Hongfire withdrawal

Hongfire's been down this entire week and I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms. I don't know if this was a planned or unplanned outage; either way I'm not too happy about it. While I'm busy trying to deal with the loss of my favorite method of wasting time online, I'll yap about this summer.

This summer has been pretty good to me as far as me finding great steals on brick-related (IOW Lego, Mega Bloks) stuff and because of that, I've also bought more brick stuff this year than all previous years combined. Let me list the brick deals that I've gotten this summer.

Bionicle Baranus V7 $15 @ Walmart (original: $39.96)
Dragons Universe Dx Dual-Blast Dragon Hunter $7.48 @ Target (original: $29.99)
Dragons Universe Rapid Fire Dragon Fighter $4.98 @ Target (original: $19.99)
NFS Porsche 911 GT3 RS $13.74 @ Target (original: $54.99)
Kreo Starscream $7.48 @ Target (original: $29.99)
Kreo Sentinel Prime $9.98 @ Target (original: $39.99)
Hero Factory Fire Lord $9.98 @ Target (original: $19.99)
Hero Factory Von Nebula $13.00 @ Walmart (original: $19.99)
Covenant Phantom $39.99 @ Target (original: $79.99)

All of the Target stuff were from the same store which leads me to wonder what's going on with their pricing/clearance department especially considering the fact that the Kreos have only been out for a brief period while the NFS Porsche and the Phantom are brand new releases. The Phantom is frankly a bit over budget for me so I'm not sure if I'll keep it or not. I'll be doing a post on the Baranus, Dragon Fighter, and Porsche within the next couple weeks.

There were also some other deals which I'll post about later but at this rate, I might as well rename this blog "Cheap-ass Toy Box"... :P

 

On the anime front, I've watched Sora no Oto and Asobi ni Ikuyo (Bombshells From the Sky). Sora no Oto, I liked a lot, maybe even more than K-On! Asobi ni Ikuyo, while enjoyable, doesn't exactly move me much but that kinda goes with most harem anime in general. Haven't watched much anime lately but that might pick up depending on how I spend the next few months. Haven't bought any import toys lately although I'm considering a few purchases in the near future. The high yen has really dampened my want for imports so future purchasing plans are really uncertain at this time.

Speaking of bricks, I had recently got the Lego midi-scale Star Destroyer for half off but I found it to be too delicate and crumble too easily so I returned it. The engine parts in particular were easy to fall off if not careful and then there's that unsightly gap through the front middle of the ship. It just didn't work for me. :/

DOTM deluxe Prime and voyager Megatron review

Short review of Walmart exclusive deluxe Optimus Prime and general release voyager Megatron.

Not sure how big they are supposed to be as robots but the vehicle modes for these two look almost in scale for some reason.






Robot modes.





Prime has a nice light-piping eye effect.


I'm impressed with the toy engineering for Megatron; that they made it so that the truck can turn at the connection between the truck and the cargo trailer. As a figure though, I don't really like him that much. I find his arm a bit too long and spindly and I find the shoulders kinda restrictive. Not too bad otherwise. I'm liking Prime a lot however. His size, ease of transformation, and stability in both modes, make him the perfect movie Prime toy to play around with. Some complain about his backpack and paint apps but it's not that big a deal and if you want a movie Prime to play with, this IS the one to get.

MARS Converters

They suck! That is all. :P



My main problem with the one I got was that all joints were loose and the shoulder joints popped out too easily. It might not be bad if it was cheaper but I rather get something that looks and plays better even if it's not as big. Yeah, they probably should have made it a bit smaller as well. Bigger doesn't always mean better especially with toys.

I returned him, BTW.

Squirrels...

Because you can never have enough pictures of squirrels. :P
These were taken back in January and February.

Lego odds and ends

About a couple months ago, I started buying Lego stuff. This was prompted by my discovery of the mini-fig blind packs. They weren't cheap though at $3 a pop so I set out to see what other Lego related stuff I can find and soon enough I was buying more than I thought I would.


My series 3 set.

HP Touchpad clearance

Can't help make a post about this since I'm a former Palm fan and current iPod Touch junkie. HP's discontinued their recently released Touchpad so what was once a $500 item is now being clearanced out at various outlets for $100. People's been snapping these up since Saturday and the frenzy's still going on. Positive is that you've got at least an instant net browser/ereader for just $100. Minus is that it's discontinued so don't expect too many other uses for it. For people interested, here's a link to a seller on Amazon that's still offering it at clearance. (May come and go at anytime.) I'll likely make a quick review of it once I get one in my hands.



BTW, there's two flavors of Touchpads being clearanced out; the 16GB at $99.99 and the 32GB at $149.99. The above link is for the 16GB and the one below is for the 32GB variety.

Dragons Universe Clawripper Review

Decided to grab Clawripper since it was on sale as well for $3-4. I feel it's mediocre at best. The photos are taken with my iPod camera which sucks seven shades of beans compared to the iPhone camera or any other decent smartphone camera. I didn't even want to bother using my real camera for this one, that's how bad it was.