Defeat Monday (please)

Good morning Zone Base readers! Another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure is starting full of fun for your eyeballs. Tomorrow is Setsubun, and while we don't celebrate it here in the states, I think it's really neat! I hope everyone had a good weekend, mine was pretty good! Another weekend of winter weather kept the Mrs and I home while roads got icy. We had a small amount of snow, but nothing major despite local news reports predicting a winter wonderland.  So obviously we didn't get out, but still had tons of fun at home. I spent some time playing Shadow Labrinth. I've actually gotten so many games at Christmas that I have a hard time picking one to play at a time. Shadow Labyrinth is a really neat game that got my attention when released and I was delighted to see under the tree as a gift from the Mrs. It's a really cool Metroidvania style game set in something of a Namco expanded universe. I really like it. I also finally got in some episodes of the new Kamen Rider Zezt. it premired last year and while I inteded to watch it weekly... those plans feel though. Fortunately it's easy enough to watch the show in it's entirety thanks to Tokushoutsu. I'm glad I did finally watch it, it's awesome!

Upcoming toy news from the weekend was certainty exciting. There were looks at upcoming Transformers from the Age of the Primes lines. Smokescreen from Transformers Prime is getting a new figure I'm really looking forward to. His original toy from the Prime line was a nightmare to transform and wasn't exactly screen accurate, so it'll be nice to have a hopefully better incarnation as I enjoyed the character on the show. Of course it'll be the Generations style Prime toy that's more traditional looking... but I kinda like that to be honest. Prime has a specific asthetic that looked great, but I do like the style unification in Generations. Also shown was Nexus Prime and Liege Maximo. Like Jhiaxhus, Liege Maximo is a must get as a G2 comic fan. Nexus Prime is a new take on the character that strongly resembles Courageous from Gobots. It apparently will form a combiner with the new Combaticons, so I'm pretty interested. The original Nexus Prime was a TFCC exclusive combiner whose members were membership exclusives. It took me 5 years to build that one, and frankly is still pretty high on a pedestal in my mind. However, this one looks like a lot of fun! I'm actually pretty far behind on Age of the Primes toys, so here's hoping I can catch up soon.

Also news of upcoming Cyberworld toys came this weekend. There has been leaks of upcoming toys in the line, but a picture of a new large scale Bumblebee and listings of upcoming Cyber Changers were unleashed this weekend. The prior leaks are from a reliable source, but theseare a little more concrete for the time being. The larger scale Bumblebee looks fun from what I can tell. Like Scorponok, it looks to be a bit of a playset... and I get Shogun Warrior vibes from both... and that's a good thing. According to the listings, the Cyber Changers (the real meat of the line) are an Optimus Primal truck and an Arachnid that looks to be an Armored Cyber Changer figure. The Arachnid doesn't seem to have many details ther than a hammer weapon. I hope she's a spider... but will gladly take a helicopter or drone as she's been used as. The Optimus Primal truck may be a reuse of the Offroad Optimus Prime toy, which was a figure I really liked. It did specifically say gorilla truck, so I wonder if it'll be a beast mode with wheels type alt mode like Sky-Byte. Either way, I'm super excited. I had so much fun with the prior Cyberworld toys, I can't wait to get my hands on more!

There was also news of new Masters of the Universe toys that tie into the upcoming movie. I haven't covered a MOTU figure in a while here despite still getting a fair amount this whole time. I actually don't cover every toy I get here, but try to make posts on ones that'd make for good material. The random Wednesdays just might be getting more He-Man this year as these new movie figures look great! There's the new Chronicles line that looks to be taking over Masterverse in the higher end 6 inch action figure area, while a more simple and less exspensive movie tie in line that looks like a lot of fun. Right now I plan to cherry pick figures from boths movie based series, but to be honest, I'm really looking forward to the Evil Warriors from that more simple line. They look like a fun little series to collect and talk about here. What is it about the more simplier figures that makes for good blogging material?

As for purchases, I finally ordered the Blokees Wheels series 1 box. I'd been wanting it for a bit now and finally took the plunge. It should be here this week and I'm excitied! I also ordered the Blokees Defender Version Bruticus kit. Defender Version 06 came in last week with the last few Combaticons members. Be sure to look out for an upcoming post about that team. I've been building models my entire life, but for the past few years Transformers models kits have been commanding a larger portion of my attention than the regular toys. It's a bit of a struggle giving models and toys a decent amount of site time. Models are a lot of fun to write about and I can tell by the views they seem to be more popular with you readers, but I don't want to give figures the shaft either. We'll, I guess we'll just see what I talk about each week! I also got some of the new McDonald's Changeables! You all know how much I love the classic ones and this new series is excellent! I've been trying to watch what I eat, so it's a tricky balance of working Happy Meals in with a balanced diet. Fortunatley the Mrs and my Mom are willing to help. So far I've gotten 2 CapCaps, FR-135, and Torrus. I hope to get more and am hoping to find the ones I miss on the aftermarket for reasonable prices. It's actually a pretty popular promotion, so that might be quite a challenge. I also ordered a new SD card reader as I still can't locate my old one. Good thing they're cheap! I can't wait to load the card I built last weekend onto my Atari Gamestation Go.

Well, it's Monday, so that means it's time to get to works taking toy pics and doing some household chores. Of course I also need to get my daily exercise in. Five miles on the exersize bike as well as some included exercises only takes around 30 minutes a day... but man... sometimes is hard to make myself do. Oh well, it's for the better. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. You'd never know from social media, but several thousand of you show up to read daily and I really appreciate it. It's super flattering. I've got a fun week in store for you all with some fun posts headed your way. You could say this week is leading the way... you know that sounded better in my mind than typed out. I guess that's what happens when you try to be clever with toy based tag lines.  Please don't forget to share the site with your friends and be excellent to each other!

