From the makers of this fine Blog- Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Blessed Yule- Whatever you hold dearest in your heart for the winter holiday, I wish you a safe, happy day in the warmth of the ones you love
And Conure Presents
UPDATE: I'm adding Happy Ramadan and Eid, Happy Festivus, and Happy Hogswatch to my list of greetings
Brontosaurus means "Thunder lizard"- Apatosaurus means "Crappy Name Lizard"(not really, but what was he thinking with "Deceptive Lizard"???). There is a story- archaeological history, that tells us one simple thing. there was never a brontosaurus. In our hearts and our culture, however, we still revere all that the name evokes.
Whatever he was, he was probably never a lizard, more of a proto-bird while Mr Darwin figured out what would fit to survive the extinction. For more about that, and Robert Bakkers other theories, see here, or just read "the Dinosaur Heresies"
In 1985 (the year I graduated High School) Hasbro released Sludge. Robot to Brontosaurus was his game, and he was armed with:
Let me start off by saying...there seems to be a lot of needless Bee-hatred out there- I know this is a character that Hasbro sells a lot of, and makes a lot of variations because they sell. Many fans seem to feel like Bumblebee has been thrust down their throats and they are choking on him. And you have had him thrust upon you here as well.
This is no Camaro, or fictional muscle car. this is no illegal Art Feather Bee, an intellectual property theft of staggering proportions. This is your official, VW licensed G1 Bumblebee with Spike Witwicky in his Exo-Suit, next to Masterpiece Sideswipe for size comparison
Can we get a blue beetle repaint for Dresden Files fans?
I have often wondered how he fits in there- obviously his arms are not in the arms, and his legs are not in the legs
looking good
on this one my flash said "nyah, nyah, you can't make me fire!"
My review of him? He's fun. He looks good in both forms. He converts in 5 min or less without too much muss or fuss, but is complex enough to be entertaining to an adult
I had a hard time in my younger days with the concept of headmasters, targetmasters, powermasters, etc. I had a hard time with it for two reasons: The concept that sticking a human or a Nebualn on top of (or in the gun hand of) a cybertronian would automatically make him faster, stronger, or more skilled. I also had a really hard time thinking that a human, even one wearing special armor, contorted into the shape of a transformers head would be be either A)beneficial to the transformer or B) conscious and breathing, and not screaming in agony as bones bend in directions bones are not meant to bend. Nebulans...well, they look like humans but must be really good at yoga.
That said, I now have two Headmasters, one a third party from Toyworld and one an official Hasbro release
Brainstorm- with partner Arcana: an incredibly simple, yet fun tranformation, and a beautifully designed figure in both modes; the one drawback here is that his headmaster is tricky to remove without destroying him
forget my own head if it weren't...crap, it's not there is it?
Much better
And here is Hardhead with partner Duros. This toy is pure, unadulterated win, and if you are at all interested, snatch him up while Bigbad still has him. from his three big guns, to his bayonet stored in a shin compartment, he continues to delight
Big tank
and Pilot
Combine to become a hell of a big bot with the look of a brawler
Let me state now that I am perfectly calm and accepting, but that "we" are not so calm
So first off- my bestbuy.com order got split- everything except supernatural season 9 got sent from one location, and arrived, safe. Supernatural season 9 apparently detoured through a black hole or purgatory- last info on it is from dec 1, when "electronic shipping info " was sent to USPS. In a perfect world, electronic shipping info would be followed by the physical object, but such does not appear to be the case. I know that bestbuy will fix it, whatever the issue is, and make it right, but "we" do not.
Secondly...my generations brainstorm from HTS was en route and supposed to arrive today, and now is delayed until tomorrow. This was originally not even supposed to ship until the 8th, so getting it tomorrow would be cool, and I know this but "we" do not.
Teased enough? Regular readers know him, no one loves him. But he is always lurking in the background, chattering. Invisible, Intangible, Unconurechaseable(*), yet omnipresent.
He is convinced that someone stole my TV show and is watching it, the bastards. And when we saw the delayed package until tomorrow, this conversation took place:
PM:"It's LATE! order it from BIGBAD- they got it in!"
ME:"And...when would it get here if we ordered today from Bigbad?"
