September 2008 Archives

I'm just wondering...

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Do you think Elton John's "Rocket Man" is like Omega Supreme's favorite jam?

(Hey! I'm not even drunk or high and I think of this shit!)

So I'm having a problem with some parts of Splintered again and in trying to find plausible science to explain somethings I had this realization that deep down inside, one of my biggest bet peeves with Bayformers was a minor science quibble.

Now sure, the majority of science fiction quite often requires the audience to accept a few completely illogical "facts" for the sake of moving the story forward. Hell... for even telling the story to begin with!

I'd say the #1 thing we buy into usually is the whole faster-than-light space travel thing. Without it, there could be no Star Trek or a hundred other series.

But in trying to find even remotely plausible anthropological reasons for much of Cybertronian culture and "biology" to have evolved, I keep coming back to one of the things that annoyed the hell out of me as a kid... and even more so in Bayformers.

Yes. That thing is inherent space travel capabilities!

Back in G1, there were several Cybertronians that for sake of story simplicity could just "travel through interstellar space" like it was walking down the street.

I hated the fact that Skyfire and Starscream just happened to be flying around and then Skyfire crashed on Earth.

Hell... Starscream was shown flying in a vacuum on many other occasions. My worst favorite one has to be with Shockwave riding on his topside in the 2nd part of the Bruticus' revenge story.

There is absolutely no plausible way that I can see for Starscream, or any standard-sized Cybertronian to possess a biological adaptation for unaided movement in a vaccuum.

I'll give Omega Supreme, in rocket mode, the benefit of the doubt and say he can at least travel a few million miles in space at most and even that's pushing it. Fortress Maximus and many later bots, as portrayed in Headmasters and beyond, require a whole separate discussion.

As jets, the Seekers, Skyfire, the Aerialbots, and a host of others can theoretically only fly in an atmosphere because their transforming biological adaptations mimic jet turbine engines. Jet engines require an atmosphere to work. That is an engineering and physical fact.

A Cybertronian's reformatting to mimic another species or species' technology goes beyond mere mimicry. We have to assume that it also duplicates functionality as well or else the disguise is limited.

Now in Bayformers, the writers chose to go the route of having space travel apparently be an inherent property of Cybertronian life.

It is shown, at least with the Autobots, that they have their primary robot form, their mimic form, and then their spermy rock space protoform.

No. I didn't read any of those movie comics so I have no idea if IDW tried to explain the spermy mode at all.

I cannot for the life of me figure out the biological adaption that would have come into play allowing for the spermy spacefaring form much the same way I cannot see how G1 Starscream can remotely achieve any form of interstellar spaceflight.

Why do I bring this up?

Goddamn it! It is bugging the shit out of me not being able to even find a remotely scientific answer that can address the possibility of this adaptation!

I will not go the route of magic here! I just can't do it!

Grrrrr.... why does a silly poorly written 1980s children's toy commercial cause me so much pain!

I deserve my fair share!

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If all these investment companies and banks are getting bailed out by the US Government because of bad investment and purchasing choices then why the hell is nobody helping me because of all these stupid Transformers Movie toys I purchased!

That was a shitload of money wasted due to "bad" investment. Yeah. That's it!

Somebody! Bail me out!

Look Michael... a fjord!

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So right before I decided to call it a night I was flipping through channels and came across the new Knight Rider show.

I was an avid fan of the original show when I was 11 or so but trying to bring this show back seems a little far-fetched.

It amazes me that Hollywood just sort of regurgitates over and over again but I don't think that's ever going to stop.

In fact, while I can only say one "re-magining", namely Battlestar Galactica, has been a success, I suspect we'll see more remakes.

I could only watch this new show for about 3 minutes before I realized it would not hold my interest at all.

KITT now apparently transforms from one vehicle mode to another and is extremely boringly voiced by Val Kilmer. The car, from what little I watched, has zero personality and is all about gimmick transformations.

Sure. I didn't watch much but I can tell right off the bat that it wasn't for me. (But I'll start watching it if he transforms into a speed boat a la KnightBoat on a regular basis.)

I can't recall in the pilot if it transformed or not. Did anybody watch that?

I'm just wondering if the transformy nature was there before Transformers came out or not.

Will they pull KARR out of the mothballs and have Peter Cullen reprise the character? No doubt he'd be as static and CGIy as he was in the Transformers movie.

I think that this new Knight Rider, once the few people watching it for some nostalgia purposes leave, will go the way of that Bionic Woman remake last year.

Though I bet Giga will start Tivo'n it! :-)

The real plaything of Sutekh.

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If you've been lucky enough to watch the fairly fun Fourth Doctor episode Pyramids of Mars then you'll be familar with the the great antagonist Sutekh.

I'd love to see the Osirans make a repeat appearance in new Who... even Sutekh!

But Sutekh actually had quite a life before and after Doctor Who.

I loves the 2nd Doctor!

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Any way I can find him!

87985ad33e9_B400.jpg

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DeceptiBotPoopyPants (on message board): So, when is a special edition a special edition?

AutoConBasementLivr (reply): When it is this shit?

DeceptiBotPoopyPants: Word!

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Sometimes I really love Hasbro! I love 'em as much as I love Obama and McCain!

