daily ramblings: Transformers toys

In an effort to make my blog more personal, i've decided to add a new section to it, Daily Ramblings, also because sometimes there's a ton of stuff just flying around in my head that i would like to share with other people. Today I'm going to be discussing about the Transformers franchise, particular the collectible toys.

Transformers have come a long long way, from the classic g1 cartoons in 1985, to the latest 3d and animated series, not to mention the live action film that somehow reincarnated the transformers franchise to the huge money making cooperation it is today.

The transformers toys had humble beginnings, fulfilling what they were design to do, transform from vehicles, or animals, to robots.

here we see one of the original toys, notice the limited function in arm and leg movements. Back then this was the holy grail of transformers though, as long as it could transform it would sell.

Now, let's bring ourselves back to the 29th century, now not only do our transformers transform, they can move their arms up down left right in our, and also the legs. But this of course comes with a price, now we have to take at least 30 mins on the first go to figure out how to transform our robot, even with instructions! Back then it was, flip here, flip here, pull here, tada. we're done. Now it seems like rotate this, flip that, rotate this, flip flip flip flip, rotate rotate, flip the same thing 10 times, insert, pull out, fold here, tear here. And oh, your transformer doesn't look anything like the box art shows.

But no, seriously, i love transformers. It's how it all comes together that really makes you admire how they design it. Which kinda makes me regret not getting into the collecting business earlier in life, which now brings me to a story of how i started collecting transformers.

As a kid, i watched tons of transformers, had 1 or 2 during my childhood, which broke obviously. When the live action movie came out, it was mind blowing, i did look at the toys, but they were not to my liking, they robots from the movie looked ugly in my opinion, they looked nothing like the classic, except optimus prime but i was never a big fan of him, too many people already liked him.

How does that not scream YOU to the GEE, EL WHY. yes, that spells youge'elwhy. So my interest in the transformers ended there. I did however acquire some nice shirts particularly linking to the decepticon soundwave over the years. And this christmas, what did i see, the WFC soundwave, which wasn't the original boombox soundwave, but its similarities to the g1 soundwave were there, any fan would know. So without hesitation i bought it. Which springs the dawn of my collection today.

For me, when it comes to purchasing collectibles, i'm quite the picky guy, but looking at old toys, i really wished i had some of them, like the g1 series universe bruticus maximus exclusive to target released in 2008

Stunning isn't it. As i was saying when it comes to the collectibles, i find it more worth it to buy ones that aren't common, for example, classic hot rod, bumble and optimus prime. There have been so many re-releases of them that if you have one you don't feel right, and looking at old pics of them are not awing, or stunning. But when you look at old toys like bruticus, you'll go where can i get one of those? But optimus is so common, kinda makes you sick seeing the same old boring picture.

Whoever i think variants are well worth it, for example, wfc optimus prime, thats uncommon, and i highly doubt they will re-release a figure like that. Which also makes it a good one to sell or trade to fans of optimus prime without this figure. And people like me who just started collecting their toys in 5 years time will look back at figures like these and go, where can i get one of those?

Valentines for my girl

In conjuction with Valentines, i decided to write a little something something for my girlfriend!

:)

Graceful

Loving

Original

Responsible

Iphone4
Adorable

Sexy

Understanding

Motivated

Interesting

Lovable

Important

how unoriginal :/

but it still counts as something right?

As for those who are reading this for the sake of reading, now you know what my girlfriends all about! exciting isn't she. A little box full of treasures.

Our Lady of Lourdes

Recently it was feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes, so you might be asking, who is Our Lady of Lourdes. This is one of the many names given to Mother Mary, this one specifically to an apparition of her in Lourdes.

The feast day is on the 11 of Feb, because it was believed that on that very day about 150 years ago, was the first apparition of Our Mother Mary where a little 14 year old girl, said she saw a lady in a cave. That girl is Saint Bernadette Soubirous.

