Odds And Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (7/25-7/31)

It's been a busy week here at Days In The Park!  We're fully back in the groove of things now that our blog redesigns are done, and we only missed Tuesday this week!  Not sure how we did miss that one day, but we'll just have to assume something must have been going on and we'll have to make it up to you guys this week.  Just to recap:

On Monday, we challenged you with our weekly "Magical Mystery Mondays" to guess where in The Parks we were when we took a particular picture.  This week's came courtesy of the Greetings From California store in Disney California Adventure.  We have a lot of fun with these every week, so make sure you stop by each and every Monday to participate with us.  Guess correctly, and you'll find your name posted on our blog come Tuesday morning!

Wednesday,we celebrated a Park birthday for our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday when our very own M.J. turned "The Big 9"

On Thursday,we were back with our weekly article about our Vinylmation collecting with a "Vinylmation of the Week" piece; this week highlighting Janice from the Muppets Series #2

We were blog hopping on Friday with our friend at Magical Days With The Mouse, highlighting another fond Days In The Park memory; this week's featuring some of the Days In The Park Kiddies

And lastly, on Saturday, we spent some time talking about another one of our "Favorite Things" to partake of in The Parks, the Mint Julep

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It should be a really good week at Days In The Park!  We'll be recording Episode 7 of our Days In The Park podcast which we're really looking forward to.  Our show is doing really well these days with quite a few people listening in, and we think we have another great set of topics to talk about in this one.  We'll be recording and editing this week so we can get it out quickly, so be on the lookout for it.  We also have some pretty cool articles coming!  Mark is busy writing an article about one of our favorite Park treasures from the Main Street Candy Palace (and it's not candy!), and we have a new video coming we shot on one of our favorite little attractions we want to share.  Plus, we'll be back with our regular segments so be sure to tune in for our "Magical Mystery" Mondays, "Almost" Wordless Wednesdays, and come back to hop with us for our "Disney Flashback" Friday.

It's going to be a great week, so come on back.  We love having you around!

Vinylmation Of The Week: Janice

Vinylmation sure can get expensive!  Our favorite hobby can end up costing us quite a bit of money even though we enjoy doing it, and as such, recently we haven't been buying as many of the little guys when we're out and about inside The Parks.  However, that said, one series we still have been plugging away at bit by bit has been the Muppets Series #2.  We love The Muppets in all of their forms, including when they come in the shape of little Mickey Mouses that cost us $10 a pop.  All three of us have either complete or almost complete Muppets Series #1 sets, so when we heard they would doing a second, we immediately started collecting.  But, even though we enjoy all of our Muppets, we were most excited to start collecting Round 2 because it would be featuring the greatest band on the planet, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem!  So for the next few weeks, we're going to focus on just that; the little plastic bandmates that make up some of our favorite Vinyls of all.

We've always believed in the old adage, "Ladies first", and with that in mind, for our first Vinylmation of the Week focusing on the Electric Mayhem, the spotlight shines solely on Janice.

One of the continuing reasons we enjoy collecting Vinyl so much is because of the detail the artists continue to put into their work.  Janice is certainly no exception to the rule.  She's bright, colorful, and has a ton of detail.  Janice was always one of The Muppets who danced to the beat of her own drum ("If I want to live on the beach and walk around naked..." from 'The Great Muppet Caper', anyone?), but that's exactly one of the reasons why we like her the most; she certainly has a 60's looking "Flower Child" thing going on with her red beanie (complete with flower), necklace resplendent with a peace sign, and denim jeans with a rope belt.   She's most definitely a free-spirit and we think that Disney Character Artist Monty Maldovan did a fantastic job conveying that with the way that he painted her.

The back of this piece is pretty standard but we did get a kick out of the little piece sign on her left jeans pocket, smack dab on the buttock!  It makes us laugh every time we see it.  We're not entirely sure whether that's a good thing or not, but it's a nice little touch we thought and wrapped up the piece nicely.

