Day 12: Happy Holidays from Joe A Day
It’s the 12th day of our holiday celebration, and today, rather than talking about a bit of GI Joe minutiae centered around the number twelve, I’d rather take a moment to say thanks.
I’m so appreciative of everyone who visits the site, and those who also choose to comment and start conversations around my little posts. I never intended or expected for a little community to spring up around the site, and I’m gratified whenever I see folks speaking back and forth in the comments. I’m not able to participate in all of the convo, but I do read all the threads. I’m also grateful for those who have spread the word about the site, and/or have linked to it. When I first started out, I was excited just to see a few people I knew in “real life” visiting the site. Now I see daily hits from all over the world, and I’m truly amazed.
So whatever you celebrate (or don’t celebrate) today, I hope you have a joyful day, and thank you again.
Peace and many blessings,
Rob
Merry Christmas, Joe a Day!
Merry Christmas Rob! Thanks for all you do.
Merry Christmas as well. It’s a great site and seeing some of the figures brings back fond memories of opening wrapping paper and finding them or finding them in a hidden Easter basket (1988 Storm Shadow). Of course, with a few small exceptions, most people would have more memories of the Joe figures from birthdays or earlier holidays, Christmas falling 10 or so months from when they first started arriving, with Christmas mainly being the time vehicles, especially big ones (USS Flagg, Defiant… for me it was the Terrordrome & Bugg. Can’t remember when I got the Condor) to be under the Christmas tree. Though it was always nice to get a few figures at Christmas, making for the perfect mix of NES games & GI Joe figures and a big vehicle or so. And it’s always nice to see figures get snowcased and be the topic of conversation, especially figures from so far back and from pre-internet times too.
My parents were pretty poor. My Dad worked in a boot factory and my Mother was a cleaner but i always got a good haul of Joe and other wholsome, entertaining Joe products at Xmas. Granted many fans would sigh at the Aqua mudbuster, orange Parasite, undersized Baracuda and completely silly RAT but For me, Xmas 1993 ranks pretty highly as it was the last time in my area, G.I JOE products were actually in demand
I first went online in the year 2000 and was amazed at the number of folks who shared my love of comics, cartoons, science fiction, and action figures. The GI Joe ARAH community at the Usenet newsgroup was my earliest online “family” and that’s where I first learned of Mike T’s site, which I know inspired you, Rob, and it was through Joe A Day that I rediscovered it, many years later.
As I grow older, (I’m going on 42 in April) life gets in the way more often, and there are only enough hours in the day. But I always make time for JAD, along with my pals Noisy and Vault over at It’s All True, and fellow Joe sites like Mike’s and Icebreaker’s. First and foremost, though, JAD has become a daily ritual for me and I basically click on it by instinct at this point.
Peace to you, Rob, and many blessings in return to your loved ones and my fellow collecting brethren on here.
It was in 2001 when i stumbled across the first issue of Toyfare i would purchase. What struck me was that an Optimus Prime statuette was on the cover and my reaction was “Adults collect Transformers??!!” I had remained loyal to both Transformers and G.I.JOE since i could walk but in 2001, Transformers was on a knife edge as Beat Machines had proven to be beyond awful [In my opinion it is the worst Transformers cartoon because its too damn complicated and depressing] and G.I joe in my area had been killed of by those 30 somethings in spandex with their damn cardboard robot.
I feigned disinteres in my obsessesions through my teenage years but i was still loyal. This disinterest led to many incidents when my stuff would be taken away, never to be seen again. It was during a study session at school in which i was supposed to be looking up something hard and or boring when i discovered YOJOE by accident.
I think it was last year, i was googling “Metelhead” and this site came up. I used to comment off and on, using the handle “M.K Ultratroll” but dropped that in favour a guy i had on my desk who needed a new 0-ring. Without this site i would have gone nuts.
@ Skymate-MKUltratroll-is somebdy here a conspiracy theorist, lol? Everyone have a Merry X-mas.
Merry Christmas!
Rob, thanks for this site, I read Joe A Day, well, everyday.
So Christmas Joe stories…the best Xmas I had Joe-wise was the year I got the Cobra Hydrofoil. Awesome toy, and I still hold the Lamprey as a top-five figure to this day.
The worst Christmas, maybe the same year as the Hydrofoil, I got Snake Eyes V2. He was awesome. The uzi, the sword that fit in the backpack, the wolf…it would have been the gem of my collection, if not for my brother snapping the T-bar that same day. So much for “caring and sharing”, eh? (Forcing me to share toys I kept in mint condition with a sibling who broke toys was an important life lesson…I learned never listen to my parents they don’t know sh*t.) 😉
So as an adult, my girlfriend and I were telling old Christmas gift stories and I mentioned the loss of the V2 Snake Eyes and how he was subsequently impossible to find as a kid hunting the stores, and in the internet age he’s available but pretty expensive. That Christmas she got me a new V2 Snake Eyes, complete with Timber and filecard, even!
So I married her. Seriously, I’d had my suspicions that she was a keeper, but at that point, my decision was made. I guess that’s a Joe-related life story, holiday or not!
Addendum: Yes, as a kid I tried to fix SE, but I didn’t realize that I could take the T-bar from one broken figure and install it in another. I eventually Put SE’s head on a Tunnel Rat torso and arms and Duke’s legs and called him Jungle Snake Eyes, inadvertently making my first custom figure.
Guess I can’t hate on my brother forever…many good things came from that Xmas disaster…
Merry Christmas to you and your family Rob. Keep it up.
@ Ben
I had a figure which was brutally dismembered by an older brother who was far rougher with his toys (and mine) than I was. I lost little things like many mics & little hoses (not the longer black plastic generic hoses) and some paint apps rubbed off over time, but the figures were otherwise in good shape for being played with by a little kid. Seems like often siblings are like that- one takes good care of things, the other is bad with that. Sometimes it changes as they get older, sometimes it doesn’t.