Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) Leader Starscream

Expected price: SGD 109.90

I didn’t expect the video review of ROTF Leader Starscream to be available online so soon.  According to the reviewer, this particular piece is a prototype without the electronic functions.  Nevertheless, you still can view the transformation process and have a good view of both the jet and robot modes. 

Overall ROTF Leader Starscream doesn’t seem as impressive as seen in the early photo of this toy.  Well at least he doesn’t have his hands showing from under his “tail” while in jet mode.  That’s my pet peeve about the ROTF Voyager Starscream.  And ROTF Leader Starscream is finally in scale with ROTF Leader Megatron and Optimus Prime!

My Little Pony 2009 Christmas Advent Calendar

An Advent Calendar is a special calendar that is used to count or celebrate the days of Advent in anticipation of Christmas.  Like toys, Advent Calendars were originally made for children.  These days, they have become collectibles as well.  I guess the concept of using a Christmas Advent Calendar is still quite a new concept here in Singapore.  Toy collectors may tend to be more familiar with this practice. 

Each year, some toy companies (e.g. Hasbro & LEGO) will release their toys as a Christmas Advent Calendar package.  For e.g. in the My Little Pony 2009 Christmas Advent Calendar (above), the little Ponyville figures and their accessories are packed into a box with the Advent Calendar printed on it.  Each date of the Calendar is a window that can be opened to reveal the little “surprises” inside.  You’re supposed to open one window a day, as you countdown to Christmas.  Of course the impatient ones will just remove the whole “tray” from the box to get to all the goodies at once.  And that’s called “cheating”, LOL!

Transformers Optimus Prime Bank

Look at this Transformers Optimus Prime coin bank!  He’s great for display, plus you can use him to save and store your loose change at the end of each day when you return home.  Then when you’ve accumulated enough money inside, you can use them to go buy some more collectible toys!

Product description:

• “Optimus Prime is here to protect your spare change from the Decepticons!
• Over 7-inches tall!
• From the classic animated series!

Featuring the transforming Autobot that started it all, the line of Transformers Bust Banks continues with none other than Optimus Prime himself!  Sculpted by Art Asylum and measuring over 7-inches tall, recreate the classic look and feel of the Generation 1 animated series, prepare your Matrix of Leadership and get ready to roll out. Order yours today!”

What I mean is that - do you feel that some, or all of your toys give you this unexplained impression that they seem to have “personalities” of their own, as if they are living entities?  Let’s forget what the non-toy collector laymen think for now (non-imaginative people call this state of mind “crazy”). 

When I look at certain toys in my collection, I somehow feel that they could spring to life, even in my presence at times.  Take Zoom the Super Pony on the left for example.  From the moment I removed her from her box packaging, she ‘lept about’ excitedly on my hands and told me she’s a Super Hero Pony, and that she’s out to ’save the world’ from the “Super Villains”, etc. and all that familiar comic book stuff.  

I would ‘play along’ with her and agree, though in my heart I knew there aren’t any “Super Villains” for her to fight with.  I wouldn’t let any of my toys ‘fight’ one another, lest they get damaged and become ‘unsuited’ for my toy collections, LOL!  Anyway at times, I still imagine Zoom going on her adventures to stop the evil “Super Villains” from conquering and enslaving the world with their wicked schemes.  Each and every time, Zoom will be there to stop them, and the cycle goes over and over again.

I do see that several of my fellow bloggers also have such imaginative minds and they take “photo evidence” of their toys engaged in various adventures via photo comic strip style postings on their blogs.  For me, the toy adventures just happen too fast for me to capture any photo or video evidence.  Besides, some of my toys are a bit “shy” and refuse to have their antics posted online.

As a toy collector whose personal living space is often surrounded by your favourite collectible toys, do you feel that your toys are somehow able to bring out the creativity and imaginative parts of your minds to the real world?  Looking at other inanimate objects won’t give you the same inspirations like your toys do.  For instance, a calculator is just a calculator on its own.  But with an action figure next to it, the calculator can ‘tuen into’ a ”doomsday machine” where once your “Super Villain” action figure presses a button, he can literally ‘take over’ the world!

The list of imaginations can go and go.  Why is it that toys have this ability to bring out the imagination of some people (usually these people are already attracted to the toys in the first place)?  Do toys have certain unknown ”powers” in them that allow them to do what they do to our minds?  Or is it because the toys themselves usually represent some fictional characters that we’re familiar with, such that our minds seem to think that the toys can come to life? 

What about you?  What do you think of the above toy observations?  I would love to read your comments here.  Feel free to share them!

