Skip to content

Beastly

Beast Wars Skyshadow

A photo of Skyshadow from Beast Wars.

Most Beast Wars toys don’t rank highly on my list of my favourite Transformers these days. (A few of them actually rank highly on my list of worst Transformers.) Though I appreciated the improved posability and interesting transformation sequences, I prefer my robot modes to look robotic rather than mutant-like. I was quite glad when vehicular alt modes were reintroduced through the Beast Machines Vehicons in 1999 and the Car Robot Cybertron in 2000.

That said, Beast Wars must be credited for reviving the then-moribund Transformers franchise. The line did very well and looking at figures like Skyshadow, it’s easy to believe there was so much demand for Beast Wars toys at one point that otherwise rejected designs were approved for production.

Posted in Pix, Toys, Transformers.

Comments Off on Beastly

By Gobi – Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Elsewhere on the web

Transformers’ enduring appeal.
“… Takaratomy (formerly Takara) still ships an average of 1 million units per year in Japan and 5 million internationally through Hasbro, its long-standing partner.” A very nice article and I expect to see more as the marketing blitz for the upcoming movie gets into full swing.

Astrotrain reformatted.
This is presumed to be part of a Transformers line inspired by classic G1 characters. I’m guessing it’s meant to introduce these characters to kids in preparation for the movie. Judging by this Astrotrain prototype (which looks to be a ten dollar figure), the line will feature new designs that are informed by classic ones. If there’s a Shockwave in this line, the alt mode is unlikely to be a Mazda.

ElDave’s action figure gallery.

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids art. [via]
Na na na, gonna have a good time.

Wikipedia’s comparison of browers. [via]
I use Firefox mainly but I still fire up Opera, Internet Explorer and Off By One occasionally.

Generation Debt. [via]
“… a trio of new books has identified another looming disaster: financial insolvency among today’s twenty- and thirty-somethings … in spite of their material trappings, from iPods to Xboxes, today’s young people are behind the economic eight ball.”

The S.U.V. and its owner. [via]
“According to Bradsher, internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills.”

Posted in Web.

Comments Off on Elsewhere on the web

By Gobi – Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Double trouble

Mugenbine Mugensectadouble

A photo of Mugensectadouble, a combination of Junkstag and Ironbeetle from Bandai’s Mugenbine line.

Two years after it was introduced as a replacement for Machine Robo Rescue, the Mugenbine line continues to produce new figures.

This is all the more surprising because Mugenbine does not have an anime show to promote it. As far as I know, the only marketing Bandai did was through the official site, television commercials and Plex’s showcase page in Hyper Hobby magazine.

Posted in Mugenbine, Pix, Toys.

Comments Off on Double trouble

By Gobi – Friday, March 17, 2006

Footer flaw fix

If you’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.0.x, you’ll notice a flaw in the Kubrick theme. Specifically, the footer is now misaligned. Click on the thumbnail below for a closer look at the flaw:

Misaligned Kubrick footer

A fix is available. Simply extract and upload the header.php, footer.php and style.css files from the RAR file linked here.

(If you don’t have any software capable of extracting RAR compressed files, download the command line utility from Rarlab.)

Take note you may also have to edit the header.php file. I did so to remove the clickable text in the header since I’ve already set up the header image to be clickable.

Posted in WordPress.

Comments Off on Footer flaw fix

By Gobi – Friday, March 17, 2006

Elsewhere on the web

Rosie Rosie quite contrary.
“The $13 Rosie doll was supposed to sing the ‘Ring A Ring O’ Roses’ nursery rhyme. But at the refrain that should say ‘atishoo, atishoo we all fall down,’ the doll substituted a crude reference to a person’s buttocks in place of ‘atishoo’ … Two years ago, another Rosie doll turned up that substituted the rude term for an illegitimate child for ‘atishoo’ … ”

Guild Wars auction house coming.
“No eta on when it’ll be done but the omission thus far is purely one of resources.” And speaking of getting really good prices for items …

ZoneAlarm privacy settings.
ZoneLabs has also provided a patch to prevent client data from being sent to its servers.

Posted in Web.

Comments Off on Elsewhere on the web

By Gobi – Thursday, March 16, 2006