Buying new toy robots may not ever bring back 1984, but that’s OK when 2010 can also be awesome

Where have all the old toy stock rooms gone???

For quite some time I’ve been very aware that the nostalgia I always blamed for my ungodly toy robot accumulation had been futile. Futile in the sense that it really didn’t matter how many Optimus Primes or Soundwaves I ever bought, 1984 wasn’t ever coming back, and my local Lionel Play World from the ‘80s is now a Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

But, you see, yesterday changed my feelings when I went into a Toys R’ Us not too far from me and was actually greeted with swelling racks of toys rather than baby clothes and video games. Pegs and shelves filled to the friggin’ brim with plastic love. And I even bought a new Optimus Prime and Bumblebee at damn near 1980s prices thanks to the rare Toys R’ Us sale. It might sound absolutely beyond retarded to the non-robocentric folks that may have accidentally found my blog, but for me it was a glimpse of bliss.

I hadn’t enjoyed a toy store on that level in quite some time. If I wasn’t so skint and I actually owned a cell-phone with a camera, I should’ve have taken pictures of the scene. But this little episode got me thinking—where the hell are the pictures of old toy stores from the 80s? Plaid Stallions seems to have the corner on the market for awesome old toy store pics, but they are definitely of the 70s variety. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but what I wouldn’t give for just a tiny glimpse of an awesome toy display or shelf from a Lionel Play World in 1985.

So I really think that cool toy display pics are what I must seek. I’ve got to get cracking on asking the interwebz peoples out there: “PEOPLES, GIVE ME SOME OLD TOY STORE PICS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF AWESOME!!!”

Perhaps that should be my focus. Danny Choo has OTACOOL. Perhaps I should start something similar, only instead of people with ungodly amounts of anime goods and moe hookers with swords, it will be people with their toy robots collections. But most of all, pictures of an aisle of Zayre right before the fall of the great toy robot wars of the 1980s and pictures of people with their toy robot sickness on full display.

Damn, I’ve got to get cracking, and perhaps with a blog name change to boot.

Stay tuned…

P.S.: Whoever found my blog by searching for “werewolves fighting tigers”, I believe you and I could be great friends someday.

A tale of two games

I’ve never been that much of a gamer, despite the fact that I’ve owned many different consoles over the years since the first NES system.  That said, I currently own a Game Cube, and Playstations 1-3.

The  Playstation 3 I’ve only had since last week and have been playing the hell out of it. I also got a hold of Bayonetta, which I’ve never had so much fun killing angels with hair, bullets, a guillotines. However, last night I was in a Playstation 2 kind of mood and decided to play Shadow of the Colossus. A game that I loved the look and feel of, but honestly hadn’t spent much time with it. In fact, I had never even killed the first Colossus. That was, until last night.

What a hell of a fight those big bastards put up! Between the holding onto the fur for dear life whilst the giant shakes you about, beautiful music blaring while you figure out a way to stab him in the head repeatedly, the rush was very palpable.  I died a few times trying to kill him, but I finally did it. Black blood spraying like a geyser, the lifeless mystical corpse of a colossus hit the ground hard. But instead of feeling invigorated or accomplished–I actually felt pretty crappy.

Like I had just slaughtered an innocent creature like a cow or something that was only guilty of being in the way of a larger goal. All this brought to light to me what an amazing game Shadow of the Colossus truly is. Instead of a fantasy game where you go about constantly slaying ravenous beasts/creatures, you instead seek out and destroy huge mystical giants, guilty of little else other than being a part of your quest to bring your girlfriend back to life.  I realize the utter awesomeness of  playing a game that could make me feel somewhat conflicted–a moral dilemma of sorts. I almost don’t even want to play it again because I feel that the Colossi should go about doing their Colossi things. Just because my girlfriend died from some “curse” doesn’t give me the right to go about on a murderous rampage of giant innocents.

