Captain Kirk vs Picard on Hot Wheels Go-Karts the Movie (for real this time)

Okay, a few director's edits and its REALLY ready to go this time. Sorry to leave you all in anticipation. For the five of you who saw the sneak peak, please enjoy this polished production in all its glory. For the rest of you five, please enjoy this life changing race.

Captain Kirk vs Picard on Hot Wheels Go-Karts the Movie

HA-HA REMOVED!

So yeah, had this idea in my head for awhile, and finally got to film it. I wanted to get a different color Hot-Wheels Go-Karts, to make things easier to distinguish, but since I never would order one, I felt I would never do the vid. So I made the video anyways. If this one takes off view wise, I plan to do a sequel, so I will get more kinds of cars for it. Enjoy, and share with your friends! And be kind to my spelling errors, if you can find them :)

OKAY, the spelling error was really getting to me, and a critical missing quote. Will re-tool, and have it ready tomorrow. So who go to see the lucky sneak peak? :)

Federation Earth Starbase One Micro Machines

Is it turning out to be a Star Trek week, or did I just find a baggie of old Micro Machines, so I'm having fun either way. The Federation Starbase! If you can balance it on the stand you get a prize. I always thought that this station was a ton of metal to get into space. I can believe the starship sizes, but this Starbase is huge. It doesn't help when the movie Enterprise barely fits through the hanger doors, and then in the future the Enterprise D fits though easily. Those might be different bases from different shows though.

Although simply huge, this is a cool looking space mushroom. I guess I could see Starfleet building it in stages. I always wondered, when Earth gets attacked, why doesn't this thing come out and say, ram into a Borg ship. That would make a neat five minute movie. I'm sure it has a super laser that shots out the base too.

So how does the station match up in scale to the other Micro Machines?

Not too well, but that's Star Trek for you.

From Texas to Idaho the best Claw Machine grab ever!

My Claw Machine skills are hitting new levels as I hacked into the International Space Station, dropped a claw down into Texas and then return dropped these to Idaho. If only I had that on camera. The true story is Chunky B from Eclectorama heard my expensive stories on claw machines (and paying his bassets through college), and whimpers about not winning these in Vegas, and so graciously sent these to me. How awesome is that!?!

Plush Original Star Trek toys are the best. Its been a challenge keeping them away from the animals already, they want to play SO bad. I think Bart here smells Squee. These will have to go to the top shelf for safe keeping. With fantastic face designs on Kirk, Spock and Scotty, I can act out many adventure. I'm wishing I never sold my 12" Mugato on Ebay. Also included are a couple of Spock gloves, for the big game. My hand almost fits!

Live Long and Prosper Chunky B, for your most generous of gifts. I will have to find something truly unique for you to top these guys.

USS Stargazer NCC-2893 Micro Machines

It's been awhile since I have highlighted anything ultra nerdy, so here we go, the USS Stargazer. If you already know this ship, you're a nerd, and you past the test. If you own this toy, you are a mega nerd, and I shake your hand.

I have been playing Star Trek Legacy on my X-Box 360 the last few weeks, and I got to this level where you actually get to fly the Stargazer. The game even creates the moment when bridge officer Picard takes over as Captain. I found that incredibly geeky, and thought I would share.

This Micro Machines ship from the early nineties is yellowed to show that its an older ship. Well, I don't really know why its yellow, and the other ships were gray, but it seemed like a good explanation. I think I bought this as a one pack, which was rare as these things usually came in threes or in box sets. It has pretty good detailing for a Micro Machine space ship.

She's a fun toy to play with, always flying apart at the seams, killing Commander Crusher, and performing Picard maneuvers in the bathroom.

So we raise our glasses high to the Stargazer, and this most geeky of posts.

Star Trek II Space Ship Battle Tribute Animation

Yeah, a whole decade to complete this. One can't believe the time and energy put into this project, plus the enormous coordinating nightmare. So, I will summerize:

Started this in June of 2001 as a "quick" and silly animation of Star Trek Ships fighting. I believe I was using my old Micron 166MHz computer sporting windows 95. I think Paint Shop Pro was involved, but I can't remember what I used to animate it with. I remember I was making my computer overload with the maximum hurt as I maxed it in rendering the animation. In fact, I had to save it in two parts or the computer would crash. So for some unknown reason, I saved it to a floppy disk, for archiving I guess. I believe I had to shrink it down, loosing lots of resolution. Then I forgot about it.

Yesterday I found the floppy disc! How the hell did I get it off the floppy disc? Well my Dad, actually took out his old floppy drive and installed in his somewhat newer computer. I got the files transfered, but had no internet or flash drive, so I saved it to a CD. The files are in evil .AVI, and for the life of me, I can't get them into iPhoto or iMovie. I hate Quicktime by the way. I conference with a friend for about an hour trying all sorts of conversion tricks, but still no go. So finally, I find some free conversion softwear, but it leaves a watermark. Luckily I can crop it out as its on the top bar. Phew! So I add a couple more scenes this afternoon, some music, and walla! Done. Enjoy.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-C Micro Machines

Eclectorama showcased a nice USS Grissom the other day, which got me digging for my mini Star Trek ships. Most of the fleet are still on a mission to dodge Ping-pong balls at my parents house, but the Enterprise C got to stay close captured in a plastic baggy!


I believe the only time this ship shows up is in the Next Generation Episode 'Yesterday's Enterprise.' Which I read somewhere just recently (?) that it would have been saved for a feature film had the producers known that Next Gen would make movie stage. What a great movie that would have been.


