Order Disorder

     I don't have a neatness thing. I'm messy, cluttered, and stuff that needs to be organized can sit untouched until a foot of dust grows on it and archaeologists are searching for mosquitoes in amber to make dinosaurs.

     What I have is this random, inconsistent need to put things where they go, or keep them with what they go with.

     Example: this morning, I started my PC and saw that the USB cable for my camera was hooked to it, but no camera was in evidence. I had to locate the camera, moved by parties unknown(Sam) so I could put the cable back in the case.

     Other examples

• I can't stand to see the wrong lid used on a pan or a piece of cookware
• if a transformer is mistransformed, it sits at the back of my mind until I FIX IT
• if something in my displays is knocked over, or out of place, I will knock over everything else to fix it. 
• books out of place
• DVDs out of place
• DVDs or books I can't find when I want to
• misfiled files on the PC

     This issue has benefited me as well as harming me. It has allowed me to keep 30-40 year old toys pretty much intact, with all accessories. I has allowed me to spot issues with items and fix or replace them before they get worse. it has helped me with detail work and troubleshooting both physical and mental. 

      It can be a pain in the butt though. Particularly when it strikes first thing in the morning, and you can't do anything else until you find that camera...

Young Guns

     I have talked here on these pages about the 1986 Transformers Movie- I don't really think I have talked about Hot Rod/Rodimus- not a lot at least.


     For a character that was given to us, nay thrust upon us as the savior of the Transformers, who would use the Matrix to light their darkest hour, he hasn't gotten a lot of love. Fans are divided on him. Some love Hot Rod, Some Rodimus Prime. And some hate both.


     He was Brash, Intelligent, somewhat Foolhardy, and had a lot of Leap before Looking-ness going on. These were all qualities my Teen-aged self could really relate to. He had the self-confidence that I would have liked to possess, and I have a lingering soft spot for him. The character of Smokescreen on TF Prime was based on him, and made me buy a toy or two.


     I had high hopes for MP-09 Rodimus, but he was fiddly in his transformation, and felt fragile to me. I have the Toys R'Us version, and the first one had to go back for exchange for damage. I never fully trusted the replacement, never really got him into vehicle mode correctly, and just hoped for some third party company to fix me up.


     And then they announced MP-28. MP-28 was not Rodimus Prime, he was Hot Rod to the core, and scaled to the other Masterpiece cars. Since it was Hot Rod, the character, that I treasured, this sounded like the version for me.

I had my hopes up. I really did.

and HE DID NOT DISAPPOINT(much)

This is G1 Hot Rod

For his Time, a lot of fun

TF Animated Hot Rod... very cool but lacking my G1 aesthetic

He lasted about one scene in the Cartoon series

This is the Classics Rodimus- about 85% perfect

Not fond of his elbow joints- I'm picky- or his weapon

MP-28 is really the definitive version

His vehicle mode matches the animation model

face

and with drop down targeting goggles

     so, I mentioned I am mostly satisfied

     My Small gripe is this: he has a matrix chamber, but no matrix. The chamber is for the MP10 matrix, to play out the matrix passing scene

     And there is a coin

and there are more coins...

Living in De-Nile

     Sam and I went to see Gods of Egypt yesterday-

The movie is getting mixed reviews, but both Sam and  I liked it-

• it was a good, diverting Fantasy action film
• it had a set of rules, and stayed consistent to it's rules
• it had a set of myths which it stayed consistent to
• it had a consistent design
• it was a good example of the Hero's journey
• good effects, and just a lot of fun

     I found myself, at the moment of the Hero, Horus- when he is humbled from an arrogant fool into a man who cares -thinking "and now he is worthy to wield Mjolnir..." so closely did the scene echo the one in Thor

     So the Brass tacks- the story takes place in a pre-history Egypt, where the gods walk among men, and the world is a flat disc, with Egypt on one side and the world of the dead on the other- I could see it as a world before our world. A world where all the myths of the Egyptian Gods are reality rather than myth. the gods are not Immortal, just incredibly long lived. The gods are about twice the height of mortals, and gold runs through their veins. 

     I'm not going too spoilery on you. I think you would be pleasantly surprised with the film. I'm going to link the trailer here, and let you decide to see it or no.

One of my good friends

This YouTube channel is a labor of love from one of my good friends. a quick note to say

Check him out

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPI9fGFU1IDYhnsN6axXFEQ

A Worthy Cause

     I'm going to tell a little story about Sid, before I get to the point.


     Sid came to our house because his prior family faced a choice. They have a daughter with developmental issues, and the strain of what were in essence two eternal toddlers was too much- They asked me, I asked Sam, and Sam took Sid in. I know this other family from my job outside the blog, and I they knew I was "bird folk" so they gave him up rather than trying the craigslist shuffle. They wanted him to have a good, loving home more than they wanted to sell a cockatoo and cage for $1000.


     Fast forward three Christmases and a little more- My friend is trying to get a bike for her special needs daughter. And she asked me if I could spread the word. She asked me if I could become an ambassador for her daughter. I asked if that gave me diplomatic immunity, and apparently it does not, but I decided to assist anyway.

I want to help, and maybe you do too.

Right now, you are asking how. All it takes is your vote.

https://www.friendshipcircle.org/bikes/2016/02/stephanie-t/

Separated at Filming Part 3

     Watching the X-Men movies in order, post seeing-DeadPool, and I am struck by how similar they are to the Transformers movies

     Pause to let the shouting die away to offended silence.

     OK, so those of you still with me are here to hear me out. Good.

     The X-men franchise has such a wealth of characters to draw on that to use even a fraction, there has to be a parade of characters on screen that get 15 minutes -or less- of fame and are never seen again. Off-Screen, they vanish, or die. Full of sound and fury, etc.

     Through it all, Wolverine dances like a Bumblebee, to draw in the crowds, with a parade of mutant cameos at his back.

     The Transformers franchise is also filled with characters with colorful skills, personalities, and paint jobs. If Bay had tried to just do the first movie with the G1 Ark crew, he would have ended up with 19-20 robot characters, an unmanageable number for a two hour film.

     I'm going to theorize, also, from watching, this: I don't think when they made the first movie in each series, they had a definite plan for an overall story arc. The Stories hang together, but loosely. The evil masterminds, Magneto and Megatron, come up with huge, sweeping plans which make in some cases limited sense, and may contradict other designs. In X2, Magneto tries to have Xavier exterminate all the humans with mind bullets, which will seriously limit bio-diversity and eliminate many potential recessive mutations from the gene pool. I guess sometimes sacrifices must be made...

     And Megatron- well, the genius of David Willis illustrates this the best- in his DOTM Spoiler cartoon.

     One thing that is definitely different, is the Combiners in the Transformers franchise- not multiple robots forming one, but multiple characters combined to create a sort of amalgam character- Jazz in Transformers actually comes across a lot more like Blaster- Hound in Age of Extinction is a lot like a mix of Kup and Bulkhead- Etc. Each of the mutants in the X-Men franchise comes across as them self, but they do not get the opportunity to show us their character over a progression of time- we get mutant cameo with power and effects that is intended to give us the Full Mutie-all the powers and personality with none of the development.

for prior entries into my separated at filming series...here and here