Better After Broken

Nothing breaks a child’s heart like a broken toy.

Growing up in the die-cast robot boom of the 70s and 80s, I’ve had my share of invincible Earth-saviors get snapped somewhere along their plastic parts, often dealing a fatal blow to its play value. A snapped joint, a cracked panel, a detached head, anything that adversely affected the toy’s function was just too painful to look at. You could spend the whole day looking for a missing accessory or an “oh-no-where-did-it-go?” rocket punch; but a broken toy is its own circle of hell. I don’t know about you, but every time I broke a toy, I could feel its angry eyes burning into my soul just how carelessly stupid I was. Sorry about your windshield and roof, Transformers Gen 1 Bluestreak. Sorry about your leg Orguss Nikick. Sorry to all the toys I broke before, that I couldn’t do then what I could do now.

Doctor Lui Lui Lui

One morning, while waiting for my wife to finish up in the bathroom, I decided to kill some time and fiddle with my latest toy purchase. So I walked over to the shelf and grabbed my KFC King Gorilla to play around with. For someone who has been collecting Transformers for over 10 years, randomly transforming them from robot to vehicle and back shouldn’t be such a big deal. Unfortunately, when it comes to quality and stability, especially with 3rd party Transformers, not all toys are created equal.

The Best Of 2019: Second Quarter

So it’s that time of year again to revisit my ongoing top ten toys for 2019. Admittedly, there weren’t too many major toy acquisitions during the start of the year, which led to a relatively weak first quarter list. This second quarter though has brought in quite a lot of good stuff. So let's see how much my top ten has changed after three more months.

It's Evolution, Baby!

So it’s been awhile since my last blog post. Almost 2 months. While I try my best to keep my blog regularly updated every month, I suppose writer’s fatigue is inevitable at some point. And for me it came this year. It’s also not coincidental that this block came at the same time as a major life event happened for me last month as well, which was the birth of my second child. And as anyone who’s had kids can attest to, with all the excitement and fanfare of having a new baby also comes endless sleepless nights and poopy diapers. Given that, it seemed like the perfect moment to step back and take a quick break from the storytelling.

Airing Out My Grievouses

However you may feel about The Star Wars Prequels, there is no denying how much they added to the Star Wars mythos in terms of characters, planets and new ideas. And most notably I really enjoyed the new villains we got. Episode 1 gave us the double lightsaber wielding devil horned Sith, Darth Maul. In Episode 2, we got the dark and evil Jedi turncoat Count Dooku. But for Episode 3, George Lucas decided to do something different for the new “baddie”. Instead of a force wielding Sith lord, we got an new general to lead the Separatist Droid armies, the mechanical monstrosity named Grievous.

The Morlock Prince

In the Marvel universe, being born a mutant can be a mixed bag. If you end up looking like a supermodel or chiseled athlete and have cool flashy powers like superhuman strength, healing factor or weather manipulation it can be seen as a blessing. But if you are born a scrawny and slightly disfigured albino with large creepy yellow eyes and a more passive mutant ability, it can be seen more as a curse.

It's Only Logical

Geek arguments have been around for as long as I can remember. From the more popular all encompassing ones like Star Trek vs Star Wars or DC vs Marvel? To the more specific ones like Batman vs Superman or The Juggernaut vs. the Blob. When I was in grade school, one particular debate that raged on in my class was who was the better Decepticon? Shockwave or Soundwave?

The Ackbar Maneuver

For most kids under the age of 10, Halloween is one of the major highlights of the year. I mean what kid wouldn’t love a day where you go around outside and collect candies from all the houses in the neighborhood. Of course, the usual catch is that you need to dress up in a cool costume, something that is also fun for most kids...at least those with vivid imaginations and unlimited resources. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite the resourceful kid back then and so trying to figure out what to wear on this most important day was usually rather stressful for me.

Get A Holdo Yourself

I think it's fair to say that Star Wars Episode VIII, The Last Jedi is quite the divisive film. While I myself love it and consider it to be one of the best movies in the franchise, there are a lot of people out there who flat our hate it. Now it doesn’t matter whether I think their reasons are valid or not, everyone’s got different tastes and are entitled to their own opinion. But I do want to talk about a specific character introduced in the Episode VIII who just like the movie has her share of detractors as well.

The Best Of 2019: First Quarter

It was fun for me. Was it fun for you? I really enjoyed building up my top ten list of 2018 throughout the entirety of the year. Updating my list on a quarterly basis really helped my get a greater appreciation of what I got and so it seemed like a no brainer that I do the same thing again for 2019.

Whip It Good!

As a kid, I didn’t have that many He-Man figures. Like Transformers, they were bigger and therefore more expensive. So to satisfy my Masters of the Universe cravings, I had to live vicariously through my friend, who seemed to always have all the latest He-Man figures in his possession. I remember specifically one time he called me up on the phone just to tell me he had this brand new figure that he wanted to show to me. The next day he came over proudly holding up his new toy...and all I could think of was...wow….that’s one really ugly dude.