Sunday 1 May 2016

Examples of Crap I Waste My Money On: Bootsale Report 2!*

Since my last report things have been pretty bad in the bootsale world: I missed one week because I had to spend all day putting up Ikea furniture and the following two weeks were rained off, I did venture to a small ‘sale in Harrow that was on tarmac but all I got was 35 minutes of duelling banjos and old clothes. So I was childishly excited to get out Sunday morning and get stuck into four hours of other people’s unwanted detritus at my usual haunt, Dunton Bootsale, and it did not disappoint. Though I started a little slow I ended up coming home with five bags full of crap! Here it is all in a big pile next to a WiiFit board:


That’s what five bags full of random strangers’ undesired possessions looks like, it was such a big pile that I had to go back for a second bowl of hot soapy water, I haven’t had a Two Bowls of Fairy Liquid Result for what seems like forever. Which is a point, even though I just admitted to spending four hours elbow deep in dirt not even of my own making, I’m quite clean when it comes to things I own and every item bough second hand, be it from bootsales, charity shops or even conventions gets at least a wipe-over – so I’ve already spent 40 minutes with these newbies, washing and wiping with the occasional, terrible, realisation that what I’m wiping up probably came out of a child and I can say that I am very pleased to have them all here, the final tally was 54 (approx.) items:


So are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin:



Waddingtons’ Original Sylvanian Families Card Game!
20p (29¢)
Why does it feel the need to specify that this is the original Sylvanian Families? It’s not like they had an extreme 1990s reboot or anything. Is there G1 Sylvanian Families? Do their fans hate every other Sylvanian Families iteration that comes afterwards too? Ehh, I assume they were just being bootlegged to shit at this point or something, it’s not like it’s hard for other companies to produce little flocked things. Anyway this was my first find of the day and I became overpowered by the delightful thought of sitting on my bed and shuffling through 40 heavy card stock images of adorable little flocked things, I have subsequently done this and it WAS delightful, I think I may scan the set and post it online, I guess Sylvanian Families has an online fandom? Also I totally had that mole. Also also my dad fucking fears these things, I may wait until he falls asleep and then post them all around his room and then wait outside for the inevitable blood curdling shriek.

The Purple-Feelie Greeble Monster From The Planet Psycho!
Approx. 22p (32¢)
This was in THE BEST BOX AT A BOOTSALE THIS YEAR, the season is barely begun and I feel comfortable calling it that, it was like my 7 year old self had travelled into the future and left it for me to find. On of my ‘tactics’ for bootsailing, or I guess, for not wasting time digging through every box of 1 year old McDonald’s toys, is that if I see something I recognise from a certain timeframe, even if I have it already or I don’t seen anything else like it, to dig through the box anyway, that is how I found THE BEST BOX AT A BOOTSALE THIS YEAR and in turn the Greeble Monster. Everything in that box I had as a kid or wanted as a kid or had another from the same line as a kid, everything in there was a memory and it was scary but so awesome, most of it I had but I still managed to dig 9 items out of it , for which I paid £2, laughing manically. The best of the bunch is the handsome devil above, one of Russ Meyer’s Cosmic Critters and only one of two I have ever seen in real life, the other, the Three Fingered Snorkblak from The Planet Elefuzz (all of them have names as great at this) I’ve had since I was small, a present from my dad who even when I was that young was determined to instill in me an appreciation for the true finer things in life. I think this Greeble Monster may have suffered a slight haircut in his life (why are children so obsessed with cutting toys hair? The appeal of things like Barbie and Dam Trolls is that they HAVE that hair, why cut it off and defeat the whole purpose of the toy you weird little vandals?) or it may just really need a comb, personally I think he looks intelligently unimpressed, and the messy hair just helps.

