Jokabofe?  did I spell that correctly?  

Now I admit to not reading the front page very often (crashes my home computer ) so if it was announced there, please excuse me.  

Otherwise, welcome new and powerful overlord type.

For me it's about 5 1/2 hours ago.  

Less than a mile from home, I stop at the red light.  Waiting for my turn, it's essentially post rush hour and WHAM!!  Some guy in a truck plows into the back of me

Guess what the first word out of my mouth was?  Inside the car that is.  I see no point, no matter the overwhelming temptation to beat the snot out of the guy, in getting mad.  License, registration and get out of there before hitting someone.  This is not to say I'm not unbelievably ticked but it serves no good purpose.  

Even worse, red light, maybe 10-15 cars around at various points of the intersection.  You think anyone pulled over to be a witness?  Nope, not a chance.    Thanks folks, maybe I'll help you out when your house is on fire

Anyway, for our American friends, no civil suits of that sort up here.  A vehicle has to be insured to be licensed, so that side is covered as should be all the damage to my car, but what a pain in the butt (neck?).  Probably $1500-$2000 damage and I'll have to file a police report.  The good news is that our insurance adjustors and the guys who estimate damages are pretty clever in determining how the damage occurred.  Even if the guy turns into a complete knob and tries to claim I backed into him, the damage will tell a different story.  Here's hoping he doesn't try that.  

Annoyed, I am...

Alrighty then, I'm a week away (well, 9 days) from going and buying up all the toys in the greater Cincinatti area  These are the stores I can think of checking and have done the store locator schtick for:

Walmart
Target
KB
Kmart
EB
Meijer (curse you McFarlane and your red paint)
Gamestop
TRU

Aside from a disturbing lack (in abundance, not complete) of Target stores, what am I missing.  I'm hunting primarily for Star Wars and McFarlane Sports Picks.  Help me out please.

Well, at the very least for toys.  Just read through a couple of the other toy lines threads and could have made a similar comment in each one for the most part.  So I thought I'd concentrate it here.  I suppose it probably belongs elsewhere but it can be moved if necessary (or deleted, I just need to vent).

From the Marvel Legends line, I see sales on older product and guys only parting with $5 and change of their disposable income.  Up here they cost $14.99 plus 14% tax and are next to never clearanced.  I did score Cap and Ironman for $5 but that was about a year ago.  One of our stores, Zellers, continues to stock ML II over and over and over again, seemingly unaware that III exists.  Thing is so common up here, it's frightening and the retailers are probably looking at shelves thinking, hmm, this stuff doesn't sell.  I can find all of series II with ease.  TRU brought in some ML III but only movie Daredevil remains on the shelves with all the crap from ML II.  Namor, Torch, Thing all sit forever.  At least Doom sells through but I could probably pick up three today if I had to.  ML IV doesn't even exist in retailers up here.  It's bloody ridiculous.  Walmart isn't carrying anything in this line at all even though they sold huge amounts of ML I last fall

The mini-mates/Kubricks thread was another downer.  With respect to the minimates, we had some come in (the two packs at $8.95 plus that 14% tax) and they are all gone. But only the first wave, lots of those figs that Scott listed just weren't available.  I think these are cool, but I just can't afford to bring in even more stuff from the US.  Why?

Walmart Canada and Zellers, two of the largest retailers, are not carrying Star Wars for the forseeable future.  We don't have KBtoys, Target or any of the other retailers you guys do.  On top of that, Hasbro Canada is not carrying Star Wars in Canada past the Hoth Han wave, likely until the release of Episode III.  Retailers (read TRU) can still bring in US product, but after the similar peg clogging from EP II and Ep I, they are reluctant to bring in much.  TRU is bringing in some Unleashed, but still no idea which wave.  The last unleashed they carried was Maul and Fett

LOTR is still clogged with the usual pegwarmers from TTT, no sign of ROTK stuff yet.  On the bright side, TRU has gone hard and heavy with the mini figs and by all counts, they are selling very, very well.  I won't whine much about this line as I don't really collect it.  

Muppets have been abyssmal.  We had the first round, then skipped them all to wave 4, which is not moving, IMO due to the two pigs in space characters.  They're cool, but not for everyone.  Rizzo goes quick and I've been able to see both the regular and 'chase' Rizzo's.  Still, it's not looking promising for wave 5.  

Simpsons suck.  We got Wave 1 and I can still buy Homer and Bart at regular price  I think the next wave that was carried by any major retailer was 10 (there was a couple of store carrying the other lines, but at $16.99 plus that accursed 14% tax, it was a bit steep).  Now wave 10 is clogging two major retailers and the line is likely to be dropped again.  US is on wave 13, yes?

MOTU has been a bright spot of sorts, though we've been so behind it's frightening.  I've been able to see most of the figs up here, but the first Orko I saw was about two weeks ago, roughly 4-5 months after I could have grabbed one in Wisconsin.  I don't collect the line, but could the case ratios be worse?  How many He-Man figs does a kid need?

Anyhoo, it's not that toys don't sell up here, it's that between retailers and warehouses, they have no concept of the quantity necessary.  Kit Fisto is still in abundance and that's really not necessary.  Sorry for whining but it needed to be said.

Kermie arrived fine and safe.  Managed safe passage during all the postal strike turmoil.  Thanks Jay for a great packing job and a very friendly offer of assistance.  I will turn my wife into a collector yet.

Have the following available for trade:

2 Boba
2 IG-88
1 Bossk

I can be pretty easy as far as trades go, new stuff is obviously not up in Canuckada.  LMK and we can work it out.

An excellent situation that arose from discussion on the board.  He's an Alien, I'm a Predator - the world's a happy place.  

Packing was super and communication top notch.  If only Canada post was faster.  Alas, it may never be.