ToyLanta 2024

It's ToyLanta time once again! My annual trek to the best damn toy convention is going on this weekend! I'll be updating this space daily with my adventures, so be sure to check back to see what all happened. I'll also be hosting the annual Transformers panel Sunday at 12PM if you're in attendance. Speaking of, come up and say hi! Be sure to check out my Instagram throughout the weekend as I'll be updating it frequently. 

Friday: I got to the convention MUCH later than I wanted to thanks to a mixture of rain and traffic turning a 1 hour drive to 2. Once there, I walked in and man... I really like the location. It's the same one as last year and it's great (just wish it was closer). Though I soon found out registration was closed, which was no problem as I've gotten in later before and usually have no problem getting my badge. However, this year Buddy (show organizer) was absent due to illness. Speaking of, get well soon cards for Buddy were being brought around and I made a point to sign one. Since registration was closed, I was just told to wait until the morning to get my badge and just walk around anyway. That was unexpected, but I did just that and took a look around the dealers room as it was being set up. I was very tempted to buy some M.U.S.C.L.E figures, but as it was all shutting down, held off until later.

Friday night at the convention is the popular lobby swap party and of course room trading. I ran into Jacob and chatted for a minute. I then looked around the lobby swap before taking a picture of the room trading board. The room numbers had details on what each offered and I roamed the halls taking in each set up. I found myself in various conversations during this time as I'd cross paths with others doing the same. It became like a fun scavenger hunt for the best room and we'd tell each other in passing. One particular door stunk to high hell, there wasn't a room swap in it, but everyone seemed to have encountered it at some point. I met some cool people like Matthew and Cody. Great conversations and good fun with like minded people. What a convention is all about. 

My Friday toy haul included a Convertors Nofka, which is a scaled down SDF-1. I bought one a few years ago at a prior Toylanta, this one is in much better shape. Both still are missing the back wings/towers though. I then found a Bug Bots Bee Bot in black and yellow! Bug Bots are one of the things I'm specifically looking for this year, finding one so early was a real treat. I got it and a Stranglehold inner robot for a total of $5! Here's hoping I can find more Bug Bots and a Stranglehold Pretender shell this weekend. Last, but not least, a still in box, vintage bootleg Convertors Zardak! A renamed Orguss was such a random find. The dealer had another in alternative colors. I held off incase Shawn wants it. (*Saturday Edit* he got it!) 

I headed home soon after as it was getting late. Thankfully the drive home was a breeze, despite the rain. I'm hoping the rest of the weekend goes well and this year follows the prior years conversations in being the best one yet. This con never gets old and each year feels like an individual experience. I love that. Some more Shawn, Joey, and Brian should be there tomorrow. It'll be great to see them. Hopefully I'll find some Rock Lords and Monster Gobots. Battle for the Rock Lords was released March 21st 1986, it's only appropriate to aquire some so close to it's anniversary. The Mrs had dinner waiting for me. A veggie burger with these seasoned carrots intended to be fry substitutes Birdseye makes. Delicious, I was starving. 

Saturday: Thanks to traffic I didn't get to the convention until 12pm. Not too bad, but I hoped to be there earlier. I got my badge right away and set out to find Shawn, Brian, and Joey. During the search I purchased a Rock Lords Boulder. I eventually found Shawn and Joey and led Shawn to Matthew's table where Shawn bought the Convertors toy. We were twining Convertors. We walked around the dealers area and chatted. One dealer had boxed Microman and even a Devil Satan 6 box set. Dang! 

My Mom had came with me and spent most of the day doing her own thing. However we met up for lunch in the hotel restaurant. On my way to meeting her, I got a Generations Selects Diaclone version Twin Twist. While we waited for our food, Shawn and Joey joined us. Brian joined us not much later and after some food we all roamed the areas and generally had a great time. I picked up multiple Gobots, McDonald's Food Changeables, Zombots, and something else I can't remember right now. Fun fact, apparently Joey's Mom and mine were friends in High School. Small world!

