Today, my pony collector friends and I went on a My Little Pony Ponyville shopping spree at OG.  My 2 friends nearly wiped the shelves clean of all the Ponyville 2-packs containing Sweetie Belle the unicorn.  Each Ponyville 2-pack was on special sale for SGD 5.00 each, till Sunday (1 Mar 2009). 

My friends bought those extra Ponyville 2-packs for customizing into G1 My Little Pony characters (from left to right: Moondancer, Majesty & Magic Star).  Those customs look so pretty & cute!  I would say it’s really a good deal for getting bait Ponyville ponies to customize.  I’m pretty sure customers who previously bought those Ponyville 2-packs at the usual price (UP) of SGD 19.90 would feel ‘ripped off’, but hey that’s life! 

I only got myself a cute Ponville bag (above, UP: over SGD 20.00) at only SGD 5.00 to contain all the loose accessories of the various Ponyville sets that I already own.  I packed the accessories into ziplog bags according to their sets and then stored them all into the Ponyville bag.  It sure beats keeping them in their original bulky and fragile Ponyville soft plastic box packagings, which I then tossed into my recycling bin.

I was also lucky that one of my pony collector pals has some paint colors that are suitable for ‘repairing’ the painting defects on both my San Diego Comic Con 2007 Exclusive Super Pony (above left), and my My Little Pony Fair 2007 Exclusive Fantasia Pony (above right).  Hence I entrusted them to him for ‘corrective’ painting.  Thank goodness, those ponies will be saved!

I’ve received news from my local pony collector friends that there is currently a great Ponyville sale at OG.  We haven’t confirmed if it’s also the same for other departmental stores.  Who know, there might even be special sales for other toylines now too!

Assorted G3 My Little Pony Ponyville 2-packs like those shown here, are now going for SGD 5.00 each!!  It’s incredible!!  Most of it are the old stock that have been there for ages, though the sale applies to both old and new stock (seen here).  Of course it depends on your luck on whether you can find the particular 2-packs you want. 

The usual price of these Ponyville 2-packs is SGD 19.90 each.  I got mine for SGD 14.90 each at a Toy ‘R’ Us sale a few months ago and I thought that was a good deal already.  Now with this even better deal, it makes me and my friends feel that we sort of ‘overpaid’ for our Ponyville sets!  My friend has just bought extras for customizing.

Anyway, buying stuff during such times is similar to investing in the stock and property market.  You’ll never know when is the market bottom and it’s really hard to time ourselves for the ‘kill’.  Just leave it to fate, as long as I get good quality pieces with no painting defects etc. would do.  It sure beats having to make extra trips to the store just to get replacements, or visit multiple stores just to select the ‘best’ available pieces!

These mini Voltron Force action figures were bought at a departmental store some years ago cos I found them very cute.  The pilots stand at nearly 3-inches tall while their lion counterparts are half their heights.  Both the pilots and their lionbots have magnets beneath their feet so that they can stand firmly on the metal coins they came with.  As such, they don’t fall over easily. 

The metal coins are engraved with the drawings of the human characters and their respective lions.  These figures were sold in matching human and lion pairs, so I had to buy 5 pairs to complete the Voltron set.  The lion figures are quite life-sized compared to their pilots and they look more like pets here!

Here is a photo of my Streetfighter action figures that I bought years ago from the departmental stores.  Back then, I thought the adult figures looked very cool while the kid versions were cute.  Then they spent many years living in a box that was stashed away deep in a high cupboard.  It was only sometime last year when I was searching for other toys that I re-discovered them. 

These figures have very limited movement, only at the shoulders, pelvis and necks.  However their painting and sculpting details are quite good, that’s why I impulsed-bought them back then.  There were also other main and lesser known Streetfighter characters in the series but I only bought these.  Too bad there was no kid version Cammy in the series.  If not, I could re-enact a story starting from their childhoods till they grow up!

I’ve added more photos of toys collection to my “My Toy Gallery”.  The link can also be found on the top navigational bar of this blog.  The additional photos were previously taken for my past individual blog posts about my respective toys and I’m starting to consolidate those photos to that one page.  I’ll need to sift through my past blog posts and will continue to add more toy photos gradually!  Meanwhile, there are already over 30 photos there now!

As per LEon’s suggestion, here is my blog post and photos of all 3 Bumblebee figures in my Movie Transformers Legends collection (it wasn’t easy taking these photos as they kept running and racing around the photo studio in excitement).

Here’s Japanese exclusive clear Bumblebee (on extreme right) showing his fellow Movie Legends Bumblebees the crumpled looking original plastic package he came in.  The other 2 were too polite to tell him that they came MOC and MIB, even as normal store-released figures, haha!

