Go-Bots Vs. Star Wars

After a marked lull in activity on my blog for the last month during which time I was busy writing horror movie reviews at In the Queue, I revisited for the first time just a few weeks ago.  I was shocked to see, in the last month, the viewings of my site had doubled!  I’m not sure what I can attribute this spike in interest to except maybe people love tongue-in-cheek articles about meat products, since the majority of hits seemed to stem from my Goetta and Spam entries.

Or maybe, just maybe, it is time my self-depreciating, semi-acerbic wit, my tendency to carouse, my boundless knowledge of pop culture, and my ability to string together marginally related words to create partially coherent sentences to finally be truly appreciated.

Regardless, I best strike while the iron is hot, which is why I’m bringing out the big guns.  The GO-BOTS!

When I was a kid, I hated the Go-Bots.  To my recollection I had exactly two in my toy collection.  Screwhead (because he has a screw...for a head) and Pathfinder who, supposedly, is a female Go-Bot.  I was completely unaware of this until I went to look for a screen shot of her.  But now that I look at this pic of “her,” I totally see the feminine qualities.  Large, broad shoulders, some sort of bonnet, and a bow-tie.  Screams the fairer sex.  How did I ever overlook it? 

One thing was for sure, they sucked.  I wasn’t a kid who owned a bunch of Transformers growing up, so this wasn't the litmus test by which they were measured, although even with only a couple of each in my collection it was obvious Transformers were FAR superior toys.  Me?  I was a He-Man/GI Joe/Thundercats guy.  I'm telling you right now, the feminine wiles of Teela were much more enchanting than the blocky, cold, asexual feel of a robot.  That being said, who didn't have a little bit of a crush on Arcee?

The Go-Bots  were just so damned generic.  To transform Pathfinder you folded her in half and to transform Screwhead I’m pretty sure you just tipped him over.

I never knew the Go-Bots as popular toys.  I thought everybody felt the same way I did about them.  But they had cartoons, paint with water books, activity books, Nestle Quik tie-ins, cereals….oh, wait, no, they didn’t have a cereal at all.  They didn’t have Colorforms either, which is a PRETTY good measuring stick of popularity.  Maybe they weren’t so beloved after all.

But what they did have was MODELS.  Good thing, because I’m really tired of living vicariously through Dr. Wiley.  My deep seeded need to build a robot without any knowledge of how to actually build a robot can finally be fulfilled!

I bought the Buggyman model off EBAY.  I picked Buggyman because he was cheaper than the other models I found on EBAY.  He must be the scrub Go-Bot.  For those of you who only speak Transformer, Buggyman would be the equivalent of Sideswipe.  Remember him?  No?  Neither do I.

I was kind of surprised when I received the package.  Kind of small.  I was expecting something at least the size of, say, a puzzle box.  It was more the size of the palm of my hand.  I thought, being a giant robot, it might be a little more grandiose.  Of course, for all I know, the Go-Bots were actually very tiny.  Like Transformers meets The Littles

.    

 My good friend Buffalo is going to help me build this bad boy.  Doesn't have the same ring as Jim or Jack, but just as effective and twice as tasty.

Here are all the pieces spread on my card table.  Looks pretty meager, eh?  You betcha’ it does.  But let’s just wait to see it when it’s done.  Just break out ye old instructions here.  Hey, there’s a description right on here of Buggyman! 

“Buggyman is a ferocious robot from the planet GoBotron, located in a distant galaxy.  With a few simple movements he is transformed into a dune buggy.  He’s a real mean machine!”

Ah yes, dune buggies, the meanest of all machines.  I guess, based on my viewing of Mad Max 2, he’ll be pretty important after the apocalypse. But for now only important for those times when you have to traverse a desert.  Or joyride on a beach.  Even in the lame world of the Go-Bots, Buggyman is at the bottom of the totem.  Unless “GoBotron” is rife with dunes.  GoBotron.  Seriously.

