Resuming 'Normal' Service...

So, all things considered, I've had quite productive weekend.

Partly, I suspect, I was jarred into action by yesterday's sad news. I'd actually been pretty much in denial since I first heard how serious the situation was, and it took me a while to pluck up the courage to open each emailed update I received...

...But in between, I managed to get quite a bit of photography done. Over the weekend, I've taken new photos of all of my TF Movie toys. The collection currently stands as:

Leader
Optimus Prime
Megatron
Brawl

Voyager
Blackout
Ratchet
Ironhide
Starscream
Thundercracker

Deluxe
Jazz
2008 Bumblebee
Scorponok
Wreckage
Barricade
Bonecrusher
Arcee
Dropkick
Longarm

So I'm pretty much done with the movie line... unless they pull a blinder and release some more really cool stuff. I'm aware of another couple of Real Gear robots I'm quite keen on, but that's about it.

I've discovered that adding a grey towel to my 'photographic studio' (two bits of white-coated chipboard balanced on my chair) has a beneficial effect on the resultant photos. Same camera, same lighting conditions (on a good day), much better pictures. I guess the stark white of the boards messes up the camera's ability to take light readings, and reflects far too much light. The grey towel offers texture, and absorbs more light, so the pictures seemed more lifelike in colour.

I managed to get mostly up to date on my collection - all the BotCon stuff has been photographed (though I really need to do a group shot of the models from the boxed set), plus my most recent Memorabilia purchases. Even managed to update my website with the new pictures. Since it's been ages since I posted any pictures here, I figured I'd share a couple of the funnies I came up with...

For starters, there's Steppen-Weirdwolf and Steppen-Dark Fangwolf performing that timeless classic:
Then we have a tender family moment for TF Movie Megatron:
Obviously, there are plenty more photos... and I didn't get round to the photo-story in which Classics Bumblebee is corrupted by the dark power of Goth Rock and becomes 'Gothbug' (aka Bugbyte, but playing on Goldbug, the name Bumblebee took when he got upgraded).

Nor did I get round to filming Beatmix Bumblebee rockin' out to Black Lab's cover of the 1986 TransFormers animated movie theme, played by Music Label Soundwave...

Oh well. Can't have everything.

I'm reasonably happy with what I've accomplished this weekend... The biggest thing, I suppose, was taking the decision to pass on the web stuff at work, but I believe it's the right decision. I need my weekends to rest, not to make more money... Money might help, but rest will keep me from burning out, or turning into a total workaholic.

I do need to get back to writing, though... I have two fairly short stories to write, and one that's likely to be larger, but fits in well with my one of my big 'projects'... and, having recently heard from a couple of characters who have been 'missing in action' for a good couple of years, now seems like the right time to give it another try...

June 9, 1957 - August 26, 2007

Yesterday, I heard of the passing of Diana, a friend of mine in the States, due to a kidney infection following her cancer treatment. I got to know her through an internet writing group she co-founded, and I'll be forever grateful that I knew her, even for a comparatively short time, and largely only over the internet... She was a fine person, and will be missed by many.

She was, in many ways, a great inspiration to me, helping and encouraging me with my writing, and forever exalting me to "go, do, BE!". She was also, it has to be said, one of the few people in my life who actually gave me things to think about... though she did temper that by regularly pointing out that I tend to think too much ;)

With this in mind, I've changed my mind about the whole work website stuff. I've been slowly becoming a workaholic over the last couple of years, and I know that the last thing Diana would have wanted for me would be that I waste my weekends on work. There's so much else I could accomplish with that time, and I've put so much of it off for far too long. I could be sketching, I could be writing, I could be photographing things, I could be doing touristy crap around town... in short, I could be living... and I'm damned if I'll work for my employers seven days a week, however much they're offering they're offering to pay me, however much they're willing to subsidise my further training, and however much the money and the experience might be useful. If I wasn't so damned lazy, I'd have taught myself loads more HTML, Java and CSS by now... and if my employers need someone tech-savvy to service the websites more than I already do, and to fix the problems caused by next-to-useless Editors, they can stump up the cash and hire someone with the skills and experience, as I've recommended all along. I already have enough of a job, five days a week, and with enough overtime to eat into my free time.

Still, in many ways, Diana's death doesn't seem real to me... and posting all this isn't really going to change that. Next time something really cool happens in my life, I'm going to think to myself "I have to email Diana about that..." and then I'll probably start crying.

She'd recently set up in a new home in New Mexico, finally settling after several years plagued with upheavals. I always figured I'd meet up with her one of these days... We'd spoken on the phone once, but that was the closest we'd got to really talking, though we'd clocked up many hours of internet chat and hundreds of emails between us. I've been to the States several times already, and we'd discussed - in very broad, vague terms - the possibility of arranging a meet for all the members of her writing group.

That's not going to happen now... and the feelings I have flitter between the ache of missing her already, and a weird twinge reminding me that, while she may be gone, I still remember her... as will those family and friends who survive her. We will continue to remember her and, in that way, she will live on in all of us.

Somewhat selfishly, I'm also rather angry that she's gone, while my two grandmothers - who have been 'fading fast' for bloody years - are still alive and well, considering their age. How can that be right? It's not that I wish my grandmothers dead, just that Diana was too young to die... She should have had many more years of life to enjoy.

And now I have to figure out where/what/who I want to 'go, do, be'...

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...