I ask fwooshmembers questions.
They answer them!
This week: Waiting
Interview with Dave or Waiting 
Have you been around?
I haven’t seen a post from you in a while…
I’ve been here, just lurking. The fwoosh needed a break from me.
I love the name "Waiting" what was it originally? Waiting for MLs in Seattle’s airport?
Close, Portland’s airport call letters, but shorthand for the city in general. Waiting4MLPDX was a spur of the moment attempt at a name. I was new to collecting and frustrated at the time that everyone seemed to have found ML3 months before and I hadn’t seen any sign of them. I have no patience for new figs.
Wow I thought you were usually one of the first to always get the figures. I’ve never tracked with any scrutiny, have you?
I do. To me that’s one of the main benefits of the fwoosh forums, and why I came in the first place. The fwoosh tells me when I should look and where. I follow closely where stuff is hitting and which stores. I’ve found many of the rarest figs this way; timing and pinpointing my hunts.
I’m accusing you of being handy. All the stuff you do… being a jack of all trades, do you enjoy it? Or does it just make you the guy everybody asks a favor from?
With computers I’m always the person family calls, but that’s about it. Aunts, uncles, cousins, they all call me when their PCs stop working. I do enjoy the use of power tools, but that’s mostly born of necessity of being a home owner. I feel like I should handle everything I can, and I only pay someone if I convinced it’s over my head. I won’t touch the wiring in my home, but decks and fences and such I enjoy. Last thing I did was a book case / cabinet, and I also built the desk my ML display sits on; I enjoy that type of thing.
Any plans on adding on to the mansion? At what point will you stop? When it takes over the whole room?
I do, but haven’t really planned out when. I tried to create more space with the last update, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I have a redesign all in my head to create more display space, but it’d be a pretty major revamp again, so I don’t know when I’ll get to it. I’ve got some home projects to complete first. I’m building some oak cabinets for my son’s room to store his toys, and I’m trying to fill in some of the series photos on my website, so that’s what I’m working on now. If I complete those early enough before spring, when I need to start working on a deck and some other yard projects, I’ll try to squeeze in the display revamp.
I’ll stop when I have enough display space for my collection.
You once did an Ultron custom. Any plans on doing more? Will customs ever be apart of your set up or website?
There are some really good customizers out there, but I ain’t one of them, and I don’t have the potential to become one of them. So, if customs are to become part of my website, it’ll be someone else’s customs. Most of the top customizers already have there own sites though, so there’s nothing in the way of customs planned at this point.
One of the things you do well is photography. Did you learn the camera and then start the website or vice versa?
I was taking pictures and playing with Photoshop before I ever wrote any HTML, but both skills have grown as part of my ML hobby. I just kept building upon what I’d done and trying to make it a little better.
At one point I thought the website allowed you to receive MLs straight from Jesse. Why did I make that connection? Is that all in my head or some truth to it?
Nope, never received a figure from ToyBiz or Jesse. I’ve hinted hard a couple times, but that went nowhere. Jesse out of the blue sent me a nice email saying he liked my website. Extremely nice guy. I email him once and awhile, and have spoken on the phone on a few occasions, but that’s about it.
Who is the farthest person to contact you about your site?
I’ve had emails from Hong Kong and Japan, which is probably the furthest away, but I’ve had visits from 89 countries now, and I get a huge amount of traffic from Brazil, and am pretty well known to the collectors down there apparently. A Brazilian web site recently did their own interview with me. They treated me like a quasi celebrity, which was a bit surreal.
Make any new friends via the website? How many hits? Is it worth it? Is there a cash flow from it? How often you update?
I get a few emails a week with people saying nice things. There’s a Brazilian guy who I’ve traded many emails with, and I’ve even mailed him some figs. I love adding content to the website. There’s always something new I’d like to add, and I keep learning more about web desgn as a result. I’d never put together a web site before MarvelLegends.Net, and it started really simple with just the free space comcast gave me with my service. But over time I’ve just kept adding content and improving my web design skills. I’ve got ideas for the site which are beyond my skill set, so that pushes me to keep learning more.
I started Google ads a few months ago, which brings in enough to pay for the hobby. So I’m guilt free with ML now, the content pays for itself; I can always justify new figures. I think in March I averaged around 8000 page impressions a day.
*Editor’s note: A link to Waiting’s website as well as a detailed list of the diverse group of visitors Waiting receives to his website can be found at the bottom of the article.
Do you consider yourself political?
I do follow politics, yes, but I’ve decided to make an effort to keep my politics off of fwoosh from now on. I end up just pissing too many people off.
Are you editing your posts on your own militia, or as a favor for the greater good of the fwoosh? A political or religious thread would always bring a post from you. Do you play devil’s advocate ever or do you hold one position and defend it?
