Black Friday Deals!!

OH MY GOD I HAVE TO HAVE THIS!!!

I think I first became aware of this yesterday through a Facebook post. A check of my email confirmed it. The Zombie Initiative set was going on sale as one of the Club's Black Friday deals.

I've got to admit, that's a damn good deal! Yes, the Club is expensive. I know that. Everyone knows that. But this deal brought the price per figure down to basically regular retail prices.

Fifteen figures for $150 plus shipping! Sweet! 
Dang, I'll take this as my whole Christmas!

This would be a great set to display and I've got a bunch of Zombie Vipers already and I've got Cesspool and he needs Toxo-Vipers and the Eco-Force guys are cool and Tj'Bang looks great! And I NEED THIS IN MY HANDS!

But then I started thinking. I needed to read through some reviews , get some other opinions. In my opinion, Justin Bell does some of the best reviews of GI Joe figures out there in the interwebs. Sure, there are others. Fred Meyer does some good work as well.

I decided to plow through Justin's review of the whole set again. Justin is pretty honest with his opinions and I appreciate his views on these silly ass toys.

A quick read though of all of the figures began to question my enthusiasm. The Eco-Force crew was pretty well done by the Club. Tj'Bang looked really well done; he would be a great addition to my martial art crew. Outback and the Steel Brigade Commander were less than desireable. I had done a very similar custom with the same parts that the Club used to make Outback, so I really didn't care too much about the new one.

The bad guys all looked pretty good. The Toxo Vipers and Zombies looked really great. Even Repulsor looked well done. Lab Rats? Not so much, but they would work as background scenery.

Justin's review didn't really tilt my opinion as whether to buy or not. At around 11:00 pm last night, while watching my kids play video games, I just really had to consider the value that this set would bring to my collection. Yes, I know it would be really fun to get ahold of and play with and make dios and photograph, but did I really need it?

Want and need have become important as I have gotten older. For so many years, I bought figures and toys mainly out of "want," I don't need any of them.

I decided that I don't WANT them enough. There are other GI Joe items that I WANT and needed to make a choice. None of us NEED any of this stuff. All of it is just pure WANT.

I guess it's probably pretty obvious by now that I'm not buying this set or any of the other Club Black Friday items. There are figures that I want in the future and who knows what Hasbro's plans for GI Joe are.

Hell, maybe I'm just getting older and becoming more reflective of this stuff. Contentment is a big issue. And STUFF... how much STUFF does one person need? Check online or the news for all the insanity regarding Black Friday for just a bunch of STUFF.

I am content with my collection, I have enough stuff right now, and that's good enough with me.