The story in brief is that the girl and her sister went collecting firewood, there they saw the spirit like apparition, when they told the story to the town, they received corporal punishment! Harsh isn't it? But laws back then were way different than times now. Later on she decided to go back with holy water to see if it was evil or not. Long story short, the apparition told her to come back and that she will make her happy in the next life, as more of the story unfolds, more and more people become increasingly interested in it, at a point, our Lady asked Bernadette to dig and drink from the water from the ground, that same water was used to cure a lot of people, miracles, don't they just make you feel happy. Later on sometime the Apparition revealed herself to be the Immaculate Mother Mary.

This is a shrine at Lourdes, reading about it makes me wanna go there myself, maybe drink a little of that Holy Water. Amazing isn't it, you can't find stories like these anymore in our days. Even so the pressure from critics now, and tabloids, media can be just overwhelming. So if instances like this did happen i wonder how long it would carry on. Our Lady appeared at Lourdes 17 times over a span of one year.

I'm beginning to think that something like this, grasp by media attention would defeat it's purpose, having cameras at the location of the apparition, would not make it special, everyone in the world can see it, well doubtful since the apparitions appear to a select few. But miracles on a giant scale would of course have to question the public views on religion.

It kinda makes you wonder that how some people can be so narrow minded to choose not to believe even though the signs are all there. Miracles have still been happening, very few reported, but none the less the proof is still there. Why do you think we still have Saints being canonized to this very day!

It just goes to show how secular this society has become, and what it's products are. I guess the important thing is to not be closed minded and not to fall victim to societies secularism and live with an open heart, mind and soul

Alternity Thundercracker

If you know me well enough, you would know that i have an sort of an impulsive behaviour when it comes to collectibles. Recently i had a craving for a shiny high end transfomer in the midst of my Hasbro normal grade Transformers. This made me turn to Tomy Takara, a pioneer in toy making from Japan, they've brought us a great deal of kids toys from beyblades, to collectibles like transformers.

One line that stood out to me was the Alternity, because of it's availability and it's not so high end price unlike the Masterpiece line which goes up to about 500 ringgit. The alternity line cost around 160 ringgit. Because of it's price tag, the conundrum of which one should i acquire arises. The Alternity line was short lived, for reasons unknown to us, so they only came up with 4 models, each model has a minimum of 2 remakes, mostly a different paintjob. Fortunately for me the store which sells this line only has one colour of each model, making it just a choice between the models!

Of the models, i highly disliked the suzuki swift cliffjumper model, because it looks bulky, fat in a sense. The Nissan Fair Lady Megatron was different to the original Megatron because it used swords instead of blasters, which kinda put me off. Another thing about Megatron which i did not approve of was that the back of his head was resting on a flat surface, which juts out a little which makes it look odd for a head not to be on it's own. Next came the Nissan GT-R Ultra Magnus, which looks highly cool, but after reviewing the reviews, it has poor articulation making it not be able to stand up, and also it's an autubot which sways my decision as i'm a big decepticon collector, (when i say big, i mean in heart, not in collection)

This leaves me with no other than, no surprises here as the title already stated, the Mitsuoka Orochi Thundercracker! Which i myself have no regrets of purchasing, and you'll see why in a minute. The Alternity seekers have been getting mixed reviews by the public which is understandable as everyone has their own taste.

The model is a Japanese Sportscar, the Mitsuoka Orochi, which to my suprise, there is a Showroom in Malaysia, where there is a huge billboard of the Mitsuoka Orochi. The car itself looks fine, along with the eccentric blue colour makes it pleasing to the eye. A great deal about the Alternity line is the attention to fine detail they have, the car has everything from wipers, headlights to rims and radio aerial!

eek, sorry for the gap in the middle there, must have slipped my eye while taking photos.

Stunning, isn't he, (note i did not call it a she like most cars, thats because thundercracker is a male decepticon) there's even a spot for the car plate!

Now as to why i wanted something like the alternity line so badly, ...

... you can actually open the doors, hood, and the trunk! Not only that but if you look closely inside ...

... there is car seats along with steering wheels, Sorry for the flash shot, but i had to take it to prove the point about the car seats and the steering wheel.

It just fits so well with my other toys, it's about the same size as a deluxe figure, which most of my collection are. This toy has a third mode, in addition to vehicle and robot mode, which is flight mode, his back wheels can be turned into tiny wings, similar to Turbo Tracks from the G1 continuity.

