Thursday, May 31, 2007

New LEGO license!

From cool toy review,


During Celebration IV, one of the guys at LEGO wasn't being mindful of the crowds, or more precisely the two ears of said crowd, when he let it slip that they will be producing toys for Lucasfilm's upcoming Indiana Jones IV feature film. While details are a bit sketchy, it is safe to assume that these will be shown later this year. Hats off to trusted CTR friend Nick for the heads up.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Star Wars stuff I want


Star Wars figures we'll never see




Squid Head rules!

From x-entertainment, I haven't written about Kenner's old Star Wars toys in a long while. Not sure why that is. Maybe it's that those articles are for an audience that have grown to be so much more knowledgeable of the subject matter than me. I don't collect toys anymore, and I certainly don't live and breathe Star Wars in any way, shape or form. It's no fun to write when you're worried about being corrected on your points. Especially when you're me and you tend to make up points as you go.
That said, I'd like to use this opportunity to pay a small tribute to Squid Head, one of the very best action figures from the vintage collection.

Squid Head was one of those figures that I must've had, lost and repurchased a dozen times throughout childhood. Next to the Emperor's Royal Guard, I can think of few other SW figures that stole my heart to such a degree.

The cloth clothes were a major factor. I loved any SW figure that had real cloth clothes. Even shitty ones, like Klaatu. Squid Head was extra special, coming with two separate clothing artifacts in different colors, not to mention a gigantic plastic belt that doubled nicely as a me-sized thumb ring. Then there's the fact that he's a squid. Real cloth clothes or not, I was bound to love any action figure that was a squid. I wish I was a squid.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Confessions of a toy addict

From ebaytoday, You're at the store and there it is! The item you've read rave reviews about and it looks even better in person than in the Cool Toy Review Photo Archive (there must have been amazing lighting in the store that day). Do you buy it? Sure you don’t have the space for it, but it’s such a great deal. How could you pass up such a great sculpt? And the accessories... oh, the accessories! But, where would you put it? Who cares about where you'd put it, you'll figure that out when you get it home. This bad-boy is coming home!

Guilty as charged? The irony is we all know where this leads - a tub-sized storage bin in the basement along with the rest of 'em. The problem is many of us don't know how to display the amazing collections we've amassed - more accurately we don’t have the space. You can obviously thin your collection down every now and then, but it's just so hard to let some of the things go and dealing with eBay can be such a pain.

Obviously, the contributing factor for this lack of space is buying things we don't need right? Nah, we'll go into denial and pretend that’s not a problem. It's the dozens of repacks the toy companies keep pushing on us. Come on already how many Famboy Luke's can you cram down our throats? And Spiderman on a motorcycle? Ha! That never happened in the movie… but that wheelie action sure is cool… I gotta have it cool... must... buy... Spiderman... toy... O.K. maybe the problem is that a lot of us don’t know when to say enough is enough, but can you blame us?So what's the solution? Like anything, toy collecting will have its ups and downs. It's all finding a happy median and making the most of the experience.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Find a space to display your collection and limit it to that space. A display cabinet is a great place to start.

Learn to say no to things no matter how cool they are... chances are they'll get released again - Farmboy Luke anyone?

Remember that collecting is your hobby and you're doing it as a form of recreation and relaxation. In other words don't get all bent out of shape and have fun!

Friday, May 18, 2007

Brickarms!


While putting in a Bricklink order a few weeks ago, I decided to click on the "Custom" category and found a couple of neat-looking Lego compatible guns, including this accurately-designed pulse rifle from Aliens.

Usually I'm dubious of this kind of thing; I know a little about plastics and I know that the types that I used on Deathmatch etc. would not make good Lego toys. But the two guns I got were really cool, they fit just right into a minifig's hand and, while lacking the precise lustre of a black Lego piece, they had the right look and feel.

The guy I got them from wasn't the dude who made them (he was selling them at cost, so I'm guessing they're buddies). So this week I went to the Brickarms store and bought a sampling of more violent goodies. They'll probably arrive while I'm on vacation next week.

Blam!

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Just messing around

My whole Octopix blog is really about me cleaning a huge number of accumulated images off of my work computer, and this beauty was on there too. We were talking about these Clone Wars maquettes way back in early '06 when we first started the blog.

Oh, we were so different then.

Actually we were pretty much the same.

I had a bunch more saved toy pix, but it turns out they all showed up on the blog somewhere already. I just skimmed through all the archives, and it made me wanna say:

Dammit! I need a lot of JLU figures! They better put all those guys out or I'll be really annoyed.