Tets' Toys and Shenanigens

Ver Ka Fei Yen and Hatsune Miku. Um, Okay.

2012-02-13T15:30:00.000+08:00

I saw this and wondered what the hell was going on. Truly a strange crossover if ever there was one. Fei Yen from the robot fighting game Virtua On, which I quite like. Miku Hatsune from the game Vocaloid, which I am not so fond of, but like the character. Both licenses owned by SEGA. Completely unrelated. Made by Bandai.

I smell money making cash in.

I pretty much got this due to my appreciation for both sides of this coin. And because it is jut a weird crossover. Much like the Disney Label Transformers. It just makes you go “Wha-?”

The box is nicely presented(by SEGA Kidding…) and does the business of holding it all together.

Here is a terribly quick video review. My first, so please be gentle.

The figure itself looks pretty good and I will admit that despite the strange combination of characters they have done a good job of slapping them together.

It feels like there is enough Miku in there to show Miku and enough Fei Yen in there to show Fei Yen as well. If all else fails, I could use her as a super powered robot mode for crime fighting Miku.

This Composite Fei Yen comes with two heads. One is the Virtua On style robot head and another is one of Miku’s face with the visor lifted. Both look pretty good, although I prefer the robot head for some reason. Maybe because it reminds me of Evil-La from Space Channel 5 a bit.

She has the usual Miku staples of clothing, collar, neck tie, little string thing around her dress, ‘01’ tattoo on the side, which looks nice and binary. If something could be described as binary for looks that is…

Some of the details are really really nice. For example in the chest photo above, under the gold badge she has the word ‘Virtualoid’ printed on. So so very tiny! And the fore-arms have the control panel looking doohicky that all Mikus have as well.

Her skirt pieces are the vents from the Fei Yen and they are individually articulated to a certain extent and they can be moved out of the way for leg clearance of required. The skirt string thing is there as well.

She comes with a variety of changeable hands that plug in via a socket in the fore-arm. This is kind of cool, but not at the same time. The hands just move on a ball joint, but are limited in movement by the flared sleeves. So you can’t really get much movement from the wrists.

The shoulders are limited in movement by the sculpting of themselves. It takes a fair bit of wiggling to get them in the position you’d like, especially if moving them up and the elbows have a slightly higher than 90 degree angle of movement, but no swivel, so despite have a little ‘V’ set of fingers, you can’t get her hand very close to her face, or eyes for that Pulp Fiction dancing scene recreation. Yes, I know we ALL try and replicate famous dancing scenes from movies with robot toys.

Her waist actually has quite a bit of movement and panels and things for display are jointed so as to not get in the way. She has these two bits hanging off the back of her belt, which are pretty cool and have some nice details on the underside. Having said that though, these two pieces are part of my main problem with this toy. The stand. It isn’t big enough and the two bits on her waist mean the peg has to be longer. But it isn’t, it is only just long enough to fit in the hole in her back.

Her head is well detailed and looks Virtua on-ary( ? ) enough. Her pony tails are long and heavy, but that appears to be the case with most Miku toys I have. This one has some extra ones, that are more free-flowing looking for the special pose the stand is designed for. I am impressed that the not free hair has green details underneath as well. It adds a nice neon effect to the whole thing.

As you can see, she has her usual ear phones and mike as well. On her back is a CD player. Which is a nice touch. In all the Virtua On games, the robots had a console on there back, which I guess was their power source of sorts. On the original game and the Saturn Conversion, they had a little Sega Saturn, the Dreamcast game “Oratorio Tangram” they had a Dreamcast. Now I am not too sure as I haven’t really played any since Tangram. but when you boosted/jumped the drive would open and you could see a disc spinning in there. I really loved that touch.

Miku here obviously has a CD player of sorts in her back that opens and the CD can fold out. You can even take it out if you so desire.

She has nicely made legs, which carry the black tights of Miku off and add the angular looks of Fei Yen too. They are really well articulated, with a double joint on her knee, swivel at her thigh and hip ball joints. The Ankles can rotate and swivel as well.

Another issue I have is one of her feet is sculpted on a slightly wonky angle. First off I just thought the foot wasn’t plugged into the joint very well, but on closer inspection, you can see that it has been sculpted this way. I think it is meant for the pigeon toed ‘cute’ pose. that is on the front of the box in her Fei Yen form. I hate it. But with bit of wiggling around with the joint, I have managed to fix it enough so that it doesn’t annoy me anymore.

Accessory wise she has her extra hands, oddly enough she has a set that are designed to hold a rifle/gun. Now I just have to find one of an appropriate size!! She also has her ‘Jade Negi’ (leeks) which I thought were neon laser leeks. And a Microphone. I don’t understand why she has a microphone to hold in her hand when she has a headset. But there ya go. I guess I am just showing my musical ignorance.

I quite like the look of her leeks. lame I know. That sounds a but rude as well …

Moving on. Ahem.

This is her ‘Emotional heart.’ Nope, I am not lying, that is what the box calls it. It has two ‘emotional lines’ (the swirly things around it) which can be plugged in or completely take off you so desire. the Heart comes with its own separate stand and the opaque plastics does a good job of looking like a laser blast.

One thing that impressed me about the base was that they included plugs, as it has three holes for different stands. One to hold the figure, one for the ‘Emotional heart"’ and one for the leeks. If you are not using one though, there are some plugs to fill the holes. Nice touch that. Shame the figure holder isn’t tall enough though…

Ok, so keeping all that in mind, I have gone about replicating the pose for which the stand seems designed for, her “flying lying retreating emotional Heart blast.” That’s not really the name, I just made that up then.

(To be spoken like Lion Force Voltron forming)
Swap over the hair, take off her tie, put on new tie, change neck joint and flip around plug for back.

And we pretty much have the pose for which the whole thing is designed for.

Although I do have the wrong face. And I didn’t actually swap the neck joint. See she comes with a solid neck piece to keep the head at the right angle required. Riiiight. unnecessary. It looks nice, and seems to work ok, but bump your table and watch that Miku roll to one side on the joint on her back. (last two pictures). Again, the stand lets me down…

The ties are quite cool and this will be the first Miku I have with a tie that can be taken off. Behold the tielessness!

And a flowing tie…

Eventually, with a LOT of careful planning and posing and swearing, I managed to get some action out of this toy. Naturally I wanted ass kicking scenes of action, not poxy singing songs of love. To my relief the joints in her chest allow for much kicking of ass!

Sadly you can’t get much height out of the stand and due to her tails at the back, a figma stand won’t go in far enough. But still, the one supplied although lacking seems to be ok. As long a you don’t bump her otherwise she will end up on her head.

Now for some extra bits. For no other reason aside from the fact that I can, I am going to include a few 3d photos. They are taken from my 3DS and I am going to try to post them here and see how it works. To view them in 3d, I suspect that you will need to view this page with a 3d photo viewer of some sort which can interpret .MPO files.

So I guess to sum this up and finish off, it’s a nice figure. Let down greatly by the stand in my opinion. I can really see me looking for a better stand later. Despite the quirky crossover subject, it manages to work really well. Although the articulation is let down a bit in some places. I still like it and am glad I have it. I think most SEGA fan boys probably would as well.

Final Beast Megatron Dragon!!!

2012-02-08T18:59:00.000+08:00

So working on the theme of the Beast Wars Megatron and dragons, I present the final evolutionary dragon of him. From the series that ended up having some of the same writers as the Animated show, but not quite up to that quality, it’s Savage/Noble from Beast Machines. Or as the package calls him due to naming issues, Beast Changer.

Beast Changer here is somewhat similar to the Beast Wars Mutants in that they lack a ‘robot’ mode and change between two beast modes. Personally, I think they are a bit ugly, but hey some people actually like them.

Savage/Noble here became the most popular due to his place in the story of Beast Machines. He is the result of Megatron shedding himself of his weak organic part. Unfortunately, Megatron has gotten trapped within the fleshy confines of this body for a bit. The story gets quite interesting as Megatron interacts with the Maximals to find a way back to his now mechanical body.

Ok, enough of the blab, Let’s have a look at the toy! Starting with, robot mode. oh, Beast Mode I guess… Hmm, tricky these Mutant fellows..

Ok, we’ll start with the character known as Noble. He is the most intelligent of the two and the one that does all the talking.

Yep, he is a werewolf. Kind of nice. In the show the colours are a lot more purple on him, and his wings in the first picture are never seen. I quite like him with the wings left on though as the colour adds the more purple that he requires to help hide the Savage part of him.

Yes, despite his legs being the funky insectoid style, which appears to be very popular with the Movie series of Transformers, they actually hold him up quite well. I hate these types of legs, due to them having to be perfectly placed to get a figure to stand straight. Assuming they can stand at all. His small toes are well countered by the heel spurs. I tried a running on all fours pose, but either just didn’t have the patience for it today, or the knack. either way. It Sucked. Hard.

What I do like about this toy, is the paint work. Man it is nice. The face in particular is really good. The sculpting is good as well. Hey, let’s face it, this is a pretty good toy!

The Purple and blue colours on the face work well. They have a metallic sheen hinting at his origins. I am very impressed with the little purple beard, painted over the chin. Even his level of eye liner is impressive. Very crisply applied paints here as well, non of them seem to go over into places where they shouldn't be.

One thing I find quite interesting is his eyes. They are empty. In the show, Noble ends up losing his spark (because he is Megatron) when Megs returns to a robot body. Now here we can see that Noble has nothing where his eyes are. They say the eyes are the window to the Spark and now it is empty. Woooo, Spiritual. Much like the show.