I used to enjoy talking politics, but not here, not anymore. It’s too poisonous. The discussions are pointless. They always start OK, with polite discourse, but then there are people who will come in and spoil it. I would normally enjoy playing devil’s advocate too, because there’s always a nuance, there’s never a perfect answer, its usually a judgment, and weighing of cost / benefit, an opinion of what answer does the most good (or the least bad) in the long run. So, even when I agree with someone, I can usually point out the downside of their approach, or bring out the upside of the opposing opinion. I get accused of being closed minded because I do have strong opinions on many things, but I don’t see myself that way at all. Just because there’s many sides to an issue shouldn’t always stop you from making a judgment. I don’t often suffer analysis paralysis, and that’s sometimes mistaken for me being closed minded.
But I think you should add to the interview by stating your opinion on
Gas/ economy / drinking
Political/ government issues
and some other fundamental yet debatable issues like raising a child.
I’ve sworn off discussing those types of topics on fwoosh. You can ask me about that, but I won’t discuss the topics themselves.
Wow really? When you make a post in the Bar it’s a must read because of your opinions and now I’m offering front page ezine blank space, I could type your words in the largest font and you are basically politely declining to comment?
What if I said I got an idea while writing lyrics, in line for my government check, with my drug dealer on hold, ignoring my children, eating stolen girl scout cookies with my hands in my pants, I thought "hey maybe Waiting is brainwashed by the government! Because he works FOR the Government!"
Would something like that work? You are never going to post for or against controversial issues on the fwoosh ever again?
Can not be enticed to post socio political comments any more. We’ll have to stick to toys I guess. Possibly Girl Scout cookies.
Okay thin mints or peanut butter?
Blasphemy. Somoas!
Aren’t Somoas the ones laced with ecstasy! Keeping the sheeple high and therefore easier to control! To keep them standing in line to buy postage stamps. If I can make a custom of Thor, the Asgardian God of thunder, with 32 points of articulation, why can’t I make my own postage stamps? Who would know the difference? If you look at my custom postage stamps you will notice that it looks just like your old avatar of Abomb!
Stamps went out with check books. I haven’t used either in too long to remember.
I can’t believe you decided to do this right before our interview.
Has it taken the fun out the fwoosh for you?
Oh, its not just now, it’s been awhile now. I think my last slip was a couple weeks ago, but for the most part, I’m done with it. It hasn’t reduced my enthusiasm for the fwoosh, it’s helped it. I come to the fwoosh to have a laugh and talk about the hobby, not to convince people to hate me.
Alright, so if I have any questions about Marvel Legends, photography, computers, woodworking, or politics and religion I can just shoot you a PM?
You can always PM me.
Discuss this interview here.
Waiting’s site can be seen here.
*Think Marvel Legends are just a fascination of Americans? Think again. Waiting’s famous Marvel Legends website has received visitors from around the world, including these domains:
net – Network
com – US Commercial
other – Unknown Location
br – Brazil
mx – Mexico
ca – Canada
jp – Japan
fr – France
uk – United Kingdom
edu – US Educational
sg – Singapore
au – Australia
cl – Chile
org – US Organization
us – United States
it – Italy
nz – New Zealand
pe – Peru
hk – Hong Kong
mil – US Military
nl – Netherlands
my – Malaysia
ph – Philippines
tw – Taiwan
es – Spain
de – Germany
gov – US Government
ar – Argentina
ru – Russia
pl – Poland
be – Belgium
sa – Saudi Arabia
th – Thailand
ch – Switzerland
id – Indonesia
cn – China
pt – Portugal
fi – Finland
dk – Denmark
ie – Ireland
at – Austria
tr – Turkey
se – Sweden
hu – Hungary
qa – Qatar
il – Israel
no – Norway
gr – Greece
ae – United Arab Emirates
gt – Guatemala
za – South Africa
cr – Costa Rica
by – Belarus
co – Colombia
ec – Ecuador
ro – Romania
hr – Croatia
is – Iceland
bo – Bolivia
cu – Cuba
tv – Tuvalu
uy – Urugauy
yu – Yugoslavia
ma – Morocco
ve – Venezuela
do – Dominican Republic
hn – Honduras
bg – Bulgaria
ee – Estonia
in – India
lu – Luxembourg
pk – Pakistan
pa – Panama
sk – Slovakia
cz – Czech Republic
ua – Ukraine
aw – Aruba
bz – Belize
bn – Brunei
cx – Christmas Island
sv – El Salvador
pf – French Polynesia
jo – Jordan
lb – Lebanon
mt – Malta
md – Moldova
ni – Nicaragua
tt – Trinidad and Tobago
int – International
ba – Bosnia and Herzegovina
cc – Cocos (Keeling) Islands
cy – Cyprus
fj – Fiji
ke – Kenya
lv – Latvia
nu – Niue
si – Slovenia