Current Events

The last few months have left me pressed for time, and when I look at the date of my last post. It's hard to believe so much time has passed..

Downsizing

Still ongoing. I have several large boxes of items still to sell. Things have slowed down, and I still have items on my shelves I will probably add to the pile. But the house is old, and drafty. And I think I am done until spring. When I will do a re-inventory of everything that didn't sell. And make another drive to clear it all out.

As for collecting, I think I am mostly done with it. It never ends, and retail is just absurd. I have yet to see a Vehicon the shelf. Or anything from that wave. And having to buy online and the prices being higher with shipping. I am now in the camp of whether it is any cheaper on gas or time.. But when they don't even show up on shelves there isn't any real choice.

But so much of the new stuff just looks bad (Like the new Prime Smokescreen) and I bought so many pieces that looked interesting, but not good. And I had no real personal attachment too.

So I think I will be holding to my G1s, Beast Wars, and Car Robots items. And I have yet to decide on Prime and the 3rd Party items I still have.

Warhammer

My current hobby dollars have gone from Toy Collecting to getting back into Warhammer and tabletop wargaming. Having a local group makes a big difference. And getting out of the house is always a good thing (tm) and I can't support two expensive hobbies at once.

And already having a large Space Marine force in the basement for the better part of 14 years helps. Even when I didn't even end up playing with them much. Too many people still play Marines.

Battlestar Galactica

Just finished watching the new series for the second time. This time straight through, and what a fantastic job they did with this show. Holds up very well. And I dare say I feel like going back to the first episode and watching it all again. Except I have too much else to keep up with.

Comic Book Men

Another fantastic show, funny and entertaining for the geek crowd. Although I wish it was more of the banter among the cast in the store and their antics and less Geek Pawn Stars. But at least it's only a couple times an episode.

Highly Recommended

World of Warcraft: The Mists of Pandaria

So far looks like the best expansion to date. The commercials are telling the truth it seems. Very nice terrain, and lush environments. Blizzard continues to improve quests and presentation and mini game quests.

Haven t played the Monk much. Maybe it gets better later on, but so far doesn't impress me. But then I played a Monk in EQ1 and this is very different. But then a lot of classes don't get going until 30 or more.

So much has changed since I last played, its almost like starting over.


Guild Wars 2

Played the free weekend trial that just went by. A lot to like, but the graphics being nice, look so much like GW1. And like GW1 there is just that something that doesn't hook me. And I only play it less than casually. And that's not worth the price of admission right now.

Maybe down the road if I can pick it up for $30. But WoW MoP is much better at the moment.

One thing that sounded fantastic on paper was the Siege PvP warfare. Right out of Dark age of Camelot it sounded. If its true, and as good as it sounds. It should be awesome. And something Blizzard should be ripping off right this second.

Encore

News broke this week about the Encore we all wanted, but dared not believe would ever happen. Fortress Maximus. And not only that but apparently the Japanese version with the huge sword.

I admit I am a little tempted, between my downsizing still ongoing and already having a Brave Max with all
the goodies I won't be biting on this. And as much as I like having an original Takara version with all the original and repro goodies from Fort and Grand I'd be lying if I hadnt said where was this 7 months ago?? I'd rather have paid the $350 for this and kept the change than what BM cost me. But at least I have the satisfaction of a near mint original with all the add ons.

Legend of the Seeker

I ended up watching this after a recommendation. One of which I sat on for about a week or more, since what little I saw of it reminded me too much of the old Hercules and Xena. And once I knew Raimi was involved, it was like no..

But I was bored enough, and both season were on Netflix so I started watching it. And it's shame that the show was cancelled. I have never read or even heard of the books before now. But the show is your typical fantasy romp, and nothing too complicated. But I can say that it pleasantly falls into the category of being the best of the Hercules and Xena 'Mold'

The show isn't too campy, funny or silly. And strikes the right edge. And the casting turned out to be quite good. I especially liked the 'Train Man' from the matrix. He made a fantastic wizard, and the icing on the cake was the fact they actually spent some money on FX and he could cast more than 1 spell. And they weren't shy about throwing around some lightening and fire in this series.

