Fembots 2017

      Two years ago I posted about female autobots- the circle has expanded a little so I present Many Girls and Two Kups for your enjoyment

This is Transformers Prime Kup

With Strongarm, and Windblade from RID and Prime Arcee

The new Titans Return Kup

With MMC Arcee and Elita 1

With Generations Chromia and Windblade

With Titans Return Nautica and Generations Arcee

I think I like this use of the mold more than the original RID Arcee

I love this use of the very popular Blurr mold, too

ch-ch-ch-CHANGES!

Going to be switching some things around- please turn and face the strange changes as I do. Because I'm just gonna have to be a different man

after all...

Time May Change me

But I Can't Trace Time

The Mythical Wave 4

     Back when Toyfair was going on, we heard of Wave 4 of Titans Return but it was starting to look like it was never going to arrive- the same fate that hit Windchargers wave of RTS toys seemed to be in full force- retailers glutted with earlier waves and waiting on movie toys.

     And then from the east, a rumor came that Walgreens was getting the deluxes. Some of the wave showed up here in Colorado, but it was only the remolds, Krok and Quake.

     And then Hop arose: The Chosen Prime got them in stock the day after my fiftieth birthday. I ordered and got them Monday the 17th. I'm going to show you what to watch out for or this wave might hit you...BROADSIDE.

Broadside becomes a wonky plane

and an aircraft carrier- he comes with miniature aerialbots but I haven't put them on

     Interestingly enough, Broadsides number marks him as an Essex class Aircraft Carrier called the USS Antietam Which was decommissioned in 1963 and scrapped in 1974

     I ended up getting Brawn from China via Ebay and a slow boat. Very happy with him, and happy Hasbro came up with an official release to match Igear's offering.

     And here is Percceptor, but lets take a closer look:

The dial I am pointing at with my gnarled and Parrot-bitten hand...

Focuses the lens. it's a working(though not very powerful) microscope

     Topspin manages to look G1 with all the articulation we have come to expect. his transform is highly innovative. My preference is to combine the weapons.

     Kup is a little boxy, but still looks very G1 in both forms. I Love the double-pistols. He ended up supplanting my generations version. For some reason, I put Brawn in here for a size comparison.

Yo Ho, a Pirate's Life for Me

     Actual conversation with Sam:

     (As I meet her after shopping at Walmart)
     Sam: What did you get?
     Me: some ramen noodles and canned chicken
    Sam: What vegetables are you going to eat?
     Me : Umm
     Sam: Scurvy is on the rise again, they are finding adults who haven't eaten vegetables in years
     Me: I guess I should know that. It was featured on an episode of Chicago Med
     Sam: I will have to look for that one
     Me: and I am in the highest risk group for that, because I already have a parrot.

    I went back and got broccoli and carrots. I told Sam I picked up fried jalapeno poppers and ketchup. I have a reputation to uphold.

     I'm not a very creative cook. I can do red sauce, and cook meat, but I am often at a loss as to sticking vegetables in there. I don't think of it.

Yo Ho.

Wallace

    He started having seizures again over the last two days, and had a final one this morning before 9 AM. He is gone, out of pain, and away over the rainbow bridge.

     I Miss him.

Irretrievable Feelings

     Thinking yesterday evening about a couple of emotions I felt back in the distant and misty lands of the past, both oddly associated with the musical genius of Mark Knopfler.

     The first was listening to the vinyl I bought myself of Dire Straits "making movies", particularly these three songs...

If memory serves, I saw the video for tunnel of love on MTV, and bought the album based on that. The sorcerous power of Knopfler over that Stratocaster on my silver-gray painted particle board speakers took me somewhere I don't recall reaching since, just the vaguest sensation of how it felt. It may well have been my first foray into air-guitar...

     In 1985, Dire Straits released "Brothers in Arms" and the wildly successful "Money for Nothing" video and song climbed the charts but the one that gave me the chills and sent me to the record store was the title track, most particularly it's inclusion on an episode of Miami Vice called "Out Where the Buses Don't Run". In the episode, the protagonists Crockett and Tubbs are being aided in hunting a near mythical drug kingpin by an ex-cop. The tune overlays the moment when they discover that the ex-cop actually murdered the suspect years before and suppressed the memory. It overlays finding the dealer's mummified corpse in a wall. The eerie power of that was the one thing that stuck with me from an otherwise mediocre (in my estimation) series.

   Years later, the song would be used in a different, even more haunting scene, in the second season finale of "the West Wing", "
Two Cathedrals".

     Music, the right music, has amazing power to transport us. Sometimes I envy my younger self, and wish I could go back and listen for the first time again. Most days I just wait for the next great song...

Fifty

     So today I turned fifty. I plan to celebrate by hunting toys tonight, and hopefully will find some. Other than that, not sure of what changes or new things I want for me this year. I think I want to straighten up and improve my friend relationships, since family ones are pretty much as good as they will be.

