DCUC Wave 5 Is Mine!!!!!

This morning was M-Day for me: Mattel's release day of DC Universe Classics Wave 5 at their online store at Mattycollector.com. Having never had the opportunity to see and buy the Walmart exclusive wave of figures when they were first released, I've been anticipating the day Mattel would rerelease these guys. And hearing the horror stories of five-minute sellouts of sets during Mattel's release days had me worried. But the drama is over, I was able to place an order (although I got a server error when I pressed the Submit button!), and my set will soon be mine.

The only thing that kinda worries me is that the sales numbers of this DCUC wave may determine whether Mattel will release more sets through their site in the future. It's been at least eight hours now, and Wave 5 hasn't sold out yet. Is it too early to worry? What sellout time period is considered successful to Matty for DCUC? Hmmmm...

The Karate Kid: Hollywood Cashing In On A Name

Ever since I heard that Hollywood was going to remake the movie "The Karate Kid", I let out a befuddled groan, knowing that they were just going to be cashing in on an 80s classic. I pretty much dismissed myself of this new version of the film, and have not followed up on anything regarding its production.

Just today, I read a news blurb that the new "The Karate Kid" was the No. 1 movie this weekend, and is the "new surprise of the summer". Interested by this news and quote, I decided to look up some info on this movie. After some research online, I am more confident than before that this is a Hollywood cash-in.

Why the fucking hell is this new movie not called "The Kung Fu Kid"?!?!? The damn story in this "remake" involves a single mom taking her kid to BEIJING, because of the work (like the first movie). The kid is picked on (as in the original), runs into an elderly maintenance man (again the same) who is CHINESE, and teaches the kid KUNG-FU. The kid eventually enters a KUNG-FU tournament, where I'm guessing (I dunno, I haven't seen it) he wins the tournament and the girl (No Elizabeth Shue, grrr). Where the shit is the damn "karate" anywhere in this new version of the movie? Oh, right, IN THE FUCKING TITLE!

Cha-ching!

Returning To The Lands Of Norrath

I guess it's an inevitability, but I've returned to playing EverQuest II. After about a seven month break, I've come back to the lands of Norrath with a refreshed sense of adventure. I am by no means a hardcore player (c'mon, you should know by now of my casual nature!), but I've played this game on and off since EQII's release back in 2004(?), after having moved on from the original grindfest of EQI.

It seems there's been some changes since I last played. Freeport's in disarray, a new expansion, a new good aligned starting city, and some new Marketplace mounts. It's nice to know that SOE is continuing to support the game after 5+ years in the MMO market, not to mention having to follow in the shadow of a certain leading MMO during those years.

As soon as I returned, I set a couple of objectives for myself which I had just fell short of acccomplishing when I took my last break:

Veroth: My main, the Barbarian 'zerker from D'Lere, needed to get over the 40's hump into level 50. When I last played him, he was in his mid 40's and had just moved on from smashing orc skulls in Zek, and contemplated a move of residence from Freeport to the desert city of Maj'Dul. Veroth was halfway through 49 before I had stoppped playing, so getting him to 50 was my main goal. With the double XP meter accumulating during the break, I was able to easily accomplish this goal. Now I'm just working towards faction building in order to get a residency permit. Of course, being the 'zerker for hire, he'll court the Order Of The Blade for the permit.

Verminiculos: My main alt, The Ratonga shadowknight with aspirations of serving on the side of good, had just exiled himself from the clutches of Freeport. My objective for the diminutive rat with a heart of steel is to gain the favor of Qeynos. But this first entails having to perform menial, mundane, and booooring tasks such as smashing rocks! I guess this is to prove my worth, but, shit, is it mind-numbing! Oh well, all for the glory of Qeynos!

It's actually pretty fun getting back into the game after a break. Everything's new again, and I guess I'll see how far I'll get with these two characters with this go-around of the game.