Let’s get in to the actual directions.  Step 1.  Check.  Step 2.  Check.  Step 3……cement?  Step 6…..paint?  Step 9…mild detergent? What the hell?  I thought this thing would just snap together.  I don’t have this crap just sitting around the house.  Damn, Dr. Wiley had it easy.

It took me 50 times longer to write the last 700 words then it did to be foiled in my original attempt at building the Go-Bots model.  But with a Dale’s Pale Ale and a shot of Buffalo already in my gullet, with my Les McCann and Eddie Harris record playing, I was inspired to build SOMETHING.

How about THE MILLENIUM FALCON?!  This has been sitting in my closet for about a year or so now.  I picked it up for $4 at the Goodwill.  It's a 3-D puzzle.  Seemed like a steal.  I’ve hesitated to make it because it touts “super challenging” right there on the front of the box.  Welp, no time like the present!

 Ugh, look at it.  Intimidating.  Kind of oozing out of the box, like The Blob.  Better turn all the pieces over.

Holy shit.  It’s just gray.  So very gray.  Painfully gray.  It’s going to be like putting together a black and white picture of the sky.  And 3-D puzzles aren’t like other puzzles, all the pieces don’t just go together.  Oh, no.  I gotta make the top, the bottom, the sides, the back, the wings, all separately then fold it all together like some sort of malevolent origami!  Not to mention there are too many pieces to fit comfortably on my card table, so I have them spread everywhere…some on the lid of a tote, some still in the box.  God knows if they are even all there.  A bit more daunting then I had hoped.  This calls for some more Buffalo Trace and another beer.

A couple more shots and another Dale's Pale Ale later.  The Blob has consumed me.  I Got about 6 pieces put together, but two of them were together straight out of the box.  Han Solo is somewhere crying in to his beer as we speak.

Friday the 13th

Despite all my talk about love of the horror genre, until October of 2012, I had never seen the original Friday the 13^th.  For a while I avoided it because I was scared of horror films, slashers in particular.  Then, when I got in to horror films, I avoided it because it was too obvious.  Too mainstream, too readily available, too well known.  Better to watch Night of the Creeps, or Slaughter High.

I have to say, about ten minutes in to the film, I was already taken with something astounding; Kevin Bacon was in this bitch!  I mean, it’s well known that Jamie Lee Curtis was in Halloween, and Johnny Depp was in Nightmare on Elm Street, so how can it be I had no idea Kevin Bacon was in Friday the 13^th?  Certainly Bacon is as important to the pop culture lexicon as Depp, right?  I think Tremors trumps any work by Depp, and what moviephile hasn’t played a rousing round or two of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?”

The second thing I was struck by?  The outfits.  Oh, dear, the outfits.  Here’s screen shot number 1:

Holy crap, what is that guy wearing?  Bright red socks and a red kerchief with MATCHING RED SHOESTRINGS!  Quite the little accesorizer.  No shirt and cut-off jean shirts.  What do you do in an outfit like that?  Cut down trees.  In this thrilling scene they are getting ready to remove that pesky stump.  Slasher films always start out so innocuous.

Hey look at this snazzy dresser.  Plain white pants, plain white shoes, bright red suspenders with no shirt.  The modern man in the early 80s.  Before they invented belts, I guess.  Damn, looks like I left the play time on this one.  It actually bothers my sense of aesthetics, but I’m too lazy to go back and fix it.  But it reminds me, these two dapper fellows appear about three minutes apart in the film.  Talk about sensory overload!  Not to mention just a scant few minutes later, on the dock you can see right there in the background, Kevin Bacon will be seen cavorting in a pair of blue and yellow Speedos.  I like to refer to that particular scene as “superfluous batch.”

