Category: Miscellany

Box o’ Random Part 5

And here we have the things I like, but have no idea what they are! Tried asking on MFC and Reddit, but no-one, as of writing, have identified what they are

First up, a pile of cute:

Copyright on this figure is listed as “GOE”. 

Nex is a fox-inna-bowl, with some food on his head:

No copyright or anything on this one, so I assume it’s a random mass-produced item. He’s now dangling off one of my keyring & charm bars. 

A badge of a girl:

No copyright on this one either, but being a pin-badge, it could quite well be something fan-made. Not sure I can go wearing this one in public though… 

Box o’ Random Part 3

aHere’s more of the small items from the Mandarake box o’ random. First up, a couple of items from Kamen Rider. The first is a bottle cap & stamp figure, that was included in its box, and the second is Kamen Rider v3, who came with… ¾ of his box… 

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The rubber part on the bottom has a pattern you could potentially use for stamping on things, but I don’t think I’ll bother :P. 

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This little dude, the cardboard bits came as part of a TCG-type card, and you can pop them out and combine them in a couple of different ways. You can either use the to decorate the figure like this, or make a cardboard dragonfly. I was originally going to throw the box out, as there’s two round-ish holes ripped into it (… mouse ate it?) but it has the instructions on (fortunately the holes weren’t in any necessary instructions), so it’ll get filed away. 

Next up, a Banpresto random-box figures of various maids. This one is a eCafe maid:

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When I first got her out of the box, she was leaning at like a 60 degree angle… had to warm her legs up and straighten her. Also I damaged the sticker on the base, as it went in the sink with the rest of the stuff, as I didn’t realise it was a sticker. Kinda tempted to scrub the sticker off, as I think it makes the base look ugly though. 

This next dude is apparently called Moguro Fukuzou. Apparently he’s a salesman from a manga, where he “helps” people with their desires, but instead ruins their lives. Apparently he’s well-known enough, he has his own TV Tropes page:

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Sadly the sucker he comes with doesn’t work very well. I may just take it off, and have him just pointing, with his comically oversized finger. 

And one last thing with a sucker:

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A cat. Not much to say about this one. Has a couple of marks, probably because it really easily falls off stuff. Well-detailed and painted though, more so than thee things usually are. Bit of a pain to get stuck on anything, but it will do, with some perseverance. 

Star Wars Vehicles

And here’s something random and left-of-field for me: some Star Wars vehicles. Whilst I’m not big into Star Wars, I do find some of the vehicle and character designs really neat. Went in the Cash Converters to look at the random crap, and let my husband roam the electricals section. 

They had a huge bunch of these De Agostini Star Wars vehicles, and set myself a limit of picking my two favourite. Which turned into 3 😛

First up was a no-brainer for me, as I have a thing for Grievous:

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A cool vehicle to match up with a cool character design :). The details in these small models is impressive. 

Next up, something that caught my eye with its unique outline and clear display of weaponry:

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I’ve placed the backdrops behind these, as it does help reflect the light and show them up more, on the shelves they live on. 

And a ship style I’m a sucker for… long, thin and pointy:

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And here’s a shot showing the top (and what it is :P):

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They did come with a plastic tub you can leave on top of them but I find it obscures them too much. The magazines did come with them too, but haven’t got around to reading them, as of the time I’m writing this blog. However, I did have a flick through, and there’s diagrams of the vehicles, which is neat. Probably a bunch of interesting things in the words too, when I get around to reading them. And not sleeping off the cold/flu thing I had recently 🙁

Saber, Catwoman & Cube

Un-hiatusing my blog! First off, we have Saber and Catwoman:

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Saber I bought from an MFC user, and collected on a trip down to London, Catwoman was purchased from Forbidden Planet…. also in London. 

Here are some closeups of Saber:

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A simple, yet attractive figure. Happy with this one, though she does like to drop her sword now and then.

Onto Catwoman:

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Love the detailing and paint job on this figure… but… she has no stand holes! Which makes her more than a little annoying to pose, and you can’t really pose her dynamically, without her falling over. After she fell over a couple of times, I resorted to putting a glue dot under her foot, which has fixed the problem, at least for now. One other minor disappointment is you really want to put the side whip in the hole provided, otherwise she has a weird dent on her side. Would’ve been nice to have something else to go there, whilst she’s holding her whip. 

And for the Bonus Item:

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… redstone cube! This was sold as “Broken: light not working”, so I got it for £4. One strategic disassembly later, my husband saw it and kindly soldered the switch back to the board. It has a switch that dangles midair in the cube, which is formed of two cylinders. When the cube is hit, the switch is triggered. To make it sensitive enough, it has two long, thin legs, and this had snapped. One solder job later and it was fully working :). 

It has three levels of brightness, which it cycles through when you hit it:

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As it is aimed at kids, it also turns off after 5 minutes, which is minorly disappointing, but ah well, I won’t be flattening the battery any time soon. Gets pretty bright too, which is nice. Currently sits in random parts of the house, wherever I feel the need for more redstone 😛

Frome Comic Con

Went to the mini-con in Frome. Bought two items – one from the con, one not.

From the con:

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This is supposed to be used as a bookmark, but knowing me, I’d break it if I used it like that, so bought it to add as a dangler on my study shelves. I used a small needle to thread the thread through the holes, In this shot, you can see a bit of the thread that passes behind it – I did it like this, so that I can ensure that Sonic is straight when I hung him. If he’s not, I can adjust the thread to fix it. 

A slightly further away shot (you can see a bit of the pole with my other dangling items on it): 

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Thinking of adding another “dangly stuff” rod to this shelf, like the one on the left. If I do this, I’ll more than likely move Sonic to dangle off that instead. That way I can slide him to wherever I want, without having to re-tape him. 

And the second thing… novelty warning…

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SOLAR NODDING TOILET MONKEY! Every house needs one of these!

Side view:

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Unfortunately, if it gets too much sun, he’ll faceplant in his newspaper with a little “tick” noise. Bought this for £2 in Pink Planet. 

And that’s it for “stuff”. I have two pictures I bought, will upload those to the blog when I’ve had them framed (probably not any time soon). 

Global Collectables

On Saturday, I went and visited Global Collectables. Ended up buying three things – one figure I was planning to buy if they happened to have it, a complete wildcard and something I’ve half had my eye on. 

First up, the figure I was planning on buying at some point – Spacesuit Harley. 

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A fun li’l figure. She also came with a piece of pizza… that smelled like pizza! Was wondering what the “food smell” was, and it’s this thing. Not sure what possessed the designer to give it a smell, but… there you go. Kinda wish it didn’t have a scent:

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Next up, the figure I didn’t expect. Al Azif by BEAT. There are two versions of this figure – the “original” figure that has held its value and a “crystal” version that hasn’t. This is the original version:

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Looking up the two, working out if I’d accidentally wasted some money, I found the difference – the “crystal” version is shiny, and has transparent hair… and looks awful in the photos I saw of it. Glad I didn’t end up with the crystal ver. 

And the third thing – chestburster chopsticks. I have the facehugger ones, but the facehuggers do occasionally fight each other when you’re using them. Thinking these might be easier-to-use novelty chopsticks… and it’ll give me another pair to use if I have two chopstick meals within a couple of days of each other:

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Closeup of the end:

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And that was my haul for the Saturday :).