Got to be birds flying higher

I love Toy Galaxy because host Dan Larson and producer Greg MP delve into half-forgotten toys and gimmicks and dig up a surprising amount of history. This recent video is all about a Chex cereal premium based up on Doom--no kidding! I had no idea this game would be so popular or so well-produced for 1996. I played many a crappy game back in the day, so it's awesome that the fan nostalgia is strong for Chex Quest.

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Geez, take a week off from Facebook and this ad popped up. Man, I could be so rich if I only knew the right person to pitch a pooping, talking, dancing flamingo to!

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Not sure what to think or say, so I'll just leave a screengrab here :-) Apparently the new cartoon is called Pony Life.

I understand that things needs to be kept fresh in the toy world and if you stop moving, the toy line dies...but...this feels like a remake no one asked for!

Something neat I found at the antique mall, but didn't buy. She was $10 as is and there's actually a big spot of pony cancer on the leg I'm holding. Apparently pony cancer can spread, so I really didn't want her around, sadly. To be honest, I thought she was a fakie, but she's actually called Princess Royal Purple and from year 9. The eyebrows were badly mashed and fuzzed up, so much so that again I thought it was something someone had glued on for fun. Too bad! According to the MLP Collector group on FB, she may have been a little overpriced for the condition. Click for larger!

The Christmas drawing will be late this year...thank goodness for photographs :-D Have a lovely holiday and thanks for being a part of my year peeps.

[Error: unknown template qotd]I wish She-Ra would come back. There are some new toys from Matty Collector, but they just don't seem to capture the spirit of the cartoon very well - instead of being strong and feminine, She-Ra looks kind of strong and hulking and more like she would gut you than help you! Female action figures have historically suffered from poor sculpts sadly!

Anyway...I think the reason that She-Ra hasn't made a comeback is the same reason that Wonder Woman can't get her own movie - she's too much of a feminist character to package in a bunch of tropes. For all the complaints about Filmation cartoons, they really got a lot right with the pro-social messaging in She-Ra, such as that physical strength and compassion don't have to be mutually exclusive.

The Crayola "light up drawing pad" arrived on Wednesday and I was so thrilled. Can't beat the free shipping when it's that fast, plus instead of being pink, it's more on the purple side of pink. True to the description, it's lightweight, portable and usable in a brightly lit room.

I like that it has raised edges and fits an 8.5x11" piece of paper almost exactly. Definitely a plus for kids or adults. It came with a package of pencil crayons, a pencil, blank paper and some tracing templates for the horse and girl fashion show. The paper could be of better quality, especially the paper templates, but you can always download and print more from their website. The only small problem in an otherwise well designed product is that the battery cover is held on by two small screws, so a miniature screwdriver is needed instead of a full size one.

I couldn't help myself and tried out the horse fashion show :-D

The "C" part I was missing from making something in Rhino was...necessity. In my class, we dutifully made (or, struggled to make, heh) containers, tori, cups, jewellery, pipes, etc. I don't have a need for any of those things, and I recently found my WIIFM (What's in it for me) in a big way. I was making some spiral drawings for a future artist trading card night with the Klutz Spiral Draw book. It comes with four wheels and it seemed like four wheels was just not enough. Why weren't there circles, an arrow, a keyhole, just like...wait a minute, oh poo!

( If only... )

Anyway, thank goodness the future is here because I can make my own wheels for the toy, which I am going to figure out how to send out to Ponoko today (a local laser cutter didn't have the right material). It looks great, but let me tell you, it took a long time to get to great :-D

The genius of The Lego Movie is that you're paying to see a two hour long commercial (with property placement) but the name of the actual product is never mentioned until the very end. Yet at the same time, it’s a ridiculously fun and funny movie, kind of like The Minifig Matrix.

Emmet is a construction worker in a big city where literally everything is awesome until he falls down a hole and touches a strange artifact known as the Piece of Resistance. Neo Emmet is rescued by Trinity Wild Style and they escape the Matrix City in a pretty hair raising chase into The Old West. There they meet Morpheus Vitruvius, where Emmet finds out that he's the One Special/Master Builder who has to battle the nefarious President Business. There are more Matrix references too :D

The plot is pretty thin, and the message about finding what's special about you is a little inconsistent, but the jokes and action make up for it. The CGI is fantastic, with the plastic pieces made to look scuffed, which keeps everything from looking too plastic. I would not be surprised if the producers were inspired by Life in the Dream House, as they take the same approach to toy collector jokes - like Benny, the 1980s space guy with the broken helmet and Vitruvius's staff being an old lollipop. There is going to be a lot of freeze frame fun.

One of the interesting, and perhaps unintended, parts of the movie comes near the end when Wild Style tells Emmet that she wanted to be the Special. Wild Style is a pretty talented builder who gets cheated out of touching the artifact when Emmet startles her. If the message from Lego lately is that it's only for boys, this is terrible. But, by the end of the movie, the message becomes that everyone is a creator. During the plot twist, Emmet tells Wild Style that it's her turn to be the hero, at least.

The movie certainly had an effect on us and it was hard not to impulse buy a bucket of bricks afterwards from Toys R Us, which thankfully never happened.

Some time ago I stumbled across YouTuber Lucky Penny Shop...not sure how, but I'm always checking in to see what weird and wonderful things they're reviewing, which is mostly toys. Love their enthusiasm and demos, especially when they pull out older toys. Here's just one video from an oddball set of McDonald's toys made in 1993 used to condition young folks into accepting McJobs. All the toys seem rather weird in that they don't produce the actual product in any form - the French fry maker cuts bread up into strips, for example - but I guess someone deserves props for thinking up something like this. The burger maker is by far the strangest of the bunch - and watching it in action as the narrator makes a cereal, chocolate and peanut butter burger patty is oddly gross, fun and...unique!

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