Boxes of Stuff - January 2015

Yes this is the thing I mentioned briefly in my monthly update. So over the past few months, I've come across people getting these things monthly that give you a selection of nerdy stuff for a great value price, some of which you cannot get anywhere else. So after watching many videos of people getting these stuff, I decided to get in on the action and do the same. Now for financial reasons, I won't be looking at all of them, just a few that I've picked out to look at each month. For this one, we will be looking at the January 2015 Nerd Block Classic and Loot Crate and over the coming months, I may include other ones as well. But for now, these are the most popular ones that people go for, so let's take a look at them:

Nerd Block Classic (A Galaxy Far Far Away)

So Nerd Block (the website of which can be found here) is basically a big shoe box filled with geek gear some of which is exclusive to them. Unlike most of these services, they have 5 different boxes that you can choose from which include Horror Block (tailored to the horror fans out there), Arcade Block (tailored to the gamers out there), Nerd Block Jr. (a block made for young nerds aged 6-11 with one for boys and one for girls and is cheaper than the other blocks) and the one we're talking about today which is Nerd Block Classic which is just general nerd stuff if you're a nerd for everything except or as well as horror and gaming. So for a while, the Nerd Blocks have given people just general random high quality stuff until now where they are now doing a theme for every block. January's block has the name of the theme "A Galaxy Far Far Away" and for a name like that, you would want a lot of sci-fi stuff and that's exactly what you get as well as a couple of Hobbit items too. Every month, you get a T-Shirt which is always an exclusive to Nerd Block and they will happily let you choose the size of T-Shirt that you want and the T-Shirt here, has the Sonic Screwdriver from Doctor Who on it in a kind of retro style. Next we have a Hobbit bookmark and pen which are different for each character and I got Gandalf so I had a 3D bookmark of him and his staff as a pen, the detail of which looks very good. Another Nerd Block exclusive that we get here (well I wouldn't call it that much of an exclusive as you can get this in many joke shops, but it has its name on it so it counts), is some elf ears which are a bit floppy as you can expect, but if you're one of those people who likes to cosplay as an elf from Middle-Earth, then this item will help you, just don't expect them to stay on all the time. Next we have a dart board with sticky darts which again, is another Nerd Block exclusive and its purpose really is for you to hang up in your office and throw darts at it because one side is a decision maker while the other is just a general dart board and both sides have things in the background like the Tardis, some TIE Fighters, the Millennium Falcon and other things too. We also have a grumpy cat plush toy which is based on this YouTube celebrity and is another one of the random things in this box. And finally, we have the biggest exclusives in this box which are the Star Trek and Planet of the Apes crossover comic and a film cell from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. So I think its a pretty good box for January and I think many of us would only want this just for the film cell and the comic because those are the things that make nerds what they are. The other stuff is good as well, but doesn't get any better than that.

Loot Crate (Rewind)

So now onto Loot Crate (the website of which can be found here). Now unlike Nerd Block, Loot Crate only offers one box and its basically a cut down version of Nerd Block Classic, not to mention that its also cheaper, but you still get some pretty good stuff (most of which is exclusive to Loot Crate). They have been doing themes for a very long time and January's theme is rewind which you'd expect to get things that resemble the things we had in the late 20th Century. First off, we have a T-Shirt (you can pick the size of your shirt here too) which is a blueprint for Voltron (which I believe is a character from an old cartoon of the same name) which looks pretty damn awesome I must say (even though I haven't seen that show, but still). Next we have what looks like to be some kind of NES cartridge figure which is a Loot Crate exclusive by the way, there's a few of these to collect and I got Fire Hunt which I believe is based on the short lived show Firefly and its film counterpart, Serinity. We also get a tie that has a lot of pixelated stuff on it which makes it retro and awesome. A Comic Book diary of sorts where you can make stories using the stuff made available to you. A pair of pixel sunglasses that brings out the retro in you (though you may get funny looks while out and about so proceed with caution). We also get the Loot Crate exclusive Star Wars comic which as you can probably tell, is to be published by Marvel because well they are both owned by Disney now, so it makes sense. And then of course we have the Loot Crate badge, the magazine that tells us about the stuff in the box as well as the theme and don't destroy your box because if you do what I did, you can turn the box into a NES like fake console and use a pop out controller from the magazine. A great box I have to say that certainly embraces the theme Rewind.

So as the first of these boxes, I'd say I chose well to be part of this tribe of people getting these boxes because they are great. Helps us really embrace the nerd and geek inside of us. As for which box I prefer from January, its a tough choice, but Loot Crate wins because it sticks to the theme and you get some pretty good and retro stuff in it. Nerd Block was great as well, but I felt that it didn't stick to the theme as well as it should've done and some of the stuff in there I personally wouldn't really want to have. But the comic and film cell were nice additions to the box. And that's it. Next time, we will have possibly some more boxes to look at as well as Loot Crate and Nerd Block.