BEANS!

All will become clear, gentle reader, be assured of this...

One has to wonder about 'Market Research'. How is it conducted? How are the results examined? How are the examined results used?

Picture the scene: You're in Toys'R'Us, you're a TRU Gold Card holder. You purchase something, using your card to rack up points (I still have no real understanding of the whys and wherefores of that... I just hand over the card, and the receipt says something about points). You get a free gift, seemingly at random, though it may be via some scientific formula relating the the date and/or how expensive a purchase one makes.

So far, it all seems par for the course, right?

But if you get into specifics... like, the first time I used my Gold Card, I bought TF Movie Starscream and Ironhide, and got a pair of seedy "women's magazines" of the kind that feature celebrity gossip and improbable weight loss plans, alongside "true life stories" offering the parasitic readership heretofore unknown opportunities for schadenfreude...

And then, today, I bought the Toys'R'Us exclusive Commemorative Series alleged Generation 1 Soundwave (yes, I caved... you didn't see that coming?) and walked away with a single-portion can of baked beans.

I'm serious: Beans.

And they're not even Heinz.

(Come on, people, everyone knows "Beanz Meanz Heinz", don't they?)

How to they research this shit? What was recorded? "Age, Gender, Number of children, Children's favourite food, Do children know the song 'Beans, beans, they're good for your heart...'?"

It is beyond the ken of mortal man, I tell thee.

And then I get home and find that not one but two parcels have been delivered for me. One was a box containing two TF Movie 2008 Camaro Bumblebees (one for me, one for my boss) and one TF Movie Goth Bondage Queen Arcee. Seriously, this one's kinky. Some of the bike parts are molded to look like an elaborate bustier, she has serious high-heeled black boots, and she seems to be wearing black lipstick. My inner fanboy is strangely turned on...

Both are actually rather good models. Bumblebee is reasonably well-proportioned (in common with the majority of movie figures so far, his thighs are very short, and car kibble limits the knee movement, but not dramatically) and looks close enough to the movie model. As with much of the Movie line, transformation is satisfyingly complex, the robot is very poseable, and the car mode is very well realised, with well-concealed seams (the exceptions being the four rectangular holes on the bonnet which reveal the joint that allows the headlights to rotate upward to become the robot's chest). Arcee, while completely disproportionate to the other Movie deluxes, cuts a fine figure of a motorcycle and a robot. The aforementioned fetishwear-looking parts aside, she retains the feel of the Energon/Superlink version - not to mention much the same transformation - but with significant improvements to the overall design, stability and particularly the femininity of the robot mode.

My second parcel was - at long last - the BotCon 2007 Alpha Trion/Weirdwolf/Vector Sigma souvenir set!

First things first: my run of good luck with toys has taken a dent with Alpha Trion... He's missing the central crest on his head. It doesn't affect the look of the model too badly, but it does leave him with a strange groove into which the part should have been glued. From the front, you'd have to know the model well to realise it was missing something. Overall, I'm still quite happy with him. In person, the colourscheme is less jarring, though I'd agree with popular opinion and say that the white parts should have been grey or silver-ish. Also, the use of floppy plastic for his wings and sword, while matching the US/UK release of Vector Prime, does the model no favours. Indeed, mine has one wing that wasn't fitted quite right, and I've had to cut some of the plastic away to allow it to fold in/out properly.

Weirdwolf is seriously cute and, as far as I can see so far, essentially flawless. One of the wolf mode forelegs is a touch floppy, but this seems to be a common thing in all iterations of the mold. The paintjob is pretty extensive, and the colourscheme is far more sedate than it appears in photos.

Vector Sigma is a bit of a disappointment though, all things considered, it probably shouldn't be. It's basically a hollow, kind of crystalline-faceted sphere with a round hole in the bottom for its stand, and a rectangular slot in the top for the Key. Thing is, the keyslot on Vector Sigma in the TV show was at the centre of the spiralling crystalline pattern on the front of the sphere, not on the top... Also, the keyslot should be a good fit, but this thing is floppy and loose in all kinds of ways. Considering the price it was sold at (it was a completely separate item at BotCon), it's probably a complete rip-off... but as a 'free' addition to the set I bought, it's not bad. At least the Key itself is reasonably detailed... though it could do with a lick of paint.

In other news, I had a meeting with the MD today, where my actual role in the ever-changin' web project was more clearly defined. As I'd expected, it is just extending my support role - taking on some of the tasks previously supported by our techy team, and dealing with 'Search Engine Optimisation'... I am not taking over the admin side of it. I'm also getting £20 per hour for time spent working on it at the weekends.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to do what's required efficiently.

I'm sure there's other stuff, but it's late (again), and I still have a magazine to work on tomorrow...