Goody Haul Report: The Comics

Sorry for the delay, I just haven't gotten around to sorting out my comic haul from the Memorial Day weekend. EverQuest II sucked me back in with the little spare time I had, LOL! Ok, here's what I purchased:

Batman And The Outsiders (original): 25, 27-30
Booster Gold (original): 8, 11-20
Booster Gold (current): 7, 8, 11-15
Nightwing: 3-5, 7, 9, 12, 13
Justice Society Of America (current): 10-13, 16, 27-29, 31, 32
Uncanny X-Men (original): 196, 197

I'd say that was a nice small haul of comics at only $0.50 each! Most of the books I got (especially the older ones) I already own a copy of, but with these dupes I plan to have them bound.

On another note, For some reason I forgot to list a couple of figs from my previous haul report. I dunno why they slipped my mind, but here they are:

Star Trek Khan Noonian Singh: Yup, that two dimensional genius from the Eugenics Wars is now mine in figure form, in his Ceti Alpha V gear. Very nice at a discounted price of just under $10.

MU Colossus: I saw some of the new MU figs at the comic shop, but had to pass on most of them (Jugs was just too badly scratched to pick up). I did pick up a Colossus however, to replace my "battle damaged" Showdown version. $7 with the discount.

OK, that's it for now. Keep it casual!

Goody Haul Report: Figs, Figs, Figs

I had a nice goody haul this past holiday weekend, most of them purchased from a clearance sale at A-1 Comics. Here's the details:

ML Weapon X: This was nice find at only $6! The packaging has a little bit of crushing, but I don't really care since I'm no longer a sealed collecter and the contents look good.

GOW Cyclops: I've been on the hunt for Gears of War locust drones, and they had a couple at the shop. I got this guy for just over $10.

GOW Grappler: Another Gears fig to fill out the villain ranks. This one was also just $10.

GOW Grenadier Elite: Yet another Gears drone, but this one is outfitted differently than the above two. $10 for this one too.

DCUC Superboy: I didn't expect to see any DCUC figs left on the shelves by the time I got to the store, but there were quite a few! I got this guy for $12.

DCUC Mary Batson: When I saw pics of Mary Marvel, I was not quite a fan of this fig (the face just looked "off"). But when I finally saw this in person, I found it actually to be alright. I got the red costumed version for $12 (there was no white costume here).

DCUC Blue Beetle III: I already had an online order on my way, but I picked this up for a friend for $12, but later found out he's ordering the entire wave. I'll hold onto this, maybe for a future trade.

DCUC Spectre: They didn't have a glow in the dark version, but that won't stop me in picking up the standard version. $12.

Well, those were the figs I got from A-1 Comics. I bought a whole bunch of comics for $0.50 each, but I'll detail those in a separate post.

I got other goodies over the weekend as well, and here they are:

GOW General Raam: This TRU exclusive is a rerelease of the one which came in the 2-pack, but I never got it, so I'm happy to pick him up for $13.

DCUC Cheetah: I just seem to live in an area where the retailers are stuck in the refresh waves of DCUC, but at a Walmart near the comic shop (which is at least a 45 minute drive from home), this side of town seems to always have the newest stuff. I was able to find a Cheetah here, the variant one at that! $15.

G.I. Joe ROC Duke in Reactive Armor: With the flood of ROC figs, this one seemed to be a bit harder to find for me, but I was finally able to find one at a Target for the clearanced price of $3.

Pirates Of The Cursed Seas PocketModel Value Pack: I've been a fan of the Pocketmodel Pirates of the Cursed Seas styrene ship game ever since its first release of Spanish Main (before they were renamed to Pocketmodels), and Target is finally releasing the value packs of these cards (they've been doing the Star Wars Pocketmodels value packs for a while now). I got a packaged set of 6 (or is it 8?) packs for $5. I'll be picking up as many as I can find...

ML She-Hulk: I've been seeing the Blob series fig at a Big Lots for quite some time, and I finally bit and got it for $7.

Another start of the month with a pack full of goodies! I'll post my second part of my goody haul of comics as soon as I get to organising my stack of books.