So we'll take a horribly shitty figure that was part of a 2-pack for $20, put it out again as a "special edition"., but now we'll charge you $15 for 1 shitty figure instead of $20 for 2. (And we'll do this same to this shitty Megatron from the 2-pack, but at least we'll paint him like that Movie Wreckage figure.)

Oy koledy!

Hah!

While I find this all immensely funny-ha-ha I gotta say, thank f'n god Hasbro finally got around to borrowing an idea from Takara! The packaging for these at least separates these "special editions" from the regular lines.

I've always been a fan of when Takara/e-Hobby did the one-color boxes to signify something was a low run exclusive or somesuch. It saves a little bit of money but it really separates the thing from the rest!

Now Evebird also sent me the link to the Classics Mirage repaint as Drag Strip for these releases. Yeah. I'll be a loser and buy that. Lord knows I need yet another repaint of the Mirage mold!

But happy funtime yellow?

Oh yeah baby! Me make love to you long time!

So yeah...

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I had forgotten I'd snagged some figures for super cheap at the Toy Show last week. That little wind storm thing kind took my mind off them.

I guess the fact I was putzing around with Skid-Z the other day made me realize I had so many variations of the mold... but the original! Can't go wrong for $2.50/each either.

The various G2 and reissue Cyberjets were all like $1.30 or something each too and I don't think I ever had any originals of those. Just many many many repaint versions.

One great thing I found, rather randomly I might add, is a Dapol Cyberman action figure from the 80s.

Dapol Cyberman (1980s)

I didn't even know they made any figures back then.

I also snagged one of those reissue B.A.T.figures off a guy but it appears Hoop found some finally. Anybody want a B.A.T. I paid way too much for?

TF Universe Air Raid

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TF Universe Air Raid

TF Universe Air Raid is the 2117th Transformer that I've acquired.

G2 Strafe

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G2 Strafe

G2 Strafe is the 2116th Transformer that I've acquired.

G2 Jetfire

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G2 Jetfire

G2 Jetfire is the 2115th Transformer that I've acquired.

G2 Air Raid

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G2 Air Raid

G2 Air Raid is the 2114th Transformer that I've acquired.

Machine Wars Mirage

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Machine Wars Mirage

Like MW Prowl, I love his colors.

Machine Wars Mirage is the 2113th Transformer that I've acquired.

Machine Wars Prowl

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Machine Wars Prowl

He's beautiful in his simple white color palette.

Machine Wars Prowl is the 2112th Transformer that I've acquired.

Make sweet sweet gay robot love to me.

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18__scaled_600.jpg

Oh Inferno... make sweet sweet gay robot love to me.

Damn.

I know he won't look that good in the plastic flesh.

*sigh*

They never do.

Well... except him.

And of course, I'm his bitch.

See this?

This is me typing on my desktop in The Crack Den!

And now... I go to perform that magic task called laundry.

Maybe... just maybe...

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And then the email said...

Giga: i called the house and the answering machine picked up! hopefully it will last!
Maybe... just maybe...

Sto Lat Pan Hoont!

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The majestic splendor that is The Hoont

On this day, 10 years ago, The Internet's Most Beloved Dachshund™ was born.

Or so the paperwork says.

The earliest picture of The Hoont when he was a Hoontling!

I still remember when I first met the small Hoontling. There was a bond between us the moment I picked him up.

He's not so much black and tan now as black and grey.

But he hasn't slowed down one bit.

Onwards we go deep into the bowels of Day 5 without electricity.

I'm still one of 112,028 lucky people! Let's toast our misfortune shall we.

Indeed. I've done the most drinking I've done since Botcon. Lack of electricity and the accompanying lack of modern distractions it brings ('puter, tellie, etc.) seems to have brought the drinker in me.

I mean... there's nothing else to do in the evenings!

I can't even use the excuse of getting up to go to the gym right now to stay clean!

Last night we played it low key with a dinner at Bob Evans and then in bed immediately after.

The people at Bob Evans look a little insane and frazzled. They are heavily overstaffed right now. They were one of the few places that has had power pretty much all week and I've never seen it so packed at 8pm. Ever!

In other Cowtown news, today was the first day I actually had to wear a jacket to work.

Yup! Autumn is officially here in the Cowlands.

Came home from work and still no power.

I was really kinda hoping it would be back on. So much for hoping.

I'm here at the library stealing their wireless internets.

Place is pretty packed again. Of course, that's to be expected with the Clintonhood being mostly down still.

My back, which has been feeling really decent lately, has started to hurt again. I'd imagine the funky way I've been walking with my bad knee is contributing to it.

I've had such a 180 from where I was last year on this day.

Hurricane Ike Aftermath: Day 4

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Today begins day 4 without power.

Was talking with the Cowtown Power guys in line at the White Castle this morning.

Learned a lot about why some people have power and others don't.

Most people can get Cowtown Power but just keep AEP as their service. The ones with power on are likely Cowtown Power customers.

Since they have far fewer customers, they can actually service and repair them much faster than AEP can even remotely begin to deal with their massive customer base.

Hence, those with Cowtown Power are lucky and can once again shit with a light on, look at pr0n on the internets, and do laundry.

Of course... I have AEP.

Things started getting bad as we drove from Vet's Memorial back to the house.

Giga noticed that the Broad street bridge felt like it was swaying in the wind.

The Deluxe Luxury Pick-Up had a U-Haul trailer attached with all the toys and we were getting pounded by the increasing winds.

