Reviews of Cheap Toys and More

Super DC Heroes Color And Activity Book...

This is the second in the coloring and activity book trilogy I got a hold of from the no longer open Dollar Bazaar. After posting a number of funny activities from the Friends of the Force book, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to show some funny activities from another book. With the upcoming Batman vs Superman movie coming out eventually, this was the better of the two choices for the next book to be featured. I always liked Batman and Superman, but was never really into the Flash, Green Lantern or Aquaman. I do enjoy the Big Bang Theory and all of the stuff they do with them. Then again, they cast Jason Momoa as Aquaman and he looks pretty awesome. Much like the Star Wars Friends of the Force book, there are all sorts of activities to do such as mazes and every page can be colored so grab your crayons, pencil crayons, markers or whatever you want and go nuts. With 400 easy tear out pages, you’ll be kept busy for quite some time unless you don’t like coloring. Most of the pages are just coloring...

New Website Design

I decided to go for a new website design to upgrade the old one. This is still the same website with the same owner. I know I haven’t been posting a lot in the past long while, but as I mentioned in a previous post, Grand Theft Auto 5’s online mode kept me busy for quite a while and then a friend of mine mentioned a Minecraft version that came out for PS3 and talked me into starting that. For a game that doesn’t look all that great with not a lot to do at a first glance, it sure can keep you busy. Especially when you have projects in the game you are working on. I just liked the exploring and mining at first, but then I started working on projects. That and working a lot has kept me away. Anyway, I knew the website needed a new look and thought the new look would help get me back into posting again. I was just too busy to focus on it before and I needed help with the design since I wasn’t a designer, so I enlisted the help of the guys at thinkalee.ca to help me with that. They are currently making a new website so there...

Dollar Plus Store Closes One Year After Opening...

The Dollar Plus discount store that replaced the Dollar Bazaar in the plaza about a year ago has closed up after only being open for just over a year. Someone told me they were closing down last month and sure enough, there were signs that everything was being marked down and it was going out of business. When got back from vacation, just into January, it was closed down so I figured the end of December was when it actually closed up shop. I don’t like to see businesses go out of business, but as I mentioned before, I wondered why anyone would put the same type of store where another closed down. Did they think the previous owner wasn’t good enough and that they would do better? The problem with the smaller dollar and discount stores is that they sell stuff for more than the standard dollar. I would go in to look for other unique/odd toys and many of the more interesting toys would be like 5 to 10 dollars whereas the bigger stores would be much cheaper, not necessarily a buck, but cheaper. More selection and cheaper, by dollar store standards, has made it tough for the little guy. But isn’t that just the way business...

Save A Cent Discount Supermarket In GTA 5...

I got Grand Theft Auto 5 a couple weekends ago and as I was walking down one of the streets exploring, that’s right walking not driving since I was trying to increase my stamina, I came across a Save-a-Cent discount supermarket store. It is basically the GTA version of a dollar store. The signs on the side of the building say they have a “special price on all items” and that “for every dollar you spend, we refund you 1 cent guaranteed”. It is a supermarket so they have cheap and tasty things like fruit, seafood, meat and veg. At Save-a-Cent, you spend more and save less, which is the opposite of what you actually want. It is one of the little jokes they throw into the game. The one I found is located on Vespucci Blvd in Little Seoul next to the Lucky Plucker restaurant that is opening soon, but other known locations include Westminster at the corner of Galveston and Jade and in Fishmarket North at the corner of Albany and Feldspar. I haven’t even found those areas yet. You can’t enter the stores at all so they are just to look at and get a chuckle out of them. Now I am wondering if they had...

Anakin Takes On The Droid Control Ship Maze – SWFOTF...

Sorry it has been a while since I have posted one of these. This is number nine and the next one is going to be something other than a maze. There were so many mazes I had to split them up with the other activities with issues. This maze is from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace when the good guys go back to fend off the Trade Federation and Anakin is told to hide in the space fighter. From there, he takes off, flies into space and destroys the Trade Federation droid control ship. The issue with this maze is that is starts just above the planet, in space, and space is empty. Not only that, the fighters you are supposed to avoid are flying in the wrong direction. It looks like they are just trying to go back to the mother ship, probably because they got lost or were sick of the maze, yet Anakin has to keep going. This is how it should have looked. Basically, this wasn’t really a good idea for a maze. Just for fun, if you’ve paid close attention to the other activity posts, the number of stars in the added black space is related to a previous Star Wars activity post. Any...

Dollar Zone Discount Store

Dollar Zone is a discount store that opened up recently where the SM Discount and Dollar Store used to be. I can’t remember how many things I actually got at the SM Discount store, but I think it was only one Star Wars: The Phantom Menace item I am saving for a special occasion. The logo on the building has the same green background and yellow letter coloring as Dollarama. I went into the Dollar Zone store and the layout seemed to be the same as the SM Discount and Dollar Store layout so they could have just closed down and changed the name. I only had a few minutes to look around, since I was getting pizza from a place in the plaza, and I didn’t really find anything unique, stupid or just plain funny so I left empty handed. There is always that hope of finding something really funny at the smaller stores, but not this time. The only thing of note worth mentioning, that I find funny, is in regards to some of the merchandise on the shelves for sale. They had stickers from Buck or Two stores on them. It is one thing for dollar stores to sell toys that weren’t sold at normal stores...

