My Birthday Goodies

  My birthday was last Saturday.I had a great day. All my kids were here, which is what makes any day for me. Ken took the day off too, so we were all together. I also got some great gifts! I thought I'd share them with you. First of all,Ivy got me some pumpkin spice Jelly Belly candies,(I love pumpkin spice stuff!), and a new purselette:

I have more candy left than this! It's juts an example!

Emma got me one like this a while back, and it desperately needs a wash by now. So now I have a change of purse for when the other is in the wash.( I was going to use the pig one Emma got me for Christmas, but the opening was too small to get my credit card,license,etc. in.) I hate carrying a purse, so these little change purse type purses are great and fit in my pocket.
Fuzzy brought me a sampler box of fruit teas.

 He also brought his friend Braxton,who brought me...You won't believe what he brought me. Braxton's mom works in a funeral home. (Are you scared where I'm going here?) She brings him 'stuff' sometimes. He gave me a clear plastic half circle thing with holes. It's a thing they put in corpses's eyes to give them an eye shape. He also gave me a wire thing they use to pull a corpse's mouth shut! Ug! I'm sure he just had them in his pocket and gave them to me as a joke, but Fuzz suggested I put handles on the eyeball thing and make a dollhouse colander!
Emma got me this Planet of the Apes board game.

You may have gathered from the title of the blog, if not from previous posts, that Planet of the Apes is one of my favourite things,and has been since I was a kid. Ken always loved it too, and loves Monopoly and collects different versions. So for his birthday Emma bought him the Planet of the Apes Monopoly.The theory was that if she gave it to him maybe he could get me to play Monopoly with him. I hate Monopoly,so under normal circumstances I won't do it. I hate things I can never win.
Emma also got me this Planet of the Apes Funko Dorbz figure.

And she gave me this Rugrats Chuckie Pop Vinyl doll.

She also got me these Mr Kiplings Cherry Bakewell Tarts. Mmmm!

She also topped off the cost of my trip to San Antonio,which I'm taking at the end of the month. I debated going because I was saving the money to try to go to England with Ken and Emma. But I have less than half enough, and it looked like I was never going to have enough in time to go with them,since they were supposed to be going at the end of April. My friend Lisa, in San Antonio wanted me to come and see her, and go with her to see John Cleese,who's doing a question and answer at a showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I debated. Lisa offered to treat me to the Cleese ticket. Lisa is one of my best friends,and I haven't seen her since 1994. There was lots of incentive.I finally figured that there was no way I was going to have the money to go to England in time anyway, and whatever I did I would feel like crap about. (I would torture myself about whether I should go or not. I would feel I missed out on seeing Lisa,and then still not be able to go to England. I'm good at that sort of thing.) So I was still worried about spending so much money,and Emma and Lisa both offered to top up the amount I felt I could spend. Lisa was already providing the Cleese ticket,so there was no way I was going to let her do that. Finally I accepted Emma's offer as part of my birthday. So I am going to see Lisa.
  I said Lisa is one of my best friends. What might be strange to some people is, this will only be the fourth time I have ever seen her! Back in the days waayyy before the internet,people used to have 'pen pals'. Lisa and I both belonged to the Split Enz fan club. The club was based in Australia, so they used to send packages of stamped club newsletters to one person in America,and have them mail them out individually, because the postage was cheaper that way. Since there was nobody around who shared that interest with me, I wrote my name and address on the newsletters I sent out once, hoping I'd get a penpal out of it. Lisa was one of the people whose newsletter I sent out. We started writing and discovered we shared a lot more interests. (A big interest for both of us was Monty Python,which makes it fitting that our reunion started life because of a John Cleese appearance.) Lisa and I shared many phone calls and very long letters over the years. I finally went to see her in 1988. Ken and I went to see Lisa the summer after we got married,in 1990, and again with Emma when she was three. We haven't managed to get all the way to Texas since. So I'm pretty excited to see Lisa again.
  And now the goodies Ken got me. He got me this umbrella.

He got it out of my Ebay watching. It was supposed to be a solid coloured 1/6 scale umbrella. It's not.

He also got me this headless body.

"Where's my head?!"