A lot of people don't have much love for this third alternative mode because it's pointless in a way, but i absolutely adore it, it just adds on to what's already great about this toy. Now for the long awaited robot mode.

They've actually tried really hard to make this look similar to the original seekers, giving it a (false) hood for the chest, Wings, and hand mounted blasters, also the wings on the legs which gives him the flight mode in it's car form is suppose to represent the plane fins from the seeker mode. This figure offers a lot in terms of poseability, and it doesn't have much of a stnading issue as most transformers do have. One big complain about this figure is the doors in the robot mode, the doors don't play any part in robot mode and are kinda just awkward there, (this angle doesn't really prove my point about the doors, but if you have the figure you'll know what i'm talking about) the doors also very easily detaches when transforming which is a pain. The figure also looks ugly from the back as many reviews mention, but as some people point out, who cares? you don't display them from the back anyway, who does that?

Overall a stunning figure, worth every penny if you ask me.

For more pictures of him visit my flickr :)

Human Target

More along the lines of superhero sub genre of dramas comes Fox's 2010 release Human Target. Highly favoured by critics and scores a whopping 8.3 on the imdb factor, this show is probably one of the must watch series you have never heard of. Human target follows a team of people who protect the innocent using unconventional means, similar to Burn Notice and A-Team. Although this show doesn't bring any new concepts into television it's just A+ because of it's highly packed action, and characters you will come to love! I recently finished watching season 2, highly satisfied and anticipating a great next season!

Loosely based on DC Comic's Human Target, this show revolves around your not so ordinary group, an ex cop, Laverne Winston, an ex hitman, Christopher Chance and well, Guerrero, (if you watch the show you'll know what i mean), basically people in need of protection seek Chance out for help and he follows them around protecting them making him a Human Target.

Human Target was originally part of DC comics, but slowly moved out of the DC universe into their imprint Vertigo, here the protagonist Christopher Chance also is a man who protects the innocent, but he get's plastic surgery to reconstruct his face each time to become his client making him a real life Human Target.

Season 1 episode 1 starts us off kind of out of the blue action, you probably think it was already halfway through the season with no back story to lead us in. As i mentioned, it's just basically a bunch of guys protecting the innocent, mainly Chance as the head poncho and Laverne helping him out here and there, Guerrero drops by once in a while to do Chance some favours. As the season progress the more we understand why and how the group got together, using flashback techniques and so on.

Season 2 comes with new suprises, now under new management Ilsa Pucci, they become a "legit" company, but still using unconventional, above the law methods. They also get help from a new buddy Ames who was/is a thief, reformed, kinda.

Overall this show is very relaxing to watch, it doesn't leave you hanging much, there's a big picture to the story but it's kinda on the side, most episodes are independent to the arching story. In a way that makes it a lot similar to Leverage. I highly recommend you to watch this, you will not be dissapointed.

The Cape

As the new year unfolded, many new things have emerged, toys, movies, cartoons, television series. Among the tv series, NBC's added a hero to the superhero trend named The Cape. This is definitely a interesting take on a masked vigilante in this series no one has superpowers so to speak.

As a follower of many many superhero shows, i enjoy the show. The series does try to put on a realistic look but frankly that's questionable. This show i'm pretty sure it's very much inspired by Batman.

So, let's start off with our hero, Vince Faraday, the Cape.

So he's a policeman, in a town full of crooked cops, so he get's an offer from a private security company lead by Peter Fleming. Late in the middle of the night he get's a call from a notorious Blogger called Orwell, who exposes scums of the town. Vince finds out that he's going to work for a crooked company, so he informs his best friend, the guy who recommended him for the job but before realizing his best friends gone dark side, and rats him out to the Peter Fleming who is also Chess, the masked murderer. They frame Faraday as Chess and set him lose so they can receive credit for capturing this mass murderer.

Faraday then manages to somehow narrowly escape through a manhole underneath a tanker which explodes, so naturally he's been announce dead. he's then found by the carnival of crime, which take advantage of his security id to steal from bank's guarded by ARK, Peter Fleming's company. The ringmaster in returns makes him into the mask vigilante the Cape so that he could expose Fleming as Chess and return one day to his family.

