First of all -- if you're having trouble viewing images, here or on SC, please send me an e-mail and let me know about it (replacing the "-at-" with "@" and removing the spaces, of course). I've been having a lot of trouble with people remote linking the images, which wouldn't be that much of a problem if they weren't doing it on forums and using the images in their signature files and as avatars. Forums get a lot of views a day, and it's really been a drain on the bandwidth -- for the month of February, SC is already up to 630 MB in traffic, and we only average about 150 unique visitors a day (most of whom only view one page). So I've implemented a script to disallow remote image linking, but depending on your browser it may not be as successful. If it doesn't work, try reloading the page -- there could be problems caused by your cache -- and if that doesn't work e-mail me to let me know, and tell me your OS and browser while you're at it. And if you want to drop a line to say, "Hey, Wes -- just wanted to let you know everything's a-okay for me!" feel free to do that too.

I've also been looking through the usage logs for the search terms that are bringing people to the site. They generally haven't been very interesting thus far, but my favorite one that has let people to the blog is hebrew blog girl quiz. I dunno either. 🙂

Speaking of Hebrew, while I was out on my trek today -- I ended up walking to the local Target and Walmart, which are, according to Mapquest, 2.7 miles away from the house (so I did 5.4 miles roundtrip) -- I saw a Winnie the Pooh book in Hebrew in a thrift store. Now, I can't read Hebrew, but I was totally prepared to buy it, until I tried to pick it up and found that it was stuck to some books beneath it, and pried it loose only to find that its cover was marred by a huge wad of greyish-white granulated chewing gum. I immediately left the store, discouraged and disgusted.

The day was hardly a bust, though -- at Walmart I picked up an Armorized Shredder TMNT figure (Shredder with removable armor) and Witch King Ringwraith from LOTR. Now I know very little about LOTR, having never read the trilogy (but I read The Hobbit) and having only seen the second film, but if you know Ringwraith and you know me you know when I saw that figure there was no way I was walking out of that store without it. Dude's like a haunted robe with skeletal hands! Mine. And I was really glad to find that Shredder -- the price of TMNT figures at Walmart has gone up (otherwise I'd have bought more -- that was the reason I walked so far to get them), so I wouldn't have purchased any if I hadn't seen Armor-Shred. Apparently he's supposed to be really rare -- at least that's what the sellers on ebay would have you believe, anyway -- so I thought I was pretty fortunate to find him hiding underneath a bunch of stupid "garbage armor" Turtles. And yeah, I know he's pretty rare, but this was a figure I wanted to find so I could take out and play with it, but if I ever see another one I'll snag it and let it sit with the rest of the new TMNT figs that I've left in their packages. It's a really neat figure, even though there are some chips in the silvery paint on the armor that probably shouldn't be there, and it's definitely the best looking figure I've ever had with a removable costume. I have a Bruce Wayne/Batman deal and he looks bloody ridiculous when you deck him out in his Bat-threads, but Shredder really looks great -- he looks almost exactly like the original figure that doesn't come with the detachable armor. That's partly because they cheated -- it's like they're selling the same figure, just with the plastic armor that came glued to the first piece painted silver and made into snap-on pieces, and a different head, the head being Shredder's human head (i.e. not wearing the helmet). And the helmet itself is more like a complete mask -- it's basically a hollow Shredder head that completely covers the Oroku Saki human head -- so it's no surprise that it pulls it off quite well. Another thing that I like is that the Shredder helmet/mask fits most of the action figures I have, and ol' Saki can wear a lot of their helmets too. Expect to see that demonstrated in an upcoming SC feature. 🙂 Only problem? Yeah, he comes with the armor, but no weapons. The other Shredder had (already attached) armor and weapons. You'd think this Shredder would need the weapons more, though, since he's not always in his armor, and since his armor can be penetrated without breaking the toy. Poor guy's got it rough; the least they could've done is given him a pointed staff like he had in the TMNT movie. But that's okay; Ringwraith came with two nice swords and he's the sharing kind.

Oh, and here's another thing I saw while I was out -- Mutatin' Shredder. Comes with a canister of mutagen and everything. Which would be cool except OROKU SAKI DIDN'T "MUTATE" INTO SHREDDER; HE JUST PUT ON A BLADED SUIT OF ARMOR. And believe me when I tell you that is a shitty looking figure. Look how short his legs are! Oh, but they did give him a bloody weapon and a can of ooze. Armorized Shredder got nuthin'. 🙁

I'm also trying to win a 1992 movie Splinter figure on ebay.

So yeah, I've purchased entirely too many toys in the past week, but I won't be satisfied until I snag a new Skeletor too. And I could use some dvds also...I need more stuff to review for SC. 🙂

But other than that, my day was awful. Maybe I'll go into it another time.

And hopefully I'll do some more writing on that story tomorrow...and maybe even finish it. One can dream...