Caelus

    Back in the day(what day? any day in 1984/85 I suppose) I had one dinobot. I think my nephews had Grimlock and Slag, possibly Snarl, but I had Swoop

     Swoop turned from a Pteranadon to a robot, and was armed with Swords and Missile Launchers. His function was an aerial bomber. I still get sentimental breaking out that old toy. Despite it's primitive articulation, there is some surprisingly good engineering there

But I love me some engineering, some articulation, and I love a good update. The next Swoop I saw that I liked was the Transformers: Animated iteration; the aesthetic for TFA is very anime, exaggerated, lean and sleek or bulky. This Swoop fits that bill beautifully, but falls short for me on a G1 level

Which brings me to the Third Party piece, Caelus, by Planet X. This is the first piece I have picked up by this Company, and I have to say their engineering is sophisticated- while he follows the transformation of the G1 Swoop mostly, there are some twists that show some serious planning

His aesthetic is more based around the Fall of Cybertron game, so he's not perfect G1 for me, but he comes closer than TFA Swoop. I like him a lot

Blitzwing

     Blitzwing has been shown on these pages before, but around the end of December last year, I decided to buy an upgrade kit to fix the figures sad design flaw

      There is a lot to love about the figure- he's a triple changer, like the original G1 toy-Thumbs up. His transformation is in spots, highly innovative-Thumbs up. He has a face-changing gimmick to pay homage to the Transformers animated incarnation of the character-Thumbs...well, sideways, for me.

     Where he falls apart, almost literally, is the soft plastic where his shoulders peg into his torso. even if you peg it in absolutely right, any movement of his shoulders/arms/turret is likely to pop it out and leave his arm catty-wampus(a word which has little to do with either cats or wampas, it turns out)

     Fixes for this have involved everything from adding extra plastic to the figure

 to disassembling him and sanding down inside his torso

 

     Enter the upgrade kit- it contains a new head, a bigger gun, missile pods and two clips which give the shoulders some needed stiffening. the clips are not ideal as a solution, since they must be removed and clipped onto the gun when transforming him, but they do add a lot to a figure that parts of me hate to love

 

here is a video review(not mine) of the set

 

Learning to be Thicker Skinned

per the transformers Wiki: "Cheetor was on the mark when he said that Rhinox was the best of them. He's a Renaissance Bot. Intelligent, massive, strong, and stalwart, there are few Maximals one could depend on more. Rhinox is of a rare breed — he's incredibly tech savvy, but mystically-inclined... without coming off as a burnt-out technohippie. He's quick and decisive in a crisis, with spectacular results, but is slow and steady. He loves to sniff the flowers. A behind-the-scenes charismatic and an on-his-feet strategist, he could lead the Maximals if he wanted to, but he doesn't."

     Seems like a lot of my posts lately start with "I never had this character...yadda yadda" which I consider a testament to how successful the Thrilling 30th line has been so far. it has brought me updated versions of loved characters, like Skids and also given me new favorites such as Scoop, Whirl, and Waspinator . Overall, the 30th anniversary collection may be my favorite line after Masterpieces

     Rhinox is one of those I exercised my world-changing powers on to get him into the stores by buying him from Hasbro Toy Shop, except here is the twist ending...

There was a sale, I think for Easter- a promo code and free shipping that made this Stalwart warrior cheaper shipped than if I had gone to Walmart and picked him off the shelves- All told...about 17.99 shipped. So Hasbro gave it to Fedex, Fedex gave it to USPS, and USPS brought to to my lair, packed in it's own little box

so that I could take these pics for you

He's very cool, Gold and Green, and Gray, and makes a cool looking Rhino as well as a very cool robot

Are These Steady Posts For Real, or just a SMOKESCREEN

     Another of the Autobots I never had...I had Bluestreak, the all silver version, and the roof of his car mode broke off, not long after I got him. This was a common issue with that toy...I think you should know by now that I tend to be careful with my toys.