Loco Roco 2!
£4 (£5.84)
At last! I will never stop with my adoration for Loco Roco, it is a virtually perfect game and I have wanted to play the sequel since it came out – the problem? I never see it when I have money, I never remember to search of it online when I can afford it, it is the most goddamn inconvenient video game ever released and frankly I think it’s been fucking with me just because it can. Well I’ve seen through your shenanigans Loco Roco 2, I’ve begun carrying around a small amount of cash at all times just in case I happen to run across something I’ve been looking for or something awesome I didn’t even know existed – things like you Loco Roco 2, and now I have you, rahahahahah. All I need to do is find my PSP, find my PSP charger, and then you’re for it! Of course that could take me months so I wouldn’t worry or anything.

The Dream Polar Bear!
Approx. 78p
This is the sort of story that people think is interesting but in fact is not, and tell their friends when you’re sitting by them on the bus so you too can be bored by it BUT I have to tell someone and better I bore random fictional people than someone who can use it as a reason to sever ties with me forever thus making me sink further in a black hole of loneliness and despair. The other day I had this dream (the worst way to start anything, ‘I had this dream’ is code for ‘this will be so dull it will make you take up stamp collecting’) where I was at a toy show, and I was buying a mammoth and a polar bear, and the polar bear looked just like this polar bear, it was articulated whereas this one is not but otherwise it is damn near identical, I think it may even have had those Wolverine-like sideburns! It was meant to be, it was foretold, I bought him.

Wrestlers!    
Approx. 78p ($1.14) each
I bought these, and the dream polar bear, from a favourite seller of mine whom I’ve dubbed Happy because he’s always so bloody miserable: he’s an old boy, he runs a toy stall yet doesn’t like children, I’ve never seen him smile - ever, and he always has something to complain about, but I am genuinely fond of him. Usually his stall isn’t this fruitful; I mostly buy Power Rangers and weird dinosaurs from him and never more than one or two, but today he comes over to me and says “do you want dinosaurs? I’ve got more in the car” – more turns out to be a massive bag full of them that he dumps on the table “pound each” he says and walks off, in this bag I found my dream polar bear so I was already pleased. But he’s not done, he finishes moaning to some mother up the other end of his stall and then wanders back (he doesn’t rush, ever) and says to me and another regular customer who are perusing his small selection of wrestling toys “do you want wrestlers? I’ve got hundred in the car”, now even with the underselling of his ‘more dinosaurs’  didn’t think he actually had a hundred toy wrestlers in his car. I was wrong. He brings out a huge supermarket bag filled with the bastards and dumps them out on the table, “pound each”. I scored six; I think the other guy got around 25, neither left the table unhappy – and how CAN you be unhappy with Al Snow and the Big Bossman? I can now achieve my dream of repeatedly re-enacting that classic scene with the two and a plate full of casserole one of them made from a Chihuahua. Also this is easily the best condition Bam Bam Bigelow I’ve ever seen, there’s some paint wear on his head but his flames are all perfect. Also also I cold and probably should totally cosplay as Bam Bam’.

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Adventures #23!
50p (73¢)
Of all the things I bought today, in fact all the things I’ve bought all year, nothing equals this tatty comic for sheer emotional attachment. To everyone else it’s just a reprint of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Volume 2 #14 in a condition that would make CGC Comics’ grading team cry, which is a good thing because the people who came up with a way to make it impossible to read a comic – something that’s sole purpose in life is to be read – deserve to be made miserable but I’m digressing aren’t it? Anyway to everyone else it’s just a British reprint but to me it could very well be the reason the like girls. April spends the entirety of this issue – which is a fairly preachy save the rainforest issue and the first appearance of the Mutanimal Jagwar, who’s mum shagged a jaguar god when it was in cat form and I’m digressing again aren’t it? ANYway April spends the entirety of this issue in tiny shorts, and Don Simpson (he who created Megaton Man) may suck at drawing Ninja Turtles but he does not suck a drawing women and the images of her tied up in those shorts, the one on this cover and the image it’s aping inside, are very likely the things that fist stirred the stirrable urges one has in me for the first time. I cut my old copy of this to bits and pasted the tied up pictures in a sketchbook I still have, ooh I should scan that, that’s certainly blogworthy, nothing makes better internet content than completely humiliating yourself, look how well the Ice Bucket Challenge did and fuckssake this isn’t a running gag, it’s literally the third time I’ve got off-topic as I write this, I think I’ve had too much sugar. Anyway I’ve been looking for this issue (I have the first print alraedy) for ages, and this was just on a table by itself, he had some other comics in a box but all American and all the same sort of stuff that always shows up at bootsales – Valiant and crappy 90’s Marvel (you could buy complete runs of Darkhawk, Deathlok, Bloodshot and Quasar within about two weekends during bootsale season I should think).

