A Spockcation Update

Spock and Mo (from Puppatoons ) mind meld.

First I just want to say, where do I sign up for service in Starfleet, I mean besides the obvious dangers of being a red shirt, the vacation time alone is out of this world and well worth the risk. Spock has been on vacation since April 14, 2009... TWO YEARS THIS YEAR! Actually over two years since this post is coming after the anniversary date.

Also, Spock's last host Liz sent us an out take which you see above, if you haven't visited her sight go check it out, Liz is a puppeteer, a TIE fighter pilot and a Ghostbuster just to name a few of her talents!

So with this update I thought until we receive some fresh photos I would drop some Spockcation knowledge on you...

Spock has completed 22 stops since he started on April 14th of 2009.

Spock has visited 18 states and Canada. Spock has actually made his way into Canada with two different hosts.

Spock has had multiple stops in the following states so far: Florida,California, Illinois and Georgia.

Spock has logged an estimated 20,930.2 travel miles.

Spock's longest distance he has traveled is still an estimated 3316 miles from Boca Raton, FL to Seattle, WA.

Spock's shortest distance he has traveled is still an estimated 11 miles in California. There was runner up that may have beaten it if you count not actually going from door step to door step.

Spock was actually hand delivered from one host in Georgia to another, how's that for bringing people together.

Spock has been traveling for 2 years and 13 days, more precisely 743 days.

Spock has 9 more stops in his trip, he's almost home!

Spock's estimated return to his home state is August 2011, looks like we didn't make that November 2010 deadline.

Spock's vacation shirt, which looks like it's holding up rather well, was custom made for him by my mother... yeas my mother made a shirt for my dolly... which I still maintain is an action figure!

While Spock is enjoying his travels he wishes he would have taken a Shuttlecraft to get from stop to stop.


Spock is still going strong. I hope he makes it back before the release of the next Star Trek movie. My finger's are crossed that he does, I still need to show him around my home town for you guys and gals.

If you are hosting him try to keep his time with you at one week remember the needs of the many out way the needs of the few, or the one.

Live long and Prosper.

Something you might not know

Before she came to live with us, our bulldog Gertie used to be a test pilot. She was instrumental in making a lot of planes that fly today safe for everyone from a U.S. Air Force Pilot flying the latest fighters to "Joe and Jane Traveler" flying commercial airliners. Decorated several times for bravery and above all staying cool under pressure.




This has been something you might not know.

Honestly I am not doing this on purpose...

... I know , I know enough Batman! I can't stop!



Believe it or not I have passed on this Batman figure time and time again, I just wasn't sure if I was into the whole Imaginext thing. I picked up a Joker last year it was pretty cool, then for the Battle Royal with Reis I picked up another, the gray and black Batman... you can't have a Joker without a Batman. Then a few weeks back I found a Hawkman and Flash two pack, that peeked my interest more and now I guess I am going to try and get a few more.

I was actually looking at the Green Lantern with the Jet then I found out if I had waited on that earlier two pack I could have had three birds with one stone, oh well. Also kicking myself for not grabbing the Penguin, Riddler and Two Face from the Target Easter section... doh! Oh well don't they do one of these for the fourth of July or something?

So all that said I give you Batman 117. I may need to start another shelf, but my Stormtroopers don't want to give ground. Okay I will stop now... well, until number 118 comes in the mail from a eBay purchase, in my defense I was after an accessory and another figure that came with the Batman so there.

Da Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Batman! BATMAN!

No sooner than I leave a comment on one of Super Duper Toy Box's post do I pick up a Justice League Unlimited three pack... okay for the record I am not collecting these like I used too, but this set has a few things going for it and I had to get it, but the price, Ugh don't get me started... Mattel you bastards! I can't quit you!

First, up it's a new Batman I do not have, or a re paint I do not have.
Second, it's a freaking Batman The Animated Series Set! No Brainer.
Third, Who doesn't love a repainted Joker?
Fourth, holy freaking cow, it's the Gray Ghost, I would have never thought I would see this set ever.

