Category: ToyBox

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ToyBox

Doctor Who classic figure news

Outpost Gallifrey sez:

Character Options have announced the first in the new Classic Series range of figures. The first wave will include four single releases and two twin packs. There is currently not a release date. The list is still under negotiations and approvals, but Wave 1 is currently slated to include:

The Fourth Doctor in his Red velvet jacket from the story Revenge of the Cybermen. This figure will include two interchangeable heads – one with the hat, one without.

The Fifth Doctor with short hair as seen in the story Resurrection of the Daleks.

The Sixth Doctor in his patchwork frock coat with short hair as seen in Attack of the Cybermen.

A Sea Devil complete with string vest.

A Zygon with the Skarassen control device.

Voc Robots from The Robots of Death. This twin pack will include SV-7 (Super Voc) and D-84 (Dum Class).

Magnus Greel and Mr Sin from Talons of Weng Chiang will be the second twin pack.

My take on it:

Okay, all this business with “with short hair” and “from the episode…” is making me nervous. CO, please attend carefully: I’m only buying one of each Doctor unless there’s such a radically different one that there needs to be a second one of [insert actor here] on my shelf. Say like a season 26 McCoy and a 1996 movie McCoy. In fact…that’s the only example I can think of, and that’s just because I like McCoy so much. The episode-specificity implied in the above statement makes me grumble a bit.

I approve of the choices though. Three of my ten favorite Doctors right off the top, and you can take Tom Baker’s head off too! 😆 I also approve of the Zygon, Sea Devil and Bots o’ death. I may pass on Chang though.

Yep, you heard me right people. I’m only gonna get the ones I want. I’m gettin’ old. And the boy’s gonna need some toys too, so I gotta be frugal. (Though if he turns out to be a Star Trek and/or Star Wars and/or Doctor Who fan, well…heh heh heh. Luckiest. Kid. Ever.)… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code Home Base ToyBox

All quiet on and/or near the western front

Nothing big to report. Did some more minor housecleaning today, and ran a lot of errands. One thing I utterly failed to get done was get the infant seat installed in the Mommymobile – the guy who does that for folks at the Van Buren PD was out of pocket when I got there. I’ll try again Monday.

There are few things as certain in life as death, taxes, and the fact that sooner or later, your Avid user settings will be corrupted. @#$%. (And this is without two other dudes using it – I don’t know what this machine’s excuse is.)

I’ve also been doing some WordPress-style remodeling on Phosphor Dot Fossils, getting the first few test entries into the system. I’m really, really happy with how that’s shaping up; basically, I’m categorizing every entry in a zillion different ways, so you’ve got a huge number of ways to sort through the database: by year, by platform, by the first letter of the title, by control scheme, even by game play elements. You want to look at baseball games only? Maze games only? Games by a certain manufacturer? No sweat. I think there’s a lot of value to the existing library of PDF reviews that has perhaps been buried without having some kind of sorting mechanism; this should redress the balance a bit. (Oh, and I’m gonna drop my customary anti-cut-and-paste code into place too, because let’s not forget that there are other folks who think that PDF is quite a valuable resource too. 😛 ) Head over there, try out the sorting options on the right-hand sidebar, and let me know what you think. It’s a beautiful thing.

Speaking of which, I have found a new use for one of the display cases I used to haul to OVGE every year:
Not the droids you're looking for
I figured I might just need to keep these little guys under glass (or in this case plastic) from here on out. (By the way, the giant droid god on the left isn’t Andrew’s – I found my own large-scale R2 while cleaning house.)

Move along, move along
I know these are a stupid vice to have, but they’re at least harmless. Yes, I know it’s just the same thing repainted in about a dozen different ways. That doesn’t make me like ’em any less.

