Codee Scorpion mini-review

TRU clearanced the Codee sets earlier this year so I bought this set (for $2) to pad out a purchase I was making at the time.

Basic concept is that you have a single strand of links and by following the coded instructions, you twist and turn each link until you have the finished product. "Construction" was more or less straightforward although there's a few times where you need to work ahead on the strand because it gets obstructed when it curves in on itself. There's not much you can do with the finished set as it's pretty much a statue and the accessories fall off rather easily which means it either becomes a display piece or you "disassemble" it to create something else. Not nearly as fun as a brick set. Interesting concept but I don't think anyone was surprised that it flopped.

Kre-o Transformers Ratchet (what, again?)

Turns out I had some more pictures of Ratchet hiding in a different folder so here we go again.


Didn't really do much posing with this guy. Them rubber ball joints on the Kre-o bots don't really lend themselves much fidgeting, IMO.


Here, you can see almost all of his joints except for his head joint.


Like I said in the previous post, what ambulance has...






Ratchet playing cops & robbers? :D


Found this oldie pic. Generations Laser Optimus and one of the deluxe Optimus from RotF. It's interesting to see the similarities and differences between these two.

Kre-o Transformers Mirage (and Ratchet)

I don't remember posting these here. Another bunch of oldie pics. This time, it's Kre-o Transformers Mirage.









It's an interesting idea but ultimately it's not something I'd play around with too much because the joints and build don't really lend itself well to heavy playing when it's built as a robot. Not to mention the robots in this size class frankly sucks donkey balls when it comes to posing as you've only got hinge joints in both the shoulder and elbows. I'd much rather just leave it in vehicle mode and have Kreon Mirage go drive around in it. I didn't put on the stickers for this set. Actually I don't think I've put stickers on any of the Kre-o TF sets I've got.

edit: Adding pics of Ratchet as well. For some reason I only have 2 pics. orz


Robot mode is much better. We now have knee, ankle and ball-jointed shoulder joints. No weapons for the brick bot but he can be a mighty mean boxer. XD


I kinda wonder what kind of ambulance has a hammer, axe, and shovel attached to it. More than meets the eye, I guess. Kreon Ratchet's head crest is too big and blocks out his eyes. -_-;

Construct-Bots Triple Changers Bumblebee

So I tried putting on all parts on Bumblebee and here's what I got.





And here's vehicle mode. The wheels act as hovering engines.





I'm pretty sure other people have tried this already and likely with similar if not same results so I doubt this is anything original. Forgive the mess in the background. -_-;

Testing, testing

This is just to test the embedding from OneDrive.


This is from a nearby park.

This is from inside the Houston Galleria.

Unfortunately both embeds are quite small and there's no option to adjust their size to be bigger even if their original size was bigger.

edit: It seems clicking on them will redirect to OneDrive's site with access to original size. Also rather than directly embedding the video, the first image above is just a thumbnail that links to the video on OneDrive. It's a far cry from YouTube. :p

Mega Bloks Need For Speed Porsche 911 GT3 RS

Here's a quick review of Mega Bloks Need For Speed Porsche 911 GT3 RS set (that's quite a mouthful).

Bed fight

AoE Dinobots are awesome. Yeah.

Sent from my Windows Phone

Clearance on Tiger & Bunny figures at TRU

For Tiger & Bunny fans who like the show but been putting off buying the figures due to high price of imports, TRU website has some related stuff for clearance. SH Figuarts Sky High for $14.98, Figuarts Lunatic for $13.98, Chibi-Arts Kotetsu for $9.98, and Chibi-Arts Barnaby also for $9.98. Getting all four will put you just a few cents shy of the $49 to qualify for free shipping but TRU has pletty of stuff in the clearance area that should fill the gap such as Kre-o Dr Mayhems Jewel Heist for 98 cents.

Speaking of Tiger & Bunny, I have yet to watch the series myself... orz I should really go watch it.

Nendoroid Maiko Madoka & Kuonji Alice: pkg impressions

My most recent Japanese related purchase would be Nendoroid Kaname Madoka Maiko ver and Nendoroid Kuonji Alice, both bought from Crunchyroll last week. I've been interested in Maiko Madoka however only noticed her after her preorder had passed; she was roughly twice the cost of Alice. :/ The one good thing is that shipping was free for both so it wasn't all bad. They came from separate venders BTW; Madoka came from Yes Anime while Alice came direct from GSC. Both came within a few days which means they shipped from within the US.