Look how Happy Batman is, it's like when Bubbashelby picks up one of his all plastic dollies at a swap meet! I kid, I kid Bubba.



Oh Batman you will be number.... let's see, oh yeah 116! Seems like it was just yesterday I was thinking I would not get any higher than say 115...



Why is Batman so Happy? Oh, it's the Gray Ghost his childhood hero, punching Joker right in the kisser! Yea Bats, yea Gray Ghost! Boo Joker.



Oh what the hell, for old times sake... Viva JLU Club!

Stuff in the Mail! Big Thanks!

I have been remiss in my posting duties lately so today, like on Reis's blog, I am finally giving a few shout outs. First up Jboypacman has been doing some spring cleaning of sorts and has been making the USPS work for their money sending all sorts of goodies around the blogesphere. I have to say when he emailed me to let me know something was on it's way I was not expecting all the goodies he was intending to send my way, I am actually floored. I have to say, and forgive me if this gets a little mushy, but I have really enjoyed Jboy's efforts in collecting and being in on his little blog from the early days, it's like watching a little video game loving bird learn to fly... sniff, sniff. That goes for all the "newbies" out there... what a horrible term, how about "eager new collectors" ? I think they bring a fresh perspective in the often jaded world of collecting.



Big thanks Jboy! He let me know if there were anything I have extras of I could pay it forward to my fellow collectors, what a guy! There are a couple things I have duplicates of now, but I have to say he really knows his bloggers because a majority of the haul here is something I do not have in my collection. Oh and I had to get a chuckle because he sent me four, count them Reis FOUR new Batmans, that I didn't have in my collection... I think I will call them number 112, number 113, number 114 and number 115.



Next LEon over at open the toy surprised me with this awesome, minty fresh Captain Kirk from EMCE toys. I think this is just the greatest because he thought enough to send the good captain my way and who doesn't love getting packages from around the world! Thanks again LEon, you are the best.



Now I am a little embarrassed here because my dedication to this line of Figures runs a little deep, and I am going to say this upfront, it is an action figure, not a doll any effort by the "plastic only heads" is futile, because in truth any little toy that is a representation of the human, monster or alien (etc, etc.) form is considered a doll, it was the marketers of the 50's and 60's that coined the "action figure" name to sell "dolls" to boys and their parents. So trying to re-write history so you can sleep at night for buying little plastic men isn't going to work Bubba, call it a dolly all you want, you dolly lover!

Okay that said my embarrassment lies in the fact that including this one I now have four versions of this Kirk; I have an original open Mego (we all know you have to have at least one of the holy trilogy if not all three in Mego form), I have an open EMCE toys version (just like this one, but out of the package) as well as a packaged version... and now this one. So I talked it over with LEon and we agreed that a little contest or give away is in order, or I could slap a Harley Quinn outfit on it and send it to Bubba ; )

Anyway we'll work it out and make an announcement so study up on your Star Trek or even Shatner history... oh and when I received this package I could not help but think of this appearance(s) of our great captain.



Enjoy and Thanks again guys!

Candid Toy Pic - 04.19.2011

A few new troopers for the ranks!

It's time for a Cantina Crawl!

Making your way in the galaxy takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all the wookies , sure would help a lot

Wouldn't you like to go far, far away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where no one can pronounce your name (bumm, bumm, bumm)

and the drinks all look the same. (bumm, bumm, bumm)

You wanna be where droids can't go,
and some aliens have big fangs,
You wanna go where no one can pronounce your name.


Cantina Crawl is filmed in front of a live audience...

Reis sent his in almost the next day! I am really digging the vintage look to the photo on this one, when I asked if Reis was working some Photoshop magic here he sent me this cool link to the app he used to create this!

Matt once again sends in this great picture of all his aliens, he mentioned that he at one time had more Star Wars based aliens but they were out drinking at another bar when shot this photo. He did throw in a few other Star Wars characters and I have to say I am a little jealous of that Thanos.

