Since my last report things
have been pretty bad in the bootsale world: I missed one week because I had to
spend all day putting up Ikea furniture and the following two weeks were rained
off, I did venture to a small ‘sale in Harrow that was on tarmac but all I got
was 35 minutes of duelling banjos and old clothes. So I was childishly excited
to get out Sunday morning and get stuck into four hours of other people’s
unwanted detritus at my usual haunt, Dunton Bootsale, and it did not disappoint. Though I started a
little slow I ended up coming home with five bags full of crap! Here it is all
in a big pile next to a WiiFit board:
That’s what five bags full
of random strangers’ undesired possessions looks like, it was such a big pile
that I had to go back for a second bowl of hot soapy water, I haven’t had a Two
Bowls of Fairy Liquid Result for what seems like forever. Which is a point, even
though I just admitted to spending four hours elbow deep in dirt not even of my
own making, I’m quite clean when it comes to things I own and every item bough
second hand, be it from bootsales, charity shops or even conventions gets at
least a wipe-over – so I’ve already spent 40 minutes with these newbies,
washing and wiping with the occasional, terrible, realisation that what I’m
wiping up probably came out of a child and I can say that I am very pleased to
have them all here, the final tally was 54 (approx.) items:
Waddingtons’ Original Sylvanian Families Card Game!
20p (29
Why does it feel the need
to specify that this is the original Sylvanian Families? It’s not like they had
an extreme 1990s reboot or anything. Is there G1 Sylvanian Families? Do
their fans hate every other Sylvanian Families iteration that comes afterwards
too? Ehh, I assume they were just being bootlegged to shit at this point or
something, it’s not like it’s hard for other companies to produce little flocked
things. Anyway this was my first find of the day and I became overpowered by
the delightful thought of sitting on my bed and shuffling through 40 heavy card
stock images of adorable little flocked things, I have subsequently done this
and it WAS delightful, I think I may scan the set and post it online, I guess
Sylvanian Families has an online fandom? Also I totally had that mole. Also
also my dad fucking fears these
things, I may wait until he falls asleep and then post them all around his room
and then wait outside for the inevitable blood curdling shriek.
The Purple-Feelie Greeble Monster From The Planet
Psycho!
Approx. 22p (32
This was in THE BEST BOX AT
A BOOTSALE THIS YEAR, the season is barely begun and I feel comfortable calling
it that, it was like my 7 year old self had travelled into the future and left
it for me to find. On of my ‘tactics’ for bootsailing, or I guess, for not
wasting time digging through every box of 1 year old McDonald’s toys, is that
if I see something I recognise from a certain timeframe, even if I have it
already or I don’t seen anything else like it, to dig through the box anyway,
that is how I found THE BEST BOX AT A BOOTSALE THIS YEAR and in turn the
Greeble Monster. Everything in that box I had as a kid or wanted as a kid or
had another from the same line as a kid, everything in there was a memory and it was scary but so
awesome, most of it I had but I still managed to dig 9 items out of it , for
which I paid £2, laughing manically. The best of the bunch is the handsome devil
above, one of Russ Meyer’s Cosmic Critters and only one of two I have ever seen
in real life, the other, the Three Fingered Snorkblak from The Planet Elefuzz
(all of them have names as great at this) I’ve had since I was small, a present
from my dad who even when I was that young was determined to instill in me an
appreciation for the true finer things in life. I think this Greeble Monster
may have suffered a slight haircut in his life (why are children so obsessed
with cutting toys hair? The appeal of things like Barbie and Dam Trolls is that
they HAVE that hair, why cut it off and defeat the whole purpose of the toy you
weird little vandals?) or it may just really need a comb, personally I think he
looks intelligently unimpressed, and the messy hair just helps.
Loco Roco 2!
£4 (£5.84)
At last! I will never stop
with my adoration for Loco Roco, it is a virtually perfect game and I have wanted to
play the sequel since it came out – the problem? I never see it when I have
money, I never remember to search of it online when I can afford it, it is the
most goddamn inconvenient video game ever released and frankly I think it’s
been fucking with me just because it can. Well I’ve seen through your shenanigans
Loco Roco 2, I’ve begun carrying around a small amount of cash at all times
just in case I happen to run across something I’ve been looking for or something
awesome I didn’t even know existed – things like you Loco Roco 2, and now I have
you, rahahahahah. All I need to do is find my PSP, find my PSP charger, and then you’re for it! Of
course that could take me months so I wouldn’t worry or anything.