So there you go, this week's choice for Vinylmation of the Week.  We'll be back next week with another from our Electric Mayhem set, so be sure to come back to see who we highlight. 

In the meantime, if you have a Muppet you'd like to see us highlight let us know and we'd be happy to!  Thanks for stopping by, and happy collecting!

Adventures in Vinyl: Muppets Series #2 And More!

We realized quite recently that it's been a while since we wrote about our "Vinylmation Madness"which, if it hasn't already been deemed an actual disorder, surely will be in the very near future. We have, however, been collecting all along, though not quite as avidly as we might like due to petty roadblocks in our way, such as money.

One of the cool things about going to The Park with someone who's a close friend and digs many of the same things as you is that when you start collecting things, like Vinylmation, you often do it in tandem. And it's worked out really well for us in the past because when we suffer the horror of buying dupes (see our past article on our "Quasimodo Nightmare") we can often trade it immediately to each other for something we don't have yet. It's worked out well for us.

There are two primary sets we've been working on collecting for some time now that we can share with you today. We've both been collecting the TRON: Legacy series as well as the Muppet Series #2 which came out about a month or so ago.

Mark is substantially ahead of Chad in terms of his TRON collection. Two things are really great about this set though: you don't have to collect 12 of the little guys (as there are only eight in the set), and you can buy the ones you know you need because they aren't sold in blind-boxes, but rather in transparent packaging so you always know what you're going to get and can set your sights on just what you need each time you go out to The Park. The only negative is that now they've been out for a while so they are slowly but surely becoming a little less readily available. If you're going to collect a full set of these, now might be a good time to start!

Chad's been pretty undecided on whether he wants a full set or not, but he did buy two of this favorites very early on as they were two of his favorite characters from the movie: "Rinzler" and "Quorra".

Mark also has these two, but an additional four more and is well on his way to a full set. He needs to get a move on and fill it out! He also has: "TRON", "Kevin Flynn", "CLU", and "x"

We're also each about halfway through our Muppets Series #2 sets as we each have six of them, and almost identical sets save a couple of exceptions. It's been a little slow going as of late due to some issues with some dupes (we keep getting the "Penguin" and there have been some "Janice" issues), but thanks to collecting at the same time (as we mentioned before) we've been able to help each other along a bit.

As it stands now, Chad is in possession of: "Dr. Teeth", "Sgt. Floyd Pepper", "Janice", "Link Hogthrob", "Penguin", and "Lew Zealand".

Mark has four of the same, but rather than Link and Floyd he has: "Piggy In Space" and "Scooter". So between us, we're only four away from a complete set! Not that that means much.

Chad has also dabbled a bit with the new Park Series #6, primarily because he liked the combo topper for the set which was based on a cartoon with Mickey Mouse called "Runaway Brain Mickey", and the only way to get it was to buy the topper. If you're not familiar with the combo-toppers, they're basically little two-packs of Vinylmation; one is sold in a blind-box, and one is a more limited edition Vinylmation sold on top of the blind-box (hence the name "topper") that can only be bought as part of the combo. He figured since he had already started collecting them (sort of) by buying the topper, he might as well make a collection out of it. It's pretty slow going though with the other two sets having come out, so unfortuatenly this one is looking more and more as though it might fall by the wayside; it happens sometimes. As it stands now though, he currently has: "Lifeboat, Disney Cruise Lines", "Wet Paint Donald", "Disney's Hollywood Studios", and "Runaway Brain Mickey". We'll have to see how this one goes in the future.

And there you have it, you're now officially up to speed on where we are. There was a lot to cover in this one (since we haven't written about our collections in a while), but if you're like us and you love Vinylmation, the more the merrier, right?

Be sure and check back later today for another Vinylmation article/segment we'll be debuting. We can't wait to have you check it out, so be sure and pop back in for a bit. We know you won't be disappointed.

Until next time, Vinyl lovers...