April Hauls!

[BWprowl]

Picked up the Autobot Data Disc set with Ramhorn and Eject. Ramhorn does not live up to the hype. Mine has trouble staying in disc mode (handling him at all usually causes one of his legs to spring out), and doesn’t auto-transform onto his feet any better than any of the other guys. In fact, whether dropped onto a table or just pressed down on, mine consistently flips over onto his back. The rhino mode isn’t exactly worth writing home about either, with its dippy, not-particularly-rhino-ish head design and chunky flaps hanging off all its limbs. Ho-hum. Eject is just the Frumbly mold, which is okay, though the amount of remolding is impressive, and he’s a nice shade of blue. So whatever, I kinda wish I’d gotten the set with Sunder instead. Guess I’ll get it later, and hope I run into Blaster along the way.

[JediTricks]

Strongly suggest you return for a replacement. Mine has no trouble staying in disc mode and springs to his feet every time (unless I pog-slam him, then he flips end over end, but that's just from carrying too much momentum).

Sorry you don't like the set.

I have no hauls to report, aside from easter refunds from unused grass and candy, thanks Target! I did finally after 23 months assemble my living room coffee table, replacing the smaller but similar yellow end table I had been using. To be honest, I miss the yellow table, it livened up the room a little.

[Shockwave]

Birthday and Easter hauls have started coming in:
Birthday (so far):
A folding chair for outside use. A really nice one with a folding table attached to it and it's a sturdy one that sits high, not on the ground like most of them do.
$50 from my Aunt/Uncle.
$25 gift card to On the Border, one of my family's favorite places to eat.

Easter:
Chocolate bunny and eggs from See's. The eggs are already gone.

[Dominic]

I fiddled with Lewis' Ramhorn last night, and it has the same problems that Prowl's does. That set is another easy skip for me.

Through a convoluted trade, I ended up swapping out my FoC Starscream for a pair of loose Kreons.
-Red Alert
-Ironhide


On a related note, my allergy medicine is really kicking my ass, which is why I keep forgetting to box up and ship out a couple of packages for Scourge and JT. I am going to try to get to the packaging in the next few days.



Dom
-also stayed out until about 3am last night, which was probably a mistake.

[Shockwave]

On a related note, my allergy medicine is really kicking my ass,

Have you thought about getting shots for that? I got them for about 5-6 years and as of right now, I'm cured. I need no meds and have no problems. It really does improve quality of life quite a bit.

[Shockwave]

And... more birthday hauls!
From the parents:
Henkei Hot Rod (Rodimus). I actually helped my mom order this so I already knew I was getting it.
Transformers Prime BH Voyager Optimus Prime. In a hilarious mixup, I had actually asked for Shockwave. They got a little confused because the series name was Prime so they thought I was asking for the character Prime. I should have been more specific. They have said they would keep looking for Shockwave so maybe I'll wind up with one anyway. Still, having now fiddled with Voyage Prime I actually like it. It's got good poseability, a bigass sword, the whole jetwings/backpack thing kinda forms a trailerish look to him in vehicle mode.
A Star Trek TNG Enterprise blanket. To go well with the the bigass cutaway Enterprise poster in my living room.
A neon orange tshirt with black Decepticon logo. This is the greatest tshirt ever. I love neon colors, especially wearing them and well my love of Decepticons goes without saying so it was just 100% pure freakin' win.
Another TF shirt. Black with Optimus, Hot Rod and Bumblebee in outline with some Japanese writing.

All in all, a good day.

[JediTricks]

I fiddled with Lewis' Ramhorn last night, and it has the same problems that Prowl's does. That set is another easy skip for me.

Yeah, that doesn't sound hilariously wrong at all.

Through a convoluted trade, I ended up swapping out my FoC Starscream for a pair of loose Kreons.
-Red Alert
-Ironhide

On a related note, my allergy medicine is really kicking my ass, which is why I keep forgetting to box up and ship out a couple of packages for Scourge and JT. I am going to try to get to the packaging in the next few days.

No sweat.

-also stayed out until about 3am last night, which was probably a mistake.

Any time you stay out that late means you're doing something right.

A Star Trek TNG Enterprise blanket. To go well with the the bigass cutaway Enterprise poster in my living room.

The poster, is that the 3/4s view cutaway? I had that one as a teen in my living room!

[Dominic]

Through a convoluted trade, I ended up swapping out my FoC Starscream for a pair of loose Kreons.
-Red Alert
-Ironhide

Yeah. I got Zab pretty good with that one.

[Shockwave]

A Star Trek TNG Enterprise blanket. To go well with the the bigass cutaway Enterprise poster in my living room.

The poster, is that the 3/4s view cutaway? I had that one as a teen in my living room!

Yep, that's the one. The full size one 4' x 2'. That was fun cramming the framed version of that into the back of my yellow beetle.

[BWprowl]

I managed to find Commander Class Hardshell yesterday, sweet! Man, I never thought a Cyberverse figure would be this tricky to come across, but hey. He’s actually closer to Barrage colors than the standard Insecticon scheme, which I think is cool. Robot mode isn’t the most dynamic thing in the world, the posability of the hips and shoulders is hampered by their size (though you can free up the shoulders a bit by moving the shoulder pads out of the way when you want to) but it just looks really cool, almost has the feel of a tokusatsu monster going on. Transformation is nifty as hell, there’s some really clever bits like the twist the midsection does for the head. Bug mode is great. Looks cool, the wings have nice posability, and I love his freaky monster-bug-mouth that can open and close (the bug head in general just looks really cool). It’s also got some substantial size to it, this coupled with the decent transformation complexity make it feel almost like an old Basic rather than just a Commander. It’s just a neat little toy, and I’m glad I was able to find one.

I wonder if Hardshell will be getting a larger figure. So far, TFPrime hasn’t made a Commander Class toy for anyone who didn’t get a larger toy later down the line. I certainly like Hardshell’s design enough that I’d buy it in something bigger.

Also picked up the new Avatar graphic novel, The Search: Part 1. The political underpinnings of The Promise were all well and good, but this swings as a more typical, adventury Avatar tale. More cute reverse-foreshadowing to Legend of Korra abounds (half the point of these books is watching Yu Dao evolve into Republic City), some attempts at forward character development for Azula (it’s interesting to finally get into her head and see how and why she’s so crazy) and a pretty major revelation about Zuko make this one a strong read. Definitely want to see where it goes from here.