Here we have all 3 Autobots posing for a group photo in their robot modes. From left to right (battle-damaged, clear and normal Bumblebees).  Their faces have the same colors and they have an Autobot symbol on their upper chests.  Only battle-damaged Bumblebee’s (extreme left) logo is in red.  Normal Bumblebee (extreme right) has extra blue paintings on his legs.

Over here, all 3 Autobots are posing for a group photo in their car modes.  Battle-damaged Bumblebee (extreme left) has extra ‘burnt marks’ painted on him but at least he has a painted rear screen, unlike normal Bumblebee (extreme right) which left it out.  The rear stripes on the latter are also overpainted from the boot to the rear screen.  Overall, I find that battle-damaged Bumblebee most resembles the run-down 1974 Camaro in the movie.  This figure came in a 2-pack with Decepticon Scorponok.

I wanted take more photos, but my camera ran out of battery power so I stopped at 3 photos.  Anyway, the 3 Bumblebees were getting impatient and they immediately zoomed off when I announced that the photo session had to be ended early.  Till now, I haven’t found where in my room are they hiding at yet… I just hope that I don’t accidentally step on any of them tonight…!

Today, I decided to visit the Sunday flea market at China Square Central to check out the latest happenings there.  I was there between 11.30am to 12.30pm and I must say that the crowds have dwindled by a lot.  The sellers are mainly the same people selling more or less similar toys and stuff since many months ago.

In so-call ‘celebration’ of the upcoming Transformers Movie sequel - Revenge of the Fallen this year, I caved in and bought another Movie Bumblebee Legends figure.  This Bumblebee is the clear yellow “Scanning” version and it was a free pack-in figure available with August 2007 edition of Hyper Hobby magazine.  He’s basically a Japanese exclusive figure, according to online research. 

Actually I’d seen him for sale for many months at the shop that I bought him from.  I got him for SGD 5.00 and he came MIP, though the crumpled plastic package had definitely seen better days.  Hence it was more ‘merciful’ to remove him from that awful thing known as his ‘packaging’ cos it made him look worse when he’s trapped in it. 

I haven’t taken photos of my clear Bumblebee yet so the above photo was borrowed from Seibertron.com.  Clear Bumblebee is made of clear yellow plastic and he has no paintings on him except for his face and Autobot logo on his neck.  He is in the same mold as the regular 2007 Movie Legends Bumblebee and he transforms in exactly the same way. 

This is my 3rd Movie Legends Bumblebee (the other 2 being the normal and the battle-damaged ones), and I’m all set to acquire my 4th Movie Legends Bumblebee from the 2009 Transformers Movie sequel - Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) toyline.  This time Hasbro made Legends Bumblebee in the 2008 Camaro model, the better-looking car mode in the movie. 

Some of the new ROTF figures, including this one, have already been spotted on ebay, seller’s location in HK.  Wow they are fast in getting their stock.  I better go check our local departmental stores this week in case they are also here in Singapore already!

OMG, I found more photos of the 2009 Movie Transformers Legends figures from Seibertron.com.  This is gonna be my favourite Transformers news updates website for now.

The figures featured are Megatron (looks way cooler and meaner than before), Starscream (had a makeover), Rachet (another repainted version) and Sidesipe (looks like revamped Jazz)!

I like them all, (especially Bumblebee in his modern 2008 Camaro look) and I can’t wait to see all of them in the stores.  I hope there will be enough for me to choose a nice piece each before the toy specu-vestors (aka scalpers) descend upon them.  Hopefully I can get these Legends figures during a sale.  That will be most ideal!  The above photos are taken from Seibertron.com, but they originally came from ebay.

This toy ‘drought’ I’m going through refers more to the current situation at the local departmental stores.  I haven’t spotted anything of interest to me for weeks. 

Yes I’ve seen the latest My Little Pony Ponyville series (those with removable mane wigs), and the humanised Ponyville single packs in the stores, but I don’t like these and I’m not collecting them. 

There aren’t any new 1:24 scale Lamborghini model cars to buy either.  That Gallardo Polizia by Bburago is like taking forever to reach our shores.  I’ve waited so long until all the excitement of seeing it in person has eroded already.

The Justice League sections have been in ‘drought’ for months and months that I seldom check those sections unless I’m in the mood for it.  I had been disappointed by seeing the same old unwanted stocks or near empty shelves all too often.

The Transformers section don’t interest me anymore as I only collect the 2007 Movie Transformers Legends.  I’m gonna collect the Legends figures from the 2009 Movie Sequel, if they look more appealing than in photos.  So far I’ve see their preview photos from the Toy Fair 2009 and their robot modes seem kinda ’strange-looking’ (note: just refresh the link if the page does not load).  Hence, I’ll wait to see the real things in the stores before deciding to buy them or not. 

So for now, I focus more on my work since my main recreational life has come to a temporary ’standstill’.  I hope it picks up soon again!  Oh yes, I still have the cinemas, my TV and internet access as alternatives!