It was my birthday this
week! And as I’ve not gone to a bootsale this weekend nor will I be going to
one next weekend I thought “oh no, my imaginary readers might not be able to
survive without a post about the random shit I now possess” so I’m writing a
birthday special of Examples’, yay right? Yay? Please?
I had a really nice
birthday by the way; I suppose ‘effortlessly enjoyable’ sums it up. Everyone
came over for a barbeque – two of my mates did the cooking (one for meat, one
for vegan) and no-one fell in the pond (sadly) – then on the day I went to my
beloved Southend-on-Sea and to their Sea-Life
Centre Sea-Life Adventure which now has that well known aquatic species:
the meerkat (I’m not joking, they genuinely have meerkats) but also mega
adorable otters and FUCKING PENGUINS, the best of animals and my nan bought me a
penguin that plays the Venga Boys and is wearing deely boppers. The girl who
served us was utterly adorable – so of course I was with my nan buying a
penguin that plays the Venga Boys and was wearing deely boppers, if you’re
reading girl who served me at Sea Life Adventure, I’m not that sad it was just
my birthday! Honestly! Of course if you are reading this then you will know how
exactly how sad I am and in what ways. Oh well, at least I’ll be single with a
musical penguin, I find most things are more palatable with musical penguins.
Present wise I fucking made out, which means that this post
will probably be less amusing than it could be because I’m a bit short on
random silliness this year, I’d feel bad but I really, really don’t, sorry.
Convention Fund!
Ok I do have a couple of
random things. I probably should be highlighting the awesome Rocky Horror
Picture Show script the couple (not the two pictured, only Lady Deadpool is part of the couple who gave me this) also gave me but I figure a picture of two
girls in cosplay kissing might get me more hits than me going on about how much
I love Tim Curry – again. The girl who made this is the one dressed as Lady
Deadpool, the one dressed as All New Wolverine is my unofficial little sister,
the latter relationship really ruins the titillation for me a bit. Apparently
there is another picture taken a second after this where the fellow standing
between their heads noticed what was going on at his right, the decision was
made to use the shot that didn’t feature a turned on Black man. This is just
ingenious - it’s a picture but it’s also a money box and it’s a money box for
something that’s related to the picture – sorted. I’m sure they’re all over
Facebook or whatever but I’ve never seen one before so I think it’s neat.
Knifehead!
I got a really good
selection of collector’s figures this year and most of them I didn’t choose
myself, people must be getting to know me after 30-odd years. Me and the young
lady who gave me this are…I’m thinking of the correct descriptive… a bit
bonkers for Pacific Rim, we don’t kid ourselves it’s high art we just love
watching giant robots beat the shit out of giant monsters with Tron lines on
‘em, she really fancies the male lead, I really fancy the female lead and
everyone in the world fancies Idris Alba so it has become a kind of mystical
totem to us. Knifehead is my personal hero in the film; he’s based on Guiron
from Gamera and I just lap up shit like references to obscure movie monsters
especially when those references have giant knives for faces. Knifehead’s
completely his own man though, looking like a hybrid of a shark, a gorilla and
the Cloverfield Monster more than a dog-lizard with a giant knife for a head
and that just makes me appreciate him even more – the reference it still there
but it’s combined with an original design. Neca are on top form here too, in an
attempt to not turn this in a Super Quick Crappy Review his articulation is
great (his jaw is blocked by the tongue but any jaw artic is good imo), his
texturing is superb and his paint has a weird chalk-like feel to it with some
particularly delicious colours on the battle damage (this is the battle damaged
version).
WAMPA!
This is from my eldest
cousin and…it’s amazing. It’s a little cuddly Wampa that speaks (it doesn’t
shout WAMPA! it makes noises from the film, you can decide if that’s a better
or worse thing because I sure can’t) and as if that wasn’t good enough it arm
comes off and it’s attached by red Velcro so it looks like he’s bleeding when
that arm is off. It’s…I…just…do I need to go on? I mean just describing it
illustrates why it’s amazing right? It’s also really expressive, here it looks devastated (you would too if your arm had been lightsabred off) but
with a slightly different angle and maybe a quick brush of hair and he looks so
happy to be here. I’ve annoyed many people by treating this Wampa as my small
assistant. My other cousin (her sister) bought me a pair of pirate socks:
Everyone gets socks for
their birthday/Christmas and everyone hates it, I hate that too, except when
they’re pirate socks!
