October 1, 2007
O’Ryan and her Bombastic Bed!

And if I’ve learned anything today, children, it’s that I’m not going to give specific time estimates for articles anymore. Sorry about the 24-hour delay here — I hope that you weren’t checking the site all day in anticipation of this new piece! Anyway, here’s my review of the Groovy Girls Minis O’Ryan figure and Bombastic Bed accessory. It didn’t end up being quite the laugh riot that I’d originally hoped it would be — partly because the review that I’d originally conceived included a review of Colton’s sister figure and the return of our creepy best friend himself — but I think the piece is still amusing enough. It’s certainly better now than it was after I switched gears and rewrote quite a bit of it, since the original draft included the following passage:

That said, O’Ryan’s use of the term is a bit of a stretch. She’s certainly bendable, but that’s not necessarily the same thing as poseability. Usually, when we praise a figure’s poseability, we’re referring to its ability to maintain diverse upright poses without the aid of a supportive human hand — and while technically a figure only needs to be able to hold two poses to qualify for the term, most bendable figures find it difficult to hold their footing in anything but a standard standing configuration. Furthermore, anyone with any respectable degree of familiarity with bendable figures knows that their poseability is largely dependent upon two other factors: their size and their thickness. A very thin bendable toy with longer limbs — such as the spindly giraffe I had as a child — could hold all kinds of neat poses because the wires responsible for its bendability were lengthy enough to support more dramatic twists and weren’t significantly restricted by an excess of stiff rubbery flesh. (The four legs probably helped with the balancing as well, but still!) On the other hand, my 6″ bendable Homer Simpson toy was so chunky that he could barely raise his arm to wave hello.

Not a terrible passage — I’m mainly posting it here because I didn’t want it to go completely to waste — but a bit too technical for what I wanted to do with this article. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and do stay tuned for the Creepy Freaks Halloween Countdown! No precise dates or exact promises, but I should get that underway… soon.

And if you have no idea what I’m talking about because you miss blog entries that aren’t attached to articles (which is good, since you know nothing about my pitiful failure regarding the scheduled posting of this piece!), you can read about that here. ALSO, I dunno if you noticed the reference to people my age at the beginning of the article, but it bears noting that my birthday is this coming Thursday! Not that that should necessarily mean anything to you, but well-wishes (and presents and/or donations…! :mrgreen: ) are welcome and appreciated. Ja! 🙂

-posted by Wes | 9:28 pm | Comments (10)
10 Comments »
  • Slash says:

    Another well written article about junk from a dollar store! And we will have to celebrate your birthday next Thursday, I promise!

    PS: I am not one of the Creepy Freaks for Halloween, am I?

  • looking forward to seeing the Creepy Freaks countdown.. – also glad to see some dollar store fare back on the site.. – happy early birthday, wes.. – you should make a random food concoction as a present to yourself and share it with us all in the guise of an article..

  • That’s actually a pretty snazzy doll for a dollar. Much, much cuter than one of those creepy Bratz dolls, anyway.

    Though, it reminds me slightly of the cartoon portions of “Caroline in the City” (I don’t know why I watched that show. It was horrible, very horrible, but I liked it anyway).

    And, kudos on some perfectly pervy posed pictures (alliteration rules). You’d probably make a great stop-motion animator.

  • Molly says:

    My Barbie beds were always hollow as well. What gives?

  • On-topic comment:

    Actually, I think “Bombastic” can mean “cool” in reggae talk. Or at least, that’s what Beavis and Butthead thought it meant.

    Also, it would be interesting to dress one of those dolls up as a conspiracy nut with a tin-foil hat, or as a cardboard-box robot. I wish they made *cool* doll outfits like that.

    Shameless self-promotion:

    I just updated my Code Lyoko fanfic “A Very Big Misunderstanding”. If anyone’s curious or just really bored you can find it here.

    Random Nonsense:

    This is the BEST Wikipedia article EVER!

  • R says:

    O_o Your local Dollar Stores sure have a wider array of toys than mine do. The Dollar Generals in town and by the lake only have 90s brand Transformers and G.I. Joe knock-offs and those odd plastic dinosaurs. Oh, and water guns…lots and lots of water guns and sticky-dart guns.

    On another note, O’Ryan reminds me of the original Polly Pocket toys from the early 90s, only much much MUCH bigger than the actual PP toys.

  • RADIX says:

    One Dollar Tree at a mall (not Madison Square, which is the superior mall in my opinion) had some Megaman minis (Jazware; they’re about three inches max and have four points of articulation), so that made me very happy. It also had lots of cheap, easily-broken junk better fit for El Paso dollar stores (one of which, I heard, is now defunct) or garbage heaps. The sad thing is, most of it was legit, so no mockery of the pirate corps for me. We need some shadier dollar stores. 🙁

    I’ll take O’Ryan over those Slutz–er, Bratz any day. At least she’s more sensibly dressed than any of those noseless, over-applied freaks. [And they advertise this shit to little girls? No wonder the schools are looking more like brothels.]

  • yelinna says:

    I love cheap plastic junk!
    I think I’ve seen my sister using one of those dolls as keychain, but that was many months ago, I almost can’t remember.

  • Katie says:

    One question – in the last picture, what is the Uruk-Hai berzerker doing with his (or her) left hand? It seems to be straying downward …

  • Wes says:

    Well, there’s plenty of kinky weirdness in that pic, but I don’t think I meant to suggest anything by the placement of his hand — I think I just happened to randomly position him that way. It has been a while, though, so who knows!

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