AS I said before, lots of nice paintwork on this guy. Check out the gradient shading there on his fur underneath his ears. Veeeeery nice. He seems to have opaque chest sections as well where you can see some slightly mechanical bits as well. Quite interesting.

It alsso looks like his muscle is exposed on the upper arms there. Hmmm, I might have to re-watch some episodes where he shows p and see if I can spot anything now.

On his right arm is his spark crystal, Interstingly enough, it is a combination of the Beast Machines Maximal symbol and the Vehicon symbol. See if you can pick the two halves.

A brighter and a darker picture.

Noble has a funky ‘Attack mode,’ where you extend his arm and wind the fore-arm up with a little lever on his back, which in concept seems clever, but doesn’t seem to work very well. I bought mine second hand, but it was MISB and I haven’t played with it that much, yet it doesn’t work any more. Sad Face. The spark crystal is a lock, so when it’s up, then you can wind up some power, and when you push the crystal down, it should release the arm for a devastating spinning claw attack!!!

Buut mine doesn’t anymore.

Moving on.

To the other beast mode. That is DRAGON MODE!

Not your standard looking dragon here. In the cartoon it is a mindless, incredibly powerful nigh indestructible lumbering creature. It has big feet and the balance of the body actually works quite well.

Starting from the top we shall have a look at his noggin’. Savage here doesn’t appear to have any eyes. Interesting…

Nicely detailed scale sculpting throughout the body.

The gold paint works really well. The wings are painted red on the back, they are an opaque blue colour for when he is in Noble mode. The veins are a nice touch and the claws on the wings are reminiscent of the dragon mode from Beast Machines. The holes in the wings add a lot. It’s kind of like the guy has either been through a lot, or is unfinished in his creation. Either way, it’s a relatively consistent theme throughout the toy.

Beast Machines figures have a love for geared/spring loaded gimmicks. Noble has a spinning claw attack, while Savage has a chomping/opening mouth thing going on. there is a little switch on the side of his neck that when pressed opens his mouth.

He even has a tongue sculpted into the inside of his mouth. Since I am looking at his mouth, have a squizz at the underside. It appears to have the same ‘battle damage’ as Noble.

Looking at the rest of the body, we can see it’s unique in it’s design. Savage has two tails and balances on the arms of the Noble mode. The feet are big and so hold him up pretty well. It makes me wonder how this would move in real life, as the body is quite thick. The centre of balance would be all over the place during locomotion.

The tails are formed from the legs of Noble, so the fur sculpting is on the back. But I think they do a good enough job of not looking like were-wolf legs. The wolf feet fold up into the wolf thighs quit nicely and the end result is well done.

Like I said earlier, the balance of the legs is pretty good, you can actually jack him up pretty high and he will stand fine like this. On two legs anyway…

The underside is remarkably dragony looking too. The lever that is supposed to wind up the claw for its attack forms the chest of the dragon. It is scaled and pointy. Just like his forearms as well. As you can see, there are quite a few screws too.

The coloured groin does stand out, but only if you flip him over. And believe me, this guy is tough enough NOT to be flipped over.

So we end up with an interesting figure here. I would be interested to see how this guy’s concept was developed. It’s not like they thought that he could be a car and have to make a robot out of him. We have ended up with a figure that has two beast modes. One of which is a type that hasn’t been in Transformers to my knowledge, (Unless you count the Headmaster Fangry) and a dragon mode that doesn’t really resemble any dragon I have seen before.

The good news is though, it’s a well thought out figure and manages to work rather well in both modes, with enough of the other being hidden to keep the aesthetic look together. I find myself messing about with this guy quite a bit now that I have dragged him out. Both modes are quite fun, the colours looks nice, although not as blingy as TM2 Megs, but the paint work is good and the levels of shading and quality of application, as well as the slightly metallic look to some of it make him quite an interesting character. Just a shame that the wind up claw feature seems to have broken so easily.

Play time.

Oh dear, BRS didn’t do so well in that fight…

The Three Dragon Megatrons.

Fall of Cybertron news and toys. ZOMG!!!!!!!

2012-02-07T20:24:00.001+08:00

I am not normally one who likes repeating news like some crazy news repeating cockatoo, but I think I need to bring to attention some of the awesome things that are happening on the Fall Of Cybertron (The sequel for War for Cybertron) front. Not only is the game shaping up pretty nicely with Grimlock being a playable character (Yes he is a Dinosaur as well!), but they are planning some toys, that number more than the four they previously released.

Currently we have Optimus, hopefully a new figure to reflect his larger body. Shockwave, which makes me wonder if the change his vehicle mode from a Wipeout2097 type jet from the first game (multiplayer only rather annoyingly) to something else. And Jazz, which will no doubt be a pretty schmick looking car mode.

They have confirmed, get this, Swindle and Brawl.

Yes, that's TWO members of the Combaticons!! Gameinformer magazine has confirmed that Vortex (the helicopter) is a playable character, and I think they confirmed the combined team will form Bruticus. Here is a link to a heap info from Gameinformer. I suggest checking it out!!!!!!!

Add to that awesome news, we have magazine scans of Swindle and Brawl (Brawl was in the WFC game already but no toy).

And a shot of Bruticus' head. Yes the toy!! That can only mean that there will be an Onslaught (toy)

Woop Woop Combiner in the works!

Here's some pics.

Brawl.

Swindle, not Transformed very well in this picture. That waist is well out of whack!

And the torso, which would have to be Onslaught!! Who was also a playable character in the Multiplayer side of things.

I have to admit, I was pretty excited at the game alone and thought we might get figures of the main characters. But to see the possibility of a (from the limited pics I have seen so far) rather nice looking combiner team made of deluxes with a larger main robot is a prospect that I am too excited about.

Good thing I had my fangasm pants on.

Official game site is here Not much going on though.

And finally, Transformers on facebook is revealing Prime Toys every day for the next week or so and a bit of FOC image every Monday until release

Pics and info stolen shamelessly form here
http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/kapow-toys-news-preorders-listed-for-fall-of-cybertron-deluxe-shockwave-jazz-and-optimus-prime/23878/
and somewhere else on that site.

Another dragon for the new year.

2012-02-04T14:00:00.000+08:00

So I have been thinking about my previous post about TM2 Megatron and colours and a lack of dragons, when really, there are quite a few dragons in Transformers. Slowly but surely they are making their way from the deep dark (occasionally dank) recesses of my mind and a really obvious one is of course, Beast Machines Megatron.

There is also Scourge/ Flame Convoy from Galaxy Force. I have also dug up another. Pics soon.

But enough of what may come in the future, let’s have a look at the dragon at hand!

Beast Machines Megatron. Hang on a minute, that isn’t a dragon! Oh starting in robot mode hey? After all this talk of dragons, tricky.

This Megatron is the one that continues the tale of the Beast Wars series. At the end on BW, Megatron (in his dragon body) was captured by Primal and strapped to the front of their spaceship as they headed back to Cybertron. Something never explained happens and the Maximals wake up sans space ship, a couple of pals, their robot forms, their robot modes and worst of all, sans Megatron.

Oh dear.

Megatron has managed to be a very busy boy and has removed the sparks from all inhabitants of Cybertron and created a Vehicon army. He is the main controller of all of Cybertron and spends his time plugged in to the planet via a big cape. Hence his rotund robot form. Megatron is however still trying to purge himself of his organic parts. The pictures above are meant to represent Megatron as he is plugged in and interfacing with Cybertron.

There are times when he reveals himself from within the cloak and we discover that he is still a dragon. Revealed! The robot mode! With a size comparison.

You may note that he is smaller than Lugnuts. To refresh on his TM2 body…

Ok. He is officially classed as a Mega size. Hmm. Moving on.

I got this guy before I got the TM2 version, foolishly thinking if I had this one it would suffice as both Beast Wars and Machines Megatron. It doesn’t really, and I should have known my addiction better.

It’s fairly accurate, and it follows the body form fairly well with the dragon head arm and the other normal arm. This time the tail is attached to the arm, as opposed to the head. The joints in the arm are still a bit bung but this time the dragon head isn’t ridiculously long for the robot body. I actually really like the wing spread for this Megatron a bit, as they really fill out and have no holes, but then they do lack the colour.

As you can see, there is no pretty chrome, but the paint work is competent enough to get the feeling across. The legs have some pretty good articulation in them and the feet are huge. But for some reason the angle of the heel spur, this being the rear claw is too high up, so making him stand can be pretty tricky at times as his feet lean backwards.

The paint is nice and crisp and most of his hinges have metal pins in them. Due to the size drop, his transformation has become a lot simper, but still pretty good. I really like the way that in robot mode, his dragon arms form his robot abdominals!

His tail arm is again, only capable of fist shacking in anger. I do like that even though the asymmetrical nature of his TM22 mode has gone, there are still ‘organic’ details in the sculpting. His arm for example and the wings have veins sculpted on them.

The blue part on his chest hides his spark crystal. Man I live spark crystals almost as much as I love run signs!

This time though it has changed from a Predacon symbol to a Vehicon symbol. His head is fairly well detailed and the light piping feature works pretty well due to a large bit of orange plastic in the back of it. The head isn’t very Megaton-looking, but that is down to it being encased in a helmet for him in his joined to Cybertron form. I guess it works well like that.

It does have a somewhat Hannibal Lecter mouth guard look to it and is a bit put of shape when compared to the cartoon, but considering how it has to slide away into the chest for the dragon anyway, I guess that is fine.

Ok, now for the dragon mode. the cartoon doesn’t show the dragon mode until quite a way in.

