Some of you may remember me trying out a forum way back when. After a while I decided to put it on the backburner, but now I’ve decided to give it another shot:

http://www.poeghostal.com/forum

You can register here (it’s very simple–no lengthy boilerplate here). And note: your registration will also work for posting comments here on PGPoA (similarly, your avatar on the forum will be your Gravatar).

It’s a very basic forum, and the idea is you can discuss anything related to toys or pop culture at large (sort of like RTM’s Toy Buzz). I’m not going to break it down by lines or topics unless that really becomes necessary, i.e. the forum gets too big, or there’s some particular topic that dominating the rest.

A few select Poesters have already been populating the forum, so come on in and join the discussion!

Dr. Mrs. Ghostal and I are off for the wilds of New Hampshire to celebrate our one-year anniversary. (If you’re good, maybe Paul will toss up a post or two while I’m gone.)

I’ll be back bright and early Monday morning to “celebrate” He-Ro Day. Until then, may your joints be tight and your paint apps spot-on.

Sadly, the editor of Fanmode has decided to stop compiling weekly toy reviews. I know from experience that this is a time-consuming task, so I certainly don’t blame him.

However, this means I have to decide what to do for PGPoA. I’m not inclined to write my own roundups because, again, it’s time-consuming. So there are basically three main options:

1.) I can continue to throw in reviews among the other news articles in the news aggregator on the sidebar (or post only reviews on the aggregator)

3.) I can create a second aggregator with just toy reviews

4.) I can see if some enthusiastic Poester is willing to pick up the slack and create a more in-depth roundup of reviews (like Fanmode’s) once or twice a week.

Frankly, the real question is: did any of you really find the roundups useful? They rarely had any comments, so I’m not sure how much you were interested in them.

Just a couple quick notes:

• I’m considering making Onan the Barbarian a regular It Figures feature (once a week, probably on Fridays). I like having something of a recurring, signature character. However, he’s arguably a rather gross, childish concept, and I realize it’s quite possible I’m amusing myself far more than I’m amusing most of you, so I’ve put it to a vote. Register your opinion in the poll on the sidebar. Onan’s fate lies in your hands (which you should be sure to wash thoroughly after contact).
• I have a new interview coming tomorrow, but I need more people to volunteer for Show and Tell and 5 Questions With… As a reminder, “Show and Tell” lets you show off some beloved or rare toy you own, while “5 Questions” is a bit more involved–you answer questions and provide photos of your collection. If you’re interested, just shoot me an email.

OK, I know I said I was going to have a poll about how I would refer to you, my dear readers, but in reviewing your suggestions, I found nerdbot‘s suggestion of “Poester” so perfect that I didn’t want to risk it losing out.

“Poester” conveys pretty much everything I was looking for. It obviously relates well to the site while not sounding too abstract (like “Articulates”), and it has a nice pun on “poster,” which, obviously many of you are when you “post” comments. And it works better than “Poe-ser” (or as I would have spelled it, Poezer), which, while clever, has some obviously negative connotations I’d like to avoid.

Plus, “Poester” sounds like what Richard Laymer, Rob Schneider’s SNL character of  “Makin’ Copies” fame, would call me. And that’s cool, right? Hello?

Anyway, nerdbot, shoot me an email and I’ll reward you with something keen.

(Also: your regularly scheduled It Figures will be late today. I’ve got the day off and I’m busy cleaning the apartment.)

OK…so the Most Wanted feature turned out to be a dud. The reason is obvious: if you spread the word about some awesome toy you’re chasing down, you’re just increasing the competition for that toy.

So with that in mind, I’d like to pitch to you all a different feature–Show and Tell. If you own a particular toy you’re very fond of and want to show it off to the world, email me a a few photos of it (or links to online photos I can use, maybe on Flickr), along with the following information:

• Your name or online nickname, whichever you prefer
• Name of the toy
• Your approximate age when you got it
• A brief paragraph explaining why you love the toy

Any toy is game–from a simple He-Man figure to the most obscure Japanese popy. So come on–this is an invitation to show off your cool stuff and make us all jealous.