Finally! Bumblebee!

Earlier in the week I posted that I had run all over the place trying to find a Bumblebee figure from the movie. I really did go to every store that might have him within a 25 mile radius of my home. Finally disappointed and discouraged I posted my woes here in a rant.

Later the next day I saw in my comments that my cousin who uses the screen name "Rain" would check the stores where she lives in Ohio. I thought that was SO sweet of her! She's got two children of her own to take care of as well as a boyfriend to spend time with (Not to mention a really cute pug named Jackson!) and she still took time out to go looking for a TOY for her immature cousin.

While waiting to hear back from her I continued my search and much to my surprise, my wife told me that her mom was now looking for the figure as well! Now that was amazingly sweet of her as well! I'm blessed that I have a good relationship with Stacey's parents. I love em' to death and think they're the kind of people I'd be friends with even if I wasn't married to their daughter. Both "Mom" and "Rain" are such darlings to sacrifice their time (and gas money) just to help me find a Transformer!

So anyway Thursday night just as I was getting into bed the phone started ringing. Normally I wouldn't have bothered answering it seeing that it was already past 10 o'clock. But as anyone who's read Thursday's post knows I was in a REALLY bad mood so I went to answer it just so I could tell them off for calling my house so late on a week night! (Bad Donnie!)

Well to my surprise it was my cousin "Rain"! I only get to talk to her about once a month, so no matter what , I wouldn't have yelled at her. I'm a single child but "Rain" is the closest thing I have to a sister in this world. She can get away with things that no one else besides my wife can. So anyway she was calling to tell me that she was watching an auction on eBay for Bumblebee!

I checked it out and sat up with her talking on the phone most of the night! We are ALWAYS on the phone for a long time whenever we talk. We both just enjoy the others conversation so much that we loose track of time. So that night I bid on the auction and won! And I didn't have to pay too much more than what I would have had to in the store!

This is the little sucker I was looking for! Now I can't wait for it to get here!

The next day I went to TransformersWorld2005, a website about transformers and collecting to check their message boards out and ended up finding and chatting with the same guy that I made my eBay purchase from! Small world huh?

I just want to say thanks to my cousin and Mother-in-law for all their help. It honestly didn't matter to me if they found one or not, I was genuinely touched that they would help. The fact that I DID end up getting the figure sure is a sweet icing on the cake though. :P

Collecting Woes

Most of this weekend was a waste of time for me. I spent most of the day Friday and Saturday on the road going from store to store trying to find two transformers I REALLY want and finding bupkiss.

Lets see I went to;

4 Meijers
4 Targets
2 Toys R Us
2 Kohls
& 1 KB Toys

And what do I have to show for it? An empty gas tank. }:- (

And what figures pray tell were I looking for? The first is the 2008 Concept Camaro version Bumblebee figure from the new movie. I have the 70's camaro version but the '08 was recently released and I wanted to get one at the store because on eBay they're going for 30+ dollars. If you can find one in the store they're only about 17 dollars. Now I think I know why I couldn't find one. Everyone's buying them up in the stores to sell on eBay!

The second figure was a long shot in the first place. It's the Titanium version of G1 Ultra Magnus. This figure was not released in stores when it came out 6-8 months ago. The only way to get it was from online toy dealers and the going price was $50. I wanted the figure terribly because it was the closest representation of the character in it's original 80's form. But I couldn't justify that high of a price for a figure from a series that retails for $16.

This is Ultra Magnus as he appeared in the 80's cartoon series.

As you can see this version of the toy is a very faithful translation of the charater.

Well, last week Target did their fall reset in the toy aisles and many people online reported finding the elusive Ultra Magnus figure! I was so geeked! I went online and found several locations near me and checked them two or three different times last week. But alas to no avail. :-(

The worst part? Even if I wanted to get the figures online now I probably can't all the online dealers sold out several weeks ago. So now BOTH of these bots will be added to my wish list of hard to find figures. Sadly this list is long as it is and their prices on Ebay will only continue to go up.

So to ease my woes I went to Hollywood Video and bought a bunch of used DVDs. (Which is just as stupid a waste of our hard earned money as the transformer toys I was looking for by the way.) But I'm the type that spends money when I'm depressed or mad and I was both so I got quite a few.

I bought;

Pan's Labyrinth


The Messengers


Slither


The Grudge 2


Feast


The Return


Miss Congeniality 2

(This last mostly for Stacey but hey I don't mind watching it, Sandra Bullock's cute! :P )

I'd have to say that the only part of my weekend that wasn't a waste of either time or money was going to church on Sunday and afterwards having lunch with my beautiful wife in Royal Oak.

My Transformers Movie Review

As my post two days ago should show, I'm a huge transformers fan. Ever since the movie has been released all my friends keep asking me what I thought of it. I thought I'd post it here so that from now on I'll just direct them to my blog.

