Many As Seen On TV items are really just a bunch of crap you don’t need. The Package Shark Pro might be one of those pieces of crap. Not sure where you stand on it. I bought one from Boscov’s they have a small as seen on tv section in their housewares section. By buying it there I get the ability to easily return it if I don’t like the item and no shipping and handling costs either way. Besides when you buy online or from call the 800 number flashed on the TV screen aren’t you really buying two? Cost was $10.
Funny thing is you need the package shark to open the package shark as it comes in one of those solid clam-shell plastic tombs. It is really just a plastic holder for a razor blade with different widths for different package types; clam-shell, CD and DVD. I did not attempt the last two types as I was mostly interested in open my toys when I get them. Well it did not work all that well, nothing I couldn’t do with an exacto blade just a little safer maybe.
I was going to take it back on my way home from work when I actually came across a use for it at work. We had a bunch of defective items that needed to be opened, tested and new batteries put back in if they worked. And you guessed it they were in plastic packages. It really did work out in that application as I was able to open about 50 packages in less than thirty minutes and it would have taken me a lot longer with scissors, which would have hurt my hand to boot.
Only draw back was if the package shark veered of the intended course it was difficult to complete the cut. It also only cuts through one side of the package’s plastic. So if you were hoping to cleanly remove all of the sealed plastic you might as well still use scissors to open it. So while I did return the product, I did get my ten bucks back since it became a work expense.
Unless this sucker pops apart some how there is no way to replace the blade so once it gets dull you will have to shell out for another one.
The guys of Big Bang Theory buy the prop time machine from the film The Time Machine. Leonard jumps in and sets the machine to March 10, 1876 the date of the famous first phone call. They proceed to argue over the fact that they all want to go but they would not be able to all fit into the small lab and agree that they should travel into the future to get a cloaking device first. Here’s their conversation about the cloaking device.
Sheldon: First go into the future and obtain a cloaking device.
Rajesh: How far into the future?
Sheldon: If I remember correctly Captain Kirk will steal a cloaking device from the Romulans on stardate 5027.3, which will be January 10th 2328 by pre-Federation reckoning.
As a collector and a fan that plays with their toys the scene that followed was hilarious with the four guys acting out the high speed action that goes on around Leonard while traveling in the time machine. Penny comes in to tell them all how pathetic they all are for still playing with toys. Leonard then goes on to re-evaluate his life, his maturity and his collection. (Bad Penny.)
The Nerdvana that Leonard has created is disappearing as he is packing up his collection to sell to the comic book guy down the street. All his friends want to buy it off of him but he refuses saying it will hurt their friendship if he sells his stuff to one over the others. They try to stop him and he pulls out a Playmates Star trek figures and threatens to open it.
Sheldon: No I can’t let you do this.
Leonard: Sheldon, get out of my way.
Sheldon: (Grabbing a sword from Leonard’s box) None shall pass.
Leonard: Okay. I did not want to do this, but…I have here the rare mint condition production error Star Trek: The Next Generation Geordi Laforge without his visor in the original packaging. If you do not get out of my way I will open it.
Howard: Okay, man be cool. We’re all friends here.
Penny comes out and Sheldon lets her have it.
Sheldon: You hypocrite.
Penny: What?
Sheldon: Little miss grown-ups don’t play with toys. If I went in to that apartment right now would I not find Beanie Babies? Are you not an accumulator of Care Bears and My Little Ponies? And who is that Japanese feline I see frolicking on your shorts. Hello Hello Kitty.
Penny then apologizes to Leonard about the day before and he just about asks her out when a hunky guy comes up and goes into her apartment with her. Leonard grabs his toys and heads back into the apartment saying, “My turn on the time machine”.
I picked these up a few weeks back for my monster toy collection [it is not all Star Trek you know]. I got the ghoul, gargoyle, and mummy, but there are six all together. The other three are a werewolf, vampire, and zombie. Of those three, I think the only other one I might get would be the zombie.
The Plasma Kreaps come inside a rubbery bag inside a plastic crate. Once you free all the parts you get to put your monster together. Best part is you can mix and match your Plasma Kreaps to make other strange monsters. The bits and pieces are interchangeable with other Plasma toys to make some rather interesting creatures. Each toy stands about 3″ high.
What is it with me and getting Star Trek stuff in the mail? Or is it just anything via mail order these days?
I just received my copy of Brent Spiners new CD Dreamland. Well actually I just received my second copy of this disc. My first one came to me a bit mangled and the plastic part that holds the CD was broken and the disk was scratched.
Since I paid extra to get a signed copy and being the big ole Star Trek collecting geek that I am I had to get another one since the first one was no where near mint.
