I’ve written a bit about the whole idea of streamlining my life and removing a lot of the hubris that I just don’t need at this point in my life. So far I’ve focused very much on books, DVDs and games but of course this philosophy extends itself further into other aspects such as clothing and stationery and a bunch of other stuff including collectibles.
Which is fine, I don’t need a lot of the collectibles I already have though I love them all dearly and they do come in handy for reference material when illustrating but part of the overall streamlining strategy is not adding more!! So I’ve found myself resisting several very cool pieces of movie memorabilia lately and not worrying too much about it.
But I’m not made of stone.
These three items would be so cool to have, no doubts about that and honestly I think whilst the title of the post says “won’t” it’s probably more a case of can’t. Money of course plays a huge role but I think the cost of these things reminds me of their actual worth. If I can’t afford them or they take money away from important things then they are essentially useless to me. (or something like that anyway…)
It actually looks comfortable
1. Captain Kirk’s Chair
When I was a young man watching Star Trek I always dreamt that one day I would have a lounge room that was an exact replica of the bridge of the USS Enterprise (NCC1701). That and a replica shuttle craft in the back yard. Now the shuttle craft is a little harder to come by, not impossible but pretty hard. The bridge on the other hand or at least the centre seat is a retail possibility.
Now there are a couple of issues to address.
Obviously the price is a talking point when having a chat with the wife about the practicality of purchasing this piece of furniture for our lounge room. At US$2199.99 you might want to offer to do the washing up… forever. But if you are thinking of starting negotiations this following couch puts it into perspective:
Not quite as cool as Kirk's chair but much more expensive
Another issue to address is that unlike the chair above it only seats the one person, presumably yourself and it’s no fun playing Mario Kart on your own so practicality raises its ugly head again.
2. Serenity – The Big Damn Replica
Would you look at that gorram detail!!
Okay as far as toys go this is pretty bloody impressive. This is a studio scale replica of the Firefly spaceship Serenity, measuring just under 60 cm in length and featuring hand painted details it’s literally the best model available for Serenity fans. One little hitch though.
US $2699.99
Yup, still not as expensive as that couch but that’s a pretty chunk of change which would buy many many packets of cheetos.
It’s pretty to look at though.
Appa plush figurine that I would love so very much
Appa plush figurine that I would love so very much
3. Appa plush figurine
I came to the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series (there is no movie, there is no movie) quite late, at least a couple years after it originally aired and so unfortunately I missed the craze and the merchandising that went with it. So Appa (the flying bison who I love so very much) plush figurines are only really available on ebay now and they go for a huge figure, not Serenity huge but expensive enough that it makes me think twice, which is probably a good thing because as much as I would love an Appa doll I really don’t need one…
Okay I’ve nearly convinced myself. I have a bunch of plush toys from Aliens and Farscape already and some of them I could probably part with easily but my lifesize Rygel is another story.
So are there any collectibles out there that you guys would dearly love to get but probably can’t (or won’t)?
Once again I find myself going to the blog post well, only to find it dry without even a deadite to speak of.
I think I’m a little spoilt over at The Coalition of Awesomeness and the Midnight Movie Club as those blogs have themes in which to work around, but out here all I’ve got is me and my stupid brain which hasn’t been playing ball of late. Of course there are the flying monkeys in the QYDJ lab but those little bastards only want to talk about oily versus dry peanut butter. That conversation gets old quickly let me tell you!
This is the reason why there's no point responding to those email notifications...
Once I exhausted all avenues of discourse regarding peanut butter I turned to ol faithful idea machine Google. Unfortunately even though there were blog posts that boasted “101 blog post ideas to get you thinking” the majority (all that I could bring myself to look at) featured helpful ideas such as:
- Write something funny
- Give advice
- Give your opinion on something
- Write about something you know…
And then they got worse, I’m thinking of developing the universal law of writing good blog posts according to these sites: “write about something that people want to read”. Bravo. Great advice. Where’s my cheque?
So I thought I might open it up to you guys and see if there was anything in particular you were interested in reading about? I’ve done this before and people have left really good ideas and then I’ve completely lost track of them and I feel bad about that because they were really great ideas… yeah I know I should really go back and find those posts. Of course if you write your suggestion again maybe the power of repetition will get through to me.
On another note I’m catching up on some commission pieces that are over due, got a bunch of superhero illustrations coming 
So ask away and I’ll try to respond to at least 34% of them in post format.
I suspect that going into the film Salt it is probably a disadvantage watching the above trailer and forming the expectation that this might be like a Bourne film.
It’s not.
Salt stars Angelina Jolie and is about a CIA agent who goes on the run after a Russian defector names her as a Russian sleeper agent who is going to kill the Russian President on US soil.
Who is Salt? I know but I don't really care...
That trailer and the general description make Salt sound like a pretty cool movie but to be honest in the actual execution it’s a severely lacking film. First off the whole idea of Russians infiltrating America to assassinate presidents and take over nuclear bombs feels like it’s an idea that went out with the cold war. I found it really clichéd, like a poor man’s Bond villain routine. The plot loses its credibility as we dive head first into the “plunging the world into war” for Mother Russia and to wipe out the evil American capitalist swine storyline!
A huge problem is that we don’t have anyone to identify as the main villain of the piece, there’s no mastermind behind it all, well there is but he certainly doesn’t rate much of a mention, I might have felt different had he been stroking a white cat and actually had any real impact.
I will admit that there are at least one or two twists that are impressive enough that they elevate themselves above the mucky muck story but they’re not exactly Crying Game/Fight Club level revelations and they don’t save the movie.
The stunts and the action sequences seem mediocre at best and the acting seems bored. In fact Jolie (who I quite like normally) looks exhausted throughout, I just want her to eat a nice meal and have a nap.
At the end of the film I just don’t care about any of the characters, they’ve made no impression on me and I don’t honestly care if they live or die. If they make a sequel, which they certainly seem interested in I won’t bother seeing it outside of some sick curiosity to see if they have learnt from this underwhelming experience.
See it if you have nothing else to watch, it’s not effective enough to make you think it’s really bad.
Rating: 
