Stories from my Toyfics

Website Matters:
I finally upgraded my Wordpress and now I need to get used to my newer admin panel.  Fortunately BlueHost has a 1-click method in their Fantastico section to upgrade Wordpress.  I’m not a techno geek and if I have to do the upgrade through the tedious steps outlined by Wordpress, I won’t even upgrade it at all. 

Right now, there are some functions that are no longer in their usual places anymore, so I will need time to accustom myself to this.  I look forward to adding some more cool Wordpress plug-ins in the coming weeks too!

Toy Observations / Toy Review:

Just 2 days ago when I was thinking about what to blog for my next post, I suddenly thought of my collection of Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) toy horses and their riders.  I have 3 of them and 1 of them is still Mint-In-Box (MIB).  I think I haven’t even seen them for a year!

This is Arwen with Asfoloth (the horse) and Frodo (the hobbit on Asfoloth).  Asfoloth is the darling of my LOTR collection.  I bought this set just for the magnificent white horse.  The action figures were not that well sculpted and their faces don’t really look like those of the actor and actress in the movie.  Anyway, I don’t care for these 2 human action figures.  This set sold out very quickly in the departmental stores and I had to get mine from the secondary toy market.

Here we have the Ringwraith and his dark horse.  I bought this set from a toy seller at the former Clarke Quay flea market years ago, together with the Asfoloth set.  The seller refused to sell both sets separately.  Fortunately I managed to sell off this Ringwraith set a few weeks later at a good price.  It was still the height of the first LOTR toys craze then!

This is Aragorn with his brilliant warhorse Brego and this is the second version of these 2 paired characters.  I remember waiting for the release of this set because Brego looks very smart in his battle armour, much better than his first version.  As for Aragorn, I regarded him as an “accessory”. 

Legolas and his nameless horse (whom I call Windstorm), were released together with the second versions of Aragorn and Brego.  I took these 2 sets out of their boxes soon after I brought them home.  The main regret about the horse figures was that their heads and necks are actually made of rubber surface, so that the horses could bend their necks up, down, left and right a little. 

Toyfics: 

Now, after being with toys for a period of time, I can ’see’ their characters and ‘hear’ what they ’say’.  I remember wanting to take a photo of the horses with their respective riders posing and holding the reins next to them.  

I realised that Aragorn had a slight phobia of his horse.  Brego was a vey aggressive horse that refused to stay still for my camera.  Brego reared several times, taking Aragorn up with him as the latter struggled to hold the horse down.  Finally Brego swung his head suddenly at Aragorn’s head and knocked the poor chap over! 

That was not all.  Brego then leaped off my coffee table and bolted across my living room, while my jaws dropped!  Legolas, who had been patiently posing for the photo with Windstorm, stared in disbelief at Aragorn’s ‘inability’ to handle his own horse.  Anyway, Legolas remained calm and offered to retrieve Brego for me.  Thank goodness!  Legolas was so sweet!

By this time Aragorn was already in a heap on my coffee table and yelping out in ‘pain’ as he clutched his right foot close to him.  Apparently, Brego had stomped on Aragorn’s foot and poor Aragorn wasn’t wearing ’safety shoes’.  Having handled real horses before, I know that one of the worst injuries caused by a horse, other than being kicked or bitten by them, is to have your feet stepped on by their iron-shod shoes!

Legolas retrieved Brego for me, but the stallon was still very fractious and refused to keep still.  With Aragorn still injured, I called off the photoshoot.  I had to keep Aragorn back into his box together with Brego, and I noticed that Aragorn backed away to the other corner of his box while I secured Brego with his original packaging wires.  Just before I closed the boxed and stored it away in my cupboard, I thought I heard poor Aragorn mumbling something.

~End of a toyfic that took place several years ago~