Note to Self: Don’t bother plan on doing this weekly, it’s never going to happen.

That said…I’m still going to try.

Anyway as it’s been a while, I have quite a few items to talk about.  Here’s a list.

1. Thor – No spoilers.
2. Transformers Toys (New ones out and Dark of the Moon next week.)
3. Fast Five – No spoilers.
4. The Kane Chronicles, Book 2, The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan – No spoilers.
5. Transformers ArtifactS of the Week
6. The Red Sox
7. Transformers: Dark of the Moon Trailer – Spoilers if you have not seen the trailer.

1. Thor

“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”

SO AWESOME!  Go see it.  Go now.  What are you doing still reading this, GO!

When they announced Thor, I was a little worried.  I thought they might take the Ultimates approach (as they tend to do in the movies) and leave us wondering if Thor was the God of Thunder or an escaped mental patient.  The religious origins of Thor are bound to piss someone off, and I thought Marvel might want to avoid that, but to their credit, they jumped in with both feet and did it right.

I knew that Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman were going to be great, but I wasn’t as sure about the supporting cast.  I had nothing to worry about, the casting was great, especially Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki.

I can’t say much more about this without spoilers, but I will say, DON’T LEAVE THE THEATER UNTIL ALL THE CREDITS ARE DONE…ALL OF THEM.  Gee, I hoep that wasn’t too subtle. 🙂

2. In the last month, I’ve got quite a few new Transformers from the last assortments of the 2010 Transformers line:

Legends of Cybertron
     Optimus Prime (G1)
     Gold Bumblebee (Goldbug)
     Megatron (G1)
     Starscream (G1)
     Prowl (G1)
     Trailcutter (G1 Trailbreker)

Voyager
     Strafe
     Deep Dive
     Lugnut
     Solar Storm Grappel

Scout
     Chopsaw
     Windcharger

Deluxe
     Warpath
     Thundercracker
     Wheeljack

You might be wondering why you haven’t seen most of these at any stores.  Depending who you ask, Hasbro is either run by idiots, or the stores stopped ordering to prepare for Dark of the Moon toys.  Whichever it is, it’s idiotic.  Some of the best toys in the Transformers 2010 line will never see release at retail.  I got most of these from BigBadToyStore.com and HasbroToyShop.com.  Windcharger was another story.  I had to get mine from Australia.  Yes, that’s right, Australia.  Why you ask?  HasbroToyShop.com and all the online retailers sold out.  It was out in Canada and the UK, but they are on multilingual card backs.  Australian toys, as near as I can tell get nearly the same packaging as the US.  The toys are all the same, but I needed the Tech Spec.  The only other times I’ve had to go to such lengths for a new toy were Energon Ultra Magnus, which I also got from Australia, and Beast Machines Battle Unicorn, which I had to pay a boatload for on ebay.  Lugnut, Windcharger, Warpath, and Wheeljack are just awesome.  The legends are really cool for being that size.  The others are repaints and remolds.  One would think they wouldn’t have so many new molds right at the end of the line.

Even worse, while I don’t know that it is official yet, it looks like we will never Get Frenzy, Rumble, and the two planned scout repaints.  The repaints are no big loss, though they were two great molds (Hubcap and Breacher) in nice colors, but I MUST have Frenzy and Rumble.  The few on ebay are ridiculously expensive ($100-$125) and the online retailers are sold out of preorders.  I’m going to wait until the online retailers get their stock.  They will hopefully have some extras.  If not, I’ll just get it on ebay later.  Oh well.

In less depressing toy news, Transformers: Dark of the Moon toys come out this coming Monday, May 16th!  I’ve already arranged the day off from work so I can raid Toys R Us when they open and then spend the day hunting for stuff at every other store I can find.  Release the Hounds!

All the websites that used to keep detailed toys lists, seem to have stopped doing it.  I’ve pieced together this lost of product.  I can’t say for sure if it will all be out on Monday, but I’m hoping.  Also, it may be inaccurate, so if you find any differing info, by all means, send it my way.