The basic shape of the dragon is much the same as the TM2 body, but the wings are obviously a LOT larger! They are quite heavy and are prone to slowly folding forward and closing around the body. Each part is connected by a pin through it making them very solid.

His dragon neck has a play gimmick, in that if you pull his head back and release it, it will spring forward and attack anything in it’s way. It works well, the dragon’s mouth opens when you pull it back and its springs efficiently. Perhaps it works too well, as it is hard to get Megatron to stand without his head leaning all the way forward, unless you crank it all the way up, which would work for a flying pose. The neck actually has a fairly decent sculpting of scales on it, in between all the joints anyway.

The head is nicely sculpted and the horns of the dragon are opaque plastic and almost glows in the light. He still has the little beard and the general shape is the same as TM2.

The horn plastic even extends into the top of the dragon’s mouth, so it looks like he has a bright laser in his mouth. About the flame something up!

The body of the dragon works well enough and despite it’s small size, the wings manage to make up for that.

The spark crystal is still there, although it is now sideways if opened up. Even though all the colours are the same as the TM2, the lack of chrome makes it have less effect. I guess with the size as well a lot of the colours and shine that impressed so much before are gone as well. Still at the very least they are functional.

The balance is till a bit bad, and you will have to have him lean on his tail to stand up. mainly due to the wings. The wings have some nice sculpting on them as well. On the inside, veins are sculpted and the outside has circuit details on them. The yellow opaque plastic that forms the centre of the hidden robot mode add some nice variation to the grey of the plastic.

Trying to pose the dragon can be quite tricky. the wings have a tendency to flop about and one thing that I find really annoying is they don’t clip in anywhere, they just flop all over the place. The arms are connected to this piece as well, so they float next to his chest.

I did find that letting the wings close around the dragon made him look like an old man in a dressing gown, which I found terribly amusing!

If you press down on his horns, his mouth will open and close, really easily too. I like this.

The dragon mode is a bit taller due to the long neck, but even then it is a pretty small figure, even next to a deluxe sized figure.

Finally, I managed to grab a shot of the TM2 and BM Megatron next to each other at home. The results speak for themselves…

Even from that admittedly poor photo, BM is no match in terms of coolness with TM2.

Despite this guy being a poor brother to his predecessor, I find myself liking him quite a bit. The smaller size and easier transformation makes me fiddle with him more and I can see that in play terms, I would probably opt for BM as the leader of my Predacons. Both of his modes emulate BW Megatron well enough, except for the helmet of course which I would overlook. It is probably a cheaper alternative on the secondary market due to the lack of popularity of the Beast Machines TV show and the popularity and all round awesomeness of TM2 Megs.

The size class confuses me somewhat though, as he looks smaller than a deluxe, yet is in the class above. Probably due to the impressive wingspan of the toy. I would have hated to have paid the Mega dollars that he would have been priced at as the box is small and so is the figure. Beast Machines was a strange sized series though. Despite Optimus and Cheetor having multiple sizes, Nightscream being a MASSIVE toy and Rattrap, probably the smallest character getting a huge toy there was odd sizing all over the place.

So I guess, despite the flaws, as long as it’s cheap enough this is a pretty fun figure. Go Megatron!

Only one more dragon Megs to go now, which I happened to dig out since they were in the same box. Kudos if you can guess who is…

New Norcia Bush town in the past.

2012-02-02T18:22:00.000+08:00

In September the better half and and I ran away from the city to avoid the Queen’s Birthday public holiday in Perth. New Norcia has sort of been on my radar for a couple of years, but my recent wildflower trip and a talk to a friendly lady in the tourism centre in Geraldton convinced me that a trip to New Norcia would be a worthy adventure.

New Norcia is about 2 hours north of Perth by car. Just a couple of seconds if you go by teleporter. It is a monastic town and is the lasting working monastic town in Australia. That is quite something! Now me being a history lover couldn’t really resist this and so in expectation of (at the very least) some exciting buildings to look off we packed our stuff and headed away. The website for New Norcia is just here

The town is famous for it’s bread amongst other things. Why? Well, I guess it’s because it should be the same type of bread they have been baking since the place was established which was 1847 by some Benedictine Monks. Now it certainly wouldn’t have been very easy to set up and it wasn’t.

Some of the architecture is quite interesting because the Australian outback isn’t exactly abundant with church building natural resources. These guys managed to do a pretty good job though and it is quite interesting. They also took a different stance on treating the local Aboriginal community of the time and that is probably a large part of the success of the town.

Erm, so where to start? Well we signed up for the historical town tour, which is a walking tour around the town, guided of course. You can walk around the town without the tour, but some of the buildings can’t be entered unless you are with the tour. This is a Monastery you see and there are monks who live here. The tour was good, as there is lots of information that one wouldn’t otherwise garner.
There is also an art gallery upstairs from the main building, which is focussed on religious art. No surprise there. There are some really old pieces in there and since the tour and art gallery tickets aren’t that expensive, if you enjoy art, I recommend it.

OK, now for some pictures. Like most outback towns, it is located next to the main road. There are quite a few buildings about and the most noticeable one is the hotel. And its big as well. Huuuuge, especially considering the surrounds. You can stay in the hotel if you so desire and since it is the only accommodation for visitors I suggest you may want to. We didn’t as it was just a day trip. I thought it interesting that the hotel was full when we were there.

First thing on our itinerary was the tour. This took us around and into various buildings on foot. It took about 2 hours all together and there we a fair few people on it as well.

Off we gooooo

The first stop was the main used chapel. I think it was connected to the monks dormitory. The building itself wasn’t all that interesting on the outside, but on the inside…

This is the main altar. Quite impressive woodwork really.

On the other side of the room was an organ, with lost of pipes. Unfortunately no-one on the tour was musically inclined, I would have liked to have heard the pipes.

There were some nice stained glass windows about the place as well.

The next room we went to which was up and around a bit, was much more impressive. Both in age as well as looks.

Another chapel.

Complete with uncomfortable chairs. Or pews to use the correct terminology.

Some impressive doors and roof painting. Lot of gold leaf studs around the place as well.

Then we waked off to the next place.

This is the main monks dorm with a statue of St Benedictine I think in the courtyard.

The next building was the main church.

Ooooooh! I loves me a clocktower I does.

Inside is even better. Check it ooooouuuuutttt!

That is a very nice little set up in there.

Next building and away we goooo.

Hmm, I can’t remember exactly which building this is now.

I do know that the inside was pretty. I think it may have been the girls dormitory back when the monastery had set up a school for the area.

Pretty much every building of significance had a chapel of some form or another in it.

I believe that was the last building of the inside that we saw. Then we were free to roam as we saw fit. There are a couple of tours per day I think, and on ours, as I said previously, there were lots of people. If my memory serves me correctly the tour ended at a good time of 1pm, meaning that it’s close enough for our lunch. Incidentally on the tour the guide mentioned how he thought the bar would be annoyed if we all went to lunch at the same time.

Well guess what happened…

Of course the hotel was the only place available for lunch and it was a tad chaotic. In the long run, I guess they managed to handle it fairly well, but the selection of food was quite sad. We settled for some garlic bread and some dipping bread, both made from New Norcian bread. It was very nice and all we opted for as we thought we could grab a coffee and cake or something later in the day. I also ordered an Abbey Ale which was nice and tasty.

I see old Ratchet there eyeing off my ale. GEDOUTOFIT! Cheeky bugger. It was very smooth, just a hint of sweetness and also came in a funky glass, of which I bought two at the gift shop! It’s a souvenir! Of YUM!

The bread, dips and garlic bread were delightful! I love bread, and this was bread that was very very nice!

After that we just wandered about having a good look at the buildings and area at our own pace. It was a gorgeous day and wasn’t too hot, birds flying by at their own leisure and we just moseyed along soaking up the tranquillity of it all. There was a graveyard as well and it was very interesting to have a look at the headstones there. You might think it creepy, but graveyards can tell you a lot about the history of an area!

More shots of the are.

These last two shots are of the side of the main chapel. I found it really interesting, as they had been built out of the local rock, but faux columns had been added to the design on the outside! I love it!

Then as the last port of call we looked in on the gallery, which you are not allowed to photograph due to a theft of a lot of the artworks 20 years ago. They have increased the security, but I found it great to see that not all the paintings were covered or blocked off. It meant you could get up close and have a look at them unlike many galleries. It was amazing to looks at the brush strokes in some of them, and almost smell the paints.

Underneath the gallery was the gift shop where I purchased my aforementioned ale glasses. Even though New Norcia’s bread is famous, the only place to purchase it is at the gift shop… So it is at this point where we went on the lookout for the bread. Sadly by this time of day they had sold out. No bread for us.

On the plus side though, I did find some 20 year old Muscat liqueur. Hmm, interesting. So I bought it.

Wooo yeah!. I have since drunk some, and you can read about it here. Needless to say, it is very nice. You can read about that here

So by this time it would have been about 3.30pm and having only really had snacks of sorts for lunch, we headed back to the hotel for coffee and cake. Apparently there is a very nice New Norcian Nut cake that is tasty. So we headed back…

I asked the lass at the bar for a flat white and a cappuccino and what selection of cakes they had. She informed me the kitchen had closed. I was initially a little baffled at this response, as they had two cakes sitting in a cabinet looking at me. I said ok, but we only want a coffee and cake.

It turns out that the kitchen closing means no cake. No bread for us, no cake for us either. Despite the obvious fact of cakes being easily within arms reach. I didn’t think that a cake would need a chef or cook to cut it. Nevertheless, we were unable to obtain cake. This I found most odd and queried the closing of the kitchen, which had shut at 2 or 3 pm. Either way it was early and odd, as I saw people arriving in the car park at this time as well. I found this most strange, the only place open and you can only get alcohol and coffee. So we opted for the flat white and cappuccino option, while getting some left over snacks from my car.

