Basically the DA there thinks that The Dog is alive and with us still and that he needs to be brought forward to pay for his crimes. Ya right, you aint never gonna catch Tim Dog. Dudes to slick.. Remember to check back often for the latest in the "Is Tim Dog Alive?" saga... 

I've always been a fan of these Fisher Price Adventure People, space people. I have the clear green guy but not the girl. That's one of my flea market holy grails. 

Anyhoo, the dude in the picture is named Clawtron. That's a bad ass name. CLAWTRON. It really lets you know what he's about. Dudes into clawin' that's why they call him Clawtron. 

This series was released in 1983. Man.That's awhile back. I was ten at the time and that's right in the middle of the toy playing sweet spot. Maybe that's why Adventure People are totally burned into my memory. I was peaking toy wise when they came out. 

Were you guys into The Real Ghostbusters? I was, a little. I loved the movie and had like three different Ghostbusters T-shirts so just over half the school week I was rocking some GB merch. I wasn't the best dressed kid at Binkley Elementary. I guess in some ways I might have been decently dressed in the sense that I was doing my own thing but overall I was pretty sloppy but that's not really important to the subject at hand.  

I loved the movie Ghostbusters but couldn't really get my head around the cartoon versions of the characters. It was one of those things that seemed good to me in theory but in practice it wasn't that awesome. It might have been because the dudes looked nothing like the dudes in the movie and lets be honest the coolest thing about the movie was that Bill Murray was in it. Even as a kid I could tell that Bill Murray was the tits. Dude was the funniest dude around as far as I was concerned. 

Anyway, the main reason that I bring up TRG is that I've been doing a little work on the I See Robots Dirt Mall lately and just this afternoon I put a couple of TRG figures up there and they can be yours for UNDER THREE DOLLARS! (each) I mean, that's pretty decent right? Also, mention that you saw it here on the sight and I'll throw in an extra Winston that I have lying around the house. Dude, a freebie. 

The best way to get there is to click on the pic up there. It's a direct shot right to the item. If you want to go to the main page and take a look at some of the other things up there. Click HERE!  Thanks for the interest and thanks for letting me clean up my Situation Room and get some of this stuff to people in need.. of toys. 

So basically this is going to wind up being the biggest story of all time. I don't know what to make of it but my gut tells me that The Dog is still with us. No really, I think that. I'm not too conspiracy minded for the most part but it makes sense that he would try and pull something of this sort.. Not because he smart but because he is prolly kind of dumb. 

Basically the gist of the is that Tim Dog was scamming ladies out of their hard earned loot and when a judge caught up to him he was ordered to pay the money back to the tune if 100 bucks a month. Hardly a fortune but it was enough to cause The Dog to fake his own death (possibly) and go into hiding. Machiavelli he aint. 

For those of you who aren't in the know Tim Dog was/is a Bronx based MC who at one time was down with The Ultramagnetic MCs but achieved his greatest fame after recording the solo cut F*** Compton at the peak of Dre and Snoop's success.

 It was a sort of ballsy move considering the fame of the groups he was attacking but it was also stupid because the song was terrible and to most onlookers it was like when a fighter not even in the top ten goes out and challenges the champ. It's cool that he believes in himself but it's also silly because there isn't anyway for to be taken seriously with out some big wins under his belt. You have to work your way up Tim. 

I dig the way that The Dog was thinking though. He figured that as a fifteen year rap vet he had every right to step up to Compton. The problem was that despite his years in the game Snoop and Dre were totally at the peak of their fame while Dog's fame even at it's peak wasn't anything to mail home about. Plus the talent level between Tim Dog and Snoop Dog was pretty easily noticeable. Snoop's talented and Tim Dog just isn't . Sorry Tim, it's just true your grandstand challenge made you look silly and this fake death thing probably seemed cool on paper but dude, when they find you hiding in a spider hole like Saddam Hussein , you're going to wind up looking silly. 

Anyway, stay tuned to ISR for the latest on Tim Dog and his miraculous resurrection. Remember you heard it here first TIM DOG IS ALIVE! 

This weekend was the first of four 40-8 flea markets at the Vet's building here in SR. The 40-8 is a lot better than the normal weekend flea market they run there. They seem to draw from a higher level of vendors. The 40-8 has been running there for years. I guess they know more dudes with better stuff. 

I got up on some cool stuff like 5 plastic banks that came from banks. you know, like promotional banks from saving and loan places. I have a few of these in my situation room and I've always been a fan of them because of how hard they were to get up on as a kid. 

There was a couple of ways that you could score one. They would give them out to kids when they were opening a junior account but who had that kind of foresight? Maybe you could score one if you were with their parents and the banker was in a good mood but that never happened to me and I truly wish that it would have... I'll take some pics of them over the next couple of days and put them up for you to be bored by. 

I bought a couple of these vintage drink stirrers for a quarter. I got the Don Ho one and one that has a hand on it. I like to stick these in my house plants. I think they look cool. It's like a big sign sticking in the dirt next to a tree. My old lady is into these more that I am. I've bought a couple but she seems to go for them all the time. I never see them lying around the house though so I don't really know what becomes of them after she buys em'.

