Testors Model Master Locking Tweezers
Testors Mixing Bottles and Pipettes

This is the first time I’ve used Testors’ Locking Tweezers, but it’s actually my third pair. The first I bought from HLJ sometimes back, that ended up warping slightly. The second, I didn’t find out I had until after I purchased the Testors. (They were included in a little model building kit. Forgot they were in there.) Do I need three pairs? Probably not, but they sure do come in handy when it comes to placing sticky things down. Haven’t yet opened myself up to an opportunity to mess with the Mixing Bottles and Pipettes yet, so not much to talk about…but I do look forward to using it for thinning and mixing paints once I get ready to paint my model kits.

Bruder Garbage Can Set

This is a cute set. Picked this up to use for scene setting and photography props. They might be a bit too large for smaller scale figures (around 3″), but I believe they ought to be fine for 6″ and larger. They can even be opened, so they double as storage space.

Speaking of photograph, and scene setting props, here’s the big haul. The reason for the purchase in the first place. The Defiants playsets. After spotting the Defiants “Flex-Terrains” sometime back in a Toys R Us, I picked up a set figuring I could use them as diorama place mats. Well satisfied with the results, once Toys R Us decided to put the line on a 1-day sale, I decided to pull the trigger on the rest of the playsets.

Defiants Brawl and Fall Playset

Not too thrilled with this playset. I figured it’d be a bit more interesting, but the sense of scale and idea of the set is curious and off. Why is there a huge shipping container stuck on an overpass?   I think I’d liked it better if the company made the container like a bamboo spout, tipping to and fro. That said, I think the shipping container could make a good prop/set piece with smaller scale figures like G.I. Joe, or Transformers.

Defiants Blitz Force Operation Hostile Playset
Defiants Blitz Force Bridge Playset
Defiants Sinkhole Control Playset

I like the Defiants Blitz Force Operation Hostile playset. It includes a mountain/ rocky hill, the “Earthquake” flex-terrain and two bridges cast in a tan-ish color.The other two playsets, Blitz Force Bridge, and Sinkhole control are the same bridges, cast in an olive, and grey respectively.  They would of been considered useless purchases, but the bridge pieces stack to form mini-shelves quite nicely (in theory.)

Defiants Badlands Scramble Playset
Defiants Terrain Pack Playset 

Badlands Scramble totally makes this order worth it. Consisting of 11 well designed pieces, and includes a Flex Terrain I didn’t know about! Bonus! Amazon describes the terrain as Bridge / Mojave, which the bridge fits the design. There’s plenty of nice little details in this set, that are honestly begging to be painted. The Terrain Pack playset could be considered an add-on to the Badlands Scramble, as it’s the same set minus the Flex Terrain, and the 90 degree turn piece.

Defiants Maximum Mayhem Playset

This is actually the first box of the Defiants set that I opened up, and boy, did it leave me regretting the entire order. It’s easily the largest of the set, at 7 feet of track, but it’s also very bland. The only deco work done on it, is seconds of diamond plating. I thought I could get a neat display scene with it, but it just looks to take up too much space and doesn’t provide much visual interest.

All Defiants items also came with their own cars, but I left them in their white boxes, so no commentary for them.

With all said, if I were a kid, I’d probably love them all and get some fun out of them. At least, in the case of the Defiants. Not sure about the hobby tools or trashbins.

Over all, I think this haul worked out more positively than negatively, as the majority of items purchased were on sale, can be used in some fashion, and it provided a personal lesson to pay better attention to what I’m ordering, or to research items more thoroughly.

]]> http://taaron.org/2012/01/238/feed/ 0 http://taaron.org/2011/12/merry-christmas-happy-new-year/ http://taaron.org/2011/12/merry-christmas-happy-new-year/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 03:53:04 +0000 Taaron http://taaron.org/?p=100 Continue reading →]]> Heyo, everyone.

How was everyone’s holiday? Mine was nice, and quiet. Perhaps a bit too relaxed, as I didn’t want to do much afterwards.

Spent Christmas Eve tidying up my apartment, and when I wasn’t tidying, I was holding a marathon viewing session of the 1995 anime series “The Vision of Escaflowne”. (It was that, or Evangelion. Since I’ve seen Evangelion in it’s entirety, I figured I’d go with a show I hadn’t completed.) It managed to distract me from opening my presents, well into Sunday night. So, what did I get? A buncha Gundams!

These were purchased from Gundam Store & More‘s Holiday “Surprise” sale.

19″ Gundam Stocking:

• Snacks
• Haro
• Gundam Wing Card pack x2
• Gundam Marker (lime? green)
• Gundam Pencil
• Shy-Tarn (V Gundam 1/144)
• Raider Gundam (Gundam Seed 1/144)
• Wing Zero Head Shooter
• Stocking

 Snack Pack

Gundam Surprise Pack #1:

• Nobel Gundam (G-Gundam HG 1/144)
• Brave Standard Test Type(Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer HG 1/144)
• Action Base 2 Clear Blue
• Paint Marker (blue)

Finally, my friend that runs Sonic Gear surprised me with a Transformers t-shirt, which has an Autobot symbol that changes color when exposed to sunlight, and a handmade Autobot symbol made with Perler Beads. So, great weekend all around.

Now we’re coming up to this weekend holiday, New Year’s. Has everyone figured out their resolutions?

I certainly have. Here’s mine, with alternates!