I have not had time to listen to the CD yet. I am too busy listening to the Philip Pullman books in the His Dark Materials series. Already finished The Golden Compass and I am about half way through the second in the series, The Subtle Knife. Once I complete these I will through Brent Spiner’s Dreamland into the MP3 player and give her a listen. I have a feeling I will like it as I liked what I heard before I bought it.
While I am on the topic of Brent Spiner, I have been hearing rumors and questions from people wondering if he is gay. Quite honestly I would have to say no. The ole gaydar has been ringing for years with him but I think it is a false positive. Hey people seem to think Wil Wheaton is gay too, but he is married, I think. I never got that from him either. Most likely people are just reading their geekiness as homosexuality, but I could be wrong all around. Wouldn’t be the first time you know. As far as I know the only out gay member of any star trek cast is George Takei. Again, this does not mean there aren’t others.
After coming across the Coleco Star Trek game on the Handheld Games Museum I decided to poke around and see what other Star Trek games they had listed and which ones I did not know about. Here is what I found…
Milton Bradley Microvison Star Trek Phaser Strike
Collins Wrath of Khan Video Game Watch
Konami Star Trek 25th Anniversary Game
Tiger Electronic Star Trek: The Next Generation LCD Game
And while not a Star Trek game in name the Bandai Pair Match game has been used as prop on TNG as seen in the screencaps below.
I just stumbled onto a Star Trek Toy I had never heard of before. While this is not a very surprising statement to many people, I pride myself in knowing quite a bit about Star Trek collectibles. After all I have been collecting the stuff for nearly twenty years now.
I am far from an expert on these things more of an obsessed fan really. Check out StarTrekToysOnline.com if you need proof of just how crazy I am when it comes to Star Trek toys and collectibles.
Today’s find is a Coleco handheld Star Trek game based on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. According to the Handheld Museum this toy was most likely never made. The really good ones often aren’t. Just look at the Palisades Roddenberry/Captain Kirk set which never went past the prototype stages.
There really are a lot of Star Trek things I still don’t know about out there [so feel free to post a comment to this and let me know of anything out there that you see that is unique].
The other day I received several boxes in the mail all containing Star Trek goodies. At first I was extremely excited and happy to be having such a geeky good day. But that feeling faded quickly.
First up was a small envelope, which contained my Spock Elf mini mate. He was all perfect and minty fresh in his sealed baggy where he will stay. Sorry Elf Spock you’ll have to hang out with the other hard to get minimates variants who’ll remain encased in their plastic carded prisons.
Next up was a box from Rick at New force Comics (my favorite place to get Star Trek collectibles). The folks at New Force always pack your stuff to get to you minty mint condition even when you buy an opener. But even their fine packing skills cannot hold up to the Samsonite gorillas (remember that Commercial or am I showing my age?) that work for UPS. The box was crushed and so were the contents. Every thing in it was smashed to some degree, while I am normally an opener some of these items were to remain mint in box. I know it was not New Force Comics’s fault and these things happen so I let them know about the damage to the contents and they gave me UPS’ number which I promptly called the next morning [2/9/08].
Now all I have to do is wait for UPS to pony up the insurance money to Rick so I can get my replacement items. The phaser’s box was badly smashed, the EMCE mego-like figures had smooshed corners on the bubbles and the best was the space seed Kirk and Khan which some how got packing peanuts way up inside the package (this is actually really funny-take a look).
Then there was my box from the online shop at StarTrek.com. The outside of this box was mostly fine but the contents were not. The items were damaged — all of them — although I did not notice some of it until after I had already spoken to customer service. It was pretty clear due to the type of damage on the First Contact Data that this figure was picked and packed if that condition. Come on people you are dealing with collectors, Star Trek collectors at that, we are a very picky bunch and this quality of product will never do! The figure was already opened completely along one side. As I stated earlier these were going to be staying in their packages not going to be opened sort of defeats the purpose when they come already opened.
The next item out of the box was to be a replacement for my cloaked Romulan Ship from Johnny Lightning series three, mine had a nacelle rolling around in the packaging (not sure how that happened since I had not moved or dropped it since it was added to the collection months ago), but there it was broken. Happy to find just the ship I needed I was glad to add it to my order, but extremely disappointed when the replacement I received had the exact same problem! Now this could have happened in transit so we won’t blame the folks at the Star Trek store for this one, just everything else in the box. Oops, check out the picture the bubble is smashed guess they are to blame afterall.
