FOTD 2 Launched

16bit.com's Figure of the Day is live, right now. It's going to be 5 days a week and you should read it and click on all the banners.

A reminder, this is not going to feature Star Wars, nor is the Star Wars one going to stop because of the new one.



Somehow, it looks like you'll be reading a lot about Marvel and Transformers.

Meet the New Column

Nobody reads this blog, so that's why I post announcements here.

On October 14, I'm doing something stupid. Since 2006 I've written "Figure of the Day" for Galactic Hunter, which has gone from 7 reviews per week to 5 because, well, who cares.

Starting October 14, I'll be adding a second daily Figure of the Day column. This one will be on 16bit.com and have no Star Wars content. It's a lot of extra work, but there are some differences which will make this one interesting.
1. I've already written 31 entries
2. If push comes to shove, I'm going to let myself skip a day (or three)
3. I'll review pretty much anything

The basic focus is "what can I get cheap?" or "what's on my desk right now?" rather than a unified focus. If I had to do "FOTD" as a concept over again, I'd have done it 7 days a week with literally any line rather than just Star Wars. Because, crap, I've written over 1,400 of the damn things. If you saw what I got paid for ad clickthroughs, you probably wouldn't do it. But hey, I've got toys, and I need more pageviews, so let's make some more pages.

What are we covering in the first 31? Marvel, Transformers, Masters of the Universe Classics, Funko Pop Heroes, LEGO Minifigures, and G.I. Joe amongst other goodies.

Eventually I might do a "guest week" or see if an open call for toy donations for coverage works out, but my guess is probably not. Although Mattel and Hasbro have already sent me stuff, so who the hell knows. They don't know it's for the column though. (Also: thank you very much, Hasbro and Mattel.)

I has a Radio

Just got interviewed by KTAR in Phoenix. I'll be on the radio at some point tomorrow about the McCain/Obama toys that Entertainment Earth sells (as that's where I work, you see.)

Comic-Con This Week

Comic-Con is this week, and in a way, it's going to be a test run for the whole blog thing. I haven't yet announced any of this stuff but I'm hoping to post crap to my various blogs from the show and see what happens. It's going to be different, and most likely not work well. But if it does, it's going to mean that my life online is going to get a whole lot easier. For me. Who knows how it'll be for you people, you're on your own.

...seriously though, if anyone out there is reading and sees this please email me/leave comments for requests of what you want to see from Comic-Con. Due to work I can't do a lot of panels (OK, maybe 2 or 3) but I will be there with my camera ad my little notebook to ask questions if happenstance permits, so hey, use me as your roving reporter if you'd like.

I'll definitely be podcasting for work, so you'll hear shows either this week or early next week. Again, there's a lot of tools that are going to be tested, and if it works it'll work nicely.

Oh yeah-- my good friend Shaun-- and when I say "friend," this is someone I actually hang out with when we're in the same city, and we went to college together-- put up a great short film called Discount Assassin. The whole idea is a guy will kill on the cheap. He also writes for the comedy blog Comedy Is Dead, so be sure to see his movie as it beats doing nothing.

Comedy is Dead

A friend of mine has been posting stuff on a new blog that's early in development called "Comedy is Dead," a name whose origins are best left unsaid. He's been reviewing all sorts of shows and albums, and I've been meaning to pitch in as well.

On that note, I watched the new Dana Carvey special on HBO and I didn't much care for it.

Droid Factory

I just posted a big post with lots of junk in it regarding the new Droid Factory stuff from Wal-Mart. I've got shots of the PDQ display, the built C-3PX figure, and all that jazz. Check it out.

I was not able to find the new comic packs, sadly, so the hunt continues for those. And I saw a ton of unsold Lugnuts-- like, dozens-- meaning that Grimlock (which ships in the same proportions) is insanely popular.

Transformers Blog Launched

...I figured it'd be easier just to launch a specific blog than dump the content here. So Go here for the super early beta of my new Transformers blog.

Another project

It's never too early to spend your life writing about stuff. I've been writing online about toys and action figures in a semi-professional capacity since 1995, an am now trying out a few blogs. Like, more than one. I presently write for 16bit.com and GalacticHunter.com, as well as the Playmoblog. My day job is Toy Evangelist for Entertainment Earth, where I do a lot of merchandising things, YouTube videos, podcasts, and other exciting things that the kids call Web 2.0. Or rather, they don't, just the people in their 40s.

I'm now playing with Flickr and YouTube from a pure publishing perspective. I think there's a lot to gain by giving a lot away, for example just biting the bullet and putting all your photos on Flickr for the world to use as they see fit. (Maybe with a credit on the image.)

Hopefully you'll like this little experiment in quick, dirty content. I want to write more but spend less time doing it-- let's see if it works. I'm betting on "no."