A Wall of
POP!
The ones with the prices
still on them are from my dad. POP Vinyl has become the new gift voucher, they
cost roughly the same and Funko have so many licences for them now that it’s
virtually impossible to not find something the person likes, even if you hate
fun there’s the new Twin Peaks wave (I kid, mostly), and I am utterly ok with
this, I get a little plastic figure from something I like. To prove my point this
isn’t all the POP I got this year either, this is just the POP I had by the
morning of my birthday. There’s BRIAN BLESSED (his name must
always be written like that, sorry for shouting) who is in POP form thanks to Dino
De Laurentiis’ Flash Gordon and I enjoy that this picture also includes a King
Kong from a much better Kong film than said director’s shameful take on the
character (Kong Skull Island = Apocalypse, Now + Kaiju, it works way better
than it sounds). Elvira is amazing, ‘nuff said. I don’t think I’ve had a chance
to really rave about Jim Henson on this blog yet though, I’m a BIG fan of his
work and especially The Muppet Show and his ‘serious’ fantasy epics The
Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, they’re enthralling and I’m actually
legally bound to shout this now: PACKAGE.
My friend who did the vegan cooking bought me Ludo because I kinda am
Ludo (well I’m a little bit sharper than he is, I can control rocks though),
he’s the perfect choice but even though I like to just have one POP from each
thing I like (so one Ninja Turtle, one Power Ranger, one Ghostbuster etc) with
there being so little figural stuff from Labyrinth I’m tempted to pick up Sarah
and Sir Diddymus this con season, especially as Sarah comes with the
Inexplicably Cockney Blue Worm. Although now I say that, the makeshift
background for a lot of these uses Labyrinth:
The Ultimate Visual History which explains why the Blue Worm is a cockney:
Terry Gilliam decided it would be so in his script (there were many scrips for
the film), the first to feature the Blue Worm – of course it still doesn’t make
sense but Terry Gilliam doesn’t work on our earth logic so nothing he does
makes sense, yet always makes sense to Terry Gilliam.
Stick &
Switch!
Yeah this is a tape
dispenser – remember that same friend who gave me the giant Chap Mei octopus
and Izzy the Eater of gentiles? No because you don’t exist? Well it’s that girl
again, and she is the only person who would think ‘dwitefry would really enjoy
a cellotape dispenser that’s pretending to be a 4X4 tire’ and do so knowing she
is absolutely right. She is right, I
think this is great. The package touts this line as a ‘gotta catch ‘em all’
style product with 3 great versions to collect and swap, I hate to ruin your
lives Sellotape but… it ain’t working, even kids have limits (though very high
ones, are the kids in other countries obsessed with Fidget Spinners at the
moment too?) and I think cellotape is probably beyond that limit, hell I’m
openly delighted by this concept and have the impulse control of a five year
old on Supermarket Sweep and even I think one is enough. That said, I love
this.
Smash Cake!
Smash Cake may well be the
best birthday cake ever devised: for the
clueless it is a tall (three layer) chocolate cake that is deliciously soft and
light, walled in little crunchy milk and white crunchy chocolate balls (I’m
sure they have a name, I just don’t know it) and then covered in a milk
chocolate dome, upon which is drawn an explosion effect in icing. Inside the
dome and on top of the cake is a pile of not-Malteasers, tiny not-Smarties and
Dolly Mixtures. The gimmick is you aim for the explosion effect, crack the top
like an egg, stuff your hand in to get sweets and then you still have cake. It
tastes great and it allows you to be violent - I had one last year and
headbutted it on a dare, I regret nothing (and it’s not like I have hair to get
Dolly Mixtures caught in now is it?), we didn’t break this one open at the BBQ
because one of my friends (the one who gave me the Convention Fun box) brought
a cake made of two giant cookies and ice-cream and so we all ate that until we
felt sick and never got to do the cake. So on the morn of my birthday I punched
this bastard in the head and now have a whole Smash Cake to myself moo hoo, ha
ha.
Disney
Princesses!