I called customer service [2/9/08] to report the problems; they were nice enough, apologized and promised to send replacements. As I said earlier that was before I got home and looked at the remaining items the EMCE toys mego-like retro Kirk and Klingon, both of which were to remain mint in box as I had already opened my set I received from Rick at New force Comics months ago. Both of these figures had bubble damage and were certainly no longer MIP. Again this damage appeared to be a pre-packaging problem as the box had no outside damage and was packed with air pillows. Either that or the air pillows were not enough to protect it during shipping, which is also a possibility.
So upon final inspection I called customer service back [evening of 2/9/08] to explain that the entire order was damaged and not up to my standards. Again they apologized and promised to send out replacements for the other items [Kirk/Klingon figures] as well. Okay fine, sounded good to me. They get their damaged items back and I get (hopefully) better quality replacements. So I box everything back up and await the call tag with my new items now coming in two replacement orders. Oh and did I mention this was my first encounter with this particular online entity? Well, it bears repeating. First and last I might add.
UPDATE: I got my packages from the Star Trek store [2/12/08], they sent me too replacements of the Data figure and Romulan ship! No sign of my retro figures and no sign of their precious call tag either. So now I must call up their customer service, which has a really long wait (I hate being on hold) to clear up yet another one of their mistakes. I really don’t think I will be going back to them again anytime soon. If you buy from them make sure to point out special care in picking and packing, that you want mint items, etc. or you may wind up with poor quality and service like me.
UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: Called customer service [2/13/08] to get this mess cleared up once and for all so I never have to deal with them again. They had no record of my order being for the Kirk and Klingon even though I had read the customer service rep the item numbers some how they were confused and simply repeated my first replacement order. So I asked once again to have the one Kirk and one Klingon resent. And since this was now my third call and third package from them I asked to speak with a manager to see what if anything they could do for me. Well, I was never allowed to speak with said supervisor the customer service rep returned and said they would return my original shipping and handling. Oh joy, that makes up for my having to wait for the items for a third time and then have to trudge them all out to a UPS store to ship them back, I think not. To top it off she comes back to tell me that she will send out the Kirk figure as an order for the Klingon was already placed (Yeah because I needed another one and was mistakenly buying it from them. I was paying for that order it was not a replacement order! So I guess their idea of good customer service is to have the customer PAY for their own replacements when they send out damaged items.) I have little hope that I will be receiving two packages from these people next week, which contain the right items. I have absolutely no confidence in this company and recommend that collectors stay away from them.
Unicorns are magical creatures that only exist for those who believe. When they are not frolicking in dewy meadows or posing on windy cliffs they are helping believers do away with daily annoyances like new age happy ladies, creepy mimes, and arrogant businessmen. So if you believe with all your heart and soul they will answer your call.
Unicorn Code:
Unicorns never lie.
Unicorns always lend a helping hand.
Unicorns are loyal.
Unicorns can keep a secret.
Unicorns don’t use drugs.
Like their seafaring cousins the mighty narwhal they have four different magical horns each with its own special power.
The pearlescent horn gives the unicorn mind control, weather control, and super hearing (kind of like the bionic woman). The spiral horn’s power is illusion casting and super healing (like the Mr. Meaty episode “Unihorn” where Parker heals folks, with his magical unicorn horn). The glow horn gives the unicorn the power of hypnosis and enhanced agility. (But isn’t hypnosis very similar to mind control and illusion casting?) My personal favorite horn is the chrome horn as it gives the powers of electromagnetism, speed-reading and teleportation. The three inch high unicorn is fully articulated to be better able to impale his enemies with his mighty horn.
The Avenging Narwhal Play Set is hilarious. Each narwhal comes with four magical tusks and three natural enemies.
From the package: for centuries, the narwhal was the great mystery of the sea, with the body of a whale and the horn of a unicorn, many people believed that these fascinating creatures were harmless inhabitants of the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean. Recent studies, however, have exposed the secret agenda of these mysterious mammals and the true purpose of their extraordinarily long pointy tusks.
Million of years ago penguins, snow seals and koalas ruled the earth. They feasted on whales, dolphins and other sea mammals. But the narwhal went into hiding biding their time and planning their revenge. They reemerged, tusks gleaming with newfound magical power, and fought back against the adorable creatures that threatened their existence. The battle was long and many narwhal were lost.
Now once a year to keep their enemies at bay they return to Antarctica to hunt baby seals and penguins stopping in Australia along the way to attack the deadly koalas.