Perhaps the game would be far more fun to me if you got to control the Colossus and go on a rampage after the game’s  “hero,” Wander. Now THAT I could enjoy, I think.  For that matter, maybe I’ll eventually go back to it at some point and try not to feel sad when I play it.

Besides, I got a lot more angel killing to do with Bayonetta. Everyone’s favorite stripper witch with hair for clothing and deadly stripper pole dances as she takes out heavenly forms. INFINITE CLIMAX TIME!!!

On a long enough timeline, all blog traffic reaches ZERO -OR- Holy shit I haven’t had a new entry since JUNE!

I’d been thinking about this blog recently.

Thinking about how I used to rather infrequently blog about nothing and loserdom. Thinking about all the plethora of abandoned blogs and toy sites I come across in my interwebz travels when not lurking on cosplay sites looking for great renditions of Morrigan. And I’ve thought how I didn’t want to become just another abandoned loser blog. I want to be AN ACTIVE loser’s blog.

How I missed those days of needless typed drivel. And if you’re reading this entry you either:

A) Know exactly what I’m all about and miss the bad old nothing days of DOOMblog.

-OR-

B) Have no idea just what the hell I’m going on about.

I almost rather hope it’s “B”, cuz if it’s “A” you may have gotten tired of coming here and seeing the same damn Hasbro promo shot of Transformers Animated Rodimus for 5 months (that may actually be happening after the smoke clears from the Bayfomer-explode fest.) But I write this entry to say, I’m back from the dead like a toy collecting Jason Voorhees and I’ll keep my mindless spewing for the 5 people who have me bookmarked!

See you in the movies!

I’ve kept busy

It occurred to me that I’ve actually built some cool stuff the last few months and haven’t really shared them with anyone that didn’t happen to just come over and say, “when did you build this?”

 

So here goes:

 

LEGO Cylon Raider (from new BSG)

 Based/copied very much by this one.

 

I worked from only pictures, so I did the best I could.

In the end, I thought I did a fairly good interpretation, no?

 

Bandai 1/72 scale model Macross Frontier VF-25F--Battroid mode

 

VF-25F--Fighter mode

VF-25S--Battroid mode

After building these kits, toy robot Nirvana may have escaped me, but they got me damn close. I LOVE these kits–LOTS. The DX Chogokin’s are good, but honestly, if you do these kits up proper, they make a better representation of the Macross Frontier CG models in my view.

 

Just last night, I finished the EVA-02 Bandai HG kit. Pics coming. And there’s that Kotobukiya Linebarrel kit waiting to be built. Lucky for me, time’s something I’ve got.

Another year, another MegaCon

Another year, another MegaCon in Orlando this weekend. 

 

Of course I’m going, but only solo this time. My sister and brother-in-law couldn’t make it, my boy Matt’s a no go (again) and I may see some people there I know, but otherwise, I’m flyin’ solo ( as per usual!)

 

And not surprisingly to those who know me, this fact doesn’t bug me in the slightest. Let’s face it, as most real dorks know, we ain’t exactly the most extroverted bunch traditionally. My general aversion to social situations has left me with few friends in truth, but that’s how I roll anyways. And it does make things easier.

 

I’m actually more stoked than usual for this years edition of Florida’s largest geek orgy! Now perhaps I can ogle some freaks/cosplay chicks with even less shame now. And, oh yeah—Adam Hughes will be there!

I would love to see this come Saturday

If only he wern’t injured for the Arsenal so often. (understatement)

A good indication of a “keeper”

Excerpt from Dazzler #22

Alison Blaire is my kind of woman

Mighty Muggs Lando

I’m pretty sure there isn’t another Star Wars figure as awesome as this. I think I’m picking one of these up this weekend.