Speaking of snappy dressers, I swear when our killer first shows up she (oops, spoiler alert!) is wearing a tweed jacket and a pair of slacks.  That doesn’t seem very threatening, and I’m sure those little burrs get all caught up on the tweed.  Still, I guess slashing throats in the woods with a huge butcher’s knife probably adds a bit of menace regardless of one’s poor choice in wardrobe.  I wanted to make a Mr. Bean joke here, but I already messed it up by revealing the gender of the killer with my spoiler alert joke.  The choice of jests available for the early 80s slasher-film blogger is abundant, but only one path is true.  I hope I have chosen the correct one. 

God I hate Rowan Atkinson.

Let’s get this whole “spoiler alert” thing out of the way.  Chances are you have seen the original Friday the 13^th at some point in your life.  And if you haven’t, there’s a pretty good chance you aren’t reading this review, in 2012, for advice on whether or not to watch it.  Either way, seen it or no, you’re probably just curious what I think of it so, yeah, I’m going to spoil the hell out of it.  I’m going to tell you Kevin Bacon’s character dies and I’m going to post a picture of it.  I’m going to tell you they play strip Monopoly at the camp but, even with such a ripe opportunity to explore burgeoning teenage sexuality, nobody gets naked.  Most importantly, I’m going tell you the killer is Jason’s mom and Jason, for all intents and purposes, isn’t even in it. 

Now that there have been nine Friday the 13^th sequels, a remake, and a crossover, all of which (ugh, most of which, I know he isn’t in the 5^th one either) revolve around the character of Jason Vorhees, he has become the embodiment of the films.  It seems weird, in retrospect, that he did not appear in the first film and I have it on good authority (thanks to Mr. Kris Riley) didn’t even don his iconic hockey mask until the third film.

That being said, I actually rather enjoyed Friday the 13^th.  My expectations for the film, considering it has now reached its 30^th anniversary, were very low.  I assumed it would be much of the same slasher dreck I have seen before and even though Friday the 13^th would in all actuality have been a precursor to those films, it wouldn’t matter since I hadn’t seen it until after.

To a degree, that turns out to be absolutely true.  It is very similar to any slasher you’ve ever sat through.  It was, however, unexpectedly gory with a few over-the-top murder scenes, there’s death by knife, arrows, and axes, the direction is competent enough and almost suspenseful at times (almost), the soundtrack is quite memorable, and it has the decency to be laughable instead of boring during downtime.

The climax of the film is a bit of a letdown, as our sole survivor Alice (Adrienne King) grapples with Pamela Vorhees (Betsy Palmer).  I know in this sort of film it might seem silly to complain about how foolhardy the heroine is, but I can’t help myself.  See, first Alice hits her with a fireplace poker, than runs to a shed.  Then Vorhees finds her, so she hits her with the butt of a rifle, and runs away.  Then, oh god, can it be true?  She hits her with a FRYING PAN.  And runs away.  Come on, give me a break.  She’s unconscious every time.  You better tie her up or bludgeon her with that frying pan, one or the other.  At least the final, killing blow is so ridiculous it will probably leave you in stitches.

After seeing a ton of cheaply made slasher films, I was surprised this film left any sort of impression on me.  I'm not going to tout it as a "must see," but as a pop culture phenomenon it is definitely worth a watch.  KEVIN BACON, LOOK OUT!

Next up, Halloween review at In the Queue Reviews.

Or, if you feel froggy, jump ahead to my review of The Burning.

GoettaFest 2012

Every year, in my hometown of Evansville, Indiana, the first full week of October is commemorated with a huge street festival.  It is touted as the second biggest single street festival next to Mardi Gras.  This bit of trivia is accredited to the late radio personality Paul Harvey, so make of it what you will.

Fall Festival, bird's eye view

It’s known as the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival…although all the denizens of southern Indiana simply refer to it as the “Fall Festival.”  Although the Fall Festival boasts its fair share of carny-run games and rides, the real draw is the food.  According to this article:  http://matadornetwork.com/nights/the-worlds-most-ridiculous-food-festival/  last year’s festival contained 135 food carts culminating in over 400 menu items.

