TimeGate 2012 Recap - Part 3

This one continues directly from Saturday night, so go read Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't already. Also, as is usually the case I forgot something in the previous posts. Up top is the picture that's on the print and t-shirt I got from GeekCetera.

Mike F. and his son went home for the night, but the missus and I arranged to meet up with Mike G. and Rebecca back at the Holiday Inn Chambodia. I went upstairs and changed back into my Third Doctor costume because that’s really what I wanted to party in. We also had to fill up the beer bag, and with this came a complication – normally I just wear the bag slung across my chest, but that load-bearing strap would definitely ruin my fancy velvet jacket. While I pondered this dilemma Mrs. Troublemaker went ahead downstairs to meet up with Mike G. and our new buddy, Rebecca.

TimeGate 2012 Recap - Part 2

If you haven't already, check out Part 1 from yesterday - it's great! Not as great as today's entry, though. Part 2 features

DINNER IN HELL

TimeGate 2012 Recap

This past weekend for the first time ever I attended a convention as a Guest. That’s “Guest” with a capital “G”, as I was acknowledged in the program. Granted, I was acknowledged under the wrong name, but that’s neither here nor there. I was a Guest. On a panel and everything. I probably could have been on more panels, but the one I was on was my first panel ever and if I hated doing it I really didn’t want to be committed to more.

Did I hate it? Hang in there and I’ll tell you.

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Stinkor By Mattel

Okay, before I get into this one I feel I need to address the controversy that was Stinkorgate.

If you are unfamiliar with the mass panic that shocked the internet late last month, here’s the deal:

Stinkor’s forearms are reversed!

I know, I know. After King Hssss and Roboto and the original He-Man before them; how the flying blue fuck could Mattel possibly screw up and reverse another, even more obvious part of a figure’s anatomy?

TimeGate 2012

I really want to write something promoting TimeGate, but I honestly don’t know a whole heck of a lot about TimeGate.

If you don’t know, TimeGate is an Atlanta-based convention formed mostly around Doctor Who and Stargate, but encompassing many facets of science fiction and fantasy. There are panels for Stars both Wars and Trek, Buffy, comic books, and even Masters of the Universe. There are celebrity guests, fan tables, bands – all the sorts of things you expect from a con. People are coming from all over the Southeast to attend.

Toy Review – Marvel Select Black Widow (Disney Store Exclusive) By Diamond Select Toys

For the most part I avoid Marvel Select figures. They’re too big, they have weird articulation, and often they don’t even look very good.

Why are they so big, anyway? Who at Diamond Select Toys decided they wanted to make a line of figures that was not compatible with any action figures that have come out in the past… ever? It’s like DC Direct deciding their larger clothed figures were going to be thirteen inches rather than a standard 1/6^th scale. What a stupid decision. I still think that’s why that line failed. They were good figures (except for the females all having massively oversized tits), they just looked too odd next to all the other figures of that size.

So aside from the Marvel Zombies figures, Uatu the Watcher, and an Ultimate Thor I got on clearance I don’t have any Marvel Select.

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Shadow Beast By Mattel

I waited a very long time to open this guy. I even tried to unload him on eBay at one point. It’s not that I don’t like the Shadow Beast, it’s just that in the cartoons there were a lot of Shadow Beasts and I like to have at least four of any kind of character that there are multiples of. Vipers, Stormtroopers, zombies, Daleks; whatever. I need four to feel complete. I didn’t think it would be practical to buy four Shadow Beasts and I certainly didn’t want to spend ninety more bucks on them, let alone however much it would have been with secondary market markups and shipping. So I decided it would be easier to just sell the one that came in my sub.

But I didn’t want to take a loss on it. I listed him for about $36 – a reasonable price given shipping and whatnot. I figured somebody out there would want to build an army of horny monkeys. Er… horned monkeys.

Platinum Champ... Um, Empire Wrestling 5/11/2012

Ugh. This is going to be terrible. But whatever.

We went to the PCW Arena for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. This was after what had already been a night of drinking (that’s what happens when you start at 10:30, PCW) and I have no idea what happened. But I do have the pictures I took to try and piece together the events of the night.

Various Events of the Past Few Weeks

This is going up about a week later than I would have liked, but I’m doing the best I can to write.

In case you haven’t read any of the posts where I’ve mentioned it, I have a trainee at work. I have apparently given my masters at work the impression that I am not only good at my job, but capable of showing somebody else how to do my job. This takes up an awful lot of my time. Before I might have been busy for fifteen minutes to an hour and then had an hour or two of slow time. Now, I should really be explaining and training pretty much constantly. But I have been blessed with a very sharp and competent trainee who is picking things up very quickly. I still don’t have as much time to write, but I have more than I thought I would. I was really worried that Needless Things might get cut down to two or three posts a week.

The other thing that sucks about the situation is I am stuck training on the bad side. I am qualified to run two different consoles – one shitty one and one really shitty one. For the next three months or so I am stuck on the really shitty one.

So that’s where I am right now.

Miscellaneous Debris May 2012

There are a few things I want to talk about, but none of them are going to take up a whole post and I haven’t done one of these odds n’ ends type updates in a long time.

First I want to talk about Cabin in the Woods.

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Orko By Mattel

Every time I mention how much I loathe Orko I get all kinds of negative comments from people. I imagine that these people are the same sort of deranged freaks who enjoy Glee, Michael Buble, and the waiting room at the Immediate Care Physician.

