I have a good feeling about this! ;-)

More specifically, about this forthcoming Hasbro reissue of the original Soundwave figure, complete with 4 of his original mini-cassettes: Buzzsaw, Laserbeak, Ratbat and Ravage.

Although the intent is to release it at the next San Diego ComicCon as an exclusive, I’ve also heard that it will be available through the Hasbro Toy Shop site afterwards. So considering that the 25th Anniversary Optimus Prime reissue (which I own) and a number of other exclusive Transformers figures have been released in Australia in recent times, could this next reissue be destined for Australian store shelves as well? Because if it is, I’ll welcome it, and I’ll buy it in a heartbeat.

And with the Soundwave/Soundblaster moulds being used once again by Hasbro and TakaraTomy, it just might make one of the items on my TF Encore wish list a more viable proposition, but only time will tell.

A night of bombshells….

…. in every sense of the word, I might add.

But first, the not-so-good news; baby Ivy was absent again. Jagger assured me during the dance that Ivy will be back soon, but at this time of the year, university assignments and exams take precedence (and fair enough too). So I’ll keep my fingers crossed for next time, when I’ll be sure to have Amy as well.

Now, here’s Bombshell Number One: I heard from Rose that The Firm has closed down. Not entirely surprising, considering the poor reputation it had among many local dancers, but something I didn’t expect nonetheless. Whether or not it reopens under new ownership/management or a new name in the future, though, is anyone’s guess.

Number Two: Having decided to take Rose for a dance in the belief that Sienna wouldn’t be coming in, guess what happens? That’s right; Sienna arrives!

And Number Three: Sienna will be taking a 2-month hiatus in her native Canada soon, so as it may well have been my last chance to do so before her departure, I had her for a dance.

Meanwhile, I’m bringing my next lot of Horse play forward by a week, as I’m keen to see if Victoria Rayne lives up to the hype, and it’ll enable me to give Ariel an early birthday present. Though I won’t disclose her age here, since if I did, I’d be bopped on the head with a beauty box!

At last…. the face behind the blog! ;-)

That’s right; it’s time to deliver on a promise I made a while back. Here comes a picture of yours truly!

Hell, if I was in a movie, they’d have to shoot it in Panavision!

All self-deprecating gags aside, though, I’m feeling pretty pumped up for my visit to The Palace tonight. Maybe it’s the thought of seeing Ivy for the first time in several weeks, or the fun and energy Jagger puts into her dances (with plenty of Eamon Sandwiches™ added for good measure), or a bit of both, but it should rock nevertheless.

It looks like the Miss Nude SA pageant WILL happen after all….

…. and I wish I didn’t have to go to redhotpie to get confirmation in this case, on account of the information not being available on the Crazy Horse website. And it pretty much goes without saying that the lack of dates for the Miss Nude Australia 2010 pageant gives me pause, for the usual reasons.

Of course, I’ll only go if baby Ariel is entering it, and I’m determined to not get caught out like I did last time. And Victoria Rayne should still be featuring by then, so if she meets my criteria (and that’s a very big “if”) and I enjoy her dancing the first time, there’s a real chance that I’ll have her again then.

For the moment, though, I’ll turn my attention to my next visit to The Palace tomorrow night, and since I’ve had one of those stripper dreams again, I’ll try to expect the unexpected.

Thank Christ that most Transformers fans aren’t like this one….

…. though there are most likely a few out there who do take the same bigoted, revisionistic “Geewunner” approach as the fan formerly known as Jovanka Kink, who would legally change her name to Raksha later on.

Thankfully, I never crossed paths with her back in my online fandom days, and on account of dramatic stuff such as this exchange, I’m glad I didn’t. And here’s another reason; despite her narrow-mindedness concerning Transformers, Raksha was still a very highly respected person in the fandom (on account of arranging BotCon 1995), and if I ever butted heads with her, I would’ve been the one tossed off the site.

Also, it wouldn’t surprise me if last year’s BotCon theme – “Shattered Glass” – was chosen with Raksha in mind, considering it contained the following:

1. In this alternate universe, Autobots actually are totalitarian oppressors and Decepticons are the freedom fighters, thus matching Raksha’s own views; and

2. No Beast Wars characters were used, and Raksha has nothing but hatred for that part of the continuity (and pretty much everything that isn’t G1), even going so far as to call Beast Wars Megatron a “Pretender to the Name” on countless occasions.

All of this makes it only too easy to ridicule Raksha and anyone of a similar ilk, and much to my amusement, some people already have. Let’s hope I’m not a future target of a similar article!

