PEZ Collection

Blah! It's been too long of a break since I last wrote anything, feels like I can't even form proper sentences anymore! Not that I was ever good at that before, mind you. I guess this will be again one of those posts where I try to let the pictures do the most of the  talking.

So, anyway...... first lets talk about Pez candies real quick!
Normal flavours here in Finland have been for as long as I can remember; Orange, Lemon, Cherry, Strawberry, and..... woodland strawberry? (not 100% sure of that...) They all taste good, but by default I like the orange one the least. I can't really decide between the strawberries and cherries which one I like better, depends on the day I suppose!

Other Pez flavours I've tasted are Pez Liqourice and Pez Fizzy. The Liqourice isn't sweet at all, it's more salty like and I don't care for it. Really yucky stuff, never going to buy it again. Now, on the other hand, the fizzy ones, they are the best! Seriously.

strawberry, apple, lemon and the white is something super sour

There are randomly multiple flavours within one pack and they are slightly sour (I guess it's the "fizz" that does it). They are so good!! :3 The only problem I have with them, a very big problem, is  that they are not sold in Finland! WHY!?!!!? I found the Fizzy Pez in a shop in Estonia and they were like 80% cheaper than the regular flavoured ones in Finland. I am so regretting right now I didn't buy more of them while I had the chance. Next time I get to Estonia I'm going to buy a whole truckload of them, so that they'll never run out!

Onto the dispenser themselves. Maybe it's just my memory lying to me, but I have this impression that back in my childhood , you used to get 6 or 8 packs of candy when you bought a dispenser. Nowadays, you get 3 or sometimes just 1 random pack of candy. What's up with that?


Here we are then, the following is my current collection of PEZ dispensers. I've said it before, that I'm not a collector of the PEZ dispensers themselves. I have these few selected ones, because I collect the stuff related to their particular series overall.

MLP: Friendship is Magic. I found just 1 Twilight in a local shop, and I finally found Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie over in Estonia.

The Simpsons. I've had Homer since my childhood and I bought Bart and Marge last year via a Facebook group. Still missing Lisa and Maggie. I was so close getting Lisa, before the seller backed down and was never heard of again.

The Moomins. Bought from the Toy Swap, the most expensive ones yet. Hopefully I'll never have to pay as much for another set of dispensers.

The Skulls. I love skulls! <3 and that's the only reason I bought them. I think they are seasonal for Halloween from 2014.

Star Wars. Maul, Sidious & Grievous were bought at the Toy Swap.  Vader, Stormtrooper & R2 were bought new in a shop. C-3PO is from my brother's childhood. Yoda & Chewie, I found them at a flea market.

Pokémon. I've had them all since my childhood <3


That's it! For now....

The Lion King Collection

Here is again a post of my humble collection of things I never threw away in honor of the big news that I just found out about today. Disney is making a sequel to The Lion King in the form of a TV-movie and show! Read more here http://tvline.com/2014/06/10/disney-junior-lion-king-sequel-series-the-lion-guard/

Isn't that neat or what? Okay, so the show is going to be aimed for younger kids (age 2-7), which sounds a little weird first, but then again who cares? The back of the VHS tape's says that the age recommendation is from 8 years and up (on the Blu-ray it's 7 years). I remember that I was only 4 or 5 years old when I saw the original movie in theaters. Besides this new show is bound to be more kid friendly because they probably already took care of all the family feuds they could think up in the movies, no more daddies thrown down the cliffs by evil uncles or murderous/suicidal mother-in-laws........ awww! ( ಠ_ಠ)

Naturally, I have the two movies. For the record, I haven't seen The Lion King 1 ½ (or 3 depending on which country you're from) because I've only heard bad things about it.

Original trio. I've had these three figures since my childhood, Sarabi was the first one I got and the Scar figure was originally my brother's. On the Simba & Nala figure there is a clearly visible seam, as a kid, I used to try to tear them apart from each other! Now in hindsight, I'm glad I never managed to do that. :D Sadly, there are some irremovable smudges on the figures and the original paint is worn out here and there.