The power was still on while were were heading home.

Columbus Toy Show Aftermath

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So it is now day 3 without any power at the old House of Love IV but work is back online so here I am.

Setup went really fast on Saturday evening. They opened earlier this time so that helped a lot.

They also opened to the public earlier on Sunday and that meant we needed to be at the show at least an hour earlier.

I rummaged around the basement for 30 minutes looking for other boxed and easily purgeable items and grabbed a few things.

Toy Show

We were a table or so off from the prime spot we had last show. There's just something about people walking down the one aisle and your tables being at the dead end of it that worked so well.

But we seemed to have a lot more space in the back to walk this time which was nice.

I had most of my stuff on the shelves and Giga took most of the tables and under table space.

Toy Show: B! My best customer.

Within seconds of opening for the early-bird attendees I was immediately accosted by Kid B.! Kid B's my hands down best customer for crack and I happily work within his budget, discounting things way beyond what I'd do for an adult collector.

He grabbed me and wanted to know where my stuff was so I headed back to the tables.

Within 30 secods he had purchased Energon Unicron and was insanely happy!

Now I've mentioned it on posts about previous shows and I'll say it again: making the kids happy far outweighs any other reason to do this. Honestly! It really is fun when a kid gets excited about a silly old toy!

Kid B's currently in the early stages of Articulated Reconfigurable Paperweightophilia and unfortunately, that puts me in the role of "drug dealer" at this show. I call this thing of ours plastic crack for a reason don't I?

I can't remember everything he ended up buying but it was mostly Energon stuff and Minicons. He left happy!

Toy Show: My favorite part of the day.

Giga finally got this Tweet from Skippy and that had to be the funniest thing I've read in a while.

Yes. Adult toy collects exist to be mocked. Such is our fate in life.

However, adult toy collectors who take themselves way too seriously exist to be mocked twice as hard.

Toy Show

Toy Show

The cosplay people were out. I guess you can call them cosplay. If you dress up in anything I guess you'd be cosplaying.

The Predator and Star Wars trooper outfits are pretty well done. RamenJunkie commented that the above trooper guy is this guy. His blog content pretty much confirmed it! I think his wife is the stroller-wielding Jedi.


Toy Show" Jason

Jason was doing his thing too.

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Eventually I ended up walking around a lot since Kid B. and one other guy were the only ones really interested in my TFs. (It just isn't really a TF show at all.)

I walked around quite a bit with Kid B's uncle D.

Toy Show: I love the intestines accessory.

Tauntaun intestines are the greatest Star Wars accessory ever!

A Bea Arthur figure from the Star Wars Holiday Special would be the only thing that could beat it! Srsly!

Toy Show: Who stuff.

Lots of new Who stuff out too. The Sarah Jane line is also appearing.

But honestly, why would a kid buy the faceless old woman figure from the episode "The Idiot's Lantern"?

I don't get that one.

(Now if she had intestines...)

Toy Show: Rather worn Micronauts

The only Micronauts to be found were some very worn figures.

My rule with Micronauts is that I'll drop down major dollars but it has to be in good shape, complete, and at least have the box/card.

Honestly. For every 1 Micronaut I find I come across 5 MIB G1 Jetfires! That's how rare this shit is!

Toy Show

One thing that sucks about Transformers but totally rocks about the 3 1/4 action figures is how easy it is to display the action figures.

You can put up a lot of stuff in a small amount of space whereas Transformers, even in a bin, take up way too much.

Toy Show

I love coming across 70s stuff that I remember on toy shelves. Yes. I'm a billion f'n years old!

I loved me some Colorforms and had a Superfriends set and a few others.

I didn't see any Shrinky Dinks around. I don't think they make those anymore.

Toy Show

I was suprised to see the very rare Lucky Draw Nucleon Fire Annette Funicello figure for sale.

Toy Show: Poor Cliffjumper. Alone amongst Star Wars crap.

This poor lonely Cliffjumper was surrounded by Star Wars crap.

(I constantly had to remind JackOfAllGeeks that Star Wars was crap and that Transformers could totally kick the ass of Star Wars! Yelling that out around Star Wars fans if always fun.)

Toy Show

The one gaming dealer had all kinds of kickass handhelds from the 70s and 80s.

I still have a few of these around somewhere in a box.

All in all, I ended up selling from the purge collection:

  • Energon Unicron
  • Energon Insecticon
  • The full set of Cybertron 2-pack Minicons
  • Some other Energon Basic that Kid B. got.
  • Binaltech Zoom-Zoom (Red Meister)

And that was it.

The fun really started though when we started packing up around 3.

I didn't believe it when Giga and MrsJackOfAllGeeks said that it was getting windy and 4-5 bins flew off the cart into the parking lot.

And thus....another Columbus Toy Show ended. Not much of a bang but a whimper.

Toy Show: Alas, the unwanted.

But the fun was yet to come!

Oh yes! The Massively Insane Cowlands Windstorm of September 2008 was only just starting!

Columbus Toy Show

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Since I had some battery left in the laptop, I managed to get the photos off the camera.

I don't know how much longer I can stand being here in the library so you'll have to look at the toy show photos at my Flicker gallery.

They pretty much look like every other toy show we've done.

Not much new happens there.

Blogging from a library.

