Behold, My Iron Clad Will!

The toy hunt continues in earnest. Thanks to my frantic checking of Gmail, I was able to read the notification from Toys R Us in regards to the reissue of the G1 Soundwave, and order one before they ran out. Actually, I ordered two and managed to snag my manager into my web of toy neurosis. A week or so later, Soundwave arrived and he's everything I remembered him to be, just...smaller. He is a reissue in every sense of the word, right down to the "1983" copyright date stamped in his battery area. He even came with the original decals so that you could make him even spiffier.

His transformation is pretty simple, not at all like the complex rituals of mechanical tomfoolery that come along with the new classics series. I mean, I'm a smart guy. I have a couple degrees and everything, yet I still can't transform Grimlock from memory. Soundwave is child's play by comparison except for his legs, which stick a bit and always make me think that I'm going to turn him into a double amputee every time I transform him into his oh-so imposing microcassette recorder. Speaking of which, I know that at a kid, I didn't think twice about him being a microcassette player, and not a full sized tape player, but now I find it kind of odd. I mean, I know that were he a full sized tape player, the tapes would transform into birds and jaguars bigger than Soundwave himself, further screwing the Transformers' already messed up sense of scale, however I find it hard to believe that there was a significant number of 10 year olds who were both robot fans and reporters in training.

I was also surprised to see that he had a belt clip. This made me laugh at the idea of some kid clipping Soundwave to his belt and strutting to school thinking that he was 100% Hot Shit, a real playa with his very own homicidal robot attached to his hip. Then I shuddered in horror as I considered the very possible idea that I was Johnny Hot Shit. I certainly don't remember skipping to school with a Decepticon on my belt, however it could be that the merciless mocking of my peers drove the memories deep into my subconscious. If that's the case, I'm oooookay with it. That's a memory that needs to stay buried.

I'm still hunting for Jetfire and despite reading of sightings in the general Atlanta area, my little corner of the world is still Jetfire free. I finally saw the Ultra Magnus - Skywarp two pack at Target today, which gives me hope that soon Jetfire will show up. The two pack is certainly cool, and getting both for 20 bucks saves you 10 big ones, but I just can't pay for them knowing that they're exactly the same as Optimus and Starscream just with different paint jobs. I guess this means that I haven't gone entirely around the toy bend yet. I expect whatever remaining willpower I have will evaporate completely when the Transformer movie toys drop as I've seen pictures and they're damn cool. All of the Autobots look like badasses, even Bumblebee and while I'm not a big fan of Megatron being some kind of jet/spaceship thing, Barricade looks awesome and Blackout is a massive helicopter, so you know, everybody wins. The movie toys drop June 2nd-ish, so if you see lines forming at Toys R Us, Target and/or Wal-Mart at that time, you now know why.

I finished the Transformers game on the PS2, or, rather, I finished being interested in the Transformers game. It's not that it wasn't any good, there just wasn't enough there to keep my interest. Plus, every time your autobot got knocked to the ground, there was this really annoying animation that took forever, and by the time you recovered from it, every enemy robot in the area was all over your metallic ass. Instead of playing through the game, I busted out the cheat code to unlock all of the extras, some of which were PSA's from the original cartoon. Some of them were the usual PSA fare, things like don't run away from home and make sure you wear bright clothing when riding bikes at night. Then it got strange. First, some young lads were sailing and right after the "cool" kid went on about how he didn't need a lifejacket, the skipper of their vessel cheerily swung the sail around, clocked the kid on the head and knocked his ass into the water. The best part was how completely and utterly clueless the skipper was to the fact that he may have just killed one of his crew members. Thankfully Seaspray showed up in the nick of time, and despite his speech impediment, was able to convey how important it is to wear a life jacket.

After this PSA, we were entertained by the story of two youngsters out looking for a good time, who decided to supplement their night's activities with a little grand theft auto. The first car they tried to steal ended up being Tracks, but unfortunately our Autobot friend didn't deal with the two thieves by dispensing some Autobotian justice and instead gave them a lecture about not stealing cars. The best part was at the end, when the one kid says "Now I know!" as if to say that, up until this point, he was completely oblivious to the laws of the nation he'd been living in for the past 17 years and thought it was perfectly acceptable to steal cars. I wonder what the next PSA was. Perhaps Skids counsels some youths on why they shouldn't push old ladies in front of subway cars. Thanks Skids, now we know! Ah, the halcyon days of my youth, when the lessons of morality could all be summed up in a 30 second spot from huge, transforming robots or highly specialized, trained killers. Let's see the Backyardigans take out an APC with a rocket launcher.