Lego Minifigures Series 8 available NOW!!!

I moseyed into Toys R Us today and they had one single box of Lego Minifigures Series 8. I squeezed and squeezed and picked up my absolute must have ('Vampire Bat' aka Man-Bat) as well as a Diver and a Robot, and my daughter got a Cowgirl and Fairy.

Keep your eyes peeled, they are out there!

League of Extraordinary Bloggers :: Hollywood Memorabilia

Cool & Collected recently spearheaded a cross-blog weekly writing assignment, and Toyriffic is in for the fun!

This week's topic:   

You have an unlimited budget and space is not a problem. What piece of Hollywood memorabilia would you want hanging around in your batcave?

Hmm...well I suppose the all too obvious answer is the Batmobile from the sixties TV show, but that answer is such a no brainer that if I had an unlimited budget and unlimited space I would already own about ten of them on the first day I came into my money - a normal one, one with a truck bed, one stretched like a limo, a jacked-up monster truck version, a floating version, a hovercraft version...you get the idea.

Leaving the garage behind, let's stretch back in time a bit further (and also stretch the term 'Hollywood' to include...Berlin...) for inside my home I would have recreated in full size:

The robot Maria from Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

The original costume used in the movie was destroyed in a fire years ago. Below are pics of a full size replica built in 1976 by effects artist Bill Malone.

Original or replica, this would be an awesome thing to have in the living room!

Toys that suck :: Inter-suckables

Oh man was this toy a piece of crap. C.I.R.E.S. from The Fantastic World of the Inter-Changeables!

*Pictures borrowed from eBay.

These pics are of a toy I once owned and was truly disappointed in. Yup, you read that right, I hated a toy! Hard to believe, I know - but this piece of junk was a real stinker!

The packaging promised all sorts of adventures, but the only adventure was trying to get this guy to stay together in robot mode.

Even at ten years old I could tell the plastic was of a super cheap quality and the toy was not going to stand up to even the lightest of play. Yes, it looked cool, with robots for arms whose heads could be swapped out with missile launchers, but beauty is only skin deep.

The packaging also promised pilots, but no pilots were in the package (what was I supposed to do, read the fine print? I was TEN!)

C.I.R.E.S. stands for 'Cosmic Integral Robot Exchange System' which means what now? He's a space aged currency converter? Who knows. Who cares?

I think  C.I.R.E.S. should stand for Crappy Idiotic Robot Eric Shouldn'thavebought.

Collect them all? Not after buying this cheap hunk of plastic! That's the last time I try to be frugal with my allowance money. Back to the Transformer aisle for me!

Heres a final look at the instructions, which you will need because this robot will fall apart again and again. You know the worst part? this dumb chunk of cheap plastic rot is selling for a ton of money on eBay! Bad enough I spent about ten bucks over twenty five years ago and feel ripped off, if you spend over a hundred on this nowadays you are just a fool.