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Ok. So you want a little of the geek action.
Here we go then. First we're gonna' talk about toys, the internet, and instant
gratification. Toys! Toys are good. Say it with me
boys & girls. "Toys are good!" Doesn't matter what sort of toys
you're into. Action figs, water guns, die cast cars, leather whips, things that
vibrate, whatever. Toys are good. I'm 24. I'm a professional geek. {Insert store
link here} I like toys. I have more toys than you. Hell, I've invented my own
toys. (There’s a million and one things you can do with a paper towel tube and
a 20-sided dice, trust me) Anyways, I know what I'm talking about when I say
toys are cool. They are. Feel free to rant at me if you feel differently, but
I'm pretty damned stubborn. And this is a great time to be into toys. Check out
some of the great stuff that's coming out right now. Mcfarlanes
3d Animation From Japan. (Actually just check out all of the Mcfarlane
stuff. The sculpting on them is incredible, but the articulation sucks. I've got
a rant being prepared on that subject.)
Check out the Star Wars
Lego’s! They're STAR WARS LEGOS FOR GODS SAKE!! How cool is that! And while we're
on the subject we might as well look at the new Star
Wars figs themselves The current batch of 3 3/4" figs are wonderful. And
they're releasing tons of characters-even Jek
Porkins! (The 12inch figs aren't quite up to par with the other 1/6th scale
offerings out there, but that just gives us something to bitch about right?) One group of
1/6 scale (that's 12 inch tall figs to you novices out there) toys that do rock are the
offerings from Dragon Models
Limited.
Their military themed figures are by far the best on the market.
I'll be honest and say that out of most of the toys out there I'm mainly into collecting
these 12-inch bad boys at the moment. And yes, I did just say 12-inch bad boys, and no,
I'm not gay. And there's not a single type of toy on the market that’s seen more
improvement in the past two years than the 12-inch figs. New offerings from new companies
such as 21st Century Toys, Blue Box Toys, and Intoyz have really made some sweet toys available
to us. And there are more of them every damn day.
So here's some random toy links. Be warned though, some
may be offensive to the eyes.
-Lego Sex
-Aliens Colonial Marines
-Life Size Love Dolls
-Toy News
-Jay & Silent Bob
-Spinal Tap
-The Simpsons
-Any damn toy you want
Anyways, enough about toys. On to the next subject: The
Internet. And actually the Instant Gratification part is going to mix in with it. Like
toys, the net is also a good thing. And let's face it, when it comes down to it the net is
simply a big giant toy. I know, I know, there's all sorts of research one can do, and
business, and learning. But c'mon, when it comes down to it we're all going to eventually
play some games or look up some porn. And the net is great for this. Absolutely
wonderful
And it's also great for toy geeks. You will never, EVER be able to check out all of the
toy sites. There’s too many of them. Manufacturers sites, wholesalers sites,
retailers sites, auction sites, price guide sites, customizer sites, collector sites, fan
sites, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on forever. A search on Google for toys brings up about 5,740,000
hits. (A search for "toys, -sex" brings up 2,200,000 hits. Hmm.) That's a lot of
toy sites. More sites than you or I could ever search my fine geek friends. And I think
that's great. I can always have something to check out. Always. And if I want to buy some
stores there are thousands of places to choose from. If I want to find something, I can.
It's instant fucking gratification in it's simplest form. I want that toy. I can buy that
toy. And it will be on my doorstep in 7 to 10 days. How cool is that? And let's not forget
Ebay. Ebay is perhaps the greatest toy store ever
invented. If you want a toy, odds are you will eventually find it on Ebay. It's a
guarantee. It's incredible.
But at the same time I think that something is lost. I remember
doing the searches in my local toy stores and being excited by stuff I've never seen
before. That doesn't happen any more. With the net it is now possible to see stuff months
before it is ever released. You lose that sense of joy at finding a brand spanking new
toy. Sure, you still get to play with it. (And you should play with your toys. That’s
what they're for. Not keeping in the package in the hopes that it'll send you to the
Caribbean.) But when you've seen the pre-production samples for 2 months and you finally
see what hits the market it's never as good as you'd hoped. Because you've built it up in
your mind as being the coolest damn toy ever. but it's not.
You have to take the good with the bad. But Wait!! No, You Don't. If you don't
like that toy you can ebay it off. Or look up a site for customizing it
yourself. Or you can take it out and mangle the fuck out of it with a B.B . gun
or a bottle of acid. It's still fun. And that's what toys are all about when it
comes right down to it.
Side Rants. Woo.
As I was writing the above I started tp wonder about toys and
our culture. There are more adults into the kid stuff now than ever before. And I'm not
talking about just toys either, look at the sales of video games, and model kits, and
comic books, and sports cards. Stuff that is usually considered to be kids stuff by most
folks are being bought up by adults of all ages. Many of the toys that come out on the
market aren't even being aimed at kids anymore. Being a big giant toy geek I think
that's pretty cool. But I started wondering if it meant we were losing some level of
maturity as a society. I know lots of folks that bitch about not being able to buy new
clothing for their kids, but they've got a brand new DVD player and a shiny new
monster-truck looking thing in their driveway. Is that mature? What is?
ROBOTIC DOGS OF DOOM!!!
And there's another strange trend I think we're
going to see much more of-robotic toys. Sony's Aibo is
just a hint of some of the wundertoys that are going to start appearing in the years to
come. Semi-robotic toys have been around for years, be we now are starting to have the
ability to truly make these toys have some life. There's a company working on a baby toys
that will not only learn as your child learns, but actually grow as well. It's scary. And
then we have Chew-Chew.
This is scary. Chew-Chew the Gastrobot. The first meat-eating robot. You know, it'd be
pretty ironic if we were hunted to extinction by meat-eating robots of our own creation.
