Ok, the whole thing was a bust.

Birthday: 2010

# of TFs on day of: 0

Zero Hour

So, the big day is here. So far, all I've got to show for it are two cards - one from my insurance agent, and the other from the 3rd period class of 7th graders I teach. Can't really say I expected that second one. But anyway, nothing else yet. Didn't even finally get the TFCC mag in the mail. However, the wife isn't home from work yet (will be soon), so maybe she'll give me something.

T-minus ~12 hours!

Well, the b-day drops tomorrow. Ideally, I'm getting at least one or two TFs from my wife, one of them before I go to work. I doubt this last part happens, though. We'll have a pretty busy evening, too, as Wednesday is church night, and we'll be there for at least 2.5 hours or so. I'm most likely not being taken out to dinner. But whatever. My wife's at the gym right now; I can't help but wonder if there's a side trip to Walmart or Kmart before she gets home (with Chik-fil-A for dinner!).

I saw some guy on TFW who went to Target today and walked out with Iron Man 2 on DVD and wave 4 of Generations (Blurr and Dirge). I told my wife that it sounded like he had an awesome afternoon. I'm really just, at this point, hoping that I get to go on a shopping spree or something this weekend after payday.

Transformers: Prime Soundwave

So, here he is - Soundwave from the upcoming Transformers: Prime television show. I have to say he's pretty different from what I expected. I know I've brought up the aesthetic disconnect between War for Cybertron and Prime before, but this is yet again a pretty striking example. WFC Soundwave (who's sort of available now, by the way) looks pretty much nothing like the guy, and, to be honest, if this image was shown to me in isolation, I don't think I'd automatically think it was Soundwave. Still, it's a neat design, and I like that it turns into a real alt mode - a Predator-esque drone airplane.

Argh...

Man, there's all kinds of new crap on Hasbro Toy Shop.com. This is hard!

Especially since my mother-in-law, who stayed for most of the weekend, just had me pick out something online for my birthday. For the past couple of years, she's gotten me a comic/magazine subscription, so I went for a DC subscription to Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors. Had I known the likes of Crankcase, Stakeout, Blurr, and Dirge were on HTS, I totally would have tried to convince her to let me get some of those. Oh well. Maybe at Christmas or with birthday money.

Oh, and no, I didn't get the latest TFCC magazine yesterday. Maybe tomorrow.

T-minus 5 days...

So, it turns out to be a good thing that I haven't been spending much extra money this month, as we're still barely making it to the end of the month, financially.

Still, my birthday is around the corner, and while my wife may not have the money to get me much, my parents will be meeting up with us next weekend, and (as I noted before) I can at least expect a few things from them.

Also, we've been flooded with images of new stuff this week. Most of them are better images of stuff I first saw at Botcon, but there were a few new surprises among that crop. In addition, some Walmart computer listings revealed a new Wreck-Gar toy, which we quickly saw is, in fact a G1-style Generations toy of the character, as shown on the front cover of the latest TFCC magazine (which I'll hopefully get today...). Inside, another totally unheard-of surprise was also revealed; a new deluxe mold of Generations 2 "Laser Rod" Optimus Prime. Which is interesting, as that was one of the best of the G2 molds (I don't have it, but I do have its later-released repaint into Scourge, a villain from RiD), being very solid and well-articulated. However, the new mold apparently gets around the original's cheaty fake window-chest. Also, the original was not the best in terms of molded detail, with a lot of large, flat panels everywhere and stickers for detail (even RiD Scourge makes use of some stickers), and the new mold apparently won't have that issue either. At any rate, I won't be able to not get it, with it being an Optimus toy, but I'm also glad they're releasing it so I won't feel like I have to track down the actual G2 toy (which is hard to find in good shape for a decent price). I also hope for a repaint in the same vain as the eHobby G2 Ultra Magnus repaint of the original. It's one of the better executions of the "white Prime" Magnus repaints, and it'd be nice to have an affordable version.

Film accuracy?

Rock Lords

So, apparently, Dwayne Johnson - The Rock - is going to be voicing Cliffjumper in Transformers: Prime. This is unexpected, ridiculous, and pretty awesome.

Also, Amazon leaked some pages from the TF: Prime preview comic the other day, revealing a few character designs, namely Starscream and Bulkhead. We see a lot of Starscream, who is like a really creepy version of his Animated incarnation (no nose! so creepy!) and appears to be in charge of a bunch of those Decepticon car drones. Bulkhead we see less clearly, but he seems to stick pretty close to the Animated design, sans back-mounted kibble "wings." Oh, and then there's Breakdown, who's this massive guy, not at all like his War for Cybertron incarnation* (or any other, for that matter) who is a bit reminiscent of the unused Transtech character Immorticon. He also looks like he could be Bulkhead's blue brother, just more ripped and less fat.



*Why does this matter? Because, according to Hasbro, the War for Cybertron/Exodus continuity (such as it is; the two don't mesh that well) is the same continuity as Transformers: Prime. This is all despite the characters looking virtually nothing like each other across the two stories. Starscream in particular (and the aforementioned Breakdown) is a pretty extreme example, but even Optimus, Bumblebee and Megatron look pretty danged different. WFC has a distinct G1 flavor to it; none of the characters in it that originate from the G1 continuities had a major design overhaul, they're all recognizable (save for maybe Barricade, who takes some cues from the movie version). This is in contrast to TF: Prime, where the character designs seem very much to be a mix of the Animated and Movie/RotF aesthetics.

September is here

Well, it's now September. With the wish list in play, it's now a month until I find out if it was worth the time it took to type up.

My predictions are that I'll get the Toys R Us exclusives on the list - Masterpiece Grimlock and Animated Ironhide & Rodimus - because my mom is really reliable about getting TRU exclusives. However, I've updated the list to show the full range of toys that should be out before Christmas (and many of them are showing up already - Generations waves 2 AND 3 have already been sighted!), so I wonder how overwhelming it looks. I haven't bothered to sit and calculate the full price of all the stuff on there, because I know it's a few hundred dollars.

Still, at this point I'd rather ask for this stuff and be a bit disappointed than get it on my own and get criticized. Last time I talked to my dad about scaling back my collection was about a year ago, for last year's birthday. I haven't done a good job of that (obviously!), but this is my attempt to seriously tackle it.