Here is some obvious Batman influences, city full of corruption. Carnies! Dick Grayson was a Carnie.

Here's our very own Lex Luthor, Mr Fleming, the notorious Chess. Basically with Faraday framed chess pronounced, the cities decided to give full authority of the police force to ARK, and slowly he wants to run the whole town with his evil schemes.

Here is Orwell, basically Orwell to Cape is like oracle to batman, talk about influences. So she feeds him information and tries to help him bring Fleming to Justice.

Another similar influence is that they have their own league of assasins, known as tarrot or something. basically each tarrot is an assasin.

Overall it's a well produced program. I hope they stick it through. It's got an all star cast, and People that love the superhero franchise will surely enjoy this addition.

La Brute

In my opinion, the French are pioneers when it comes to mini online games,they've created transformice, labrute, and formulawan, just to name a few that i've enjoyed. Today i'm going to introduce you to La Brute, the 2nd reincarnation of this popular online past time.

The general idea of la brute, is that you own your own character, or brute. You bring him into the arena to level him up, as he advances levels he will be favoured with a variety of skills and weapons and so on. The only downside of the 2nd reincarnation is that it only in french where as the original La Brute, or known to english users as mybrute had a variety of servers to choose from, english, spanish, french. But lucky for us we have google translate. Although in french, those who have experienced the 1st generation mybrute would have no problems at all playing this one.

here's a general view of your brutes page. Here's one of my characters, Tpefex, currently he's got 2 weapons, (shown on the wooden plank), 1 skill, (the only box that isn't half invisible), and a pet dog. (i decided to show this character cause i know my girlfriend loves dogs :))

One of the big difference which will make this game more favourable to the original is that each time you level up you get to choose one of two upgrades, one normally being a stat upgrade and the other either being a weapon, a skill, a pet or if you're really unlucky another stat upgrade.

This is a big yes for the fans because in the original, it depended on your luck, and sometimes you might be upgraded with the most useless skill, or a puny weapon. So you're given more freedom in this.

Another difference is that you only get to pick your opponent from a set given to you, and that you cannot see what skills or weapons he/she has, only his stats. This halts cheap players picking on guys with poor skills, which was regularly seen in the original. Here's a screen shot of my brute just about to hit the opponent!

Another difference with the system is, in the original we only get to picked 3 fights a day, a victory grants us 2 experience and a loss 1 experience. Here all fights are 1 experience, but you can carry on fighting for a maximum of 10 rounds as long as you don't lose 3 fights. 3 fights will get you hospitalized till the next day.

It's a really neat game, which probably required at most 30 mins of your time a day. So if you're free, i highly recommend you trying it out :)

Decepticon Thrust

So recently, i acquired a new deception to my collection. To be fair, i have not yet to review any of my deluxe class decepticons, so even though it's not my first of the collection, it's the first to be introduced to the perauverse.

Also i think it's probably out of my current collection a good one to be introduced because it falls into the original 1985 G1 (generation 1) transformers cartoon and it's very very close to cartoon accuracy. Which is a big YES to many transformers collectors.

For those who don't know him, here is Thrust from the cartoon. He's a conehead and a decepticon Seeker. Originally the conehead design was unattractive to me. But the market for transformers currently doesn't hold many variety (unless purchasing online, which i'm quite afraid of in case the toy has a imperfection). Out of the coneheads he is probably favourable to me because he does not have the main wings lying on the legs, (the toy version anyway).

Here's what my toy looks like. It's almost identical to the cartoon! Probably only difference is that the wings are on it's body instead of the leg but i prefer it that way anyway. Things to note about is that the rifles and the turbine are removeable, so you can socket them anywhere you want. The turbines can be socketed on the feet. Similar to the dreamwave arch version below.



Guess the part where you can accesorize him however you want kinda puts your own touch to it. The transformation of this decepticon is relatively easy, i say relatively because in comparison to most transformers it's a piece of cake. The vehicle mode is a normal jet, it's supposed to take on a form of a modified f-15. Probably because the original seekers are modeled after the f-15 and this is modified from the original seekers. Here's what it looks like it in it's vehicle glory

All in all Thrust is a great deal. He looks good and is a great add to your collection. He can even dismount his blasters and hold it in his arms like below, which is 100% cartoon accuracy.