I would heartily recommend it to anyone who didn't mind the Hercules and Xena style, but a little more serious. I have no idea how it reflects on the books. And being cancelled after two seasons, they still manage to end the show without too much feeling unfinished.

4 Stars out of 5

TOTAL RECALL 2012

Being pressed for time working on my Downsizing, and panting for stepping back into Warhammer. It's been awhile since I managed a media related piece.

Well, I went to catch an afternoon show of the remake of Total Recall. Two days after it opened, and the theatre was damn near empty. That was odd, even for an afternoon. But it meant a quiet and peaceful experience with no interruptions, cell phones or any other annoying occurrences.

I will say right off the top, that the movie was decent. But not great, could have been better. I will lay the blame right on the script. I found the movie had a lot of just head scratching logic associated with the technology of the world in which they set the movie. It all moved along nicely enough, and I liked the casting. They had the bucks for all the effects and stunts. But the world that they laid the story out in just broke suspension of disbelief for me.

I mean, if you had the tech to build a skyscraper sized building that travels in a tunnel through the center of the earth from Great Britain to Australia in no time at all really, Android Police Officers and 90% of the planet is uninhabitable wouldn't you just build a colony on Mars instead?? It would be easier. Or the Moon even. Since for the purpose of the story you needed two locations.

Rekall itself just seemed to be an afterthought, it seemed to be more central in the original. More part of the plot. Here it just seemed to be minor stop along the way to tip off the plot. Which really was it's purpose, but it just didn't seemed to have enough weight. And seemed like an underground operation, rather than the recreational vacation company I felt it was in the original.

The best part for me was the throw back to the 1990 one in customs. You'll know when you see it.

I'm going to have try and see the 1990 version again soon, it's been a long time since I've seen it. But I fully expect it to be the better of the two.

3 out of 5 stars

Adventures in Downsizing

I've been working on pruning my collection, and getting a sales list together. The heatwave here the last couple weeks has put a damper on that. I don't imagine anyone wants anything with bonus sweat. So, beyond my original list. I only pulled some of the larger pieces.

With those, according to Ebays completed auction listing they sometimes sell for stupid amounts. So instead of risking insulting my fellow collectors I decided to list them on Ebay and see how that goes.

Let us just say that Ebay has a reputation, and it is well earned. As a buyer things couldn't be better usually. But as a seller it is a whole other ballgame. After learning my way about the system having never sold anything on there before I listed a half dozen items.

Nothing has sold, I still have a few remaining. And no matter how many watchers I doubt they will either. And it's not that I didn't price them competitively because I did. But probably because shipping is just too high. Canada Post does me no favors in that regard. And neither does Paypal if I want to protect myself by adding some stipulations to how I can ship and keep that protection.

But, getting back to Ebay again. I was very careful in how I setup my auctions. Shipping only in North America. USA & Canada. I excluded everywhere else and PO Boxes. And stated it in the auction. And yet I still get bids from Chinese buyers with Ebay accounts only 2 months old and almost 1000 purchases (Insane) but in all fairness maybe legit. I cancel those bids, and find out I missed a loophole buried in my control panel. So I close that loophole. And said Chinese bidder still get though, so I cancel his bid again and ban him. And I have one remaining bidder. He wins, which was great. And when I get payment I find out from the Paypal info that he is another Chinese bidder, shipping through Los Angeles to an unconfirmed address.. Here we go again. Opening a case with Ebay, refunding the money through Paypal and several hours later I'm back where I started.

Almost a month into this, and the only sales I have made are a handful to my fellow Canadians through the TF Community. Which is very appreciated. But I have a lot more I want to get moved. Once these last auctions come down, I may cross post my sales over into TFW2005. Members in the community seem to be a lot more understanding of what shipping is like. And there a lot more US members than Canadian ones.

