Toy Bender

The following guest post is by my wife, Diane. She’s a My Little Pony fan who has some issues with Hasbro. I find it interesting that the issue she has parallels the feelings of a lot guys have who collect toys like Joes and Star Wars figures, especially when the 25th Joes were in their first year:

Dear Hasbro,

As a collector of My Little Ponies, I am considerably disappointed in your recent My Little Pony offerings. The fun of the previous series was that each new wave of Ponies brought new characters with new special gimmicks. What you’re giving me now is the same 6 Ponies with new add-on crap (cowboy hats? surf boards?) and a slightly different paint job. It’s hard for me to get interested in buying the same ponies over and over again. Now, I know you may be gearing this line towards kids, so you really don’t give a crap that I don’t want 2 Scootaloos even if one comes with a tennis racket. But, when the toys were originally released in the early 80’s, I was a kid and I ate that shit up like birthday cake. Call me crazy, but I’m thinking it still works that way. You can keep releasing the play sets with the creepy Pony clothes for the kiddies, but keep up with the variety for the adults with money to spend.

Sincerely,

Diane M. Rudolph

Item: Just to wrap things up, the contest winners of the Facebook/Comment contest have been notified. So sorry if you didn’t win, hopefully I can give out free stuff soon. Seriously, it’s like an addiction now. I just wish I had a constant flow of prize stuff, because you guys deserve it and there’s a lot of interest every time I run one.

Item: If any of my friends buy a chimp, I’m going to start packing heat.

Item: So why did WGN show Star Trek: The Next Generation practically all day the other day and now nothing the last couple of days? Why you have to tease the unemployed like that Chicago? At least I have Bill Kurtis to keep me company.

Item: EA is going to make a game based on G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. I wrote about the game on the ole’ gaming blog, but the short version is that I think it will most likely suck.

Item: One of my favorite blogs, Dave’s Long Box, died a year or so ago, but Dave is now back! He’s writing The Society for the Advancement of Dave now and it’s awesome. He seems to have a slightly broader range of subjects than just comics, but if you like this blog you should go check his out.

Item: I’m now roughly 12,000 zombies into my quest to get the kill 53,000 zombies or so Achievement in Left 4 Dead. If you want to help me in my quest, add my gamer tag “Tenric” to your friends list. If you do, please be sure to leave me a note letting me know who you are. I have a small brain and it’s often hard for me to match up who is who when their internet names don’t match their gamer tags.

Item: Good old Zach Oat, formerly of ToyFare fame, has written a “newbie’s guide to Watchmen.” It’s a great background guide if you plan on bringing anyone to the theater that knows nothing about the book and it’s plain enough for even your mom to understand. What? Why don’t you want to take your mom to Watchmen? She’s a nice lady! You really disappoint me sometimes.

It’s Friday and you know what that means! Time for more links and basically random thoughts!

Item: Mattel has a survey for toy collectors. I took it and I gave them a couple pieces of my mind about DC Infinite Heroes. What’s funny is that for the question asking you how many action figures you own, you can only enter a number up to 100. Seriously? Whoever designed the survey doesn’t really know toy collectors.

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I was checking out Raving Toy Maniac and I saw some pictures of Star Trek figures I hadn’t for some reason seen yet. First let’s watch some crazy extreme Star Trek action before we look at the crap:

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If you’ve resigned yourself to buying DC Infinite Heroes because they’re okay enough, but wished they were better then you no doubt have collected a few “anti-monitor” points. What could you get for these points? Possibly some cool mail-away offer? Nope, Mattel revealed you can only redeem them at the San Diego Comic Con.

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Fans of the Justice League Unlimited series of figures sold exclusively at Target might be pleased to learn that they will have the chance to own an Amanda Waller figure in the future. While she might not fit the typical look of a comic book character, she certainly had a lot of impact in the Bruce Timm animated world of the DC Universe:

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Be prepared friends, the following is a very personal post. I do tie it into toys though.

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Well folks, Christmas is almost upon us and that feeling of joy that the season brings has infected my household like a nasty virus… or maybe I just have a bad cold. Anyway, I thought I’d take a moment to post the long delayed image of all the awesome prizes you can win with ToyBender’s Joes for Tots contest:

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KB Toys has entered bankruptcy and I don’t think it should be any surprise to anyone. They blame the holiday sales slump, but I think the real blame is the way they ran their stores. This may be a real instance of the weak getting separated from the herd.

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Well not a whole lot has happened in the toy world to write about… so I suppose it’s time for one of these things.

Item: I’m curious to find out if any of you folks have dared to venture out into the shopping battlezones that is collectively known as Black Friday to get some crazy ass deals. I avoid stepping outside my door on this day, having had to work in retail too many times.

Item: Speaking of Black Friday, Toys R Us had a 25 dollar off a purchase of 50 dollars or more if you paid via Paypal. I was going to post it here, but when I clicked on the link the offer had expired. Curse you, Reed Richards!

Item: Hasbro Toy Shop has a bunch of stuff that’s on sale. I couldn’t find much of anything, unless you like the awful 12″ G.I. Joe figures. They’re twelve bucks for a limited time. They also have some girlie items that I managed to snag for some Christmas presents for my wife. Hurray sales!

Item: MMMM pie. Sorry, I was just enjoying some pumpkin pie.

Item: Item: Brian’s Toys put up it’s recent newsletter. It has deals, if you like that sort of thing.

Item: I’ve been playing Resistance Fall of Man 2 for the PS3. It’s pretty cool so far. It’s no Halo or Gears of War, but it’s pretty decent. Oh yeah, if you don’t know I also have been writing on the video game blog 1pstart. Don’t expect it to be as good as ToyBender, though. Nothing can be as good as ToyBender, except maybe pie.

All right, I admit that I’m being a little over dramatic with the headline up there. Seriously though, what’s with this Twilight stuff? It’s like there hasn’t ever been a vampire movie before. And the lead actor? Is there a guy who is as ugly as this dude is and is considered a pre-teen/teen heartthrob?

Anyway, Edward Cullen (the ugliest vampire in town) is being made into a seven inch tall toy(roughly three inches shorter than my wang).

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Wow, I’m keeping busy at work and it’s Friday. Strange huh? Anyway, I suppose I owe all you folks something that are surfing the web on a Friday afternoon or evening. While I don’t think there’s a lot of you out there (as comments and traffic indicates), I value you just as much as the regular Monday through Thursday crowd.

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It’s my birthday today and I’m really hoping that your present is in the mail. If it is not, I will really have to reevaluate our blogger/bloggie relationship. Since it’s my birthday, I brought some virtual treats of things that are awesome.

We’ve got Puppies:

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This last Friday I received a nice surprise in front of my door… my G.I. Joe Anniversary Operation: Rescue Doc mail-away Doc! I’m thankful that I live in an apartment complex where people don’t steal your mail that’s laying out. I’d rather not ever have to repeat the horror of my toys being stolen again.

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It’s hard to believe, but the company responsible for collectible table top games like Heroclix is gone. I know that this little bit of news hit this week and I realize that many of you probably had seen it already, I just wanted to put in my two cents.

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