Monday is for the Birds

Monday has shown it's ugly face again signaling the end of the glorious weekend and beginning of another accused work week. Fortunately Zone Base is here to keep things fun with another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! This was a fun weekend where I grilled out hamburgers, played Doom 1+2, and watched paranormal tv! Takara announced a new Godzilla x Transformers collaboration as part of their Synergex series! I've been bubbling over with excitement ever since reading it. There's also a Zoids x Diaclone, Monster Hunter x Diaclone, and some awesome Spider-Man Zoids! So cool!

I got some new toys as well. There was plenty of Transformers One toys finally on shelves, so I grabbed the Quintesson Judge. I also got Studio Series 86 Bumblebee, Studio Series Gamer Edition Decepticon Soldier, and Earthspark One Step Changers Elita-1 and Skullcruncher! There's toys I passed on that I'll be getting soon as I wanted to not spend a ton of money all at once. Halloween stuff is starting to appear in some Walmart and Target store meaning Code Orange is over and the full spooky season is arriving. I got some Monster Cereal Gogurt! Target has quite a bit of neon in their Halloween selections and I am extremely excited for it. You guys know how much I love vintage Halloween and being a child of the 80's, that means bright eye searing colors! It's really turning out to be a Rob flavored fall y'all! 

Well, I've got some work to do. There's household chores, daily exercises, and I've got to record this month's episode of Transform Squadron! Please look forward to it, it's August and that means ghosts! Thank you so much for reading Zone Base, the site has really been growing thanks to your support. That's lead to some fun developments that will be showing up on the site soon, I'm so excited! Please don't forget to share the site with your friends and Mutual High Fives everyone!

Hot New Week Scamble!

 

It's Monday and you know what that means! It's a new week here on Planet Zone! Speaking of a new week... where the hell did the weekend go? Friday morning I went to Target for the new Pokémon game for the Mrs. While there I found Kingdom Slammer and Pipes. The Toei Spider-Man Hot Wheel was also there. Been looking for that one. Still no Studio Series Soundwave. That's now autofilling itself out.

Saturday was spent mostly in bed until the afternoon when the Mrs and I went to Five Below. There I found a neat Stranger Things field guide and grabbed a Siege Firedrive to give Studio Series Hot Rod. The Mrs pointed out neat plush Mario and Luigi bag clips that I also picked up. A bottle of Ramune was also bought as I've been craving it lately. We then took my mother grocery shopping before ordering food and watching this weeks Mandelorian and 1000 lbs Sisters.

Sunday was mostly spent playing Demon Slayer on my PS4 while the Mrs played that new Pokémon game. For dinner Mom came over and the Mrs made low sodium tacos! I helped set up Mom's new Chromebook we had gotten her for Christmas (she apparently hadn't herself yet). 

The weekend's over though and time to enjoy my Monday before heading into work tonight. Did you all enjoy the new episode of Transform Squadron? I'd been planning to do it since December. Things happened though keeping recording it delayed a little. I planned on January, just it ended up being a little late. I've got a fun week in mind for you all. Thanks to each and every one of you for continuing to support Zone Base. Don't forget to share with your friends!

The Green Goblin Is Just The Worst

Every play a game in an arcade or a store display and have that annoying kid who keeps pestering you until you lose and immediately asks if he can play now? THAT KID GREW UP TO BE THE GREEN GOBLIN!

Happy Halloween... is that Cop-Tur?

I've never been to Terry's 5&10. In fact I've just heard of it. From all appearances, it looks like a charming small down general store. I know stores like that still exist, but none near me currently. Either way, holy crap Terry's has an amazing Halloween selection. Or had... not sure if they're still open or how old this commercial is. If you just glance at the commercial, you'll see the standards. Candy... decorations... masks and make-up kits... Collegeville costumes... wait... that wall of masks... what did I just ...

Man, check out that selection! Megatron, Man at Arms, Beastman, Spider-Man,  Leader-1 AND Cy-Kill! Merman! Some generic monsters... I think that's Batman... who's that next to Batman? Or under him? I feel like they're somebody, but the angle of the image and blurry colors of local TV quality video is just enough to make it hard to... DUDE IS THAT COP-TUR NEVT TO MERMAN? I WAS SO EXCITED I MISSPELLED NEXT!

What's amazing is... you realize some of that stuff was probably there every Halloween until it got sold. While I don't really have any small town local stores like Terry's 5&10 currently, I have in the past. Depending where I go, I still do. I've been in these types of stores a million times. I remember once on visit in the early 90's to see my Grandma and going in one of these stores. There was a Thunder Lips figure from Rocky 3 sitting on the spinner rack next to the water balloons. Probably should have grabbed that. Man... just thinking about strolling into that store and seeing those masks on the wall... Terry... want to make a deal?

Spider-Man: The Videogame attract mode

Practically every other Spider-Man games is called Spider-Man: the Videogame/The Game. Of course this is pretty common in licensed video games. Since I'm not a legal expert (because then I'd be working in law) I'm willing to concede that there's probably a legality involved in this naming. Never the less, this particular Spider-Man: The Videogame just might be the very best. It's a SEGA arcade game from the early 90's, even if it was bad, it'd still be really good.

Despite the obvious nature of Spider-Man on an adventure fed by quarters, the game is a great 4-player beat 'em up with amazing graphics. That's actually an understatement. The game switches between beat 'em up and action platformer between stages. You'll be playing to a point and the 'camera' either zooms in or out. Zoomed in with large characters, beat 'em up level. Zoomed out with smaller characters, action platform time.

