Spock Stop 5: Seattle, Washington Continued

Welcome back for more of Spock's time in Seattle, Washington... and Victoria, Canada... oh and Portland, Oregon! That's right, day two of Spock Stop 5!

So here we go!

"Mmmmmmmmmm. Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl!"

"We went shopping at Archie Mcphees!"

"Yay! Earthling Peepshows!!"

"Here I am at Port Defiance Zoo!"

"Found a giant slug on our Port Defiance nature walk."

Tacoma, Washington "This flower looks alien-like."

"Johnny, Sarah and I took the camper to Dungeness Recreation Area and camped overnight."

"Sarah, Johnny, Spock, Chris and Brad. I forget why Spock is shirtless on a horse. Looks cool though."

Spock made some more new friends on this trip, Chris and Brad, who whisked him away to New York and Pittsburgh for a little weekend side trip. Spock's side trip will be posted as soon as the photos are developed. Thanks again to Johnny and Sarah for sharing their vacation with Spock. If you would like to see more of Spock's stay with Johnny and Sarah check out all their photos here. Remember to come back for more Spockcation and as always, Live Long and Prosper.

Spock Stop 5: Seattle, Washington

Spock not only visited Seattle with his hosts Sarah and Johnny, but made his way back up into Canada and dipped back into Oregon! He looked like he a great time and even made some new friends who took him on a little side trip. That trip will be for another post, until then I'll let Sarah and Johnny take it away with their vacation with Spock on his Spockcation!

"Spock arrives in Seattle!"

"So intriguing."

"Spock and the Seattle Skyline."

"Rest in Peace Bruce."

"Sarah is an artichoke and I'm corn! "

Victoria, Canada "That's Parliament in the background."

"Hanging out in Canada's oldest China Town."

Portland, Oregon "We had Dim Sum in Portland. Yum!"

Wow! Those were some awesome pics, matter of fact there were so many pictures to choose from I broke this stop up into two posts, so tune back in later this week for more of Spock's Seattle Adventure. I'll also post the link to Sarah and Johnny's Flickr page so you can see all the photos they took with Spock. In the meantime, check out Sarah's artwork for the Stitch Wars show, Live Long and Prosper.

U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701

From the SkyBox Master Series, 1993, the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 card. I dug this out of a tote of miscellaneous toys and whatnot, it was in a zip lock baggie with a few other cards, I think it's the only one of the series I have, but it's obvious why I kept it.



The Artist is Keith Birdsong, who is an illustrator that has painted numerous Pocket Book covers as well as collector plates for the Hamilton Collection and the Bradford Exchange, you can see some more artwork here .

On the back is this quote from the artist.

"For me, this ship is a source of inspiration and hope for dreams yet to be fulfilled."

That pretty much sums it up for me as well.

Ah, Smurf it!

This one is for all the grief I gave Bubba at Toyriffic...



These two have been kickin' it Smurf style in my office since I returned from Las Vegas back in June. I have a picture of Smurfette and myself in Vegas, but you know what they say What Smurffens in Vegas Smurfs in Vegas.

Happy Birthday Squee!

She's 5 today! Here's a picture from when she was a little Basset...



And one of her today!


That's my Princess!

"He don't like you..."

He'll always be Walus Man to me, I know his real name is Ponda Boba, but he didn't go by that until 1989!

"Wally" would get so drunk that he would try to take his flippers off and run across the hot sands of Tatooine. Thank goodness he wore that orange leotard over his pants, making it too difficult to strip down all the way or we would be chasing a walrus looking dude all over the place trying to stop him from making a fool of himself.



We never could figure out why he wore those flipper boots, I mean he had normal feet, he kept telling us "They're hip, man" and "The chick's dig em".



His look never really caught on, he wasn't as dapper as Greedo, he eventually lost the web footed look and went with a really cool jacket, then someone went an lopped his arm off.


"Stay Cool!"

I love getting toys at work!

Since I have to thin down the collection, it was pointed out in a comment that I should consider maintaining a work collection. Believe me I have considered it, and as I go through stuff I pull aside things I want to take to work. Well, on Wednesday I was handed this beauty of vintage goodness at work, so this will be a great start to my work collection.



Here's a little bit about this piece. The Garfield Convention, which is sort of a group of people that have a gathering every year to hold a swap meet, was held in San Antonio this year. The people at PAWS, Garfield's real owner, always attend with samples and art from their archives. Sort of a way to keep the archive clean and get some cool pieces to their fans. I think its pretty cool of them to do this.