Colin sends in this one he titled "The Stranger" (getting all artsy on us here) I have to say this is my favorite of the bunch, it looks like the Star Warriors were totally taken off guard with the Martian Manhunter's entrance.You can here the record skip...brrrrrrrrp.... when the door swings open. Or did he just phase through it?

The next five pictures were sent in by Victor. Actually Victor sent in a lot of pictures, so many that they crashed my phone when I casually checked it in the morning, but no big deal, there was a lot of good pictures to look at when I got it working again. I narrowed down the selection to my top five from all the ones he sent in, I like how he has all these little "conversations" going on at the local cantina. Looks like the Rodians have taken over duty as bartenders as well.







Next Doc Atomic sent in DROIDS! Your droids we don't serve their kind here!

I'm kidding, I know these are aliens but Brian explains it better... you know something I just realized I do not have any Doctor Who in my collection...

"This is my collection of vintage Daleks, ca. 1964-1975, all hailing from the U.K.

The two in back are talking Daleks by a company called Palitoy; the one large and two small ones in front are by Marx's British division. The large one is battery operated while the small ones have a friction mechanism.

Finally, the Dalek in the middle is a wind up version by the company Cowan de Groot -- a.k.a. Codeg. It's the rarest of the lot, and definitely my favorite. When it's wound up, the toy rolls around, changing direction, while the eye stalk swings side to side in an eerily life-like way. Cool!

For anyone who doesn't watch Doctor Who, the Daleks are aliens, not robots. The outer mechanical part is sort of like an armored suit; inside it sits a small, shriveled up mutant of an alien, one that's hell bent on taking out everything in the universe. :)"

Finally here's my submission. I tried to keep it simple this time, plus for some reason I kept putting off my photo shoot till the last minute and failed to drag out ALL my aliens... Oh well.



I am sure like everyone else there are scenes in the original Star Wars that stick in your brain, the Star Destroyer fly over, the first ignition of a lightsaber, Stormtroopers blasting through a hallway of Rebels, the list goes on and on. To me the Cantina is one of those scenes, I will admit until about age twelve I honestly believed that all bars will filled with these wonderful creatures, imagine my surprise when I was old enough to actually go into a bar and discover there were just people in them... who knew. Back to scenes sticking with you, when I saw Hammerhead's appearance on screen (even though it was a quick one) I was floored. "What the heck was that my eyes just saw?" My mind couldn't grasp what he or she was, I just knew it was the most awesome alien I had ever seen.

To this day when someone mentions the Cantina scene Hammerhead is the first image that pops into my mind. So, when I picked up my first cantina alien it was that fellow in the middle "Hammerhead" and immediately he was my go to alien. I took a shoebox and built my own cantina so he and his buddies could have a place to drink. I would take my little 45 record player and place it behind the box and play the Cantina song over and over again, must have drove my parents crazy. I was all about creating the atmosphere when I played Cantina. Isn't it weird that we got a set of Bar Flies and not one but two Cantina playsets back then. I always wanted a proper Cantina playset, but I settled for the shoe box. I may have to rectify that.

Next, the guy standing picture left recounting his day to his fellow Ithorians was a Christmas present from my wife back in 1996. It was a big deal at the time because they just released the series that included him and they were going to phase out the orange cards. I opened him up on Christmas Eve, weird how you remember that stuff. The one on the right was a later purchase and is pretty much the best Momaw Nadon out at the moment. Highlights with this guy include his favorite drinking glass and he came with an Ithorian Staff and a small Cantina table.

I cannot tell you how excited I will be to see a new version, if it is ever released, on the new vintage cards, my fingers are crossed that we get one. That was fun and keeping it simple by spotlighting my favorite Cantina Alien brought back some nice memories. Lets raise a glass to all the aliens above! Great job everyone and thanks for participating!

What's next? I am thinking this will be a monthly feature from here on out, the next one being in May. I will announce the theme and deadlines around the first week of each month. So keep checking in for the next theme and due date. Happy Friday everyone, be safe flying home from the Cantina and remember to tip your waitress.

Aye Carumba!

I still need to shoot my Cantina Crawl photo! Where does the time go?

