Fleet Farm toyland

I totally forgot about Fleet Farm Toyland. I was up at the store locally and I guess I didn't realize it was open already!

It seemed like in previous years that the wait for the usually rather good deals took forever until Fleet Farm opened up their seasonal mega-section of toys.

Last year, I didn't get anything. It was the Doom Cycle and Ghost HAWK with the PoC-style figures.


This year, Fleet Farm is pretty much doing the same thing on figures. (I forgot to scan the catalog mailer image this year)


$5.89 a figure, which is a heckuvalot better than what is essentially the other option in town.

Fleet Farm 2011 sightings:

I don't know "wave" numbers, but what I saw was Dukes, a rather large amount of Shock Troopers, Storm Shadows, and Snake eyes.

On the vehicle front was the Black Dragon VTOL and the 2011 VAMP for $19.89 each.


In my opinion, the figure prices are pretty good, not stellar. However, I was surprised the GIJOE vehicles were so high-priced. Or, I should say, I'm surprised the vehicles are at normal mass-retail price.

Fleet Farm Toyland was where some of the best prices were to be found. For an example of this, compare the Doom Cycle's $12.89 at Fleet Farm last year, to what was near you. (I think Target had Doom Cycles last year at $14.99, if I remember correct.)

Other reports of Fleet Farm Toyland sightings had NAC's at around $15 years ago. This years vehicle pricing just didn't come through.

I'm kind of disappointed in that.

In (local) stores now...

Over the last few months, I haven't been hitting up the "brick and mortar" stores hardly at all. Here in town, there are really only two big stores that have carried GIJOE over the years, Walmart and Kmart. (We did have a Dollar General that had the cheap VvV-style GIJOE figures, but that store has closed down, a while ago.)

Walmart is king in town, buy the truckloads. I know since I worked there for awhile. They get 2, 3, sometimes 4, full trailer loads of stuff just on the general merchandise side of the store EACH NIGHT! Compare to Kmart just down the road where they are getting at most 2 trailers each WEEK.


I like Kmart more, though, simply because there is usually a different amount of stuff, as well as very small crowds.

Unfortunately, with the last reset of the toy aisle, Kmart didn't get ANY GIJOE stuff in their set. Being so close to Christmas, and add in that the store is already setting up their Christmas seasonal (trees, decorations, etc.) , I don't expect any changes in the toy aisle until closer to February.



Yesterday, I stopped in at Walmart for the first time in months.

They did have the new GIJOE VAMP (2) and the Cobra Black Dragon (3), which I barely noticed.


They also STILL had full pegs of GIJOE Rise of Cobra movie figures. At $6.89 each.


Still.

I guess I'm not too sad since I'm not really buying modern figures, but still, for those in the area (like the kids...) who like GIJOE, simply aren't getting much for interesting options with RoC figures being somewhat the same figures for the last 2 years.

New beginnings

Over the last couple years I've sort of had some heavy thoughts on reducing my collection down. From my last post I touched on some of the why I wanted to. It wasn't so much of a "need to," it really has never been exactly that.

Well, I just did another huge chop off my collection. And it doesn't feel too bad. Yet. But, I have my new "28-man team" for the Joes sort of lined up for my own play adventures. Even "the enemy" forces took rather distinct cuts on the troop/ army-building side of things, as well as individual Cobras.

All in all, there's a good feeling that comes with having a little bit less. Well, a LOT less in this case. I mean 5 of these Rubbermaid containers were really rather full of just figures not long ago.
Plus, add in another container for file cards. Anytime I had some free time to bust everything out, it was darn rough. I spent more time pulling out figures from the individual bags, making sure to keep an eye out for those small accessories that might slip out of a bag. And then I would pretty much put them all back.

It just wasn't very fun. But, it's not all "Joe's" fault, it's a combination of many things, included that reality that is simply call, life. And really, having more empty space has been really nice.

I spent a lot of time over the last couple/ few months really analyzing everything to see if I could pick just a small amount of figures and vehicles that would make things fun again.

After eliminating ALL figures with swivel head articulation, I really found certain aspects with the remaining figures that I really liked. I guess to keep it short, I got what was left down to roughly two 28-man GIJOE teams. Here's just some of what that "analyzing" looked like:


After what must have been dozens of little change ups in my final team makeup, I decided to make those two "28" teams. And with each little change I started to graph out which years figures came from. And from there I would swap figures around, come back another time and swap some more around.

In the results, 1988 was almost always at the top of the list for most chosen.
Followed by 1987, and then very close for third was 1989 and 1991.