When it was first recommended by Mr. Bob Thacker I do my next blog on goetta I had to come clean: I’ve never had it.  Now, there’s a good chance you have never had goetta either and probably, quite frankly, never even heard of it.  Probably because it is only produced and known in the greater Cincinnati area.  It’s more or less ground meat, sometimes pork sometimes beef sometimes a mixture, mixed with oats.  Yeah, I said oats.

So people around here are often aghast when I mention such a thing.  Their jaws drop.  They scratch their heads in a puzzled manner.  “Haven’t had goetta?!  Well I never!”  And then the obligatory recommendations: Have it here, have it there, buy it at the grocery and cook it up yourself at home.  Etcetera, etcetera.

As luck would have it, right around the corner from the goetta blog recommendation lay Glier’s GoettaFest, a hearty street festival centered around celebrating the much heralded meat product.  After perusing the website, I felt this would be akin to Evansville’s Fall Festival: Games, live entertainment and, most of all, food and drink, even if on a much smaller scale.

It's more crowded than it looks....

So it was on a hot and humid day that my wife and I trudged down to the Newport Levee where, right on the river, Glier’s, the world’s largest manufacturer of goetta, was holding their fest.  As we climbed down the stairs towards the merriments, the sights and smells brought with them a strong sense of nostalgia washing over me like a wave.  A crashing, thunderous, catastrophic tsunami wave.  And there, practically swimming through the 90 degree heat and oppressive humidity, the truth of the matter came rushing back…I fucking HATE street festivals.

Looking down the street I saw the swarm of sweaty, unwashed humanity, standing in long lines to buy food so enormously bad for you one might imagine you are inviting a spur of the moment heart attack.  There were those swilling overpriced beer to wash down their overpriced food.  There was a completely mediocre live band, so loud it was near impossible to speak to any of the nearby vendors.  There were those who brought along their broods of children, assumedly so they could ply them with food so greasy and fattening by the time they would get home they would be nearly catatonic, so mom and dad could watch the newest episode of whatever completely reprehensible reality TV program is currently moderately popular in peace and quiet.  You know, something like Swamp People or, God forbid, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

Even when I lived in Evansville, I could never understand the giddy excitement that descended on the town come October.  Literally thousands and thousands of people, elbow to elbow, perusing overpriced rubbish, most of it deep fried.  I printed out a copy of the menu from last year and there were FORTY-ONE items incorporating the term “fried” or “deep fried,” including such delicacies as Snickers, Klondike Bars, Kool-Aid, cookie dough and dandelions.  This doesn’t include items that are deep fried but just don’t say so in the description. 

I like food.  I like it a lot.  I am certainly not saying I don’t sometimes like to eat food that isn’t really all that good for me, because I most certainly do.  But when we went to GoettaFest we spent about $40 on food which left me feeling fatigued and borderline nauseas .  $40.  For goetta products either so deep fried or so covered in cheese I couldn’t actually be 100% sure it was goetta at all.  For all I know it could have been Soylent Green.  Forty dollars should actually be a pretty nice dinner out in a restaurant, where I don’t have to either eat my food standing up or fight for a seat at a picnic table next to a complete stranger.  Where my eyes wouldn’t be stinging from the sweat running down my face and the menu is well thought out and the food comes with actual flavor instead of the sickly taste of overheated Crisco clinging to it.

Upon first entering the festival I encountered this signage describing goetta:

Your fork breaks the delicate crisp and moves carefully through the creamy middle of the morning circle.  Every bite sends you deeper into total sensory engagement, and allows the mind to skip through the collection of stories that decorate your family’s history and your own.  In a moment you are at your grandma’s counter enveloped in tales of her grandma’s kitchen.  Your heart sings.

