Thought for the Day 20

For those who imagine they're indispensable . . .

Our graveyards are full of people

the World 'couldn't do without'

                  - Unknown

H is for Hot Wheel's Halo Hog

First purchase of the New Year (actually the second, I grabbed an evilBay lot before this, but it's still in the post!), a pound from Poundworld-Plus and a neat little thing, sadly lacking figures, and I'm struggling to think of some which will suit, I suspect Galoob's Starship Trooper bug-hunters will be closest!

On the card and I didn't even notice the Halo logo, thinking it was another of the current crop of special-force 'dune buggy' type support-weapon platforms that are around and about.

Truth is, it looks like the Lamborghini Cheetah of the 1970's, resembles several of the aforementioned SF fast-strike vehicles and looks nothing like anything we'll actually end up using in deep space ten-thousand years from now!

And that assumes we will ever get off this planet in a fit state to engage advanced civilisations in warfare! Funny little pink monkeys; if it ever happens it will last five minutes and we'll be someone else's breakfast, the common cold helping us . . . nought!

The weapon is a fixed-mount which I thought was disappointing, but I guess now these Hot Wheels and their equivalent Matchbox 1-75 and Jonny Lightning smallies are aimed at the one-$/£/€ mark, extra playability will be kept to the minimum?

 I love the smell of a burning alien sky in the morning!

News, views etc . . . New Britains Website?

I don't know how long this has been up for, but there's a lot of very interesting stuff on it and tons of pictures, I'll add it to the top link-list, but here it is for now . . .

http://www.britains-toy-soldier.co.uk/index.html

Thought for the Day 19

For the complacently over-optimistic . . . .

I know not with what weapons

World War III will be fought,

but World War IV will be fought

with sticks and stones.

- Albert Einstein

S is for Shelfies 2 - Imperial (Walmart)

Brian B was also busy after Christmas with the shelfie-habit and managed to shoot these, and I'm very pleased to see stocks of them are still out there, as I tried to buy two of the three sets earlier in the year and found myself dealing with an idiot! Surface to say by the time I didn't get them, the seller had reimbursed me three times and invoiced me twice more!

Imperial, the US jobber is currently (was  recently?) shipping these in from China, and while the 'army men' are the same ones we looked at twice back in August and have also looked at on other occasions here at SCW - being the Tim Mee cold-war warrior, GI-clones, the other figures are less common takes on cavemen, ninjas, pirates and zombies.

While the 'Zombie Responders' are another source for other-colour copies of Tim Mee's. And it would seem that while we know the GI's come in a bunch of poses, the other four appear to have more limited sculpt-counts?

Ninja's versus pirates, what can go wrong?!! Quite a lot actually, the ninjas would presumably win, but they need to melt-away into the night and it's not easy to melt-away into the night on 70-tons of oak waiting for a breeze, so that leaves . . . the Marie Celeste!

I think I'm right in saying I've seen these for sale in bulk on Amazon or Alibaba as capsule toys and they also came in long 'toobs' 45 vs 45 figures.

Imperial cave-men versus army men, 15 figures each, one lot armed with semi-automatic assault weapons, the other with rudimentary rock-wheels and err . . . .rocks! Even less even-handed than the last lot, but we know that in the B-movie it would seem altogether more balanced with a cliff-hanger every 15-minutes just before the 'message from our sponsors' which is where the kids heads are supposed to be at!

Hay, call it cynicism but people get whole repeat series' commissioned out of M16-owner's failures to deal with the slow, shambling, bits-falling-of, undead!

S is for Shelfies 1 - Bullyland (TK Maxx)

Been busy with shelfies, I notice TJF Stadinger has posted some shelfies too, well, if Small Scale World's on to an apparent winner; you'd better copy me for a bit of reflected glory or get left behind, huh? But they're old hat here, we're on to 'Thought for the Day' for this year's meme and the incredibly-dim-one's already a month behind if he want's a slice of that! Too funny! And chess-set shelfies at that, but then I've mentioned chess sets several times in the last few months, so they need to get aboard that bandwagon too. . . funny!