There was this one table that I dug. It had a whole grip of these printing press style letters including some really big dinner plate sized ones that I thought were pretty cool. I have a few of these that I've picked up over the years. They make nice decorations around the house. They look all literary and if you can find your own initials or the initials of a loved one they make a pretty neat accent point to your crib. That's pretty hokey though. It'd be cooler if you used them to spell out cuss words or the names of body parts or something but that might be a little bit too edgy for your living room...

I found this guy the other week at our local flea market. He was in a box that had him, a Mego Frankenstein and a suction cup Freddie Kruger. What I mean is that he had suction cups on him so you can stick him to your window if you want. I did want. He's on the ISR HQ's window right now as we speak. It took me a minute to identify him on the internet but only one second for my friend Noah to be all like "That's an Ovian from Battlestar Galactica dude."

 I never had any BSG figures back in the day. It was slightly before my time. I was like 5 years old when the show came out but my older cousin had this cool Cylon Raider and a Colonial Viper that shot little red missiles and came with awesome mini versions of the respective ship's pilots. I coveted those in the worst way. I still kind of do truth be told. 

The Ovion were a member of the Cylon alliance that had this fake casino planet that they used to lure people into so that they could trap and eat them. See the dangers of gambling kids? Think you are doing good and winning tons of chips? Nope, it's all a ruse and the dealer's eventually going to chew bites out of your hind quarter over candlelight. 

The Ovion was part of the first series of Battlestar Galactica figures produced by Mattel in 1978. It has six points of articulation, all four of it's creepy arms and it's ugly head. He also comes with a weird net like cape that wrapped around it's yucky arms and shoulders so it can stay warm while luring people onto it's dinner plate... 

Looks like Minimates has gotten themselves another licence. This is a real good one though. LOST IN SPACE! This week is the C2E2 pop culture convention in Chicago and Art Asylum had a little booth like they usually do but what they had that they usually don't is some sick as all get out LOST IN SPACE Minimates. 

Now, who in the world knows when or if these will even drop. I've seen a lot of cool Minimate pictures over the years that never materialized onto the toy store racks. That's prolly normal. I guess every toy you want to make doesn't really end up getting made. That's some Natalie and Blair stuff for you right there. Huh? you ask. What I meant to say is that like Natalie and Blair sometimes not getting the toys that you were certain you were going to get is a sad Fact Of Life.. Get it? It's a bad joke.

Still though I really hope that these get produced. The robot is beyond awesome and come on, Dr. Smith looks almost exactly like him right? Sure, of course it does. Don't be stupid. 

Major Bludd is cool. He has a robot arm, he's Australian and he has an eyepatch. That's pretty much a trifecta of supervillainness right there. Bludd was originally offered as a mail in figure in 1983. He was the first mail in that I remember actually following through and getting. It took me  a few months to save up the required five flag points (flag points where the currency of mail in GI Joe items. They were basically proof of purchase marks made up to look like the like the American Flag.) and the check or mail order for $1.50 to cover the postage and handling and then like another ten weeks for the figure to arrive at my door but it was totally worth the wait. 

Well, I guess what I mean is that Bludd received a very high profile amongst my Joes right from the get go because of the work that it took me to get him and the amount of ass that he kicked. I realized my worthy sacrifice immediately. 

Bludd was listed on his file card as the Cobra Mercenary. It's dope how he got to maintain independent contractor status while still having access to Cobra's resources. He must negotiate a mean contract or maybe Cobra Commander negotiates a really bad contract. This makes sense continuity wise really. He's a bad negotiator so after a few years of crappy contracts with Bludd and Destro too probably, Cobra Commander went out and hired Tomax and Xamot as Cobra's attorneys. 

There was a GI Joe cartoon a few years back that was a little bit more on the adult tip. GI Joe Resolute. I liked it but some people didn't, really didn't. That's another topic for another time but the point is that the movie begins with the police finding Major Bludd murdered. What a bummer. Don't worry about Major Bludd though kids because he has a blink and you'll miss it cameo in the new GI Joe flick. Nothing special really but they are going through file cards on a computer in Joe HQ and if you're Johnny On The Ball you'll see Bludd's name fly by. What's cool about it though is that it's an indication that somewhere out there in the big bad movie world Bludd is alive, alive and waiting to be featured in a sequel. 

I love Belly, prolly more than the next man but even I'm at a lost to explain Big Head Rico's hairdo. I mean it's tight, but still dude, for the hardest brother in Nebraska you are looking a little girly. 

Maybe it's like psychological warfare in that dude looks like a lady so when you step to him you just aren't ready for the human tornado that you'll have to deal with. I don't know. Maybe he just has a taste for weird hair. Who can say?  Irregardless Belly is a dope flick and one of the things that makes it so dope is Big Head Rico eating that banana. It's a timeless moment of cinema... 