By the way, speaking of geeky stuff, I thought I’d post my wife’s score from that Nerd Test a few days ago. If you’re reading this, you’ll probably be impressed:
Jan's nerd test score
Read it and weep, gentlemen. 😆… Read more

Categories
Cooking With Code Gaming Home Base Music ToyBox

Random, irregularly-shaped chunks of thoughts

Burchuss. Now compatible with your Atari VCS.Oh man. I love the Atari 2600 Labelmaker site, but it’s gonna put label fetishists like me out of business. Doesn’t even pay to think about what it’ll do to the next AtariAge label contest to come down the pike. Just between you, me, and the entirely metaphorical lamppost, I had to resist a momentary (and utterly mad) geeky urge to do “Atari cartridges” for, oh, everyfreakinthing on the whole site. I’ll keep that option in my back pocket if the site ever undergoes some kind of radical rethink. 😆 Anyway, it’s an awesome idea, a neat (and rather alarmingly versatile and powerful) site to have some fun with, and I sincerely hope that its maker will consider expanding the repertoire to include such things as the “silver label” style, 5200 cartridges, and so on.

The DVD review section of theLogBook has now been rolled out, WordPress-style, and I think it’s lookin’ mighty sleek ‘n’ foxy. But then I guess I would, wouldn’t I? If anyone thinks they’re detecting a mad dash to get as much of the WordPress-ification of theLogBook done before the baby gets here, they are about 1000% right on the money. There are only three sections left to be WP’ed, and we’re already deep into the work on one of those, so perhaps we can whittle that down to two sections remaining by the end of the year.

I’ve got a big Stack Of Stuff piled up at the house that needs to be sold, mainly Star Trek and Babylon 5 and other sci-fi related stuff – action figures, models, Christmas ornaments, magazines by the truckload, and so on – and I’d really like to avoid eBay. If anyone out there would like some of this stuff, please drop me a line. I’m not inflating prices or charging the gross national debt for shipping – I just need the stuff out of here. I’m still drawing up a list, but I can tell you that there’s a collection of Starlog’s dedicated Star Trek: The Next Generation magazine that, if it isn’t the complete run, it’s damn close. I also have binders full of Cinefantastique’s annual ST:TNG wrap-ups – I remember around 1990-94 when Robert and I would descend upon the bookstores to find those every summer, and we’d study Mark Altman’s well-observed comments and reviews like devout Bible scholars. 😆

Over at NotNews, Dave has an in-depth after-action report from the Philadelphia Crowded House concert with Pete Yorn and Liam Finn (i.e. son of Neil) as the opening acts. Dave has also gotten to see R.E.M. live without having to venture to another state. Have I mentioned Dave lives in a real city? Heck, I bet Danny Boyle’s Sunshine is even playing in a theater up there somewhere. 😛 … Read more

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ToyBox

Doctor Who figure followup

(Apologies to those who just discovered my blog over the course of CGE and are now asking “WTF? What’s all this geeky action figure stuff all of a sudden?” You folks’ll just have to deal. And I hope you like baby and kitty pics.)

The very recent announcement that Character Options will be supplementing its series of Doctor Who toys based on the new series with a compatible line of heroes and villains from the original series has sent me on one of my Hypothetical Toy Binges. I’ve been known to do this for various properties that simply don’t have action figures, to try to tax my brain to come up with a lineup for a viable line of toys. (Remind me sometime to show you my dream list of nonexistent Blake’s 7 and Babylon 5 figures.) Hey, I’ve worked in marketing many times – I do mental exercises like this. … Read more

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ToyBox

This dovetails nicely with my plan to spend less money on silly stuff

From Outpost Gallifrey:

Character Options is to release a range of classic-era figures.

To be launched next spring, in association with BBC Worldwide, the five-inch figures will initially feature detailed replicas of classic Doctors, plus a number of monsters.

Jon Diver, the joint managing director of Character Group, said: “The resounding success of the Doctor Who TV series is made up of both new and existing Doctor Who fans.

“We have reacted to public demand and will be producing a range which greatly enhances the depth and quality of our existing line.

“The classic licence will broaden the collectability and enhance the position of the brand.”

Can we say hot diggity damn? You can bet your bottom dollar (and/or pound) that Tom Baker and Paul McGann will be the first figures out of the gate, but so long as they at least fill out the first eight Doctors, and give me some Zygons and Sontarans to put next to the Judoon and the Face of Boe, I’ll be pretty happy. I think they ought to do some companions too, but…I’ll admit that probably needs to wait until they see if anyone buys the much more obvious choices. And then maybe, just maybe, they can give me that McGann TARDIS playset I’ve been dreaming of. (Until then, I’ll be more than happy with the incongruous hilarity of putting Pertwee and Colin Baker in the new series console room.)

