testing out a few changes

we will see how we like it

Pop Culture League Challenge: Buying Blind

     Blind buys irritate me, but I can't seem to stop taking chances-from the $.25 gumball styled machines in the front of the big box stores to the fancy blind packed collectibles of now, it's very tantalizing. That drop of a quarter to win the expensive prize, only to discover you won... a ball of lint, basically. Or Cereal prizes, or Cracker-Jack Prizes. I've done them all.

     The expression is "Pig in a Poke"- you buy something sight unseen and hope it is what you wanted.

     So the Gumball style machines are where I think I started on this. I remember clearly my middle school library had machines that held blocky miniature football helmets or erasers shaped like spaceships and I still think that was odd. The Woolco or K-mart had a machine with replica rockets which were essentially a cardboard tube with a decal, a nose section and an engine section. I loved those.

     I don't really remember cereal prizes that I wanted, except maybe the cars from Wacky Races. I remember holding onto a Cracker-Jack toy for years that was a purple, flat, roundish six-legged bug with hex-nuts for eyes(as I recall it). Nowadays what you get in Cracker-Jacks is a temporary tattoo-something ephemeral and fleeting. The aftertaste of the stale caramel popcorn lasts longer. And yes, I realize I have just dealt myself another "old man card" by my use of the word "nowadays".

     The most recent Blind items I have dug into were the Minecraft Mini-figures. With the addition of a hot wheels minecart. I love it!

 and the Minions blind bags from MegaBlocks.

Proudly serving their new Big bad Guy!

and messing with his phone...

I picked a few of the blind-bagged Transformers 30th anniversary Chibi styled figured, but after my third TF Prime Optimus, they lost their shine a bit. My luck ain't that hot on those.

    Funny story- My local Walmart has blind-packed DC Bombshells.

I happened to notice that someone had meticulously opened every can and checked the contents looking for(I assume) Harley Quinn because she was not present-Yes, I looked, too. Who wouldn't? Anyway, what I did find, and bring to the managers attention were the three empty containers-someone had walked off with the figures and left the cans for another (unwary) person to buy. I pictured the mess for Walmart customer service and that luckless person and did my good deed for the day.

Other Blind Buyers

• Last Hometown makes a "case" for blind bags
• Green Plastic Squirt Gun shows his many and varied entries
• As does Alexis' Universe
• 20 years before 2000 found Garbage Pail Kids at Dollar Tree
• The Harvey Mercheum loves Lego bags
• GI Jigsaw emptied his wallet on Funko
• Toy-Break likes blind stuff even less than I do. 
• Copyright 1984 talks of MegaBlocks and cheaters
• The Toy Box discusses a hot topic of woe
• Another F Blog shares vintage stuff with us
• Erik Johnson Illustrator was a sighted witness to blind buying
• Calvins Canadian Cave of Cool hates blind bags enough for Toy-Break and me Combined
• AEIOUWhy struck it lucky with his most wanted
• and Marc Allie digs trading cards

   

Pop Culture League Challenge: House of Wax

     This one is tricky- My preferred scale for human type action figures is 3.75 inch, both because I have been collecting that scale since the 70's and because it stores well. I would need to pick one figure that represents the best of what I want to display, that can serve me and my feathery family well.

     I'm going to pause here and say even if my choice were Shia LeBeouf, I couldn't take the risk, I might bring home what I thought was a wax dummy and find that I got the Actual Shia doing a performance piece.

     I think that Tango and Cappy might like a Life-Size Groot but Cappy likes to chew bark, and Tango would not hop off to relieve himself, so there would be some cleaning, so I think... no

     Life-sized, lifelike Optimus Prime...well, I haven't the ceiling space for that. I would have to cut a hole in my ceiling and the apartment above and I really would only be able to enjoy his feet and part of his shins.

    The only super-detailed figure I have really been tempted by in recent memory is something like this Captain America figure from Civil War. The detail blows me away. I think I know myself well enough that if I had a likeness of any actress, even an ideal woman, that I would become bored or disappointed that she was not the real thing. I don't have a wish to play Pygmalion to some waxen Galatea.

     But a symbol- of doing the right thing for the right things sake, of loving your country not for what it is now but for what it can become, for inspiring people to the greatest ideals... That I can get behind and clear some space for.



Other Leaguers

• The Toy Box looks for practical applications
• Green Plastic Squirt Gun Seeks Fiery voluptuous redhead
• Collectors Universe takes it amphibious and old school
• 20 Years Before 2000 Combines his greatest icons

If You Want to Get Technical...

     I spent a fair amount of time deciding just which version of Technobots/Computron I wanted. I finally elected to go with Takaras version, largely because of the choices they made for the limbs. Having him in hand I know I made the right choice for me. the Color choices and paint apps really pop and the figures used for Nosecone and Strafe were to me, the better choices- Hasbro re-used Brawl and Firefly respectively.

     The five technobots were created by Grimlock, in the episode Grimlocks New Brain using parts found in Unicrons head- He transferred all the intelligence he had so recently acquired into the combined form of the technobots, Computron.

The five Technobots are Scattorshot:

On the right is the Hasbro single release voyager
they both have their good points and bad points for paint apps

Lightspeed:

Afterburner:

Strafe:

and Nosecone:

All of the Technobots are "autumns" but he rocks it

And they Combine to This:

Based on the earlier Silverbolt mold, the Takara release gives a new head and
new torso details more appropriate to Computron

His weapons are built to combine as well. I could technically stick
all the guns together but I don't want to

He gets the Tango stamp of awesome