Here is another mediocre pic for you. Man, it's been real hit or miss as far as my photography goes. I think that I need to branch out and start taking some snaps at other places aside from my yard. Anyhoo, I picked up Gnawgahyde as part of a big box of Joes at a Cancer Charity garage sale. I think that whole bin was under ten bones and I got up on at least 20 different figures and a grip load of vehicles. It was the big purchase that got me started off with a decent collection. 

One thing that I remember about that day was that we got a real late jump on the day and I wanted to throw in the bag before we even began. My wife was super positive about things and got me to get going in the morning despite me not wanting to, as is often the case. We drove around fruitlessly and didn't really get up on anything of any worth and I was dropping a ton of I told you so's until the cancer sale. The now legendary in my mind Cancer Sale Come Up. 

You just never know where or when your memorable scores are going to come from. That's what makes collecting an interesting hobby. More often than not you don't find any good toys but sometimes you don't even want to go out but that's fitting to be the day that you get the bear. 

So, I was just mucking around in the backyard and took this pic of my Missile Defense Unit. It's ok, not really that great of a picture. I might try again. I don't know. It didn't come out all that decent. The gardener came while I was taking pictures so I had to scurry back inside or be exposed as a dork. 

 I get really embarrassed when I'm caught crawling around in my front yard taking pictures of my toys.  I shouldn't be though. I have a job and and a family. I should feel free to do what I want in my free time. Sadly though that is good in theory but not entirely true in practice. Sure, playing with toys is fine and awesome but it's just real that the neighbors might think that you are at least a little bit eccentric. It could be worse though. They could think that you are an alcoholic or something not some harmless kook who still plays with toys.

I got the Missile Defense unit at the Sebastopol Flea Market a few years back. It came complete with the box and the instructions and catalogs. The whole deal. It was only a couple of dollars as I recall. The girl who sold it to me was unloading a bunch of stuff that her boyfriend left at her place when they broke up. Sucks to be him. I got this and the Ammo Dump Playset. Both toys where mid 80's releases coming out between 84-86 before being discontinued. They where also available through mail in but that didn't come around until 1988.

 I didn't have either of these as a youth. I liked them though and always meant to pick one up. They sold for a pretty reasonable price if I remember right. Like just a little more than the cost of a figure and a half. For the price you got a little two piece brick wall, a missile launcher, a crate that contains three missiles and a sign that says "Ammo Dump" with an arrow pointing you in the right direction. All of the pieces are good to like, spruce up your battlefield with some authentic bric a brac. You know, to help you get in the mood to battle Cobra. 

The main thing that I dig about this playset is that it's an affordable little . GI Joe was pretty good at putting things out at various price points. They ranged from figures and accessory packs at the low end all the way up to pricey items like The Defiant and The USS Flagg. That's a two way street. It's good for the kid because he can get something GI Joe even if he only has a couple of bucks on him and Hasbro gets the opportunity to take a child's very last cent. It's win-win.   

Hey kids. I'm still kind of on the Robo Force tip. I was digging around in my garage looking for stuff to sell at this cool looking toy show that we're going to be having here soon in Santa Rosa when I came across my old Maxx Steele figure.

 The little hatch in the front was broken so I put a little dab of glue there to hold it closed. I don't really think that's the best way to refurbish your toys but I'm not planning on selling it or anything so who cares really?

Here is a cool little Robo Force related story. There are two little kids that live next door to my family and they like to come over and play with my daughter from time to time. They are maybe 5 or 6 years old and my daughter is 11. They like her but also kind of look up to her. She's the cool older kid that lives next door. It's a role that she really seem to enjoy. 

Anyway, the three of them were all goofing around in the garage the other day and when I went out there to check and see if everything was going well they had the Robo Force figures that I was photographing a couple of weeks ago and were having all sorts of fun combining the robots with some of the Fisher Price Little People play sets that I have lying around near my beloved Ms. Pac Man machine. 

So they were playing and when I asked then what they were doing the girl said to me that she was playing with "these cool old robots" I guess that's what they are nowadays, cool old robots. Still though it's neat to see that Robo Force holds up. Robots are like eternally cool I suppose and one thing about Robo Force is that they have a pretty classic design. Round and kind of clunky.

Finally, a Minimate of The Governor. The meanest, cruelest SOB ever to be made into a Minimate. Dude is a monster.  Do you guys read The Walking Dead? Well if not, you totally should be. It's so much better than the TV show. Ya, the show is good but the comic is GREAT! I mean that. It's awesome...

Anyway, what we have in this assortment is, from top right to left is Alice from Woodbury, Michonne in her poncho, A zombie with his shoulder all bitten up, Prison Lori with her baby,  Governor lackey Gabe, The Governor himself and Bruce, The Governor's right hand man. 

This is a pretty good set overall. I would like to get The Governor and Prison Lori is pretty cool too. I'm into Michonne and her poncho too. I wonder what she looks like underneath? I mean, is it the same Minimate that we already have or is it a new costume? Get your mind out of the gutter fool. I don't get sexual feelings for toys. I mean, I lust for them but it's more like I lust to own them, not kiss them. That'd be weird. 

I took this snapshot in my backyard the other day. I like it, but I'm really bothered by the sunspot on the zombie in the front. I tried a few different ways to remove it but failed. That's ok though, it's still has some cool elements. I should have tried to play it off like I meant for it to be there, you know, for art.