By now you're probably thinking, is it all great? unfortunately, no. Sadly with all seekers remolded from Henkei henkei's Starscream they all have really short arms. you won't really notice it with the blasters hanging from the side, but that's just an optical illusion! Just like almost every transformer, they have problems when it comes to stabilizing them while in the upright position. He doesn't pose much poseability because his wings block most freedom for movement of the arms and legs, most of the time if you move the hands, you have the move the wings as well.

One thing i love about the deluxe line is the attention to detail, the one that really sticks out to me in this model is the wheels, if you look at the picture of thrust holding his blasters i kinda forgot to fold the wheels inwards, it's by his chest, if you compare it to the first picture of my toy you can probably see difference. Here's an upclose of the wheel while it's in vehicle mode.

What catches me about this is that they probably didn't need it since in transformation mode you can't see it, and it's such a small detail, why bother? i don't think it would have mattered to the fans. Thats why i really love the fact that they've done it!

Overall it's a great toy, worth every penny. So if you love decepticon seekers. it's a must buy!

the Beatitudes

So, a new year, new dawn. How would we live our lives? A week or two ago in mass the gospel was the beatitudes, i was on Children's Liturgy duty that day, so here i am trying to do the impossible, teaching kids something some adults can barely grasp fully on, the beatitudes. I say this probably cause it's so open ended and there can be so many interpretations.

the Beatitudes are found in Matthew 5:3-12

Anyway these are like some guidelines given to us by Jesus, but how are we suppose to live them? join me now as i explore the beatitudes!

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

In general, i think this means to be humble like, i don't think Jesus is forbidding us to be wealthy, but reminding us that we must be humble at heart and not brag? i know, i'm not very deep.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

those who suffer will eventually be comforted. maybe. eventually. in heaven. OH, here's an idea, mourning is probably a sign of having feelings for others, so that means, empathy! not being self centered but also think about others.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall possess the earth.

this kinda just reinstates my idea for the first beatitude, meek = humble in spirit. which now confuses me even more. for i don't think two beatitudes mean the same thing. So they must have different meanings. which comes back to.. what is "poor in spirit"? The word poor often makes us think about money, so in a sense, poor people don't ask for much, they're happy with a roof above their heads, fresh water and food to eat. So i guess it might be telling us to be happy with what we are given and don't ask for so much. Let's stick with that for now.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they shall be satisfied.

there's no deep thought here in my opinion. Justice. is maybe something this community lacks. there is no justice with corruption, stealing, cheating and all that. abide by the rules :)

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

mercy, need i say more?

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

purity of the heart. what could this mean? this one could probably be open ended, is a heart pure after committing a sin of it's free will? Does sexual thoughts, revenge and all that make a heart impure even though the deed is not committed? If we look at it this way, it is almost impossible to have a pure heart. So what could Jesus mean with Pure of Heart. If we think of pure, ( well by we i mean i) we think of purity, like we want the purest gold like 24 karat. if it's 18 karat. it's not pure. Well, if we think about it that way 24 karats are only 99.9% pure. we still have 0.1% impurities. But nowadays we can't find anything thats really "pure", we give 99.9% purity the title pure. So if we think about it this way, an impure heart might still be able to become pure.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called sons of God.

World Peace is something that a lot of people dream of, especially beauty queens (<- click on link, you will not regret it!). We say dream because some dreams do not become reality, as much as we want this we know it's not going to happen with all the hate in the world. But does that mean we stop trying? Answer: No. who knows, if you can touch just one person with trying to make peace, maybe that person will do the same. And the train of peace continues, eventually the world will be full of peacemakers.

Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And now we come to our final beatitude, the word justice has already been said, so what makes this justice different from the other? It's hard to tell really, hunger and thirsting is kinda a form of suffering in my opinion. So..how? maybe there's an emphasis on Justice because there is no justice in our world today? Well, i guess maybe the first time it's mention justice is the need for us to want justice, yearn it. And this mention is probably for us to act upon it!

**

So with these in mind my friends, let's try to make an effort :)