Ok bored at work again, so I thought I'd make an attempt to revitalize this thread by posting my year-end wrestling awards. Feel free to comment or post your own, otherwise this thread could go back to the land of the dead....

Rookie of the Year: Eugene (Nick Dinsmore)

Most Improved Wrestler of the Year: Batista

Tag Team of the Year: America's Most Wanted

Feud of the Year: Chris Benoit vs. Evolution

Match of the Year: Chris Benoit vs HHH vs Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XX (Benoit wins the RAW World Title)

Non-Wrestling Personality of the Year: Teddy Long (Smackdown's GM)

Female Wrestler of the Year: Trish Stratus

Heel of the Year: HHH

Face of the Year: Eddy Guerrero

and with no surprise....

Wrestler of the Year: Chris Benoit!

RE: OTC

I'll eat some crow and say that I can't believe people bought this crap.  I guess spiffy packaging is enough for people to throw out the money for all of them. 

I didn't expect OTC to do well myself when it was announced, it seemed like a pretty bad idea. But I believe the consensus is overall it was a success as it appears that the same stuff nationwide remains, but most items moved through quickly. Dave's reminder of the recarded figures in the Cantina Post-OTC wave is a bit scary as it shows that Hasbro will be willing to continue this. Perhaps if they were to do so with figures not recarded yet, like they did with the Sandtrooper, then things could work out on a low scale. And yes the spiffy packaging did get me a bit, it caused me to buy Bossk despite the fact I had refused to get him when he initially came out in the Saga line. But I did refuse to buy other stuff down the road like Jawas and the Snowtrooper, does that save me? 

Ok so while walking the aisles today looking for clearance items, I got to thinking, was the Original Trilogy Collection line successful? In my little corner of Chicagoland, the only OTC figures left to be clearanced out where the Bespin and Endor Generals waves. In fact for 2 or 3 weeks prior to X-Mas, these were the only OTC figures you could find at the major retailers. So did all of those recarded figures actually sell? In the end was there a market for these figures within the hobby, or did the DVD's actually help out? Here's some tidbits of how OTC moved in my area, I'd like to hear how it did in yours. My concern is if Hasbro can deem this a success, they will continue this concept to the point where retailers and customers will lose interest in the line.

* Except for the Dagobah wave case, the first 3 months saw OTC figures fly off the shelves. The local Wal-Mart had a centerpiece display with several dozen OTC figures (all recarded figs), within a day all the figs had been sold and the centerpiece was dismantled.

* The Bespin and Generals wave saw almost no distribution in the area until 2-3 weeks prior to X-Mas, now they're the only OTC figs that can be found on clearance. The oldest OTC figure I can now find is a lone Dagobah Luke at an Osco Drug store.

* Of the 3 vehicles, only the OTC Falcon can be found on clearance at Target and Walmart. TIEs & X-Wings are non-existant, unless you head to TRU which of course isn't dropping prices on anything.

* VOTC is where there's a big catch, TRU still has tons of ANH figures, while Target and Walmart are clearancing ESB figures (no C-3PO of course #$!^$#^!  ), despite each once having tons of ANH figs. The 12" VOTC doesn't appear to have moved at all, as I still see stacks of those all around.

* Won't even talk about TRU exclusives, the TRU I hit today had at least a dozen of each of their OTC related exclusives, sans the Y-Wing.

So I kinda think OTC was successful, there was enough product to be found and much of it was purchased. Now will Hasbro see that and go "yes, recarded figures sell like hotcakes, let's do it again once Episode 3 has come and gone" or can we get back to having all new figures in each wave?

I'd have to say Pearl Jam, since I have just about every bootleg that's been produced, both by the band and those not produced by the band... making the total well over 350 discs. Second would probably be Metallica with close to 200 and Dave Matthews Band, probably coming in with about 200, followed closely by Slayer, who I've prolly got about 150 discs from. And then we get to DVD's, where I've got bunches of live stuff from lots of bands as well 

ok between you and scott, that's a LOT of discs! even with unofficial bootlegs, i'm surprised to know there are that many discs out there for those bands. I think I have music rack envy

Henrik,

I just saw the list posted at TRG, much kudos to you for all the hard work you and the contributors surely must have done to document all the variations. Some interesting variations are out there and it would be neat to hear some reasoning behind them. Like for example, the Jedi Luke cloak variation. Why would Kenner have both the snap-on and sewn versions of the cloak with both versions of the sabers? One would think if the sewn version was started with the blue saber Luke, all the snap-on's would have been used up with the blue saber Luke and never reach the green saber Luke. Interesting for sure....

Cheers!

So sitting here a bit bored at the office, got me to thinking what bands do I have the most music from? Which band did I buy the most albums from or make the most tapes of. So that's the question I'm posing to you all, what band/musician do you have the most music from? Due to the nature of digital music sharing, let's limit this only to records, tapes, cds, or actual radio broadcasts. So no mp3's of albums, concerts, etc. Let's go with the more concrete - you had to go out of your way to get this - stuff.

For me it was a close tie between Metallica and Pearl Jam, with most being on CD except where noted...

Metallica (14)
1.) Kill 'Em All
2.) Ride The Lightning
3.) Master Of Puppets
4.) Garage Days Re-Revisited (tape)
5.) And Justice For All
6.) Metallica (aka the Black Album)
7.) Load
8.) S&M
9.) Garage Inc.
10.) "One" Import Single
11.) Cliff Burton's First Show (bootleg CD)
12.) Garage Days 2 & 3 (2 bootleg tapes)
13.) Chicago's Allsate Arena concert (Jan. 2000 - 2 tapes)
14.) Don't Call Us, We'll Call You (radio show - 2 tapes)

Pearl Jam (13)
1.) Ten
2.) Vs.
3.) Vitalogy
4.) No Code
5.) "Jeremy" Single
6.) "Dissident" Single
7.) "Not For You" Single
8.) Mirror Ball (uncredited on Neil Young's Album)
9). Merkin Ball
10.) Atlanta's Fox Theater Concert (April 1994)
11.) Chicago's Soldier Field Concert (July 1995 - 2 tapes)
12.) Live Cuts/Singles mix (tape I made from radio)
13.) Self Pollution Radio (radio show - 2 tapes)

* All 3 concerts are also from radio broadcasts

In trying to think who would be next on the list I'd probably go with Ozzy or Megadeth, would have to check my old tapes at home, which I want to eventually make digital copies of before they get too damaged from wear and tear.

So what say you?

As Jesse mentioned, distribution is pretty messed up on a national scale, but even on a city scale it's weird. Here in Chicagoland, it's been my observation that the south side of the city and the southern suburbs will get new items approximately a month before the north side of the city and the northern burbs. I've tried to figure out a rationale for this and can't seem to figure it out. Chicago proper alone extends 31+ miles from North to South (12+ miles West to East) at it's maxii, and there doesn't seem to be a difference in the amount of collectors on either side of town. So what could it be that causes this, if I had to guess it would just be that local distribution centers are probably located in the southern part of the area where there's a lot of undeveloped land. If that's the case, then it would seem to me, your proximity to the closest distribution center for any particular store will determine how quickly your area gets items.

Of course there's really no rhyme or reason as to why some stores get more of a particular item than others, it's not as if store managers actually know what's in the cases they get from dist. centers. It's all about how much of a particular kind of item is in stock at a store that determines how much of that kind of item they get from the dist. center.

 

wow man i never knew the llamas had it so bad. i mean yeah sure several have been known to be in the control of michael jackson and that is certainly bad, but damn the whole llama species is in big trouble.

i know what can save them though!! hungry hungry hippos!!!