And then the coffees arrived.

Looks like the cappuccino needs a hair stylist. Ha ha ha!

It tasted fine though. Ratchet had fun there.

Nice worn very old floor. I was tempted to run around inside the hotel. I would love to see one of the rooms. Apparently the hotel was made spectacular for the Queen of Spain, but she never came to visit. Oh well, she’d be impressed!

Then we headed home.

Some driving shots of us on the road. Not taken by me though!

The better half was all excited as we passed through Bullsbrook. It was very Top Gun (a movie I have never seen TBH). There is an airbase there, so I slowed down and we ended up with this dodgy shot.

Whee, what a day, despite the oddness of the food situation we experienced, we both thoroughly enjoyed our little adventure into the bush to New Norcia. Not only is it not all that far, it is actually a pretty nice drive with few hassles, nice bush scenery and good roads. If you have a day off and feel like a short day trip into the bush, I recommend New Norcia. Just pick up your bread first before anything else.

figma Hastune Miku comparison

2012-01-30T13:24:00.000+08:00

Since I appear to have many a figma Miku in my hands, I was looking at selling one off. the only condition was that if I had a duplicate body, then I could happily get rid of one, as the others are the same. After perusing the Good Smile Company’s website, where they have a list of the figmas that they have released, I was in good mind to drop one, as it appears all the Mikus they have use the same basic body and similar colours just with extra accessories.

However, after having a look at my Cheerful Japan version and the one I was looking at selling, the pictures on the GSC website are different between the figures, but to me they weren’t all that noticeable as to which was what. So I went about digging them all out and thought I would compile a little “Know you figma Miku'” article.

The first one released was Product Number 014, Miku Hatsune, sculpted by Masaka Aspy. Seen on GSC’s page here. Released September 2008.

The second release was the di: stage version with the product number of EX003, as seen on GSC’s site here. This was a Wonderfest Exclusive version released in July 2009. It came with quite a few extra bits, and a cardboard stage.

The third release was the Cheerful Japan version, which was released November 2011 and part proceeds wen to the relief effort for the sufferers of the Touhoku Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear problem. GSC Page here. This one is product number 114.

Ok, so starting with number 14, normal Miku. Her box looks like this.

Standard figma box for a smaller figma.

She looks like this,

She has a dark gun metal grey vest on and black glossy tights. Each version’s hair and correspondingly coloured clothing is a different shade of aqua as well. The best way I think to describe the shade of hair is this one’s is the most dark green in colour.

Di: Stage version is next on the list.

Her box is considerably larger.

She looks like this

Her vest is a lighter metallic almost silver in colour, and her tights are a lighter glossy black with metallic flecks in them. Her hair is the most blue of the three. This one looks pretty close to the Chogokin Miku that was also a Wonderfest exclusive as well.

Finally we have the Cheerful Japan version. She has the same size box as #14.

And she looks like this.

Her vest is a plain grey colour and her tights are black, but not as deeply black as the 014 version. She has the lightest green hair out of the three.

lying them all on top of each other, from bottom to top, we have #014, Di: Stage, and Cheerful. you can see that the vest is the easiest way to see the differences.

The hair, is hard for my camera to cope with. There are very subtle shading differences to them, which it doesn’t like. Must be the same issue that it has with purples as well.

My attempt at showing the hair shades, again bottom to top, 014, Di: Stage and Cheerful.

So there we go, that is the difference between all the Mikus of that sculpt. Hope that helps a bit in the knowledge of someone. Looking now I see the differences on GSC website, but before, no matter how many times I looked before they didn’t really stand out all that to me.

It appears I have 5 Mikus now. Here they all are in a Miku Group shot.

In order of release L-R we have:

#014 Normal (gun metal vest)
#EX003 Di: Stage Miku (Silver vest)
#100 Append Miku
#114 Cheerful Japan (Grey vest)
SP036 Racing Miku 2011

Quick Steps?

2012-01-29T16:57:00.001+08:00

Some Stepper quick shots!

Just picked this dude up the other day and took him to work to have a look. The problem is, it’s such a nice toy I found myself playing with it. Unprepared for proper photographing I just took some quick snaps as my camera was running out of juice and apparently that means it has issues auto focussing, so please excuse the poor quality of a couple of shots.

Just a quick bit of info on Stepper. He is a black pointed version of the Japanese character Meister, who is Jazz to us English folks, and appeared on one page of the Japanese G1 Manga, along with Artfire, both were Targetmasters. Their rarity made them popular and the Targetmaster feature helped too.

As a limited run for a Generations book released last year, if you were in Japan, you could order these. Much like the Ghost Starscream.

Stepper is a cool toy. I am slightly disappointed by him not having a brace for Nebulon (the Targetmaster gun) like the G1 figure had, as this means he can’t be mounted on Stepper’s shoulder or vehicel mode. I tried, but it is doesn’t sit well. Any movement will knock it off. I see that the instructions give him a Sonic Cannon, which combines the speakers with his normal gun. That name wasn’t noted on the Reveal The Shield Jazz.

Enjoy my quick pics, I will work on some more when I get the camera recharged.

Resting the TM gun on the window speaker array and on the spoiler and roof.

Again, resting the TM gun on the speaker array for robot mode.

On the windshield and Stepper’s shoulder. None are very secure.

Dual wielding is always cool!

His Sonic Cannon, as shown in the instructions.

Good balance and great articulation. When I first got Jazz, he sat around on my coffee table for a long time. Always within reach for idle playing with while watching TV etc etc. Great mould this one!

Ooooh! The Vanilla Mars Bar.

2012-01-26T10:19:00.000+08:00

After my previous experience with novelty Mars Bars (the dreaded caramel one that is), I was rightly apprehensive when I saw this little fellow in a stand at a supermarket.

Again, I like Mars Bars.
I like Vanilla. So does this will this maths equation work out?

Mars Bar + Vanilla nougat = Yum?

First up, what exactly does a vanilla Mars Bar consist of? Well, you have a small layer caramel, with a layer of vanilla nougat on top. Both of these are covered in chocolate. Much like a normal Mars bar, just a change in the properties of the nougat.

There we have it. Personally I think it looks a lot nicer than the ‘Caramel Mars Bar.’ It certainly resembles a Mars Bar.

After a quick bite, it is actually alright. Due to the sweetness of the caramel, the vanilla flavour is quite subtle and I could only properly confirm that it was vanilla flavoured after scraping some nougat off by itself. Still it was quite nice.

The Mars Bar on the whole was nice. The vanilla although subtle was noticeable and it was nice to have something different. The end result being, this is a nice novelty, but is unlikely to make you want it to stay over the normal Mars Bar.

It is a billion times nicer than the horrid Caramel Mars Bar. If you have the choice between the three, either normal or vanilla should be in your mind, leave the other on the shelf.

Super Sonic Speed run!

2012-01-24T02:03:00.001+08:00

I grabbed Sonic Generations for the 3DS the other day and even though it’s not a patch on the bigger console version, I have found myself having fun with the Time Trial section of the game. So as I have been a little lazy today, I cranked Act 2 of Green Hill Zone (with Modern Sonic) and found it had a good flow. I have since ended up with what I think is a pretty efficient run.

My Super Sonic Spreeeeeeed Run baby!

Hmm, I just thought of a way to make it a bit quicker…

Beware! The Caramel Mars Bar

2012-01-22T10:15:00.000+08:00

I love Mars Bars.

I love caramel.

Mars Bars have caramel in them.

I see a ‘caramel Mars Bar’ in the shop and I wonder, what could this be? Out of curiosity, I make a purchase.

There it is. I was most curious about this, what made it so special? With a mixture of anxiousness and excitement I took a bite.

Disappointment.

It turns out that the Caramel Mars Bar, is a Mars bar with no nougat in it. The maths looks like this.

Mars Bar – Nougat = chocolate covered caramel stick.

As much as I like caramel, a stick of caramel covered in chocolate does not equal yum.

Final verdict? DISGUSTING!

Happy Chinese New Year of the Dragon!

2012-01-18T18:00:00.000+08:00

Transmetal 2 Dragon that is…

Since we are coming up to the Chinese New Year I thought I would continue with a semi tradition that I started a couple of years ago with the year of the bull which involves having an appropriately themed Transformer on display of the coinciding year, so for the year of the tiger, I had Tigertron, year of the bull was Tantrum’s turn, year of the rabbit, erm well, if I had Stampy from Beast Wars Neo, that would be great, but I don’t and I can’t think of any other rabbit transformers, so I had nothing.

Luckily this year is the year of the Dragon and since dragons are cool, there is of course a swathe of awesome characters to choose from. Well, maybe not a swathe exactly. But more than we have rabbits hey?

Transmetal 2 Megatron not only fits the bill with his alternate mode being a dragon, he also fits with appropriately celebratory colours, mainly red and gold (or yellow). Huzzah! Plus he is an awesome toy and since I have had him out and been discussing him a bit with friends, it turns out that he is many people’s favourite Transformer.

So let’s start off with a look at his robot mode. Transmetal 2 Megatron here is a continuation of the brilliant Beast Wars Megatron. Starting off as a Tyrannosaurus Rex, then a robo-rex and his final mode is this impressive dragon mode. That is why he has a dragon head for an arm.

