I visited the stores today with hopes of finding more Movie Transformers Bumblebee toys.  There weren’t any available but I did find another line of toys that I had not notice being sold here before.  They are the Hannah Montana dolls, consisting of Hannah Montana herself plus variants of her in other outfits, and the other key characters from the hit Disney TV series.

Hannah Montana is a tremendous sensation in the US and even Europe.  The tickets to her live concerts are said to be always sold out and scalpers would sell the tickets online for many times their original prices.  Parents who couldn’t get hold of her tickets found it hard to break the ‘devastating’ news to their little ones. 

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I thought that my chance discovery of Movie Transformer Deluxe Bumblebee at one store last week was just a one-off lucky encounter, but I was wrong.  While out window shopping today, I found 4 more MOC Bumblebees at another departmental store!  They were all hanging on the same rack but another Transformers toy was hung in front to ‘hide’ them all.  I happened to spot them behind because of their bright yellow color, plus they were very poorly ‘hidden’ by just one other Transformers toy. 

I hung the other Transformers toy back in front of the Bumblebees and walked away for a while to view other toys.  When I returned to the Transformers section, a gentleman dressed in office attire stopped by to look at the Transformers toys there.  He was quick to spot the poorly ‘hidden’ Bumblebees.  He took out every piece and picked one of them.

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Today, I finally did and successfully completed some basic tutorials on how to use Photoshop.  I’m glad that I finally made some tiny progress on learning to use Photoshop .  My goal is to master Photoshop to at least the level where I can build those elaborate corporate websites.  Eventually, I would like ToyzToSell.com to become much more professional looking than its current super basic design.  Today is just Day 1 of the tutorials, and I shall continue with Day 2’s tutorial tomorrow…

Mattel, the world’s largest toy company and is Hasbro’s main rival, had disappointing Q1 results for 2008. 

Mattel is famous for Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price and also Justice League.  Just 2 decades ago, it hit the jackpot with He-Man and She-Ra toys.  Last year, it was in the news for massive toy recalls when some of those toys were suspected to have high levels of lead content.  Here is a brief summary of its earnings announcement this week.

“Mattel said it lost $46.6 million, or 13 cents per share, missing analysts’ expectations of a profit of a penny per share. The maker of Barbie dolls and Fisher-Price toys blamed higher product costs and legal fees.”

The full report dated 21 April 2008 can be found here.

Although Mattel generally tends to stick by its “tried and tested” power product line Barbie, the basic Barbie toy line has undergone much innovation in recent years.  New fantasy themed characters and 3-D animation movies have been created as “60-90min commercials” to sell their respective dolls and toys based on Barbie molds.  

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I know this is late news but I thought I’ll post it here anyway.  Both Hasbro and Mattel announced their 2008 Q1 earnings on 21 April 2008. 

Hasbro, the maker of My Little Pony and Transformers etc., is the world’s second-biggest toy company.  Here are some of their earnings highlights:

“Hasbro said it earned $37.5 million, or 25 cents per share, for the three months ended March 30, up from $32.9 million, or 19 cents per share, during the same quarter a year ago.”

“Sales grew 13% to $704.2 million from $625.3 million a year ago.”

“Revenue rose 22% to $248.3 million, while revenue in the U.S. and Canada segment grew 6% to $428.5 million.”

“…the results indicated the company was on track for a strong 2008.”

The full report dated 21 April 2008 can be found here.

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The weekend’s here once more!  I’ll be doing my usual window shopping and checking out the latest collectible toys to hit the stores here.  Hope to find some “goodies” to blog about over the weekend.  Till then, enjoy your weekend as well! 

I was pleasantly surprised to chance upon an extremely hard-to-find toy in a store today.  It was Movie Transformer Deluxe Bumblebee!  I stepped into the store and where the Transformers section is just next to the entrance, Deluxe Bumblebee (the single pack) was hanging very prominently on the rack and looking very outstanding against the other Transformers toys there because of its bright yellow color!

This Bumblebee that I found today is the “upgraded” grander Chevelot Camaro 2008 version in the later part of the movie, and not the old 1974 model that Bumblebee was disguised as at the used car yard in the beginning of the movie.  I believe this Deluxe Bumblebee is part of the Wave 10 set of Movie Transformers  Deluxe figures scheduled to hit the stores in May 2008.  I guess they arrived early in Singapore. 

Deluxe Barricade and Jazz are supposed to be in the same set.  I doubt the toy specu-vestors would have bought them instead and left Bumblebee behind, after all Bumblebee is the most sought after figure by Transformers collectors and most highly valued character in the resale toy market here.  Looks like I would be visiting the China Square Central Toy this Sunday to check out the latest resale prices for Deluxe Bumblebee, just to get a feel of the local toy market and trend these days.

See other related posts on Bumblebee here and here.

I just went through a terrible Monday where it seemed like the whole world went against me all in one day!  If I hadn’t learnt Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to re-focus my attentions elsewhere after experiencing numerous setbacks and having stone doors slammed into my face consecutively all within hours, I would have taken a more destructive path against all those who caused my misery that day.

Thankfully, I managed to re-direct my emotions and energies elsewhere.  Luckily my toys and cartoon worlds are always there to remind me that there will always be a way to get round every obstacles that comes my way.  My toys and their cartoon characters went through much more perilous experiences in their fictional worlds.  My life cannot be worse off than theirs.  And so I have gotten over my Black Monday and moved on.

Listening to the happy beat Italian My Little Pony theme song (posted here a few days ago) also helped me to get over my worked up emotions much more quickly.  It is important to surround yourself with, or have easy access to objects of your affection.  They help to cheer you up when you need it.  Placing objects that represent your goals in life around you, are also vital in reminding you to consistently progress towards them.  Success is not just measured by reaching your goals, but also by your consistent journey towards them.

My toy collecting has been put aside lately due to other commitments in life.  There are definitely endless things on toys to blog about but it can be quite a challenge finding the right toy topics that are not too ‘dry’ to blog about.  My website and blog are in for a revamp in the near future.  The process will be gradual so as to minimise disruptions to its online presence.  Meanwhile it’s down to planning and consistent mini action taking (due to steep learning curve) to achieve my online goals! 

As toy collectors expand their collections, it is evitable to acquire extras along the way.  Most of us trade or sell away the extra toys.  Some give them away to their kids to play with, provided that those extra toys are very common and inexpensive.

A fellow pony collector pal has a huge bag of G3 My Little Ponies that he once gave to his little cousins as gifts.  Those cousins have now outgrown the ponies, so his aunt bagged them all up and returned them to him.  According to my friend, there’s about 50+ G3 ponies in that huge bag and he has been asking me to off load them for him. 

I should be meeting him this week to collect them and find ways to re-home those poor unwanted G3 ponies.  Looks like the upcoming phototaking session of 50+ ponies will be quite an experience…