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Cool and Collected

Collecting pop culture toys, comics, and collectibles collections

January 3, 2012 By 13 Comments

Cool & Collected’s Winter Break Recap

Don’t listen to the rumors, I am still here! I took a hiatus for the last 10 days and virtually disappeared from the digital side of life. Christmas is the one time of year that I actually kick back and relax. Being self-employed, vacations are a rarity, but no one else is working over the Christmas break, so I can usually take the week off without being missed. We had a wonderful Christmas here in Virginia, and I hope you did as well. Tis the season of sharing, so here are some of the highlights of my holiday…

O-scale christmas model train layout

Christmas just isn’t Christmas without model trains. This is the first year I can remember that the Greenberg Train Show didn’t come to town in December, but luckily we have a local church that puts on a smaller show that is totally kid-centric, with a huge LEGO train setup alongside the traditional O-scale and HO-scale model train layouts.

lego star wars battle

The LEGO train setup has a fun scavenger hunt where the kids have to find a couple of dozen golden bricks hidden in the display. if you find all the gold bricks, you get a prize, which was a white horse figure this year.

Driving around after dark, our neighborhood put on a pretty good show with the holiday lights, but this year’s Clark W. Griswold award goes to this guy…

christmas lights display

I finally got around to putting together the 1966 Batmobile model kit that I picked up at a yard sale over the summer.

Batman 1966 batmobile die cast model kit

Seeing all those great model train layouts, and building that Batmobile model got me motivated to head to the workshop and create something. I plan on working on my toy photography more this year, and wanted to create a multi-use backdrop to make the photos a bit more interesting. Here’s a peak at what I came up with…

action figure diorama for photography

I’ll be posting details about how I created this monstrosity, so stay tuned. I could hardly wait for the paint to dry before taking some pictures. Here’s an example…

halo master chief mcfarlane action figure

Christmas was excellent and Santa was very good to this collector, bringing some new books and some old movies…

Collector books and some DVDs

Amazon wish lists are the greatest thing ever. I put all kinds of books about toys and collectibles along with a selection of old movies on my list and was pleasantly surprised at the fun assortment that found its way under the tree.

I watched a bunch of movies, with Rise of the Planet of the Apes being by far the best, and Suckerpunch the lowest of the low. I am amazed at how a movie with such a large budget and so much imagination could be so astoundingly dull and dumb.

skylanders spyro's adventure video game

Santa brought all kinds of toys for the kids, but the most fun item had to be this Skylanders game. The 10-year-old in me watches with awe as these little action figures come alive on the television screen when they were placed on the “portal of power.” I’m going to review this in depth later, but let me just say that the concept of this game is incredibly fun (but expensive!).

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Hopefully, it won’t be as long before I write another post. So how did Santa treat you and yours this year? Did anyone get anything totally cool? Let’s hear it!

 

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jboypacman says

    January 3, 2012 at 11:22 am

    Hey Brian glad to hear you had a great holiday and am looking forward to seeing what you will have planned for us in 2012. : )

    Reply
    • Brian says

      January 3, 2012 at 4:26 pm

      Thanks Jboy! I hope I can live up to your expectations. 😉

      Reply
  2. kngfu says

    January 3, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    I got a cool horror movie book for Christmas. Thanks again

    Reply
    • Brian says

      January 3, 2012 at 4:27 pm

      I’m glad it went to a Hammer films fan. Enjoy!

      Reply
  3. Jason says

    January 3, 2012 at 12:57 pm

    Looks like you must have been pretty good this year. 🙂 I did very well this year. As is tradition, you can see my haul over at my blog. I can’t wait to see what 2012 has in store for us collectors.

    Reply
    • Brian says

      January 3, 2012 at 4:39 pm

      hey Jason, it looks like you scored some great games this year! I think this is the first year in memory that I didn’t get a single video game (of course my kids got some, so dear old dad gets to try them out).

      Reply
  4. Russell says

    January 3, 2012 at 2:58 pm

    I’ve been checking your site everyday waiting for the Christmas Day update. LOL.
    Welcome back!

    Reply
    • Brian says

      January 3, 2012 at 4:41 pm

      Thanks Russell, I’m glad to be here. 😉 No big scores for me lately. I went on one Craigslist run only to have the guy tell me the item was sold right before I got there (never mind the fact that he told me he would hold it for me–I was not pleased).

      Reply
  5. ToothpicVic says

    January 6, 2012 at 2:03 am

    That’s a cool shot with Master Chief and the Brute.

    Reply
    • Brian says

      January 6, 2012 at 8:32 am

      Thanks! I’ve got a lot more pictures to take and put up here on the site, so stay tuned. 🙂

      Reply
  6. matt says

    January 7, 2012 at 10:53 pm

    glad to see ya back.

    Bummed that you didn’t get the drac poster from Mondo. I actually twitted them some negative comments on how their methods of sales is just creating scalpers cashing in and the true fans feeling shafted.

    Super jazzed to see new articles and you bck in full swing in 2012!

    matt

    Reply
    • Brian says

      January 7, 2012 at 11:04 pm

      Thanks Matt! I hope the holidays were good to you too!

      Reply
  7. Mike Marshall says

    February 18, 2014 at 2:04 am

    On your O scale layout, what do you use for sidewalks?

    Reply

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