I had it in my Ebay watching,to go with the really good Sean Connery as Indiana Jones' dad head that was also in my watching.

It has really good articulation.

And it came with three extra hands and a pair of thigh muscles.

The head was sold,so I'll have to find another one. As I did with my Hot Toys Michael Caine head,I can get the doll much cheaper if I buy just the head, and a cheaper posable body.
He got me another box of Russell Stover candy. I love this stuff...too much.

Ken also treated me to a ticket to go see Martin Short and Steve Martin in May. I really wanted to see them. I keep pointing out that I really regret not going to see Harvey Korman and Tim Conway when they came to the theatre here in town,and shortly after that Harvey Korman died. Martin and Martin aren't getting any younger. How many more things like this are they going to do? So, yay! I'm going!
And whoo hoo! I got a new bicycle!

It was another thing in my Ebay watching. It came in this box. I guess there's also a black one, but the red one is prominent to show you that's the one you got. I love realistic miniature bicycles. The really nice one I have,(Which you may have seen HERE.) was damaged when I got it, and it has fallen apart.

'Smoking set'? I didn't even notice this when I opened the box.

'Warning! This is not a toy!' That's just because of small parts, right?

The bike looks like the perfect size for Tammy World.
 

And it's perfect for her,since she's my doppelganger, because when I got my first bike,it was a smallish one,like this is for her,and it was red. I picked it out at a Western Auto store. My dad tried to talk me out of it because he said it would be too small for me almost right away. I insisted that I needed a smaller bicycle because since I didn't know how to ride a bicycle, (even though I was 9 years old.I just hadn't had a bicycle yet, and my sister had gotten rid of hers. My mom had one, but I didn't know how to ride,so...),the thought of riding a big bicycle scared me.

It even has a kick stand,but the light doesn't really work.

Dad was right though. I learned to ride in no time and before the summer was over I was living on Mom's bike. I had to get a bigger bike.

I don't do hand brakes though. I tend to panic when I try to stop, and pedaling backwards doesn't stop me! I'll stick to foot brakes. This bike,like some others I have that look a bit less realistic, has hand brakes. Unlike the others though, it doesn't have real working brake cables.

There is one problem. It looks like it fits Tammy World really well, until she actually sits on it. It looks too small, and her body doesn't conform to the twists and positions it needs to,to fit realistically on the bike.

Awkward. She has to lean over at a strange angle to hold the handlebars. Although, it's realistic for my feet to not be able to touch the ground when sitting on the seat. They still don't on a standard adult bike.

The bike has real moving pedals. It says 'antique bike 1889'. This doesn't look like a bike from 1889.

But it says 1889 on both sides.

It has a satchel,with 'real' buckles. For some reason it says 'Ok'. The buckles really unbuckle and the satchel can be opened..

The satchel is removable and clips loosely onto the rack on the back of the bike.
 

The satchel was confusing us. It has a strange hole in the top and bottom. When you unbuckle it,you find that there is a strange metal thing inside. What is the thing? Remember that weird thing written on the box, 'smoker set'?

The satchel holds a removable lighter!

That was weird. There was nothing said about that in the auction.

"I'm too young to be playing with a lighter!"

So I love this bike. It's a weird size though,as I said. Maybe if Tammy World had a more articulated body she could sit on it more realistically.

"Are you saying there;s something wrong with me?!"

                                                     
She does look good with it though!

  See you again soon with some Goodwill finds!

Doll-A-Day 2017 #272:Hunter Huntsman

  Today is another doll I got at the flea market last weekend. He's probably familiar to most of you.

He's Hunter Huntsman from the Ashlynn Ella and Hunter Huntsman Ever After High set.

The set came out in 2013.

I'm pretty sure Hunter was the first guy introduced into the Ever After High line. Help me out here Barb.

Like the Ever After girls, Hunter is very poseable.

He's jointed at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists,hips, knees, and ankles.

This is his original outfit, minus his satchel.

He has half flocked,half rooted hair.

I wanted him when he first came out, but I didn't want to pay the price. I'm ok with the $3 I paid at the flea market.

He's the only Ever After High guy I have,but I think he's my favourite,

I do have a weakness for men with big brown eyes...sorry Ken.

See you tomorrow for Shrunken Saturday.