Mat told me at CGE that he’d be happy to keep an eye open in the UK for any figures I’m missing. Heh. If only he’d known… 😆… Read more

Categories
Gadgetology Home Base ToyBox

Tales of the Tape(s)

It seems as though the universe is conspiring to raise my blood pressure enough to make me sick before I can make it to CGE this weekend. Let’s see…

  • The baby room – still not finished. Probably won’t be by the time I go, though I had set that as a goal for myself to get done before I leave.
  • Right foot – still killing me. Now my heel is causing me an incredible amount of pain, which makes a certain amount of sense because I’ve been keeping the weight off my toes, but what doesn’t make sense is this amount of pain suddenly hitting me overnight – literally. I went to bed and the heel felt fine. I woke up this morning and I could barely walk. I have serious concerns about getting around like this in Vegas.
  • Tapes for CGE. I won two eBay auctions for 10 tapes each on July 8th & 9th from the same seller. Paid promptly by Paypal on the 12th. They hadn’t gotten here by Monday of this week, and I have to leave for CGE on Friday morning, so I started raising hell – first by e-mail, then by messages through eBay, with no response. Finally I filed a Paypal dispute requesting a refend and suddenly the guy starts talking (amazing, innit?). I requested a refund specifically because it’ll take me more than $54 to purchase 20 blank miniDV tapes at retail locally by Friday morning. And so naturally, the guy shipped by USPS, today, and sent a tracking number, at last. Guess what, jack? They’re still not going to get here in time. Avoid “daytrading1” on eBay at all costs. By contrast, a step-up ring I ordered on Monday of this week is already here.
  • The “honey do” list. I know I’ve got a lot of stuff to do, but there’s this sudden bum rush of things to do right before I go, and there’s a not-so-little voice in the back of my head that’s just screaming BACK OFF.

I guess I’m getting just a little bit cranky. I know I have lots of stuff I need to accomplish, and as I used to tell a certain TV station owner back in the days when he used to call me up at the station and go on endless tirades about changing luma and chroma settings on the time base corrector, “Bill, I can either do something about it, or I can talk to you about it. Pick one.” (That right there happens to be the kind of quality people skills that keep you in broadcasting for 17 years; if you get even crankier than that, you can escape sooner! 😆 )

By the way, I got pictures this morning of the litter of kittens that our little grey house guest had a while back, and they’re just adorable. I want them all, snuggled up on my pillow, stat. Lucky for them, my niece has already fallen in love with two of them, and I may have found a home for another one or two of them. They’re adorable. I’ll try to post the pictures here before I go to Vegas.

I’m looking forward to the Expo in a big way – this is kind of like my last hurrah with the gang, with Rob, Brian, Paul, Charles and, geez, just about everyone else going. Mat’s bringing me a Face of Boe (everybody should have one!), and I secretly hope he catches video of the TSA screeners puzzling over that one once he’s in the country. 😆 Many years ago, coming back from Promax ’98 in Toronto, I learned that declaring a squeeze toy to customs is a one-way ticket to getting oneself questioned for at least 30 seconds (and keep in mind, this was pre-9/11), so I’m going to enjoy this far too much. It’s a disembodied head from the distant future, and it’s got a recommended retail price of about 15 quid, more or less. (And the great thing is, technically, I already have cats hanging around to tend to it, no additional action figures required. Or maybe not so much tend to it as bat at the little dangly bits.) I’m going to set him up on a shelf in the game room where he can sit and have a conversation with the Ambassador Kosh figure all day.

Hopefully everybody dug the video feature and gobs of pictures I took for this week’s toy review. I’ll admit, I couldn’t help but mess with everyone’s minds by putting the old ’80s TARDIS console off in the background in some shots. And Homsar. (Actually, for anyone who’s been reading the toy reviews since the beginning of this year, Homsar’s gotten to be something of a recurring in-joke. Admit it, he just looks cool riding shotgun in a twin-pod cloud car.)

I’ll try to do some blogging from the Expo this weekend, though it may be pretty brief; I did a “test run” of everything this past weekend when I set up cameras for the baby shower, and it all worked just fine, so we’re set. Even though it’s going to be a working vacation…I’m still more than ready for it to begin, provided my head hasn’t exploded before I can pack my suitcase and make my escape.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Home Base ToyBox

Things are going just swimmingly

Swimmy time
A look at our super secret swimming hole. And us in it. (I’m the bald, non-pretty one who isn’t using any kind of flotation device and is therefore barely keeping his head above water in the deep end.)