Cyberverse Action Sets
     Bumblebee
     Megatron
     Optimus Prime
     The Ark

Cyberverse Commander
     Hatchet
     Ironhide
     Megatron
     Powerglide
     Sentinel Prime

Cyberverse Legion
     Barricade
     Bumblebee
     Crankcase
     Leadfoot
     Mudflap
     Optimus Prime
     Ratchet
     Sideswipe
     Skids
     Topspin
     Bumblebee vs. Soundwave
     Bumblebee ve. Starscream [TRU]

Deluxe
     Arcee
     Air Raid
     Barricade
     Bumblebee
     Bumblebee (Nitro)
     Bumblebee (Scanning) [TRU]
     Crankcase
     Jolt
     Laserbeak
     Mudflap
     Optimus Prime [Walmart]
     Roadbuster
     Sideswipe
     Sideswipe (Sidearm)
     Sideswipe (Scanning) [TRU]
     Skids
     Starscream
     Ratchet
     Thundercracker
     Topspin
     Vortex

Human Alliance Basic
     Backfire with Spike Witwicky
     Icepick with Seargeant Chaos
     Sandstorm with Private Dedcliff
     Thunderhead with Major Tungsten
     Whirl with Sparkplug

Human Alliance Deluxe
     Bumblebee (Stealth) with Sam Witwicky
     Skids with Sargent Epps
     Roadbuster with Seargeant Recon

Human Alliance Multipacks
     Autobot Daredevil Squad [K-Mart]
     Flash Freeze Assault

Leader
     Bumblebee
     Ironhide
     Sentinel Prime

Multipacks
     Optimus Prime Walve Pack [Walmart]

Robo Fighters
     Bumblebee
     Ironhide
     Optimus Prime
     Starscream

Robo Power
 Activators Bumblebee    
     Optimus Prime
     Starscream

Robo Power Bash Bots
     Bumblebee
     Optimus Prime

Robo Power Go-Bots
     Bumblebee
     Sideswipe

Robo Power Revving Robots
     Bumblebee
     Optimus Prime

Role Play
     Energon Shock Sword
     Optimus Prime Cyber Blaster
     Bumblebee Cine-Mask
     Optimus Prime Cine-Mask
     Optimus Prime Ride-On
     Optimus Prime Wagon

Talking Plush
     Bumblebee
     Optimus Prime

Voyager
     Ironhide
     Megatron
     Optimus Prime
     Optimus Prime (Battle Axe)
     Ratchet
     Shockwave
     Skyhammer
     Starscream [Target]

Ultimate
     Optimus Prime

Happy hunting on Monday!  I recommend Toys R Us, as they will always have a big display for the release.  Last year and two years ago, I found a couple of Targets that hadn’t even bothered to put any of the stuff out even though it was all in the back.

3. Fast Five is the best movie in The Fast and the Furious franchise.  Make sure you stay through the first part of the credits, as there is more.  Kind of short on story and acting, but the action was amazing, and they reunited a number of characters from the previous films.  Excellent and highly recommended.

4. The Throne of Fire.  This past week the second book in Rick Riordan’s Kane Chronicles series came out.  While I like the first book, The Red Pyramid, I did not like it as much as the Percy Jackson series, or The Lost Hero, the first book in The Heroes of Olympus series.  However, The Throne of Fire was as good as any of the books about the Greek gods.  I must admit that I’m partial to the Greek gods.  They seem more interesting and a bit less confusing that the Egyptian gods, but that said I highly recommend The Throne of Fire.  It’s VERY funny, while still being serious and touching in all the prefect spaces.  Sadie and Carter Kane are great main characters, and I really hope that at some point we’ll get them in the same book with Percy and company.  (Perhaps a war of the Gods?  That would be awesome.)  I am eagerly awaiting the next book in the Heroes of Olympus series, The Son of Neptune, that’s due to come out in October.