I cannot fucking stand Orko and I will never apologize for that. I don’t care how hard Mattel tries to make him not suck. His new bio claims that his people – the Trollans, which is a stupid name for a stupid bunch of creatures – forged the Sword of He. It also claims that Orko isn’t really a fucking idiot, but the fact that Eternia has different magic from his own realm that causes him to screw up everything he does.

I don’t care about any of that. To me, Orko will forever be the most prominent representation of the most egregious mistake cartoon creators can make – particularly cartoons from the 80’s:

THERE IS NO NEED FOR A LESSER, IRRITATING COMPANION. EVER.

Phantom Who: Spearhead From Space

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday - as I predicted it has become increasingly difficult for me to find time to write. I'm still going to post as much as I can and the odd missed day here and there will be over in time for my Dragon*Con coverage at the latest!

Welcome to Phantom Who, a new feature designed to go along with the Earth Station Who podcast, which I co-host. There I am known as “Dave” because “Phantom Troublemaker” takes up too much room on the stationary. Every other week there will be a new podcast discussing all things Doctor Who, with a central discussion about a particular story.

For the first year we are covering regeneration stories. Starting with An Unearthly Child and wrapping up the current regenerations with The Eleventh Hour, we’ll be covering the first and last stories of each of the first eleven Doctors.

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Draego-Man By Mattel

It’s been a while since I’ve said this, but I had no intention of buying Draego-Man.

Don’t get me wrong – he looked like an awesome figure. I just didn’t feel like he quite fit the Masters of the Universe Classics aesthetic, despite having quite a few farmed parts. I also wasn’t too crazy about an all-new character with no established place in the mythology.

But then a couple of weeks before Draego-Man went up on Mattycollector.com, I saw on a message board that TheFwoosh.com had posted their review of the figure and it was all positive. Apparently the pictures of the final product were very good and the review was nothing short of glowing. My curiosity was piqued enough to go and check out the review, something I do not normally do. I just thought that since I wasn’t planning on buying Draego anyway it really wouldn’t matter.

Mother's Day Special: Mom Action Figures

 

I hope this isn’t a stretch. I really wanted to do a Mother’s Day post and just couldn’t come up with something great. I thought about doing a list of fictional moms, but that’s probably been done to death. I also considered listing songs about moms, but I’m sure that is played out, too.

Of course, I’ll end up doing one of ‘em next year.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday so I wanted to do something lazy. Er, special. I meant special.

Toy Review – Marvel Legends Arnim Zola By Hasbro

And now we come to Arnim Zola, who I like for no other reason than his greatest accomplishment is projecting his face onto a TV in the chest of a robot.

Seriously – that’s his big accomplishment. He has his consciousness stored in what basically amounts to a cloud drive, and he inhabits these robot bodies that rather than just being normal robot bodies have giant TV screens built into the chest so that Zola’s face can be projected onto them. The little thing on top of his shoulders is the electronic psychic device he uses to mind-control monsters and zap superheroes. Of course.

Just So You Know...

        

You might have noticed that sometimes I don't have a post here on my normal Monday through Friday schedule. Usually that's because I just couldn't get one together for that day, but occasionally it is because I put something up on my Tumblr.

I've been sort of trying to put more meaningful, narrative, or life experience stuff over there. I just wanted to try the format. It's okay. Nothing great. I suppose if I want a site that operates and looks like I want it to I would have to create an actual website. And that's too much work to do for free.

Anyway, if you want to check out that other thing, go ahead. The latest thing is what I wrote when I found out MCA died.

Movie Review – The Avengers

WARNING: I’m not going to run down the plot here, just share some thoughts. But there will undoubtedly be spoilers. And I am definitely spoiling the after-credits sequences because I have to talk about them. So if you haven’t seen this movie I wouldn’t read this. And as always, please feel free to share your comments.

The Avengers is the biggest and most effective superhero movie I have ever seen.

Toy Review – Marvel Legends Fantomex By Hasbro

The first time I saw the lineup for the second wave of new Marvel Legends I thought I would be buying exactly one figure. Fantomex was it.

That was before I knew Arnim Zola was the build-a-figure.

I can’t remember what the first comic was that I saw Fantomex in – I think maybe New X-Men – but I immediately recognized him as a tribute to (rip-off of?) Diabolik. I know Diabolik from the 1968 Mario Bava movie, Danger: Diabolik; but the character originated in Italian comic books and was even predated by a Mexican character named Fantômas (yes, Mike Patton named his band after that one).

Platinum Champ... Um, Empire Wrestling 4/26/2012

Before we get started I want to point out that I have no idea if I’m going to keep Needless Things on schedule this Summer. I have a trainee at work and am not sure how much opportunity I am going to have to write or how much I am going to be able to write. We’ll see. Things look okay right now, as I’ve got a few minutes to get started on my recap of the excellent Empire Wrestling show from last Thursday night.

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Thunder Punch He-Man By Mattel

First let me thank Digital River for the fact that it only took ten days for my Thunder Punch He-Man to arrive. I mean, that’s still ridiculous, but it’s better than the past few figures and sooner than the projected arrival date from the tracking website.

I’ve always had a particular fondness for the gimmicky He-Man figures. I mean, more so than regular He-Man, who I was just never that crazy about.