I think I got the Pumba figure from a relative and I bought the two Simba figures (the other one is significantly more scuffed up) from a flea market together with....

....sleeping Mufasa and Simba figure, which is so adorable!

Kiara or Simba? iron on patch. Honestly, I have no recollection of how this came into my possession, but it's cute all the same.

 

Happy Meal toys Kovu x2 and Zira. Not exactly the prettiest ones around, if you squeeze the toys they make a noise that sounds more like a pig rather than a lion. I found this old French McDonald's commercial on YouTube promoting these toy's  http://youtu.be/nlskILl_7Hc

 

Smarties tube toppers. Kiara with a butterfly, a very creepy roaring Simba and a broken one which was Rafiki holding cub Kiara. The tail feathers of Zazu, which is all that remains, came from something called Nestlé Magic Chocolate Surprise egg and amazingly there is even a video about those on YouTube  http://youtu.be/vrdpvI9yx6o

Coloring book with mazes, connect the dots, find five differences and so on. Here are a few selected pages from the book, I can't really tell the difference which pages were done by my brother and which ones I colored.

Nailed it!

*Update 07.03.15
Apparently I have a few stickers as well!

*Update 28.03.15

Found a children's book, the whole story of the movie in 4 pages! And the cub is a boy!

*Update 14.04.15

Zazu has been reunited with his tail feathers! I can't believe I found it... 

Dragon Quest 8 Collection

So we climb all this way and finally reach the top, only to be greeted by a monster ugly enough to turn milk sour. -Angelo

Dragon Quest VIII: The Journey of the Cursed King (released in Europe 2006) is one of my favorite games of all time. I've very fond and frustrating memories of this one. DQ8 is the second game I bought for the PS2 system. What initially got me interested in the game series was of course the fact that Akira Toriyama (Dragonball Z ♥) was responsible for the character design.

I bought the guidebook after my initial play through of the game, but it came in handy since I've played it two times after that. I won't bother to check it out, but I think I can safely say that I've put over 300+ hours into this game. Never did beat the secret boss and all of his damn forms, though.... so I guess I didn't truly complete the game.

Slightly off topic, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is so far the only other game of the DQ series that I've played....and never finished it. When I bought it, I didn't quite realize how different the gameplay was going to be. I obviously have to give this game another chance and I simply must pick up the previous installments of the series that were remade for the Nintendo DS.

Play Arts Action Figures. The box art on the back shows how supposedly posable the figures are, but I wouldn't risk it (I will never again trust the joints of an action figure, not after that one incident which ended with a figure with a broken arm). Each figure comes with a stand and a switchable set of hands; a pair of clenched fists and a pair of hands for holding their individual weapon, besides that there isn't any other accessories that comes with them. Which is a shame because there definitely would have been plenty of different weapons to choose from; spears, boomerangs (Hero), bows and arrows, magic staffs (Angelo), scythes, clubs, flails (Yangus), knives and whips (Jessica).

Hero/Eight or whatever you want to call him is my favorite out of the bunch. I find it so endearing that he doesn't talk throughout the game (although it is implied that he does talk). The game doesn't have a default name for him, so the player has to name him. I always named the hero "Spartan" for a reason I can no longer remember. Hero was the first of the DQ figures I bought.

By default the figure has clenched hands on them, so I had to switch Angelo's hands in order to make him hold the rapier. First of all the damn rapier was stuck in its hilt and second, the damn hands would not snap into their place.  Grrr >.< I say! As frustrating as it was trying to get a few pictures taken, this figure is nevertheless very elegant and one can only admire all the small details put into it.

 Yangus, what went wrong? When I first laid my eyes on it, I thought it was ugly and I passed the opportunity to buy this figure a few times just because I couldn't stand it. I finally gave up when it was on sale and now I am happy that I bought it even if it's still as ugly as ever. Don't really know what it is that bothers me so much in this figure, something's just off. Maybe it's my imagination, but the Yangus figure looks "stretched" which makes it look a lot taller than the in-game Yangus would be. It was a challenge to get figure to stand on its own, but that's no wonder, check out those tiny feet!

