The My Little Pony wargames idea has
been put on a back burner temporarily as Joe has some rather crappy news on
Monday about his job. Very long story short, they haven't particularly good to
him of late which culminated in them telling him that in one month he can
either accept a job there at £6k less than his current salary or be made
redundant. On Tuesday, after he pointed out another position he could have been
considered for he has since been offered that role on £3k less than his current
salary which is still rubbish news but at least we can live on it, which we
couldn't have done if he'd had to drop £6k. So instead of fun things like pony
wargaming we've spent one evening with my parents hashing out ideas and
generally griping about the whole situation whilst getting somewhat inebriated
and two evenings job searching and filling out applications. Luckily he’s found
several jobs of interest to him including one in particular. Readers, please
keep your fingers, hooves or anything else crossed for us.
Remaining on the wargaming theme for another paragraph, I
was at Joe’s local club a couple of weekends ago and he and his mates have this
thing where they ‘declare shenanigans’ on a fellow wargamer who they believe to
be ‘being creative with the rules’. I’m not a hundred per cent clear on the ‘rules’
of shenanigans but if shenanigans is called on you, you must prove what you’re
saying is correct. If you are able to prove it is correct, the person who
declared shenanigans is beaten with a broom. Anyway, back-story aside, I told
the boys that there is a pony named Shenanigans and given the recent press
coverage Joe has had a lot of stick and/or amusing pony-related comments at the
club so everyone was suitably amused by the thought of declaring shenanigans
involving a pony being produced. Needless to say that I hit eBay when I got
home and bought Shenanigans for Joe. It was a little difficult to part with her
when she arrived, especially knowing she would be living in a wargaming bag for
most of her life, but I feel the reactions will be worth it. He hasn’t been to
the club much since so I’m still awaiting a report on that one.
I’ve spent a little (read: lot) more money on ponies than I should
have done lately. I’ve just won auctions for some variant G4s on eBay which I’m
really pleased about and am awaiting a final invoice for postage on a sizable
order from Taobao. Other than those I’ve recently received quite a few ponies
such as Granny Smith, Cadence, Shining Armour, Spitfire and Gilda
Ponyville-sized ponies, Crystal Princess Celestia and several eBay lots for
resale.
I really do have my work cut out for me this weekend getting
all those ponies from lots cleaned and photographed for eBay. I’d better find
some motivation from somewhere as I really need to re-sell them in order to pay
them off and fund this ever-growing habit of mine.
It’s rather exciting at the moment as every time I log on to
eBay, the Arena or Taobao I’m seeing a new pony or new variant G4. It must be
that time of year (dare I say it; the Christmas countdown) when new toys are
about to be released. We have new Ponyville-sized ponies on the way in the form
of Toys R Us sets of three and a new wave of blind bags (which I just pre-ordered
from Germany after a heads-up from a good pony friend) as well as sightings of
brand new Ponyvilles on Taobao which, from past experience, will most likely be
future blind bag releases. There is a strange character who appears to be a
barber pony, given that his symbol is a comb and scissors and he has a
moustache. Those who have watched FiM haven’t seen this character before
judging by the reactions to him on the Arena. Initial comments about him are
that he appears evil or annoyed and some have likened him to Sweeney Todd. I
personally love anything different like this and think he looks great. I was
pleased to see characters such as Granny Smith and Spitfire made into actual
toys, as characters like this (not the usual pretty pink types) never made it
into toy-form in the G1 line. I would have loved to see the likes of Hydia,
Reeka and Draggle, albeit that they were human rather than ponies, made into
actual toys. Mr Moochick and his rabbit would probably have been made into toys
if Hasbro had taken the same approach then as they do now, based on the characters
we are starting to see from FiM making it to toy shop shelves.
Some of the new character releases were a surprise to me as I
still haven’t watched FiM. Not that I haven’t tried. When I was off ill from
work last year I sat at the computer and watched the first two episodes on
YouTube and while ever I thought they were great I just don’t enjoy sitting
watching things at a computer, I prefer to be on my sofa in front of the telly.
It’s taken until now to get Joe to download season one for me and that failed
to download so take two will come soon, but as I said above we’ve been somewhat
distracted by more pressing matters. It will happen though, which should please
my friend Chris.
In other news, I’ve decided to enter a couple of my customs
into one of the competitions at Ponycon. They probably won’t win given the
calibre of artists entering the competition if previous years are anything to
go by but it will be fun to try none-the-less. I’m also entering a photo I took
of my pony pile when we did the photos for Chat magazine and I’m re-making
something that I made a few years ago which unfortunately met its demise in
storage. It was a scene of a grassy hill with trees on it and three unicorns
galloping through. The horses are Britain’s Farm horses, so are on a much
smaller scale than MLP and more ‘realistic’, if you can refer to three
colourful unicorns who leave a trail of glitter as they gallop realistic that
is.
