A Frozen Wasteland

    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