Toy Review – Star Wars: Rocket-Firing Boba Fett (Mail-away Premium) By Hasbro

This is kind of a weird figure for me. The legendary Rocket Firing Boba Fett has long been considered the Holy Grail of Star Wars toy geekdom. I’m still not clear on the whole story after all these years, but apparently a small number of production samples were made and escaped into the wild before the Imperial Federal Government decided that parents weren’t smart enough to make decisions and decreed said Firing Rocket to be a choking hazard. Another of countless instances of the minority’s inferiority restricting the liberty of the majority. Yeah – that’s been going on for decades, and it’s only going to get worse.

But this isn’t a political article – this is a toy article.

So a bunch of nerds got really upset that their Boba Fett figure couldn’t fire an ugly, oversized, non-screen-accurate rocket out of his jetpack; something that never even happened in the fucking movies anyway.

I have personally never thought it anywhere near necessary for Boba Fett’s jetpack rocket to even be removable, let alone have a firing mechanism. I’d much rather have a well-articulated Princess Leia that doesn’t look like a man. Or a General Grievous that can fucking stand up.

I am, however, a sucker for gimmicks. I am also a sucker for Mandalorians – particularly ones with the surname “Fett”. When Hasbro announced that the big new mail-away figure for Fall 2010 was going to be a Boba Fett that could not only perform the naughty, life-endangering function of firing his rocket, but was also a recreation of the original Boba Fett figure; well, you know I was hooked.

I saved up my UPCs and sent off for two as soon as I could. They came relatively quickly for Hasbro mail-aways, but I would rather they have been later if it would mean they wouldn’t be smashed. Dammit. How smashed were they? Let’s find out… NEXT!

2010 Fall Movie Preview

I wanted to post this at the end of August, but things just kept coming up and then Dragon*Con happened and then all of a sudden it’s the end of September. I’ve had my resource material – Entertainment Weekly’s Fall Movie issue - tucked into my backpack for a month now and just haven’t had the opportunity to peruse it.

But finally that time has come. I’m skipping September since it is obviously too late for that, but the final three months of 2010 should give me plenty to talk about. I honestly haven’t been all that media-conscious lately (the most recent new movie release I bought on Blu-Ray was Kick-Ass [it was great]), so the only movies that are already on my radar are Jackass 3-D, RED and the new Potter.

We really don’t get out to the theater much anymore, so just know when I say theater, I mean I would totally see something in the theater if I had the time. I will specify if I am determined FOR REAL to see something in the theater.

Let’s see what those maniacal Hollywood douchebags have in store for us this quarter…

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics: Gygor By Mattel

I almost didn’t order this guy. I am just so fucking over Mattycollector’s ineptitude that after twenty minutes of sitting there staring at that damn screen I said, “Fuck it, I don’t need this Sprite monkey,” and went back to bed (I was working that night).

Hours later, I was sitting at work and somewhat curious about how sales are going. Matty had put up Gygor, Chief Carnivus and – at long last – a clean Egon Spengler. I really thought Gygor would be the only one to sell out super-fast. The other Ghostbusters had all stuck around for at least a day and Carnivus looks like some kind of gay anime furry. Don’t get me wrong – he may be a total badass. I haven’t gotten that far into the 200X cartoons yet (I’m working my way through the collection now). Either way, he looks like something I have no interest in owning, and I kind of thought most other folks would feel the same way.

So I pulled up Mattycollector.com on my phone and was shocked to see that not only were Egon and Chief Totally Gay Lionface still available; but the big, yellow monkey was too. So I ordered one. I had to – monkeys rule. 

Toy Review – Star Wars: Ultimate Battle Pack – The Rise of Boba Fett By Hasbro

I don’t remember if this set was announced at Toy Fair or shortly thereafter, but I do know it was right around the time I was lamenting my lack of Jango Fett’s Slave I. We had just gotten the Galactic Heroes version for Lil’ Troublemaker, so naturally I was jealous that I didn’t have one. As far as I know the only time it has been released was for Attack of the Clones and it was the same mold as my Boba Slave I with a different paint job. Granted, this new one is sold as Boba’s, but it still sports the original paint job.

As happy as I was to see an all-new mold for the iconic bounty-hunting vessel; I was also pretty pissed off that it was being included in a Battle Pack with a bunch of other crap I didn’t want. Hasbro decided for some reason that this brand-new vehicle needed to come with Mace Windu’s Jedi Starfighter and Clone Wars-style figures of Windu, Anakin, Bossk, young Boba Fett and Windu’s astromech droid (okay, the reason was that all of the pieces figure into the episode that this version of the Slave I debuted in). I was going to end up paying a lot more than I wanted to for this damned Firespray-class starship.