“Holy crap,” I thought, “this stuff must be what God himself eats for breakfast!”  And I could picture him at a table of four, with Peter Falk, Sherman Hemsley and Richard Dawson.  Oh, the ribald tales they would share with God while drinking morning mimosas around a cornucopia spilling out assorted fruits.  Dawson would brag of the ladies, oh all the ladies.  Falk would tell about the time he lost his glass eye to a dog, and Hemsley would ironically proclaim about how he really had finally made it to a deluxe apartment………..in the sky-i-i.  And while they would all chortle with laughter and pat each other reassuringly on the backs, just as the morning feast seemed to be coming to an end and the angels were serving the morning coffee with pieces of apple pie, God would scream up the heavens, “Let there be more goetta!”

And so it would come to pass.

I had high expectations beforehand but this sign, this spectacle, this promise of a semi-hallucinatory state, this raised my expectations so high my first bite of goetta would have probably had to be accompanied by an orgasm in order to match them.  So it was, when I had my first bite of a goetta Philly Cheesteak (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one), it happened that my first thought was “This shit taste like hash browns on a bun.”

This, I think, is the most depressing thing of all.  For all my want to actually try and, hopefully, enjoy goetta, none of the items there really seemed to represent the meat.  The Philly Cheesesteak was so lathered with cheese and onion I couldn’t really taste the meat, but the consistency did come across as hash brown-y.  I finished the day with a “corn dog” because it’s a classic festival treat, but, as far as I could tell, the goetta sausage wasn’t ever covered in any kind of corn flour. It was simply dipped, naked, into its bath, leaving me to eat a thin layer of congealed deep fried grease tasting just like old deep fried grease.  I’m pretty sure God wouldn’t want his goetta sullied in such manners.  And, for that matter, neither would Peter Falk.

Oh, the humanity! 

On the way out of the festival we stumbled on a vending machine filled with pre-processed pounds of goetta for three dollars.  I wanted so badly to purchase meat out of a stand-alone vending machine and I wanted, even more, with all of my heart, just to hear the sickly thud of a pound of processed pig pieces slapping dully against the bottom tray.  But I just couldn’t do it.  On this day Glier’s had already stolen enough of my money, if not even just a little bit of my soul.

ADDENDUM

My wife was kind enough, in her spare time, to give a handful of honest reviews of the food she sampled.  So if you haven't had your fill of goetta, read on dear reader, read on...

Goetta mac & cheese…apparently an award-winning recipe.  I started with this dish, and I was a little disappointed with it.  First, it was a pretty big helping of mac & cheese. Second, I couldn't really taste any of the goetta sausage in it…I basically felt like I was eating mac & cheese with oats.  As a point of comparison, Ryan and I have recently been eating Hamburger Helper with spicy sausage instead of hamburger for a change, and there is a cheesy rice meal that is AWESOME with said sausage.  In fact, I would go so far as to say our variation on cheesy Mexican rice in a box would whip the goetta mac & cheese's ass in a head-to-head taste test.

Goetta spring rolls…just tasted like spring rolls.  All fried wrapper and cabbage.  I had to add a little spicy mustard to mine to give it some zing, and then all I tasted was spicy mustard.  Definitely not worth the $3 for two spring rolls that are completely basic.

I also got it in my sun-addled noggin that we needed to try Busken bakery's Goetta Goobers, which consists of small fried lumps of goetta-infused donut dough liberally sprinkled with powdered sugar.  What the hell, Voodoo Doughnuts has a Bacon Maple Bar… However, that is an actual donut, and these are just fried nuggets.  In general, all I tasted was frying oil and powdered sugar.  Since we got them to go, I was also stuck with the dilemma of how to store meat donuts.  I can't just leave those in the breadbox, no sir.  I had to put them in the fridge.  

The goetta chili cheese chilito from Chili Rocks was really good.  It was spicy, saucy and tasted just like a good chilito should.  The goetta was not a distraction.  And seriously, my typical gold standard chilito is one from Taco Bell.  That mystery meat is probably less appetizing than goetta.  So this dish gets the best in show from me out of the four goetta concoctions I tried.

Spam.