  I should just go out and retake it but it took for days to get the Minimates to stand on the uneven dirt and the chains kept falling out of Michonne's hand and I was kneeling on the ground and my knee's hurt and it was hot....see the things I go through for you people? 

Me and the fam have gone to Wondercon for like the last 10 years or so. It's like the biggest show that we have here in the Bay Area and it's a pretty good one with tons of vendors and sometimes pretty decent celebrity guests. I remember seeing Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway when they were promoting Get Smart as well as Jon Favreau and Brandon Routh one year when they were promoting various films.

There were some good times though. I saw Quentin "Rampage" Jackson of UFC and A-Team fame walking around and taking in the sites.  I also ran across Bob Wall from Enter The Dragon as well as Black Belt Jones himself, Jim Kelly. They were signing autographs a few booths away from each other. I wonder why they don't package themselves together with John Saxon who is out there on the autograph circuit as some kind of Enter The Dragon reunion deal? I can't be the first fool to think of this. Maybe there is bad blood. It's kind of cool to imagine that there is. Like something happened on the set all those years ago and they aren't able to get over it, even today after all these years. I wonder what it was? A fight? Probably, I remember hearing that Saxon is kind of an egomaniac and that he thought that he should be that star of the movie, not Bruce Lee. ya, he thought that.... 

I didn't really get up on anything that cool though. A couple of packs of Minimates and really that's about it. What Minimates? oh, sorry, it was the Thundercats set with Lion-O and a two pack of Marvel Mates with The White Tiger and a Hand Ninja. I was so wacked out with head pain that I just couldn't  get myself to dig through boxes of books. I woosed out big time. I guess it happens. What can I do? It's just a waste of time trying to fix the past. 

There is some good news though. Wondercon has always been North Cali's premier comic book show until it moved to Anaheim after they had problems booking the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, two years straight. That story always sounded dubious to me. I can see having problems one time but wouldn't you be able to take care next year's booking considering that you have a whole entire year to pick a date.

 I think that they just want to move the show. I dig it. Anaheim really opened up it's arms to Wondercon in ways that San Francisco couldn't be bothered to. There were shuttles to the show and ample parking which there isn't in S.F. There was a really nice area set up with food trucks and picnic tables. I think that realistically it's a better location. I do. Sorry. Here is the good news though, they plan on running two Wondercons this year. What? Two WONDERCONS! One in S.F and one in Anaheim. Can't beat that.  I wonder if it's true though. As I understand it they plan on running "my" Wondercon in October. I haven't been able to find any sort of evidence that they are actually going to do it so I guess until I see it in print we're gonna have to file it under rumor. 

I was poking around Wikipedia the other day when I was stuck working the switchboard the other day at the Cracker Factory (no one ever calls. I was there for two and a half hours and answered the phone maybe twice.) and I took to looking at the entry for EPMD one of my all time favorite rap acts. 

EPMD broke up for a period of time in the 90's. It was pretty sudden and pretty mean spirited with both dudes talking junk and saying mean things on wax about each other. Rap wasn't really at the point of MC's shooting up the their foes with real lead yet. Most beefs were settled with bullets in the form of metaphors and similes or so I thought because it turns out that things got realer than real with EPMD and I never knew til today.

Dig this, turns out what happened was the Parrish owed Erick some money and wasn't quick enough in paying him back and I guess there must have been some heat between the two because Erick Sermon jumped a few steps in the negotiating process and hired some thugs to go over to P's house and take back that cash and rough him up if he tries anything funny. 

See, what makes it simple despite the gunplay is that I just found out about it NOW, well the other day but basically NOW.

 If that happened today rap fans would hear about it literally as it was happening because Parrish would probably be on Twitter saying he can see some dudes outside his window wearing bandit masks. 

It's a brave new world out there kiddos. Let's not forget back to the days of Source Magazine's and their spotty reporting of news and history. I picked up every issue of The Source and never ever heard about E sending his own personal Hit Squad over to P's house. The Source was basically the only source at the time.(see, that's how they got their name). There where a couple of other magazines like Murder Dog and 4080 but their distribution network didn't seem to cover my 7-11. 

How come I never heard this? It's wild. Maybe they (the hip-hop press) were thinking that they'd cover up a salacious story like papers used to do for Hollywood celebs back in the 40's. I wonder if that was the case? Hip Hop was fairly controversial and a story like this would make rap look pretty goofy. I doubt that was the case though. Maybe it was that Russel Simmons who owned EPMD's contracts squashed the story. Maybe it was that the story was out there and I just never heard it. That's entirely possible and most likely. 

I guess in the end it was Business Never Personal like the album says because EPMD is Back In Business and touring the hip hop nostalgia circuit as we speak. Maybe time really does heals all wounds or maybe money makes the world go round and they needed their world's to start spinning again. Who knows or cares? We should maybe just be happy that they've squashed the beef. That's what really matters. I guess. 