Onto a more personal issue now, and it looks like another session of canvassing may have to wait until next week, though I’d be more than happy to do it tomorrow if I’m phoned in advance (i.e. sometime before 3:15pm today, since I have my shrink appointment at 4pm).

Has this ever happened to any of you?

Have you ever been abandoned by a long-term friend because you’ve chosen NOT to do drugs? Because as hard as it may be to believe, I have.

Though I never really got to know Paul Vincent Jones in my high school days, that would change when I found out that he was also going for a Bachelor of Arts degree at Flinders University, and majoring in English literature as well. Over the next three years, we would hang out a lot, seeing a lot of movies at cinemas, eating a good deal of food at Pizza Hut restaurants, being in the same tutorial group in a couple of cases, and buying quite a few videos as well.

After we both graduated from university, the contact decreased a little on account of his theology and teaching studies, but it still occurred with some regularity. And while I was recovering from my left arm accident, he was still there for me, and I truly appreciated that.

But by late 2002, things began to change. I’d never known Paul to even touch alcohol in the past, but by this time, he was drinking quite heavily. And his alcohol tolerance wasn’t the greatest either; I recall one occasion on which I had twice as much beer to drink as he did, yet I had to help HIM to stay on his feet!

Also, he was now more open to going to nightclubs and city pubs, and seemed to be more tolerant of dance music (which he used to call “gay poofter music”, IIRC). Once more, I was quite happy to go along with this, as it got me out of the house and into my element to a large degree.

On the flip side, however, he was now smoking marijuana on a regular basis, doing so in front of me and in plain sight of everyone else. Another long-term friend of his, going by the name of Gareth, was most likely the one who got Paul onto the stuff (and the drinking, I’ll bet), and he became very keen to get me to smoke it too. Naturally, I declined, on the strength of being asthmatic (and therefore not inclined to smoke ANY substance) and not wanting to be physically and mentally compromised.

Despite telling me that he wouldn’t push the issue any further, Paul would do quite the opposite on the next couple of outings, and when I tried in vain to arrange a movie outing for us in January 2003, I started to see the writing on the wall. Though he’d initially agreed to go with it, I would later text him to finalise it, and he’d suddenly changed his mind; he claimed that he’d done a lot of thinking, that he thought we had nothing in common, and that he was “through with this messaging bullshit”.

Was I gutted by this? YOU BET I WAS. So I decided to pay him a visit at his home and try to stop the bridge from burning completely. He tried to make it look like I was the one with the problem, claiming that he had changed and that I was “unadventurous”, and generally attempting to berate me for refusing to go down the same path as he was.

So an eight-year friendship had gone up in smoke, and even now – six years later – I hope he isn’t still doing marijuana (or worse still, something potentially lethal) and I honestly don’t know how I’d react if I saw him in a public place today.

Meanwhile, I hope a similar burning of a bridge isn’t about to happen between myself and Danica Voivodich. Since my plans for today were delayed a little on account of a bit of oversleeping, I didn’t have the time to drop by her place and try to get to the bottom of things, so I’m going to take a less risky tack. That is, I’m going to try phoning one more time next week, and if any ill or non-communication occurs, I’ll have no choice but to let go of her permanently.

My Transformers Encore Wish List (Take Two!) ;-)

According to this, it looks like the line-up for Transformers Encore #17 is set in stone now, so it’s time for a fresh wish list! And here it comes:

#18: Devastar (Devastator) – November 2009
E-Hobby Exclusive: D-101 Soundblaster with D-110 Replay (see this post for details) – November 2009
#19: Cassette Daisakusen Vol.3; Dial, Saur, Rumble & Frenzy – March 2010
#20: Superion – March 2010
#21: Cassette Daisakusen Vol.4; Graphy, Noise, Overkill & Condor (Laserbeak) – July 2010
#22: Chromedome – July 2010
#23: Cassette Daisakusen Final; Raindance, Grand Slam, Beastbox & Squawktalk – November 2010
#24: Artfire – November 2010

Of course, these are only my suggestions, but I have no doubt that most – if not all – of them would be very popular ones in the Transformers fandom.

In other news, the job interview this morning went quite well, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for that.

The week ahead….

…. shall be quite a busy one for me.

Tomorrow, I have the job interview over at Port Adelaide, and while I’m a tad nervous about it, I hope to do well. Then on Tuesday, I’ll take advantage of the $9.50 ticket offer and see Star Trek at Westfield Marion, complete with lunch at Pizza Hut.

