The Time That Is Given To Us

 One of the vendors I bought some goods from was this one, whose primary specialty was cutting boards and coasters in wood, with a pop culture theme.

The map of Middle Earth on this cutting board was particularly appreciated. If I had a larger kitchen- or to be more precise did any cooking- I would have picked it up.

Thor's Trinkets is the name of an eastern Ontario artisan who does pop culture on beer mugs and other glassware as the bulk of her work. I have a good number of beer mugs and other glasses from her, and picked up a couple of glass coffee mugs this time out. Note the various genres represented here.

Another place I stopped by sells these t-shirts. They are pop culture icons largely done as silhouette, and most of them brown on a black t-shirt, but not all as you can see. I have several of them already, including the Batman one at top left, and bought two more this time out- a Star Wars one and a Godzilla one.

These cosplayers caught my eye- Wolverine, Juggernaut, and Mystique, all of the X-Men corner of Marvel.

The woman's Mystique make up was particularly effective- the character is a shape changer, and this woman decided to depict Mystique mid-transformation from her usual blue skinned self into whoever she's impersonating.

I chatted with a longtime Marvel artist who always turns up at these things, and bought some graphic novels from him to add to the others I had bought from other dealers. And I bought a few more things, shown here at home. While walking through, I had noticed several dinosaurs like this from one vendor; I returned and bought a triceratops. It now sits on top of my desk.

One of my favourite quotes from the Lord of the Rings; this sign came home with me.

My two new mugs. The one at left is definitely me, while the one at the right shows my LOTR fandom.

And I got four coasters- three of which were Star Wars related, and another featuring Groot from Marvel comics- and a bottle opener from the Harry Potter side of things.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: My Favourite Toy

 The first day of each month is a theme day for City Daily Photo, and for April that theme is My Favourite Toy. See how others are taking on this theme here.

In the Rideau Centre mall downtown there's a Lego store, selling everything from the basics to some highly customized kits.

This Lord of the Rings set is the sort of thing you'd put together and then have in a display case, featuring Lothlorien, a kingdom of elves, featuring prominently in the first book and movie.

This chalet appealed to me. A friend and colleague bought a Lego Titanic last year. I've told him that Lego needs to release four versions: the one he has, the version with it hitting a Lego iceberg, another version with the ship splitting in half with hundreds of Lego people in the water, and a final version with the wreckage and debris field at the bottom of the ocean.

Here we have the Iron Man Hulkbuster armor, in Lego form.

Another one that suited me nicely.

This Star Wars Lego set is from The Mandalorian series.

This one intrigues me: a Lego Colosseum.

Or a lighthouse.

Or for you gardeners out there, these two.

Here we have Lego of the Harry Potter world.

More Star Wars. From the size of the kits, these are the sort that kids can put together and take apart over and over again.

With this- the Millennium Falcon- once you've got it together, you'd want to keep it together.

The same thing with Batman's Tumbler, as seen from the Dark Knight trilogy by Christopher Nolan.

Not Lego, but also something for passing the day away- jigsaw puzzles in the front window of a store in the Byward Market.

And lastly, since I'd spent time photographing in that Lego store, I felt compelled to buy something. And so I bought a couple of Lego keychains- Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore. I can relate a lot to Eeyore.