Tagged: Sisterhood of the World Blog Award

A couple of days ago I was tagged by Linda of Darkroom Dolls for the Sisterhood of the World Blog award, a question-answering tag that's been going around lately.  I always enjoy reading other people's answers, so I'm happy to join in on the fun.

But enough about that, let's answer some questions!

Climbing the Escarpment, 2010

The Texas heat has been putting me off of taking new outdoor photos, so in a moment of weather-nostalgia I starting sorting through some old photos and came across one particular set that I thought I'd share.

These were taken in Kerncliff Park in Burlington, Ontario.  Kerncliff is a trail-head on The Bruce Trail. The Bruce trail is an 800+km trail that runs along the Niagara Escarpment from Niagara Falls in the south to Tobermory in the north, and this particular trail head was less than a kilometre from my house during the 3.5 years that I lived in the area.

Back in the later summer of 2010, I packed up my Iplehouse YID Aaron and took him for a hike  (it's all photos from here):

Out of the Box: The X-Files Alien (Funko Pop)

One of these days I'll be getting back to articulated figures and dolls, but before I do, I have yet another Funko figure to talk about.  This time it's the X-files alien.

I've mentioned a few times that I'm a huge X-files fan, and with the new miniseries and season 11 of the comics in the pipeline, it just seemed like the perfect time to pick up a new collectible.  Unfortunately more the main characters in the franchise just aren't physically unique enough to make for interesting Pop! figures, so this is the only one I'll be picking up, but it's still a cool addition to my X-files shelf.

The Pop! figures are all quite similar, so this one isn't distinct enough for a full review, so it's all photos from here:

Retro Week: Cabbage Patch Kids Mini Figures

Four of the Cabbage Patch mini figures

Before I get back to my regular posting schedule, how about one more treasure from my mother's basement?  Up this time is a random bag of vintage Cabbage Patch Kids mini figures.  They're fairly standard for mini figures of the era: nice sculpted detail, decent painting, but no articulation.  This particular collection is about evenly split between the traditional girl dolls, the "Koosas" (anthropomorphic cat dolls), and one of the "preemies" (the bald infant dolls).

Retro Week: Mini Figures of the '80s & Fast Food toys of the '90s

A random assortment of Retro mini figures

I've just come back from another week in Toronto (happily, this visit was for a wedding rather than a funeral), so I was able to snap a few more photos of my mother's basement toy trove.

Out of the Box: Captain Sisko (Playmates "Warp Factor" Series)

I think I've mentioned before that  that Deep Space 9 was my favourite Star Trek series, so it's a little odd that other than a pair of MiniMates I haven't had any of the related toys around.  I think I always had the impression that most of the Star Trek figures were a little weak - I think based purely on the two TNG tie-in figures that my sister owned back in the day.

Given how silly a lot of my own '90s figures look these days, I decided I would get over my aversion to the various ST lines and have have picked up a figure from Playmates late 1990's lines - the Tribble-themed version DS9's Captain Benjamin Sisko.  There was a regular version as well, but how could I say no to the little Tribble accessories, right?

Random Toy of the Day: American Girl Mini Grace

Grace

This is a quick follow-up post to the duelling Samanthas of two weeks ago where I mentioned that I'd also picked up one of AG's modern dolls: the mini version of Grace, their 2015 Girl of the Year (a limited-run character doll that they release each year).

Mini Grace here is my first foray into AG modern dolls. I thought the full-sized doll was charming, but I'm trying to limit my full-sized AGs to one per face mold, so this one would have been a duplicate.  But not picking up the big one was no reason not to buy the mini, so when I found her on Amazon for a significant discount ($14USD versus the $24 price direct from AG), I decided to add her to the collection.