Around 4:30 Shawn and Joey headed home and Brian went to his room. I roamed the areas for a bit. Talked Godzilla with a dealer. Bought a Ultraman Tiga figure, some more Gobots, and a Robotron car. I think it's a Robotron car. Maybe. As the dealers room shut down for the day, I found Mom and Brian with family in tow came down to say goodbye. They'll be headed home in the morning before I get back to the show. The Mrs ordered us Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner when I got home. I was starving. The flatbread I had for lunch was good, but it was time for serious nourishment. There's one more day of the great toy show which includes my panel. Man I hate how it's going by so fast. It's been a great con this year.How many times have I typed I in this post?

Sunday: Well, a day later and I'm updating for Sunday. I got to the convention around 11:20 am after a mostly easy drive, though I was stuck behind what was apparently the President's motorcade. I think so anyway, apparently he was in town. I met up with Dusty right away and we chatted about Transformers up until the panel started. As the room filled up, a gentleman from the botvscon YouTube channel came in and was an absolute pleasure. The room went from half full to mostly full during the panel as usual and Dusty and I had a great chat with each other and those in attendance. We actually ran over time.

Dusty left for the day after the panel and I roamed around for a bit. I bought some M.U.S.C.L.E figures and another McDonald's Food Changeables toy. I spent a few hours just looking and taking in everything. The con was wrapping up as dealers were packing up. I did find another Bug Bot... but it was the same one I got Friday for 20 bucks. Yikes! The same guy had a  very dirty Boulder for 40. All things considered, I made out like a bandit on the ones I got. However, the guy also clearly didn't have many sales so... maybe I just made out decently and he was a bandit. I was getting hungry and debated getting a fruit bowl from the snack stand but decided to just head home.

The con was over and everyone was starting to leave out. I saw Matthew on the way. It was great meeting him and seeing Brian, Shawn, Joey, and Dusty. Good con this year. Actually, I've never had a bad Toylanta. Each year is my favorite until the next one. It's great how after a decade of attending it, I've never had a bad one. Every year is it's own story and experience. I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up some juice left off our grocery order and got home to take a nap and enjoy a great home cooked dinner.

Thank you all for reading Zone Base. This concludes our first special event of the year! The site will get back to normal for now, but Halfway to Halloween is coming up in a few weeks! I've got a lot of fun planned until then. Please share the site with your friends and don't forget... Mutal high fives everyone!

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Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Zombots

I'm not very well versed in Hot Wheels. Occasionally I'll see a neat one and grab it, and usually grab the Halloween/Christmas sets they put out each year. Ever since becoming more familiar with Zombot, I make a point to keep an eye out for them. You can imagine my surprise to stumble upon a new one randomly. When I say new, I mean a brand new sculpt. Instead of a gun, the robot is holding a tablet computer. I guess with decades of soldiers, ones with other tasks makes sense

This year one of the Hot Wheels collections is a Mattel games series. There's a blue and red Zombot to represent Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. I found the red version at Kroger after my second vaccination shot. It's always good to see a new version, and a new sculpt is pretty great too. I wonder how many people pass Hot Wheels and notice of the robot car that's an action figure?

What the heck did I do this weekend?

 

Honestly, not a whole lot. Though it did seem like quite a bit. Perspective is everything I assume, and I was tired when I got home so I say a lot. After sleeping off my work night, the wife and I went out for a bit of shopping Saturday. Normally we order our groceries and schedule a pick up time, but this week we decided to physically shop for them. We do this occasionally just to see what all new might be in the store. We also wanted to get out for awhile to look for new Halloween stock and with the short week from labor Day, we didn't feel like doing our normal order list throughout the week.

Friday, the wife stopped at Kroger and found the remaining Mega Construx Heroes series 3 figures I had been needing. So far I had only found the T-1000 and was starting to feel a bit hopeless on it. I know that's some strong working, but I really didn't want to order figures that I should be easily able to find. Partially because the price gets jacked up and second the availability isn't always there. So if you're like me (and you're reading this, so presumably so) it's a bummer to miss out on stuff sometimes. I've been really enjoying this series, not buying everything... but close to it. Series 4 (post regarding it coming soon) has some good looking options in it, so I'm hoping it's easier to find.