     Digressing tho; Smokescreen, never had him, never interested, and then Transformers Prime gave us a new take on the character. He was not G1 Smokescreen, but my imagination was fired as to what a character with Diversionary Tactics could be like. And I started to want the masterpiece...I started to want it a lot

 He is very Bright colored, Primaries all the way

 Patriotic, at least for the US, and wearing the form of a Nissan(Datsun) 280ZX

 With Armaments on top, which is probably even more patriotic

 Bluestreak(who is not very blue) and Smokescreen

and just Prowl to go...

Crafty Little Toys

      This is not the first time I have brought up Minecraft, and I doubt it will be the final one.

      You know I love toys-not a secret, either my love or your knowing of my love, or my knowing of your knowing...you get the 1000 words.

      Among the many Minecraft related items for sale are the toys. Three inch figures with every point of articulation you will see in the game world. I picked up a couple of these from the first series, but it appears to be series #2 that will make this line stand out

Minecraft is all about using resources to make your life in the game easier, and to make items to make better items. it's about evolution, and technology, and industrialism. you cut the trees, (but you sow their seeds to grow new trees) you break the stone blocks and dirt blocks to make your home, and to mine deep within the earth and find iron, coal and rarer elements

One thing that is ver cool about these toys is most of them come with a resource block. Now it's not all just mining peacefully. Things will KILL YOU

However, if you can kill them...some of them provide more resources such as gunpowder and TNT

I'm TNT, I'm Dynamite!

So far, all series 1-pretty cool huh?

Series 2 launched(for me) with the Passive and Tamable animal mobs

Pig, Sheep, Cow

Ocelot and Wolf can become (respectively) Cat and Dog

But the piece that did it for me was the chicken. The Chicken was the first animal I ever tamed/fed in Minecraft, and it's the only bird. I saw the chicken in that package and I had to have it

the WINGS ARE POSABLE!

League Assignment: You Don't Know Jack

 

 He is a mystery, wrapped within an enigma,wrapped within a metal shell. Is he as some believe, a mad inventor, a latter day Spark with a Spark of his own? both a victor through, and a victim of his own science? His is the first autobot form we see in 1984, even before that of Bumblebee. His hands are those that built the Dinobots, as well as countless other inventions to help and sometimes hinder the autobot cause

Dude- that is MY altmode

But there is a darker side to the goofy inventor...a Wrecker, a tormented loner. A bot who chafes under authority, and breaks the chain of command. And his only inventiveness revolves around where to plant grenades for the most impact. or where to plant his blades to cleave metal from circuit

 

How do we reconcile the two sides of this bot? Merge the happy-go-lucky nerd with the sneer on the scarred lips behind the battlemask?

 

Monster Cafe met Nicholson

UnderScoopFire had a pair of uninsurable jacks in his list

G.I.Jigsaw Spins us a a memory of the classic Jack Burton

AEIOU and sometimes Why likes his Jacks of the Spring-heeled variety

and Go Play Listen gave us a number of uses of jack including the classic game

 

 

 

 

 

Only Adobe Photoshop can give Bruce a Normal Life

     Bruce Banner fears turning into his alter Ego, the Hulk, for the loss of control, and terrible damage he causes. He has tried uncounted dangerous scientific procedures but apparently never tried this simple Computer trick

The Hulk, Before Adobe


 




After Adobe Gamma Correction run


 

Bad Joke, I know- I had to get it out of my head and into yours
and yes, I am a little ashamed- I now return you to your regularly scheduled cat videos

Gamma Correction...not sure I understand it still

He's My Little Deuce Scoop...

     to Quote the TFwiki:

"
If you're out of ammo and pinned by heavy enemy fire deep in the bowels of a slag swamp, Scoop is the robot you want on your side. He's possibly the best field infantry robot there is. A gung-ho fighter who uses cool-headed logic and battle-hardened tactics, he can outwit the enemy at every turn. Relentless in his resolve, he's always willing to help others out, no matter how dangerous the situation. Scoop is also strongly religious, and he believes in the buried legends regarding Primus written about him in His Covenant.
Scoop's greatest asset, his dedication-- both religious and job-related-- is also his greatest weakness. Since he pushes so hard and for so long, he's prone to overheating, especially if pushing his shovel past its limit. He's also often so engrossed in his spiritual literature that he likely won't see hints of betrayal around him unless his texts explicitly spell it out."

