April 2006 Archives

Botcon info is finally online!

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Well the meat of Botcon 2006 was announced and overall, this here geek can't complain.

I'll give Master Collector the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are going to try and take the constructive criticism of last year's event to heart.

The figure set will be 5 Beast Wars era figures in their "pre-beast" Cybertron modes. We know that the characters will be Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rhinox, Rattrap, Dinobot, and one undisclosed convention-attendee only one.

Of course, the fan boards are ripe with speculation about what these figures will be repaints/retools of.

No doubt Armada, Energon, and Cybertron will serve as the source for the molds for these figures. I think that's a given. Though truthfully, the info stating "Golden Disk Keys" could mean repainted Cyber Keys so that would limit these to Cyberton releases.

All I ask is that we get a little better than all those basics and the repaints on repaints of basics. That was just a little out of hand last year.

If Cybertron is what we have to choose from, then I'd have to say I agree with some of the fan speculation about what would work:

Optimus Primal (from Crumplezone)
Cheetor (from Nitro Convoy)
Rattrap (from Brakedown or Ransack)
Dinobot (???)
Rhinox (from Red Alert)

Now I don't care for the speculation about Dinobot from the retooled-for-Cyberton Longrack. Yeah, the original source of this figure, Armada Hoist, could be sorta-kinda Dinbot in the head but man, I'm sick of that hoe arm. Hell, this even came up recently in a previous post.

If basics are going to be heavily used, then I can see the Clocker mold coming into play too. I think Rhinox could be fine from Armorhide or even Energon Demolishor. There's a lot of Jungle Planet bots that need to be obviously excluded here so that does indeed limit the choices from Cybertron.

I can't say I'm excited about the Friday night "miniature and card" game thing since that to me personally is a major waste of time. I'm not a gamer and this kind of thing just is to be avoided on my part. Of course, there's always the bar to pass the time at.

All in all, I'm excited about these figures and the especially the fact that the con is only 3 hours away!!!

Cybertron Wing Saber

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Cybertron Wing Saber

Found Wing Saber along with Sky Shadow. Thankfully, Giga moved the boxes around and found him hiding in the back

Number in Collection: 1571

Cybertron Sky Shadow

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Cybertron Sky Shadow

A random visit to West Broad Target found me a Cybertron Sky Shadow, the undercover "Decepticon" repaint of Jetfire. Not a bad figure at all. Great paint job!

Number in Collection: 1570

Any day now.

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Alternator Mirage

Ok Alternator Mirage.

Would you please get your ass into the retail stores now! I'm sick of waiting.

So Spacewarp becomes Astrotrain

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TF Club AstrotrainSo as expected, the first "major" exclusive figure from the Transformers Collectors Club will essentially be the defunct TF Universe figure of Spacewarp, a repaint/retool of Armada Jetfire.

I had always planned on buying Spacewarp, so depending on the price I may pick up the figure as Astrotrain.

Apparently they are asking for suggestions on the figure.

My "likes realistic vehicles alt mode" side says dump the large decepticon logo, darken the colors a bit, and tone down the lighter colors a shade or two. (This is the same side of me that questions why G1 Laser Optimus has his name written on him, and why they thought it necessary to do the same to some of the Transmetal Beast figures. *shrug*)

Of course, that's pointless since this really isn't a realistic vehicle of anything and well, the homage to G1 Astrotrain is pointless since when they turned him into a Decepticon, they threw out the actual Space Shuttle color palette for the darker greys, purples, etc.

The other side says just leave the thing as-is and just include the retooled head, painted so it is consistent with the rest of the figure. Then it would at least be sorta-kinda like it was intended.

But I guess it really comes down to what the price will be. At retail, one can expect Spacewarp would have been about $25 or so. As a club exclusive? At this size a figure? I think we'll probably see at least a minimum $60 price tag with $80 more likely.

Hell. Based on the cost of the single Botcon-type exclusives $130+ could even be expected.

Would it be worth that much to me?

Nah.

Three Armada Jetfires in various packages and colors is enough for me.

04-25-06-op.jpg

Um. Ew.

I was sorta-kinda excited at Botcon 2005 when these were announced but now that images are finally hitting sites and the detail can be seen I have to say these are really pretty ugly.

Celebrate 10 years of Beast Wars by releasing new toys of the 2 leaders that may as well be different characters entirely.

The new 10th Anniversary Optimus Primal and Megratron are total duds in my book. Not buying these will be pretty healthy for me.

Megatron was a communist?

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Kelmeister sent me a link to Fark.com's Rejected Transformers photoshop contest.

On the whole this batch isn't very funny.

But I'd like to get my hands on a Breast Pump/Megaphone transformer even though it doesn't have a bot mode!

