transformation compared to older watches. Really Hasbro? I think by know science could create a better transforming watch. I have plenty of watches of small vehicles that stick way off the wrist, why couldn't Prime be like those small Transfomers toys, just detachable to the band? I suppose this was just a quick throw-out for the kids watch section.

And yes, what's with the questionable nipple watch format buttons?


*bUrp*!

Watch Collection; Episode 22: Storm Shadow Screwed Me

I was flabbergasted to find a repainted Inspector Gadget watch with Storm Shadow markings! It seemed weird that they just used the same model, but I was happy with the features, so why not?


It is strange that Storm Shadow's watch is in black and not white. But I guess its not HIS personal watch so it doesn't matter. Snake Eyes has a watch as well, but it has a side laser that will for sure get broken off as you take a corner short.


This is where Storm Shadow screwed me. NO WORKING SIREN ALARM! They left the light and the button, but it is glued down to not function. I doubt the electronics are even inside to do that trick. I was so bummed. I really liked that feature of walking behind someone blaring an annoying siren. What a disappointment Storm Shadow. Next time I play with toys, both Snake Eyes and Spirit will tag team against you and kick your sorry ass!

I do like the pretty star designs between the band and the watch face. Very Comfortable fit as well.