Firefly came out in 1984, That's the same year as Roadblock and Spirit as well as some top flight Cobra Officers like The Baroness and Zartan. That's a pretty good vintage and the third year of production for the A Real American Hero line. 

I had Firefly back in the day. I got him down at the Ben Franklin near my house that's now the gym that I used to go to for awhile. 

Ben Franklin's was ok. They were pretty overpriced but they sold some dicey items like these Pea Shooters, which were really just big straws that came along with little bags of peas.  I remember when that was the hot item at the school for awhile and dudes where shooting peas all over the playground. The teachers flipped out, imagining a class picture full of kids with eye patches I'm sure. The Pea Shooters where quickly banned and confiscated. 

I don't know why I remember this but when I bought Firefly there he was like five bucks which was nuts because Joe's always cost 2.97 at Toys R Us. I totally wanted him though and came through with the extra cash however unwillingly. 

Firefly was cool because he had this real mysterious element to him. His filecard listed his identity as: UNKNOWN and the rest of the data read the same. The only facts that were known were the only ones that mattered. The fact that he was a bad ass saboteur who had a trail of bodies a mile long and a rep for knowing the best place to put the C4 to topple a building

I don't know about that part where he "makes no guarantees and gives no refunds".  That's a pretty dubious. He must come through more often than not or he wouldn't get any return business. Still though, I don't know if that's a policy that I'd want to have put on my filecard. Maybe that's what makes Firefly cooler than me. He doesn't give a FLIP! Hire him, don't hire him, whatever. It's all the same to Firefly. Maybe he'll blow up the dam. Maybe he won't. Firefly get's paid the same anyway. Holla. 

I never had any Robo Force toys when I was growing up. That's ok. I don't remember them being very popular or that awesome really. I mean, they are cool in a boxy robot sort of way but they aren't great in the sense that they have a lot of continued play value. 

They weren't the right size or demeanor to play with your GI Joes or other military style figures. They just looked too silly to hang out with tough guys like Shipwreck or  Gung Ho. 

What sparked my interest in Robo Force was that I was poking around on EBAY and came across an auction for the entire run of Robo Force toys including their giant Fortress Of Steel play set for like fifteen dollars, plus shipping. When I logged on the auction only had a couple of minutes left and nobody had even placed a bid so I figured "Why not?" and put in my opening bid. I ended up winning the box full of Robo Force toys for a mere fifteen dollars. Pretty cool right? Well it kind of was and it kind of wasn't. Let me take the next paragraph or two to explain it to you...

So I bought the stuff and got the package early the next week. Everything was as advertised and I was totally stoked to have a complete collection of an action figure line that I didn't particularly like in the first place.

  Really though, it was pretty cool until I started getting emails from the seller, angry emails. It seemed that in his opinion I hadn't gotten around to writing him positive feedback in a timely enough fashion. I'm cool with writing feedback but it's one of those things that I do whenever I get around to it. It's not that I don't appreciate a good deal it's just that I show my appreciation by paying for the item as quickly as I possibly can. I think that's what a good customer does and that feedback is a bonus not a requirement. 

As it turns out the vendor had taken a hit on the shipping and he was very unhappy that  he had to do it so therefore it was my responsibility to write him feedback that said I appreciated what he'd done for me, shipped the item for the price we agreed on.

 Over time the emails got angrier and angrier. Sure, I could have just gone and done what he'd asked but come on, at this point was it a positive experience? Hardly. 

He kept on emailing though and eventually added a note on my account that said that I never paid for the item and never got back to any of his repeated notes. I think that was one of the only ways that a seller could add negative feedback to a buyer. Claim that he never paid. I was annoyed and whatever but it was big deal in the long run because I had the Robo Force and all he had was anger and as we know Anger Kills! and Robo Force only brings joy. I win. 

Here's a little background on Robo Force if you are interested. Robo Force was produced in by The Ideal Toy Corporation in 1983. I've heard some mixed reports on the date and Wikipedia lists them as coming out during "the mid 80's" which isn't very specific. 1983 was the year that I saw the most during my research so I am going to go with that as fact but really, who knows? 

All of the robots in the Robo Force line had a suction cup base and arms that were similar to the joints on bendy straws. The arms were sold as having "Crusher Arm Action" because if you pushed a little button on the back the arms would come together in a bear hug like motion. Not the greatest thing in the world but still cool enough to keep a kid busy I'd imagine.

 I think that the Robo Force idea was just a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The competition for space on the toy racks during the 80's was bananas. The shops were just overflowing with interesting and soon to be historic action figure lines like GI Joe and The Transformers, He Man and The Masters of The Universe and the rest (Gobots etc). It was a tough time to be a toy, if you wanted to get noticed. 

Here is an interesting side note about Robo Force's home company, The Ideal Toy Corporation. Ideal was founded in 1903 by Morris Michtom after he invented the Teddy Bear. Talk about having your biggest idea first...

Happy St. Patrick's Day all you phony Irish Mother Truckers, From the I See Robots Foundation. Go out and have a Shamrock Shake. Treat yourself. 

 I still love the flavor but don't really like the new presentation of the shake. It comes in a plastic cup with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Blech!