A Body for Hot Toys 'Michael Caine' as Alfred from Batman: Dark Knight

  Waaay back in January I showed you the Michael Caine head Ken bought for me. It was my alternative to the VERY expensive Michael Caine as Alfred from Batman: Dark Knight, made by Hot Toys.(Makes me feel old that Michael Caine has been playing Alfred!) There's no way I can afford the entire Hot Toys Michael Caine doll. So Michael didn't have a body at the time.

 

The Hot Toys dolls are amazingly real looking, but also amazingly expensive. The Batman armory set with Batman and Alfred sells for between $350 and $700! 

The Batman: Dark Knight armory set. Lots of spare hands and weaponry.

The Michael Caine alone sells for over $100.But the head was only $30.
  This body was even cheaper than that. I think it came to $15 with the shipping. Ken bought the body for me for my birthday. I just never got around to showing it to you. I think it's worth seeing, because the body is a really great articulated body, and was really cheap too! I was a bit afraid it would be too cheap and would fall apart on me, (Or at least on Michael!), but it turned out to be pretty good quality.

Michael is enjoying it.

The body came with spare hands...

a couple of different neck knobs...

Sorry about the Blu Tac on the little one. It's the on he's been using.

and leg faulsies!

That's in case Michael wants to impress the chicks with his muscular thighs.

Here is is with a jointed Ken doll, so you can compare their flexibility.

And the skin tones. These bodies are much less pink than regular Kens.

Here are some more pictures to show you what this body can do.

He can tell fishing stories...

He knows karate, jujitsu, and seven other Japanese words...

He can throw his back out. Just like me!

Ok, what else?

The arms look too long here, but it's just the camera angle.

See?

Hear no evil...

Ok, maybe a little...

See no evil...

No peeking...

Speak no evil...

This move causes a little weirdness in his mid section...

Which is ok if he's clothed.

                                                       He's all worn out from all that posing.

Here are some close ups of the jointing.

As I said, the set of extra parts comes with two different neck knobs to accommodate different heads.

Here's a look at the body's neck knob.

I couldn't use Michael's head on the bigger one since his head already had a neck of it's own.To use the shorter one I had to remove the very inner ring from the inside of his neck.

The problem with this arrangement is that the head won't stay on. I watched a tutorial where the guy used Blu Tac/sticky tac, but it's not working for me. Also,the neck looks too long.

Maybe he could wear an ascot...

Yeah, I wonder why it looks like that...

 

Although as long as he wears a shirt with a collar it looks ok.

Hey! How about this one?

That's better. This shirt works pretty well, apart from not being his style AT ALL.

Way too young for him. Maybe the Happy Family Grampa shirt will fit him.

  

Finding clothes is proving to be a problem, since this body seems to have longer arms and legs than your standard Ken body. Most of the sleeves and pant legs are too short. There are other problems too...

While these pants looked ok from the front, there are real problems going on back here. He has wider hips than Ken too, apparently.

I also tried the shoes on him, but even thought there was the split up the back I was afraid to push them on any farther in case the foot got stuck in there.

I think the original Alfred shoes are the entire foot and you just change the whole thing.
He is limited to this outfit until I find him something better, and no shoes.

  I'd love to get him a suit, but the real one would put me back up over $100, and I don't sew well enough to make him one. I put the idea to my sister the ex-seamstress, but she said Michael Caine would have to cough up a lot of money for her to sew him a suit.
  The body is super poseable, and holds a pose well except for his toes always wanting to curl up. The various hands are nice too. I do worry that the little posts attaching the hands and feet to the body might break with a lot of use. For such a cheap, (as in 'low priced') body it seems pretty sturdy. It came a long way and they only put it in a plastic bag for shipping! But it didn't break, which may have just been luck. It's always a  little risky buying the cheap stuff that ships all the way from Hong Kong or China. I'm also not sure how they can sell what seems to be the exact head and body from the Hot Toys line for such a cheap price. I'm not sure I chose the right body for this head. Maybe there is another one. Since this was my first experience buying this stuff I may have just gotten the wrong body. There are people out there who are experts know exactly what to buy. I'm not one of them...yet. Have you seen these Hot Toys sculpts?!