Buff Baby Rattles Recalled

I know they aren’t exactly a normal toy recall, but some baby rattles have been recalled because the cap at the end of the rattle could separate and let out all of the small pellets used for the rattling sound. The official name for the rattles is Buff Baby. There were a couple reports of this happening so the distributor, Fred & Friends, decided to recall them. No injuries have been reported. The main cause for concern would be the child swallowing the released pellets. The funny thing about this rattle is that it is in the shape of a dumbbell so it looks like the baby is lifting weights while shaking it. People are advised to take the rattle away from their child and contact Fred & Friends for a refund. The CPSC has the full report with a picture of the toy...

Help Sebulba Tear Jar Jar A New One – SWFOTF...

This maze is based on a scene part way through Star Wars: The Phantom Menace after the group ends up on Tatooine when Jar Jar Binks does something stupid and spills Sebulba’s soup. Sebulba is prevented from exacting sweet revenge on Jar Jar thus allowing Jar Jar to continue subjecting viewers to more irritating and stupid scenes that include him. However, in the Star Wars coloring book, you have the opportunity to help Sebulba get Jar Jar for spilling his soup. This is odd because usually a maze like this would involve helping a good guy like Jar Jar get away from a bad guy like Sebulba. The publisher of the book was fully aware that page would go unsolved if that was the case so they made it something people would want to do. Of course, what Sebulba does to Jar Jar at the end is limited only by your imagination and it doesn’t need to be limited to one outcome. You can imagine all sorts of ways Sebulba would punish Jar Jar for spilling his soup. In fact, it doesn’t even need to have a reason like spilled soup. Sebulba can just be going after Jar Jar because he is Jar jar. The choice is...

Chicken Dance Easter Chicks Recalled

Fred Meyer is recalling about 1,000 Easter Chicks that play music and dance when you squeeze the left wing. It turns out that the music the chicken plays is above the ASTM F963 standard for decibel levels and this can cause hearing damage. People are instructed to stop using the toy immediately and take it back for a full refund. The toy cost about $20 and was sold at Fred Meyer stores in February and March. For more information, the CPSC report on the recall is listed here. A recall on an Easter item late May is a couple months past Easter. I am surprised it took this long to find the...

Even Battle Droids Hate Protocol Droids – SWFOTF...

Here is one of the more seemingly reasonable mazes they could include in the activity book. This maze is related to the scene right at the beginning of Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were sent to negotiate with the Trade Federation to end the blockade around Naboo. It’s entirely reasonable for this maze that the droid might need to navigate a maze like ship to get from point A to point B, but why would the protocol droid need to avoid the battle droids? Aren’t they on the same ship programmed to be on the same team? It doesn’t seem like the battle droids just go off and do what they want without orders. Some of the mazes include something to be avoided, but this one it doesn’t seem to make any sense for the person to have to avoid battle droids who are supposed to be on the same team. I guess even other droids find the protocol droids...

Knocking Off Website

Knocking off is a website that posts a lot of funny bootleg products from a wide variety of sources. Anything that is a blatant trademark infringement seems to be fair game on this website and they have plenty of really good examples posted on their blog. The site is run by Robert Cop and Special Man, knock offs of Robocop and Superman if you needed to know who they were knock offs of. The most notable categories they have on their website include video games, products, movies and TV. Don’t worry, they have a toy category to and the toy category has more than double of the entries the 2nd highest category has in it I don’t even think I can describe knock off toys they have showing there. There are plenty of toys which are combinations of two or more things that you just have to see to believe. You’ll just have to go and check it out, Knockingoff.com. They also take submissions if you happen to have any funny knock off items you want people to see, but have no other way to get them online. Unless you have some toy related knock offs, then feel free to send them...

Anakin Isn’t The Chosen One You’re Looking For – SWFOTF...

Unfortunately, it’s been a while since I have posted one of these because I have been busy. Not much of a page of the week. Anyway, this is the first non-maze activity I have posted. The mazes were just so much more fun, but there were others like this one that weren’t mazes and quite funny. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace introduced many fans to the midi-chlorians which were microscopic organisms that lived in people’s cells. According to the Star Wars Wikia, a normal human has about 2,500 per cell and the highest one known belonged to Anakin Skywalker with over 20,000. Now here is the activity, the midi-chlorian count. You have to count how many midi-chlorians Qui-Gon found in Anakin’s blood. So Qui-Gon finds 74 and decides it should be sent off to Obi-Wan and his reading says it is over 20,000 from the equipment on the ship. Again, the wiki page talks about how the testing was prone to fault and how Wil Jhonems, the marketing guy for Spotts Tradechip Company who makes the tradechips, stated that the concept of midi-chlorians is unclear to them. They don’t know what they are looking for so they probably multiplied the reading or just gave a random number just to...

« Previous Entries

Powered by WordPress | Designed by Elegant Themes | Setup by thinkalee