Little Girl
This is the lifeguard, Little Girl. Sooooo much better than David Hasselhoff. For example: I could never see giving David Hasselhoff scritchies behind the ears. Hell, I couldn’t even see doing that to Pamela Anderson, for that matter. And I don’t think we’ll ever see video of Little Girl sloppily wolfing down cheeseburgers in a drunken stupor either.

Dipstick
This is Dipstick. He’s a much older cat and loves nothing more than to find shady spots…and stay there. He is wise beyond his considerable years.

Oberon and Olivia
Naturally, our own kitties are more than happy for us to come home from the pool.

I spent almost three hours today shooting some video for a Toybox article you’ll see in about a week; it was quite a bit of fun and took quite a bit of setup, but I think you’ll like it when you see it. It got me thinking quite a bit about my evolution from playing with toys as a kid to collecting them as an adult, and I realized that I was much closer to playing with them today than I’d been in a long time – I was just inspired in a kind of “I know that’s not what it looks like on the screen, but what the heck?” kind of way, and had a made-up rationale for why things would be the way I was setting them up instead, and before you know it, scenarios form in my head and I have to remind myself that I’m taking some pictures, not playing with my action figures. I had a long train of thought about the nature of imaginative play, about how much modern toys (especially those attached to TV and movie licenses) are geared more toward re-enactment of specific scenarios than they are to open-ended play, and the thought also occurred that I would need to be accessing my imagination in that same wide-open, no-boundaries space once again, probably sooner than I think, when interact with my son (and play with him) as he grows up. Anyway, not wanting to dump all of the cargo from that train of thought at your station, I arrived at the following summation:

  1. In some ways, I have indeed never grown up.
  2. I think I’m actually happier that way, and may function better that way.

So much of the business I’ve been in all of my adult life has revolved around finding ways to do things, finding ways to make things look a certain way. There are several schools of thought here:

  1. It can’t be done by us with this equipment.
  2. It can be done, but we don’t have the time to do it.
  3. It can be done, we just have to rethink the angle of attack and use what we know about the equipment we’re using to make it happen in a reasonable amount of time and/or money.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am so Mr. #3. And that comes from that spirit of imaginative play. Anyone who’s so locked into one way of thinking that they reflexively fall back on #1 or #2 as an answer without even trying #3 needs to get out of the pool and let someone more playful dive in and make some waves.

My toys are mostly digital now, but damned if I don’t still love my plastic ones too. And if I get to play with both at the same time, even better.

I’ve already gotten one call from the Entertainment Fort Smith print ad for GreenhouseFX.tv, but they wanted me to shoot a wedding…on the last Saturday in July. Eek. Stay tuned for the explanation of why exactly I had to turn them down…because it seems I’m booked.… Read more

Categories
Cooking With Code ToyBox

Bust open that blister bubble

(Wow, that sounds nasty, now that I look at it. I mean the blister bubbles that seal action figures to their cards. Ick. What were you thinking!?)

Work on the WordPress conversion of the site’s Toybox section is finally complete, and it’s ready for your browsing pleasure. That’s the third major section of the site this year to be completely converted into its new database format this year, which certainly makes me happy. Consider this my Father’s Day present to all the dads and dads-to-be out there around my age who grew up with this stuff. You might also notice the “random fictional toy store photo of the moment” – which I discussed taking something like a year ago. Yeesh. That didn’t take much time, did it? 😆 All of the video segments from the old Toybox section have made the transition, and, of course, the beautiful thing about WP is that I’ve already got new stuff written and photographed that’ll post itself at the appointed hour, right on cue, between now and the end of the year. I can also safely predict that last year’s Christmas tree went over so well that it’ll be back this year…with a lot more toys under it. (And perhaps a more attractive star for the top of the tree…)

Enjoy the new section. And hey, let’s be careful out there.… Read more

Categories
Gadgetology Toiling In The Pixel Mines ToyBox

That’s no time machine, that’s a space st…no, wait. It IS a time machine, isn’t it? Never mind.

