Category: Toys

Earlier in the month I posted about the interesting Universal Store I found in Muthana Complex and yesterday night the owner of the store commented on the post clearing up some details. Here is his comment:

Hi everyone

Firstly, thanks for all comments that I have seen here from you guys, I was really shocked when I found out that someone posted the store on their website, I got the site address from a note which I found in the store when I was there to check up on some work.

I wanted to clear up a fact, we are not connected to Universal Studio which is located in the states (The famous movie maker), our name is diffrent but the logo is similar with some changes, so we are far away from the courts 🙂 we chose this name and logo because our work and products are related to the movies and everyone knows UNIVERSAL STUDIO = movies so we wanted to have an emotional link with the customers first, and maybe you will not believe me if I tell you that even with this emotional link we chose there are still some people which don’t know if these products or figures are for movies characters!

Besides that we have a direct connection and we are an authorized distributor for Sideshow Collectibles & Sideshow Weta, the company which made all Lord Of The Ring movies items and costumes (we still not fake! 🙂 ) www.sideshowtoy.com

About the prices, we dont find ourselves expensive when it comes to most of our items. Our prices are somewhat similar to the main company prices, add on that they are COLLECTIBLES! which means they have limited quantity worldwide and whenever they are out of stock you will find the items triple the price on eBay!

The store is small I agree because we found that we cannot go for a bigger one because this kind of store are only for movies fans and thats means a small market. We also cant import all items which we decided to import before at this time because we are waiting for our one year work result and the right time to improve all our products lines, and soon we will offer a free catalog on DVD disk which is made by the original company SIDESHOW TOYS.

Finally, sorry for my long post, its only to give some information about the original post and to correct some ideas, and thanks for you all guys again.

Best Regards
Universal Store Company

My office is across the street from Muthana Complex in Kuwait City and I Have been working there for over a year now and I used to visit Muthana daily. Now I pass by there once or twice a week. You would think that after visiting Muthana a couple of hundreds times already that I would know it inside out, well thats what I figured until yesterday I found a store that I didn’t know existed.. the Universal Store.

My usual entrance into Muthana was closed so I had to walk around the building from the outside trying to find an open entrance. While walking around I found a store called Universal Store. From the outside I saw that the store sold movie related items but once I got closer I noticed they sold movie collectibles and props. So I go in and ask the saleslady how long the store has been open and she tells me 1 year! How the hell did I miss this shop? Anyway the shop is small but packed with goodies. You can check out most of their products by checking out their website. I don’t know and don’t think they are an official Universal Store but you never know. [Link]

Sultan Center are selling AstroBoy toy robots. The one in the picture above has a hand scanner that reads these special trading cards and in return they change the lights and noise he makes. And its cheap for only KD5!

Doesn’t look like much… until you realize its made entirley out of Lego! [Link]

Look at what Ananyah is sending me! [Link]

I past by Fantasy World at Souk Sharq today to see if they were still selling LEGO and it turned out they were. So I told them if they refused to sell me the LEGO Guy which I have been after for months I would tell everyone they were still selling Danish products. They ignored my threat and still refused to sell me LEGO Guy, so I decided I would tell on them. FANTASY WORLD STILL SELL LEGO!!

• 1900-1909 Crayola Crayons
• 1910-1919 Raggedy Ann Dolls
• 1920-1929 Madame Alexander Collectible Dolls
• 1930-1939 View-Master 3-D Viewer
• 1940-1949 Candy Land
• 1950-1959 Mr. Potato Head
• 1960-1969 G.I. Joe
• 1970-1979 Rubik’s Cube
• 1980-1989 Cabbage Patch Kids
• 1990-1999 Beanie Babies
• 2000-Present Razor Scooter

[source forbes]

I just watched this amazing video of a slot car race which under normal circumstance would be normal except the guy had mounted a tiny camera on the tiny slot car. It was really cool watching the video from that perspective but if only it was a bit brighter. [Link]

LEGO Digital Designer enables you to build and customize your own LEGO product. Now available for Macs & PCs. [Link]

Ages ago I posted about the LEGO Death Star Kit, so I was checking out Lego’s website the other day and I also found the Imperial Star Destroyer. This ship is huge measuring an impressive 37” by 23” this model dwarfs any LEGO Star Wars ship ever produced. It contains over 3100 lego pieces and looks really cool. But again, like the Death Star, this LEGO will set you back $299! [Link]

During the Gulf War I had to leave the majority of my toys behind here in Kuwait because we had to flee the country. That incident scarred me for life I think because I seemed to have developed some kind of psychological issue where I am trying to buy back every toy I had. I spend most of my days flipping through pages of vintages toys and eBay looking for stuff I used to have and then hopefully buying them. So now I have decided to share the toys with you whenever I find any. Today I am gonna start with this “Le Chalet Suisse” toy. It was amazing, its like a classy version of Lego. Its using pieces of real wood and you can build various types of wooden chalets with them. There is no sticking or clicking, the pieces of the wood are shaped in a way that they would fit together and you just stack them up.

I was able to find it online brandnew for only $78. [Link]

I am a major Mortal Kombat 1 fan and this TV game is the coolest. You don’t need a videogame system or anything, just plug this controller into your TV and you can play Mortal Kombat with near arcade quality graphics. If you hate playing the game alone you can get a second controller and plug it into yours for 2 player head to head fighting. Very cool and very cheap at only $24.99! [Link]

This would look really cool on my desk at work, plus its going to be cheap. It won’t replace my fantasy of owning an Aibo, but it will do until I could afford one. Can’t wait for Amazon.com to start selling them, here it a bit of info on the iDog:

The iDog is capable of changing its feelings from happy to angry by moving it’s ears and rotating the head and by changing the color of the 7 LED lights on its head. The idog music bot has stored music sequences and melodies it will play based on the interaction with its sensors. For instance it gets happy when users touch its ears and pad on its head. It gets surprised when users touch its nose or wave in front of him. The Sega iDog will become angry when users touch its tail. A MP3 Player like the iPod can be attached to the iDog via 3.5mm audio cable. IT has a mono-speaker built-in. A microphone is also present in the iDog.

Its supposed to be released in North America in the Fall of 2005 by Hasbro and should cost $29.99. If you can’t wait that long, AudioCubes is carrying the Japanese version but for $89. Here is a link to the Japanese iDog website.

Finally a Lego set I REALLY want.. Its $299.00 and there is a limit of 5 per person. Now I need to figure out a way to convince Nat that we need this.. [Link]

I was passing by Hallmark yesterday at Marina Mall and noticed they just got a whole bunch of Hasbro Star Wars toys. Me and Nat played with the lightsabers a bit (around KD4) and then we played with the Darth Vader mask (around KD24). They also have action figures and stuff. Pretty cool, I am sure Toys R Us just got a whole bunch of Star Wars toys too. [Link]