Gateway to Obsession: The Last Video Game Series I Really Care About.

Ys: the ideal utopia. Once a country so peaceful and prosperous, a country where children were as free as the wind, a country where harmony blew through the hearts of all men.

Ys: a kingdom ruled by the wisdom and charity of its six powerful priests, an empire watched over and blessed by the enchanting aura of its two beautiful goddesses.

Ys: the seemingly tranquil paradise, suddenly pulled from the height of its civilization to the empty abyss of infinite isolation. How could such a land of promise simply vanish from the face of the planet? How could such prosperity be forgotten? The legend has been silenced for over seven hundred years.

And now … the mystery unfolds.

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It’s like Christmas, only in February and you don’t actually get anything.

For those of you not plugged into all things childish and geeky, the New York Toy Fair was this weekend past. As is my custom, I spent most of the weekend glued to an internet-capable device, constantly hitting “refresh” as new and exciting pictures of new and exciting product for properties that are old enough for me to deeply, seriously, and stupidly care about were posted by the small army of nerds on the ground. In the wake of my pictorial sensory overload, I’ve raided the picture archives of Figures.com to show you, the home viewer, the eleven(ish) items I am most likely to buy out of everything that I actually caught sight of.

Join me after the break, won’t you?

This Robotech Thing Tumblr Week In Review, February 10-14

In case you somehow missed it, since October last year I’ve been running a Tumblr blog of ROBOTECH stuff including essays, pics and such that I’ve stumbled across on-line, things I’ve bought, and cool ROBOTECH media I’d love to give whatever signal boost I can to. Since January 16, I’ve been back to five-day-a-week posting there, each one going up at 6 a.m. Central, as is my custom. (That’s when ROBOTECH aired in syndication in my area back in the 1980s.) Given that, I figured it might possibly be worthwhile to, at the end of the week, provide a look back at the week that was on the blog, offering a few extra words on each post, since I’ve noticed that words don’t get quite the attention on Tumblr that pics do.

Gateway to Obsession: Run That Back For Me, Will Ya?

If you’re a Doctor Who fan who’s at least reasonably familiar with the original “classic” series, you probably recognize this serial.

It’s “The Caves of Androzani,” the best Doctor Who story ever according to the results of the 2009 Doctor Who Magazine poll where they asked readers to rank every Doctor Who story that had aired up to that point. It’s also the first Doctor Who story I remember seeing, way back in late 1984, or maybe early 1985.

Gateway to Obsession: From the Smallest of Starts …

Say hello to Tailgate.

Tailgate is the very first Transformers toy I ever owned. The figure you see in this picture is the very one I’ve had since 1986. As such, he has a lot to answer for. If not for him I might’ve remained a Gobots kid until the end of that franchise’s run and been safe for the next twenty-eight years.