Triple Force Friday

  • October 4, 2019

Today, as you all know, is Triple Force Friday! This means it’s the day product is in stores for not one, not two, but three upcoming Star Wars properties: the new film (The Rise of Skywalker), the TV Series (The Mandalorian) and some game no-one cares about. Naturally I hit the shops after work, giddy with excitement. What did I buy?

Target was mostly underwhelming. Yes there was a spiffy endcap, but isn’t it just the same basic design as the last two films?!? Also you can see that the shelves weren’t exactly bursting with choice, especially when you ignore (as we all should) the Funko stuff. They had a pittance of new figures like these:

As well as two lego sets, a t-shirt, some stuffed droids (?) and one or two instantly forgettable other things. Nothing grabbed me and I left empty-handed.

Barnes & Noble was my next stop and as you can see they had a nice little display. Overall it was better than Target with more variety including what looked to be a giant spoileriffic book that I didn’t open. I did learn though – from the packaging of the figures, that the new film will feature a speeder chase on a planet called ‘Pasana’, non-Tattooinian Jawas (!) and this dude:

I was mildly excited by the stuff at Barnes & Noble but not enough to buy anything, and left empty-handed.

Walmart was my next destination and the less said about what I saw there the better. Given that Walmart was hyped (by who?) as the go-to destination for TFF one would imagine they would have something. But no; it was the usual barren wasteland of no Star Wars toys. This was depressing to a fellow with money burning a hole in his pocket so to alleviate the despair before I left for the mall I picked up $20 worth of soup:

At the mall I skipped over to The Disney Store which – finally! – had a nice display. They had clothes and figures and hats and lightsabers and a few other things including these for a staggering $50 per set:

Fifty dollars for three medallions just like the ones that came free with POTF figures in 1983?!!? Who’s going to buy these??? And they had three sets! Madness I proclaimed loudly as I walked out empty-handed and beelined for the LEGO store.

Now this is what I was looking for! They even have a TFF sign! But look: just look at that Star Destroyer kit!!! So what if it’s $700 and so big that there’s literally no-one alive that would have a place in their home to display it? It’s a beauty indeed and would be so much fun to build. That the sort of lunacy one expects to see on a day about Star Wars product. Oh and they had this too:

(Yes I know the photo was taken at Target, but they had it assembled at the LEGO store and it’s truly the stuff of nightmares.)

Anyway I bought nothing at LEGO, which means on Triple Force Friday after a couple of hours going to all the usual stores I left with… nothing!

So I went and dropped over a grand on an iPhone 11 Pro Max so the trip wasn’t a total waste 🙂

  • Posted in Collecting
  • Robert

Scaredy Cats

  • September 29, 2019

Time for more craft! This time, a house for our beasts:

This thing is a Target exclusive and apparently quite popular. KLS snagged the last one from our local store.

It’s a simple cardboard kit held together with double sided tape. It’s well designed and easy to make. As I did, Emi was watching attentively:

As you can see the floor (and roof) are cardboard pickers. Emi particularly loves these, so it’s not surprising she was excited.

It took maybe 10 minutes to assemble, and it didn’t take long for Emi to show interest:

But then, a challenger appears:

And then after a couple of fuzzy slaps (from both parties) Zoffy moved in:

And since then the house seems to have become hers:

This cute little abode will remain in our living room for a long time and will no doubt switch owners many times. But I wonder how long it will take for them to notice they can sit on the roof as well? 🙂

Twelve Things We Saw At The Fair

  • September 27, 2019

We we to The Big E yesterday, the mega-fair one state over. We went with Jim and Joyce and saw many things! Here’s a sample.

That’s my view from the top of the McDonalds super slide. It was faster than I expected, and I momentarily broke my finger as I careened down out of control!

The butter sculpture was astonishingly vertical and we were skeptical it was made entirely of butter. The child was about a meter tall.

Tater-tot cosplay.

It turns out Pez are made only a few hours from where we live! They had a shop in one of the state pavilions selling a mind-boggling array of the things. If I actually liked Pez I may have bought some…

This is a cute horsey-thing with fuzzy ears like mine. If you look closely at his eye though, you’ll see the spark of madness.

The winning pumpkin was over 590 kg! If you hollowed it out I could easily have fit inside. Imagine carrying this to the fair??!

Here I am eating my lunch. It was great, but the second one I got was even better! In addition to this, between us we ate baked potatoes, lobster rolls, finnish pancakes, mac and cheese, lemon ice and cream puffs.

Joyce spent time watching horseplay in the arena. While she did this we walked through the pavilion of hucksters selling endless ‘as-seen-on-TV’ stuff. It’s a fair staple I can even remember from the fairs of my youth.

Speaking of memories, the last fair ride I actually rode was one of these. It was a couple of years back and made me horribly sick. I rode nothing yesterday, but I still love watching all of them. (Lest you think I’m a chicken I’ll remind you of this!)

The art on some of the rides was next-level strange. The one on the top left was taken from a funhouse attraction that was the thing of nightmares. The top right was a zombie themed ghost train that I probably should have ridden 🙂

Some fool making a fool of himself…

In the afternoon the rain came in and ultimately we had to leave. But it was a full and tiring day and – as with last year – we didn’t see everything! I guess we’ll have to return again one time 🙂