 

As it happens; these are not brilliant shots, but they give you an idea what's out there - post the holiday season - and while I don't collect this stiff myself I know some people are failing to resist the upward trend in 'scale-creep'.

 

The post Christmas sale-off at TK Maxx included a few Bullyland PVC's** and I shot some the other week, these two are both from the 'Princess' (Disney) range, even though one is clearly not a princess! They're also on the big side at 70+mm.

 

** Actually they are 'PVC Free' so one of the new synthetic rubbers such as ethylene vinyl acetate: (EVA), styrene-butadiene-rubber (SBR), ethylene-propylene-diene-monomer (EPDM) from the new class of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE's), hybrid silicon, nitrile, or Nora Rubber, all sort of synthetic-PVC's! The trouble is none of them state their polymer, so will continue to be tagged 'PVC' or 'Silicon', depending on their properties as defined by visual/manual inspection! . . .WAKE UP!

 

A pair from a movie or TV show (haven't heard of it) also Disney, one character looks a bit US 'Preppy', the other more Hispanic, Mediterranean or Arabian. If I can find a link it'll be here [Disney TV], but I don't lose sleep over this stuff!

 

Making a return to SCW, we've looked as Frozen stuff in several sizes and from several makers over the last four or five years and every time I get the that effing 'Let it go' earworm from the Crimbo-day singing doll round my bothers about four years ago stuck in my head! An incident which has clearly scared me for life! And if you tried to switch it off - it just stated again . . . in Spanish!

 

Dejarlo ir . . . Dejarlo ir . . . Dejarlo ir !

Thought for the Day 18

Politics is the gentle art of getting 

votes from the poor and 

campaign-funds from the rich 

by promising to protect each from the other.

- Oscar Ameringer 

F is for Follow-up - Large Scale Figures

Back to 1:1 (from the other day's 2:1!) and both Brian Berke and myself managed to encounter plastic figures (albeit glass-reinforced plastic (GRP)) of conversational size, conversational that is; if you happen to stand next to them with Mr Magoo  levels of myopia! How rude! I only said good-day?!

This has replaced the knight we looked at a year or two ago, outside the local toy shop - yes; the same toy shop who hid their nutcracker at the back of the store! I'm guessing these come from some Playmobil (or PR agency) people-store! I wonder what will turn-up next? I'll keep an eye-out!

A  cartoon-related figure from Brian came as a result of the Giant lady the other day, it's from something called Rick and Morty (by/on Adult Swim) which seems to have totally escaped me! More can be ascertained here! 'The poop in my pants' . . . have they found our level?!

P is for Picasa-Clearer . . . Taylor and Barrett Rickshaw with Chinese 'Coolie'

I use the inverted commas as I believe the term is now considered derogatory, at least by some, but that was its title/description back in the day, it was also sold with a Zulu 'cab-driver'!

Another bit of hollow-cast metal, again from Adrian (thank you Mr. Little), and an unusual piece; not re-issued in plastic, either, I believe, so you either have a lead one or no-one, or look at the pretty pictures above! Actually they're not the best images I've done, but they give a flavour of the thing!

Thought For The Day 17

For those still looking for a new year's resolution . . .

The best time to plant an oak tree

was twenty-five years ago.

The second best time is today.

-          James Carville

News, Views etc . . . still a bit groggy!

Hope to be back up and running 'proper' in a day or two, but still feeling a bit blurh! Loaded some bits for tomorrow and Thursday.

Here's another three stretchy, smiley, silicon-rubber aliens from Tobar/Hawkin's Bazaar by way of Picasa clearance!

Thought for the Day 16

For cynics everywhere!

The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly' meaning 'many' and the word 'ticks' meaning blood-sucking parasites.

                                                 - Larry Hardiman

Thought for the Day 15

For those who don't look in a mirror often enough . . .

Everyone is as God has made him,

and often-times a great deal worse.

- Miguel Cervantes

Thought for the Day 14

For those who don't fucking swear . . .

Under certain circumstances,
profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer

- Mark Twain

Thought for the Day 13

For the thoughtful . . .

God loved the birds and invented trees

Man loved the birds and invented cages

-          Jaques Deval