5. Well, as I’m missing so many weeks, I’ve got several Transformers Artifacts of the Week for you.

Here is a Transformers comic book from Hungary, issue #8.  The cover used is a slightly different version of the art from Issue #18 of the original Transformers run.  I haven’t had this very long and haven’t had a chance to compare it to my US issue #18 (or #8 for that matter). As you can see from the date on the cover, it was published in 1992, long after the US comic series ended.  It seems that many US comics were later released in European countries.

Here we have an Italian Transformers Diary from 1985 in amazing condition.  Being Italian on my mother’s side, I am always interested in Italian Transformers items.  I have very few, but this is my favorite.  Why?  Well, perhaps it’s very Middle School of me, but I just have to laugh at “DIARIO”.  🙂  Also, back in the day, they did a good job varying characters on merchandise items.  I always liked Superion’s box art.  These days, it’s almost always Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, not that I’m complaining, they are two of my favorites, but I miss he variety.

Lastly, we have a Betamax tape of the original Transformers cartoon, Volume 3, S.O.S. Dinobots.  Not much to say about this.  If by any chance, anyone out there has any original episodes on Beta, I’m still looking for Volumes 1, 8, 9, and 11.

As always, you can find these and over 7,000 other transformers items at TFMuseum.com.

6. The Boston Red Sox are now just 3.5 games behind the Rays and Yankees.  Yes, they still haven’t quite gotten it together, but two walk off wins by Carl Crawford this past week, Beckett’s continuing domination, and the offense winning games when the pitcher isn’t having a great game will give them time to put it all together.  The offense is coming together.  Crawford breaking out of his funk is a big part of that.  The pitching, well, Buchholz and Daisuke have had their ups and downs, but I think they are putting it together.  Beckett and Lester don’t worry me, but I am beginning to worry about Lackey.  He’s got a 7.16 ERA and has never previously posted higher than 4.67 for a season.  That’s an alarming difference. As far as the bullpen goes, I don’t know what to think about Jenks, who is now on the DL.  I think he’s still adjusting to not being a closer.  Okajima and Papelbon are looking great.  Any day I expect this team to go na  rampage and win 25 of 30 and be right back in first place.  I’m not worried.  World Series, here we come.

***** WARNING – The next two items contain spoilers for Transformers: Dark of the Moon (from the trailer).  You have been warned! *****

7. I’ve watched the Transformers: Dark of the Moon trailer about 50 times.  It’s amazing and brings up so many questions, I don’t know where to start.  Here are just a few thoughts.

     A. What the hell was that thing with the tentacles eating the building?  You only get a slight shot of it in the Super Bowl trailer.  Shockwave’s pet?  That would be fun.

     B. There is a seen where Prime is talking to Sam and says, “You may lose faith in us, but never lose faith in yourself.” Or something like that, I’m too tired to find it right now.  Prime is standing in front of what looks like the nose of a space ship pointed up like a rocket.  It has a feeling of saying goodbye to Sam and it looks like Agent Simmons sitting in a wheelchair with his leg in a cast behind him.  I think that might be the end.

     C. Optimus Prime saying, “…you’ve lied to us…you’ve made a grave mistake,” to whoever it is he’s talking to from the US government feels ominous.

     D. Chicago in ruin.  Wow.  After Revenge of the Fallen, I wondered what the reaction to the world knowing about the Transformers would be.  I heard a few people claim it would be covered up, that the Fallen’s transmission would be called a hoax, etc, etc.  That sounds ridiculous to me. (I suppose the pyramid just vanished?)  I think it’s pretty clear that the secret will be out during Dark of the Moon if it’s not already out at the start, what with Chicago being invaded and all.

     E. I find it interesting that, at least to my eye, neither Megatron nor Starscream appear in the trailer (unless I missed them, which is possible).  Shockwave looks amazing. 

     F. LASERBEAK!

     G. BARRICADE!

     H. The scene where Optimus swoops out of the air, lands and starts destroying EVERYTHING in his path!

     I. I’ll stop now.

Thanks for reading!