There are a number of important opportunities to take advantage of when one’s significant other is out of town.  The two most important, however, are turning up the air conditioner, and drinking plenty of beer.  And also maybe eating a can of Spam.

I’ve never had Spam before, at least not that I remember, but when a fellow co-worker jokingly mentioned it as something a bachelor would eat, I decided it just felt right.  The 24oz Pabst Blue Ribbon I added of my own accord.  I actually like PBR.  I know, I know, it’s laden in hipster-rich chic, but I honestly don’t think its flavor is dreadful.  And I’ve tried my share of cheap beers.  Burger, Hudepohl, Hamm’s, Schlitz, Natty Light, Old Milwaukee, and I find Pabst to be the best of them all, not a terribly far cry from its much more popular domestic brethren and much cheaper.  Oh, and also, for the hipster in me, this:

http://www.youtube.com./watch?v=HeWUXV89w0g

I wasn’t quite sure how to “prepare” spam.  Both on the front and back of the can it is prepared as a sandwich, so I figured this was the best route to go.  I had to stop by Kroger in order to get a loaf of bread, as the one in my home had been ridden with a bit of the fungal growth.

At first I thought it might be kind of ironic to eat it on some fancy bread, but after a short, yet heated, internal argument, I decided I wanted to sort of stick with the “everyman” Spam meal.  I think of Spam as an affordable working man’s meat, and the working man, he don’t give a spit about Pepperidge Farm’s thin-sliced Deli Rye and Pumpernickel swirled half loaf.  Nor Brownberry’s 10 Grain “Health-full” half loaf.

And after looking…..neither did I.  I mean, really?  $4.29 for a half loaf of bread?  What could make it so much better?  Oh, your bread has more grains than mine?  And also it has a few oats in the crust?  You know what, I’d just as soon buy the Kroger brand of Lite White.  It tastes like bread and it has a picture of a mother playing with her daughter on the front.  You know what $4.29 doesn’t buy Pepperidge Farms?  Family wholesomeness.  Maybe you should think of that when you’re trying to sell 16 slices of Goldfish-shaped thin slices for five bucks, you gimmicky rip-off artists! 

The makings of my meal.  My co-worker (Mr. Douglas Kuhlman….although around my crib I refer to him as Riptide, since he is one of the few people I have ever met who actually remembers the short-lived TV show Riptide) had mentioned I should have an egg with my Spam.  I’m sure he meant a fried egg, but I have a lot of hard-boiled eggs premade.  I think it’s the thought of having an egg with a meal that doesn’t really need an egg anyway.  The working man loves eggs.  Easy and filling.  Just like the ideal woman.

A super dramatic pic of the top of the Spam can. I love cans of food with pull tabs.  It makes me feel like I’m in some post-apocalyptic America, trudging down gray, desolate countryside.  With every step the dust kicked up from my boots making me more and more thirsty.  Finally, weak with hunger and near delusional I stumble in to a 1950s ranch-stlye home.  I collapse on the floor and there, right in my line of sight, I see a small, raised ring…..a trap door!  A bomb shelter!  With the last remnants of my strength I pull the ring and the door flies open, revealing true, pure darkness.  Ever so cautiously I descend the rickety stairs in to the shelter with the help of my trusty flashlight.  Beneath is a cornucopia of canned goods.  Vegetables!  Beans!  Preservatives!  Meats!  If it turns out I am the last survivor of the human race, at least I can fill that void in my soul with a spoonful of potted meat and a side of Bumbleberry Jam.

 If you’re wondering what that is on the far end, it’s a seal proclaiming the 75^th anniversary of Spam.  The best thing about it?  When I opened the can of spam, you could see the indention of the seal pressed in to the top of the meat product.  Delicious.

Sans can, in all of its pinkish, gleaming glory.  I’m pretty sure, if you look real hard, right in the corner, you can make out the face of Jesus.  Or maybe that's the mascot from the Bad Boy Club clothing line.  No, really.  Google image search it.  He's right there.  In my Spam.