Spock Stop 20: Dacula, GA

It's Spockcation time again, actually I have had these for a little while and just got around to posting them. This is Spock's second of three stops in Georgia, Spock has some fans in Georgia! His host for this stop is none other than my pals over at Puppatoons, Liz and her husband Steve. Love puppets, then head over there for a visit, Liz is a working puppeteer and her husband... well I'll let their pictures tell the story.

So let's get it started, oh and I will be going without a lot of captions this time, because well if you can't tell where Spock visited it will become pretty apparent by the end of the photos.

Guess where he is at yet?

Turner Mansion

Across the street (or highway) there is Adult Swim!



























Spock looking for Scotty





Liz and Spock lending a hand on the March Madness set

Spock visiting Steve at work

Steve and Spock

Well Spock's work visit sure beats my little C-3PO office visit. That was very cool seeing all the stuff scattered around the hallways of Cartoon Networks HQ, hope Steve didn't get in trouble having Spock visit while he was busy working on the latest cartoons. Thanks again to Liz and her husband for showing Spock around, now it's time for Spock to be heading to his next stop in Georgia, so keep checking back to see where Spock ends up!

Live long and prosper.

Candid Toy Pic - 04.12.2011

Finally! I found one that wasn't too bad (paint has been terrible on these) in the Target Easter section, Batman number 111, the Funko POP Heroes Batman... Awwwwwh, who's a lil' Batman... you are, you're a lil' Batman!

Weekend Toy Haul

Not often I have one of these, but I had pretty good luck this weekend and found some cool things.

First up I found myself near a Toys R Us that we do not often find ourselves near, this one is located in the big city, anyway on the pegs were about 20 Captain Colds and one lone Flash figure. The thing is his card was destroyed, the bubble was being held on by two pieces of scotch tape on one side, what was left of the original heat seal on the other and the top of the bubble was open to the world. I figured he was either A) a return from a child's birthday party, it was opened and then decided upon it was lame and returned or B) someone really wanted to see what it was all about and ripped it open in the store. Either way since Flash doesn't have any accessories and the rest of him seemed in tack, I bought him. That is how bad it is around here folks, you buy them when you see them, no matter the cindition. Now I will admit I was going to open him anyway and I did feel a little cheated, but at least I found one in the wild... The Action League set was from a trip to Wally World, I was in a Flash sort of mood and wanted to round out the Flash collection a bit.



This next set of toys is from a trip (or two) to the local Grocery Store, well let me back up. The Lego TIE Fighter was from the same trip to Wally World as the Flash Action League. It looked like it was meant to be an Easter thing like Target does, they had the X-Wing (which I already had) and the TIE. These were all tucked away in the very back of the Lego aisle. I had to have a small Lego TIE. Okay now, the two figures were from the grocery store trips, I picked up the Stormtrooper because I have this sickness that compels me to pick up two of certain figures, like Stormtroopers, Jawas, etc. Sort of a mini army builder I guess. I just had to have two of these to put next to one of all those Darth Vaders I have laying around. R5-D4, might live on the card I haven't decide, I sort of dig those Star Wars cards. Now, I'm a little ashamed here as I had already picked up the Luke from this set earlier in the week and I also picked up another "big head" Han Solo, I don't know why besides I wanted another one of these Han Solos for something. I couldn't help myself. STAR WARS!



This last one is from the Toys R Us trip as the Mego-Like Flash, which I should call the "Mr. Miracle Flash" as he was trying to escape that plastic tomb all those Captain Colds put him in (for the record I passed on Captain Cold this round). Anyhoo, check this out, they make a freaking Red Porsche 914! I found out that there was a red one and a mustard yellow one a week or so back. I told myself that Toys R Us is the only place I will ever see the red one and if I am near one I was going to check and they had one on the peg. Again the package is in not so hot shape, but I plan on opening it up anyway. I just wanted to shoot a package pic for all my die cast readers. The mustard yellow one comes in one of those multi packs. I have a plan for that one since I am only interested in the 914, that will be revealed later. It's not illegal, I am not going to swap out a car. Gesh people, my nephew loves die cast cars so he will get all the extras, see now you made me spoil the surprise...



