Today’s Episode: “Gaiking-ing†or “It’s not all about the toysâ€
Last night I ended up hanging out at Josh Fraser’s and having a damn good time. Let me walk you through it.
I arrived at his place after work and was hungry as all get out. We stepped into his place for what was going to be a few minutes before going out to eat and ended up being…I don’t know, much longer. I blame this in part to his extremely friendly and bouncy dog that I couldn’t stop paying attention to.
I got the quick tour of the collection which was really cool. During this time the karmic toy boomerang came *whoop-whoop-whooping* about as he handed a box to me and said I should have it. It was a Gaiking sort of Viewmaster (Or so I thought at the time. This morning I found out it was a hand cranked movie in the Viewmaster fashion.)   After attempting to go eat a few times and getting hung up talking more we headed out for eats.
At the restaurant we ended up talking about performance cars for a while, as well as (duh) Gaiking, ToyboxDX , the collecting hobby, and just life in general. The waiter tried hard to talk Josh out of the crispy duck he’d ordered because ‘It’s dryâ€, and I got the Dragon and Phoenix combo: 2 delicious mythical animals.
When we got back to his place we went through quite a few pieces in his collection I hadn’t seen before, or not since I was a kid. BTW Holding a mint Shogun Vehicles Kargosaur box brought back a flood of very happy childhood memories. I learned what Zenmai means finally, and saw a lot of cool tins.
For the rest of the night we put on a Gaiking DVD as background noise, and mimicked the awful voice acting that we so fondly remembered from our childhoods. Bid on YJ and eBay stuff together (I got a small shoulder GA-51 finally), talked about collecting; what we collect, how we approach it, and displaying. Examined the mysterious animal sounds coming from the back yard. You know, people stuff.
What’s the point of all this? Why did I mention the cars, or the dog, or food, or mystery growling animal out back and not just write about Gaiking? Because this hobby isn’t shit without the people. I could have every piece I desire and it wouldn’t mean half as much without at least one person to discuss, appreciate it, and share it with. Many of us have met in person, and we’ve also happily shared our collections and personalities with each other online and in person. Now I’m not talking about bragging or showing off. I’ve seen some amazing collections in person and never felt like someone was lording anything over me. I’m talking about 2 people with a genuine interest in what’s being discussed and the pleasure we get out of sharing that admiration with each other and exploring it together.
That is what this hobby is to me.