A whole shit-ton more, as it turned out. I came across one of the Toys-R-Us exclusive sets earlier than I expected. I was in there one day last week looking for something for Lil’ Troublemaker and saw this giant box at the end of the aisle with the AT-ATs (which you should go buy right now if you haven’t – check out my glowing review with video!). Upon closer inspection I saw that it was the Fett Battle Pack. I wasn’t exactly happy to see it, because it really wasn’t in the budget yet – I thought it was going to be a Christmas item. But, me being me, I knew I had to go ahead and get it. Too often I have felt the bite of indecisive shopping; when you put off buying an item and then never see it again.

I almost shit my pants when I price-checked that motherfucker.

I did not want to pay $110 for this thing.

But I also knew I had to have it and really didn’t want to pay secondary market price to some shitbag scalper later on (the set is already going online for $150 - $180). So I bought it. I figured I could sell off the parts I didn’t want on eBay if I really wanted to (I also skipped the new Walmart Green Lantern 5-pack to make up for this one).

So was it worth it in the end? Just how good were all the toys in that big-ass box, particularly the central piece – my coveted Slave I? Find out… NEXT!

Dragon*Con 2010 - Things I Learned

Another Dragon*Con, more lessons learned. Someday I hope to have the perfect D*C experience thanks to my continued compiling of experiences both good and bad. Dragon*Con 2035, here I come!

Comic Book Wednesday - My Pull List

It’s about time for another one of my weekly comic book updates.

HA! Yeah, right. I haven’t written one of these in months – but I always mean to; I pick my comic books up so erratically that it never seems worthwhile to review anything. Instead, I’ll sort of generalize the state of my pull list every couple of months.

For the most part things are pretty awesome right now. There are a couple of titles I might be dropping soon, but there are quite a few more that have redeemed themselves lately. Let’s see where everybody stands.

Dragon*Con 2010 - Part 9 - THE END!

Sunday Night

I have drawn this out as much as I could. This is it! The end! The last of my Dragon*Con recaps! One last Dragon*Con post tomorrow and that's it until next year - so enjoy it while you can.

Dragon*Con 2010 - Part 8

Sunday

I started Sunday morning off by being a dumbass. I spent a shitload of money on beer for myself and Mrs. Troublemaker on Saturday night due to not having the beer bag to carry around my already-purchased beverages. I wasn’t going another night without it, so I called Monkey up to see if I could meet him somewhere to retrieve it.

Dragon*Con 2010 - Part 7 - GoggleQuest 2010!

GoggleQuest 2010!

I have previously mentioned my friend Evil’s ability to talk people into – or more accurately, out of – stuff. He got that wig on Friday, but that was nothing compared to his feats of Saturday night.

Evil decided that his goal Saturday night was to talk as many of those stupid Steampunkers as he could into letting him put their goggles on for a picture. I thought we might get four or five. I know that I, personally, would not let some drunken little house-ape put on my fancy, expensive clockwork goggles if I had some. Apparently most Steampunkers are much nicer than me. I personally have over twenty GoggleQuest pictures and I know there are more out there. If you have some, feel free to link in the comments section. Here we go.

This was Friday night, but I include it. All great ideas have to start somewhere.

All of the rest are from Saturday night. Only two denials out of the whole bunch. Amazing.

Dragon*Con 2010 - Part 6

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

Okay, so this actually picks up right after the parade, but I just can’t resist a Bay City Rollers reference. This is where things seriously went South for a while. I said some mean things about the wrestlers in the DCW bit, but I didn’t mean a one of them. I love those guys and I love DCW, so I hope you all took that with a grain of salt.

Today is different.

I am going to say some mean things about the Dragon*Con event staff, and I mean every fucking word of it to the core of my being. They are clueless and incompetent and those are the nicest things you will ever hear me say about them. I have a lot of words for those dumb motherfuckers. Like, crazy profanities from Cthulu-land that have never been uttered on this plane and would make human ears bleed black nightmares of doom. Foul words that transcend good or evil and lie directly at the heart of chaos in the absence of light.

The Dragon*Con event staff did not exactly impress me this year.

Dragon*Con 2010 - Part 5 - The Parade

Saturday

So I finally saw the fucking parade. After over fifteen years of Dragon*Cons on-and-off, 2010 is the year I finally got to behold the majesty that is the March of the Nerd Brigade. And it was fantastic.

Dragon*Con 2010 - Part 4

The Rest of Friday Night

From this point on I will be relying very heavily on pictures to jog my memory and prompt my pen. Er… prompt my fingers… on the keyboard. Whatever.