Anyway, maybe you can ask them to put it in a soda cup for you instead. I don't see why they wouldn't. It'd seem a little more authentic that way. 

I think that Shamrock Shakes are my favorite Irish tradition. Either that or listening to the House Of Pain. I sill really like their first and second record. They really fell of a cliff once DJ Muggs stopped producing them.

That's just my opinion though. You might feel differently and that's ok. Disagreeing is what the spirit of Shamrock shakes is all about. Disagreeing and fighting it and then hugging about it afterwords over a delicious Shamrock Shake.  Listen to your Uncle O'Grimacey kids!

Whenever I see a Paperboy machine I have to play. I don't know why, seeing as how I am totally terrible at it. I hardly ever make it past Tuesday and have never made it for a full week. I think it's the controls. I have a hard time controlling the bike, I teeter back and forth and look like I'm fixing to go ass over teakettle at any second. It's just impossible for me to avoid hazards and deliver the papers at the same time. 

I have my theories that the control is meant to veer around to keep the quarters rolling in but that can't be the case. I mean if everyone had as hard a time as I do then who would bother to play? Masochists? Losers? Weirdos? Who knows.. 

Basically the idea of Paperboy is that you are a new hire paper delivery boy assigned to a lethally dangerous block of customers. The game comes with a handlebar style controller that you use to steer your boy around the various deathtraps that line the street. The idea is that you try and deliver the papers to the customers while at the same time you use your papers to destroy non customers property. 

There are also numerous obstacles in your path that attempt to stop you from your appointed deliveries. Amongst them are a couple of hooligans brawling in their driveway and a gang of kids on big wheels that try and get in your path. It's a hard life out there for a Paperboy at least for a video game one. I think in real life that paperboys are probably borderline homeless guys who smoke their way through the morning shift before sleeping away the rest of the day in their office (car). 

 I think that it was the handlebar controller that was the key to the games success. There were a number of other games that had a realistic style controller, usually a steering wheel but Paperboy was unique because it had a control that every kid could relate to. The handlebar. It was almost like seeing the handlebar would make you feel like you had a chance to be an ace at Paperboy right from the jump. I mean, I can ride a bike right? I have to be good at this game. It's probably a safe place to put my last token. 

If that's what you thought you'd be totally mistaken. For whatever reason and I totally don't know why this was the case the controller drifted your delivery boy all over the street no matter how hard you tried to keep his course true. What was the key to the game's coolness was also it's biggest drawback. Now, this could just be that the one at my Aladdin's Castle had a wonkey set of handlebars but it seemed to be the case on other Paperboy cabinets that I played on.  I still liked it though. The difficulty made the game more alluring to me. I just had to make it through the week, or die trying. That's what I always did, died.

I have always had a love affair with the R.A.M. What I liked about it was that it was sort of like a real life day to day motorcycle but it has, you know a Gatling cannon in place of a sidecar. That sort of detached connection to reality was what attracted me to the Joes as a kid. 

The early figures were almost like real soldiers. They served in Nam'. They had M16s and the bad guys carried AK47s just like in real life. I dug that. Of course they had jet packs and lasers and other cool things that the army was trying like crazy to invent and implement on the battlefield but hadn't yet. That's dope. It's real but also a little unreal and sci-fi like but not as sci-fi like as the line would get in the future. What's the term for this? Grounded in reality? I think that's it. I like my soldiers to be grounded in reality but also a bit cooler, like GI Joe or Rambo. You get the deal. 

The R.A.M which stood for The Rapid Fire Motorcycle (does fire start with an "A"? Not that I know of but whatever. That's the army for you.) Anyway, the R.A.M was released in 1982 and is considered one of the first wave of Joes. 

According to the vehicle specs a R.A.M weighs 390 lbs and the cannon when fully loaded weighs in at a whopping 980 lbs. The bike can get up to 95 miles per hour and has a max range of 450 miles. That's pretty good while carrying a close to thousand pound machine gun as your sidecar. 

On the original packaging communications officer Breaker is seen riding the bike but there are a couple of fairly famous scenes (for GI Joe Comic readers anyway) with Machine Gunner Rock And Roll riding the RAM to glory of Cobra so I liked to pair the two up together when I was having some battles in the yard. It was like childhood kismet or something. 

The RAM is fairly easy to find on the secondary market. I'm pretty sure that you could find one unboxed on EBAY for maybe 10-15 bucks. There are two little saddlebags that attach to the side that get lost pretty easily so if you are looking to get one for yourself make sure to check and see if they are attached. The one that I have only has one of the two bags. That's why I took the snap from the side that I did. The other side is accessory-less and saddened by it's loss. I just went over to Google and looked up the price of the saddlebag. Are you ready for this? I found more than one of them listed for a dollar. I'm not a big spender when it comes to toys really but if I can tighten up this R.A.M for the cost of a Pocahontas coin, oops, I mean Sacajawea dollar I'm inclined to do it. Huh, looks like you can pick up the cannon for only 2.99. That's not bad either. It might be just as easy to put one together from parts as it is to buy a complete one. 