PM:"SHUT UP! JUST ORDER- Don't trick me with your human logic! You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
followed by me placating the plastic monkey by handling stuff he hasn't seen in a bit and putting reprolabels emblems on some autobots who need it. Until, that is, I can stuff the monkey back in his box
(*)-Unconurechaseable describes any object that your conure cannot chase off your shoulders
From Walmart- The Hangover Trilogy(all three movies) Anchorman 2, Red Dawn- I tried for Super 8 but the one copy I found was sliding free in the case and would have been a scratched up mess
I did this last year, so I'm going to make a tradition of it. My post thanksgiving report
So first, bear with my while I bore you by crowing about my dinner. This year was my first year cooking the turkey- Sam backstopped me and gave assistance, but I did the heavy lifting, chose seasonings, and kept "abreast" of it cooking. I guaranteed it would come out of the oven warmer than it started because...physics. What I could not guarantee is that it would come out edible, or non-toxic.
But it came out tender, moist, and Deeelicious. And as of this writing, apparently non-toxic(despite what my sister the vegetarian might think); I had some, Sam had some, Tango had some. It was accompanied by carrot and cranberry salad, Pillsbury biscuits (from the cardboard tube!) (which Sid got some of)pumpkin pie (Tango and Wallace got some), and martinellis sparkling apple cider. The one error was in my preparation of the gravy packet that came with the turkey- I heated it in a pan, but what I should have done was toss it in the kitchen wastebasket and possibly set fire to it. No worries, I will remember that for next year as a serving suggestion. It was a mellow evening, and Sam and I watched Godzilla
Now on to the categorized Swag
SURGICAL STRIKE: all from bestbuy.com, and shipped today, leaving me far from the madding crowds
Of note: 11/27/14 was Tangos third bird-day(based upon best calculations to his hatching date)- my baby continues to get smarter and sometimes brattier
Last year I wrote as a League assignment but the League is a dream that is no more, and I have not found any blogging challenge to replace it yet. So here is my 2014 list
I'm thankful I am back in the groove of blogging again; thankful for Tango and Wallace, my collections, my apartment, my job, my car. I'm thankful, oddly, for IKEA, and the furniture of theirs I like. I'm thankful for the online merchants I can use when the stores don't stock my new toys, like Bigbad, TFSource and HTS. They help me treat my plastic addiction
I'm Thankful I am alive in this most interesting of times. I am Thankful for my family, my friends, and even a stranger who will share a moment or two of conversation or a dark unspoken fear. And I am Thankful, so very thankful for everyone who stops by and reads a post of mine because this is where I tell the universe:
Ok first- this will not just be Dr Wu- there are several really good Arms Suppliers to the transformers toys- what this post is about is buying toys for your toys: buying collectibles to enhance your other collectibles.
I Could (but won't) Meticulously track my purchasing history on these items. I know that the very first transformer add-on I bought was to reach out and get my generations Kup an IDW comics accurate head
this is the non-smoking head- I found that the transformation
Broke the Cy-gar on the other head, so it was fixed and put away
I purchased a Cartoon Accurate gun for Transformers Prime Powerizer Optimus Prime, based upon the gun that came with FE Optimus
Prime characters generally have their weapons built into their
arms so this covers his hand
Rainstorm for Generations Springer
And BLADES! Blades galore of many shapes and sizes
UFO blades for Optimus Prime ROTF or DOTM leader
Cybertronian War Axe by Corbot V(modeled by Toyworlds "Orion")
the Sky-Breaker- Dr Wu's ode to the Star Saber of TF Prime
This wonderful piece comes in a variety of colors
from silver metallic to far more exotic
Primes first action with this weapon in the Anime was to
cleave a mountain in half
Heavy Gear- the Forge of Solus Prime and a big gun for TF Prime UltraMagnus
love the way the forge caught the light
Courageous- Guns and blades for TF Prime FE Arcee
usually with Arcee it is either blades or guns,
not both at the same time
As I posted here, we had some November furnace trouble, and I spent part of the morning working with my landlord to resolve it, both for my warmth and the warmth of the dwellers above (which sounds way cooler than "my upstairs neighbors")
This is "Furnace Room Lullaby" by Neko Case and her Boyfriends. this sounds almost exactly entirely unlike the sound of pipes banging and rattling due to air pressure where water should be.
