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Thursday, April 21, 2011

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!

Friday, April 15, 2011

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.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

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.