The Dream Polar Bear!
Approx. 78p
This is the sort of story
that people think is interesting but in fact is not, and tell their friends
when you’re sitting by them on the bus so you too can be bored by it BUT I have
to tell someone and better I bore random fictional people than someone who can
use it as a reason to sever ties with me forever thus making me sink further in
a black hole of loneliness and despair. The other day I had this dream (the
worst way to start anything, ‘I had this dream’ is code for ‘this will be so
dull it will make you take up stamp collecting’) where I was at a toy show, and
I was buying a mammoth and a polar bear, and the polar bear looked just like
this polar bear, it was articulated whereas this one is not but otherwise it is
damn near identical, I think it may even have had those Wolverine-like
sideburns! It was meant to be, it was foretold, I bought him.
Wrestlers!
Approx. 78p ($1.14) each
I bought these, and the
dream polar bear, from a favourite seller of mine whom I’ve dubbed Happy
because he’s always so bloody miserable: he’s an old boy, he runs a toy stall
yet doesn’t like children, I’ve never seen him smile - ever, and he always has
something to complain about, but I am genuinely fond of him. Usually his stall
isn’t this fruitful; I mostly buy Power Rangers and weird dinosaurs from him and
never more than one or two, but today he comes over to me and says “do you want
dinosaurs? I’ve got more in the car” – more turns out to be a massive bag full
of them that he dumps on the table “pound each” he says and walks off, in this
bag I found my dream polar bear so I was already pleased. But he’s not done, he
finishes moaning to some mother up the other end of his stall and then wanders
back (he doesn’t rush, ever) and says to me and another regular customer who
are perusing his small selection of wrestling toys “do you want wrestlers? I’ve
got hundred in the car”, now even with the underselling of his ‘more
dinosaurs’ didn’t think he actually had
a hundred toy wrestlers in his car. I was wrong. He brings out a huge
supermarket bag filled with the bastards and dumps them out on the table,
“pound each”. I scored six; I think the other guy got around 25, neither left
the table unhappy – and how CAN you be unhappy with Al Snow and the Big
Bossman? I can now achieve my dream of repeatedly re-enacting that classic
scene with the two and a plate full of casserole one of them made from a Chihuahua.
Also this is easily the best condition Bam Bam Bigelow I’ve ever seen, there’s
some paint wear on his head but his flames are all perfect. Also also I cold
and probably should totally cosplay as Bam Bam’.
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Adventures #23!
50p (73
Of all the things I bought
today, in fact all the things I’ve bought all year, nothing equals this tatty
comic for sheer emotional attachment. To everyone else it’s just a reprint of
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Volume 2 #14 in a condition that would
make CGC Comics’ grading team cry, which is a good thing because the people who
came up with a way to make it impossible to read a comic – something that’s
sole purpose in life is to be read – deserve to be made miserable but I’m
digressing aren’t it? Anyway to everyone else it’s just a British reprint but to me
it could very well be the reason the like girls. April spends the entirety of
this issue – which is a fairly preachy save the rainforest issue and the first
appearance of the Mutanimal Jagwar, who’s mum shagged a jaguar god when it was
in cat form and I’m digressing again aren’t it? ANYway April spends the
entirety of this issue in tiny shorts, and Don Simpson (he who created Megaton
Man) may suck at drawing Ninja Turtles but he does not suck a drawing women and
the images of her tied up in those shorts, the one on this cover and the image
it’s aping inside, are very likely the things that fist stirred the stirrable
urges one has in me for the first time. I cut my old copy of this to bits and
pasted the tied up pictures in a sketchbook I still have, ooh I should scan that,
that’s certainly blogworthy, nothing makes better internet content than
completely humiliating yourself, look how well the Ice Bucket Challenge did and
fuckssake this isn’t a running gag, it’s literally the third time I’ve got
off-topic as I write this, I think I’ve had too much sugar. Anyway I’ve been
looking for this issue (I have the first print alraedy) for ages, and this was
just on a table by itself, he had some other comics in a box but all American
and all the same sort of stuff that always shows up at bootsales – Valiant and
crappy 90’s Marvel (you could buy complete runs of Darkhawk, Deathlok,
Bloodshot and Quasar within about two weekends during bootsale season I should
think).