This commercial is pretty cool. If you hang around to about the 18 sec mark you get to see The R.A.M in action. It's pretty dope and worth the wait. Communication Officer Breaker gets a moment in the sun and smashes the crap out of a Cobra laser emplacement. Good stuff. 

This pic of the Junkyard Dog makes me a little bit uncomfortable considering how much he looks like an extra from the set of Django Unchained (awesome movie BTW). Seriously though try and tell me the The Dog doesn't look like a runaway slave or something with the chains around his neck and the whole bit. Also if you look closely at his face he looks terrified like he might get caught at any moment..

  Was that his gimmick? I don't think so. I think that he just had the chains wrapped around his neck because he was a dog. Is that any better? Maybe a little but not really. I mean I'd rather be a dog than a slave but in a lot of ways they are the same thing. Not exactly because dogs get treated a lot better than a slave ever did but dogs are still slaves to their owners whims and whatever. Don't get me wrong. I know being a slave is worse. It's the worst thing imaginable. Losing your freedom for a life of abuse. I'm just saying though. 

When I was younger I liked the dog even though he was a supremely terrible worker. I think even the young have a good idea of who is good and who isn't. 

 For example I was way into The Dynamite Kid from the first time I ever saw him and no one had to tell me that he was the best dude in the WWF by miles I could just tell by the snap suplexes he was tossing fools around with that dude was serious as cancer and wanted to eat you for lunch. The dog though wasn't in Dynamites league but he had more charisma than both the British Bulldogs put together and multiplied by two. 

He had a rad name too. THE JYD! When you add in that fools were gassed on Junkyard dogs because of that Jim Croce song that mentioned not messing around with them and how they were mean and whatever. I wonder if anyone even thought about junkyard dogs before Jim Croce wrote Bad Bad Leroy Brown? Maybe, I doubt that he was the inventor of the term or anything but I bet that his hit song helped to push the phrase into the mainstream. I might be wrong and if my track record of being wrong is to be counted on I prolly am but why go on the internet if you don't want to read articles based on baseless facts?

Abdullah has never appealed to me as a worker. I don't go for the blood for the sake of blood thing and that is all Abdullah was, or is. I think he still works or has worked recently overseas or was booked to and then didn't or something of that sort. Who knows? Ya, the blood is kind of cool for a minute but it has to be a part of something not the whole entirety of the match. Ya dig? What I mean to say is that the blood has to be the catsup on the wiener. The catsup can't be your meal.  

Man At Arms was another sidekick that I tool a liking to. You know, I liked the figure and his cool orange armor but never really took that strong of a liking to the actual character that he played on the cartoon. For lack of a better word dude was a total dork. For that matter all the characters on He-Man were dorks. Big pumped up muscle headed goobers. 

They were like the WWF roster of the time jacked up goobs lead by a big blonde roid head who dorked around in little tights. (He-Man/Hulk Hogan) 

Looking back I don't really know why I was so enraptured by The Masters Of The Universe. It was a pretty tame/lame show and the toys were OK but they basically all had the same body with different heads and accessories. I am going to chalk it up to the stupidity of youth. No, I wasn't stupid. That's too harsh. Naive? Maybe that's better word. The naivete of youth lead me to enjoy MOTU. 

Back to Man At Arms though, I liked the figure and I liked that he was a full time warrior unlike He-Man who was Prince Adam for the most part. He was way cooler to me because he had armor and a dope orange mace and didn't prance around in furry underwear like He-Man did. That's a questionable move even on your best day.

Another thing that I didn't like was that on the cartoon they called him Duncan and that he had a mustache. That's just weird. I think that his figure makes him look a little bit pig faced but I don't know if a mustache is the proper thing to fix that problem. As an adult I now realize that mustaches are cool and manly but at the time I thought that they were weird and creepy. I think that most kids feel that way and that our opinions only change as a way to deal with the grown up horror of having to shave everyday. 

Here are a couple more Remco AWA dudes. One that you've seen here before and one that's not so much new as new to here. On the left is Paul Ellering and next to him is Road Warrior Hawk. I have Animal as well but he got cropped out of this shot. He was out of focus. 

The Remco figures are neat because they came with a decent amount of accessories. Paul Ellering has a sweat shirt and Hawk came with pants, a spiked dog collar and an AWA tag team belt. Some of the other figures have cloth boots and other cool stuff. Wrestling figures of the time barely had joints that moved, accessories were above and beyond what you could expect. 

 I love belts. I have a little collection of toy wrestling belts and have this unofficial goal of getting one of all the available titles from the AWA, WWF and the NWA-WCW. At least the main belts and maybe the tag team or U.S/Intercontinental level belts. 

The thing is that I don't really want to buy a figure just to get a belt and I don't really want any of the modern wrestling figures even though they are pretty cool. Mostly I come across one here and there at fleas or garage sales. They usually cost anywhere from a quarter to a dollar. 

Here is a pic of Animal. I just got him the other day. He only cost .50 but he didn't have any of his accouterments and his head was cracked on the side. I fixed that with a small spot of super glue. It took pretty well and after I color matched the area with a little bit of pencil shading it looks pretty good. I shot the snap from his good side. If I would have thought ahead that I might be writing about it I would have taken a shot. Well, you live and learn.