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Cowtown is a mess.

While we were packing up from the Toy Show on Sunday Hurricane Ike's outter rim decided to hit a cold front from the north right over the Cowlands and f'd Columbus us big time.

As of last night, there were around 300,000+ homes without power. Mine is one of them.

We have now been without power for 48 hours or so.

It isn't fun at all.

Apparently, some parts of town are on city power and not AEP. The library is one of them and not only has power but also wireless.

I've been off work for 2 days since they are without power too.

The storm was a wind storm. No rain. No hail. Just wind upwards to 70 miles an hour.

There are trees down everywhere and damage to houses, cars, etc.

Columbus Toy Show - Saturday Night Setup

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So they started letting dealers setup earlier this year and we got everything done fairly quickly.

Columbus Toy Show - A different setup this year.

We have a long straight setup this time. A lot different than last time but there's no comic this time.

Columbus Toy Show - Some of my crack.

I brought what didn't sell last time and I raided some boxed things in the basement that I know I can live without.

I'll do another pass tonight.

The loose stuff will just take so much organizing and bagging so that'll stay binned for now.

IMG_0958Columbus Toy Show - Setup

We're setup with Mrs. and JackOfAllGeeks again.

I love doing the toy shows with them.

So hopefully, I'll find some Micronauts tomorrow. I'll try and get photos of funky rare shit too.

Columbus Toy Show

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So tomorrow's the Autumn Columbus Toy Show and once again Giga's got tables.

I'm taking the left over TFs from last year and have randomly packed a bunch of boxed shit from the basement that I can part with.

I haven't had time to sort or do anything with the toys for over a year.

But... while sorting through a bag... I discovered something I didn't know I had.

Wow! All kinds of things you find while cleaning.

Now that's a surprise!

McGann? Please say this is true.

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So we have this?

And then this?

C'mon. Give McGann his due.

Every generation of Who has to get a "multiple Doctor" story. And our generation deserves to see the 8th Doctor finally on television.

So yeah.

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Kind of amazed how awesome the Breakaway and Fracture repaints turned out to be.

Damn fantastic!

You can see I opted for the Hasbro Silverbolt too. After getting him, I can safely say that an extra $25 is not worth the G1 paint job!

Blitzwing really is the shocker though. Others may like him but I wish I'd never bought him.

He's loose as shit and quite frankly he's just an ugly robot.

And what's up with the continued craptastic quality control?

Fracture's paint job... and even Breakaway's is kind of crappy. For me there's enough good in the figure to outweigh the bad. And they also were cheaper.

But Silverbolt?

Poor quality control on Silverbolt

His waist is totally f'd up!

I've definitely seen this more and more. I think I'll start tagging the figures that have problems so I can look... over the course of the ones I buy from a given line... to see if patterns arise.

China is not going to become our Overlords with this kind of shoddy toy painting!

TF Animated Lockdown

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TF Animated Lockdown

I never had the intention of buying him but he was $7.77 so I said what the hell... he's in the show... and that's all I'm collecting for animated anyway. Don't know if I'll put him on a shelf though.

He does nothing for me.

TF Animated Lockdown is the 2111th Transformer that I've acquired.

TF Animated Blitzwing

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TF Animated Blitzwing

Holy shit is he totally underwhelming.

He also gets the award for "Loosest Toy Robot Ever To Have Come Out Of A Box". He's worse than 6" Titanium G2 Megatron!

He's definitely a toy I could have left in the store.

TF Animated Blitzwing is the 2110th Transformer that I've acquired.

TF Universe Breakaway

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TF Universe Breakaway

Why didn't I know this repaint was coming out?

Was that the day I was shooting up heroin out in the garage or something?

Damn! Breakaway is fah-ine!

He's so damn pretty ya just want to scream and go tell your mama!

TF Universe Breakaway is the 2109th Transformer that I've acquired.

TF Universe Crankcase

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TF Universe Crankcase

I could have taken or left him. Giga really liked him though.

TF Universe Crankcase is the 2108th Transformer that I've acquired.

TF Universe Silverbolt

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TF Universe Silverbolt

Since I've had a lot of money going out of geek and camera stuff lately I decided to skip the Henkei version and just go with the Hasbro one.

He'll do.

Not much to him really.

Kind of just have to flip and separate and there ya go... an Aerialbot!

He's ok.

I expected more.

TF Universe Silverbolt is the 2107th Transformer that I've acquired.

TF Universe Fracture

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TF Universe Fracture

One word: FANTASTIC!

Now her plastic feels a little cheaper than either Classics Mirage or Botcon Mirage but it doesn't matter.

And of course, her paint job is kinda shitty and is what I've come to expect from Hasbro these days.

But man oh man... she's totally beautiful.

Go buy her.

NOW!

TF Universe Fracture is the 2106th Transformer that I've acquired.

I'm putting her, and the other 3 Wal-Mart exclusives, under Universe 2.0. They sure don't fit in the movie line where Hasbro seems to have dumped them. My database will survive.

Why oh f'n why?!?!?

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Can someone explain to me why a company (Amazon) would offer overnight shipping (at an obvious higher rate) to then ship a package that will be delivered between 10am and 2pm (the time during which most Americans are AT FUCKING WORK) and then make it signature required so the package can't be left at the door!

WHAT THE FUCK!!!

