Get a Grip this Week

Oh crap, it's Monday. I could have used a little more weekend, but it's great to see all you Zone Base readers back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! We've got a fun week of content coming, but let me tell you about my weekend. Saturday, the Mrs and I did some weekly shopping and enjoyed a homemade pizza. Sunday, our local Spirit Halloween had it's grand opening! We took Mom and had fun looking around before more Stranger Things and Sunday dinner! This coming weekend is Labor Day weekend and I'm looking forward to the little break. 

As for toys, I got a few this weekend. Ordered the Sabertooth Tiger Zord and Cyberworld Chop-Shop which both should arrive today. We got some fun stuff at Spirit, but most related to this is a pack of Tiny Mights GhostFace series! I've been looking forward to getting some of these as Tiny Mights have been all over my Instagram... but never at any local stores. Their horror series have been slated to appear and I was worried about finding any. The GhostFace set is keshi based on the killer from Scream in a variety of colors and poses. It's a cool idea for a keshi series and I'm glad to seen Tiny Mights keeping little rubber guys alive! I ended Sunday building Blokees and spending some quality time with the Mrs.

It looks like you all are enjoying the Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem, August may be almost over, but we've still got two months of Halloween to celebrate! Well, I've got a busy day ahead of me. There's household chores to be done and site post pictures to take. It's amazing to see the site views continue to rise even without all the seo optimization! Thank you all for reading, and don't forget to share the site with your friends! Mutal High Fives everyone!

Have a Spirited Halloween

When I was a kid, I'd get my costume at Kmart. As an adult, I get my costume at a Spirit Halloween... that's in that old Kmart. Sometimes it can be hard to remember when Spirit Halloween was a more low key operation. They're such a force to reckon with now... they've even got a movie.That's hard to believe when you think back to those older stores and their seemingly grassroots vibes. I guess that's just the passage of time for you. Something I reflected upon in this posts opening joke. Did it make you feel old? Know what else will make you feel old? This commercial is from 2008, a kid born that Halloween just started the 10th grade. Somewhere there's a picture of me getting younger.

Let's Look At This Kmart Sales Paper

Halfway to Halloween, Walpurgisnacht, or just another day here at Zone Base. However you word it, Halloween is on folks minds even in the spring. We love it spooky and today seemed like a good day for it. Kmart used to be a pretty great place to shop before whatever the hell happened. That place went downhill and died messily in front of us all. During it's glory days people often got their Halloween costumes at Kmart. Now they often get them at Spirit, which may be located in your towns old Kmart.

You may have noticed the sweet collection of Ben Cooper/Collegeville style costumes up top. There's Heat Seeker, Megatron, She-Ra, He-Man, and Bumblelion. I just noticed She-Ra is wearing Catra's costume. The rubber mask selection is great too. Fantastic Faces brand with real hair and some with blinking lights. Just right to earn some of that candy being sold for some amazingly low prices.

Adding to the great selection, check out the 'boxed play sets'. The picture shows Voltron, Hordak, and the Autobot Dress Up Set. It may seem like a cheap trick by putting role play toys with the costumes. It also was one of the best ways to get an accessory to your costume that wasn't available. Next to the play sets is probably the most important thing you'll need when trick or treating. Flashlights.

We've all learned that wearing a costume and walking on the streets on the one night a year when people are expected to be out at night makes you completely invisible to cars. There will be broken Michelob bottles everywhere that you won't see without the aid of the flashlight. It's always Michelob. After Halloween, your Mom will keep the flashlight by her bed. It's just in time too, the one from last year's batteries were starting to die. 

Next is something very special to me. Make-up kits. I freaking love them. There's also additional costume accessories like a witch hat, and generic costumes. But most importantly is that 41" reversible cape. It has a collar, the Dracula cardboard head hanger, and it's a piece of crap. A pretty cheap plastic cape with a badly sewn on collar that will probably fall off before November 1st. Despite how crappy it is, I love it and will fucking kill over it. Admittedly it's mostly due to the cardboard Dracula hanger.

There's also the obligatory candles for your jack o' lanterns or to make the living room table look spooky. It really makes the Tombstone pizza while trick or treating the neighborhood kids that you normally hate special. You're probably also going to catch that paper ghost on fire with them. Speaking of the living room table, that's where that glass pumpkin will go. You'll realize in February that it's still there.

I Went To Spirit This Weekend

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Reaper's Island display with the new animated props at Spirit Halloween for 2020! 🎃💀🎃💀 #zonebase #halloween #everydayishalloween #halloween2020 #spirithalloween

A post shared by The Mighty Orberts! (@roborobspringer) on Aug 23, 2020 at 1:06pm PDT

I did other things this weekend, but probably the most exciting was a visit to Spirit Halloween! I'm pretty sure my eye appointment isn't that interesting. A trip to Target did result in acquiring the Decepticon Clone 2 Pack and 3/4ths of the new Hasbro MMPR Megazord though! I actually plan to talk about those pretty soon, so stay tuned for that, but hey, how about you all enjoy the above video of Reapers Island!

Spirit Halloween 2020 Theme!

Nothing says the end of summer more than the clearance of pool noodles and the first looks at Halloween for the year! A fond tradition for pumpkin minded folks like myself is checking out what Spirit Halloween will have in order for us this year. I'm happy to say that this years theming is pretty great. The front entrance way will be 'Reaper's Island' a location from Spirit Expedition Company! I love a good old timey adventure club and a good Skull Mountain style location is a great place for the adventure club to meet their fates at.  For the record, all the images I'm using in this post are from the Spirit Halloween Wiki, and I suggest you spend a little time there.

The back theming of the store is 'Jack's Cave'. A super neat scary temple where many member's of adventuring clubs have found themselves sacrificed at. While the pandemic seems to have dictated this not be the walk through that past back themes have featured, it's still a pretty nifty display. I'll be sure to make another video of my local store like the one I did last year... though I'll make a point to not use some free editing software this time. Totes was having problems with my normal stuff and it didn't come out super great. Anyway, see for yourself below!

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Time for a scary adventure at my local Spirit store! #zonebase #halloween #spirit #spirithalloween #spooky #hauntedhouse

A post shared by The Mighty Orberts! (@roborobspringer) on Sep 29, 2019 at 7:32pm PDT

Spirit Halloween Visit!

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Time for a scary adventure at my local Spirit store! #zonebase #halloween #spirit #spirithalloween #spooky #hauntedhouse

A post shared by Rob Springer (@roborobspringer) on Sep 29, 2019 at 7:32pm PDT