Alice looks nice in the box. I already get the impression that I'm going to like her. I'm not quite so sure about Madoka however. I decided to get her since I already have other similar Nendoroids like Yune and Snow Miku 2013. I don't see it ever likely that I'll get around to playing Alice's source material but it would be nice. Come to think of it, I've yet to throughly play any of Type-Moon's games. *sweatdrop*

What to do

When I originally started this blog, my intent was to have a blog with reviews of toys and stuff that interest me but don't get reviewed much elsewhere, if at all. Since getting my current day job, that has fallen completely on the wayside, especially with an ever-increasing backlog of toys and games to play with and other distraction such as anime and manga. However, it would be a waste to let the blog go completely to waste so here's yet another attempt to revive the blogging activity! I might as well be hitting my head against the wall at this point, heh.

Mega Bloks WoW Barrens Chase

Okay...brief test post. Hopefully it posts the images right. If not, I'll correct it the next night.


Contents of box. No sticker sheet, yay!


Staff weapons are wrapped with a piece of cardboard to prevent bending. There's still a slight bend to it however. :p


Random bonus weapon. Seems most of the WoW sets come with one in a opaque bag.


Completed set. I don't play WoW but a race between a fantasy tiger and a fantasy rocket? Seriously?

It's a nice and simple set. For $3, I definitely can't complain. I was fairly impressed with the detailed painting on the minifigs. Good job, MB.

posted from Bloggeroid

Cheap toys!

I was helping my parents stock up on water at a local Walmart when I noticed they had a clearance tent set up outside. So I took a look and bought the following...

A Hexbug Scarab for $1....

And a Mega Bloks WoW Barrens Chase set for $3.

Tested out the Scarab and decided to a take a brief video of it using my phone. For some reason, the phone didn't record the sound racket caused by the Scarab. orz

I don't play with Hexbugs all that much myself but they're excellent for entertaining any random kid that may come over for whatever reason (such as the nephews :p).

It starts again...

Um, so I started the year with a post mostly in Japanese. Sorry about that. Since I usually watch my anime subbed or raw, occasionally some of my interal reactions come out in Japanese as well. Because of that, sometimes my immediate reaction can only be best expressed in that language rather than English. And it just so happened that I was off the day I watched the last episode of OreImo so I had time to write my thoughts down.

Last year had been uneventful in various ways. Like 2012, there's only a small handful of posts. I bought a whole bunch of toys but had very little time to play with them and it also didn't help that I went back to watching anime for much of my free time.

A brief list of anime series I've finished watching as follows. It's not a complete list as some anime I'm not sure if I watched in 2013 or 2012.

OreImo
Infinite Stratos (1st season, watching 2nd season)
Sword Art Online
Vividred Operation
Bakemonogatari (unfinished, uncertain if I'll continue watching)
Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere (unfinished, same as above)
Guren Lagann
Kokoro Connect
Moyashimon
Dog Days
Shingeki no Kyojin
Moyashimon
Hanasaku Iroha
GIRLS und PANZER
Maoyu
Madoka Magika

Manga I've been following in 2013 are Bleach, Saki, and since Crunchyroll started rolling out their manga section, UQ Holder, Seven Deadly Sins, Fort of Apocalypse, Coppelion, and Wife is Wagatsuma. I've caught up on all of them except the last two but I'm not sure if I'll continue to follow them especially Wagatsuma.

^One of my favorite scenes in UQ HOlder. Yes, I love gender bender characters. I also love Charles from IS...before she joined the Ichika harem as Charlotte. :p She remains my favorite IS heroine however.

Why she so cute as boy... orz

It's old news that I have too much toys but what really hit me recently was just how much. The impact is driven home even deeper since much of my newer toys haven't been opened and those take up much more space due to the packaging. It's about time I take a look at my older toys and decide which I want to dispose of and how as well as a closer look at my unopened purchases.

Sorry for Japanese. Oh, and Oreimo spoiler image, LOL.

Continue if you can read Japanese. Basically, it's my direct thought after watching Oreimo 2nd season end.