I’ll show you around my TARDIS in a moment. But first, a look at the print ad running for GreenhouseFX.tv in the July issue of Entertainment Fort Smith:

GreenhouseFX.tv ad
(The only difference is that the one in the magazine has my phone number in it.) I’m trying to make a virtue of the fact that, once I’ve got a baby boy running around, I won’t be in a position to go shooting very often (on the site, from day one, it’s said that I do shooting by special arrangement only). I’m hoping I’ll get some decent business off of this ad; as I’ve mentioned, it runs in the bridal issue, so if that doesn’t work, I clearly need to figure something else out, like renting my organs out for medical experiments. (While I’m still using them.)

And now, a fond farewell to an old friend, who, after serving faithfully for 20 years, is going to a better place. Well, if “out with the trash on Monday” is considered a better place:
Old Weather Radio
Never again will your sickly siren wail reverberate through the walls of my home, for now the sound of impending death from above is the sound of a power pellet in Coleco tabletop Pac-Man. Goodbye, old friend.

And now, click here to peer into the TARDIS. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base Serious Stuff Toiling In The Pixel Mines ToyBox

TGIF x 10,000

Thank God for Fridays. And thank God that this is one of ’em. ‘Nuff said.

I’ve been meaning to post a small version of the print ad for GreenhouseFX.tv that I prepared to run in the July bridal issue of Entertainment Fort Smith. I just keep letting it slip my mind. I thought the way it was worded kind of cleverly gets around whether or not I’d be shooting video or just editing it. With Evan at T minus 86 days and counting from liftoff, I’m hoping the message comes across that I’m doing post production primarily, without that seeming like something that would count points off.

It’s rainy today, and rainy = no swimmy. And no swimmy = no happy. Maybe that’s stretching it a little bit, but I’ve really gotten to enjoy what has become the daily swim. Even if the skeeters made a buffet line out of me yesterday while my head was poking out of the water. I don’t “dunk” well in swimming pools – I can’t stand chlorine getting into my eyes – but I dunked several times yesterday.

I’ve had the misfortune this week of watching a guy I used to work with take a very public fall from grace. I didn’t work with him very long before I left the TV station, but he always struck me as a pefectly nice guy. Oddly enough, he is the second former co-worker of mine about whom something like this has come to light (the other was someone I worked with at Fox over 10 years ago), and it’s still incredibly creepy. There was absolutely no indication of anything like this from working with the guy day in and day out. It’s bad news on multiple levels – I have no wish to see the place I used to work for take this kind of a black eye, and this was the first hire for Drew after he took over as chief meteorologist. (I’m pretty sure Drew had no idea about any of this either. At least not during the hiring/auditioning process.) In short, it doesn’t make anybody look good. Dude…get some help. Please. Before you wind up like my other former co-worker who wound up with actual molestation charges and not just being a peeping tom.

The foot that I’m staying off of is still pretty slow going. Missing a day of swimming (I know, bad topic to mention after the previous paragraph…) isn’t going to help it any. There’s just a zen state that I’m able to find in the water that I think has been missing from my life for a decade or so, and I don’t seem to find it anywhere else. My wife has a hard time getting me to vacate the pool. I’ve found myself wondering lately if this site would even exist in anything resembling its current form if I’d had a swimming hole to devote this kind of time to all these years. I wonder what kind of shape I would be in. Relative weightlessness = bliss. Especially for a fat guy like me. But even then I’m trying to address that a bit – I try to do some actual laps back and forth, instead of just floating around.

And now, a Public Plea for Help: sometime back in ubikuberalles’ Livejournal, he mentioned finding the titanium collection Classic Galactica vehicles. Now assuming that all of this had happened before and all of it would happen again, I went looking for them locally, to no avail. If anyone spots these, please, please, please let me know about it, prices included. I’m not sure which ships they’ve making from the original series in that scale, but I’m after the Viper, the Cylon raider, and good ol’ clunky Galactica herself. If you can get these where you are, let me know – I can paypal you or something, or come up with some kinda trade. If anyone can finagle that, that’s very likely my last toy purchase before the baby gets here.

Speaking of the boy, I’ve been feeling him kick on a pretty regular basis here of late. I’ll put my head up to my wife’s belly and talk to him, and then PTHOOK!, right in my ear. He’s already kickin’ the old man in the head. This bodes well. 😆… Read more