One bit of note for all of you who aren't reading, my 26th birthday was on March 29. I'm officially old, now. At least, according to some of my siblings.

Shortly, a pointless review, but, first, a bit of exposition.

Right now, apparently, is the time when stores are in the process of clearing their shelves of older stock to get ready for the next sales cycle, so a lot of items of various interest and import are on sale much cheaper than one could normally find them. This past weekend returning to my apartment from visiting my parents, I found a lot of toys that I've wanted and really couldn't justify to myself paying that kind of money for. Since I picked up quite a few toys, I've decided to review them for my own amusement.

I've decided to review a toy that I find really cool. I got myself a Scavenger figure based on the Transformers Armada cartoon series. While the cartoon series is more or less garbage (a rant for another day), the toys are kind of cool. Most of the toys come packaged with a "Mini-con" figure which can be attached to the figure to make it look more interesting or unlock extra features of the toy.

Scavenger is a bulldozer and comes with the Mini-con Rollbar, a little dune buggy. Both have a vehicle and robot form. I mention this only because some figures have more than just two modes of transformation.

Forms
The bulldozer form of Scavenger is a lot of fun. He has various points that activate a speaker that simulates various sounds. Push him forward, and he makes little rumbling bulldozery sounds. The coolest part is his cab actually opens and Rollbar, in robot form, can be placed in. When Rollbar is placed inside the cab, there's the sound of the engine turning over and starting. It's kind of cute having the little robot sitting in the cab, driving the bulldozer around.

In robot form, Scavenger can be set so that his legs will move in unison and make stomping noises; turning his upper body brings a crashing sound; and attaching Rollbar at the proper place fires a missile with the appropriate sound effect.

Forms10/10

Features
I've pretty much covered this in Forms, but I think it's worth pointing out that I think that the features on Scavenger are some of the best I've seen. The only other Transformer I've seen that's come close is my Megatron from Transformers: Generation 2. Unfortunately, Megatron is broken, but Scavenger isn't, and I'll not be letting my sister play with him, so I don't think he will be, either.

Features10/10

Ease of Transformation
In this toy's favor, it is ranked at a level 3: Advanced. Most of the changing is intuitive and pretty easy to pull off. It's easier to change from robot to bulldozer than it is to change from bulldozer to robot. The difficulty in changing from bulldozer to robot comes from some of the parts not sitting stiffly in bulldozer mode and having to connect some parts in places that aren't always in a convenient place. The legs are the most difficult part of the transformation; the other parts are rather simple.

Rollbar is easy to transform either way.

Ease of Transformation7/10

Overall
Again, I want to say this is probably my favorite Transformer I own. He will be getting a place of honor beside my unopened dragon Megatron from the best Transformers series: Beast Wars.

Overall(Not composite)9/10

Join me next time when I will be reviewing the far inferior Predacon figure.

Wow. Two days in and already I feel like I don't have anything to say. I'm amazed that people like James Lileks can update their bleats or blogs or whatever they want to call them as often as they do. I used to read Not My Desk by Christopher Livingston on a fairly regular basis and would also post to his message board. There were some of his fans who would flip out if he went three days without posting something new. Now I can't imagine posting as much as he did.

Of course, most people who jump into a web venture such as the one I'm doing have a lot of back-up material. Livingston said that he had was planning to write a book on temping before he ever posted a single article to the Internet. Lileks has a million scans of bizarre things he can slap up elsewhere on his site if he can't think of much to write.

Me? I got nothing for you.

Well, I mean, I could go dig up portions of short stories I've written, but I really don't have anything written that either 1: I like or 2: is finished. Therefore, I'll stick to just rambling for a bit. But, believe me, if I ever get to the point where I do have something worth posting, you'll be the first to know. I'll have a big flashing banner on the main page that says "UPDATE TO SOMETHING BESIDES THE JOURNAL-LIKE THING!" Of course, it won't really be flashing because the blink tag has been disabled in most modern browsers. Which is for the best, I believe. I suppose it could be flashing if you're using a really old browser.

Anyway, as I said, I really have nothing right now. I suppose when I get ideas throughout the day of things to post here I should really jot them down or something, but I rarely am in a position to jot them down. I must remember to actually carry my pocket tape recorder in my pocket.

What a concept.