The Many Faces of Tommy Oliver!
£2.50 ($3.65) for the three
I haven’t found an appropriate
article to express my raging Power Rangers nedery yet, but it will happen. As a
related primer: I hate Turbo, and thought Zeo wasn’t as good as Mighty Morphin’
series 3, I also liked the first movie quite a bit but mostly because Ivan
Ooze. I am also a terrible Tommy Oliver fan, he is THE MAN in Power Rangers in
my (always utterly correct) opinion and these purchases are me working on my ‘must
own Tommy Oliver in all his outfits’ project which is now almost complete (I just
need a Black Dino Thunder Ranger) and ties into something that forces me to be
serious for a moment, don’t worry, in the next paragraph I verbally combine the
bloke from Leprechaun with mecha. One of the reasons I keep up the hobby of toy
‘collecting’ (I don’t like calling myself a collector because I don’t like to define
myself by my interests and certainly not what quantities of what shit I buy, I’d
prefer to be defind by things like my personality and opinions and ideologies,
shit like that) is as, would you believe, a form of therapy, this may seem odd
as buying old toys as an adult is a good way to make you even more of a social pariah
than I already am, but it’s actually very effective in preventing me from ‘seriously
making plans’ when it comes to suicide; I’m suicidal, a lot, I don’t say this
for sympathy I say it for context, generally I’m suicidal once a day, but one
of the many things I read in the many things I’ve read about dealing with depression
and suicidal thoughts is the concept of ‘long term goals with short term
achievements’ and I’ve found my love of toys to be a perfect fit with this –
for example: a long term goal = owning a certain selection of Power Rangers,
short term achievements include = obtaining one of this selection, obtaining a
complete set of some kind within it (all of one Ranger Team, all the Red Rangers, all of Tommy Oliver’s
costumes etc). It actually works pretty well, even the process of buying
something can help deter me from actually doing something other than just laying
down when I want to die - I’m too much of a cheap bastard to want to top myself
when I’ve just paid for something and it hasn’t arrived from eBay yet, really. I
try not to rely on it too much, I find I can put too much importance on things
and that can hinder more than help, but it is a coping mechanism I use and one
that works well, just to move us out of the ‘being serious’ thing I find dirty
sweaty deviant monkey sex with adorable Goth/Metal girls helps also.
Norbert and Frank!
£5 ($7.31) for both.
Frank’s the robot
obviously. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THESE TWO ARE BUT I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Norbert the Centaur is just badass, and centaurs are pretty badass in general, except
the whole raping thing, but centaurs who do not go a-raping are badass and Norbert doesn’t look the rapey sort, he looks more the fuck-up-all-of-your-archers-then-head-butt-your-drawbridge-down-while-roaring-obscenities
sort, plus he’s in-scale and in-style to fit perfectly with Masters of the
Universe Classics, which is where he’s going to spend his life, between Rio Blast
and Man-E-Faces, he was a £1. Frank’s a lot older, I’d say the 70’s but more
likely the 80’s, this is him after he’s been washed, he was so dusty I thought
his legs were orange. The best way to describe him I feel is ‘Warwick R Davies
if he was a Gundam’ and that’s not making fun of either, that is combining two
awesome things into one (easily portable) whole, I just became fascinated with
the toy (this happens about one or twice a bootsale if it’s a good ‘un, I
bought a dimetrodon from Happy for the same reason), I have a love for toy
robots but one I can rarely afford the space or money to indulge in, but
neither of those factors mattered with Frank, nor did the comparatively high
price of £4 (though frank is comparatively older, heavier and more awesome
than most toys at a bootsale), Frank was coming home with me. He’s currently
sitting on a book case filled with DVDs after making friends with Gargomon:
 |
| Momantai motherfucker |
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