Canningdale’s has been in
our parade of shops for as long as I can remember and I’ve been relying on it
to buy gifts for my elderly relatives for that long – I got these two in the
closing down sale and sure while it was nice to get these at something like a
third of their regular retail price but *sigh* our Llyods bank has just closed,
the bathroom store has
closed, The Shack has been knocked down, Cole’s is a
fucking Costa, 7-11 is gone, our Nat West (which has been there for longer than
Canningdale’s) is closing down and looks very likely that our post office,
which has been there since the parade of shops was built (or nearabouts) looks
like it’s going too - as silly as it sounds it doesn’t feel like my town
anymore and it’s fucking bumming me out.
In an attempt to rescue
this from misery, or at least turn it from a Radiohead song into a Cure song,
self-deprecation: one of my friends recently expressed complete shock that not
only was I not gay but that I wasn’t even ‘a bit’ bisexual (his phrasing), I
wonder why friends and acquaintances think this of me – do you think my
collection of fashion dolls and Disney Princesses might be part of it? On the
figurines themselves - I’m usually very OCD with accuracy for figurines but
these two both had something that made me get over it (in conjunction with
being a third of the price) – for Jasmine it’s literally just her sleeves, it’s
simply achieved with c-thru resin but it works so well, also I’m a bit on love with her. For Belle the
masquerade line has been fantastic with a real sense of logic to the masks, the
Beast and Maleficent are probably the most sensible and the only reason I
haven’t bought the latter is because I have that that giant jelly commanding
statue I bought from Disney World, I think a second Maleficent in the same room
might be overkill, so instead I opted for Belle, she’s from my favourite Disney
movie, her mask makes total sense and the changes to her outfit fit so nicely
with it that it seems like there was actually a purpose to frigging with her
design and this is turning into a Super Quick Crappy Review.
Giant
Leonardo Playset!
That’s its name, well I
think technically its ‘Mutations Giant Leonardo Playset’. This is just too
impressive not to feature, my mum is such a fucking enabler – worse here
because I think I’ve only mentioned how much I like this playset maybe twice,
and in that wistful ‘it’s great but I’ll never own it and I’m ok with that,
it’s so expensive, it’s too big, I’m too old, let’s move on’ because I really
was ok with not owning it because it IS so expensive, it IS too big and I AM
too old for it. So mum got around it by a) buying it second hand (I think she
doubled back at bootsale and bought it from a regular seller there) b) buying
it for me and c) actually suggesting a place to put it (she’s right too, it’ll
fit lovely). I was going to take a picture of it on its own but then my own
R2-D2 Desk Vacuum reminded that he was almost entirely obscured in every photo
I’d taken so far and so I left him in the shot and if I couldn’t be arsed to
move him I couldn’t be arsed to move anything else. Anyway this was presented
to me (wrapped in about a mile of wrapping paper) about midday on my birthday by
which time I was absolutely filled with sugar and enjoyment so naturally I
grabbed every figure nearby and put them on the thing (after using YouTube to
figure out how to transform it, it didn’t come boxed), please enjoy my stupid
diorama knowing full well I was SO pleased with it:
I particularly like how
Iggis is about to play a prank on Leonardo.
I’m done. Well almost, I’ve
mentioned this before but to reiterate: these type of posts are actually very
weird for me to write because IRL I never do shit like this, I am VERY
self-conscious about what I buy and own and it’s even worse at Christmas and
even worse at my birthday where I feel guilty guilty about receiving gifts when
no one else is and receiving gifts in such a quantity and such quality, I’ve always
been this way and so even though I do make fun of these it’s strangely
enjoyable to be able to do this without guilt, embarrassment, mumbling or
avoiding eye contact, so y’know, without looking like a mad person. Also,
because he didn’t get to be in the POP picture (he only arrived this morning) -
a pissed off chimp with a gun:
Yes I know its Caesar from
War for the Planet of the Apes. Anyway thanks to everyone who gave me a gift,
card or just said happy birthday on Facebook, I really do appreciate it and by
not appearing on here I’m not implying that those things suck, I liked every
gift I received (and every card too actually, even the one from my mum’s
religious fanatic friend – it had elephants at sunset on it) these are just the
ones I could get a paragraph out of easiest (one unmentioned present, for
instance, was a lucky cat that was also a Weeble, the girl who made the
Convention Fund picture spent a good 20 minutes trying to make it fall down –
the Cat-Weeble won – that is not inferior to anything).
No comments:
Post a Comment