     Other than that, I'm probably the same person I was yesterday- I love my birds, I love my collectibles. the Sciatica thing caused me to lose a step or two, and I am working to pick them back up. Welcome to Mr Smith at 50, folks.
   

Rogue One: A DVD Media Story

     Let me say to start off with that I loved Rogue One in theater, and was very excited for it to come out on DVD. Let me say also that I think this story is at least as funny as it is frustrating.

A Short Time Ago, at a Walmart Near to my House...

     So Tuesday night, I bought my Rogue One DVD, at Walmart. Wednesday, I went to play it.

A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...went by, kind of fast I thought. it ran through the rest of the sequence pre-title, except Saw Gerrera's speech to Jyn is cut short. And then there is a skip in the title sequence. And another skip. and another.

     Wednesday evening, I take the DVD back to a different Walmart for replacement. Thursday I go to play it. A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...went by, kind of fast and I thought...no way. Same Skips, same spots. I call Walmart. I explain the situation, and someone from their electronics dept. tells me I can't even exchange it now. I call back, get the manager who directs me to the electronics dept. manager, and he tells me that I can trade it, approved by him.
   
     So Thursday evening, I swap my DVD(at Walmart Cust Svc. suggestion) for a Blu ray at no extra charge. Walmart went above and beyond on this, and I do not fault them at all. This was a ridiculous situation, made farcical by the second replacement. This is also my first ever Blu ray Disc.

     I try it in my Blu ray drive on my PC, it works, but VLC player doesn't play it. I find and try "Leawo player" and it starts playing beautifully...until it skips later into the movie than I had previously gotten...

    Sunday, I put in the code for the digital copy, and watched that. No Skips.

     So today, I am wondering if I am the only one to experience this, or if others can tell a similar tale of mishap. I google-searched, facebook searched, and I appear to be the single purchaser of multiple bad copies, tested in multiple DVD players. Also- when my niece borrows it, we will see if it just hates my players, or if it's bad. Or maybe it just hates my family...

Round Robin Challenge

Simple Question- Who is interested in continuing? some concerns have been expressed and I would like to know who is still in at this point?

the Festival of Phlockenschifften

     The Time has come at my place to celebrate PhlockenSchifften.

     What is Phlockenschifften? Essentially, it's a word I made up that refers to the old German tradition of moving parrots around, which I also made up.

     We are changing the arrangement of cages so that I have the Lovebirds in my room, leaving Sam with Sid(Cockatoo) Ickabob(Green-Cheeked Conure) and Apollo(Jardines Parrot AKA Green Recluse Parrot*) Tango and Cappy of course stay where they are, and Wallace is still by my desk.

     Just over a week ago, I adopted a lovebird who had part of one wing amputated due to a tumor and needed a good home. We call him Little Star. It was immediately apparent, or nearly so, that he could detect the presence of other lovebirds and wanted to be near them, so we bit the bullet. We moved Ruby and Ginko in with me. We are hoping that:

1. His time socializing with other lovebirds will be good for him
2. Apollo's behavior to me involves familiarity breeding contempt
3. absence and distance will make Apollo fonder toward me. 

Time will tell. at the least, Sam feeding Apollo should get me bit far less. So far, Ginko is very interested in the new lovebird. Ruby...she's a little more reticent. 

   


*The Nickname Green Recluse Parrot was Coined also by me after he took a quarter-inch wide and deep chunk out of my arm because he thought it was funny. The Bird is a tool- I love him, but am leery of him. 

Round Robin Challenge : Post a Pic Of Your Most Eccentric Action Figure!

     A Challenge from Toy Break and

     The problem here is how do I with a mind that might be accurately described a a bubble or two off of plumb define eccentric? definitions vary, to say the least. I asked my roommate and she pinpointed the Bo'marr Monk from my Star Wars Collection, because he's a brain controlling a robot spider, and I can see the point in that. He's weird, a little lovecraftian in nature.

     I thought of Generations Swerve, with his weird history as an exclusive Promo for Chevy dealers for people taking a test drive in an Aveo and his relationship to no known transformers continuity

     I could go with my Stikfas, that are great toys but don't go with anything else I own. These innovative toys from Singapore are a favorite but they don't have any fiction to attach to them, leaving them faceless and without identity

     But despite all those worthy contenders, I think I am gonna have to go with this...thing.

     Dunno where I got it, Dunno what company it comes from... it's sort of like a Godzilla KO, but I have had it since childhood, It has Translucent plastic eyes, almost like it;s intended to light-pipe, a hollow body like it is intended as part of another thing. I have tried it as a sort of hand-puppet, or shined a flashlight into it, with no satisfying results on either. Some days I want to know where this came from, and what else was intended, and some days I just want him to stay the two-point articulation mystery that he is.

Other Eccentric toys

• Toy Break Gives us Kermit the Frog and the Raiders of the Lost Gonzo
• 20 Years Before 2000 Has a fugitoid with a backstory and no one-armed mutant