Amiibo!
Of course I can't not talk about my ever expanding Amiibo collection.
"I'll only get the ones I like," I said. "I'll only buy my mains." You get the idea. But it's not not my fault Nintendo made all my favorite characters impossible to find! And I have a lot of favorites. I can understand not making a lot of the less popular characters, especially in the first few waves. Nintendo didn't see the popularity of these things coming, but they really, really should have.
It's the first time many Nintendo characters outside of the Mario Bros or Pokemon groups have merch of any kind, especially little high-detail figures that unlock content in games. Especially the Fire Emblem characters. Sure, they're from a franchise that isn't as well known over here as it is in its native Japan, but within the Smash Bros community they're quite popular.
So of course Nintendo considers them "low stock" characters. Back in the first wave, this meant stores only received four of these. And since there are four characters represented (Marth, Ike, Lucina, Robin, and soon Roy), they're quite sought after. It doesn't help that they're the only kind of Amiibo compatible with Codename S.T.E.A.M. Which, you know, makes those special features inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have them.
What you see above is Robin, one of the aforementioned Fire Emblem characters and he's one of the rarest Amiibo of them all. As in, stores only stocked two or three of them only once, if stores received him at all. Sure, Nintendo World in NYC finally restocked him, but that's only one store in one part of a very large country.
He was also the last Amiibo I needed before any new ones come out in a few months. So I got desperate to complete my collection and decided to go to r/AmiiboSwap and trade one of my Ike's (I had two because I imported one while waiting on a Gamestop preorder that took months to get filled. Yeah). After paying a crazy shipping charge and a week of waiting he was finally in my hands.
Of course, with other hard to find Amiibo, I decided to import from Japan. Sure, they cost slightly more than if I tried buying them in stores, but it saved me a big headache while trying to find these things.
Like Purin, er, Jigglypuff. If you're asking "why didn't you just buy these online," I will give you a sarcastic laugh in return. Trying to buy them from American sites like Amazon or GameStop ranges from "good luck" to "we're not even bothering to carry these anymore since the site crashed every time new ones are released." That's in addition to the low stock numbers I mentioned above. Five waves later and Nintendo has yet to learn.
In order to beat the crowds, I imported Palutena (Amazon exclusive) and Dark/Black Pit (Best Buy exclusive). Turns out Amazon Palutena was pretty plentiful and I STILL bought one. I'm thinking of offering it on AmiiboSwap when other Amiibo come out.
As for Dark Pit, I'm not going to wait at a Best Buy in the ass end of the morning before work to find out they sold out five minutes after the place opened.
And here's Japanese Lucina:
All in all, I feel accomplished, yet sad. I feel like this cat:
Comics!
Back during Free Comic Book Day, I found the entire run of Bob's Burgers comics. You don't really need me to recommend them if you love the show, but you should totally pick them up. Alas, there were only five issues, of which my Local Comic Shop only had four (2-5). So began my quest: Where's number one?!
Turns out like any comic, Issue One is the sought after one. And after looking through eBay, I found that there's as many as a dozen different covers for it. I had soooo many chances at NYCC to get at least one, but no I had to forget about them! So against my better judgement to buy all of them, I only bought two:
Yes, that's Tina hugging a zombie horse because Tina is awesome.
Fun Packs!
I've been an avid reader of Dinosaur Dracula for years, and recently its creator Matt started selling monthly Fun Packs, boxes of fun nostalgic crap to keep his site going. (Find info here)
This month's fun pack included a Changeable, one of the best Happy Meal toys McDonalds ever put out. These guys, especially the dinosaur series, were a definite favorite of my childhood. You can read more over here.
In my pack, I received the Chicken McNuggets Dinosaur. I was happy since I still eat dinosaur chicken nuggets because I'm an adult, dammit. But this was one of the few Changeables I actually had as a kid and I know for a fact that my old one is sitting in a box in the basement somewhere. But still, the legend of the Changeables continues for generations to come and I couldn't be happier.
Opus!
This not just a sweet plush of Opus the Penguin from Bloom County, it's a plush Opus that was once owned by Paul Dini! You might recognize that name from shows such as Batman: The Animated Series and, well, most of DC's animated output since the nineties.
So how did this get into my hands? A simple eBay garage sale and ten dollars later he was mine. Paul Dini, if you're reading this, he's in good hands.
Simpsons Gift Exchange!
A few months ago I participated in Reddit's secret Santa gift exchange. Outside of Christmas, there's a wide variety of gift exchange themes dive throughout the year, and when I saw that there was gonna be a Simpsons exchange I couldn't pass this up. What you see above is what I got.
A lunchbox
A few patches, like the blue ribbon in Knifey-Spoony, my personal favorite piece in the whole set.
And a few key chains.
As the rules go, I had to send a gift to someone else. Here's what I put:
Two vintage Simpsons cars from the early nineties. I picked these up at NYCC last year and I finally found an excuse as to what to do with them: give them to someone else!
I love how old Simpsons merch was designed as well as how no shits were given to show accuracy, these two Hot Wheels toys are cheesy as hell. These were cars that never appeared in the show that had a little window you could peek through to see a special slide. This was interesting for all of five seconds, I hope they're happy in their new home.
Five packs of Simpsons minifigs! Series 2 had just come out and I decided what the hell and just send a bunch? From what I heard, my giftee got some good pulls like Comic Book Guy and Groundskeeper Willie.
I also threw in this handwritten letter. If you can't read it, it says:
Dear meowymcmeowington,
Hi diddly ho, Match-arino! (great, he actually wrote “diddly.”)
I’ll admit that it was quite difficult to find decals or vinyl figures or grizzly bear underwear, but I hope you’ll be satisfied by what I enclosed. I picked up the toy cars at New York Comic Con, where they got these really huge pretzels and gtjagfbgf FIVE DOLLARS?! Get outta here…
It might not be the Dallas Cowboys, but it’s a start. Please forgive the lateness of my reply.
And so let us part with a love that will echo through the ages,
-Steve aka Galileo908 aka Miguel Sanchez
PS: In answer to your question, yes we do have hamburgers and fries in England. But we call French fries “chips.”
And oh yes, I really hate yo-yo’s.
Plus this little note for good measure. From all reports, my giftee really enjoy what she got. I certainly loved mine.
So readers, get any good mail lately?
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