Ok, I know that nobody really reads this thing. I guess its because I'm a freebie instead of a subscriber. Anyhow, first some shameless plugging, then I'll get down to business. First, check out my videos on YouTube here:[link] its got some pretty cool music videos that I've made (one of which is now banned because the guys who own the rights to Ghost in the Shell felt threatened that I made a music video more imaginative than they could come up with), as well as my more recent interest, Transformer review videos. So, if your a geek and can stand other geeks who know WAY too much about Transformers for his own good, then head on over and check them out. Which leads me to my second thing: EBay!:[link] I have videos on YouTube of Transformers that I'm selling right now on eBay. The boxed stuff is gone (except for the gestalt combiners) and have moved on to the loose bots. All bids start out at 99 cents, so if your looking for a cheap loose bot either for your collection or to customize, use as fodder for something, whatever, head on over and check them out! Up right now is a full sized Unicron! There will be a round 2 and even 3 of Treansformers on sale, so if you don't win now, you can look forward to more up for grabs the following week.

Ok, shameless plugs are over, now down to the meat of the journal: RANTING! Yes, this has been a long time coming, and now it has to be let out! Over the past few months I've really been into collecting Marvel Legends figures, so to keep in their original form, others for future customization. At first I was really happy with the quality of the toys, the attention to detail and super possibility really had me won over. the ball joints, the double hinges at both the elbows and knees got rid of those nasty looking seams that plagued the toys I had when growing up (even though they were much cooler at the time), a concept that DC Direct can't seem to get into their heads even now, along with the hip joints they put on their figures which only look good if they are standing up straight, as if they were clenching their butt cheeks to keep in a really nasty fart. Marvel Legends had nearly all the poseability you could ever want in a figure, some ever featuring individually jointed fingers. I was in Toys R Us the other day, blowing time before my showing of Hancock started and came across a HUGE figure of Batman. I mean this thing must have been over 2 feet tall. Anyhow, the thing could hardly move at all! Head, arms at the shoulder (back and forward swivel, no ball joint), swivel at the waist, and swivel at the hip (again no ball joint). That was it!. I mean, COME ON! I get the fact that it was made for little kids who are going to be tossing it around, but the sheer laziness of it was just astounding! Theres a 6 inch figure out there with individually jointed fingers and this guy, clocking in at over 2 feet has nothing but solid fists?

Ok, I guess I'm getting a bit carried away, because the main focus of this rant isn't Marvel Legends quality over anything made of a DC Character, although what I'm about to touch on sure levels the playing field, and not in a positive way. Back when ToyBiz was making the Marvel Legends figures quality was at a premium: Ton of joints, giving the character TONS of poseability for nearly any action scene you wanted to recreate, as well as extremely detailed molds and high quality paint jobs. Since the series was bought out and continued my Hasbro however, quality and attention to detail has really gone down the tubes. Case in point: while on the same trip to Toys R Us, I took a look at what Marvel legends figures they had in stock on the sales floor and found, much to my delight, that they had some of the Hulk (Fin Fang Foom) series figures (I say delight only because I was looking for a Savage She-Hulk and found the only one they had in stock). One of the figures in the series is a character named Wendigo. Now, earlier in the Marvel Legends series, Don't know which one, but there was a figure of a character named Sasquatch, which had a variant that was white instead or orange. And this white variant from year earlier looks SOOOOO much better than this new version in all 3 categories that I've been mentioning the whole time: Poseability, Mold, and Paintjob. Why did they put out this shitty figure when they could have done a MUCH better job of just re-releasing an older figure under a new name? Its not like they haven't done it before (The massive amount of repaints of Transformer figures anyone?) I don't know, perhaps because it would make all the other figures in the series just look that much worse? And seriously, don't give me the crap that they're not allowed to use molds of older figures that were made while the series was under ToyBiz tenure; I just recently found out that the Target Exclusive Marvel Legends Hulk figure is nothing more than the Series 1 Hulk body in a slightly different color and a new head. Now, I'm no expert on the toyline and can't tell you the last series that ToyBiz produced before it was bought out by Hasbro, but I'm going to go ahead and bet Dollars to Pesos that the very first series was made by ToyBiz. In light of this, why continue to produce shitty molds when Hasbro, the king of toy repaints, could just take parts of older figures, swap in whatever arms, legs, hands, feet, anything that was needed, slap on a new coat of paint, and call it a brand new character? Its not like they haven't done it before... And I for one wouldn't really mind one bit, just so long as the ToyBiz poseability was there. Then all Hasbro would have to work on is improving their painting techniques. The old Sasquatch had TONS of articulation, right down to the individually jointed fingers. Wendigo on the other hand has hands cast in solid plastic; the articulation starts at the wrists. Shameful. Just shameful. and all in one solid color instead of subtle shades of white, blue and gray. Its almost like the entire figure was nothing but one huge afterthought.

Ok people, for those of you who have actually read this far (I'm expecting perhaps 3 out of the 6.5 billion on this planet) go ahead and chime in with your two cents (every little bit helps, I need the gas money) and tell me your thoughts on the subject. Agree with me, disagree, hell, even if you think I'm just one huge dork for being a 25 year old guy ranting about toys. At least I'll know that SOMEone is reading this...