The Many Faces of Tommy Oliver!
£2.50 ($3.65) for the three
I haven’t found an appropriate article to express my raging Power Rangers nedery yet, but it will happen. As a related primer: I hate Turbo, and thought Zeo wasn’t as good as Mighty Morphin’ series 3, I also liked the first movie quite a bit but mostly because Ivan Ooze. I am also a terrible Tommy Oliver fan, he is THE MAN in Power Rangers in my (always utterly correct) opinion and these purchases are me working on my ‘must own Tommy Oliver in all his outfits’ project which is now almost complete (I just need a Black Dino Thunder Ranger) and ties into something that forces me to be serious for a moment, don’t worry, in the next paragraph I verbally combine the bloke from Leprechaun with mecha. One of the reasons I keep up the hobby of toy ‘collecting’ (I don’t like calling myself a collector because I don’t like to define myself by my interests and certainly not what quantities of what shit I buy, I’d prefer to be defind by things like my personality and opinions and ideologies, shit like that) is as, would you believe, a form of therapy, this may seem odd as buying old toys as an adult is a good way to make you even more of a social pariah than I already am, but it’s actually very effective in preventing me from ‘seriously making plans’ when it comes to suicide; I’m suicidal, a lot, I don’t say this for sympathy I say it for context, generally I’m suicidal once a day, but one of the many things I read in the many things I’ve read about dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts is the concept of ‘long term goals with short term achievements’ and I’ve found my love of toys to be a perfect fit with this – for example: a long term goal = owning a certain selection of Power Rangers, short term achievements include = obtaining one of this selection, obtaining a complete set of some kind within it (all of one Ranger Team, all  the Red Rangers, all of Tommy Oliver’s costumes etc). It actually works pretty well, even the process of buying something can help deter me from actually doing something other than just laying down when I want to die - I’m too much of a cheap bastard to want to top myself when I’ve just paid for something and it hasn’t arrived from eBay yet, really. I try not to rely on it too much, I find I can put too much importance on things and that can hinder more than help, but it is a coping mechanism I use and one that works well, just to move us out of the ‘being serious’ thing I find dirty sweaty deviant monkey sex with adorable Goth/Metal girls helps also.

Norbert and Frank!
£5 ($7.31) for both. 
Frank’s the robot obviously. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THESE TWO ARE BUT I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Norbert the Centaur is just badass, and centaurs are pretty badass in general, except the whole raping thing, but centaurs who do not go a-raping are badass and Norbert doesn’t look the rapey sort, he looks more the fuck-up-all-of-your-archers-then-head-butt-your-drawbridge-down-while-roaring-obscenities sort, plus he’s in-scale and in-style to fit perfectly with Masters of the Universe Classics, which is where he’s going to spend his life, between Rio Blast and Man-E-Faces, he was a £1. Frank’s a lot older, I’d say the 70’s but more likely the 80’s, this is him after he’s been washed, he was so dusty I thought his legs were orange. The best way to describe him I feel is ‘Warwick R Davies if he was a Gundam’ and that’s not making fun of either, that is combining two awesome things into one (easily portable) whole, I just became fascinated with the toy (this happens about one or twice a bootsale if it’s a good ‘un, I bought a dimetrodon from Happy for the same reason), I have a love for toy robots but one I can rarely afford the space or money to indulge in, but neither of those factors mattered with Frank, nor did the comparatively high price of £4 (though frank is comparatively older, heavier and more awesome than most toys at a bootsale), Frank was coming home with me. He’s currently sitting on a book case filled with DVDs after making friends with Gargomon:

Momantai motherfucker

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