But in the end, Ebay seems like a great waste of time and aggravation. I agree with all the complaints I've ever heard about. And I don't know how anyone makes any money on there with small ticket items with all the fees.

In other regards at present I am mainly keeping my G1s, Beast Wars / Machines, CHUG, RiD, Prime and Animated stuff. So that means I am mainly clearing out all the doubles, and movies stuff I shouldn't have bought. And any figures I bought for the 'Coolness' factor but have no real attachement to. Which means some third party figures.

Going forward I'm not sure. I'm thinking about staying with G1 / Masterpiece. And filling a few holes I have missing. And finish Prime since I'm half done or better now anyway( And how is Hasbro messing that up??). But I know one thing, I feel better without the weight of all the new releases on my shoulders (I was far from a completist. But I liked too much of what was coming all the time) And the flood of items that never seemed to end. There has to be a limit somewhere. The hobby is too broad and deep otherwise. Or else you need very deep pockets. Because you can't afford to do anything else if you don't.

Once I get the bulk of items moved that I cleared in the first passes I will go back and decide what else is staying. I have duplicate Cyberverse, Deluxe and Voyager stuff. Clear out the Cyberverse versions?? Keep the voyager versions?? I will need to decide that once I've sold most of what is waiting to go now.

And too add to the aggravation.. Paypal is being a real pain.. I setup an account to link for selling purposes. And PP stated that if the account held too few funds to cover a purchase it would go to the CC attached instead. Well, for the record they don't. They like to overdraft the account and not go to the CC as they are supposed to. Something that needs to be watched carefully. I feel like changing my sales to EMT only.. But I know too many people use PP and have money in their accounts. But once I'm done selling, I will be closing that account and removing it from my PP account. I don't want to have to go into my accounts and transfer funds to cover purchases every time I buy something because PP doesn't go the CC when it's supposed to.

Refocusing & Downsizing

I find myself at a crossroads of sort, ever since I got my hands on RiD Brave Maximus and all the little accessories from most of his mold mates, authentic or repro I've been over the top of the mountain, and sliding down the steep slope of the other side.

I find other things attracting my attention, and I only have so many hobby dollars I can split up. So I find myself re-evaluating my collection. Unfortunately for my wallet, a lot of what comes out I find appealing. But that has become too expensive to maintain. And now I need to focus my collection on the items I really really like, rather than just everything that I like or looks cool.

Do you limit yourself to Masterpieces, G1 Characters (In my case, what I grew up on)etc etc..

I had already resigned myself to begin exiting the third party bandwagon, it has just exploded and become more and more expensive. iGears Miniwarriors were looking like the last of the 3rd Party for me along with Fans Project Assaulter.

And I find as much as the movie stuff had it's appealing designs, I'm eying up that shelf for liquidation. Which, isn't going to be easy when a large chunk of it is still shelf warming in most locations.

In the end when I look over all my shelves the pieces that I find I like the most, are the G1s, G1 inspired (Classics / Generations / Universe) and Robots in Disguise. Followed closely by Beast Wars / Beast Machines, Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime. With a little dash of Armada / Cybertron and Energon.

And when it comes to the new stuff, even though the Cyberverse stuff coming out is very cool, do I really need 3 different versions of Prime?? Cyberverse, Deluxe and Voyager?? No, not really. Not too mention I was looking forward to the Energon Driller and the 'Hammer. But as cool as the playsets look. I have The Ark from DOTM and it doesn't really fit in anywhere. So I have to look at the fact that here will be cool pieces that come out, but don't really fit into my collection.

I thought about scaling back all the way to Masterpiece alone. But as few as they are, and cheap on a yearly basis. The line doesn't represent much of the series as whole. And likely never will. Even though we are supposed to get like 5 this year.

So as I have read and heard from others over the years. Wait for deals, patience is key. Don't buy assortments of 4 figures just to get 2 you want. Because you will need to sell those other two, and that takes time and you probably will be lucky to get your cost back out.

