An ethical question

So let's say that you go to a store and are looking for blind packed toys. In the store, staff members have already identified and pulled out the rare figures so they can buy them later. Another staff member sees this and notices that you can't find the blind packed figures you want and offers to let you buy some of the figures pulled by the toy collecting staff members.

Would you be in the right if you buy these figures? Does the fact that you are a customer mean that you should get priority over staff for merchandise? Does the fact that the staff member didn't buy the toys right after they identified them play into this in any way? Are you taking figures from another collector who just happens to work in the store?

Just some stuff to consider. In an unrelated note, I finally got a Rocket Kid minifigure.

Marvel super hero mashers

Well, if anything was going to get me into this line it would probably be a Beta Ray Bill figure.

An alien horse head you can put on other Marvel characters! But I resisted. For now.

Baron Zemo

Wow, what a horrible paint application.

Weird things I've seen on shelves

What?

Grimlock Potato Head

Actually this one I'm considering getting some day so I have a 1/6 scale Juicebar. But I feel like I own too many Skipper Dolls because they come with the more realistic looking Barbie playsets and accessories. (For the record, I own 1 Skipper Doll. If I ever have a daughter she's going to instantly get a bunch of cool toys.)

Toy Show haul

Went to a toy show and bought some stuff: here's what/why?

Hot Toys Iron Man Mk4 from the Iron Man  2 series. Guy was selling some Hot Toys for original asking price. So I finally got an Hot Toys Iron Man in the classic suit design, which I've wanted for years. Something about the intricate machinery design at this scale is appealing. The big selling point was the articulated fingers.

Guy had some insane deals. Black Widow Hot Toy for $100! But I could only afford this guy. Glad to have him.

Also picked up a used Storm Shadow to fill out my 1:6 scale Cobra army. Some times the cheap Hasbro figures are a better value than the $200 Sideshow ones. Especially when I don't actually want the Sideshow Storm Shadow, I just want to collect a cobra team in 1:6 scale.

A Meanie Babie because I thought it was cute/amusing. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

And I also got Virus Attack Mr Freeze, which is Mr Freeze's internet crime avatar. Or.... You could pretend, like I plan to, that he's 1:6 scale Mr. Freeze post-losing his body. 

That show could be so weird when it wanted to.

Disney Infinity 2.0

I didn't love the first Disney Infinity but there were parts I liked. The game designers promised they fixed all the problems I had and then made it all superhero based.

End result: I bought all the figures on day 1.

I may have a problem. It helps that the figures can double as vinyl collectibles and cost roughly the same as some vinyl collectibles but aren't blind boxes.

K'nex super mario minifigure blindpacks, wave 3

Let the hunt begin!

Things I want that were shown as a thing at Toy Fair 2014

4" Twilight Zone figures

 (picture via Toyark.com)

1 Big Bang Theory figure with it's apartment diorama

  (picture via Toyark.com)

Skeletor's staff as a plush toy

  (picture via Toyark.com)

Jay and Silent Bob minimates

  (picture via Toyark.com)

Kill Bill  minimates

  (picture via Toyark.com)

Sin City Minimates

  (picture via Toyark.com)

Booker Dewitt figure from Bioshock Infinite

  (picture via Toyark.com)

six inch scale Jabba the Hutt

  (picture via Toyark.com)

talking Strax plush toy

  (picture via Toyark.com)

Also... LEGO SIMPSSONS MINIFIGURES ARE BLINDPACKED GODDAMNIT!

  (picture via Toyark.com)

Neca Simpsons figures

So now that I've seen the Neca 25th Anniversary Simpsons figures, the Celebrity Guest wave 1... I gotta  say, not impressed. For $11 (which seems oddly affordable due to the ever increasing cost of action figures... sadly) I wanted more. And I certainly wanted better sculpts.

The only figure I wanted from this wave was Tom Hanks, but now seeing the figure... it doesn't look like Tom Hanks... it doesn't even look like the Simpsons version of Tom Hanks. It looks like generic background Simpsons character in suit. Here's both the 5" version and the minifigure version.

I thought the Yao Ming figure was better done, even if you can only really tell who he is because of the basketball and the fact his sweater says "YAO."

Actually, the best sculpted figure was the James Brown figure, which I'm not talking about here because I actually bought it and might go over it at a later date. But knowing me, probably not.

Ultimately, I think these figures are a step down from the Playmates Simpsons figures. The Neca versions are too angular and sharp, losing some of the cartoon feel. Also, it's really only of interest if you want an action figure of a celebrity done in the Simpsons style, which seems like a really niche market. But these are nicer than the Macfarlane Simpsons, since these are actual action figures and not stationary dioramas with no play value.

Ah man....

Ah man, Hot Toys announced on Facebook that they've got an Alfred (Michael Caine) figure and he only comes with a ridiculous Batman Armory set, so the whole thing's going to be mad expensive. Especially if they make you also buy a Christian Bale figure too. The way they worded the posts makes it unclear if the Armory comes with both figures or if you can also get it with only one of the two figures.

I'm willing to pay good money for a Hot Toys Aflred, but not $600.

Family Guy K'Nex and Mickey hulk

Saw these at Toys R Us recently. Can we just agree that these look grotesque?

Okay, the Meg/Brian figures look decent, but the rest look horrifying.

Meanwhile, this is a thing of beauty.

They couldn't just produce a green Mickey Mouse, they had to use a regular plush doll with new hands/feet and give it a green body stocking. 