The company I work for is a licensor and we met the guys from PAWS for a tour of the facilities here, had some sizzling fajitas for lunch, and even turned over some of our samples of new product for one of their auctions. It was a good day at work that day. So while we were visiting their setup at the show, I picked up this Viewmaster box and commented how I really dug the artwork on the box, I was told it was a sample and the artwork was done especially for the box art, that they pulled it from Jim Davis' basement to include in the items they were selling. I joked we should buy it for the office, my office more specifically, and put it back on the table.





So a few months later we get this package with a note that thanked us for taking care of them in ole' SA and that they sent some items for our offices, the one with my name on it was the Viewmaster! How freaking sweet is that! Those guys at PAWS are a real class act, big thanks goes out to them for this!



Some of the stuff I really dig is that it's from 1978, like a time capsule, and the illustration of the dog on one of the side panels, plus it's Garfield drawn as he first appeared. It even still has the Viewmaster and the Garfield reels inside.

This would explain the levitating chew toys

Seems Squee is a Jedi in training


"Do, or Do not, there is no try."

Spock Stop 4: Tigard, Oregon

Spock has crossed the United States! I told him to work his way across going from state to state, but that green blooded Vulcan just wants to do his own thing. So this week were are getting transmissions from his stay in Tigard Oregon, where he stayed with his host Paul from lasermego.com. If you are into custom pieces for your Mego's or even your larger 12 inch figures I would suggest checking out his site. I am amazed at his work and I am also thinking about picking up that Star Trek 3D Chess set for when Spock makes it back home!

I'm going to let Paul take it from here, so away we go!

"Spock landed and was greeted by a familiar face to show him around."




"Oh this robot training yard inside the Portland Techshop looks interesting."


"What? I'm stuck in a giant cannon."


"Ahh! How did I get stuck in here with all these hockey pucks?"

"If I get out of here alive, I'll need a drink."

"Time for a beer-summit! We enjoyed sampling some of the local Portland micro-brews."








"The old Vulcan beer-meld."


Wow! I hope Spock made his next flight and I hope his Vulcan liver has time to dry out as well. I will say, I think this is the fastest I have seen a President get a toy. Wouldn't it be cool if we could get the President to host Spock, a nice picture in the Oval Office?

Well check back as Spock makes his way to his next stop and as always, Live Long and Prosper.

Utini! It's a Garage Sale!

Pay no attention to him folks, he gets a little carried away... I hired this Jawa to liquidate some of my collection and he goes a little wild. "What? Back up, liquidate the collection? What are you talking about!"

Well, a few things have made me realize I have way too much stuff clogging the arteries of the Eclectorama Archive, that week of nothing but Darth Vader was one, I know, I know, you can never really have too much of Darth Vader, second I can't even work in my home studio because of the stacks and stacks of toys. Finally, three and most important we are expecting a new member of the family, who will need the room for their very own.

What does that mean to my devoted fans and readers? Well, not much, I will still maintain a pretty nice Toy collection to talk about and I plan on picking up a few new items here and there, maybe not in the volume of the past, but still a few little tidbits. I will also have another reason to visit the toy stores and not look like a creepy old dude trolling the toy aisles. I also plan on getting back into some of my art projects and hopefully post those as well. Plus we still have Spockcation going on!

So, because the garage is my next project and is way too cluttered to host a live garage sale, I thought why not open it up to everyone. If you know anyone interested in some good deals (I'm starting everything at .99¢) then feel free to send them my way. I am going to try and add new things every week and I will leave the link up on the side as long as I have stuff going out. I'm going to ship everywhere so if you are out of the U.S. and are interested drop me a line at the ebay site and I'll find out the shipping to wherever.



Well, back to the blog, I'm going to let the Jawa do his thing.

Another Buddy from the Bin

I've been sorting through my toy bins, it's time to really thin out the collection, and came across another old buddy. Greedo was one of my old drinking buddies back in the day, he always new how to dress to impress.



Dig his color coordination, those greens really bring out his skin tones. I ran across a few of my other bar room buddies from back in the day on Tatooine and will be posting them in the future.



It's good to see these guys come out in the daylight every once in a while instead of our usual hangout. Going to seem weird, but when I was a kid I had the 45 record of the Cantina Band Song and I played it non stop on a little record player I kept out back of a card board Star Wars bar I fashioned out of an old box and some scrap. My drinking buddies and I would hang out and swap stories of smugglers, starships and the Kessel Run, 12 parsecs! Paaaaalease, we were talking about doing it in half that time.