Standing by himself he is fairly impressive in height, although a little stumpy looking oddly enough. His chest is pretty large and his legs look a little chunky, the long arm is massive and his other is a tad short looking. He is in the Ultra size class of figure, which is (was) the next size up from the Voyager size I think. It can be hard keeping up with different size class name changes sometimes.

Anyway, I have him here standing next to Voyager Prime Optimus and Lugnut. He is a bit taller and fairly chunkier looking as well.

Now onto the finer details. The robot mode carries the same general feel of Megatron, as it should, just much stronger looking than he was before. He certainly looks a lot more angry than he used to be, I guess as the his plans grew more grand and the stakes higher, Megatron obviously got a tad more crazy.

He has excellent facial sculpting, clenched teeth, which you can see. Slightly squinty eyes and quite a bit more colour to his face as well. The tail of the dragon forms a helmet which limits the movement of his head somewhat. He also has a visor that can be lifted up and down too.

The helmet has a nicely sculpted Predacon insignia on it, the helmet also covers his eyes and you can still see the details on his face with the it on.

The back of his head has a couple of horns on it, as well. It also has a long tail hanging off the back, which inhibits movement even a little bit more.

On the top of his head is a small spring launcher for a missile. Personally I think it looks a little silly when he has a missile in there.

In his chest is a little cockpit which is apparently from unfinished plans. Hasbro intended on eventually giving Megatron and Optimus little sparks that would sit in the chair, but canned this idea later on. As a result, in his chest Megatron has this little chair in a bubble and the chair rotates around to stay upright all the time, it’s clever really. You can see a small lever as well, I guess it would have held the man in place.

It’s also hard to photograph well.

His legs are interestingly asymmetrical I discovered, rather sadly after I broke his ankle. Luckily I manages to fix it up with some very careful glue application. It was interesting looking into that leg, due to the connection. A little swivel joint and it also has these two pieces of rubber to add strength. Anyway, one of the legs has horn bits and the other, doesn’t. This asymmetrical theme manages to carry on throughout the figure in various parts.

Almost like one side is animal and the other robot. You can see the piece that broke and needed to be glued back together on the right.

On his knees, you can see some wheels and on the side of his legs are a couple of hinged bits that could be jets that fold up. This is probably a throwback to the Transmetal Megatron that was a robo-Rex, who had fans on his hips and roller skating feet, which was added as a vehicle mode of sorts. TM2 Megs has a vehicle mode of sorts as well, although it mainly involves him folding over his legs. Whether it is designed to be like that or just an unfinished mode is not made clear.

One of the great things about this figure is the amount of bling he carries. He has a shield on his arm that forms the stomach of the dragon. It is chromed and has a nice variety of colours on it. It’s quite surprising. Sadly the arm is a little lacking in articulation.

He has a ball jointed elbow, but no wrist movement, so he can shake his fist quite well, but that’s about it. What I find really odd though is the way his fist has been sculpted. his index finger kind of points out a bit, it’s really strange.

It’s not like he has a weapon to hold either, that index finger just points up and the others are in the shape of a fist, it is most unnatural. The other arm that is the dragon head is large and floppy. It can be locked into place with a switch, but I had to swap the switch around 180 degrees as it came assembled incorrectly from the factory. The dragon arm has some flexible plastic and looks appropriate. Never having seen a dragon in real life, I can’t say how genuine it is.

The jaw can open and close and the top of the mouth is chromed plastic. The arm is really long and is good fun to play with. It is still pretty pose-able though but it can make him overbalance and fall. Still, it’s good fun making scenes you would like to see.

The whole body is quite full of bling.

Under the tail of the head, is the switch for the wings. So you are able to have them folded or unfolded. Which is cool, as they are pretty impressive. Actually, Megatron here has quite a demon like look to him really. The red, the wings and the clawed feet. Interesting concept there. I wonder if it was intentional. I suspect probably not, it’s just that big wings make him look more impressive.

Once the wings are out, he even looks cooler. Is that possible? Well it must be so as I just said it.

The wings look sweet, but from the back you can also see a lot of dragon kipple mainly due to some dragon arms. But the opaque plastic of the wings is great and the paint on them look really cool as well.

Now onto the good stuff. Sure the robot mode is pretty cool and chunky and strong and maniacal, but the real reason I got this guy out of the box was for his ..
…
DRAGON MODE!

Megatron’s beast mode is faaaaaantastic!

RAAAAARRRRRGH!

It’s tall, it’s strong, powerful and just wow.

The tail is made of soft plastic and is really flexible so it does the job that a tail should do and keeps him balanced. There is some awesome bling on this dragon mode as well. It is quite a good combination of the European style dragon with elements of the Chinese style dragon.

The soft spikes of the tail add a bit more to his menacing demeanour.
The neck has plates on the back that are chromed plastic. They fold separately to allow for flexible movement. You can see the ‘tendon’ piece that tightens to ‘lock’ the nice in place.

The dragon face looks ace as well and the red horns on the back of the head can be lifted up and that launches the missile that can be hidden in his mouth. Definitely a more appropriate place that the top of his head.

He even has a little beard off the dragon’s chin. Cute!

The lock on the back of the neck, also activates his er, head wobble gimmick. Twisting eh switch left and right makes the neck move left and right as well.

On his stomach and chest area is some good colour gradients. There is a Predacon spark crystal on one side and the shiny arm shield forming the lower area.

The chest even has asymmetrical points to it, the side with the spark is a tad robotty and the other is more beast like. The legs suffer a little bit, in that the knees are just above the ankle. The robot knees are halfway up the thigh area and only fold one way.

One thing that bothers me about the dragon mode is the tail. If transformed according to the instructions, the tail sits above the back of the dragon. You can slide the head around so the tail is flush with the ‘spine’ but then the tail is upside down. This is annoying as it doesn’t looks quite right either way, a small change in the way the tail joins onto the head would have fixed this issue.

As it is, he ends up with a massive gap under his backside. The head also sticks out somewhat. The helmet covers it, but still, to me it is way too obvious.

Oh well. He still looks extremely cool with his wings flared out.

And the wings have lots of lovely detail on them and are asymmetrical as well.

He also has a little missile holding option within the wing as well. It’s very subtle and well done. They can be seen if you really look for them, but are hidden well enough not to stick out heaps. The chromed bits on the wings are asymmetrical and surprise surprise have a robot and beast side.

See the vents on the right and scales or feathers on the left. Wooooo! Oh and Missiles near the hinged area.

The hinged bits on the wing allow you to give him flapping options as well. Reeeeaaaargh!

Now to have a little look at his wheelie bits for the ‘vehicle’ mode. The claws of the foot have a little wheel on it.

The jet parts fold up to reveal the wheels on the thigh, bit the wheels can reach the ground anyway so it’s just for looks. Possibly propulsion.

The you just ‘lock’ the neck in place and fold the legs over. The feet claws slide nicely into the slits in the arms for a nice fit.

And there he is. Erm, Great? I dunno. Awesome dragons don’t really need a ground mode do they?

So there he is in some sort of vehicle mode. Maybe a race car? It reminds a bit of the race car mode of the Robots In Disguise version of Megatron.

So what wen end up with is a naff ‘vehicle mode’ and an awkward chunky robot mode, but an awesome beast mode. The good thing about this guy is, his dragon mode is so cool that it completely makes up for the robot mode and personally I am willing to forget about the vehicle mode anyway, so awesome beast and so-so robot, makes this guy a definite get figure.

If you are a Beast Wars fan, then I can’t recommend this one enough. Even if you aren’t it is still a pretty Transformer, with lots of well placed chrome of various gradients and enough play value in both modes to make you go “Wow! What a nice Transformer!” He’s got the bling and the powers to impress even the most hard core hater of Beast Wars. In fact, I would even go as far to say that this is the best Dragon Transformer ever designed. That includes all up until this day!

2011 Racing figma Miku Hatsune

2012-01-18T10:23:00.000+08:00

Another Miku Hatsune hey? Bah! How many can one chap have? Well a lot judging by how I am going…

This one is a very limited run. It was only attainable by becoming a sponsor for team Ukyo. Or something. You got a personalised card and some other stuff, there were three levels of sponsorship available and that varied the amount of goodies one got.

According to the Good Smile Company’s website, it has “…transparent feeling hair…” That is special in itself! Luckily the figure is better than their English.

This Miku is supposed to be one of the sponsor girls who help make the racing more interesting, by assisting the drivers and generally being pretty. The box is a standard large figma box showing off the accessories and tuff on the back.

The plastic casing for the figure has two layers, one hold Miku, her spare face, trophy and checked flag. I love that flag!

The second holds the signboard and umbrellas. She gets two umbrellas as one is an open one and the other closed. The sign board comes with a sticker sheet, which was cleverly hidden behind the backing cardboard below. The print on the umbrella is pretty good. It makes me wonder if this is the same sculpt for the Bakemonogatari Snail Girl character who also has an umbrella.

She has an assortment of hands and a di stage that all figmas have and I am yet unable to use as it doesn’t seem quite so obvious to me.

Onto Miku. I will start out by saying that from the initial concept pictures that were revealed, I like her costume. Then when I saw the figure images, I was impressed by the sculpt. She certainly looks more adult for this Racing Girly thing. Both in looks and *ahem* breast size. The facial sculpt is a really good one I think and the hair style adds to the maturity as well. Yet it still feels like Miku Hatsune. Oh, this one doesn’t come with any leeks either.

The paint applications are nice and crisp and I like the use of the blue to hi-light the collar. Hmm, Initially, I thought that her chest are was supposed to be ‘flesh’ and I was going to complain about the arms’ plastic not matching well with the paint on the chest. However with the discovery of the colour coming out of the ’flesh’ area above her breasts, I am inclined to think that it may be part of the costume, in which case the colour change is acceptable.

