"Deleted Scenes" for the Cloud Action Figure Review

The rest of the footage that I took that day, from the review I did of the Kingdom Hearts Cloud Action Figure review. I'm quite happy with it, however, it's too bad that it needed to be cut for the gayest of rules (the ten minute bullshit.)

The Cult of Plastic Crap

It is MASSIVELY IRONIC that just recently, through means that would not drain my shallow funds, I have come across a few things that would make decent reviews, and the camera that I have been using for years now, has just been stolen. I even felt that I had the motivation to do a review with the same zest that I used to apply to my work, before Youtube became a tyrant. I just can't do any filming with my non-existant camera. To make matters worse, the person in my family charged with replacing the camera isn't listening to reason, and feels that if Canon produced the last camera ANY camera will be good as long as it bears the Canon name. They won't shop ANYWHERE ELSE besides Best Buys, and tried to reassure me by showing me the new camera on Best Buy's website, where the read-out of the camera's stats told me that it (quote)

"Takes brilliant pictures and videos that SOMETIMES have sound"..... fuck....



Regardless of how broke I am, and how very hopeless my hunt for a job is, every weekend my brother quite easily drags me to a myriad of places that are only good for spending money, so that he can look for Transformers, and that I can window shop and think about my life. He always seems to find a "great deal" on something, I always try to postpone my inevitable descent into madness and focus on something trivial like price tags, and all the stores always seem to carry the same old crap. However, every so often something new and interesting, or rare and collectible will grace the shelves of our local Wall-Mart or Toys R Us. If it interests either of us, or is somehow related to an intellectual property that we enjoy, or is thematically consistent with a growing collection of ours, then there is a good possibility it will be bought. Just a few days ago, I was re-watching the BEST movie that Adam Sandler ever starred in, "REIGN OVER ME," where the psychotic behavior of his character Charlie Fineman is described in a very similar sense:

NIGEL: So, what do you do, Charlie?

CHARLIE: I'm a Collector

NIGEL: Really? What do you collect?

CHARLIE: What do I collect? I don't know. Johnson, you can answer for me.

ALLEN JOHNSON: Charlie collects things from his life. You know, things that he finds germane to his lifestyle.

That scene is just a sample of a great piece of, dramatic, cinema, and is one of the more surreal and authentically awkward feeling scenes throughout the whole movie. Charlie is painted up to be a really disturbed person, who ultimately throws violent temper tantrums anytime anyone begins to question him about his lifestyle choices or his past. Either way, I found it a little unnerving that a character that desperately needs help would so closely resemble people like me in any way. Even though Adam Sandler manages to create the insane character in a very charismatic way, I still find it disturbing to identify with him, knowing fully that he's not well.

When my brother and I first started scrounging around the usual places, specifically Toys R Us, they didn't have as many appealing items as they do now. In fact, the frequency of the cool shit on the shelves has gone up drastically in the last few months. Just this afternoon, I was looking at a Doctor Who action figure, and wondering if Nerds haven't actually changed what's being stocked in these stores, just by voting with their wallets in the past few years. Maybe that's just me...

Needless to say, all this crap wants to be bought by me, or rather, I feel the need to buy all this plastic crap. I've always loved action figures and collectibles, and I really have no idea why. It's sort of a small, smoldering passion of mine, like the way I feel when sharpening the edge of a knife and polishing the metal, or smelling the glue on the inside of a book, rubbing my fingers against the print of a comic page, feeling and modeling the fabric of a new hat or coat.

I sort of makes me feel guilty, like I shouldn't be this way. In many societies the world over, there are always negative connotations with feelings of materialistic desires. There's, apparently, something shameful in the desire or love of PHYSICAL THINGS. While a lot of my ideologies, and the philosophies that I admire would AGREE with this statement, I must admit that I have a love of material myself, and that I suspect that I am not the only one, considering the amount of money being generated from the keen art of selling crap you don't even need. It may just be human nature, or it could possibly be the influence of commercials on our minds, even though I try to avoid brainwashing advertisements as often as possible. Either way, I often times feel guilty for participating in rampant consumerism. I used to scoff at people who would buy a shirt that said HOLLISTER on it, and then I looked down and saw that I was wearing a Metal Gear Solid shirt. The only thing I can say in my defense is that wearing a shirt that shows support for a long running video game series which is VERY important to modern artistic and even philosophical thinking is in some way better than wearing a shirt just because it has a brand name on it.

Still, though, there is another thing that bothers me about my habit, which is simply this: I can manage to hold my head up high when it comes to most hobbies. I generally never took any shit from anyone, concerning the unorthodox life that I have lived. For the most part I've worn it as a red badge of courage. But lately, I feel more vulnerable to other people's judgment than I ever have before. It may have something to do with the fact that I have to get a job, and I realize that I stand a much better chance of getting a job if I'm white, have a normal American name, and wear a shirt that doesn't seem "radical" in anyway. All of you out there wearing "Rage Against the Machine" merchandise may want to have a quick wardrobe change before turning in that application to SEARS.