Alternator Rumble

The first decent image of Alternator Rumble popped up on of all places Wal-Mart's website.

Yup! He's most definitely the modern incarnation of Soundwave's favorite bot-mode cassette. I mean let's face it, Frenzy is practically a non-entity in the scheme of use.

G1 RumbleThey've kept the back-mounted weapons. He's got a variation of his pile drivers too but I can't say I like them since I'm a "hands man" for bots.

The cassette deco on his chest is fantastic too.

What's funny is the way his doors hang off his waist reminds me of Car Robots Prowl for some reason but that's no doubt pure coincident.

Of course. No doubt we'll get a bluish repaint called Frenzy.

Hasbro has obviously put the nail in the coffin of the old clash between toy and animation names where Rumble is blue in the cartoon but his toy is red and Frenzy is vice-versa.

Rumble is now definitely in the reddish palette!

Vector Prime redeco

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Cybertron Vector Prime redecoYou know I have nothing of real importance to talk about Transformers-wise when I bring up the recent news of a Cybertron Vector Prime redeco.

Surprisingly, the concept isn't bad.

Now if in execution the color works out like the photo then I think this will be one of the nicest redecos of a figure that has ever been done.

Personally, I think it'll take an entire new generation of designers to top the Black Convoy redeco paint scheme but this is pretty close in my book.

If we are stuck with repaints, which we always will be now due to economy of scale, we might as well get some good ones.

Omega!

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Evercrack!

Introducing the "Wonderful World of Evecrack!"

If only there were photos of the hundreds of figures he's owned over the decades!

Inquiring minds want to know.

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November 16, 2005 - Reissue G1 Sideswipe is in da haus!Any of you geeks know if the Hasbro G1 Reissue of Sidewipe, like I bought a while back, is the real version based on the Diaclone Lamorghini Countach versus the Lamborghini Diablo?

A commenter wanted to know.

I have never opened either my Hasbro or Takara one so I don't know.

Frowny? Jeremy? Evebird? Anybody?

Nothing of importance.

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War Within Optimus Prime

There's just nothing of interest to blog about in the world of plastic crack at the moment.

Other than the War Within Optimus Prime (above) that'll be coming out in the little die-cast metal size there's not much I can get excited about.

I shouldn't be buying anything. There's too much $ I need to spend on the house and stuff. And my gym membership renewal comes up in a few days too.

So much money goes out in April and May. I think this happened last year too.

What the fuck?!?!

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For only $450 I can own the Sword of Brave Maximus.

Or... I can buy that 20" Dell LCD I want.

Oh... decisions... decisions...

Iacon One

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Speaking of geek shows, I'm also thinking of maybe making an overnight trip to the Iacon One con over in Fort Wayne, Indianer on July 8. It is about 4 hours away and is right at my car driving/riding limit.

Could make a good overnight trip and only would cost $30 to get in to the show.

If G wanted to go then I might even be able to find somone to come over and feed and poop the Hoont too!

A plan. A man. Mr. Mujar!

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So I've got a room booked for G and I for Botcon 2006 at the Hyatt Regency at the end of September.

As of today, we'll be heading down Thursday morning or so. J. wants to do a trip/tour to a whiskey distillery and actually, depending on the cost, I'd be up for that.

Alas, I'll end up spending too much money this time. I don't have much in the way of figurs I'd like but between the extra hotel night and such this'll probably be costly. Hopefully they'll have a package that G can get that won't cost as much too.

*sigh*

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It is auctions like this that make me truly sad to be a toy collector.

In-fucking-sane!

At most, the toy is worth the $50US retail.

That's it.

A lame toy run video blog test.

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So the 1GB SD card and the shitty Mustek crappy camera don't like each other.

While out yesterday I bought a 256MB card and that seems to work. I decided to keep the damn thing and still use it more or less as a toy in lieu of a real camcorder for now.

And to see how utterly pointless my video blog test is, here's last night's Late Night Sawmill Road Toy Run and Shit and Things.

And damn do we sound like we are in high school!

We are so the lame!!!

Cybertoron Excellion and Override GTS

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Cybertron Excellion and Override GTS

Found all kinds of new crack today.

Numbers in Collection: 1568-1569

Cybertron Sunstorm and Checkpoint

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Cybertron Sunstorm and Checkpoint

Numbers in Collection: 1566-1567

Cybertron Ramjet and Scythe

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Cybertron Ramjet and Scythe

Numbers in Collection: 1564-1565

Cybertron Thrust and Anti-Blaze

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Cybertron Thrust and Anti-Blaze

Numbers in Collection: 1562-1563

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This page is an archive of entries from April 2006 listed from newest to oldest.

March 2006 is the previous archive.

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