Only collect the ones you really want. And you don't need to have every version of every character. Just get the best representation to you. And don't be afraid to downsize if it's needed. That cash can go back into the collection, or to some other hobby you've been neglecting. Which is what I plan to do now that there is a budding Warhammer league here. I always liked the modeling aspect of the hobby as well as playing. But I didn't like the idea of doing one, but not the other. And it's been almost 16 years since I was into that.

Hotwheels - Another collection..

So not too long ago, maybe a month or so I was browsing the isles at Walmart and seeing nothing new for Transformers like usual. We're still stuck on wave 1 of PRID. And not every store here even has that.

I walked past the Hotwheels section, and the 1966 Batmobile just jumped out at me. I'm not entirely sure why that was. But I took it down to look at it, and I remembed that as a kid I had a much larger metal version of this one that came with little Batman and Robin figures that sat in the seats. It also had a red plastic flame in the back and a movable metal saw on the front bumper.

Anyway, I ended up leaving Walmart with like 5 versions of the Batmobile and the A - Team truck. And when I got home I checked out Ebay and picked up a Ghostbusters Ecto-1, Back to the Future Time Machine and another Batmobile.

Now, I don't have much of an interest in cars in general. I don't know much about them. And I don't see that changing much anytime soon. But there are some cool looking Hotwheels cars outside of the TV and Movie ones. But the ones that really interest me are those. And the majority seem to be Batman. But I find myself eying up some of the others. Like the Breakfast cereal ones of Count Chockula, The Flintstones and the new SDCC 2012 Scooby Doo Mystery Machine. I would really like that Mystery Machine, but I don't yet see myself paying $50 it seems to be asking for on Ebay for a little Hotwheels car. But this is the same thing I said about Transformers when I started that. And now I have some very expensive pieces.

So it would seem that that one little 1966 Batman Batmobile, has managed to slightly spark onto something I remember from being a kid much farther back than my mid 80s transformers days. The sub 10 year old days of playing in the dirt with my 'Dinky', 'Matchbox' and 'Hotwheels' cars.

Now unlike the Transformers, which unfortunately has sprawled more than my Wallet would like. I favor quite a few different lines. I think I should be able to keep the Hotwheels limited to the Movie and TV varieties. And coming in at about $1.33 here when I see them. They are absolutely cheap. Even with Ebay they are usually only been a few bucks.

Of course the dark side of the coin is that in almost 5 years of TF collecting I have only run into other 'mature' collectors a few times. And none were clearing the pegs like I heard about. In the last three weeks or so since I bought that first Batmobile I've seen it twice with Hotwheels.. in two different cities. Men older than I am, just going through the pegs and dumping stuff into the cart at their feet. So I guess it's true and this does happen.

And when I think about it, I guess it should be all the more common with little Die Cast cars. Since so many are licenced and exact little duplicates of real world cars. Which makes me wonder if the in-laws and such would be so different in their outlook if I had a large miniature car collection, or of military planes and vehicles instead of robots. I think every TF collector knows the answer to that one.

KO City Commander & Shadow Commander Add on Kits

Picked these two up a couple weeks ago now. They came in a plain bubblewrap with no paperwork, or anything at all. The plastic quality on them is quite nice, feels like a real thing.

Got the two shoulder launchers and rifle. The colors are matched up to suit the City Commander and Shadow Commander color schemes. My displayed City Commander is a KO Armor with a KO Ultra Magnus. And they plug in tightly. And the rifle is also snug in the hand. The missiles themselves have a little spring to them, makes them feel spring loaded. But they don't seem to launch.

The Shadow Commander is also a good fit, mine is also a KO Shadow Commander Armor with a KO Nemesis Prime.

So overall these are great quality, and the price was fair. And shipped from overseas they arrived really fast.

They complete the look of my Commanders. And allows me to keep my authentic CC in his box. I'm far from a MISB collector. But the real valuable pieces I hesitate to open.