During a sale of course!  And when are the sales?  In the US, a major sale day called Black Friday is coming soon.  It falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November) each year.  On Black Friday, some US retail stores open their doors as early as midnight, and close only on midnight the following Saturday to accommodate the massive crowds that come!

In Singapore, the major sales we have are the Great Singapore Sale (around June to mid-July each year), and the year end Christmas and post Christmas sales.  In between there are the shorter period ad-hoc sales by the various departmental stores.

Here in Singapore, there are shopping malls and departmental stores that occasionally decide to open till around midnight during certain festive periods, but this practice of extended shopping hours is not fixed each year.  I’d rather have more short period sales spread out throughout the year.  Many collectible toys are released and sold in the departmental stores at different times of the year.

We may not have Black Friday here in Singapore, but we still have Christmas turning round the corner.  Our main shopping belt at Orchard Road is already lighted up with Christmas decorations.  They started earlier this year to dress up the street for the APEC meeting taking place in the coming week.  Locally, shoppers to Orchard Road get to immense themselves in the Christmas mood for a longer period!

If you have plans to buy some toys, whether for yourself or as gifts, now you can start looking out for the Christmas sale advertisements in the newspapers everyday.  The major retailers have definitely prepared some great offers for shoppers to enjoy, incuding on toys!  So start saving up to splurge during the year end sales, after which in Singapore, will be followed by the New Year and Chinese New sales early next year!

Happy toy shopping in the coming weeks and months!

Reasons for not doing so…

I guess for the majority of toy collectors out there, your answer to this question is “no”.  To keep track of your toy spendings is after all quite a tedious task to begin with.  You’ve got to have a certain amount of discipline to update the records diligently and regularly.  To people who hate dealing with numbers, even doing the simplest of accounting is mental torture to your “already exhausted from work or school” brain.

Then there is the other extreme where the reason for not having a set of toy accounts is simply to escape from, or prefer not to face inevitable and harsh “reality” that you are probably spending way too much money on your toy hobby.  You know very well in your heart that you’ve shelled out quite a sum of your monthly income on your toy purchases each month.  You’ve got the estimated total in your mind, but the true total figure will be too dreadful to deal with, LOL!

Not doing so is normal instinct…

I know and I understand how you feel, after all I’ve been there and done that.  Keeping track of your  toy purchases is one of those things in life which we know that is good for us, but not critical enough for our lives to depend on that will make us practise it.  It’s like we know that regular exercise is good for our health but we don’t feel like doing it.  Or that we should eat more vegetables and fruit to balance our diets, but meat is generally more tasty and satisfying to our palates.  Basically it’s human nature and habit that we seek instant gratification over long term benefits.

I tracked my X-Men toys collection

During my early days of toy collecting, I did keep a special note book to record all the X-Men toys that I bought.  I even awarded “medals” to the 25th (silver), 50th (gold), 75th (platinum) figures that I acquired.  This was to signify some sort of milestone in my toy collection, a similar concept to our Singapore Tourism Board awarding a prize to the 1,000,000th tourist to arrive in Singapore for that year!

I didn’t follow up for My Little Pony… 

As time went on, I got lazy and didn’t practise this good accounting habit for my collection of My Little Pony toys.  By the time I thought of starting a record book for my ponies, it was too much effort to recall all their cost prices.  Furthermore they were mostly imported, hence they had the added shipping costs.  My X-Men toys were nearly all from local sellers.  I only acquired one of them from US ebay because no local seller had that piece, despite searching here for years.

I resumed having toy accounts for 2009…

Since this year, I began to resume having a set of toy accounts for the toylines that I started collecting in 2009, such as the Transformers movie toys, and the Marvel Universe toys.  I didn’t record all my 2009 toy purchases for each toyline right from the start when I got the first piece per toyline, but only about a month after (I procrastinated).  When I did and finally read my toy accounts, the monthly figures were enough to shock the hell out of me.  That was one reason why I finally chose to give up my Marvel Universe toys collection a few months back.  I still have some MOC pieces left for sale at my toy lockers.

Is there regret?

Not really, because I haven’t completely recovered from my shock at seeing my toy accounts yet.  And that was only for 2 toylines!  I collect way many more toylines than just 2.  The rest have become impossible to track, unless I use estimated numbers on their costs.  Nevertheless, I’m still interested to know what are the latest new waves of toys for these toylines.  Seeing new stuff planned for the market still makes my hobby exciting, even though I do not plan to buy every single piece of the new toys. 