Now I'm out the goddamn extra money I spent to have it today and I'll likely have to drive about 15 miles to the fucking UPS hub outside the city during Friday rush hour traffic!

THIS IS NOT FUCKING CONVENIENCE!

[UPDATE: And now I find the bit about the signature on the confirmation from Amazon that the package shipped!!! ARGHHHHHHHH!!!! I wouldn't have spent the damn money!!!]

[UPDATE 2: Geez. How nice. I can now drive all the way across FUCKING town after 7:30pm to pick up my package. Oh this is so convenient! This is not making my migraine any better!]

What the hell am I doing? Ugh!

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So I registered some new domains for my blog split.

homeworldbound.com will be the new Micronauts site.

underjamieskilt.com will be my new Doctor Who blog.

papercrack.com will be my comic book blog.

And finally, ohmygodifuckinghateblogging.com will be the aggregator.

I thought about continuing the *fill in the blank* crack theme but decided against it since I don't consider Who and my Micronaut geekage with the same drug addiction metaphor as the others.

Then again, I could have went with nalalovesthecrack.com as the aggregator too.

And I need to find a kilt and con Giga into putting it on and posing for creepy and eerie dirty Jamie McCrimmon photos to use as the theme for the Who site.

I had thought about Zoe Herriot's Catsuit as the name but opted against it.

Well the results are in from the MRI.

While the problem will remain chronic, the cartilage is not free floating and doesn't really warranty surgical intervention at this time.

And since the swelling has been going down the past 3 days... and the pain is disappearing... I'd be better off waiting to see how things progress over the next few weeks.

I'll stay clear of the gym for another week and any major activity that could impact the joint and hopefully it'll reset to where it was before.

If it the swelling and pain begins to occur more often, then surgery will be an option.

One thing that was unexpected from the MRI, and something that I think I may have just thought was the on-again off-again pain is that I have a heal scar on my ACL.

Apparently, sometime in the past 10 years or so, I had an ACL injury and probably should have had it repaired. I either confused the pain with the chronic problem or it never caused me severe enough pain to think something else had happened.

The scar may actually cause problems and also be a contributor to the recent trauma, but there is no way to say for certain.

So.

I'm going to wait and see how it goes.

It sorta looks like me... superdeformed.

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Wow! That sure made me depressed.

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So I've been working on the structure for the new blog and what I want to do in the coming months.

I'm going to do an experiment and split up my content and then aggregate it on 1 main index page.

The future of Plasticcrack.com?

There will always be Plastic Crack and it will now be a totally Transformers-centric blog for my collection and high quality internet-approved and Republican-vetted opinions.

I'm going to resurrect "Paper Crack - A Comics Blog" since that was always intended for a completely different audience. Though now that the boxes upon boxes have been sold off, it'll just be off and on about new crap. I'm going to ask Giga, JayKNotRowling, and MisterTerrific to submit some comic content too.

There will be "Under Jamie's Kilt - A Doctor Who Blog" where I'll do my Doctor Who stuff.

And then finally "Homeworld Bound - They Came From Another Directory On This Server" where I'll blog about Micronauts, get around to reviewing and documenting each issue of the Marvel comic, and focus my hunting down ancient Micronaut toys.

I may do a "When Is Getter Robo Not Getter Robo?" someday too if I start actively going after Shogun Warrioes.

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I was looking through my Flickr galleries for comic stuff and a massive wave of depression hit me.

I should never have sold some of that.

I can't believe I forgot to remove my ROMs, my Infinity, Inc., and most certainly my All-Star Squadrons.

In the mood to be free of the boxes I just wanted it all gone and wasn't really thinking at all.

Movable Type... crush!

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So everything, other than design, should be back to some semblance of normality. Only took another 3 hours to rebuild the entire archives this morning after deleting everything and starting from scratch. Randomly poking around throughout the years gives me some confidence that everything built right. I still need to find the rest of 2004 and 2003 and get those imported. I hope those text archives aren't on my old Mac. That'd suck.

For the time being, I've decided to stick with MovableType for all my blogs and explore Wordpress on one of my less read venues. Still want to make serious changes to the way the content is presented here though. Not as drastic as my split of plasticcrack off from the other site but there has to be an easy... and I stress easy... way to separate the 4 main areas I want to break up here yet have them aggregate from one main page.

Oh. Got a doctor's appointment today. I'll find out if surgery is in the cards or something more conservative for the knee. All I ask is that I can walk around San Francisco for a week in October. That trip's paid for dammit!

Went a little batshit crazy on Amazon today too. Gots some Who on DVD coming that I already own on poor VHS or have seen before. But my goal to get every Hartnell and Troughton appearance as the Doctor on DVD is still there. Plus, I'm hoping that the restoration they did on the DVD version of Tomb of the Cybermen improves over the VHS release.

Bought a quality Canon macro lense for my XSi too. That's where most of the cash went.

I'm done with lenses now. I've got a telephoto, a macro, and a standard walk-around lens. I'd like to get a wide-angle but it can wait.

[Grrr! Tomb was released prior to the BBC's going with the VidFIRE restoration process. Oh well. I'd still rather have it on DVD. Klieg demands it!]

I so love watching the robogeek masses go all crazy speculating about rumors of "this" or "that" in the next Bayfest. Most recently here with news that Devestator is confirmed for Bayfest 2: Blurry CGI Boogaloo.