Hey everybody. I took this pic the other day and kind of like how it came out. To me it looks like Road Warrior Hawk is wistfully staring out the window at passing cars. 

This Hawk is from the Remco Toys AWA Wrestling line and is one of my fave all time sets. I only had a couple of them coming up but I wanted more of them so bad. 

They are on a similar scale to a He-Man figure size wise if you haven't come across any of them which is possible because they seem fairly obscure during my flea market travels. I've bought maybe ten of them and that covers a lot of trips to the flea. 

For those not in the know Deities and Demigods was the Dungeons and Dragons manual that dealt with the gods of various cultures. It was a cool reference guide and impossible for me to put down after I scored my first copy. This has nothing to do with anything really. I wonder what you call it when you start off writing something that has very little to do with the topic at hand. I think that they call it bad writing but I digress. Ignore this part and start with the next paragraph. Pretend that it's the beginning. 

Clash Of The Titans came out in 1981 so I was like eight when I first saw it and thought that it was the coolest movie of all the times. It had both Greek myths and monsters and literally was about Deities and Demigods even if I hadn't scored on the book yet.

Like most good movies of the time Clash came up with an action figure line. I don't know if they were obscure or hard to find but I don't recall seeing them on the shelves for all that long and Perseus was the only one that I ever owned even though his pal Thallo was the one that I really wanted. 

I've always had a thing for secondary characters. Maybe it means that I view myself as secondary or maybe it means that I think that the main characters hog the screen and are too full of themselves. Who knows or cares? What is important is that I never got Thallo or any of the other dudes, ever. 

Speaking of Thallo I was totally bummed when he got backstabbed by Calibos. It still eats me up today that he had to die and Harry Hamlin got to live. How fair is that? I understand that it was a way for Calibos to get some heel heat and that it sets up a battle between him and Perseus but still it hurt my childhood heart to see him get smoked. 

Besides Thallo and Perseus Mattel also made a Calibos figure the evil monster looking dude with the horns and the whip, as well as Charon, the skeleton dude that took them to hell via boat. 

The most impressive toy in the line had to be The Kraken! The evil monster from the deep that Zeus sicks on Perseus and his winged steed. 

The Kraken was the largest of all the Clash toys released (duh) He had to be though right? What fun would it be to have a 3 3/4 inch Kraken? Well, a little fun but not as much fun as having a big one. 

I guess the Kraken fun ratio is based on size. That makes sense when you think about it. I mean when Neptune created him he must have know what he was doing. Dude was a god right? And they never make mistakes... 

There was also a playset that came with Perseus and his trusty Pegasus. The Pegasus looks cool but is basically an immovable piece of plastic with no points of articulation. I only know this by doing a little digging because nobody in my neighborhood ever had any Clash toys including Perseus' flying horse. 

Does that mean that there just weren't a lot of them sold or that I lived in a hood that just wasn't buying into the whole Greek Myth deal? Once again, who knows? I think it was probably a little of both. I imagine that kids had a hard time getting behind an action hero that was wearing a skirt. This was years before Braveheart and the whole male dandy phenomenon so in some ways even though it was an ancient tale Clash was a little bit ahead of it's time.

The Clash toys weren't great. They only moved at the shoulder, hip and head and the detail of them wasn't all that great but if you look at the pic of Perseus that I took in my backyard up top I think you can plainly tell that it is Harry Hamlin. Look at his pensive stare. If that's not Hamlin then who could it be? No one, that's who.

I picked up T-Bob at the Time Tunnel Toy show in San Jose. I think he cost 3.00. I like him as a figure but really disliked him as a character on the M.A.S.K cartoon. He was like the robot sidekick of the annoying kid Scott Trakker who was the son of M.A.S.K leader Matt Tracker. 

According to Wikipedia T-Bob is short for Thing-a-ma-bob. That makes sense even if my spelling of the word doesn't. 

T-Bob was a first series M.A.S.K figure. He only came on a card. !s that right? I seem to remember him coming as part of a set but all the evidence I can dig up says that he came on a card with a Scott Tracker figure. They have photo evidence and I only have hazy memories so I'm going to believe the internet, this time. 

Look at Scott Tracker though. Dude even looks like a mark when he's molded out of plastic. 

I always looking forward to new Minimates though I do sometimes wonder about the futility of collecting toys that are still being produced. It's cool because you get to look ahead and get a little anticipation for a future purchase but at the same time you are never going to be done collecting them because there are always more of them coming soon to a toy store near you. 

I guess I shouldn't complain. Minimates are cool. Cool things make the world a cooler place and that's pretty good right?

I like this set though. I'm into the black Nick Fury, that's not the movie one right? That's the new marvel Universe character, Nick Fury Jr, the black guy! Serious, that's who it is. Anyway, I also like the Maria Hill and the Shield Trooper. You know, Shanna The She Devil is pretty dope too and so is Nova. I think we have a winner with this series. Good job guys.