  

Cookin’ it up…….mmmmm…..just a bit brown on the edges now, don’t wanna over fry it…if you can do such a thing to processed/cured/nebulous/ham-bits.

The finished product.  I lightly toasted the bread and added a slice of Swiss cheese, because that’s what I had in the fridge.  In retrospect I kind of which it would have been a slice of neon-orange, individually packaged, Kraft American cheese, because that’s what I picture working everyman having in his fridge.  But cheese is cheese, and this sandwich was certainly not going to do without. 

Both of the pictures on the can had a tomato, so I added a tomato.  It might be overkill, but I think it adds some much needed class to the proceedings.  I considered adding a condiment as well, say mustard or mayonnaise, but I didn’t want to completely kill the flavor of the Spam.  I think this is one pork-based conglomeration needing to be TASTED.

The final three word verdict?  “Damn that’s SALTY!”  I guess you have to add a lot of salt to canned meat you want to keep edible for 5+ years.  I have to say, the tomato cut the salt a bit which made it much more palatable, and I eventually added a bit of spicy mustard, which even made it better.  I think I could enjoy a Spam sandwich every once and again provided it was dressed with lettuce, cheese, tomato and mustard, preferably spicy brown.  Although maybe, just maybe, I should try it in some of the ways this commercial recommends.  Did somebody say Spam pizza?!

SPAM COMMERCIAL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLRPJEoQBQQ

Weird Stuff at the Local Wal-Mart

When I first named this blog, I was a little worried people would think it inspired by “People of Wal-Mart.”  Not so.  Making fun of morbidly obese individuals who don’t have the cognitive ability to dress themselves appropriately is only moderately humorous one time, unless said person has a wildly inappropriate tattoo somewhere on their back.  Then it’s funny every time.

No, this blog was a lot more inspired by finding a Power-Man and Iron Fist action figure duo at Target.  You may not think it’s weird, but finding packaged action figures based on a comic that ended its run 25 years ago and was never popular even back then, well, that’s weird.  Especially at Target.  I wouldn’t even expect that sort of spectacle at my nearest comic specialty shop (big ups to Captain Comic on Beechmont).

Needless to say it was one of my favorite comics, and I purchased the figures and they are now sitting in my basement, still packaged, right between my (opened) “Shop S-Mart” Ash, complete with boomstick, and my (still packaged) Xander Harris construction worker figure, circa Season 7.  God I’m the coolest.

Which brings me to the things I find weird at Wal-Mart.  It actually started just a few months ago when I was walking back to the electronics section, and I passed a packaged action figure duo.  No, I’m not repeating myself.  I haven’t lost (all) of my short term memory just yet.

It was THIS duo:

Although on the surface they seem like perfectly normal toys, there are a number of strange things about this product.  Number one, they seem to be a tie-in with the movie “Wolverine: X-Men origins.” I haven’t had the will (or is it just plain unabashed stupidity?) to sit through that god-awful piece of tripe, but I don’t believe either Colossus or Cyclops were in the film.  Number two, Cyclops is simultaneously grabbing his head and his crotch.  I believe that is a move more associated with Captain EO than Cyclops.

Number three, fittingly enough, is the associated film is three years old.  I guess the reason they are still on the shelf is because it was a really shitty film, the characters packaged have no viable connection to said film, and because they are on clearance for TWENTY-FOUR DOLLARS!

I believe I paid $11.99 for my Power-Man and Iron Fist, and I cringed at forking over that much hard-earned cash.  Twenty-four dollars?  For a movie nobody has ever said anything good about?  For two characters not even in the film?  ON CLEARANCE?!

I should probably point out the obvious reason this diamond in the rough is worth its weight in paper exchange is the giant blue sticker at the top.  It’s a Wal-Mart EXCLUSIVE.  One day it will probably be worth big money.  I mock Colossus and Cyclops, but I’m stowing away my Wal-Mart exclusive copy of Foreigner’s “Can’t Slow Down” album for the day when it will be worth its weight in whatever monetary unit we use in the future.  Personally I’m hoping human livers or possum tongues.