Didn't Bay say he loved spreading misinformation out there because it gets the fan boys' panties all in a knot?

I've heard people say that recent super irrelevant minor Dreamwave character The Fallen is the main bad guy because the title is "Revenge of the Fallen". Um. No. I don't think that'd happen. Funny. But no.

Then again, I think it is just fun to occasionally watch one robogeek's comment or post get people all worked up.

I mean, I know for a fact from my friends at ILM that they've been asked to create a CGI Jesus to put in the movie as Primus' human form and you don't see me bragging about all this info.

Or the fact Shia LeBeuf (or whatever his name is) has a cast on his wrist because he's got a full blown porno jack-off problem in this film as his mother so graciously alluded to in the first film.

I don't share those tidbits with anyone.

The only things that I could say are likely are based off the various leaked photos.

Paramount is not going to waste their initial investment in the Autobot's earth modes so those are the same (so far) for those characters. And obviously, there's a few new vehicle-based characters too.

What I find funny though is how Hasbro might deal with that toy-wise. If the main characters don't get new forms, they can't just re-release the same toys. They already did so many repaints in the first movie line from the same molds!

I'm interested in seeing how they work out the logistics of the business end of shooting this sequel and having to deal with the studio likely calling more of the shots that would affect the toy business.

Then again, I hated that first film so why am I bother even wasting this post on the second one's rumors?

I think I'm going to indeed migrate to WordPress and suck-it-up and go with a new permalink architecture.

I'll leave the old MT archives active for 5 months or so. Maybe I can learn a few htaccess regular expression tricks to make those automatically redirect to the new archives. Who knows.

Suffice to say, a lot of internal entry-to-entry links will end up broken. But what can ya do? It isn't like this is a corporate site.

In other news, Giga and I have the next Cowtown Toy Show this Sunday.

I'll be spending Saturday going through boxes in the basement to see if there's anything easily prepped to put out... and that pretty much amounts to items that have never been opened.

If I can get rid of a few bins it'd be great.

However, that is most unlikely since these toy shows are so un-Transformers friendly.

So I was catching up with Michael Holt's predecessor's blog and I gotta say that the custom Stunticons he posted the eBay link to is something to behold.

I'm not much into following the customizers other than creaming every now and then over something Jin Saotome has produced but FrenzyRumble's stuff is really nice.

His Devestator is wonderful and I'd love to have a Sunstorm for Classics like he did. (Hmm... would that be an Unclassics Sunstorm?)

I'm still pissed I didn't try to go after one of Jin's Shockwave customs.

I cry inside even more over this.

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Not that any of you really care, but when I was looking up Micronaut links I was shocked that there's a ton more shit on the net now then there was just a year ago.

And the one thing I found that shocked me was the fact that Marvel actually was going to try and relaunch the comic in the 90s with writer Shon C Bury.

This interview makes me both extremely happy and also extremely angry because it never came to pass.

Man. So much amazing art too. Minor redesigns but that's ok... it was still going to be Micronauts and not that thing that

And I'd poop my pants if I ever could get a commission out of Michael Golden like this!

And that Rags Morales drawing of Bug is mighty fanballstastic!

The Micronauts - Force Commander

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Force Commander

Ah. Force Commander.

Much like Baron Karza, his toy is pretty mediocre but oh, what a great tragic character Prince Argon was, as depicted in The Micronauts comic.

Thankfully, this toy is complete even including the styrofoam insert.

And he's white. He hasn't yellowed much which is a major plus.

The Micronauts - Baron Karza

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Baron Karza

The Baron is missing his back rockets, but that's ok for me.

It has been 30 years since the NalaMatka threw away my Baron Karza, along with with all my other Micronauts.

A day that I have never ever forgotten.

Ever.

To some degree... that trauma is probably why I buy whatever the hell I want to whenever I want to now as an adult. (Though of course, because of the wonders of the internets, you all can share in my adult pointless toy spending guilt trips!)

Fusion Cluster Protoform Starscream

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Fusion Cluster Protoform Starscream

Yeah. I finally opened the old $80 bugger today.

I won't lie. Out of all of the movie figures... this damn protoform figures have actually proven to be the ones I like best of all... with the black Incinerator thrown in there too.

He's just not... Starscream.

May not be as fun as I thought...

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So moving to WordPress, while fairly simple on the back end, will be a major pain in the ass for a blog such as ye olde Plasticcrack.com and or .net.

I've used Movable Type since version 1 way back...I think... in 1999 or so. Maybe it was 2000.

Anyway, Plasticcrack split out of my personal blog and so kept what I suppose you could say is "baggage" from the architecture choices I made back a billion years ago... namely in how my archives are named and organized.

Google has always been a friend to the 'crack and loved the structure and no doubt that's how many of you readers ended up here over the years.

Well... there's a lot of investment in those archive files since those are the pages that are hit the most according to my logs.

Of course, WordPress out-of-the-box cannot duplicate my structure without some major tweaking, pluginage, and it looks like sql query tweaking or some shit.

What to do...

Perhaps I should just commit to WordPress' methodology and rebuild the archives from scratch with the new naming and hope that Google reindexes everything quickly. I could always keep the old archives up too... though there may be conflict.

