So, what's new ?

Since the last post was almost a year ago (that long, damn!), there's been a lot of stuff lately. My girlfriend and I finally moved in a real house!

Real house means basement and basement means bigger Weirdy Room! That's right fols, I got a 10 * 14 room all to myself and my toys. I was able to fit my whole video games collection, as well as all the DVD, 2 arcade cabinets, and my vinyl toy collection too and still has space to move !

Here's a little preview:
(Left side of room)

(The huge closet)

(Right side room)


Pictures of the Wall-O-Qees and of the glass display will come in another post.

I am really proud of what I've done with the room. It took me a while to arrange stuff and clean up afterwards (in fact, I finished earlier this week).

Of course, this is always a work in progress as I get new stuff almost weekly, but you get the gist of it.

Still alive !

Yup, still alive ! Gonna try to put some life back into that blog, starting now ! Keep posted !

My unsatisfactory experience with KidRobot 14

As a semi-hardcore gamer, release dates are an important thing. When a game I want is coming out, you better know I'm getting it on release date.

But when it comes to designer toys and figures, it's something else.

A normal release game will get thousands of copy of the game available in America. Easy to find and to get. Now, let's compare to the wonderful world of designer figures... On a good day, a figure might get 1500 figures, let's say in 2 colorway. Consider yourself lucky if you get one as they would normally be sold out in 1 or 2 hours.

I was lucky to get a Tristan Eaton Dunny when they released in January. They went out fast.

Now enter the realm of Huck Gee, a guy I never heard off before I was interested in designer toys. The guy is a phenomenon by himself. In January, he released a really nice set of 10 munny on eBay, as he only sell on eBay. He sold the 10 figures in a record of 17 seconds. The thing here is that each figures were 650$ ! And no, it's not a typo, it's six hundred and fifty bucks ! Each !

So, as Kidrobot released their Kidrobot 14, named Kidninja, designed by Huck Gee, you knew I would had to be really quick to get one, even tho there was 2 colors, and 1000 of them each,

1. Kidrobot were sold out in 15 minutes. Could not get one.
2. Voltage Land in BC were not selling them online since they didn't get enough. Could not get one
3. Magic Pony in ON alsy put they stuff 1-2 days late. Wrote them an email asking about them. Next day, they are sold out on their website and I get a reply 3 days after. Could not get one.
4. I learn from the Toy's R Evil Blog that Huck Gee made 50 Blood Splatter Kidninja (25 of each color) and they were to be released on eBay on Friday, 12:00 PM PST. By the time I hit refresh at 3:00 PM on Friday, they were sold out. COULD NOT GET ONE !

I can't resolve myself to buy it on eBay from other sellers with a 60% or more markup. That's just wrong.

So unless I find it in a store in many years, I'm not getting this figure. Ever...

Because of this, I won't even bother to put a picture of the figure here.

Starting a new website !

I'm starting a new website for Canadian Vinyl Figure Collectors, since nothing like this seems to exist.

I'll talk more about it when I get something done. Giving you the URL while I just registered the domain name wouldn't be of much use for now...

Video Games Live !

I went to Montreal last weekend to see a show about video games music.

While it may sound weird and geeky, this is an amazing show, even for people that don't like video games that much. We're talking about an orchestra of around 20 musicians plus a choir of 6 men and 6 women. Mostly classical instruments were used, except an electric guitar near the end.

Imagine revisiting you childhood memories with such classic as Pong (yes Pong... somebody was just doing the bouncing sounds as the ball went on and on), Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, Pac Man... And that was just the beginning.

Of course there was also music from recent games and what a selection ! Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, World of Warcraft, Civilization IV, Kingdom Hearts, Beyond Good and Evil, etc.

The Metal Gear Solid part was one of the best as the music for the game has been known to be one of the best game music ever. And the orchestra captured the feel of it perfectly.

One nice surprise was Martin Leung, reknowned for his youtube video of him playing Mario Bros songs on the piano, while wearing a blindfold. He performed a medley of Final Fantasy songs as well as his trademark, Super Mario Bros, Level 1-1, blindfolded. He is an amazing musician with a lot of talent, that's for sure.

The show was created by Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall. I never really like Tommy when he was doing his show Reviews on the Run (that's when I first heard of him). Seemed a little too elitist to me. But the guy sure knows his music, as he's been a video game music composer for more than 15 years.

The show is coming back next year, make sure to get tickets this time !

jPOD or Spot the Vinyl Figure game

I've been watching jPOD, based on the bestseller by Douglas Coupland, since it started on CBC.

I really like the series and I get a kick out of every scene in the pod itself. Why ? Because almost every podster desk has a couple of designer toys on it.

From the top of my head, I can recall seeing a 8" Fatcap, 2 or 3 8" Dunnys, a large Labbit and a couple ones I can't remember. Maybe a couple large Qees too.

I even saw 2 Pachinko machines. That was a weird sight. While they are commun on their side of the continent (west coast got all the mid-80's machine because they are so close to Japan), it's an unusual sight here (I saw a total of 2 in my life and I owned both).

These little things like that that I see in this show that makes me like it. Of course the story is good, but I get a little fuzzy feeling when I recognize an obscure/niche thing that I recognize.

It's here, it's here ! Let's celebrate !

The last Tritan Eaton Tag Team, Brickface edition, Dunny in Canada is in my possesion !

I got it last week, but I only blog when I'm bored to hell. This is one of those moment, waiting for a coworker to call me back about something at work that went kaput.

The Tag Team dunny came in 2 different colors : black (Color Me Happy edition) or pink (Brickface). They released on January 17th and were sold out on January 17th... 1500 of each color sold in less than 24 hours. I got lucky and got the last pink one they had at Voltage Land (www.voltageland.com) and got it on Wednesday.

It was my first order from Voltage Land and I was pretty happy. Fast shipping, great packaging, which is of great importance considering what they sell and good price. They even included some buttons from the Dunny series 4, which was a nice touch as they are really cool.

So what does my collection look like now ? It would be hard to show the collection of the minis as it grew fast and it's pretty tight in my display but the shelf-of-awesome-things is really nice. I should have blogged about the Tokidoki Mozarella figure too. It the cute one on top of the Brickface box. I was really happy to find it locally. I'll do a post about Tokidoki one day.