Reminder: The Summer Megaparty does not end tonight, as I've decided to extend it through August, give or take a few days.  Let's celebrate the Summer Megaparty not ending with a topic that most certainly would not have been good enough to serve as its finale: Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos action figures.

I don't know if Internet meme-a-maniac Chuck Norris was ever realized in toy form again after this, but if he was, it's definitely been a downward slope since Kenner's awesome 1986 Karate Kommandos line, based on the cartoon of the same name.  The show only had five episodes, but between its cult following and a recent revival on Adult Swim, it's as well known as the many other C-level action toons of the '80s.  Somehow, the series spun its own toy line, which I was quite familiar with despite the fact that I didn't own any of the figures as a kid.

Remember that little entry I did about those old Consumers Showroom stores?  I talked about the company's holiday catalogs in that entry — specifically, I gushed about the last few pages, which featured crazy clearance sales on a plethora of desirable playthings.  The Karate Kommandos toys were consistently advertised at 49 cents a pop on those pages, and even as a kid, it was easy for me to do the math and figure out that Mom would take no issue at all with buying me a complete set of Karate Kommandos toys at prices that low.

As fate would have it, the figures were always sold out.  I can't remember where I got the three shown above, but since I can firmly say that I've never actively hunted for them during my adulthood, I'm assuming they were lumped into some form of eBay boxlot that I purchased on a whim a few years ago.  They've been laying in a tub full of other random figures since then, and now that I'm taking my first close look, they're kind of great.

Twice as tall as G.I. Joe figures and five times heavier, you didn't have to be into Chuck Norris or his silly cartoon to appreciate such a strange gallery of friends and foes.  The purple dude is named "Super Ninja," likely because he felt that his Predator hairstyle and outrageous purple costume negated any need for an extra clever name.  If you twist the figure at the waist, his legs move in what I assume was intended to be karate attacks, even though they look way more like calisthenics.

The real trump figure of the collection (and the one that always piqued my interest in those old Consumers catalogs) was "Tabe," Chuck's close ally and noted sumo wrestler, who brought a level of supreme awkwardness to every social gathering by refusing to wear anything more than a blue thong with someone else's initials printed over his dick.

Strangely, Chuck was the least interesting figure in his own line, looking more like some random dude who cobbled together a superhero outfit from a couple of pool tubes and exercise wear.

The toys had a quaint, generic quality about them, which worked in this case, because the world wasn't exactly set ablaze by the opportunity to fill its collective toybox with action figures based on five episodes of a Chuck Norris cartoon.  The figures were just plain enough to be easily adopted into more popular lines.  Tabe, for example, could lock horns with a Skeletor figure without anyone ever thinking that it was some harebrained crossover.

If you're in the market to start collecting some new random old things, give this collection a look.  They're relatively cheap on the collectors' market, with packaged figures in the $10-$15 range and loose figures being readily traded for couch cushion change.

Seems like a good segue into a survey: What are some of the "lesser" toy collections that stirred your flames as a kid?  If you were into Transformers, so was half the world.  Name some of the toys that you seemed to be alone in appreciating.

I finally decided to clean the tick-infested Kool-Aid Section, and in celebration, there's a brand new Kool-Aid review.  Don't get too excited…it's just "Slammin' Strawberry-Kiwi."  While lacking the cultural punch of a Purplesaurus Rex, the stuff tastes so good that I hereby declare that I will drink nothing but Slammin' Strawberry-Kiwi Kool-Aid from now until the day I die.

Those of you who read X-E despite being pretty normal adults with pretty normal adult interests may want to fast forward to the end of this entry.  It's time for a…

POKEMON DIAMOND UPDATE!!!

Still really digging it.  I love that it's the kind of game that I can totally forget about for a few days and get right back into without much need for refreshers or reminders.  That came in especially handy yesterday, when we had a blackout and the only thing in the entire house that would make noise was my fully charged Nintendo DS.

I've got seven badges, and I'm now up to the part where you've gotta track down the Team Galactic dude in a cave.  I will admit that some parts can get tedious, especially if you've played the older games, but there are still enough new twists and hiccups to keep the good times rolling.  I'm also theorizing that most players use some form of guide or walkthrough to finish this, because it's a bit trickier than the previous titles and there are times when I just have absolutely no clue if I'm supposed to go northeast, southwest or the dreaded eastwest.

