January hauls

[JediTricks]

I found a clearance-priced Kre-O Prowl, so I picked that up. It was pretty okay, except, man, that thing has got some gorilla-ass giant arms on it. Wouldn't be a bad look for a Transformer, really, but it's a weird stylistic choice for Prowl. Might monkey around with that and see if I can work out an alternate way of building the arms. Of course, if I do, then he's still stuck with gigantic fists, so I dunno.

Congrats to your grandpappy, JT! And on five years of driving. Man, I think I remember reading your blog entries on starting up driving back in the day. Has time really started moving that friggin' fast? Cripes.

MegaBloks has a line of licensed block-built cars for their Need for Speed line (I've never played the game series, but I do like cars and LEGO-style building) and the $12-size are about KRE-O scale, yet they don't look like UTTER GARBAGE, the MegaBloks cars look great - why can't Hasbro deliver that quality of building toy? IMO, if you can't even be bothered to make a building toy that TRANSFORMS, you certainly have no excuse for not making it look better.

I realized I've also spent around $500 on this site in that time! Time indeed is really running us down in its drunken path. Or maybe it's our use of said time.

[Dominic]

Thanks to Scourge...

PCC Constructicons: The Commander figure looks under-painted compared to the drones, but is not a bad toy unto itself. The drones would probably look good with Crankcase or Bombshock, but I have yet to test this out. The combined form is one of the better examples of what the line could have been.


Dom
-will try to do a more detailed review, but not promising anything....

[BWprowl]

I picked up ‘The Rum Diary’ by Hunter S. Thomson, because I fully intend to see the movie in the near future, and I’d like to have read the book first. The movie was only in theaters here for a week, what the hell? Fresno confirmed for shit taste.

Also grabbed that collection of Avatar the Last Airbender comics, because B&N actually had it, unlike the last time I went looking for it. This little anthology should tide me over until Korra comes out in 2153 or whatever, as well as that full-length ATLA graphic novel with the art by Gurihiru that’s coming out later. Awesomely enough, I discovered that this collection I bought *also* has several stories with art by Gurihiru! Yeah, I’ll get excited and buy just about anything drawn by these guys; Gurihiru could put out a Home Improvement comic and I’d buy the hell out of it.

[Mirage]

I picked up ‘The Rum Diary’ by Hunter S. Thomson, because I fully intend to see the movie in the near future, and I’d like to have read the book first. The movie was only in theaters here for a week, what the hell? Fresno confirmed for shit taste.

I haven't seen the movie either, but it got fair-to-bad reviews and did pretty crappy box office everywhere. Apparently Johnny Depp was asked by an interviewer about the movie's poor performance, and he grumbled something about it not mattering how the film did in "Wichita, Kansas", that it was a movie for people who were more cultured.

http://www.ksn.com/news/local/story/Act ... euKog.cspx

Ha-haaaa-- Waitaminnit!

[BWprowl]

I haven't seen the movie either, but it got fair-to-bad reviews and did pretty crappy box office everywhere. Apparently Johnny Depp was asked by an interviewer about the movie's poor performance, and he grumbled something about it not mattering how the film did in "Wichita, Kansas", that it was a movie for people who were more cultured.

Huh, it reviewed fairly well in the paper over here (though ironically I don't trust that guy's opinion). Come on, it's a meta-prequel to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas! I have to at least give it the best chance I can! At least the book should be cool.

Maybe you're just the most cultured person in Wichita?

[Dominic]

Customizing yielded....

-blue Takara "Legends" scale Trailbreaker.


Food poisoning yielded an interesting fever dream that involved me booking a wrestling match involving four rings on giant wooden spoons (of the sort you get with icecream cups).


Dom
-oh, and lots of greasy grey vomit.

[138 Scourge]

Wait, Johnny Depp thought defending his movie by knocking Kansas' taste was a thing to do? This from the guy that spends half his time making shitty Disney Pirate movies, and the other half getting whitefaced up in shitty Tim Burton remakes of other things? Eh, don't care. My girl got me to drop money to see Alice in Wonderland, and after that I was pretty much done with Johnny Depp anyway. I bear the guy no real ill will, but he's right up there with Tom Cruise or Angelina Jolie on a list of "People whose movies I'm uninterested in". I'd have seen Rum Diaries if it'd been a Gilliam movie, or maybe even if it'd had Benicio Del Toro in it, but at this point I'd rather see Bill Murray reprise the role of Hunter S. Thompson than see Johnny Depp doing it again.

Actually, now I think about it, how cool would Bill Murray be in a movie version of "Football Season is Over?" A bit grim, yes, but you know that'd be compelling cinema.

[Onslaught Six]

Depp these days will occasionally do something neat which makes him worth keeping an eye on, but as it is he's usually making shit. DiCaprio is a way better actor and seriously underrated. (Why the fuck hasn't that dude won any awards yet? Seriously. I saw a gif on Tumblr of his face at the Golden Globes or whatever and he looked like he was about to fucking cry. Fuck it, Nolan, make him the Riddler.)

[Gomess]

330+ disc folder, FINALLY. I can't even imagine how much space this thing is gonna clear in my house. Look out recycling centre, here comes a heckuva lotta DVD cases!!

Gonna have so much fun putting movies and games in this in series order.

[BWprowl]

I picked up DOTM Air Raid, because I’m a man of low willpower, and what the heck else is coming out that I want to buy in the next few months (okay, I’m hoping I’ll run across that kickass GI Joe transforming bike thing, but that seems unlikely)? Air Raid’s about what I was expecting, but luckily I was expecting to like him. His plane mode is damn compact, with just the robot chest jutting out a bit as the only undercarriage. Radar-topped spyplanes don’t get made as TFs nearly as often as they should (only other one I can think of at the moment is that one PCC drone, though I’m sure there’s at least a couple more), and despite being EXTREMELY GREEN, this one works well. Transformation’s nothing too special, though everything’s locked together *very* tightly in vehicle mode, and you’ve gotta make sure you’ve got all his holding-things-in flaps popped open before everything’ll come loose to go where it’s supposed to go. The mild automorph on the head is kinda nice. Robot mode is (as expected) far more dynamic than any promo pics have made it out to be, though his limbs definitely feel a bit on the skinny side. There’s kind of a cool gladiator motif going on with the weapons though, him having a shield and his right hand just being a flail of pointy plane parts to swing around. That the handle the shield is held on actually has a hinge to let it be held as such, and still swung up to MechTech into a gun was an unexpectedly clever bit of engineering. The head’s got an odd aesthetic; it’s not strictly TF (Movie or otherwise) and I can’t really place it, but I feel like I’ve seen its style before. Overall, he’s decently neat for what he is, and he should hold my TF-attention for a little longer and make me wish they’d recolor him into Terradive (it would totally work and you know it).

Oh, and I just gotta say, while I was in Target, since Ebizou made his grand, transforming entrance in the last ep of Shinkenger I watched, I stole a look at the PRS “Samurai Clawzord” and…yeah, not a chance. I think this one translates even worse to American toy-form than Shinken-Oh/Samurai Megazord (which couldn’t even be assed to have Ryu Origami unfold all the way). Man, why are PR toys so *shitty*? TFs have come so far in the years since I was playing with them as a kid, why does it seem like PR has hardly advanced at all?