First off, I really had reservations about this movie because all the pictures I saw of the robot's designs looked terrible to me. They looked very different than the blocky forms I have grown so used to since my childhood. The only way I can describe my first impression of the pics I saw before the movie is "insect-like". In some ways they actually looked almost organic and I didn't like this very much.

However, as soon as I saw these figures moving on-screen I was put at ease. To tell the truth, I was so caught up in the story that I didn't think twice to criticize the robot's designs. And when Prime transforms to robot mode for the first time it nearly took my breath away. Here was my childhood hero brought to life! (I'm such a dork!)

I loved the voice acting! Peter Cullen was the original voice of Optimus Prime back in the 80's. And to me, anyone who has voiced the character in the later cartoons are poor imitations. It was great to have the "real" Optimus Prime in the movie. I also loved Hugo Weaving's work as the voice of Megatron.

Peter Cullen aka...

...Optimus Prime


Hugo Weaving aka...

...Megatron

As far as the storytelling goes, I generally liked it. There is lots of humor and I never thought I'd LOL at the theater as much as I did. Especially at a Transformers movie. I say that I "generally" liked the storytelling because sometimes the fight scenes were hard to follow. When the camera was pulled back for a medium or far shot everything was easily understandable, but several times when two bots were fighting, the camera was so close to the action that it was hard to tell one character from another, much less what they were actually doing. This is a minor gripe however and overall I thought the story was great.



I loved the movie score and immediately went in search of it. Unfortunately all that is available is the soundtrack. (Which I bought.) At the moment there are no plans to release the movies orchestral score which is a shame. But I'm sure that one will be released eventually.

I've been to see the film twice so far and have been invited by a friend to go see it again. (Finances permitting.)

There were two things I didn't like in the film however. First the language. While I don't consider myself a saint I was surprised by the Transformers themselves cursing in this movie. While I can understand it that people talk this way and easily accepted the human characters profanity, I was shocked to hear the bots curse. It's my feeling that if they were supposed to be so much more of a "mature" species than the humans they would have outgrown profanity long ago.

The second thing that bothered me about the movie was how much more powerful Megatron was than Optimus Prime. This really ticked me off, it seemed to me that it was all Optimus could do to survive for the few minutes they actually fought. At one point, before the battle begins Prime actually tries to cover the bases in case he gets killed in the battle by telling Sam to throw the Allspark Cube into his chest if it looks like he's gonna die!

This is completely out of character for the Optimus Prime of the cartoon. The Prime I know is able to go toe-to-toe with Megatron and fight him to a standstill. That was part of their dynamic as each other's nemesis. Megatron could basically trash any regular autobot he wanted, that was until Prime showed up. Optimus Prime was the one guy that could match Megatron in raw strength and thus stand up to him.

In general though I think that Transformers is the best movie to come out this year and I recommend that you go out and see it if you already haven't.

Transformers!

Well hello! Remember me? I know I NEVER remember to post any updates on here. Partly because I'm a lazy-butt and partly because I have such a boring life! :)

Anyway, I was at work today thinking about how I never think of anything to blog about when I realized I did have something I could blog about from time to time.


Yes ladies and germs I am a 31 year old child. I have loved the transformers since I first saw the G1 (Generation 1 for those not in the know.) cartoon in early 1985. Being from a poor family in Detroit, I only had a select few of the toys while growing up. Then puberty hit and I forgot all about them.

Fast forward to 2002, I was living in my first place a condo/apartment in Fraser MI. Being a typical male my place had no decoration at all. What photos I owned could all fit inside my wallet at the same time and the artwork I owned was all things that I myself had drawn. To me it seemed conceited to use my own humble comic art to dress the place up so I was at a loss for what to do.

A couple of days later I was at a Meijer and I saw new transformer toys in the store and decided to buy an Optimus Prime figure. After that I was hooked! I started using eBay to get the old figures I owned as a kid and soon every shelf in my living room was littered with them!


Anyway, now that I'm married my bots are mostly confined to a room in our basement. I haven't counted how many I have in about a year but the last time I did the count was at about a hundred or so figures. I'd almost bet I'm at about two hundred by now, or at least pretty close.

My wife loves to tease me about them saying that I'm child, but for the most part she tolerates my hobby and I love her for it. She puts up with me spending a lot of money on these little pieces of plastic and I'm grateful for her patience.














So here is a look at SOME of my collection.

I decided that for now I'll only show my Optimus Primes and one of the shelves. There are a few more displays about the room but these are the largest.


My darling wife likes to tease and say that she's going to sell them all one day when I die for a quarter a piece! Doesn't she know that just means I have to get a million more so that she still ends up rich when selling them at that price?! :P