My party is incomplete because I'm missing the Jessica figure, but maybe someday...

There were two other keychains to choose from, the Thief's Key and the Magic Key but I chose the Ultimate Key because I thought it was the prettiest (it's the red gem that does it). Besides, who wouldn't want a key that can unlock any door? :D

Nothing official, but this is how my old phone used to look like. l loved that the Nokia 3200 (came out in 2003) had customizable covers. I'd probably still be using this phone if it was in working order, but unfortunately it's not.

That was short-lived... I was hoping to bask in the drunken delight of victory a little longer. -Angelo

Digimon Collection

Digimon!? Where did that come from? Yeah, I haven't even mentioned Digimon until now, and after this I'll probably never mention it again. As a cursed materialist that I am, I have wanted to do a "collection" post like this one for a while, but frankly I didn't know where to begin. It was too much of a daunting task to start off with one of my biggest collections, so I thought it would be easier to start with something smaller. I'm not sure if I should even call this one a "collection", because I haven't bought any of these for the sake of collecting. These are just stuff that has stuck around because I've a hard time to throw/give/sell anything away. *coughhoardercough*

Anyway, back in the days Digimon was a little bit "controversial" around our playgrounds, you had to either like it more than Pokémon or absolutely hate it. Whenever I was asked which one I liked better, I'd say Pokémon of course. Which was true, but that didn't mean I hated Digimon. Okay, for a brief time I did hate Digimon, but that was before I watched any of the episodes (then I secretly liked it a little). Looking back at it now, I'd probably say that the Digimon anime is better that the Pokémon anime.
So if I wasn't that much into Digimon, how did this stuff come into my possession? Mostly because my parent couldn't tell the damn difference between Pokémon and Digimon >_> but that was probably the case with most parents. So here is my very modest collection of Digimon merchandise.

16 Trading cards 

The only foil ones are Gabumon, Devimon and MegaKabuterimon.

Lillymon figure 

I believe there was some sort of a stand or platform that you were supposed to put the figure on (as it is right now the figure can't stand on its own at all) and I have a vague memory of a profile card or something like that, but I'm afraid those have been lost through time.

Double sided Poster 

I think it came in the same box as Lillymon. It's all folded up and not much larger than a regular comic book.

Comics (Digimon Tamers)

I got interested in Tamers because of Renamon, who I thought was an insanely cool looking Digimon because it resembles Mewtwo (or Lucario....) and it's (Digi)evolved form is a beautiful nine tails. To my disappointment the comic got boring very quickly and with that, my interest with Digimon died. 

Gatomon & Gabumon 

I suspect these two came in a random toy bag that came from a flea market. Poor Gatomon is missing its tail. I guess Gabumon would talk if you moved it's arms around or something because it has a build in speaker on its back. I never bothered to check what kind of batteries it requires, so I don't know what it is supposed to say.

Gatomon bean bag plushie 

This one is an exception because I intentionally bought it, despite that it was a Digimon. It is too damn cute :3 Gatomon or Tailmon as I better know it, was my favorite Digimon from the series. Wonder why the gloves are yellow on toys, but in the show they are green?

*Update 07.03.15

Apparently I have a few stickers as well!

*Update 20.05.15

Found a Patamon plushie at a flea market!

*Update 15.09.15

Found a  tiny Gomamon at a flea market!

*Update 02.12.15

Found both Gomamon and Agumon plushie at a flea market, and apparently I have a few more stickers as well!

There you have it, but I'm not done yet! One other thing you had to love about Digimon was the opening and ending theme songs!

The first Digimon opening Butterfly done with Pokémon? Awesome!


Finally, there's nothing quite like taking a nostalgic trip by listening to the Finnish dub of the Digimon Adventures opening. We have The Bad dub and The Good dub. Both which are pure gold in their own special way. XD