My Snuffbox

Have you heard of Zamacs? They're more often spelled ZAMACs because its an acronym for Z inc, A luminium, MA gnesium and C opper. They are often unpainted variations of the mainline cars. In the United States, these are exclusive to Walmarts. Eve though they are unpainted, baremetal variations, they will carry some minimal deco and colors. When did they start? Hot Wheels has had baremetal cars much before ZAMACs started as an official line of castings, sold exclusively at walmarts. This official lineup started in 2013 . A mix of 18 cars per year, spread throughout the year in six cases, in assortments of 3 castings per case. This tradition of 18 cars ran from 2013 to 2022. 2022 marked the 10 year anniversary of Zamacs and the cars had a special Zamac 10 Years deco. Very many beautiful and highly sought after models would pop every now and then, like a 55 Chevy Bel Air Gasser or a Honda Civic or a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta or a Datsun 510 Bluebird Wagon to mention a few, keeping the en...

Thirukkural  is an amazing contribution of Saint Thiruvalluvar to humanity. This is an awesome piece of poetic literature dated approx. 31 BC but wiki suggests that its probably 450 or 500 AD. Wikipedia has elaborated on Thirukkural enough. So let me save all that trivia. Personally, what I feel is the three broad aspects of Thirukkural, namely Arathuppaal, Porutpaal, Inbathuppal or Kaamathuppal is actually perfectly aligned with the old Sanskrit epithet of "Dharma Aartha Kaama Moksha" which is referred to as Purusharta . This is a mindblowing fact that suggests that there is way more to Saint Thiruvalluvar than we have learnt from our history books. And every single kural is syntactical with the Venba spect of poetry. The precision of the grammatical syntax breakdown is immaculate. That being said, I wanted to pen down some of the evergreen kurals I have learnt as a school kid. These have had a profound influence on my thoughts and persona. Hopefully, I will come back and ed...

The Mignolas have been donating a lot to charity recently, with most or all of the sales going to WCK efforts. Not too long ago, they had listed a bunch of books up for sale on ebay. Being one of many Hellboy fans around the world, one listing caught my eye. A Slipcase Hardcover Edition of Hellboy: Seed Of Destruction. This is a pretty rare edition of Hellboy, does not pop up too often on eBay and is always in the 800 dollars range because of its limited production numbers.  Item description mentions  " Mike Mignola's Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, issues 1-4 collected in a beautiful collector's Hardcover Slipcase edition. Limited to 1,000 in existence, individually hand-numbered xxx/1000 and signed by Mike Mignola. " Yes you read that right, these books are individually hand-numbered and signed by the genius himself. Individually hand-numbered  and signed by Mignola In addition to the general offering, Mike Mignola had a special and unique Hellboy sketch dated 2024 on...

I wanted to have this as a running post, frequently updated with all the Hot Wheels Twin Car Culture Packs, currently distributed exclusively through Target chain of stores in the United States. Most recent waves:

I paid a visit to my local lego store today and to my delight found that they'd released a brand new set of Marvel Minifigures. This is the second series in the Marvel lineup of minifigures released by Lego in the minifigures product line. But that was not the only thing that was new! Something else stood out. It was the packaging! YES! Lego has moved from a non-biodegradable plastic packaging for the minifigures to a fully carton based one. It is very nice that Lego has made a move towards a greener planet with this step by reducing the plastic in the packaging. It may not look big but imagine all the minifigures collected around the world and all of their plastic packaging in a landfill, unable to break down. Now picture all of that plastic replaced with carton, it will just break down. Now thats BIG! The only downside that collectors may feel is that many collectors, including me, are habituated to feel the packaging for certain parts that help identify specific minifigures. Thi...

By now, you should have caught the notion that I am a huge Mike Mignola fan. I was browsing my local library the other day, when I came across the graphic novel, Bram Stoker's Dracula, with pencilling done by Mike Mignola, it was an immediate must read. I have heard of this novel before but never got to reading it. Right when I started reading, my mind immediately jogged up visual memories of the Dracula movie where Gary Oldman plays the role of Count Dracula, wow the visual art is so stunning and evocative of the movie. I have not seen the entire movie except for some scenes involving the young Gary Oldman winning Winona Ryder's acquaintance in London. The book is a brilliant retelling of the classic novel in graphic form, made all the more scintillating with Mike Mignola's pencilling. If you're looking for recommendations, this is definitely a YES!!!!