Going Postal Over Nothing

It seems like I’ve been buying stuff I didn’t really need from the internet for quite some time now. So long, in fact, that I can barely conceive of what it was like when I was a kid. A time when mail order was always the absolute last resort on anything. It was rare that I ever mailed away for anything as a kid that didn’t turn into a major pain in the ass. And it seemingly took FOREVER. I didn’t dare mail away for the Transformers Reflector set and when you’ve sent out all your allowance money, the last thing you want to do is wait for an eternity. 6-8 weeks was a rather insane timeframe, in retrospect. I worked at an online record store for many years and for something to take that long to get anywhere domestically is rather unlikely. I’d love for someone to plausibly explain to me just how anything sent out in this country domestically could possibly take 6-8 weeks at any method of shipping. I do remember once mailing away Kenner proofs of purchase for the Star Wars Boba Fett figure and waiting for what seemed like forever.

I preface this for a couple reasons. For one thing, I’ve lately had a run of spotty luck on the internet when it comes to getting shit sent to me and not having to deal with some sort of hassle. My recent troubles even sort of date back to the Takara Encore Optimus Prime I ordered from TF Source last summer. That was all well and good—BUT—my trailer was missing the inside canopy! Now I’ve got to track down one somehow from Transformerland, I guess. That was an omen of sorts for the things to come in recent months. Admittedly, this missing canopy had nothing to do with TF Source, as they are hardly responsible for what’s inside or not inside a sealed box. The missing canopy experience reminded me of the countless times in my childhood when I’d opened up my newest G.I. Joe figure, and sometimes within minutes, the arm or head would just break off at the joint. At least that came in handy given that these guys were always engaged in bloody battles against Cobra. Many a time these broken body parts dotted my imaginary bedroom battlefields. However, my Soundwave’s eject button broke in just three hours of play when I got him for my 8th birthday. I still have that childhood toy and somewhere along the line, I lost the door altogether. I now handle my much nicer reissue with great care, as I’d be beyond pissed to have it break on me now.

Recently I found a fantastic online source for cheap, new trade paperbacks, called Instocktrades.com, and as soon as my two books arrived, one was the correct book, the other wasn’t and I had to contact them to send me the right one. I have to say that they definitely made things right. Not only did they not make me send back the mis-shipped trade, but they let me keep it and sent me the right book the same day. A great experience, indeed. Certainly better than the online store where I bought a shirt from in my same state and it took them a month to get it to me. Still rather pissed about that one.

My recent mail order misadventures aside, I must admit that if it were not for the internet, I’d hardly be able to obtain even a quarter of the things I’ve acquired over the years, including my oh so precious toy robots. I’m half expecting some hassle when the Transformers Animated toys I’ve pre-ordered start coming out, although I’ve certainly got more confidence in those, since I’m getting them from both Hasbro Toy Shop and Big Bad Toy Store, instead of some shifty, fly by night, toy robot online merchant. Just as the internet has made it easier than ever to obtain products and information, likewise it has made it easier than ever to spread misinformation and for scammers to take advantage of others.

I waited 8 weeks for this??

I guess what got me writing this in the first place was a bad experience that the Evil King has recently had ordering some Zoids from online store, Toys N’ Joys. It has been anything but joy for the poor Evil King. I feel his pain. But keep in mind that every once in a while, what may seem too good to be true, isn’t. Just this last Sunday night I finally got a hold of a Takara Transformers Collection #6 Reissue Megatron from an Ebay store. It was the first time in a long while I’d seen an Ebay Buy-It-Now price for less than $70 that didn’t have like $25 shipping from Singapore. I even e-mailed the seller and asked if the box was still sealed before I went through with it. Today it arrived and it was everything the seller described. It took two days, not six to eight weeks to arrive. And now I can stop feeling like less of a good toy robot collector knowing that I now possess one that I can hold up liquor stores with. Now as long as Megatron’s head or leg doesn’t fall off tonight, I’ll be completely satisfied.

“Live from Mars…”

After reading this story I’m hoping that they rename Wrigley Field to Mars Park. And I don’t like the Cubs one bit, but I LOVE sweet irony.