Ok, first the little blurb to go to my YouTube page here:[link] I have some rather interesting Transformer reviews, not just some crappy show and tell that others post, so watch them and PREPARE TO BE INFORMED!!!

Been working out. Its really kicking my ass, so although I've seen very little change, people have begun to notice. Weighed myself yesterday and found I've lost 10 pounds from the last time, so heres looking up to being skinny once again.

Ok, on another note, I only half a month and 2 paychecks to go before I'll have my 'new' car. This thing is REALLY pissing me off, all this money saved and I can't use a penny of it because if I do I won't be able to get my new ride! AHHHHHGGGGGGGHHAAAA and just when everything goes on sale! I really hate charging things to the credit card, but sometimes we must do things we hate to get by. Really giving big thought to picking up the hobby of creating custom toys, either through repainting or kitbashing. Already bought some Transformers to serve this purpose at highway robbery prices from KBToys yesterday, now all I need are some tools and some workspace (which I promise I WILL have) and I'll be off! Just hope this doesn't go the way of my Star Wars fanfilm or custom cel paintings (just in case your wondering, they are things that STILL don't exist) but it really is something I have a passion for. Who knows, we'll see that happens. Besides, once I buy the airbrush and Dremmel, I'll then be committed.

Look out loose figures for sale on eBay, your days of being in one piece are numbered!

Ok, I tried to embed a YouTube player that had all of my videos, but turns out that its impossible with all the emoticons. Well, if your looking to see what I've made, just go here: [link]

Anyhow, just a few updates. If you were recently bidding on an MP-02 Masterpiece Ultra Magnus on eBay, then IN YOUR FACE!!!! I've also FINALLY got my hands on a Wave 1 WST Soundwave, so I can finally stop searching, although this just means I need to really buckle down and get a WST Ultra Magnus. After that, I just need to get the rest of the WST Dinobots, which are on order, soon to be released! For those of you who care, rumor has it that the next Masterpiece will be Grimlock! Now how much ass would that kick!? LOTS OF ASS!!!1! So much ass that the whole world wouldn't be able to sit down for a whole week!

I've joined and have a character there, once again another incarnation of my iconic Jack Starwin, this time with the psychic power of Geomancy. I hope to get up off my lazy ass one of these days and draw the character.

I'm half-way to having my new car, so I'm really looking forward to not having to depend on other people to get around. I hope to take my old clunker to the scrap yard very soon and finally be done with it.

Well, thats about it from me for now.

Hey guys, whats up? Been a while since I posted a new journal, so here we go!

I turn 25 on Thursday, March 6th, so I'm getting that day off from work and hopefully be able to do some stuff with friends. I won't hold my breath however, more than likely I'll just be spending it all alone here in my dorm room.

I went over to a friend's place today and played Rock Band, totally kick ass game! I was so pumped up from playing it that when I went home I dusted off Guitar Hero 3 and played that for about 4-5 hours, beat the game on easy and went up to medium (I'm not the best, but my skills grow). However, while playing I got to thinking about just who couldn't play the game. I'm watching season 1 of Lost, and I remember how many times Locke said "Don't tell me what I can't do", because he used to be in a wheel chair.

Anyways, wheelchair people CAN'T play DDR. EVER. Or any incarnation of it.

People who are mute can't play Karaoke Revolution. Or the singing part of Rock Band.

People with less than two arms can't play Guitar Hero, or either guitar parts or drums from Rock Band. They also can't play any game on the Wii that requires the nunchuck attachment. They would have a hell of a time using the Guncon for any PS2 of PS3 game that used it.

Deaf people can't play Karaoke Revolution or the singing part of Rock Band. Come on, you ever hear a deaf person talk, much less try to sing? Its just not happening.

If you are blind, all you can do is the singing stuff, as long as you memorize the song beforehand.

Anyhow, there it is, stuff handicapped people can't do.

On another note, I bought Devil May Cry 4 last week and STILL haven't played it! I'm kind of worried about the continuing storyline because I didn't get too far into DMC3. As long as were on that subject I beat the crap out of Kingdom Hearts long ago, then bought KH: Chain of Memories, then later on Kingdom Hearts 2, but haven't played either of them either.

Its a good time to be alive, great movies coming out this year!

Ok, so I have some good news!!! Well, for me anyway...

I got off early from work! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!11!1!!!1!1!1!!1!!!!!1

Well, theres my good news. I worked 4 days this week, and of those 4, 3 of them I got off early, and of those 4, every single one of them I spent the time sitting around reading The Zombie Survival Guide. Yep, I present to you your tax dollars hard at work people.

I started playing City of Villains again over this past week, made a new Character on Champion server, and started a new super group. Membership: 1. Well, I'll have to see how that goes, I need much more points to increase the size of my base and start adding stuff to it. Whatever. On the art front, I once again went out and bought some art supplies, then never got around to using them! Well, a few weeks ago I FINALLY broke out those Copic markers and discovered that other than their great range of colors, they bleed much more than the much cheaper colored sharpies I was using, and had terrible color consistency as well. I used them to color parts of a Dick Tracy piece and they came out looking pretty not good. I'll rescan and do lots of clean up, if its possible.

Anyhoo, Check for me on CoV Champion: Domo Arygato is the characters name.

Peace!