Black Thursday

I'm totally against Thursday Black Friday sales... although I was mighty tempted by one this year at Toys R Us. Their Skylanders deals are pretty good, buy 1 get 1 70% off. Thursday only. I had to remind myself that it wasn't worth  betraying my principals... especially after I did the math and realized I'd only be saving $5 since Toys R Us  pretty regularly does Buy 1 get 1 40% off on Skylanders.

Meanwhile I love Fry's Electronics approach. CLOSED THURSDAY but you can go online starting 9am Thursday and buy any of their black friday items for black fridays prices if you do local store pickup, basically doing your black friday shopping online and just picking it up at your leisure on Friday. No staff required to work Thursday except for a couple IT guys on call to keep the servers from crashing.

Today I'm thankful for...

...blogger erasing the beautiful post I just wrote and wait, no... No... I am not thankful for the blogger app on iPhone being a piece of crap and forcing me to bust out a laptop to rewrite a post.

But I am thankful for luck. What kind of luck? Toy luck.

Hot Topic had one of their regular Buy 1 Item get 1 Item half off sales. And as a reward card member I got an extra 15% off the sale price, which means, HEY! Blind boxed vinyl figures are no longer the slightly higher Hot Topic prices but rather are cheaper than MSRP!

In my mad quest to get a Second Doctor Titans vinyl figure I bought 14 blind boxed figures from the Doctor Who Titans 50th anniversary wave. The plan was simple, weigh the boxes in my hand, try to figure out how much vinyl was packed into the box, and hope I was right about the contents within. Keep going until I got a double,

With no context of how much vinyl each figure used and uncertain how much weight the accessories would add, I never correctly guessed what figure was in each box I opened. But luck was still on my side for a while, as I didn't get a double until Box 8. (Some cheating in that Box 6 was from a different wave and would have been impossible to produce a double.)

As I opened the boxes I revealed: 9th Doctor, 6th Doctor, 2nd Doctor. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. But in my hubris, I wanted to see if I could get any of my other favorite Doctors. More boxes: 4th Doctor, 1st Doctor, Adipose, 7th Doctor, 1st Doctor.

And that's when I stopped, because it was a slap in the face. Who wants two 1st Doctor figures? Not me.

But of course that means I only need the 5th and 11th Doctors for a complete set. But should I buy them on ebay or open the rest of my blind boxes knowing that the odds are not in my favor and I could end up with a bunch of toys I don't want in boxes that can't be returned because you can't just can't return open blind boxed items. (Unless you're returning it to a ruthless merchant who knows that you're trying to return the rare variant and wants to resell it for a huge profit.)

Santino Marella

I didn't buy this figure, but holy crap did I want to. Not because I know the character or follow wrestling, because I don't, but it's a 6-inch wrestling figure with a sock puppet on his hand.

Buyer's remorse, This weekend In buying toys edition

Spent way too much on costume accessories this week at Target, but that's a blog I gave up a while ago. But toys...

 

Picked up a Hot Wheels car of a rocket powered school bus, which is an odd way to power a school bus, and speaks to a growing trend toward fantasy that I'm not entirely comfortable with for Hot Wheels, but I suppose that's what they use the Matchbox line for. Meanwhile, I wanted a Hot Wheels school bus.

Also picked up a Walking Dead minimate pack because it has a good minimate zombie and a comicbook version of the Governor with bonus eyepatch head. Mostly for the minimate zombie.

Then theres a TMNT lego polybag set which I only picked up for the minifigure with a krang image printed on the torso, simulating the awesome giant alien brain in a robot body torso idea.

 

Also got a Daphne minifigure because some asshole opened all the blind bags so I could look inside them and find the ones I wanted. Kinda mixed feelings on this. On the one hand I got what I wanted, on the other hand this is just a huge dick move. If I saw whoever did this I wonder if I would have yelled at the person doing it, adult or kid. I told a store clerk... And they just walked away and I later saw them working an empty cash register. (The box holding the blind packs had been moved to another part of the store too, so they weren't even near the other Scooby Doo building sets.)

 I also picked up the Voodoo Man becuase he's actually the Freak of Crystal Cove from the recent Mystery Inc. series. In that continuity he's actually Fred Jones' father and town mayor who in realitty kidnapped an infant Fred Jones from his real mystery solving parents in order to extort them into staying away from his criminal plans. In an ironic twist, Fred Jones sr learns to love his adopted son and when Fred'ss real parents return The Freak is also revealed to be a better parent and more loving than Fred's real family who are now corrupt adventurers. Man that was a good show. Anyway, they made a figure of the Freak... And then gave him a new name which makes absolutely no sense.

Of course if you check the Character Building website you realize that in the UK, where CB is located, they do things differently there. Like have all 5 members of the Mystery Inc. gang available through the blind packs. It also turns out that 7 of the monsters aren't part of the Scooby Doo line in the UK. For the US Scooby Doo Character Building release CB folded in minifigures from their Monsters vs. Zombie line, possibly to fill out the Scooby line but more likely because it was the only way to get those figures into US stores. 

What?!

This is a thing that's being sold in stores? How did I not know this? I need to pay better attention

Mario Kart 7

I'm going to wait until I see these at Target before I buy them, but I'm really glad they're making new cars in the wackier designs.

Kre-o star trek

Ungh. I think the only reason I might get one is the lego scale batleth... Or however Klingons spell it.

Buyer's Remorse Prof X edition

Did I buy it because I really wanted it or because I saw a couple Prof X & Jubilee figures on the shelf and wanted to buy one for proof?

Or did I buy it to put Admiral Ackbar in a floating wheelchair?

Uncanny X-men

As much as I want a Baby Cyclops figure, i can't justify paying $25 for him if the only other figure in the set I'm even kinda interested in getting is Longshot.