Evil out! *throws beans at Monday*

Crap, it's already Monday. I don't know about you all, but I was really enjoying my weekend. Oh well, guess the week has to begin at some point. I hope you all had a great weekend too. Mine was a long one as I had taken Friday off to spend with my wife. Friday was her birthday and after I got home from work and got a little sleep we went out for some fun. She likes to go shopping on her birthday, so that's what we did! Her main place of interest was a visit to Kinokuniya for stationary and some blind box fun. We had dinner at Cheesecake Factory and visited a few other stores. Dinner was specifically good. I had a cheeseburger with fries and was too full for my cheesecake. It took me all weekend to eat that slice. We had ordered her a birthday cake from Nothing Bunt Cakes and Mom gave her a cookie cake. So much cake!

There was a big winter storm this weekend, so we spent Saturday and Sunday at home. Our grocery order came Friday, so it was nice lounging around this weekend. I played video games and watched a lot of TV. Actually, Saturday evening was spent with my laptop building a game library for my Atari Gamestation Go. I had gotten some Micro SD Cards last weekend for this task and working on it was fun. I'm not done, but you're never done with this sort of thing. I did manage to build a good library of games for now. However, I discovered that I've misplaced my SD card hub. So actually playing said games will have to wait until it's found... or I just get a new one. Thankfully they're cheap. Speaking of my Atari Gamestation Go, My Arcade introduced a new model this weekend. The Capcom/Namco version! They had been previewing it over the course of the year and I was tempted to get it instead. However the Atari version has a trackball and keypad, so I'm more happy with mine. I definitely wanted it more. It feels a little more premium, you know? It's funny in various Gamestation forums reading the occasional troll who joins the chat to tell us to buy another retro handheld. It's just like the iPhone vs Android people. Who cares?

I also enjoyed more sneak peeks of Wonderfest Winter kits groups are readying for the show. There's some really fun figures planned, I really like a set of Transformers SD figures one group has. The first American Wonderfest is nearing and I'm super excited to go! More on that later as we've got Toylanta first! Several groups have some neat exclusives planned this year and I love checking them out. There's always show exclusives, but each year it gets bigger and more get made! I really enjoy chatting with the different toy designers there as well. It's such a fun show. The Mrs got me a thermal printer at Christmas and I've been having fun coming up with stickers for Zone Base to hand out. I've always have been tempted to make business cards... but that never felt right. I've got rolls of sticker paper in fun colors to print them on, so if you see me, get some stickers!

As far as toys go, I got some good ones this weekend. While I was sleeping Friday, the Mrs went to the store for a few things left off the grocery order. While there she picked up Age of the Primes Quickstrike! Hooray! I'm a little behind on Age of the Primes toys and was worried about getting him. Saturday I ordered the Blokees Transformers Defender version 06 box. I'd been waiting patiently for it to hit the US shop and can't wait to get my hands on those new kits! Unfortunately the Bruticus kit wasn't available yet, so I'll have to wait a little longer to complete him. Maybe when it shows I'll finally order a box of the new Transformers Wheels kits. I really want some of them too. I planned on building more from my backlog this weekend, but only assembled 6 Defender version kits. Oh well, you're never done! 

Well, I've got a fun week in store for you all. There's plenty of robots, monsters, and misadventure planned for your eyeballs on Zone Base! Thank you all for reading and sharing the site with your friends. Be excellent to each other!

Dammit Monday, I said Demons Out!

Hello there Zone Base readers! A new week is upon us and... I've got a cold. Somehow the crazy weather here in the south has given me a case of the sniffles. Not fun, but I've got a fun week in store for you! But before we get to that, let me tell you about this weekend I had. Saturday the Mrs and I stopped by a local toy store that recently relocated to a much better location and I plan to visit more often. They were fully stocked with all sorts of cool toys. There was Transformers, Gobots, kaiju, MOTU, vintage video games... you name it, they had it! I picked up a G1 Flamefeather and a Leader-1 figural pencil sharpener and will definitely will be back more often. I also picked up a Super7 Godzilla Monster Island blind box and a Transformers Hot Wheel while at Walmart! Mechagodzilla was in the blind box and the Hot Wheel was Age of Extinction Crosshairs (I've always liked him). 

Unfortunately, Walmart's Transformers selection was still fully stocked with leftovers from last year, so nothing new there. Store stock is always a little barren at the beginning of the year, but extra movie stuff doesn't help. I ordered the Legacy United G1 Optimus Prime and plan to order a few bots a week. Last year around this time, I almost completely switched to online orders... looks like it's headed that way again. I feel asleep Saturday night watching the Transformers Channel like a boss.

I may have feel asleep like a boss, but I woke up like a chump. A sniffly nose and a head cold, bleah. While I got a bit done Sunday, I had planned to organize my toy room some, but wasn't feeling up to it. Instead, I played Pac-Man World Re-Pac. The e-shop had it on sale for $7.50 and that was an easy buy! I loved the Pac-Man World games back in the day and had been meaning to play this new edition for some time now. It definitely was a good way to ride out a cold. Well, I'm still not feeling great, so another day of Coricidin and rest awaits me. Like I said around the beginning of the post, I've got a fun week in store for you. Thank you all for reading and please don't forget to share with your friends!