Nerd Block Unboxing and Review for December 2014

It is the final Nerd Block of the year, everyone! Are you excited? I was pretty excited when it arrived in the mail, but was my excitement warranted? Let’s find out, shall we?

What did you think of the unboxing? Was it a good block or a bad one? Let’s take a look at the breakdown:

Hellraiser Inferno shirt: The first item in the box was a t-shirt, and I have mixed feelings about it. It’s not really a bad-looking shirt, but it’s based on one of the worst films in the Hellraiser series. As such, I’m going to give it a slightly lower “value” than I usually give t-shirts; let’s say about $10.
Harry Potter “Butterbeer” shirt: The second t-shirt in the box is more my style. It’s a much different kind of shirt than what I normally wear, but it’s still a Harry Potter reference and I’m actually a little amused that it’s red because usually all my shirts come in black, so there’s that as well. I’ll give this shirt the usual value of $15.
Gizmo plush toy: The adorable little gremlin from the movie of the same name is a welcome addition to this month’s block. He’s a well-made toy and looks just like the movie character, so the quality was there. Unfortunately there are about a hundred slightly-different versions of this toy on the internet so I can’t be certain that I’m finding the proper value for this particular one. However, based on my findings and the fact that it’s a very nicely made toy, I feel confident in assigning a value of at least $12.
Kre-O Dungeons and Dragons mini-fig: As mentioned in the video, I am getting really sick of getting these kinds of things in my subscription boxes. Every now and then is cute, but when they come in almost every box you really start to feel like they’re a super-cheap way of adding another item to the box. These little blind-bag expansion packs go for somewhere between $3 and $4, and I’m going to go ahead and assign it the $3 because, man, to hell with these things already.
Tetris notebook: I’m more amused by this than I probably should be, but that’s because I grew up with Tetris, and also because I”m a writer who can always use more notebooks. Lovin’ this cute little tetrimino-edged notebook, and if you’d like your very own they go at a cost of about $10.
Val Kilmer signed “Willow” print: Things like this are difficult to put a value on, but it’s made a little easier by the fact that it’s not really a “real” signature. Yeah, it’s Kilmer’s signature, but it’s a photocopy, which makes it effectively worth nothing. I’ll give a value of about $2 to the print, even though I’ve never seen Willow so it doesn’t really mean anything to me.

Total approximate value of box: $52
Total cost to me: $33

So in the end the final Nerd Block of the year wasn’t any better or worse than any of the other boxes I received throughout the year so far. The value isn’t bad, but a few of the items are annoying to me. I swear if I get one more building-block-brand blind-bag mini-fig I’m going to scream, and while some people might find the signed print cool, to me a signed print doesn’t really mean anything if it’s not real ink directly from the pen of the person doing the signing. Anyone can print out a photocopy, after all. But, then again, I love the Butterbeer shirt, the Gizmo plush, and the Tetris notebook, and those three things make up the cost of the box, so I guess it works out okay in the end.

All in all, I’ve had some ups and downs with Nerd Block since I began getting it in the summer of this year, and if I’m completely honest I was totally planning to cancel the subscription after this month. However my husband enjoys getting the boxes too, and he’s interested to see what they’ll be like when they start officially incorporating themes next month, so I guess we’ll be continuing to get them for at least a little while longer.