I really like the way they have done the ‘01’ Vocaloid number on her left upper arm. The 1 extends down into the blue line that goes down her elbow and onto her glove. It looks very futuristic in a Tron kind of way.

Since the costume of Racing is so different to the other Mikus, I thought that a close match would be the ‘Append’ version. I thought the Append as an older Miku, but even next to that, this Racing one looks more adult again!

I love the wind swept hair, her pony tails really flow and stick out quite a way. There is no way to make them look plain and just hanging by her side. The facial sculpt is great, with crisp applications of paint and it looks happy, but down to business. A woman in control.

I will say this though, one must be careful with the flicks of hair by the pony tail joints. I gave a bit of a tug on it as I was getting it out of the box and it struck me as a piece that will come off if one is not too careful.

The joints are well hidden from the front and the pony tails can be rotated around on the joint if you want a different angle. However doing this does expose more of the joint from the front of the figure. At the base of the pony tail is a little bit of plastic of multiple colours. A bit like the black bits on the normal Miku.

Costume wise, this is a good figure too. She has the usual figma set up in regards to articulation. The joint under her breasts is pretty noticeable due to the design of the costume and it isn’t covered over by anything. Plus the larger breast seems to pronounce it a bit more too. I Really like the spotted design on her stomach, it adds just enough detail to add interest and avoid the area becoming plain.

I am not sure what the things around her thighs are there for, but they add detail and don’t look out of place. The do however successfully cover the new joint in her thigh. Just under the hip decorations (for want of a better word) is a new swivel joint that many figmas lack. Edit, actually it isn’t a new joint. Just a note here though, she doesn’t have the waist movement of many other figmas.

I quite like the detail on the top of her stockings as well. It all manages to keep the computer generated feel of Miku.

Her legs are fairly standard, there is a aqua line running smoothly down them and her shoes are silver High heels with aqua paint on the base.

Now onto her back. Her head has pretty good movement, but like the other Mikus, it is also hindered by the little points of hair that hang down by her neck. So she has trouble looking up. She has some nice sculpting for hair texture on the back of her head and a somewhat Evangelion plug looking section between her shoulders

Her dress only covers the back and sides and has good paint applications on it. Around the bottom where the line is broken, I think might be a word in katakana, but I have trouble with crazy fonts and Japanese sometimes, if it says something, all I can read is a ‘ba’ for the first character. Actually, It looks more like ‘Ha’ so I am going to guess it says, “Hatsune”

Again she has nice details down her stockings and they have done remarkably well giving her a very nice bottom. The way the legs blend in with it, even when bent is a great improvement on GSC’s previous attempts.

She has two faces, her business face and a laughing face. I prefer the business face personally, although the laughing one is pretty good too. I love the paint on her irises. they are both very appropriate too.

OK, Onto her accessories. Being a racing girl, she comes with some trackside things to play with!

Her checked flag for signalling the final lap is pretty cool and great for posing with. The signboard is blank and needs the stickers put on it. If I knew more about racing, I might be brave enough to put some of them on, but alas, I don’t. I can only assume from the example on the box, that it’s used for calling the car into the pit. Anyway, it’s a very nice addition. She has hands that are specifically made to hold the pit sign. I guess it could also go for boxing matches.

She also comes with a trophy to give the winner! Huzzah!

Simple, but effective. Clean paint and it’s hollow too, for pouring toy champagne into I guess.

Bumblebee wants that darn trophy.

Final standard accessory is her Umbrella. It comes in both open and closed varieties.

The Umbrella details are surprisingly good. A sharp pointy end ensures this won’t get released overseas. The handle is slightly too small for her hand, but hey, she can still hold it.

You can even see the piece that keeps it unfurled ( Do umbrellas furl? ) and it’s unpainted as well!

The open umbrella consists of two parts, the unfurled umbrella and the handle. The umbrella is very solid and I had a bit of trouble getting the balance right as her wrists will twist and drop easily. It does looks pretty good though, I do like the effect it creates.

Paint work on the brolly (yes, I am getting tired of typing umbrella) are good and the colours match with the rest of her costume.

They even match on the underside, and you make her do parts of “Singin’ in the Rain.”

With the second level of ‘sponsorship’ you got a personalised name card and this stuff. It consists of a sticker, a rubber keyring, a card holder, a black sweatband (so 80s!) and a lanyard to go with your card holder I guess. Oh, in the bag on the far left is a nice little extra too. It’s another trophy! I didn’t get the name card as I went through a proxy to get this figure and they only allocated one card per address I think.

I like the transparency to this trophy, it’s very clean.

Here is a comparison with all of the figma Mikus so far released. L-R, #14 (Normal Miku), EX003 Di: Stage miku (Wonderfest exclusive), #100 Append Miku, #114 Cheerful Japan and Racing Miku. I think I would have to say that this Racing version is my favourite of the lot.

Although I don’t get “High action feeling” from her, you can make her be a master of the hidden sword technique!

“Come and closer and you get cut ROBOT!”

So for my closing comments, I am going to say something like this: “

“This Racing 2011 Miku is really really nice. Despite the questionable paint colour around her neck and a crack that appears under her breast, the general look of the character overall makes sense. It’s nice to see a more mature version of Miku in both bust size (really this doesn’t bother me much) and facial characteristics. The costume is a nice change from the normal look of this character, yet it still manages to keep the ‘computer’ theme and her normal colours as well. Overall this is a very well thought out and designed figure”

Yeh, I think I would say something like that indeed.

Just be aware that if you are chasing one now, I have seen them on ebay for more than $250.

Sonic Generations Soundtrack!!

2012-01-17T13:18:00.001+08:00

Got my Sonic Generations Soundtrack in the post today. THIS is the CD I have been wanting, while mindlessly wasting my time and money on other options that I thought had the music from the games. Like This and This. Be aware that those CDS are just the First Stage music from various games. So half the music is already on other CDs and it is not the music in any of the Generations games.

Anyway, now that I have it, I thought I would blab about it.

Here we goooooo!

Ok, so I opened the package it came in and was surprised, I thought they had sent me a 3DS game instead of the soundtrack. It is 3 CDs and a thick box!

It is in a nice little baggy and has an outer slip cover piece of paper over the box. that has the track listing on the back.

There is then a cardboard sleeve, with the Golden writing and embossed explosion prints that the box of the CE set has.

Nothing exciting on the back.

There is a little booklet that has the track listing with credits, some lyrics to songs and notes from the Sound Team on each of the tracks on the Generations game and from Sonic Team just generally, I think.

I haven’t had time yet to peruse them fully. looks like the Sonic Team is just a bit of general Sonic chat. Hmm, depending on the person though, they go into a bit of info on some of the remixes and stuff.

The CDS come in a little CD book thing with three pages. The CDs are mounted in a plastic page for their safety.

CD one, with the main level music from Ps3/Xbox/PC (i.e. the big boys) version of Sonic Generations.

CD2 has the music from the 3DS version of Sonic Generations. Some of the music is pretty cool on this and it reminds me that I haven’t got this version yet…

CD 3 has the other random music, such as the jingles when you finish a level, invincibility and others. It has a few cool remixes as well, but they mainly are the remixes of the Rival music and boss music.

As a little extra bonus, there is a little sticker sheet. Outer sleeve paper lets you know about this down the bottom (in Japanese though).

Hey! They are the pictures for the gambling machines in the Casino Night zone! Cool. Dunno where I’d use them though…

I like them, they are very cute!

On the back of the sticker sheet is an interesting page. Since the batteries in my camera were getting low, I just saw it with “Password” and so I covered the password and took the shot, but it turns out its a code for a Dark Chao Figurine for use on the game’s secret “Figure Room.” It also invites you to look at the website. I wonder if the code does anything there. So until that time that I know it’s not a single use code, it shall remain hidden.

And so that is what you get with the Sonic Generations CD Soundtrack. It is full of lots of cool tunes and mixes from the game. Even though it comprises 3 CDs, it appears to be missing some of the awesome mixes and tunes that can be used as alternate music in the levels. I guess that is understandable as there appears to be a massive heap of unlockable music in the game. It is a shame though as a lot of the mixes are really good and I would love to have them on CD. Hmm, mayhap another CD release? I notice there is a LOT of Sonic Music coming out lately.

Erm, so to summarise this all up I guess, it’s what one would expect from a Soundtrack. That is, the music. At 4200 yen, it’s not a bad price, just a shame that some of the other mixes that feature in the game as bonus tracks aren’t there. Get it if you like the Generations music enough to listen to it out of the gaming world.

Incidentally, I got mine from Amazon Japan.

For a full track list, check out the back of the box photo. Too Many for me to bother writing down, but the photo is good enough to be able to read the text.

20 Year Booze Houndin’

2012-01-15T18:28:00.000+08:00

A while back the better half and I made a dash out into the outback for a little day away to the wonderful site of New Norcia. Being only 2 hour drive from Perth, we left early and made it there by about 10am.

Anyway, holiday pics will be coming soon, but i thought I would add some pictures of a little gem that I bought as a souvenir. Some lovely 20 year old Muscat liqueur. Mmmmmmmmmm! 20 Years aged! Howdy doody.

Nice simple bottle. New Norcia’s claim to fame is that it is the last running monastic town in Australia. Naturally, anyone who has played the Ultima games will know that monasteries are great places for wine and mead.

Pluck the cork and have a whiff. Mmmmm, 20 years! Nom nom nom!

Look at that! Absolutely delightful colour, nice sweet smell and it tastes fantastic!