Giga mentioned that a lot of may previous/next links have been broken since I moved to MT 4 way back when. I never noticed since I rarely go into my past here except to occasionally comment on Sunshyne's commenting on ancient posts.

So many decisions to make.

What would Jesus do?

RID Skid-Z

I've always been a fan of little Robots In Disguise Skid-Z, even with the lame Hasbroey name to keep it like Skids.

He's a repaint of Machine Wars Mirage that Takara redid and included in Car Robots as Indy Heat. He even made it into the Car Robots anime with a whole episode devoted to him.

Nala's Top 11 Transformer Toys

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As I was setting up the shelves I was thinking about what was still packed away and should likely be displayed.

I started thinking about what toys (not necessarily characters) have become my favorites and must be displayed on the shelves no matter what I decide to display.

So...

11. Sam's Club Universe Optimus Prime

Robots In Disguise Optimus Prime (Sam's Club Exclusive)

This mold appears twice on the list and I think with good reason.

Sure he's kibbly and almost G1 in the parts department but when I was a kid, I was fascinated with a picture book I had that showed yellow firetrucks. We only had traditional red ones in Glass City.

The Yellow + Fire Convoy = one of my faves.

Plus... I snagged this open one from the great Zeta Convoy back in 2006 and I will be forever grateful.

10. Robot Masters Star Saber and Victory Leo

(Robot Masters) Star Saber and Victory Leo

Far more fun than the originals in terms of posing and anime appearance.

9. Botcon 2005 Ratchet

Botcon 2005 Ratchet

The first (and in my opinion only) Ratchet figure that somewhat captures Ratchet the character.

8. Takara G1 Victory Leo

Victory Leo

The only real legit G1 figure on the list (discounting the 2 PVCs and Micromaster reissues). I love him more than Star Saber even though he's a total brick.

7. Takara Micromasters "Berserker" Six-Wing (White Chase version)

Takara Micromasters "Berserker" Six-Wing (White Chase version)

There's something about this chase set that works for me. Yeah, the Japanese Micromaster gestalts are pretty simple and all, but the cohesive white and silver is really fantastic here.

6. Classics Ultra Magnus

Classics Ultra Magnus

I love him more than I love Optimus... that much is certain.

I've got the armor/trailer on order for him too.

5. Hasbro God Ginrai PVC

Hasbro Super God Ginrai PVC

Yes. I refuse to call him Powermaster Optimus Prime with Apex Armor. He's so not that!

Quite frankly, he's the only anime accurate toy (of some kind) of God Ginrai period. The actual mainline figures are just bricks.

Wow! Imagine if Hasbro/TakTomy redesigned him as a Classics/Henkei Leader class figure!

Let's face it... Galaxy Force Convoy owes a lot to him appearance-wise but he's just not the same.

Demand a God Ginrai Henkei figure at your local toy store today!

4. Takara Rodimus Prime with Matrix (Lava Chase) PVC

Takara Rodimus Prime with Matrix (Lava Chase)

Perhaps my favoritest PVC.

You wouldn't believe the number of requests I've gotten to buy it off me!

3. Robots In Disguise Wedge

Robots In Disguise Wedge - closeup

Wedge is love.

He's phenomenal in alt mode. He's also beautiful in bot mode and poseable as all hell. And he's got a simple and effective color scheme.

2. Botcon 2006 Unit 2 (Tigatron)

Botcon 2006 Attendee Exclusive Unit 2 (Tigatron)

Yes. A retool and repaint of Cybertron Clocker comes in #2.

He hits every Nala-specific love.


  • Simple color scheme with predominantly 2 colors + a detail color!

  • A little translucent love there on his wheels!

  • He totally evokes his previous form too which really gets bonus points in my lovefest for him.

1. Lucky Draw Blackfire Convoy


Lucky Draw Black Super Fire Convoy

Well duh! The holiest of holy grails will likely always be my #1 Transformers toy.

He's simply perfection in my eyes.

Indirectly, the Fire Convoy mold will always have a special place in my heart since it was with the reuse in Robots In Disguise that got me back into this sick and disgusting habit.

Munny Shockwave

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Munny Shockwave

Munny Shockwave
Munny Shockwave

The point-and-shoot just captures crisper details.

No matter if I take shots with the XSi on auto-focus or manual focus... the A620 is just nicer.. especially close in.

A cheap generic macro lense will run me around $200. I wonder if it would make much difference though.

Botcon Darksyde Waspinator

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Botcon Darksyde Waspinator

Botcon Darksyde Waspinator

Botcon Darksyde Waspinator
When it comes down to it, my $350 Canon Powershot A620 does indeed take better plastic robot pictures than the $800 Canon Rebel EOS XSi.

I really thought there's be a general quality improvement between cameras but quite frankly, the prosumer camera, with the an incredible range of options and better lenses, really doesn't seem to offer me much more.

To be... but to be what?

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So I've been giving some thought to the future of my blogging activities.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know you've read my meandering rants about such things before.

However, with the considerations I'm giving to an architecture change, the inventiable being laid up from doing manual house remodeling for a few weeks, and my general love-hate relationship with toy collecting, I was thinking of perhaps rebuilding the site with a slightly different focus.

My blog and documentation for personal reasons will still be my core, but I'm thinking of opening up different areas of the site as features that would be written by guests. Or some such shit.

I don't know what I want to do really.