Saturday when we went out to see what all Halloween stuff might be out and do that grocery thing I talked about above, we stopped by Target and they had restocked the Cyberverse toys so I snapped up the Scout Starscream and Megatron. I'm enjoying these Scout class dudes (as I've said before and before and maybe again before) and they're easy enough to collect. Though, it is a hard pill to swallow them being $8 considering a Legend was $10. Though, the toy economy is always changing and as I always say, you gotta pay if you want to play. I'm looking forward to the crazy recolors in the future. That's the kind of thing that really makes these smaller toys fun.

I had mentioned Zombot Friday night and found one right off the bat in the Hot Wheel section at the same Target. He was so under my nose this entire time that he was just right there on the hook as I walked up. Weird. I got the blue one, looked as hard as I could for the red version, but that wasn't in the cards (he's a chase item). I also grabbed this rad x-ray truck, it just looked too cool to pass up. We bought more Halloween candy than we should and a stop by Kroger to peruse their Halloween merch left to a new blow mold to go with out others and then a disappointing trip to Home Goods. Starting to think that store sucks.

This left us with a quick lunch and a few hours at Walmart for groceries and their awesome Halloween section where we once again bought too much (and made of list to get next weekend) stuff. Walmart had the Evil Red Ranger figure I've been looking for the past few weeks and for that I was happy. Aside from hoping to get the Bullrider Megazord sooner or later, that's probably it from Ninja Steel for me. Just one more stepping stone towards Beast Morphers! The Evil Red Ranger was pretty cool to me as I thought the Ranger clone army from the 25th special was really neat. Not to mention, I'm mainly a fan of MMPR first, so a evil version of the Tyranno Ranger is right in my wheelhouse. Right in it. Nothing but net.

I won't bore you with what we got for groceries (ok fine, we got bacon for Sunday breakfast) but we pretty much did that before going home. We tend to spend our Saturday nights at home watching spooky stuff and try our best to relax on Sundays. Just to get that recharge in before the work week. Oh, and Sunday night the first episode of Transform Squadron went up. That's the new podcast of Zone Base. Yep, that's it. I plan to have one at least once a month. Hopefully you all like it!

The best things are often under your nose

I don't claim to know everything. There's a million of people on the internet who do, but I don't. It's just not plausible being a functioning adult to know every little thing, you can try, but it is what it is. For years I've been seeing images of this neat little robot dude and never knew anything about it. Just thought it was neat looking and assumed it was a part of some line or collection I wasn't paying attention too. I mean, this has been going on for years seeing this little robot dude who's in a variety of colors and a few sculpt variations. I've always though it looked neat, but like I said, just absent minded on it.

So earlier today (to you it was yesterday, but for me it was today), my curiosity finally got the best of me and I decided to look into this neat little robot dude. Well holy crap it's a Hot Wheels toy that's been in steady availability since the mid 80's. I've probably looked it over a million times somehow. I mean, as a kid I was a big fan of the Speed Demons line and he was part of that and I somehow never saw him until adulthood.

The car is named Zombot, but also known as Computer Warrior and Phantomachine in some instances. My mind is completely blown on this as like most kids I had a ton of Hot Wheels, but I was seriously into the Speed Demons line and still casually look at the cars when I'm in stores. Occasionally still buying some. They're just neat, you know?.

So this cool robot guy I've been noticing for YEARS has somehow slipped completely past me and I'm astounded. I'm not going to go crazy, but I'm definitely going to attempt to grab a few versions when I can. Considering the amount of loose Hot Wheels in boxes I see in various stores and shows, it shouldn't be too hard. Know how I just said those boxes of loose Hot Wheels? I always go through them and usually advise others too because often smaller Transformers and Gobots will end up in those and you can score some good finds usually cheap by just digging though them. I've done this so often that I've probably passed over a million Zombots doing so. I'm both amused and baffled by this.