     This is another character I never had in the old days but I love the toy for both it's simplicity, and it's bright colors. He is a Targetmaster, which means that his guns are sentient, and more powerful. So he turns into a front end loader, and his guns turn into tiny men...really. And they can also peg together to form an even more powerful weapon.

     From what I saw, a lot of these generations Scoops had misalogned shoulders, causing the tranformation to not fit quite right. My second one turned out to be right and I took the first one back. His targetmaster guns are also particularly tempting to a conure with a taste for brandishing cybertronian weaponry(like mine), so if you pick this one up, watch the shoulders, and watch your bird

My guns are full of tinier men!

The Streets, and their Dates

     Today is May 9, 2014; the street date for the Age of Extinction toys is 5/17/2014...eight days from now. And I have the need...the Plastic Monkey is howling, and clawing, and biting.

     This post was going to be all about my bemoaning the fact that the Stockers here in my neck of the woods seem to be too smart and/or with it to break the street date. It would have been angsty and full or moral conflict between good things coming to those who wait and I WANT IT NOW

     But something happened

 

something glorious in gray blue, and red, and decorated with vac-metalized chrome

 

 

Leader Class Optimus Prime, at Target, today-Grimlock, too but I have my loyalties

 

 

 

Now Getting Back into the Whirl of Things

      You may have seen him at the stores...you would not had I not ordered him from Hasbrotoyshop.com (you're Welcome). It is my gift and my curse that I can make toys appear in the retail stores by getting impatient and ordering them online. so I ordered Whirl along with Mara Jade from HTS and he is a trip.

     This is a character I never had in the old days, never really had an affinity for, never knew because he was not in those three sacred years of G1 cartoon. and then I saw him in IDW spotlight Trailcutter, the comic that came with this toy.

     and he is disturbing, abrasive, and possibly a psychopath(or programmed to imitate one). And I loved him

so without further adieu Ado, here are the pics you have been waiting for

the light box is courtesy of my roommate, and is a work in progress

My Life as a Drug Addict

     It started with Excedrin...I used to live on those little things for constant Tension headaches. And Bronkaid. used to gobble down about three of those a day, until they started becoming harder to get, (because it turns out you can make meth out of them plus a host of awful stuff). Supplements like Echinacea, Myrrh, Goldenseal... I took a lot of those

     Then my wife(my then wife) convinced me that I should go to the doctor. I trotted myself down to a clinic, and they revealed, via a battery of tests that I had the Diabeetus, plus High Blood pressure, Iron Defieiency Anemia, and the Mythical High Cholesterol. To combat these, they addicted me to Metformin(they tried to get me hooked on Glipizide but it didn't take), Lisinopril/Hydrochlorothyazide, Iron Pills and Pravastatin (I tried for pradastatin, but walmart doesn't have designer drugs).

     For my asthma, they gave me a prescription for Albuterol in a rescue inhaler . this worked out well until that particular drug dropped off the generic drug radar(read as: your pusher just upped his price). so I moaned, and I raged, and bought my now $60 inhaler and nursed it to the very gates of perdition, long past the time when the counter on the inhaler has gone from 0 to "really??" to "are you still trying to breathe through this thing?"

     So I thought...Albuterol Pills! Wlamart Pharmacy has them on the generic $4 list! If the doctor will just give me a prescription, all will be good.


     This is what I discovered.....while the pills are affordable, Walmart does not neccessarily expact anyone to come looking for them

so they do not stock them

 

and look a little puzzled at your request

 

and that while the pills help stop asthma attacks, ordering and waiting for them, and checking when the pharmacy tells you they will be in does not stop asthma attacks, and may in fact cause them

 

all this drama to explain why I have been lax in posting. Because among all the other things I am addicted to, one of them happens to be...

OXYGEN

 

posts should now resume as normal unless life interferes again