It'd allow the non-bloggers to be able to have a weekly place to post some shit and highlight other areas of plastic crackdom that I'm not really a part of such as Evebird's Transformers cel collecting, or what have you.

I want to do something more... not really for myself... but for some of the long term visitors who I've enjoyed conversing with over the past 6 or so years.

So I've wasted the day away exploring moving all my blogs to WordPress in the hopes it would solve some of my hosting server issues.

Yeah. I don't know if any reader/commenter sees them here but I seem to have constant time outs on the server end, 500 errors, and a shitload of other issues with MovableType.

I don't have the time, nor do I have the inclination, to learn the insides of these web apps. The days of me doing that are long since dead.

I just want shit to work simply and effectively without me having to waste time making it work.

It looks like some of my very old, very post/comment-heavy blogs may not easily be imported into WordPress either based on what I've been reading.

Since large imports seem to kill the server processes, that means once again I'll have to waste all kinds of time.

While I personally could restart some of my blogs from a zero state, I really would rather not lose the years of count/tracking info for my crack here. The more or less bullshitting posts I could sacrifice easily.

Of course, I'm always 10 seconds from stopping my time wasting blog activities anyway.

I'm crying inside.

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Um...

Animated Shockwave just may be one of those figures I won't buy.

He's just so... so...

Totally ugly.

:-(

I'm crying inside.

He's worse than a frigg'n movie figure.

*sob*

When I see it... I think of a cow.

And I don't want Shockwave to remind me of a cow.

So totally moo.

Tokyo Toy Fair Henkei Crystal Convoy

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2008 Tokyo Toy Fair Henkei Crystal Convoy

Yes. I dropped the money down on him.

He won't be coming out of the packaging for a while... though he beckons me to open him.

2008 Tokyo Toy Fair Henkei Crystal Convoy is the 2105th Transformer that I've acquired.

Binaltech Arcee

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Binaltech Arcee

You know. This color combo and vehicle works as Arcee.

Binaltech Arcee is the 2104th Transformer that I've acquired.

Binaltech Arcee... this car/color combo works.

And I gots the big ass gun now!!!

The horror. The horror.

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I'm neither a supporter of Barack Obama or John McCain.

But this...

This is horribly horribly wrong!

Hurt? I has it.

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Let's just say 2008 hasn't been all that great to me.

I spent most of the year in horrible back pain and the depression that it had cast me into and now...

*drumroll*

The official return of my old friend osteochondritis dessicans. Good old O.D.! I loves you so!

Hurt? I have it!

Yay!

You can plainly see the oh so exciting shadowy lesion on the distal end of my right femur where the cartilage, itself invisible in an x-ray, has separated from the bone.

I'll be having an MRI next week and I just have a gut feeling, based on the recent pain, that there will be surgery again in my near future.

This'll be the 4th surgery for the same thing.

1982, 1984, 1988, and now 2008.

I wish I could go kill a moose or something.

That would probably make me feel better.

How I've been spending my evenings.

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How I've been spending my evenings.

While somewhat repetitive, since pretty much everything that can be written about Who has been written about Who, this is an enjoyable pre-sleep read.

I no can haz robuts.

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I no can haz robuts. Sigamature needed.  :-(

I no can haz robuts.

Sigamature needed. :-(

Nala: Wicked Warden of the Plastic Robots

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I went a little batshit crazy at TFSource.com yesterday. I won't ruin the surprise but I bought a little of the old crack to go with my new theme that I think I mentioned a few months back.

Unfortunately, most of my shit is on preorder so you'll have to suck it up and wait for the boxes to arrive just like me and The Hoont.

Not that any of this is good for my wallet.

I wish I could got one of those damn Alternator Aveos!

Are there other alternatives?

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So I saw this over at Hoop's blog the other day and it pretty much is the end of eBay for most collectibles.

The loss of eBay as a auction house has been happening for the past few years as they made it plainly clear by their changes they want online stores with fixed priced shit. And now, regardless of the convenience, being forced to use Paypal and keep dumping even more fees to eBay is just not going to be happening here at Plasticcrack.com.

Maybe I'll get some updates done...

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So... with my knee still killing me and the mid-90s temperatures, I can safely say I ain't gett'n shit done on the Garage of Love this week.

And ya know something? I'm ok with that.

I'm going to try to get some long overdue updates done to my various websites. Hell... I may even get a few toys sorted from the bins of doom.

I need a few days off from house work and other assorted stuff. I need a few days of shennanigans!

Oh. And I also owe Teresa some Crack Den™ pics. I should get those done.

In a world...

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'King of Voiceovers' Don LaFontaine Dies at 68

You may not know the name... but I guarantee that if you are in the US you definitely know the voice.

Since we spent 3 days getting ready for my yearly big-ass cookout and it went off without a problem.

Those 3 days involved a lot of reorganizing, yard work, and cleaning and during my preparations of the guest room for our overnight guests, I uncovered something that I wasn't supposed to have.

TF Universe Acid Storm

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TF Universe Acid Storm

I'm not sure why but I needed to have another repaint of frigg'n Starscream... and I don't ever really care for the Seekers!

But I really was drawn to the color palette for some reason.

TF Universe Acid Storm is the 2103rd Transformer that I've acquired.

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This page is an archive of entries from September 2008 listed from newest to oldest.

August 2008 is the previous archive.

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