My latest column, complete with a needling typo or two, is up.

Give 'er a read, if ye cahn, ye wee girls!

please...

-JJJ

Jason, you are now four for four!

Personally I never "just bought anything." Mainly because of financial constraints, not desire. It became a case of which toy was the most desirable...

My grandsons are my version of your 9th floor kid. I send them toys to stimulate memories for them both. Sadly, as far as I can tell, toys these days all have an ulterior motive today. They must teach or reinforce something. Toys made simply to light the imagination are few and far between. Action figures make a child live their versions of cartoons (or movies, sports, etc.) and, in turn, rekindle the make-believe factor in kids.

As for me, although I'm 53, it's easy to fondly remember rummaging through my toy box to dig out my Marx "little men" to wage war (long before the days of "action figures."). So, everytime I go on a "search and destroy mission" to TRU or Target or anywhere, I become that little boy again. Who said time travel is impossible?

Quick update to the column. My wife told me tonight Ninth Floor Kid picked up HeroScape when I left it about a month ago and he and his brother love it.

Pretty cool.

-JJJ

This one hit really close to home for me as I am in the process of moving my family to a new house. As is the nature of Los Angeles real estate I'm looseing precoius square footage so that my wife and I can be closer to work and cut the horrible commute we both have.

I NEVER thought I'd leave the house we are in. It's our dream house and it really worked for us when we were both working at Disney becase the I-5 isn't that bad. but now that we both work on the west side and it's the 405 the whole way there and back... sacrifices had to be made so the we have more time with the little one.


That being said... I had a lot of storage here. A full 2 car garage. I've accumulated a LOT of stuff. WAY too much stuff. Like a SCARY, overwhelming amount of stuff in the past 10 years of collecting in So Cal. More than I will ever ba able to display. I have a LOT of SPARE carded stuff. Everything Star Wars from 1995 to the present. I have a spare boxed set of all the 12" Star wars including exclusives. Every Batman and Superman animated figure from Hasbro including the Euro exclusives. The entire 4.5" and 9" Trek line. McFarlane stuff. Good stuff, weird stuff. crap. And now I need to liquidate it ASAP.

I have it in storage right nowjust to get it out of the way... you could start your own toy shop with this stuff. Honestly I almost don't know what to do with it all. I've given a bunch away to my church (for prizes for the kids) and some directly to a couple of kids that are Star Wars fans. Some I've sold off to a local comic shop that wants to get into selling toys.
Some I've given to neighbor kids. There is a lady at work with a few young boys that i've just started giving to.

If it were Christmas I'd donate the whole lot and be done with it. mayby I can find a chlidrens hospital. I think the tax write off of donating it would be more than whatI'd get selling it. or mayby I'll take it to one of those Ebay consignement places and wait for the check to arrive and do something nice for my wife for putting up with me and all of this crap.


I don't know... I've hoy a HIGH volume of "extra" stuff that I just can't afford to keep.

Somthing's got to give.

Julius M

You could give a couple of things as prizes on the board here. Good way to drum up interest in the board and site.

I think that it's funny that so many of us are all experiencing the same "Why the heck did I collect all this stuff?!?" feeling at the same time.

I've slowly been doing the ebay purge over the past couple of months, if only cause it's been the easiest way to get rid of some of the stuff I have. I'm trying to free myself of all of my toys except for my SW, DC Direct, JLU, & Batman stuff. I have yet to tackle my biggest challenge which is the HUGE box of loose 5" Toy Biz figures from the 90's. Looking at that box of figures & going through them all, I've been forced to ask myself "why did I need to but EVERY figure that TB put out?!?"

The past couple of X-Mas holidays, I have found myself donating a couple of bags of MOC figures to the Toys for Tots program. But I must say that BlueSparrow has a great idea there with his post!

Great read, this is something I can truly relate to.

Tucked under my stairs are boxes of Total Justice, Xena, Batman Animated Series and Simpsons figures (Occasionally Kang and Kodos go off and scare the crap out of me)

I've been saving them for my son (he's still digging my Fisher Price Little People sets)

Hopefully one day he'll come up to me and tell me he likes Superheroes or the Simpsons, that day will be better than 10 Christmas mornings

Dude, you are making the rest of us columnists look bad! LOL.

I just did a rehaul of my room too. Every damn thing I own(ed) was packed up and shifted. Took me a month. It was painstaking and I never want to do it again.

I'm also in the midst of clearance but it saddens me that most of the things I thought were hot when I got them are barely desired anymore. That's the nature of the beast of collecting.

I'll hopefully share pics with everyone in a week or so. Unless JJJ beats me to the punch about it.