I hope everyone has a Happy New Year.   We just stayed at home and did a zoom call with another family, played a few games with them and now we are playing Wii as a family.

My daughter was just in a serious accident.  One that could have taken her from our lives. She is safe physically.  But my wife is flying out to be with her.  I am in Florida so I don't get the Canadian news, but you might of heard about mudslides in BC. The mudslide happened while they were travelling back from a weekend get away in Kelowna.  A tree hit and stopped their car and then the mudslide hit their car and their car rolled onto it's roof 3 times as they went over a cliff.  Then they landed in a valley.  Somehow they survived the initial accident. But then they were left in the pitch darkness with a mudslide river trapping them on the roof of their car for 7 hours.  The EMS later told my daughter they expected to find all of them dead.  I am the luckiest Dad on the planet.

I’m a Toysrus Kid.  I don’t want to grow up.  But it’s time for Toysrus to put their big kid pants on and fix their retail management software.   At this point I am struggling to understand why Toysrus's management has not cut their losses with their current retail management software.   It does not get the job done, period.   But customer service definitely are aware of it and they are trying to let the customer know they appreciate their business.   Top marks for helping the customer whenever they can and for giving them the best customer service they can under the current system. 

My most recent interaction played out like this.   I like many of you had a pre-order for the rainbow Boba Fett.  It got cancelled.   I went on-line saw it was available to order, so I used one of my many 10% off codes that I have got from all the cancelled orders Toysrus has done and I reordered it and got 10% off the order.   Then shortly thereafter I received a 40% off coupon for on-sale and regular retail items at Toysrus.   And 2 days after I ordered the product it was delivered to my house.  So in the end I am a very happy customer.    I got my Rainbow Boba Fett , I got 10% off it and I have a 40% coupon to use in the future.

But a lot of time and energy is being used by the customer and customer service to keep the ship sailing when what they really need is a new boat.   A new boat in form a shiny new retail management software program that allows customers to order products and for those orders to turn into shipments to the customer and for the products to arrive at the customer’s doorstep in a dependable fashion.   They really are in a position to own the Toy Market in Canada if they can just get this problem fixed. 

On the front page of Rebelscum, Philip Wise has let the membership know he is passing the baton over to a company that buys Star Wars collections and sells Star Wars toys, the company is called Order 66 toys.   Beside looking at the front page of Rebelscum, I do not utilize the Rebelscum web site.   So I don't really know the culture or what it feels like to be an active member of rebelscum.com . My immediate reaction was, it looks like they just let the fox into the chicken coop.   It also made me think that Rebelscum is probably less about a love for Star Wars and more about buying and selling Star Wars toys.  And if it is not that now, it will most likely move to that with Order 66 at the helm because that is their business model.   No judgement either way on this next statement but it also looks like Philip cashed in and actually sold the web site to someone who would actually pay for it. In my opinion , this is totally OK to do, Philip would have had to spend money in order to create the community, so it is totally OK to get compensated for all the money and work that he put into developing the site.  Finding out about the change at rebelscum also made me a little concern & wondering about what will happen in the future to my beloved snowtrooper.ca.  Just wondering if anybody else had a reaction to the change at rebelscum. 

Are we getting this in Canada since Target does not ship to Canada?  I was thinking EB games might get it.

First of all let me get my Bah Humbug out of my system.  " A pox on both your houses " to the person who went to every Walmart in Durham and systmatically took every DIN figure and Carbonized Mandalorian figure.   Obviously a person with no Christmas heart and only a desire to fill a bottomless pit of greed that has over taken them.  So this Christmas there will be no children in Durham that will have a Mandalorian and Baby Yoda figure under the tree including my son who loves the TV show. Despite much effort all I found was the path of the Grinch that Stole Christmas from Durham. 

With that off my chest,  I hope everyone has an amazing Christmas and you enjoy all that "Tis the Season" has to offer.   Tonight I was feeling a little down but as I drove home a parade of cars came by all lite up with candles on the roof of the cars.  I assumed it was a group of people celebrating Hanukkah - The Jewish Festival of Lights.  Fantastic idea, which I hope they do every year.   I beeped my horn and smiled as they passed.  And I also would like to wish everyone a Very Happy New Year.   Really, a very very very very very very very Happy New Year !   Although I think the party might not happen until the end of 2021 ! 

Oh and by the way I don't really want the Grinch to have a pox on both his houses, because during a world wide pandemic that is actually a real genuine thing that could happen. So I take it back and I can only hope Santa will see who's naughty and nice and will bring you a piece of coal for Christmas. 

Just announced.  What do you guys think at $350 US plus shipping to Canada ?

Just went into see a movie at the Ancaster Cineplex.  They just got their shipment of Star Wars Merchandise for sale at the concession.  I was told I was first person to purchase the mega souvenir .  It is a 17 " high R2D2 that holds your pop and your popcorn.  It comes with a pop and a popcorn.  I also upgraded and got the Star Wars cup with the C3P0 topper. And if you want to line up a bunch of movies to watch - you get free re-fills of pop and popcorn until January 31, 2019.  I assume I have to bring my R2D2 to each movie - not sure if I have to buy him a seat ?  They have about 6 toppers - R2D2 & C3P0, Kylo, Rey, Red Stormtrooper and I think another character but I believe R2 & C3P0 were the only OT characters.   They also have metal buckets with Star Wars pictures on the outside of the bucket - I think 2 different versions - to hold your popcorn.  The coolest thing was the R2D2 - but he comes with a heavy price tag $49.99 . But if you plan on seeing a lot of movies over the holidays and eating a lot of popcorn and pop - you can get some value out of it.

Now if I can only get that Columbia Star Wars coat and take in my R2D2 to the first showing of Star Wars - I am all but assured of getting that standing ovation  .