Even though I never felt the need to answer to anyone but myself, I always had a good "fuck you" speech ready for every alternative choice I made in my life. Don't like my FABULOUS fashion sense? You're a homo-phobe. Don't like it that I'm a gamer? You must be an OLD TIMER! What's-a-matter? Think I'm strange for having THAT MANY KNIVES!? Tch, that just shows how USELESS you'll be when the zombie-apocalypse occurs. Hope, you can run fast, motha-fucker, otherwise you're gonna be ZOMBIE-CHOW!

But I find the most difficult hobbie to justify is the "Cult of Plastic Crap." I really don't have ANYWHERE NEAR the number of figures that my brother has. In fact, I've always wanted to make a video showing the COLLOSAL number of Transformers and Halo characters he has IN STORAGE!

I guess it's not easy to justify collecting this stuff, because it's quite easily associated with kids. I recognize that most action figures are aimed at 12 year old boys, and I really don't help my case by OPENING THE BOXES, thereby destroying any "collectors value" they originally had. At best, I can argue three things:

1) I'm not hurting anyone, and YOU"RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

2) People keep statues in their house and that's considered classy, but if it's made of plastic and articulate then it's not?

3) Cliffy B is one of those really cool nerds and he has an entire transformers corner in his office that he refers to as the "Optimus Prime Shrine." He's way past cool.... right?

Did They Do This Before?

Some of you are probably aware of my feelings on the new PSP GO. And if you aren't, suffice it to say, that I'm a little conflicted. It sounded like a good CONCEPT, and I was excited to hear about an update to the PSP lineage, however, I think it looks ugly as sin. That's not really the point of this blog, I guess.

"Unboxings" are a type of video that became popular on the internet for obsessive nerds all over the world. I myself got a huge chunk of my youtube-viewership through the unboxing of at least 2 PSP's. Like most good things on the net, the concept was (and partially is) a COMPLETELY foreign concept to the average Layman-America. I remember trying to explain it to the skater kid that would hang outside the grocery store I worked at. He acted like it was the most odd behavior he'd ever heard of.

Nevertheless, I have never known an unboxing to go beyond the realm of the hobbyist, but recently with the announcement and release of both the coming PSP GO and the PS3 Slim, I've seen "official" unboxings done by people at gaming media companies, who have been given the hardware ahead of time. Right now I have a youtube video pulled up that's of an unboxing done by the fellows at IGN.

It all feels pretty wrong to me. It doesn't feel like I'm really watching a legitimate unboxing video, in the same way that a wedding wouldn't really feel like a proper union of two people if FOX NEWS was reporting on it, or if someone was getting paid to do it. My first objection is that this feels, to me, like another attempt to shift the balance of power from average citizens to corporate entities with corporate mindsets. It's not enough to control the mainstream media, but it would appear that the domination of underground culture is on the agenda as well. In fact, just the other day, I was reading a an article concerning 4chan and the fact that companies feel that new media is less accessible to advertisement agencies. I would wager that they were expressing the notion that they would like that to change.

The other objection I have with this is the potential for corruption. How long ago was it that a video game journalist was fired for giving SOME VIDEOGAME a bad a review? It was either on Gamespot or IGN, I don't really recall, but either way, the game in question had been produced by the same company that was advertising on the site, and it was a big media story (among the inter-webs that is) that the reviewer was fired for giving it a negative score. My point here is that if the first unboxings (which tend to be like "reviews" in nature) are handled by corporations and not the consumers what is to ensure that they won't lie through their teeth to protect the maker of the product. They might, for instance, pick up the new PSP Go and say,

"Oh, it's bloody comfortable to hold." And then, with that advice in mind, you go out to purchase one, only to find out that it feels like a brick in your hand. Granted, this could just be avoided by waiting for joe-shcmoe to do a review of it on youtube, and it's probably not likely that such a huge flaw would be glossed over by IGN, but still, I would rather entrust my views to a video that was "home grown."


------------------------------------------------

In response to the previous post about "official unboxings and reviews" username: CarnageDissilusion left this comment:

"I believe unboxings and reviews are about opinions rather than stone facts. I would rather John Smith told me the PSPgo was uncomfortable rather than Sony telling me it's comfortable as hell.

I based my purchase of a PSP3000 on TKE's review and some other users..."

This brings an interesting point to mind, concerning the trustworthiness of non-consumer product reviews. I recall that around the same time that I released my review of the PSP 3000, so did a far more prolific website known as CNET. While I attempted to illustrate the now INFAMOUS scan-lines that PLAGUE the 3000 model, CNET didn't seem to think it was something that should be mentioned.

There were over 30 pages of complaints on the official Sony Forums, and even so, Sony sent us all e-mails saying that it wasn't even a problem. Personally, I try to ignore the scan-lines, however, if I had known that it was like this BEFORE I had purchased it, I most likely wouldn't have.