I'm OK with who the Bears chose, and I'm actually excited to see Rex Grossman play for the Bears.  I really think they're going to have a great year this year.  I'm more excited to see Kordell Stewart play for them.

Yeah, but waht did you think of Kordell saying that he's not interested in teaching Grossman?  I thought that was kind of cold.  Obviously, Kordell has to learn the Bears offense as well, but he's certainly going to be a quicker study.  He doesn't have the time or willingness to teach a rookie?

The bad items from the Deluxe line?   Jango Fett with backpack and the force flipping figures did it for me.  There's so much potential for the Deluxe line, too.  And there are so many great ideas for the Deluxe line at numerous collecting sites and forums.  You'd think that people at Hasbro might do some serious reading at sites.

One of the biggest problems for the deluxe line as we know it now were the initial Deluxe pieces in the SAGA line.  They were overproduced, and didn't have the quality that would attract collectors.  The force flipping Tyranus and Obi-Wan, and Jango with backpack were geared more towards kids and playability than anything else.  And Hasbro thought that Mom's and Dad's were going to buy tons of these for kids.  But no, they wound up buying their kids electronic lightsabers.  Way to know your market, Hasbro.

So, what happened?  SAGA Deluxe wave 1 wound up warming the pegs, and prevented later deluxe waves from shipping.  And as it turns out, the later SAGA Deluxe figures were superior to the initial wave of SAGA Deluxe figures.

What's even more disappointing is that the current crop of Deluxe figure are far better than last year's SAGA Deluxe figures.  In the past couple of weeks, I managed to get the Super Battle Droid Builder, Dwarf Spider Droid, Obi-Wan Kenobi-Kamino, and Jango Fett-Kamino.  These are great pieces!  Are they on par with the POTJ Deluxe figures?  They're close.

The real reason why I think the Deluxe line is taking a backseat?  It's got to be one of two reasons.  

1) The Hasbro brass didn't see good sales numbers on the Deluxe, so they opted to cut it instead of improving it.  

2) Hasbro may only have so many items that they're going to allow Star Wars in a non-movie year.  We get army builders, screen scenes and multi-packs?  Okay, you've got to give up the Deluxe figures.  Plus, from reports I've heard from Hasbro's media day, they're going to be focusing more on their GI Joe and Transformers lines this year.  This might mean that Star Wars is seeing a diminished production run.

Anyway, this is all just supposition.

IMPERIALS
-Admiral Ozzel
-General Veers (w/ removable hat, and removable armor & mini holographic Darth Vader)
-Captain Needa

REBELS
-General Rieekan
-Zev Senesca-Rogue 2
-Luke Skywalker-Snowspeeder Pilot (w/ heavy jacket, removable helmet, lightsaber, blaster & holster, grappling line, and mine)

OTHERS
-Yoda-Dagobah Training with pot, gimmer stick and backpack (badly needed resculpt)

BESPIN
-Treva Horme (seen here: http://red6.home.insightbb.com/Aliens/Cloud/treva.jpg)
-Wiorkettle (seen here: http://red6.home.insightbb.com/Aliens/Cloud/wiorkettle.jpg
-E-3PO-Protocol Droid

Let's see.  I made a list at another site, but can't remember it too well.  
Here's my top ten most wanted:


-Qui-Gon Jinn-Slicing and dicing Battle Droids
-Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi-Mos Eisly Cantina
-Tusken Raider
-Aurra Sing
-Wampa
-Royal Guard
-Clone Trooper
-Kit Fisto
-Aayla Secura
-Jabba the Hutt

I don't bring mine to work, except for some select jobs.  It's a Leatherman.

I got home from seeing it a little while ago.  I'll just keep it to a simple WOW!  until others can catch it at the local mega-multi-plex.

The first one?  Really?!

A garbageman.  Honest!  I thought it was cool how they got to ride around standing on the back of the truck.  They also had this little three wheeled buggy that would follow the truck, and would climb all the driveways to get the garbage.  That thing was cool!

You've got to try understanding a six-year old's mentality to appreciate this.