I was really surprised that I was often choosing so many 1991 figures, and so few 1990. All-in-all, my analyzing (and some might say waste of time) has led me to pick these guys:

There's only 26 here, yes, but I wanted to leave room to maybe bring in a couple of figures I didn't have previously. And of course, as I start to get this team into action, I'll most likely find there's a figure in there that isn't all I thought it would be.


Going forward with me writing random Joe thoughts, you'll most likely find me picking out one of these guys to "showcase." When I do that I'll touch more on why this or that particular figure made the cut, and which figures were close to taking its place.

Of course, all random Joe thoughts will still drop in.

Back in reality...

Well, stepping outside my realm of escape (GIJOE) and into reality, my new job hasn't been the most..., I guess, fruit-bearing. I like the job very fine, but it's one of those deals where if one part of the operation process goes down, it ALL goes down. Today is going to be a no-pay day, for me (and over 30 others!), and that gets me down.

As far as Joe goes, this is making me feel good about my most recent reduction in stuff. I've been considering doing another big chop, too. It's hard to make the "last call" to see which figures and vehicles will remain.

So many different factors come into play when I'm trying to make a decision. I've even had a couple thoughts on just sending it all out. But, after decades of so much time spent with "Joe," I tell ya, it's hard to give up on a fun thing, ya know?

Slice and Dice and Ninjas

I'm not a big fan of the Ninja Force, over the years I've kept very few of these action-gimmick loaded figures.

Slice and Dice are the two that I've kept, as well as Zartan, but he's in the Dreadnok category for me. Even as a "ninja."

I had a Night Creeper that almost right away after buying it back in the day off the pegs, pretty much became a dust catcher in the turret of my (at that time) only HISS. I think these "version 2" Night Creepers made an appearance in the Marvel comic just prior to me seeing this on the shelf. The power of advertising pretty much tipped my purchase decision into getting this figure. (it's not horrible, though, just not my figure preference.)

I also had the Shadow Ninjas, Bushido and Nunchuk, that I bought on clearance.

Aside from sword-swinging ninja figure set-ups on a shelf, though, these guys didn't really get much more attention. And in a way, I kind of just wanted the regular previous incarnation of the figures.

I did try more recently in the last couple/ few years to incorporate every possibly useful figure in the classic line into my collection, though. I did pick up a Nunchuk on trade, but even as good as the figure looks, he still didn't get much use. Nor did I see much happening with it, so it went out on my last figure draw-down.

My Ninja figures that I've had over the years didn't stop at the classic years, though. Over the 2000's, mostly from '02-'06, I acquired many of the "new sculpt" era ninjas that were out there. Even new Slice, but with Slash, instead of Dice.

I also tried using more "new sculpt" figures in my set-ups, while my classic figures were on a sort of retirement at that time.

And while this Slice is not a "new sculpt," this was a figure that I often used in the last few years.


Lately, though, I've been strongly favoring my classic GIJoe figures a lot more than any of the 2000-repaints or other articulation styles.


Slice and Dice have been coming out fairly strong to me, as my Storm Shadow is "good." Cobra Commander almost seemed to want some ninja, and what better duo that Slice and Dice.

Each character is fairly personable, and each has a decent pair of weapons. While the ninja-gimmick-action-attack does bother me some, it hasn't bugged me on these two as bad over the years.

Plus, can you have Slice without Dice?

I bought these at the now-defunct Prange Way that was at the Mariner Mall, but not at the same time. I think I bought Dice first.

Dice has a nice dark purple and black, and a battle mask that is kind of unique (to me, anyway). And he has some muscles, and a very interesting skin tone. The huge knee pad/ boot detail is kind of interesting, too.

I'm fairly sure I bought Slice separately, but the inter-file-card mentioning, and the rhyme of their names made me want to go and get Slice. Slice is a little more straight-forward ninja looking to me. A red suit, a little lower calf leg detail, but still mostly straight forward ninja. With some rather small and interesting star pattern! The only thing that makes him stand apart otherwise from a traditional '84-style Storm Shadow-like ninja is his fencing mask. And as a Cobra swordsman, this mask really fits the character in my view.

The little strips of felt on the back and side are a nice touch, too. Ninja-attack-gimmicks aside, the felt is a nice touch of "we care about design" that made onto this figure. And it isn't just "stuck on" haphazardly, it's very intentional and well integrated.


Overall, Slice and Dice to me are a little bit like Tomax and xamoT. While not "twins" like our Crimson Guard friends, Slice and Dice compliment and contrast. One is a (possibly) renegade Red Ninja from Storm Shadow's old clan, a fairly well-disciplined traditional ninja. Where Dice is a Night Creeper that is simply too evil for the Night Creepers! (Cobra makes for a better place for Dice.)