Beautiful soft sweetness without being sickly so. Oh ho ho ho! So delightful! Shame it’s so hot here at the moment. That will not stop me having more though! Mwa ha ha ha!

Quick fix, Linebeck!

2012-01-12T10:59:00.000+08:00

Being addicted to plastic Crack, I occasionally need a quick fix from the local gashapon machine. Every now and then I really find a cracker. this day I managed to come across a nice Legend Zelda Phantom Hourglass thing. As an extra bonus, I managed to get the rather cool character Linebeck. Woot!

Linebeck is the slightly Jack Sparrow-esque dodgy character that joins up with Link to help him find Zelda. He is a greedy coward after money and keeps busy by avoiding some girl that likes to chase after him at random times. he is also the navigator and has the map. In Spirit tracks, he takes a back eat and is a bit of a trader.

This figure comes with a map, a stand and a really cool rupee. Ironically enough, the rupee is the lowest value! Ha ha ha!

The paint is really nicely applied which is pretty cool considering the price and size of this guy.

The eyes really carry the character of Linebeck incredibly well. The smirk is sweet with little bit of teeth moulding. Cute little beard as well.

The map even had details on it, nice little latitude and longitude lines on the map as well. A few nicks missing out of the the edges of the map.

Simple coat details and moulding of his hair on the top of his head make me like this figurine even more.

The rupee is opaque green and can sort of stand in the stand, with some force, but pops out easily. It’s nice to have an accessory such as this to use. I can see some fun coming from this later!

You can take away his map and have a nice little look at his shirt and coat.

This is the piece of paper that came with. Might be interested in a couple of the figures, but not all of them.

Finally having a little play with some photos, Linebeck and the computer.

For a static figurine, I like this. It really pulls the character of Linebeck and melds him into plastic form. Onto the shelf with you my little chum!

Of Human Behaviour and… Cakes

2012-01-09T18:20:00.001+08:00

It has become a recent tradition in my household to have a nice cake during the time of Christmas. Not all in the household appreciate the joys of Christmas Pudding as much as I, a fact which saddens me greatly. Hence the gourmet cake option that is a sort of mid-way meeting thing.

Anyway, this year we decided to go to a rather well known in the area and classy bakery that goes by the name of “Jean Pierre Sancho.” Thus we bought our cakes.

What you see there is a lemon meringue and a blueberry tart if I remember correctly. These babies weren’t cheap and come presented nicely, as were all the cakes in the cabinet of temptation, so we chose our cakes and asked to have them prepared for take away.

Now being a gourmet looking classy shop, one would think that the cakes would be adequately protected for travel when being bought for consumption outside the realms of the shop. Yet the boxes that our cakes were placed were notoriously open to the sky. Then put into a paper bag. That is fine for my tart, but not so fine for the elegant tufts of the merengue’s fluffy peaks.

Oh the devastation brought on from the lack of a roof. I don’t know, is it just me expecting decent service? It just seems logical that if I were to go to the effort of making such wonderful looking peaks of egg white to adorn the lemony base that I would also go to the effort of providing adequate protection for the aforementioned peaks.

I must admit, I am shocked, I thought these guys knew about cakes, obviously not as much as one would think.

As for the taste side, I read some reviews of the place and people were raving about the cakes (obviously eaten at the shop), my tart was pretty nice, not too sweet, but sweet enough. Sadly though the meringue suffered from being too sugary for the likes of my accomplice. Naturally we had a try of each others’ cakes and the meringue was excessively sweet. The egg white very much so and I know that the lemon needs to be sweet, but this was bordering on the sickly sweet side of things.

Therefore with the busted peaks, borderline sickly sweetness of both white and lemon and the high price the lemon meringue scores a two and a half out of five. Could have been higher, but since the price paid was a premium and the product received was average at best, I think that is a fair score. I won’t be buying their lemon meringues again! I think it could be improved by dropping the price and making it a bit smaller as it was fairly large.

The blueberry tart on the other hand scores somewhat better, much better taste, less prone to damage from a bad box (i.e more durable) and just sweet enough, it is let down by the high price. Sure it was nice, but again not that nice. Three out of five.

Most disappointing was the lack of appropriate protection for our cakes. Completely disappointed about the packaging. Not scoreable.

The evils of travel.

2012-01-07T17:51:00.001+08:00

The After a month of waiting, my Encore Devastator arrived in my post box and I ran inside to pick him up from the post office. Little was I to know the horror that awaited me….

The guy brought out my package from the storeroom and it was in a plastic bag. He then informs me that it arrived in a water damaged state.

Well, yes it certainly looks that way indeed. I know SAL can be really slow, I once waited 6 weeks for a Nanael figure, but that was an exception. Now this one took longer, probably because it had been left in the rain for a couple of days.

So hesitantly I opened the back and withdrew the box. Remember there is a nice new complete set of Constructicons in there too…

The box by itself had seen a fair bit of action.

Naturally I laughed when I saw the address tag, which had nearly faded to nothing.

It said “Extremely fragile.”

Thanks for trying HLJ, I don’t think the postal service cares….

Luckily though, the insides of the box looked like this.

Devs was wrapped in a baggy! Huzzah! Just a crinkle in the middle of the box, not where any of the Constructicons lay in stasis lock. In the middle was where the connector pieces for Devastator lie waiting… Maybe, I was worried that water may have gotten through and de-chromed him.

No worries there though, he is fit and fighting, without due haste, I eagerly had them ‘Merge for the Kill!’ Also luckily I had an Optimus ready and waiting to take them on (with some targetmaster help).

PREPARE FOR EXTERMINATION!

I couldn’t even wait to put the stickers on. Although not that big, Devs is pretty awesome. The first of the Combiner teams and a carry over from the Diaclone days of yore too!

I like the way that the pieces that are used to join Devs individual components together can be popped onto the vehicle modes. The first instance of Stealth Force? It’s also interesting to compare the difference between these guys and the later combiner teams, such as the Stunticons and Aerialbots, since there is a different way of combining them.

The uniform green looks good with them all together and their robot modes looks nice when they are all hanging around waiting for the next job, probably wolf whistling at Elita-1 as she walks by.

This is the first time I have ever really played with the Constructicons as opposed to just looking at a friends, the originals are old now and so I didn’t want to break a friends, so it’s nice to have my own (new ones no less) to mess about with. Despite their age and lack of articulation when combined, they are still pretty awesome. I suspect nostalgia plays a big part in that.

Now I will have to get around to taking some better shots. Shame my camera batteries ran out when this came in, hence my awful phone shots…

Phew, just really glad that the toys are fine despite the horror of the box.

Classic Cats, 1980s Lion-O

2012-01-02T19:35:00.000+08:00

So I had the 6 inch 2011 Lion-O in, and in a father/Son moment, I got the 8 inch Classic Lion-O as well. I have been looking forward to messing with this guy after playing around with the smaller younger one and finally I got a chance to crack him open and have a look see.

The box is a little larger than the 2011’s box. Naturally, after all there are two more inches involved in this one. It has some nice artwork on it and a tiny bit of blurb about the Thundercats making a ‘return.’ Again, there are three languages on the box, yet the toys are limited for sale in North America only…

A closer look of the package.

Again, oddly the different languages. One of which is French… Yet these are currently only being allowed for sale in North America. I am still disappointed that it doesn’t allow for some information on the Thundercats. Admittedly though this release is obviously aiming for those that knew of the Thundercats in previous mythology. Even so, they could probably increase the knowledge a bit with some blurb about Lion-O. I mean I had to watch the start of the cartoon to learn anything about him. It wasn’t that enjoyable to be honest… But Lion-O is still pretty cool. I guess I like the aesthetic design of the figures and some of the episodes were interesting, but the ones in between the good ones (sadly the majority) were confusing and boring.

“Create action poses” Ha ha! Yeh, that’s what ‘Action figures’ are for aren’t they?

Other figures in the line and some abilities of the toy with the sword.

The front of the pack just has a large section that is covered mostly by the figure.

You can see that the little sword of omens is a bit bent in the box. He comes with interchangeable hands as well, which is handy. He has some ball joints attached to a swivel in the wrist, allowing for lots of wrist movement, except when you have his gauntlet on.

The box also states that he has 18 points of articulation. Now for a while there I wondered about this, as the 6 inch 2011 Lion-O also has 18 points of articulation. Yet 80s is missing the double elbow joint that his younger counterpart has. Until now. I only just noticed it, 80s has an extra swivel in his shins. Hmmm. I think I would have preferred the extra elbow joint, since he has a swivel in his thigh anyway. Oh well.

I do like the artwork on the side.

Now to break him out of the box.

My what a strapping figure he is sporting there. As you can see, it is a great interpretation of Lion-O. Definitely better than the original toy. Well, articulation wise I guess. The original had a light gimmick in it. It came with a ring, in which a battery would reside and if you placed the connector bit in Lion-O’s back, his eyes would light up. Mumm-Ra had the same thing and I will admit that I thought it was mighty awesome!! No such luck with this guy though, but he does come more as an action figure now.

The paint applications are pretty sharply applied and the colours are pretty well done too. His proportions are about right and overall the toy is a good interpretation of the cartoon version of Lion-O, which is what I wanted.

So, lets start at the top shall we? Now as I mentioned earlier, the original toy had light up eyes but this one doesn’t. However, he does have nice, cleanly applied eyebrows and eye details. The red of his eyes is quite striking and looks very nice. A great substitute for the light up eyes in my opinion. Around his eyes and chin/mouth is a lighter shade. Perhaps less fur? I don’t know as I am not sure how furry exactly Lion-O is supposed to be, nonetheless these areas too are crisply painted.