Check out my original Pokemon Diamond post to see the Poketeam I started out with.  Times have changed since then.  Here's who I'm exploiting now:

My cute little Chimchar has evolved into Infernape, and at close to Level 60, he's nearly unstoppable.  He's got two kickass fire moves and two beat-you-to-death fighting moves, and they seem so perfect that I've been skipping all of the new maneuvers the game keeps asking me to install as I level him up.  Meanwhile, Luxio has achieved his dream of becoming Luxray, and he's hovering in the Level 55 area.  Between these two Pokemon, I haven't lost a match yet.  The best is when some idiot challenges me to a doubles match, because this tandem of terror just totally annihilates everyone with a series of Flame Wheels, Crunches and Thunder Fangs. [more]

We had to do a general apartment maintenance shopping run this morning, lest we spend another week using small, dainty grocery bags as garbage bags.  On our way to Wal-Mart, I stopped by 7-11 in the hopes of completing my Simpsons Movie food collection with the only thing left on the checklist: That stupid pink donut.

FINALLY!  And it was the last one, too.  I could barely contain my excitement, but I certainly tried, because the last thing you want to do when you're in the vicinity of total strangers is scream joyously over a gloppy pink donut.  Even more grueling was the checkout line.  We picked up a few other items, and I watched with horror as the cashier pulled, squeezed and threw my little donut baggie through the bowels of countertop hell, risking permanent damage to what is very clearly a collector's item.

If you think this donut is for eating, you are incorrect.  In fact, I'm looking for suggestions on how to best preserve it.  A shellac brushing, maybe?  I've learned my lesson from the many Ninja Turtles pudding pies of the past.  This donut must be archived.  It's currently triple-bagged in the cheese drawer of our refrigerator, which contains absolutely no cheese, but if you're in the market for 42,000 packets of soy sauce, I'm your enabler.

An Internet trade mag recently confirmed that the key to obtaining repeat website visits is by writing about scented candles, so here I am.  We're really digging these Febreze candles, not just because they help us forget about the thick air of cigarettes and cats that permeate every moment of our lives, but also because a lot of them smell like the holidays.

We thought it was a bit early to get one of the autumnny scents reminiscent of the Halloween season, so the obvious solution was to get a Christmas candle instead.  "Apple Spice & Delight" may be apropos for anytime of year, but it smells like one of those faux wreaths sprayed to heck with cinnamon.  Every time its sweet scent hits my face, I put a pillow under my shirt and blow audiences away with my Rosemary Clooney impression.

Our nearest Wal-Mart is next to our nearest Dollar Tree, and that situation is just too convenient to pass up on.  There wasn't a whole lot of one-buck goodness to be found on this latest excursion, save for what's seen above: One of the strangest, stupidest toys in the history of playtime.

"Chef Mario's Dining Disasters" is a collection of "playsets" including a tiny, flimsy toy dinner plate topped with sticky, stretch toy macaroni with various bugs and critters lurking within it.  Uh huh.  The bugs range from the cockroaches seen above to things so disgusting that I can't bring myself to mention them in an entry that also includes such a palatable pink donut.  It'd just be cruel.

While very clearly a cheapo dollar store toy of the highest order, it's incredible to see how much Chef Mario put into his packaging.  They did a real photo shoot and everything, and Mario looks a lot like Jimmy (pronounced JEE-me) from that old Polly-O String Cheese commercial.  The back of the packages paint our friend as a rogue chef who has his own ideas of what constitutes as a "special ingredient," meaning he's less of an unkempt, dirty chef and more of a chef who actually thinks that rats and cockroaches improve spaghetti dishes.  That's so cool.

Remarkably, it would appear that these originally sold at prices far higher than a dollar.  Amazon's got 'em with $9.99 price tags.  It could be worth it, if only because you'd be able to cut out this this awesome picture of Chef Mario from the back of the package and glue it to your marble notebook cover.  Way more edgy and fringe than some riff on an Obey Giant sticker, I think.

To wrap up this long and esoteric entry, I'd like to point out that it is fucking STORMING LIKE CRAZY here.  POURING, STORMING, end-of-the-world level craziness.  And I love it, I absolutely love it.  The picture above was taken about 20 minutes before the storm hit; now, it's as if some 7,000 foot tall deity was taking a piss directly onto our house.  I'd be surprised if I'm able to post this entry before the blackout strikes.

There's nothing better than a rainy Sunday, especially when you've got pink donuts, Christmas candles and bugs-in-macaroni to compliment the mood.

UPDATE: Looks like I challenged a higher power with my musings above.  The power went out due to the storm around 1PM, and just came back on no more than five minutes ago.  I was approximately thirty seconds away from posting this entry before we got zapped, too.  I hate electricity.

