Salad Days

       This is set 6699: Cycle Fix-It Shop , and I'd like to talk about it. Can he fix it? I hope so, it's a repair shop.     Set 6699: ( very nice) Cycle Fix-It Shop (also known as Bike Repair Shop) is a set from 1987 and is part of the Town theme. It features these two fine gentlemen (presumably gentlemen, anyway,) the shop mechanic and a motorcyclist, one in some smart denim overalls and the other in racing garb, emblazoned with an S and two angular stripes. What the S stands for is inconclusive, possibly " Speed ," or perhaps " Super ," it could be for " Salmon " for all we know, the driver of the fine red motorcycle isn't gonna give us any clues. Both figures have some very nice headgear, the mechanic sporting the still-in-use element #3901 from 1979, the first masculine hairpiece to ever be produced, and the only masculine hair as of 1987. In fact, the options for mens' hair wouldn't expand until the very late 90s, it's n...

 This is the NECA Heavy Weapons Guy, and I'd like to talk about him. He's almost majestic, then you notice he can't look where he's aiming.            I'm not beating around the bush with this one, this figure stinks. I'm talkin' about garlic and sauerkraut halitosis, I'm talkin' about a whole bag of burnt popcorn, I'm talkin' about water treatment plant runoff pipe stank .       Of all the proper money-cost figures that I have, Heavy here is the worst.     A bit of background before going in too far, this Heavy Weapons Guy figure was released in 2013 in NECA's (National Entertainment Collectables Association) second series of Team Fortress 2 action figures, alongside the Soldier and after the Pyro and the Demoman in the first figure series. NECA apparently makes figures of... any property they can license, it looks like, just scrolling through their figures there's comics, cartoons, horror movies, video ga...

       This is a Wallace and Gromit VHS box set from 1996, and I'd like to talk about it.     Picked this up at Half Price Books a while back, it caught my eye while I was rummaging around in the "feature films" section where they put everything that isn't a major blockbuster, kid's movie or television show, sitting with all the other VHS tapes. Had to go take a look at the big blue, red and green whatever sitting on the shelf and I was immediately charmed. This is the exact kind of thing I'd have asked for if I'd seen it when it was new, when I was new, I'd have absolutely watched these tapes until they didn't work anymore, run ragged by so many plays and rewinds that they'd have turned partway to dust.     So I paid ten bucks for some nearly thirty-year-old tapes, not even entirely sure my old DVD/VHS combo unit would even play them properly, since I'd gotten rid of all my other tapes under the now false assumption that the VHS playe...