On the other hand...the scene in a war movie where the submarine has burst pipes and there is water pouring into the engine room...it looked a lot like that when the boiler let off pressure (it can hold up to 35 P.S.I.)
So I managed to get steamed, sprayed, lay in water, hold a hose with water at 180 degrees (f) + in it as we watched to make sure the line was free of bubbles; the upshot for now? We have heat
From the furnace closet cometh a sharp, metallic rattling-intermittent yet persistent. Is it the pump? Is it the pipes? Is it as Sam theorizes Tommyknockers? Or my own theory, that Spyware/Malware got installed on the furnace and it needs a scan and clean done.
I guess I will know more after my Landlord takes a look at it, and a listen.
Just a random bird related thought- Tango talks, but he also has an array of conure noises, some of which I try to emulate back to him. He clicks at me, I click back at him, and it seems to go OK, until I try to click a different pattern pack to him. His response is silence, possibly bordering on stunned silence.
Is it possible that my clicks back to him are the equivalent of a human screaming gibberish lightly laced with random touretticisms? And he is sitting there thinking..."Daddy? What the hell is wrong with you?"
Think on that next time you meow back at your cat or bark at your dog and they look at you like you are an idiot...
Also known as: A Song of Ice and Fire-Breathing Dinobots(which means I thought of that after I published)
Ned Stark said it best-Winter is Coming. Put another way, it looks like Elsa was mildly concerned, and she let it go.
An age of Ice has come to my home city of Lakewood. an Age of Ice, of Snow, of Blistering Cold and Poor Drivers. A sad and terrible end to my cargo shorts for the year, traded for something longer. On the other hand, I love my wool coat and love wearing it.
But this weather makes me think of...Dinosaurs. Not long ago, I read a fascinating book called "the Dinosaur Heresies" of which the main point was that dinosaurs were likely warm blooded, highly active and incredibly successful creatures. The author agrees with the conventional wisdom that a meteor impact put up a cloud of debris into the atmosphere and cooled the planet was the final (tho not the only) nail in the coffin of the largest land animals. And what survived was ...
Tango and all his kin- the birds.
They were small enough to find shelter, and had small enough food needs that they could subsist on what was available. They survived to give us a world full of color and song. Birds are the last dinosaurs according to Bakker, and I agree with him. The book is convincing and worth a read or two. I bought mine at ARC thrift store
In related news I took a trip last night over the streets. Denver Drivers tend, in the opinions of this blogger, to forget snow driving over the spring/summer until that first snow of the year. At that point they either drive super slow or like maniacs. But I took a trip to the post office, for my power bill and for the dinosaurs, or rather for the Dinobots.
I now have three good neo G1 style dinobots- Grimlock came about thanks to ToysR'us re-release of the masterpiece figure and a lot of calls asking when he would be in. A lot of calls, a lot of annoyed TRU employees and a persistence even I was impressed by. To sweeten the pot, I got him for a price match that was nearly obscene
Planet X's version of Swoop, Caelus has graced this page before, but here he is in context. his engineering, and the intricacy of his transformation is truly a pleasure, I only wish, from an aesthetic viewpoint that he had a face rather than a faceplate. A big part of G1 Swoops Charm for me is his face
But wait...who is the shadowy figure in the middle? could that be someone I drove across town on icy streets to the post office to get? Resplendent with gold chrome and armed to the teeth, this is Toyworlds "Roar",(their version of Snarl) the first of their dinobot figures, which will eventually form a combiner of what appears to be huge size. I have several pieces from toyworld already, and their toys always impress me. If I have one gripe on this it's a minor one, which is that the tail comes off to accommodate the eventual combiner toy- he is the left lower leg/foot. But he is big, feels solid in the hand, and well articulated
NOTE: each of the back plates is ball jointed and moves- likewise the tail plates. I'm pretty happy with him. storage of his sword is between the halves of the tail
This post was photographed with my Canon A2300 point and shoot camera, and my brand new (to me) Arc thrift store tripod
because if you are trying to shoot a Dinobot, you had better use a Canon
I have been watching Gotham from the first episode, and have been semi-impressed.
Let me give a little background- back a trio of years ago, Once Upon A Time started up, and my feelings were complicated- I felt that there was no mystery- or very little- of who most of the characters were- that rather than going for the slow reveal, it was all out there in our faces. yet somehow, Once Upon A Time has kept jumping the shark and making me look forward to a bigger shark. it's kept me coming back for more, and pretty eagerly.