Hmmm, as a ranga, he has lovely flowing locks of hair. I love it! Such an 80’s inspired bouffant hair.

It’s not all just hair and eye makeup though. His head is well articulated with a swivel at the top of the neck and a hinge at the bottom. It appears to work fairly well. Mine is a bit loose though so he has a tendency to check out his shoes at the strangest of times.

He has great colours and a very muscly back! Waist and diaphragm (area) articulation.

The font is just as muscly and has nice colours as well. Not terribly strangely, the same colours as the back. His belt has nice clear painted applications of the Thundercats logo and a nice metallic blue paint on his belt.

He has an obvious stamp on his bumb and mine has a slight building flaw in his side. Easily pressed together, but disconcerting nonetheless.

I like the 80s look of his boots and the rubbery looking sculpting on the top of his foot. Unfortunately though, you can also see that they used a different colour for the hinge of the joint. Why couldn’t have they used blue for that, it stands out quite a bit!

I do like the moulding on the boot here. Looks like its made of plastic, um and on a foot like a shoe should be.

You can see that the gauntlet can be attached to his belt. Mine is a bit loose and the smallest movement will often knock it off the belt. The sword of Omens when in small mode, fits really nicely into the gauntlet, ending up with the stone in the right spot and it’s well secured.

They used some good plastic on the gauntlet giving it an excellent golden sheen. The red/gold combo of colours looks very nice!

The Knife of Omens™ clips cleanly and securely through a little slide section inside and it attaches to the belt harness by plugging into a ball. It attached to his wrist by plugging over the ball joint on his wrist.

You can also see that his wrists have different coloured joints like the feet.

The different hands are for holding the sword and more relaxed hands. Overall the wrist movement is excellent and firm enough so the sword doesn’t flop.

Rowr?

ROWR?

ROWR!! Like a Tiger!
I mean Lion!

Better do something better and grab yer knife!

Ba ba ba ba daaaaaaaaaa! Hooooooooo!
Oh.

The Knife of Omens™ is nicely detailed and the stone (with the eye thing on it) is crisply painted on. The hilt and even blade itself is well sculpted and interesting enough for me to photograph it.

The Knife of Omens™ is embarrassingly soft though… No stabbing with this baby. Once bent it stays that way for a while as well.

Grant me Sight BEYOND SIGHT!!

You can pull of his looking through the sword pose, but I will admit that I cheated somewhat with the lack of depth perception that comes with the use of cameras.

Articulation overall is pretty impressive and I found myself leaving him around at work so I could mess about with him. Balance wasn’t much of an issue as his legs have lots of joints in them.

You can make him do some classic posing with his gauntlet on as well.

And the Sword of Omens is pretty cool as well.

BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!

Oh. Nothing happened.

Again the sword has lots of details sculpted on and they are different to the ones on the Knife of Omens.™ With nice paint details on the Thundercats logo on the sword and a sweeeet silver plastic for the sword. Sadly again though the sword is very very soft.

The sword makes it a bit harder to get the sight beyond sight thing going. I will say this right now, I really enjoyed playing with this guy!

I got out the 2011 Lion-O of 6 inches and had a little compare.

That last image in that group is a good example of where 2011 manages to be just a tad better than 80s/ Both have their elbows as bent as possible and the extra joint in 2011s makes it just a little bit better. Sadly those joints went from 2011’s elbow to 80’s shins.

Quick size comparison.

Gauntlet comparison. Does Lion-O’s gauntlet have a name? Hand of Omens? Gauntlet of Omens? Furniture Wrecker of Omens? I prefer the 80’s one here, the straight fingers on 2011’s and lack of colour make it looks somewhat awkward.

Proof of the fun to be had with Lion-O.

Lugnut has a new king now!

And then I said to Starscream…

If we do it together boys

BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!

Muscle bonding. Oh yeh!

Right so to summ this up, I guess I really like this toy. Great articulation and aesthetics that really capture what I (hazily) remember of the character from the cartoon. Let down by the removal of an elbow joint, bendo sword™ and odd coloured joint pieces breaking up the base colours. But really, this dude is a lot of fun. Taking into the account of price on this guy, I probably wouldn’t want to pay more than retail for it.

Now to wait for the classic Cheetara! Reeeeeow! Oh and Mumm-Ra as well, that would be cool!!

Oh and as I am sort of throwing out old magazines, here is a little scan of an amusing back page featuring a shot of the original Lion-O. Reproduced without permission from Toy Fare #144.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T23:06:00.000+08:00

I (Tets), Jack, Starscream, Transformers mini-Satan (an anagram of Santa no less…) and Santa of course would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading and I hope to add more as the years go on!

Jack better watch out! Looks like Starscream is making a move for the present!

Tree interpretations.

2011-12-24T15:00:00.001+08:00

Over the past few months that are encompassed within the realm of “Christmas,” I have noticed and interesting trend in the old Christmas Tree.

Today, being Christmas eve, I thought I would share the ones that I was most impressed with.

The first is probably the one that is most aesthetically pleasing. I say aesthetically, as it irks me somewhat that it is just a huge advertisement for a product which I don’t really like all that much which comes every year. So I must admit though, despit my ‘moral’ objections to the consumerism link, the overall effect was pretty impressive.

It was hung from the roof and must have taken a while to set up. Even the star is made the same way. Underneath is a cafe and if you so desired you could sit underneath the tree and enjoy a cuppa. The cafe makes nice coffee there, but it has a tendency to take a while. Obviously it is an ad fro Ferrororororor Rocher.

The same day, I found this in the supermarket.

Lots of advertising dollars spent on Christmas I see.

Next up, the most moral-ing pleasing and interesting for looking at. I quite liked the inventiveness of this tree. It was in the city.

Somewhat cleverly made of old bikes. It had lights in various forms, and some decorations, which advertised Coles, but it wasn’t that noticeable….

So there we go. One for scale and grandness, the other for inventiveness.

Hope you are having a nice relaxing Christmas Eve. I am!

Merry Christmas!

Blowing my own trumpet

2011-12-23T22:16:00.003+08:00

Well actually having it blown for me.

I was pleased to recieve a Zombie Rabbit Award from a fellow blogger. eerieeriksreviews kindly gave me one. (More about the Zombie Rabbit Award here) and it was nice to recieve it from a fellow blogger.

I will admit, despite not originally having much interest in beer and horror movies, I do find the blog most amusingly written and an enjoyable read, so 'twas a good feeling indeed.

I would have never known about beer brewed from pumpkins. Who woulda thunk it!

Cheers Drunketh, much appreciated! To recieve a bit of recognition for having fun can't really go bad hey?

Chrazy Christmas Decorations.

2011-12-22T22:05:00.000+08:00

So, I have been a bit quieter this Christmas compared to the last. Obviously the horror of the Advent Calender chocolate has slowed me down.

Oh and work has been crazy as well.

Today though I would like to add some strange Xmas trinkets I spied whilst wandering the shops. Most of these are various baubles for hanging on the old Chrimbo tree, what struck me as odd was that not many of them had a Christmas feel to them…

Christmas and…

MUSHROOMS?

I don’t get the connection but someone does as there were HEAPS!

Riiiiight.

Moving on, there were some green ones. Red and green seem Christmassy, but the subject matter that was green, erm well wasn’t….

At least you can get red ones as well.

Being Australia, there were some nice looking Aussie themed ones. I liked the Platypus one as it also had texture too.

There are some echidna ones in the bottom of the photo as well. Shame I didn’t snap that either as I really like Echidnas!

These next ones, I didn’t like so much. To be honest I hated them.

Behold, the tackiness of THE AUSSIE THONG! (aka flip-flops)

Best of all, these get even tackier!

Eight Bucks?!?!?!?!?!??? Its a small chunk of plastic. Made in CHINA!

Lame.

(<_< ) ( >_>)

Moving on…

Not enough fake food themed ornaments on your tree? Well, these authentic Oriental items will fix that problem.

Hmmm, Ooookaaay….

Not for the tree, but if you don’t have enough tacky looking horrible rubbish around your home, add this little darling to, somewhere.

Now this next lot really have me worried. No comments, just photos as I am not sure what to say.

Elvis. Hmm, maybe they are getting confused with the other supposed ‘king.’ Mayhap King is just getting thrown around a bit too much and it’s beginning to lose it’s meaning, like impact and unique…

This last one takes the cake though. So bizarre, I needed to video it. It is a sort of album cover looking thing, like the red square in the top right picture next to the “That’s how I roll” thing.

Classy…. ?

What i find most interesting is the spot that has the Elvis stuff had pretty much sold out when I went back a month or two later. WHAAAAA?????!???

Odd really, but I would probably buy Transformer themed baubles if there were any. What a funny old world.

Clever Cup cakes

2011-12-19T17:42:00.001+08:00

So, it’s Christmas time and bad food is being eaten all over the place. On a personal note, I have been puzzled by the rather sudden rise in the popularity of cup cakes that has taken the world, well Australia at the very least, by storm.

Why? They just seem to be a standard sponge base of either vanilla or chocolate with a sickening amount of icing on the top (Personally I prefer butter icing over plastic icing). I have seen a few come through work as there has been many made for home Christmas parties and not consumed.

One such episode happened today in fact. I was however impressed with the look of these cup cakes.

Looks a bit like a frog, but think of the blue, and oh is that a cookie? Waitasecond…

From the right angle, they looks remarkably like Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster!

Despite my curiosity and slight dislike for cupcakes (more of a muffin guy myself), I take my hat off to my workmate who cooked these little blighters up!

Well done and bravo!