RiD BRAVE MAXIMUS

Well, a little over a month ago after a year of watching prices and even twice I tried to bid one for a decent price on Ebay I finally sprung for and bought a Robots in Disguise Brave Maximus.

None of the two Ebay attempts panned out for me. They always ended up getting bid up too high for my blood. Certainly with the nature of Ebay I wasn't comfortable with such an expensive purchase should there be anything wrong with it, or not as described. I could only imagine the nightmare of having to try and return something of that size and weight. And the headaches increase.

So I got a line on one from a reputable source. And he was supposed to be in very good condition and complete. Box and all accessories. The price was a little more than I would have liked. But the shipping was good, and the security and peace of mind was worth it.

So he came with his box, insert and all of RiD BM original accessories. And since he was such a crown piece for my collection. I decided to hunt down some repro parts from Fortress Maximus to kit him out. So I managed to get FM two guns. The FM Twin Blaster and FM large Photon Rifle. As well as Cog who forms two small tanks and a larger robot. So all I am missing is the repro gun for Cog. I find when it comes to the FM guns the dark blue color seems to go well with BM. Rather than the more appropriate repro color matched to BM. Although I do think that Cog would look better if he was color matched to BM in red and black. I'm thinking about painting him myself but I haven't yet. And I even grabbed the Crazy Devy Massive Sword since it was on clearance. And it's just about as tall as BM himself is.

The last thing I picked up was the Headrobots Courageous Headmaster kit. It was also a little pricier than I would like. But it was supposed to be limited to 200 pieces. Not that that made it any cheaper. But, that gave me two nicely detailed Headmaster heads and a nice translucent blue sword.

Over all BM was somewhat dusty when he arrived. Nothing that a dry cloth and a can of air didn't mostly fix. And to my surprise it seems that all of his stickers are in excellent shape. None seemed to be faded, scratched to coming loose at all. I found that to be amazing really. I've transformed him once, from robot to city mode and back again. His joints seem to be tight and in good shape. All in all I couldn't be happier with him. It's fun just to look at him. And being the largest transformer ever made is a fun fact. And I prefer this color version of Fortress Maximus to the other two version. The colors as was mentioned somewhere else, looks fantastic as a city at night with the lit up windows.

And a reminder of him being from a bygone age in toys, the plastic he is made of, is of just a better quality than you see with Hasbro today. And maybe even Takara. It just feels sturdy, and not cheap or fragile at all. The heft of the whole figure is surprising. This thing is heavy.

And one last surprise I had when I got looking at the box and little details. It seems that I ended up with a Takara release of Brave Maximus. I had assumed that it would have been the Korean release. So that was a nice cherry on top. From everything I checked out it definitely seems to be the Takara version.

RiD is becoming one of my favorite continuities in Transformers. And is starting to rank up there with G1 as far as I am concerned. There just seems to be a lot of nice figures, and good quality materials in the line. And there is a handful of figures I still want to get from the line. It's too bad it didn't go on even one more season than it did.

Headrobots Courageous

I receieved the Headrobots upgrade / replacement kit for Robots in Disguise Brave Maximus recently.

The set consists of two heads, one with the typical face plate and the other with nose and mouth. As well as a transparent blue sword. I've read in other reviews of the set that the reds didn't come out well, and didn't go well with Brave Maximus. I didn't find this to be the case at all. They are not an exact match, but they seem quite close to me. An don't look bad at all. They also both come with the headmaster attachment while in head form.

If you have ever seen or handled a Headrobots release before than there is nothing really new about these two bots but for the colors, and the design of the heads.

This was an exclusive set from Megatoyfan limited if memory serves to 200 pieces. If Brave wasn't going to be my giddy big bad boy of my collection I don't know if I would have been able to justify the cost. But I had some money I could spare on it, and I want my BM to have all the pieces and upgrades to make him 'Complete'

So in the end I would have to say the choice is yours if you think you would want it for yours.