1.)Sort & organize collection (alternative: Work out a better cleaning plan.)

I moved quite a few years back, so I figure it’s time to get those toys out of the storage boxes, and on display (or out of the apartment) instead of letting them take up space, living in a box telling another figure to “Get your elbow out of my eye!”.

Alternatively, work out a better cleaning regimen. I’ve found quite a few times I’ve wanted to work on something, but would end up getting distracted by cleaning instead….which would somehow end up messier than when I started. sigh.

2.)Website (alternative: Complete other projects)

This should be first, but in reality, these aren’t ranked in any particular order to be honest.
Basically, get a more personalized look to the site, instead of how it currently looks.

As for the alternative, get more work done towards other products I have in mind, like learning how to program an iOS (iPhone/iPod/iPad) app, writing a story, or working up the courage to get on YouTube.

3.)Lose weight (alternative: Exercise more)
I’m pushing 30, and usually weigh in at 230 lbs. Need to get in a better shape. ‘Nuff said.

4.)Figure out a decent spending plan
This one makes it sound like I’m bad with money. I guess I can kind of see it, but I think I generally stay within my monthly budget.

However, I do get slightly sucker-punched by online pre-orders. Offline pre-orders aren’t too bad, as I can pay them off as the release date comes closer, but for online pre-orders, it’s all paid for at once. My plan to solve this issue is to get a prepaid spending card and put funds towards that card til it’s released.

5.) Go to Japan & complete Rosetta Stone.
Alternatively, complete Rosetta Stone for Japanese then go to Japan. Remember how I said I’m pushing 30 earlier? Yeah. I’ve wanted to go to Japan since I was in high school. That’s a well held onto ‘want’, so I want to do it before I hit 30.

6.) Read More.
I read a-plenty. Twitter, blogs, manga, cookbooks, occasional guides and how-tos…but not storybooks. I want to do this more. I’ve actually started this last night. I finally got around to starting “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Diana Wynne Jones. So far I’m only 2 chapters in, but I’m enjoying it.

Welp, I think that about sums up my major goals for the upcoming year. If you’d like to keep track of how I’m coming along on my resolutions, I’ve created a Resolutions page to follow along.

Hope everyone celebrates safely, and starts off the new year in a good way. I’ll see you guys in the new year!

As to where I’m at on the WPDesigner tutorial, I’m up to step 5b, The Content. Retyping the code for the theme is a bit of a pesky process, but it’s having good results so far. When I left off the first time, W3′s validation service was validating my code with 13 errors. Now, I’ve been validating my code as I go, W3 initially reported 7 errors, and I managed to get those errors down 1! Wewt!

So, now that I’ve written in so my blog doesn’t worry about me, I better get cracking on the rest of the tutorial!  (If you’re wondering where Part 1 of “Adventures in coding” is, please consider “Hello world!….Again” the start of the series.)

Kept to my no-spend statement, and headed over to:

Toys R Us:
Saw and picked up, breaking my no-spend statement:
Generations Sky Shadow
Generations Junk Heap
the last TF Prime Bumblebee (and dropped him into the Toys for Tots bin on the way out)- Not sure if I should feel like a dick for grabbing the last one off the peg(or the fact I basically emptied out their TF Prime peg in a matter of days), or not since they mostly went towards Toys for Tots.

and a small Lego Dinosaur set

Headed back to Target and…

Decided to get Air raid, Dark Steel, and Ratchet.

As I was reaching for Air raid, I was stopped by a guh-guh-girl! wanting to know the difference between Voyager and Deluxe was, and why I was getting Deluxes over the Voyager. I showed her the Fireburst Prime, and told her it was basically the size, and I was getting the Deluxes as they were newer. She then grabbed Air Raid before I could.   (She did offer to give me first dibs, but I figured I could find it later, so I let her take it.)

Finally, I decided to just stick with what I picked up at TRU, and just get the housepants I picked up at Target and put back Dark Steel and Ratchet, going over to look at the Lego sets. As I was leaving the toy section, I noticed the woman had picked up Voyager Fireburst Prime (the last Voyager they had) and was walking away from the toy aisle. Went back to Transformers, to see she put the deluxes she grabbed back. So, I grabbed the trio again, and made my way up to check out, so at Target I picked up:

Air Raid
Dark Steel
Ratchet

Though, while I was checking out and walking home, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should of left the deluxes in case the woman changed her mind again?

Also, when I came home, I had some packages from the mail waiting for me. It was last week’s Toys R Us order containing:

Transformers Rescue Bots Chase & Billy Blastoff
Transformers Prime Starscream
Transformers Prime Bumblebee

So, good hauls all around.

So, now it’s back again. I’ve ditched the idea of doing subdomains, and using Zenphoto (which I suspect was the entry point for the hackers to take over, as Zenphoto reported a security issue that I didn’t get patched up in time) for my photography uploading. Now I need to figure out another way to host my images on site.

Also, for the next couple of days, the layout of the blog might appear to be broken. When the site was hacked, I was in the process of developing a new layout, using WPDesigner’s “So you want to create WordPress themes, huh?” (Published, 2007) as a tutorial. I made it so far as the Validation step, but couldn’t clear it with less than 13 errors, so the plan now is to start over, and validate each step, with a blog post ‘report card’.

After that, expect to see plenty of nifty reviews for toys, foods, and anything else I’ll be happy to talk about!