You can play as either Spider-Man (duh), Black Cat, Sub-Mariner, or Hawkeye. I usually went with Spider-Man or Hawkeye, though no matter whom you played, you could hold your own. For whatever reason the game never made it to home consoles. There was a slew of good Spider-Man games by SEGA on their consoles, but man it would have been great to play this at home (yeah, yeah Raspberry Pi). I wonder if this was based on hardware capability and by the time the Saturn or even 32X was out if the license had expired. Which is likely the case.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

Ok, I'm sold.

The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man commercial (1999)

Just spent some mental time today reflecting on this great ride.

What the heck did I do this weekend?

 

Honestly it was a pretty low key weekend. Aside from getting groceries and a little shopping at Walmart, we didn't really do much. Did some more clean up on my toy room, ate pizza and BBQ. I did watch the first 2 episodes of SSSS. Gridman, which was AWESOME and full of random TF Easter Eggs. Cyberverse wasn't as good as last week, but still ok. Super Ninja Steel was funny. I'll give a more in depth post about Gridman a little later. Didn't find the G1 Minibots, but brought home Power Series Megatron as well as some Nano Metalfigs, some swank Universal Monsters cups and the most rad Halloween Star Wars cup I've ever bought for a dollar.

Also ordered some stuff from Godbeast. Godbeast is awesome. Today (Monday) I went out to vote (early voting began today in my area, as a night shift worker it's generally my best option) which was a bit of a drag as they were having machine problems and it took a lot longer than I'm used too. After that a trip to Walmart again to order some contacts before my prescription expires and my insurance renews (my vision hasn't changed in over a decade), figuring I'll take a new exam after the new year and get some new glasses. While there I took a bag of pennies I found while cleaning my toy room to the Coinstar and bought Power Series Bumblebee. They had actually restocked since Saturday, I was tempted to grab Acid Storm but decided to hold off until next weekend. I have no real reason why.

I think I said Gridman more than 'uh' or 'like' the entire weekend. Which is a new record.

Symbiotic Dark Cherry Liemade Brisk commercial

I really like Brisk. I can't say I drink it all the time, but pretty close to it. Ever since I learned of the new Venom themed Brisk I had to have it. Just right for Halloween time, just right for a Spider-Man fan, and just right for a Brisk flavor. Unfortunately I had the hardest time finding a bottle for no real reason, just my usual haunts never have it. Fortunately they usually have my favorite flavor, so I don't complain too much. So while out the other day running some errands, I found myself in a Family Dollar and what else do I find?

Venom Symbiotic Dark Cherry Limeade Brisk!

So I grabbed two bottles (it's only $1 a huge bottle) eagerly and stuck them in the fridge as soon as I got home. Bringing one to work with me, I could hear it calling me, demanding to drink it and have a taste. If you're not familiar with Brisk, let me give you a quick introduction. It's a half and half beverage by Lipton in partnership with Pepsi. A half and half is half iced tea and half lemonade of some variety. The Venom Brisk is half tea, half dark cherry limeade. I usually enjoy a good cherry limeade, so this was really calling out to me. Like a symbiote to a host.

How's it taste?

Pretty darn good. At first I wasn't too impressed with it, but over the course of the bottle began enjoying it more as sometimes with soft drinks, the first impressions aren't lasting. The dark cherry variation of cherry limeade is new to me and took a bit to get used too. It's a little sweeter than I anticipated, and the dark cherry dominates the flavor with the lime being more of a chaser. It's good. The dark color is really neat, I'm used to the more bright green of my usual Brisk so the dark red is really standing out. The color also fits Halloween time as it could easily pass for blood if ever in a vampire themed release.

Spider-Man PS4 E3 trailer

I feel like it's taking forever for this game to get released, but man it looks like it may be worth the wait. Can't wait to get my hands on it.

Vlog 2

Nanos are pretty metal

I had been eyeing the Nano Metalfigs at stores for some time now. Thinking they were really neat, but ultimately deciding the last thing I should do is take up another toy line. My wife took note of my attention, loaded up a stocking full of them for me at Christmas basically made me change my mind on another toy line.

They're really cheap, a dollar a figure, with multi packs basically still costing a dollar a figure. They've got plenty of fun properties to sell. So far I've got the complete Street Fighter series, a few Disney, and a good number of Spider-Man figures.

My overall direction with this line is complete a few series depending on overall feeling towards it and random figures from other sets. I've completed Street Fighter untill they release more. I think for Disney I'm going to aim at a more sci fi/fantasy area. I've got Gizmo Duck and the Armored Baymax. I'd like to get the matching Scrooge McDuck and non armored Baymax and then see what else they release down the road. The classic Disney stuff is charming for sure, but not sure if I want it at the time. Spider-Man is a very fun series, various Spider Society figures with various costumes makes for a fun thing to collect. Though Carnage is a really hard to find figure, so he's going to take some effort. I think I may also try to get all the Batman figures. Not necessarily DC as a whole, but definitely Batman and his multiple figures.

There's so many figures with so many exclusive figures at such a low cost that it's just the right mix for enjoying the past time of collecting alone as well as the things I like that they've licensed. The above picture is just what I grabbed at Walmart while running out to get a roll of plastic to cover the windows (wintertime, you wouldn't believe how much that little plastic cuts out drafty windows and the heat kicking on). That's $6 worth of stuff (not counting my nachos underneath... I was hungry...and hey, they were a dollar too!). The 5 pack is actually about 10-20 cents cheaper than buying figures individually and there's multi pack exclusives.

There's even display playsets Jada makes to go along with them, though for now I've been using my tried and true plastic craft boxes I've always used for sorting and storing small things. The Nano group I'm in is often taking those and making pretty sharp display cases, and I'm honestly tempted to try that out.

In all it's a fun addition to the stuff I already buy and at such a cheap price gives me something fun to pick up even at times when finances can be tight (hello household bills directly after Christmas). Here's hoping the fun little diecast figures keep being fun.

Spider-Man

Yo MCU, get on it.