Right after DCW finished we ran into Beardy again. This was the same guy we ran into last year that wanted to pretend he was photobombing us. He’s alright, so we took a bunch of pictures with him.

Dragon*Con 2010 - Part 3 - DCW!

D.C.W.

Right around this time one week ago I was chanting my throat raw for Mickey Rourke to hit Muffin Top in the face with a cow bell. Why can’t every Friday be like that?

You’ll not that the tone of this recap is pretty mean-spirited and derogatory. That’s all for show and how we enjoy DCW. If you ask any one of the crew I roll with how we really feel about DCW and its talent, we’ll all tell you we love those guys and what they do every year with all of our hearts. We know it and the wrestlers know it and that’s part of what makes it so amazing. None of us really mean it.

(Except for Gnoll, who really hurt Not Rhyno’s feelings. What a dick.)

But fuck that pussy shit. Let’s talk about these homos pretending to beat each other up.

Dragon*Con 2010 - Part 2

Friday

Amazingly, I got up on time. Un-amazingly, there wasn’t really anything for me to get up on time for. Last year had featured the Shatner/Nimoy panel at 10 AM – the first event of the Con. This year the only event was the [adult swim] panel at 11:30, and I wasn’t positive I was going to that. Actually, I decided on the way down that I would rather hang in the room for a while and be ready to hit the Comic Artist room ASAP.

Dragon*Con 2010

I was busy at work last night, so I didn’t get as much written as I wanted. I’m going the cheap route and cutting my recap up into slightly more pieces than it otherwise would have been. This might be to your benefit, because the damned thing is getting really wordy (that never happens, right?) and if I can write thirteen pages about a single day at the Mayhem Festival, Lord knows how many I can churn out about a three-and-a-half day nerdfest.

Another Dragon*Con has come and gone, but come with me if you will on a short journey. A journey into the past; a journey into just a few days ago when superheroes roamed Atlanta and the beer flowed like water. Come with me to a time and place outside of reality; where Cylons mingled with Furries and Starfleet officers screamed profanities at Mickey Rourke. Let’s take just a moment to examine the world where man’s will is tested against scantily clad females of indescribable sexual desir… uh… never mind. Let’s just talk about 

 

Dragon*Con 2010

DragonCon 2010: Official Troublemaker Preview

So they finally uploaded the pocket guide PDF last night and I’m getting my first look at it a mere five days in advance. According to Dragon*Con’s Facebook representative that is in no way unusual. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with them about it:

ME: Things change and we adjust, but the pocket programs were available 55 days out last year.August 24 at 2:28pm via Facebook Mobile 

 Dragon*Con Phantom, simply not true. I think I would remember, being that I posted them and had to field the complaints from not having them sooner. :)August 24 at 2:35pm 

ME: Maybe we're talking about different things, but something informational that I received allowed me to write my preview 54 days out.August 24 at 2:39pm via Facebook Mobile

Dragon*Con All, I assure you, as soon as info is available, I will post. I am posting any and all information that is sent to me by track directors as it's solidified. August 24 at 2:46pm

Some douche that had nothing to do with the conversation: Kaung Set ‎@Phantom you probably meant the Progress Report (I did not). Even fan tracks haven't started posting schedules till the past month (simply not true - some were posted in early July). I know the actual Pocket Program was posted right around this time last year, Tues/Weds around 9 days out (also not true, Dragon nut licker). August 24 at 2:56pm

ME: Entirely possible. I refer to a "pocket guide" arriving, but that may be my term, not yours. Either way the Con is still going to be awesome.August 24 at 3:25pm via Facebook Mobile

Yeah, I pussed out.

Last Minute Bonus Post! - DragonCon 2010: Why Steampunkers Should Not Be Allowed

This article is meant as a work of comedy. It is not meant in any way to imply that the subjects herein are in any way lame, socially awkward or completely unnecessary.

This one’s for you, Pete.

I think we’ve all seen the weirdos with goggles and accordions or fucking bird cages strapped to their backs at this point. Or some ass with a musket and a robot hand. Steampunk is fucking huge and I’m about damned sick of it.

Vintage Troublemaker: What I Learned From Dragon*Con (2009)

I forgot all about this one. I wrote it after last year's Dragon*Con and it really does contain some helpful tips. Enjoy!
-You can check in earlier than what they tell you.
-Do not park at the Courtland garage if you have a hotel room the same day.
-I am not costume people. Big, involved costumes are a pain in the ass to make, transport and wear. They are hot and you will sweat. Somebody else’s will always look better than yours.