Hello. Well, it's almost 2015 and I've watched some films in 2014, and in my mind that calls for a brief roundup. Especially bearing in mind that I didn't do one at the end of last year.
Anyway, here it is. 2014.
Obviously that's just an overview. There have been many good films and many bad films in 2014 which aren't mentioned there. You can see all the films I've complained about (or otherwise) over at the Film Review Index page, although if you're reading this then I imagine you've been here for most of them anyway. In the meanwhile, why not go and click 'Like' on the WoB Facebook page? Or maybe follow WoB on Twitter? Neither will improve your life too much, but it gives me a nice feeling when I see the numbers go up.
2015 will have more Star Wars in it. It will, by that definition alone, be better.
See you on the other side.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
And here we are! The top-up order from Topps has arrived, completing the remaining 20 pages and the album itself. I won't lie, it's just as marvellous a feeling to complete a sticker album as an adult as it was as a child. Possibly moreso, since you carry the weight of an obscene amount of duplicate stickers all the more heavily when it's your money which has been paying for them. Geekish collector that I am, I now have a completed Star Wars Rebels album on my bookshelf, along with an empty one. Because that's what I'm like.
So at the end of it all, you may be leafing through the bog-standard, not-entirely-robust sticker book and thinking to yourself "Hang on, it's cost me (approximately) £40 (that's $62) to complete this project. I mean, I love Star Wars as much as the next geek, but I can probably buy two whacking great coffee-table type books off of Amazon for that price, and all I'm left with here is a lightweight 44-page softcover book with all of its slightly repetitive pictures taken from one 40-minute episode of a TV show. Does that really represent great value for money?"Of course it bloody doesn't. Collecting anything doesn't represent good value for money. Unless you're one of those comic-book-guy mercenaries who buys objects solely for their projected value in the future secondary market (in which case you really need to take a long hard look at yourself and move into fine art or wine, or frankly anything else apart from mass-produced pop-culture merchandising).
I haven't reverse-engineered a formula (which is remiss of me, I know, but shut up), but bearing in mind that the simulated model predicted between 88 and 96 packs to take us to the 88% line before we could order the rest, and bearing in mind it actually took us 86, I don't think it's too far wide of the mark.
Will all of this stop me collecting stickers in the future? Of course it bloody won't. I've got a 2012 Saga Album and a 2008 Clone Wars Album on the shelf already in their empty and completed forms (and truth be told, I tracked the 2012 collection with a spreadsheet just as I did with the Rebels one; I just didn't inflict it on the readers of this blog).
The rest, dear reader, is silence. Well, until The Force Awakens picks up steam around November of 2015 and a new Topps album his the shelves. And I'll be the first in line, but you knew that already...