The designers of the ship did a good job bridging the gap between an Enterprise B and D. It looks like it fits right into the line. Although the engines are a little stumpy! I am glad they started making them long and dart like with the E. If you have no idea what I am talking about, consider yourself lucky.


Darn little bugger was hard to shoot with my old 4 MP camera with the over the top flash.

Old Toy Museum Photos

I found some fun old pictures of my ISU residence hall room today. I am thinking this is fall of 1998, amazing how antiquated photos are of that time. It looks like the 70's, just wait until the last photo. I really wish digital cameras were cheaper and easily integrated with computers back then. Oh, the lost shelf toy displays lost to time. So the first shot is from the door looking in at the bed. I had a scaled back collection in those days. Some toys not bought yet obviously, many toys in storage at the parents, and some toys in drawers and bins in the closet. I had to keep a study atmosphere in mind.

Of course the Bandai SpaceWarp roller coaster above the bed doesn't help.


SpaceWarps are so cool. I wish mine wasn't missing a critical elevator gear component, or I would rebuild it somewhere. I recommend watching them go on Youtube, they are amazing fun. I had it poked into the ceiling tiles, which I am sure asbestos leaked out onto my bed, as the building had to remove asbestos after we were kicked out. Also it was perfect for hanging action figures on. I remember one night Beast from the X-man jumped off and landed on me square in the chest. It surprised the hell out of me, kind of hurt too, and is a lesson for toy ceiling hanging.


The desk area is showcasing hanging Beast Wars Transmetals, A fish tank I bought for five bucks, and a Playmates Star Trek scene. I was big on classic Trek that year, as the Sci-Fi network was replaying old episodes with extra stuff and interviews. Playmates also had a few figures in the stores to pick up at that time. The Transporter pad figures were a hit too.


So then there is this shot. Trying to remember what the hell is going on here. At first I wanted to say party, but then there are some serious situations going down; Kirk vs Gorn, Sulu vs Mugatu, Spock vs Mirror Spock, Traleen about to take a swing at Kirk, all witnessed by time travelers Sisko and Dax.

Prowl in Robot mode

I had a request from Dennis to show some Prowl robot mode pictures. Initially Prowl wouldn't let me, actually he still doesn't. I had to sneak into the Toy Museum Martial Arts Club to get these pictures. Kind of fear for my life now that I'm posting these to the web. Most likely I will be attacked before dawn.

Anyhow, here is the group warming up. I am amazed they let Minimates King Pin take part in these exercises.


Sword training is important, but Prowl doesn't want to show his sword here.


The stand on ones head pose, helps keep plastic hard in ones joints. A round of applause for Darth Maul and his foot holding lightsaber trick.


Dramatic poses is also important to practice. Ah, Prowl now has his sword/arm weapon out. It is the third wheel assembly from his cart.


Oh, this is rare! Prowl is demonstrating his advanced wheel cart armor transformation to the others. Look at that grace...



Well, looks like he still needs more practice with that exercise. Darth Maul has the sitting on one's stiff Sith robes down!

Spaceballs: the Breakfast Cereal!

What was it that Mel Brooks said... "Moichandising! Where the real money from the movie is made."


Not bad tasting, but I don't think Dr McCoy would approve. My teeth started falling out afterwards.


I like the entertainment on the back of the box.

No toy inside the box which is a bummer.


The two circle marsh mellows are Earth and Vulcan. The Spiral cinnamon bun thing is a galaxy.

Wait, there's a toy in the Frosted Flakes!







Its not a bad light, could use a key chain accessory.

Most geeks have an Enterprise hanging in their room...

But mine was destroyed by a Romulan Warbird!!!


This is nothing compared to the embarassing display I used to have at my parents house. I had a very large scale DS9 star trek display going on in my secret basement hide out. It actally still stands, I will have to bring my camera with me next time I go give homage.

And what is with those UGLY 70's yellow mustard blinds! I have to tare those down one of these days.

Space Diving Captain Kirk!

I thought this figure would be gold due to the fact this scene never made it to the final cut of Star Trek Generations. Good thing too, if you ever get to watch the deleted scene on the DVD special edition you will understand. However, it almost matched the captain's fall of El Capitan in Final Frontier. Star trek is always at its best when things look silly anyways.

More Star Trek ScreenSaver Fun!

Talosian Keeper Playmates 9" Doll.

I was watching a little classic Star Trek the other day (or was that everyday). I remember how the Talosian's (or was that Telosian's?) were really scary in the first episode. How they burned poor Pike's mind to think he was being boiled in hot magget filled acid, or how they turned into big green monsters, or how they were women dressed like men aliens, or how they had giant butt like things on the back of their heads.

Well, with the miracle of modern toying, Take that Talosian!

Not so scary now!



Actually, maybe that's worse. I hope I didn't just cross the toy ethic lines on this one.

By the way, Sorry about the Tribbles investing the photoshoot.

Fun with Star Trek Special Effects!

One day, while writing a boring paper for school years ago, I found out that when you hold a toy up to the screen saver it looks really cool. Star field screen savers with a Star Trek toy can create hours of fun. The other day I took this a step forward with Apples iTunes Visualizer (playing Star Trek music of course). What wierd anomoly with the Enterprise hit this time.




Fun Fact: it took about 80 shots just to get these.

Strength Comparison! Star Trek Playmates Kirk vs Spock!

It has been known for a long time that Vulcan's are about three times stronger than humans, lets see if this is true on the toy scale. Here, Kirk and Spock will demonstrate for us...


Lets start by adding one box...


Now Two boxes. Need I remind you, these boxes weigh up to a few ounces.


Now Three...UH-OH!


So it is true. Vulcan's are stronger! Wow a alot stronger... Look at Spock go! Congratulations!