The back-story alone is worth the purchase price or about $13. You can have loads of fun impaling these dangerous yet adorable creatures through the heart. Remember not all narwhal tusks are the same so be sure to choose the right one for the right job. The crystal tusk is used for mind control, hypnosis and global communications. The Onyx tusk causes instant paralysis, while the ruby tusk drains the victims of all their blood. Finally, the ice tusk freezes water, creates icebergs, and chills beverages. So choose wisely. Above all have fun. Not for children under 3 and perhaps not for children at all. Having a sense of humor helps when playing with these toys so if you find you are devoid of fun stay away. They make great office playthings.
After hearing about Batwoman being a Lesbian in the 52 comics way back in 2006 I could not wait for the first issue to hit the stands. Even though she did not appear until issue 11. The idea that finally a main character was going to be portrayed as a strong lesbian had me reeling. Heck, she was the only reason I ever even picked up the first issue let alone all 52.
I was disappointed that we did not get to see more of her and Renee Montoya through out the series. But by the end of the story I had fallen in love with the character. I really wanted more. I still do. Both of these characters are strong enough to continue their stories outside of 52.
I only recently read that the proposed new Batwoman books were cancelled and it broke my heart.
Since DC has tried to bury the Kate Kane storyline and only keep it within the pages of 52 while releasing several of the other boys from the series, which is a big shame. We need more strong female characters. And what better to keep fan boys reading it than the typical lesbian fantasy.
Please DC bring her back out of the bat closet.
Renee as the Question is also a VERY good story that needs to be told, and perhaps the one place you can try giving us back Kate Kane even if only as a periodic guest in a new Question book.
Comics have not been for kids for a very long time. Kids comics are still out there fear not. But the majority of the comics are geared toward adults so the demoralization of our nations children cannot be the issue here. So what is DC comics so afraid of?
The character was popular enough for you to make an action figure out of it. Why not keep it going. Don’t tell me the Christian right is in control of the comics industry. They can’t be or we wouldn’t have any comics on the shelves. What are you afraid of? A little press? I thought there was no such thing as bad press. Any press is good press, right? I have been reading through some of the garbage written by some of the moral majority and I cannot believe the crap they are spewing forth. As if one lesbian superhero is going to make all the good little boys and girls turn gay. Hell, if it does we better ALL get toaster ovens for that.
Indian Jones LEGO sets have hit the shelves. In fact I found them at Toys R Us a few weeks before Christmas. They had them even before the LEGO store had them online. These are pretty cool. I like that LEGO has been jumping on some good properties since they started licensing sets. I don’t like their move to change the mini-figure. I hate the flesh toned mini-figs. It just isn’t right. They should have stayed yellow. I know they had to make it so they could do African-American characters too. The Lando Calrissian mini figure was the first to appear and soon there after they did the NBA figures then all licensed characters were made with skin tones both Caucasian and Afro-American. The tirade is over now. Suffice it to say I do not like the flesh tones and be done with it. The Indy sets are pretty sweet and a little more geared to adults than kids. I think it would be cool of LEGO to just sell the mini figs as I do not need all the bricks but really want all the figures! Oh and like the Star Wars LEGO before them there will also be Indy LEGO video games. Sweet!
I just got my two versions of the Wrath of Khan Enterprise ships from Diamond Select Toys. Of the two the standard version is my favorite. When I got it out of the shipping box and pushed the button and heard, “KHAN!” I was hooked. I have been known to shout out KHAN! Out of the blue on many occasions. My friend walked by as I was playing with it and asked me if this was my favorite toy now. I honestly think it might be and I have not even taken it out of its display box yet.
Right after I got this way cool ship I received my Battle Damaged version from New Force Comics. Again, I have not removed it from the display box yet so I am not exactly sure how I feel about it, but from the top of the ship I do not se too much battle damage on this exclusive version.
I have a huge Star Trek collection. I display the majority of it loose on shelves. This can be a huge problem when it comes to dusting to the toys, models and other collectibles. I really need a good solution to protect and better display my stuff.
That’s where Potomac Display company comes in handy. They make plastic and acrylic display cases. They’ll even do custom display cases if I cannot find something to fit my exact needs, but they carry so much I doubt I will need to do a custom case.
Since my action figures are mostly loose I am looking at their rectangular table for counter displays. They look perfect for raising the back row of figures for better viewing.
I will definitely be getting a bunch of ornament hangers for all those Hallmark ornaments I have sitting around waiting for a Christmas tree.
Many As Seen On TV items are really just a bunch of crap you don’t need. The Package Shark Pro might be one of those pieces of crap. Not sure where you stand on it. I bought one from Boscov’s they have a small as seen on tv section in their housewares section. By buying it there I get the ability to easily return it if I don’t like the item and no shipping and handling costs either way. Besides when you buy online or from call the 800 number flashed on the TV screen aren’t you really buying two? Cost was $10.