So along came Gotham...and, yep, we figured out that Selina "Cat" Kyle is going to be Catwoman. We had an intimation that Edward Nygma would be the Riddler. No mystery there. And we are treated to a Penguin with what appears to be such psychopathically poor impulse control that he caused this sentence to begin with a conjunction (which is apparently OK).
Episode 7- Penguin's Umbrella changed all that.
SPOILER ALERT FOR THE GOTHAM DISADVANTAGED
In the pilot, James Gordon (honest cop) is convinced under threat of harm to his fiance' to execute Oswald Cobblepot for the mob boss Falcone- Gordon fires his gun next to the Penguins head and tells him to disappear, never come back to Gotham. Which lasts...not very long- Cobblepot is back, slinking around the city and trying to create advantages for himself by ingratiating himself with rival boss Maroni. We are left with the impression that the very presence of this whack-job murderous Penguin is a danger to Gordon
In Episode 7, we find out that the Penguin asked Falcone to have Gordon be his killer, because Gordon might spare him. And in return, the Penguin will be gathering information for Falcone. In other words...poor impulse control or no, The Penguin is pulling a whole puppet show's worth of strings behind the scenes.
I'm not gonna lie- my jaw dropped, I leaned in close to my screen and said "what the...hell???" Never saw it coming. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the next episode. And my Semi-Impressed got a whole lot more impressed
Way back in the old days of 2012, I did a post for the League of Extraordinary Bloggers about my plastic bubble. There was a story behind the post that was never told...
My Then Wife, now Ex- Wife and Roommate made a comment that I viewed the world through a "plastic bubble". I do, and I admit it- and I think it is not neccessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, I am influenced at times by the plastic monkey, detailed here. So to stave off his attacks, I can shop, or I can handle odd stuff from my collection...take pictures of it...write odd things about it. So the Plastic Bubble Protects me from the world, the world from me, and my wallet from the monkey on my back.
The effects of a plastic monkey on ones back are many and varied, and they are both beneficial and less so. I recall one day I was talking with someone on the phone when I looked up and realized...
Jetfire...was...mistransformed
so with my blood pressure slightly elevated, I started calculating the length of the phone cord and what it would take to get to him safely. And I realized...it could not be done. I could not ease him out from behind Bumblebee without a very practical lesson in how few Autobots can fly.
You bet I fixed it as soon as that phone hit the hook. Did you have to ask??
On the other hand, I have access to fascinating knowledge about my collectables, and what they represent. If I need patience and understanding, I pick up Optimus as a reminder to be overflowing with the Energon of cybertronian kindness. If I need Cold ruthless logic, Shockwave comes down from storage. If I need daring...Springer- and so forth.
So I'm a boy in a plastic bubble(not this boy), of my own making. Rather than be trapped in a world I never made, I get to be at home and comfy in one I did make. I have a plastic bubble. If you don't have a bubble you might want to look into forming one- I highly advise it. It's nice in here
There is a quote, near the end of The Amazing Spider-Man: "I had a professor once who liked to tell his students that there were only 10 different plots in all of fiction. Well, I'm here to tell you he was wrong. There is only one: "Who am I?""
So who is Mr Smith?
Well, that answer is is complicated as it would be for anyone. I can tell you What he likes. He likes Transformers... good Sci-Fi, bad Sci-Fi... Books by Terry Pratchett and Jim Butcher ...Fantasy(good and bad)...Westerns. He loves his family even when they don't understand him and his ways. He loves his bird, sassy and moody as that little parrot can be
So why shed the Primordial Badger shell? There is another quote, this one from a movie I have only seen the trailer for- Observe and Report
"The world has no use for another scared man." It's time for me to like what I like, own what I do, and not hide behind a pseudonym. So who is Mr Smith? The answer to that question may be different tomorrow than it is today. But for today...this is the answer.
What there are not are bird costumes. I have spoken at length with Tango about this and he has confided in me. The reason there are no bird costumes is because they would all have to come with several boxes of band-aids.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!
Update: What Tango actually said was "you step up" for which a closer translation would be "there are not enough band-aids in the world"
