Ned's Batman

Check out this cool drawing of Batman! It's excellently done by Ned... Ned's 7 years of age and obviously going to be a great artist judging by the many drawings he's done as shown to me by his Dad, Simon.

Ned's Batman has inspired me to get the custom Batman, Batmobile and Robin project done asap. I'll be converting Speed racer, Racer-X and the Mach-5 car into team Bats!

Soon to be team Bats!

Rider-X always knew he was called for greater things

Stay tuned for the customization process in the next couple of weeks!

Marvel Mighty Muggs!!! Argh!!!

So why "Argh!!!" when I look at the Mighty Muggs that Hasbro's been churning out recently?Well, I said to myself that I won't be getting any of these deformed cutesy little abominations... told that to Edmund and I do believe that I mentioned that to Derek as well.

I didn't like the fact that these pieces of plastic were basically of the same mold (with the occasional tweaking to add claws or flames or whatever).

These guys are made of 100% recycled plastic and to me were a rip-off for the prices they were going for (20-25 bucks!)... I just couldn't find any justification in paying anything for them!

Well, that was then...

Then came a day (a couple of weeks back?) when I received a call from Edmund telling me that they were going for 50% off their retail price... then my wife wanted a couple as she thought that they were really "cute"... then I said "why not?"... then it went downhill from there... Sigh.

Might Muggs Ironman wannabe hanging out with the real Ironmen

Sooooo... now we've got a few... I'm hoping to keep it at that... just "a few". I've seen pictures of the new Transformers Mighty Muggs that's going to be released soon (or is it out already??).

I'm not gonna get any...... argh.

TakaraTomy Music Label SOUNDWAVE "Blaster Black" Version

Box front

I'd recently received the Music Label Soundwave after much hesitation in purchasing as it was previously retailing for over a hundred bucks... I wasn't comfortable with that price as it's a rather smallish bot and the initial release came only in white which didn't appeal to me.

Anyway thanks to Derek, I got this bot now at a lower price and in Decepticon Soundblaster colours! Soundwave always looked awesome in good ole Takara black.

Box back

Spark Blue & Sonic White variants (initial releases)

Soundwave is a fully functional MP3 player that runs on a single AAA battery and it requires a mini SD card (sold separately) which you'd slot into the front compartment of the bot... just like the original Soundwave toy of the 80's (it was mini-tapes during that time).

Opening up for the mini SD card

The original toy of the 80's had 2 pseudo-batteries that transformed into a missile launcher and a gun respectively. In this version, these weapons are non-transformable but look really great.

Really amused me to see the "Wave Bluster" printed on the gun... classic Takara! Heh.

"Ravage, Laserbeak, Rumble, Frenzy... prepare for eject... EJECT!"

You're going down Autobots!

Is Soundwave poseable? You betcha! The level of poseability for this figure is quite remarkable and a significant improvement on the original Soundwave (the original had good poseability for its time tho).

This bot came with 3 pairs of different hands (closed fists, gun wielding hands and hands that allow SW to "press" his eject button on his shoulder).

TakaraTomy could've saved a little on plastic by reducing the number of hands as besides the closed fists, the remaining 2 types of hands could still hold onto the gun anyway... and we don't really need a right hand to mimic the "eject" pose when there's only one button on the left.

Comparison shot of the new SW and the original 80's toy

So would I recommend others to get this bot? Definitely! Overall, I'd rate this Music Label bot a sweet 9 out of 10. It looks awesome (I really lurve the black to the blue or white); has great poseability; actually plays music; and it fits nicely in scale to the Universe Classics series of bots.

You can pop it in your pocket on your way to work or school and nobody would think twice about your MP3 player being a "Transformer"! Truly a robot in disguise! A++

Special thanks to buddies Edmund and Jamie as well! Thanks guys!