I think that about covers it, plus I think I have pretty much used up my toy karma for the next month... plus maybe my budget : ) I do have some Spockcation pictures to post this week, an awesome box of toys Jboypacman sent last week I need to post (sorry Jboy I'm getting to it) and wasn't there something else? Oh yeah the Cantina Crawl! I still need to shoot my entry! Have you shot your's yet? Oh, and welcome to the new followers... er I mean eclectomaniacs! I woke up Sunday morning and had 67! Sweet!

Candid Toy Pic - 04.07.2011

"... so I said big deal, you can destroy a planet, you are still an overwe... oh wait, it's right behind me, right?"

Sorting it all out

I debated posting these, I shot some really crappy phone pictures so I could show a friend what my latest action figure project is, then I thought might as well, you will get the idea of what I am trying to do here.



Here's an overview so far. I have about 6 to 8 totes packed with loose toys, they take up quite a bit of space in a spare closet, along with some totes of stuff I plan on opening and stuff I plan to keep packaged. Anyway, it is a pain to dig out a tote, especially if it is on the bottom of a stack of four and then get it situated so I have room to dig through it to find the figure I want to snap a picture of. I would love to have the room to display my entire collection at arms reach, but that is just not possible, so I end up rotating stuff out (not as often as I would like).

I broke down and passed on a Lego set I had been wanting and purchased a few of these pretty standard drawer units. I started with two and then two more... wait what? You say you only see two in the photos, oh that being pretty modular I have taken the first two apart, re arranged the order of the drawer units and snapped them all back together, I know nothing special, but it does give you a pretty decent height for the whole unit. So, these started out as five drawer units, with four shallow drawers and on larger drawer at the bottom. They make these things in all sorts of configurations and sizes, I found these to be the best for what I want to do. My goal is to maybe have 4 to 6 of these towers, I am really hoping for only 4, I think at some point I need to grow up a little and let some toys go... did I just say that?



Here's a peek into one of the drawers of the unit I am calling the DC Tower, okay I will admit at the bottom I might throw a few of my Marvels in there, it's a work in progress. For the most part this is all my DC figures except for any Batman figures. Batman may need his own set of storage drawers. I have decided on some figures, ones with tiny accessories I need to bag them. Instead of dropping a ton of money on action figure baggies I went with the local store brand sandwich bags. To me they are pretty much the same, maybe a little lighter mill. I also decided it might be wise to use a hole punch and make a little vent hole in the back, small enough to keep accessories from falling out, large enough to vent. My thinking here is to try and keep the figures and their accessories together and hopefully keep some of the plastics from cooking in their own juices. This may or may not work.

The shallow drawers will have very limited stacking and the larger drawers will have the most, but still far less digging than say a tote and hopefully in the case of the JLU figures that seem so easily damaged by storing together they will not be under the weight of fifty or more figures stacked on top of each other.



Finally, organization! I figured why not make it a little easier to find the toys I am looking for. This is the part of the project that is taking the time. I borrowed my wife's label maker and got to labeling drawers. I tried to keep the line name and the manufacturer all in the titles, but as you can see with the open drawer picture I do have drawers that contain mixes. I tried to label these with a few different descriptions or labels. I also found that I have more multiples on certain figures and figures I no longer really want from doing this, so I will be compiling them to send to friends, blogger buddies and post a few on eBay. Remember I am trying to cull the collection to a more focused collection. So with the DC Tower near completion, the empty one should be large enough to house my GI Joe 25th Anniversary figures plus Indiana Jones and maybe a few of the minor lines I want to keep. I think Star Wars may fill two of these by itself. Plus I do not know how I want to organize the loose Star Wars collection. Decisions, decisions...

Well, I know it's not the latest greatest toy or a crazy shot with a vintage Chewbacca, but it's what I have been up to lately. I will show more of this project as well as the others I always seem to have going as I get further along.