Some of you guys have much more interesting hobbies than me. Well, in general. I think my hobbies are very interesting. I just mean that fewer people will be interested in the history of packaging art, or toy sculpting. I used to say that art was a hobby before it became a career. It’s still something I do obsessively though. I’m not sure how much is a desire to create versus nervous energy, but for most of my life I couldn’t go anywhere unless I had something I could doodle on. People are way more likely to tolerate doodling when in conversation than playing on a phone, or a Gameboy. You’d think I’d be better at art considering how much of it I’ve done, but there seems to be some kind of skill limit hard coded into me. I progress too slowly if at all.

I actually have a few friends who collect things. One of my oldest friends lives far away but he texts me all the time about his various acquisitions and projects for customization. He loves Conan The Barbarian, Lady Death and related comic series, Marvel comics, a little MOTU but not much, a very few Transformers, and video games. There’s other stuff too, but those are big topics. He used to like Star Wars, but the prequels didn’t sit right with him. He dabbles in classic stuff but not much. His game collection is probably the largest. To the point that he doesn’t need to get much for it anymore. Marvel Legends is the main topic of conversation and has been for many years now. His top characters are Spider-Man, and anyone or anything related to him, Ghost Rider, Psylocke, Storm, and Rogue. All the other characters sit on a scale only he knows the true scope of. He’s getting the big Mephisto on his throne set when that comes out. All the current Ghost Rider stuff that goes with it he already has. He’s pretty well got any Spider-Man character they’ve made. Even the weird ones like Hypno Hustler. At the moment he doesn’t have a display place set up for any of it so that’s a WIP. If he ever gets it done the way he wants it will be impressive. He has a wife and kid though, so he can’t just use his whole house.

Another friend likes die cast cars best. He keeps an eye out for store exclusives for me since I live far from the stores who actually carry them. Since he wanders far afield in search of his tiny cars he often goes to places where exclusives are left on the peg. Since we don’t like a lot of the same things I’m not competing with him for resources usually. It’s very handy to have a field agent who you don’t have to divvy up spoils with.

One of my other friends loves Dragon Ball Z and has to suffer in his search for the rarest of Gokus. If you know anything about rare Gokus you’ll know that it is one of the worst things to collect because it is a worldwide favorite. The competition is awful for the figures in short supply. Usually you can get the easy to find older figures at a reasonable price, but the premium ones can get quite pricey. There was a 300$ set not too long ago that I would have liked, but that was just too much for something I don’t have space for. I only get unrare Gokus sometimes. Maybe in a few years that set will be unrare. He also likes Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Marvel VS Capcom, so it’s been a real good time. They have made several nicely prices figures in the last couple of years. Really nice quality, but also affordable. I’ve gotten some on clearance and I’ve been impressed. I only ever really played Steet Fighter II, but it was huge in my youth so it crossed over with GI Joe, which I also collect. Since they are all in the same scale I’ve tried to get the ones they made GI Joes of to go with mine. There was only ever, like, 12 Street Fighter characters so I don’t need to get many. If you wait till the end of a run, or the holidays, you can usually pick up stragglers at really low prices. They haven’t made Zangief yet and he’s on the top of my list ATM. He’s got a lot of memes about him I find funny, which is how a lot of my favorite figures get that designation. They’ve made the figures in scale, so he’s going to be really big. Anyway, he makes reviews of bootleg figures on youtube under the name Manyninjas. If you like that kind of thing you should search him up.

Okay, I guess I shouldn’t bore you any longer tonight. I hope you ease into the weekend and have a good one. I’ll see you on Monday, I hope. Until then, don’t lose your accessories.

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