I'd classify Hamburger Helper's anthropomorphic "Helping Hand" as one of the more undervalued product mascots of the past century, but in 1990, parent company Betty Crocker did away with the talking palm entirely for a very odd Hamburger Helper spinoff that took meaty macaroni…into outer space.

The 1990 "Space Adventure" brand was a real shot in the dark and one that clearly didn't pan out for Ms. Crocker, but let's be honest.  Show of hands: Who wouldn't prefer to eat macaroni that came from a box with a picture of Saturn on it to macaroni that didn't?

Making "fun-shaped" macaroni was nothing new even back in 1990, but what separated the "Space Adventure" brand was its thoroughosity, for lack of a word that actually exists.  Had this stuff just come in a regular Hamburger Helper box with a little text burst reading, "HEY KIDS: NEW SPACE-SHAPED RONIS INSIDE," I'd be neither here nor there.  But with such a fuss made out of everything on the packaging, it's tough to disagree that every variety of pasta should have a space-themed alternative.

There were five different weirdo shapes in each box, which Betty Crocker went through the trouble of naming and describing.  We had the "UFO," "Alien," "Space Runner I," "Saturn" and "Blaze."  Most of those are self-explanatory, but you should know that "Space Runner I" is a "high speed spaceship," and that "Blaze" is the "hottest star in the universe."  You should also know that the supposed "UFO" looked like a Hershey's Kiss with feet.

Incredibly, there were four different flavors in the "Space Adventure" collection, each with a different theme.  The Saturn-themed box I own featured a spaghetti sauce flavor, but it looks like "beef" got the coolest mascot — that one's box had a kickass killer space robot on the front.

If you were the type of person prone to making spoonfuls of Spaghettios fly around your head for a minute before swallowing, the "Space Adventure" brand helped such actions make sense.  Pasta shaped like spaceships should have a chance to fly around your head before you eat it.  And you should totally make razzy noises with your mouth to serve as engine thrust sound effects while doing this.

Every new product push is footnoted by a clever slogan, and here was Betty Crocker's for the "Space Adventure" collection: "Down to earth nutrition.  Out of this world fun."

I hate it when people don't capitalize "Earth" when they're referring to the planet and not its soil.  It's technically correct either way, but if you can't call "Jupiter" "jupiter," why can you call "Earth" "earth?"  Would Betty Crocker mind if I called her betty crocker?

I'm obsessing over this new movie, Cloverfield.  I'm not sure what I can say about it without spoiling something or another, so I'll push the rest after the jump. [more]

Note: I've decided to extend the Megaparty into the month of August, partly because I skipped some days but mostly because I'm just digging doing it and will probably be more likely to keep doing it if I say I will.  So, let's continue the party!

It's time to see the results from the Grow-A-Toy experiment from a few posts back.  Are you amped?

I'm putting cotton in my cheeks so I can sound more like Sean Connery when I say, "I'm waiting to be impressed."  I'm pretty bad at judging mass, but does that seem like a 600% increase in size to you?  To provide some sense of scale, I've included one of those cute little animal statues Tetley Tea used to give out for no apparent reason.

Bumble fared a lot better than Kong, but as expected, the finely detailed features seen in his small, dry form were almost totally eradicated by the rapid, soaking growth.  If Tootsie made vanilla Toosie Pops, his head is what one of them would look like just before the bite that brings us to the chewy center.

Kong is just a mess.  If a dog took a shit and it looked like that, I'd be impressed at the Kong similarities.  But since it's supposed to look like King Kong, I'm left wondering why it looks like dog shit.  All of his detailing is gone.  The only silver lining is that, if you turn him sideways, he kind of looks like a black goldfish speeding away with a stolen money bag.

Even if they aren't pretty, I'm still hoping that Kong and Bumble just need a little more time to realize the incredible size advertised on their packages.  They're back in the water now, but I need them to hurry the fuck up, as they're keeping us from any opportunity to make a pitcher of iced tea.  Perhaps I should've chosen different items to use as Grow-A-Toy tanks?

Remembering my foolproof loophole of not needing to add new content to the blog when I post a regular X-E article, I'm here to tell you that I'm only here to tell you something.

I came across a collage I drew and colored in 1992, evidently encapsulating all that was holy about that year's summer vacation.  In this article, I break down the contents of said collage and figure out why each element meant enough to me to be worth drawing.

After spending over a month writing about whatever, the Summer Megaparty finally gets summery.  Only, I guess it's not the Summer Megaparty getting summery, since this is a "regular" article.  Ah…well, something's getting summery.