And what was right beneath the ill-bred “collector’s edition” of two characters with no modern day following and so far removed from Chris Claremont’s rabid fan base nobody would even take the time to glance at it twice?

That’s right, a giant bin of wooden slide whistles.

I have no idea what you would do with a slide whistle.  Ostensibly you would use it to, well, whistle a jaunty tune.  But who do you buy a slide whistle for?  I can’t imagine anybody over the age of five would want to do anything besides set it on fire.  Furthermore, I can’t believe any adult who isn’t simply addled would want any child under six to have it, for fear he would use it with such fervor and so unrelentingly you would simply want to cram it down his throat.  I feel like the slide whistle can probably be laid to rest with such great toys as jacks or paddle ball or those stupid drums with beads on the side you shake back and forth between your palms…….yeah, you know what I’m talking about…

I feel like this blog is becoming somewhat superhero-centric but, in all fairness, I found every item here on the same clearance island.  So here we find a Nick Fury action figure.  There is absolutely nothing odd about this figure.  Well, I mean, except it is a Nick Fury action figure.  Who wants Captain America or Thor or Iron Man or Hulk or, hell, even Black Widow or Hawkeye when they can have NICK FURY!  He stalks around in the background and shoots a 9mm at Norse Gods!  Oh, Nick Fury, you’re dreamy!

I took the picture because it looks so goddamned much like Samuel L Jackson I find it just a little eerie.  I’m glad he’s an eye short else his steely gaze would be staring right in to my soul.  And the last place I want Sam Jack is in my soul.  Also, in the bottom right hand corner, it states INCLUDES WEAPONS!  As if you can’t see that by looking through the clear plastic packaging.  It’s a good thing too, because Fury without guns is like Cap without his shield, or Spidey without his webs, or the Hulk without his…..giant pummeling fists?

http://tinyurl.com/6mozfkl

Mmmmm……

Finally (for now) I ran across Buttontails, by LaLaLoopsy.  For those of you who don’t know me personally, I happen to not be a 10 year old girl, so I don’t know anything about the LaLaLoopsy line of toys.  I tried to research it at lalaloopsy.com, before I realized I didn’t really give a shit, and neither do you.  This was shortly after I clicked the catalog to try and gather extra information about Buttontails, and discovered there were 155 items for me to wade through.  On the first page there was a mermaid packaged with a pet blowfish though, so that’s cool.

The toy is kind of like a Mr. Potato Head, I guess, with some items appearing removable and some you have to sew on.  I didn’t actually handle the product, but I gather this from the slogan at the bottom stating “Sew Magical Sew Cute!”  Oh, what a pun.  I didn’t have the foresight to get the clearance price in the picture, but Buttontails’ “list price” on Amazon is $16.99.

Looks at Buttontails.  Look real close.  Do you see what I see?  Buttontails is a FUCKING SOCK!  How in the hell are they gonna sell a stuffed sock with ears for $16.99?  I know it comes with button eyes and limp pieces of heart-shaped cloth as well, but come on now….

Look, I’m all behind anything that gives little girls the chance to start honing their domestic skills by teaching how to darn socks at an early age, but you can get a Fruit of the Loom 6-pack of socks for $5.99, and little Sally can still have $10.99 to pick out whatever various items she wants to sew on to them.  Or she can cut the socks apart and sew them together and make a giant Buttonzilla.  Hm.  This actually sounds like a viable use of my time.  Buttonzilla may be making an appearance at some time in the future.

I’m not very good with a needle and thread.  Though I did personally sew up this sweet pig pillow back in, say, 6^th grade home economics?  Can’t be faded. 

Finally, here’s somebody killing it on a slide whistle.  Get it, son!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b89B4AsYzs