Money Wizard

 Like a dam, I've backed-up on a bunch of random pictures. I said "dam". That's a perfectly normal term that applies! So some of these are from a while ago. Enjoy!

The Green Wizard's special power is... money! They say that Lego investments are better than gold, but is somebody really going to pay this much for such a small set? I know it's an old set, but that seems like a lot, right?

During Xmas, there was a pop-up POP! Figure store at the mall. They make these for tons of stuff that you would not normally see merchandise for, so browsing them is a pop culture nostalgia adventure.

There's a rumor that Starship Troopers cast the worst actors they could find, so the movie would appear to be as cheesy and campy as possible. Sorry, Rico, if that's true. A fun addition to the rumor is that Neil Patrick Harris knew about this, and purposefully blew his audition knowing they would still pick him. 

Hatsune Miko um... chatting bank? That has to mean she sings, right?

Konosuba! It would be too long to explain the premise of this anime, but it's really funny, and I'm happy to see these characters. The short version is that they are sort of from a real-life version of a medieval video game.

Gotta hand it to this character from Persona 5. You have to be really secure in yourself if you name a character "Joker". With the overwhelming majority of the population associating that name with the Batman villain. Like the creators are thinking "You sure we want to go with "Joker"?"

This. This is why POP! Figures. Would we ever, ever get figures of Pat Sajak and Vanna White? [insert Wheel of Fortune victory music] And also, you can put them right next to your other POP! Figures, and they all look like they belong together.

It brings old-school years to my eyes to see such an overwhelming-ly obscure background character made into an action figure. Kids in the 80's had Luke and Vader and the main characters, but it was characters like R2-SHW here that would really spark up the young imaginations. Star Wars has recently stuck to mostly main character figures to make figures of, so seeing this droid was super cool.

Kids driving a tank? This could either be the best thing, or the worst thing. I can't figure out which one right now.

Does having this mug justify your bad behavior in the morning? Hey, it's on the mug, it's not just me.

I'm a horse! Hurray for me! Now this is a mug I can get behind.

I can't remember why I didn't get this neat Zodiac die. It's a D&D-style polyhedral with 12 sides on it. Maybe it wasn't in the stars?

Yikes! That sounds... harsh. Like, way too harsh. I'm nervous just looking at this threatening sign.

There's a place that sells card packs from Japanese anime card games. I don't know anything about these games, but I grew up with an appreciation for trading cards, so I'm tempted to get some anyway just for the art.

I've posted this bit before, but seeing a jar of Monopoly houses in a thrift shop reminds me of the fun thought to have them ready, and when somebody tries to pull the Elfer Technique on you, you can throw a handfull of houses at them! The Elfer Technique is a strategy where you enforce the rule that limits the number of houses to the supply included in the box. Nobody can build any houses because you refuse to upgrade to hotels.

Poppie? We all know Poppin' Fresh, but it looks like he has a girlfriend named Poppie. Nobody poke her tummy to see if she giggles! Not without her consent!

If you watch shows recently, it's weird to see old merch for them. Was JoJo's Bizarre Adventure really around when the Sega Dreamcast was making games? UNBELIEVABLE!! Over-reacting is part of the show. Maybe some Stand had the ability to insert this into the past? It's here, so that happened!

I saw this alien spacecraft in a thrift store and was going to make a fun quest out of researching it's origins. What show or thing could this be a part of? How could I start such and investigation? And then I looked up and saw a similar thing in a package for Mars Attacks. Oh well, there goes my game.

Ree-Yees was my friend's favorite Star Wars figure when he was growing up. Fun fact: you can pop the head off the body (safely) and then it fits perfectly onto a Lego minifigure body. My friend made all sorts of creations for his Ree-Yees hybrid Lego figure.

Is that somebody dressed in a Supergirl outfit?! Nope. That's what you get for a shy quick glance. It's amazing how putting a wig on a mannequin makes it look quite real, at a glance.

It's fun to see the mascots for the teams that don't have obvious characters in the team name. Who is TC Bear and what does that have to do with Minnesota or Twins? Should we get two of these? Does TC have a twin brother or sister?

Officer Big Mac! Does anybody miss these McDonald's characters? Only $8? How old is this thing?

I got a picture of the back... 1985. Wow. Sometimes you see things like this in a legit museum, and sometimes in a thrift shop, for $8. Which one is correct?

Somebody probably had a collection that wound up in the thrift shop. The fry box and drink cup graphics look surprisingly modern in this doll set. 

McDonald's record album? That's crazy! This is from 1983, I didn't think they made adult-oriented merchandise for things back then. 

Transformers as Street Fighter characters! For you, the day you saw M. Bison as a Transformer was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was a Tuesday.

Chun-Li and Ken, too. There's likely a huge overlap in fans of both Transformers and Street Fighter. So that's a cool Combo. Street Fighter had combo moves, and Transformers had groups that would combine into a bigger robot.

Pepperminty! Is it too late to change my name? I'm a fan of hot peppers, after all. So I guess there are times when I'm pepper-Minty.

Evil claw machine! The claw would not go over far enough to grab that easy-looking target. Somebody will probably get a two-fer if they grab anything else and it falls on top of it.

The Cracker Barrel was selling their display tree when we went there for dinner. I spied something else in the gift shop that would make a great Xmas gift for somebody who was there with us, so I planned on going back the next day to sneak-ily get it. When I did, that tree was gone! This picture made a fun story for when we gave them the gift and also mentioned the tree we had seen.

My friend's favorite classic Masters of The Universe character, Tri-Klops. When they re-do characters for modern re-makes, sometimes they wind up ruining them, but thankfully this one looks cool. 

Perfect for the guest restroom! Guaranteed to make them take extra-long amounts of time in there. If that's what you wanted.