In other news, two new Doctor Who-related articles are up on Scary-Crayon! And the DMV is a haven for jailbait in the summer.

It is the first of April! Head on over to Scary-Crayon (or visit this page if you visit after April 1) to check out our little goof. As you can see, he's back!

In other news, here are some photos from my ever-expanding DC Comics action figure collection. Some of us have t-shirts, I have toys.

I'm still lovin' Grodd, but I so need a proper Brainiac figure.

As noted in A Crayon Haiku #74 and the attendant Scary-Crayon blog entry, I really, really would like to stop watching this awful show. But I can't. And why not? Because Allison Mack is just too cute. Argh.

I was about to draw a parallel between my viewing of "Smallville" and many women watching "The Oprah Winfrey Show" -- despite both programs being undeniably terrible and headache-inducing -- but I don't think it's a proper comparison. True, women swoon over Oprah, but I don't think they're doing it in quite the same way. Unless, of course, they are.

Ick.

And with that brilliant segue into disgusting subject matter comes our other news -- which I suppose isn't really news if you've been keeping up with Scary-Crayon. The good folks at Basic Fun stumbled upon my review of the Series 1 Madballs and were kind enough to hook me up with an advance set of the Series 2 'balls! (Thanks again, y'all! ) So here's the review of those! I love Madballs even more than Allison Mack.

I was about to suggest perhaps combining Miss Mack and Madballs into an even greater entity, but somehow I don't think that would work very well.

I do have an "official" new year's post planned, but I've been a bit too busy to get to it during the past week. In the meantime, here are some recent Scary-Crayon links and a few more toy photos!

Much of what I've been up to lately (in an unpaid capacity, anyway) has involved SC, since I couldn't let the site go without a January 1 update! In addition to Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #103, which takes its cue from the most recent episode of "To Catch a Predator," I posted a (late, I know) summary review of my most favorite holiday special: George and the Christmas Star. Some of you may already have seen it, but -- if not -- the review also contains two clips of musical numbers from the special. For geekier readers, the review is also littered with Transformers, Doctor Who, and other fun references.

Also, in the hopes of adding a little more diversity to SC in the coming year, I have also posted a lengthy list of guidelines for submitting content! Most of this stuff probably goes without saying, but one can never be too careful when it comes to this sort of thing. So yes, if submitting to SC sounds like something you'd like to do -- and I would especially like to see pieces from some of you who know who you are (!!!) -- slog through the guidelines and send me some ideas.

And now, more toys!

Red X has been around here for a while -- I think I acquired him shortly after "Teen Titans" stopped airing -- but I brought him back up to my room after I got the Neo Shifter because it came with an extra piece that reminded me of a small container of xenothium (which Red X is holding in the photo). Dalek Thay and Martha, however, are my first toy acquisitions of 2008! I did order them in the final days of 2007, but still.

Thay is more or less the same as all of the other Character Options Daleks in my collection, but what differentiates him is the rear panel "damage" that he incurred in Series 3. I liked it a lot less in theory and in the online pictures -- the toy just looked like a messed up Dalek -- but now that he's here I rather like it because it differentiates him from my other CO Daleks. Technically I already have a Thay since I have the Cult of Skaro set, but since there's no way I can tell him apart from Jast and Caan I tend to think of them all as being "regular" Daleks. But now I have an identifiable Thay to stand with Sec. So while something happened in my continuity to cause the rear panel damage, that ridiculous Human Dalek shit never happened.

Martha is another figure that I wasn't too keen on upon seeing the online pics, but I like her a lot more in the flesh... er, soft plastic as well. The facial sculpt really is a lot better than it appears in small pictures (and even this larger one doesn't do it as much justice as I'd like) -- it might even be my favorite human sculpt among the CO figures. Most of them have a kind of dead mannequin look to them, but Martha's got this slight smirk that imbues her figure with a little more life. And like Thay, her backside is rather nice and complements the toy well.

All for now -- more from me later regarding my optimistic hopes for 2008 that were subsequently thwarted in rather violent fashion. Hope y'all are enjoying the new year thus far, though! Ja.

Been fooling with the light tent more -- here are some of the latest shots. I think I'm starting to prefer the grey background over the white!

Godzilla requires no explanation, really.

More photos and remarks behind the cut!

In other news, I've added some new shirts and other merchandise to the Scary-Crayon store -- these ones are based on the new site header and lack the decidedly not-family-friendly hockey mask-wearing crayon. I've also reduced prices by at least $1 on all items (base Cafepress prices are still kinda high, though, so that's not saying much). So if you were ever contemplating getting a SC shirt but didn't want to freak out your grandmother with mentions of homicidal cock-blocking, you may now do so. I'm looking forward to ordering one of the black tees myself!

So here are those additional Lego Dalek pictures I promised! I've left the digital exposure down on these photos so that the Special Weapons Dalek doesn't blend completely into the background, but you can see here that -- at 3.5" versus 5" and 4.5", respectively -- the Lego Daleks are quite a bit smaller than my official Character Options figures and paper Daleks. (They're about the same size as the shuttlecock Daleks, but for some reason it didn't occur to me to include them in this photo at the time of its taking.) I figured they'd be about this size given the sizes of the Lego pieces I used to make them and whatnot, but it's still kind of odd (yet neat!) to see a 3D render that's been blown up on my laptop screen reduced to a tiny tangible 3D object formed from a bag of 150+ even tinier pieces.

And here they are closing in on the 9th Doctor! Despite the smaller scale (and I really can't think of any way to rectify that without messing up the proportions), I'm rather happy with how the Lego Daleks turned out. They were fairly sturdy to begin with, but I've made some further improvements to the designs using extra Lego pieces I had around (namely internal adjustments to the primarily hollow structure of the original base that fill in spaces) to increase their stability even more. The most unstable part of the Lego Daleks, however, was the Special Weapons Dalek's cannon, which was kind of wobbly at first and was prone to falling off if I tilted the figure forward too much. I've since tightened it up by painting the interiors of the endpieces with clear nail polish, so now it's perfect. Feels kind of like cheating, but it's not like I glued or cut pieces or anything.

In other news, one of the Christmas presents I have already received is a 16" x 16" x 16" lighting studio, so the digital exposure adjustment trickery should soon be a thing of the past! Look forward to seeing tests with that in the near future. Also, for those of you that are interested in checking it out, I posted that Madballs review and comparison article last week on SC. For old folks that actually remember the original 1986 Madballs, it's at least worth a look for some of the comparison photos.

Anyway, that is all for now. Hope y'all are having a happy holiday season! As Tiny Tim might say, "God bless you -- every one." Except I'm not Tiny Tim and don't really go in for "God bless" statements, so feel free to modify that statement accordingly -- while more or less retaining the general sentiment -- and pretend I said it.

Wes Crayon (1:03:26 PM): but yeah if I could a) have sex or b) have Transformers, I'd be all about the second letter of the alphabet

I think the person with whom I was chatting at the time was extremely annoyed by the comment -- like in a "ugh whatever you f'n LOSER" kinda way -- but it is so true! Even cheap knockoffs of figures from other transforming robot lines are pretty fun to fiddle with. I'd never have heard of Convertors if I hadn't come across this guy, but now I feel like I've learned something! Nothing exceedingly important or enlightening, mind you, but still interesting... at least if you're me.

Speaking of knockoff transforming robots from alternate lines, I posted a review of two figures from the Quick Change Dinobots 4-pack over at Scary-Crayon. I should have the other two reviewed sometime next week. And De, your question regarding Slag and Triceradon has been answered -- in depth -- in the attendant SC blog entry.

All for now, then. This is Wes, converting and creeping out!