Your thoughts?…

So do you keep a set of toy accounts to track the “entries” and ”exits” of the various toys in your collections?  If you do, feel free to share on how this has influenced your toy hobby.  If you don’t, you’re also welcomed to give your thoughts and comments here.  If keeping track of your toy accounts can be made simple and super convenient, will you want to practise it?  I would love to hear your views on the above!

TFA Freeway Jazz toy video review

This repaint of TFA Jazz does indeed resemble his colors in the live action Transformers The Movie (TFTM).  I actually like his new TFA toy colors better than the original white color featured in the TFA series.

TFA Electrostatic Soundwave toy video review

Ratbat is a very interesting new accessory for this repaint of TFA Soundwave.  i like the way how Ratbat stretches his “menacing wings” while perching on top of Soundwave’s vehicle mode.

I hope the above toy video reviews give you a better idea of how these 2 actual toys are like, if you are keen on adding them to your Transformers variants collection.   Hopefully, they will be released here at clearance prices, like the the previous few waves of TFA Deluxe toys before them!  Happy waiting for them!

As a follow up on my earlier blog post on ROTF Deluxe NEST Battlefield Bumblebee & Deluxe NEST Infiltration Soundwave box set, there are now more available close up photos of its packaging, and that exclusive Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) figure offer that is stated at the front of the box. 

The exclusive figure turns out to be a repaint of ROTF Deluxe Ravage in black, red and silver.  How I wish this Mail Order (MO) Ravage is painted all in silver or metallic grey instead, like in the movie. 

According to the redemption certificate that will be included with all the ROTF NEST Global Alliance figures, you’ll need to collect 3 special stickers to redeem MO ROTF Ravage.  However, this offer is valid within the US only. 

We also get to see a preview of the upcoming ROTF NEST (Networked Elements: Supporters and Transformers) toyline for this year end and 2010.  Overall the ROTF movie craze has died down, but with the release of its DVD since last week, fans and collectors who have picked up their copies, might start to feel the hype all over again.  

For me, I would like to get the ROTF NEST Deluxe Battlefield Bumblebee figure.  How about you?  Are you keen on getting any of the upcoming ROTF NEST Global Alliance toyline?  I won’t ask about MO Ravage.  He’s not really that spectacular…

Top row (from left): Bumblebee, Optimus Prime & Blurr (what kind of name is that!?).

Bottom row (from left): Samurai Prowl, Electrostatic Soundwave & Freeway Jazz.

During the few months before the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) movie craze, many departmental stores were having a clearance sale on their stocks of Transformers Animated (TFA) toys.  Among them were the Deluxe class figures which were going for 3 for SGD 50.00 then.  Needless to say, the main and most popular characters went fast.  Since the ROTF movie craze started in June 2009, the TFA toys sort of faded from notice and didn’t get restocked often. 

Here’s wave 7of TFA Deluxe toys scheduled for year end release.  There are 2 repaints - Electrostatic Soundwave & Freeway Jazz.  I think the repaints look better than their original colors of dark blue and white respectively.  The other 4 characrers are also very popular with the kids, fans and collectors here.  If this wave is released at our local retail at the previous clearance prices or less, then I’m sure they’ll sell out fast as well.  For me, I’m not too fond of the TFA toyline, except for TFA Deluxe Swindle (he’s cute, and shrewd!).

Marvel Universe Comic Packs action figures - wave 3

Top row (from left): Re-releases from Wave 1 - Klaw & Captain America; Spiderman & Thunderball.

Bottom row (from left): Ultron & Mr Fantastic; Hawkeye & Piledriver; Enchantress & Thor.

This next wave of Marvel Universe Comic Packs is scheduled for retail this year end or early next year.  The wave is mixed with some repeated 2-packs from wave 1.   The new characters are Ultron & Mr Fantastic; Hawkeye & Piledriver; Enchantress & Thor.  In the above photo, the new figures look very nice, but we aren’t sure if the actual items will be like that.  You’ll need to examine them in person at the store to confirm.

If Mr Fantastic is nicely sculpted and painted, I might pick him up (yes, I’m still keeping the Human Torch, Johnny Storm and The Thing figures in my greatly diminished Marvel Universe colllection).  Then I’ll be left with Sue Storm or Invisible Woman to complete my Fantastic Four set!  I hope that she would eventually be released as a single pack though.

The rest of my original MOC Marvel Universe action figures have been put up for sale individually in my toy lockers 12G &12H at Toy Outpost (Plaza Singapura, 7th floor, diagonally opposite cinema box office).  While stocks last!  Just seek the help of the friendly store personnel at Toy Outpost if you need to examine the items up close or purchase them!