And since my former workmate Danica lives down that way, I’m going to take a big punt and try to pay her a visit at her home. After all, my last two attempts to contact her by phone (last week, and the week before) have met with no success, and I certainly hope I haven’t said something to or about her that could’ve offended her in any way.

Wednesday, on the other hand, should bring more canvassing, but that’s yet to be confirmed. And in any case, I have a psychotherapist appointment at 4pm that day, so a late canvassing session may be impractical, and I’m not sure if Thursday would be an option for that yet.

Leaving Friday, and as I’m due for a visit to The Palace, that’s what I’ll do on that very evening. Wish me luck in finding baby Ivy, and I have a promise to keep to little Jagger too, but if either or both of them are absent, I’ll have Sienna (if she’s around, of course).

Exciting, isn’t it?

ICW? NEVER AGAIN.

To say that the ICW event last night was disappointing would be the understatement of the year. In a nutshell, everything that made the first show great was completely absent from the second, and as a result, the company will continue (though on the strength of last night’s crowd – or lack thereof – I don’t know for how long) with no further support from me.

All of the things I DON’T want to see in a wrestling show, I DID see. And in spades, I might add. Here’s the list of things that were, in my view, wrong with the show:

1. The Ron Page/Joe Mundie match ended with Joe Mundie practically no-selling Ron Page’s apparent finisher – a splash from the top rope – by rolling him up for the win. Way to make an opponent look weak, guy;

2. I now know why the first show didn’t have any promos from most of the talent (bar Blake Mitchell and the visiting Chris Masters); none of the other guys I saw last night can cut a promo to save their lives. Fake, forced, and not making me feel for the characters in any way, if you ask me;

3. Baiting and switching was the order of the night. Not only was there no former WWE star, but the Matthew & Benjamin Hall/David Hawk & Joel Bateman Tag Team match was changed to a handicap match to create an injury angle for David Hawk. Here’s how it panned out:
A. David Hawk is beaten and injured in a singles match against Benjamin Hall earlier in the night;
B. Hawk is not cleared to wrestle in the Tag Team match, leaving Joel Bateman to face the Hall brothers alone;
C. Hawk comes out near the end of the match, making it a Tag Team match again. Bateman makes the hot tag, but as soon as Hawk is in, he gets injured once more, costing his team the match; and
D. Bateman attacks Hawk from behind after the match, predictably turning heel in the process (which I thought was a stupid move, since the heels in ICW seem to outnumber the faces already) and leading to a match between them at the next event.
Also, ICW management are trying to insult my intelligence by saying that they’ve been trying to get a former ECW/TNA star for weeks (flying in the face of what I quoted in a previous post), and will now have “The King of Old School” Steve Corino at their show on July 24th. Nothing against Steve Corino, of course, but even making part of an event program a work rather than a shoot may only push more people away in the long run;

4. Speaking of programs, there wasn’t one given out upon arrival this time, thus leaving me in doubt over what more to expect;

5. Many of the standout stars of the first show – Terra Australis, Braithe Priest, Rocky Menero (who faced Al Snow and Head in the first show) and Shemal – didn’t turn up. I don’t know whether or not they were contracted to do so, or if there were backstage politics involved, but their absence really hurt this second show. And Loco Puro didn’t get to do much in his match with Blake Mitchell either, getting screwed and squashed quickly;

6. Even though the website claims 200 people turned up, the actual number was closer to 150. A massive drop from the first show’s turnout of 400+, and I suspect there’s more to that than just the location;

7. I expected to see at least 6 match-ups, but only 5 occurred, and out of those, 4 of them had the heel wrestlers going over the face wrestlers. The only face to go over was Cannonball Kris Taylor, facing Mana the Polynesian Warrior in the only memorable match of the night, and Mana turned face after the match by attacking Blake Mitchell;

8. The reliance on video replays from the first show was far too heavy, and only served to pad out the evening, cover up the poor promo skills of certain wrestlers, and insinuate that the audience has a short attention span;

9. The raffle prizes were downgraded for this show. Instead of two WWE tickets, the prizes were a couple of T-shirts, DVDs of the first ICW show, and two tickets to the next show on July 18th (unless that too is a work, since it was mentioned in a PowerPoint presentation on the two screens, but not by the ring announcer). If that’s not a big step backwards, I don’t know what is; and

10. There are still no title belts, with the first ICW Championship match not occurring until July 24th, and there are still no women of any description on the roster. But there was an actual ring bell this time around.

So ICW’s done its dash with me, and it’s time to give one of the other local promotions a go. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for future events.

*Mwacks* *Licky* *Extreme cuddle*

An odd title, of course, but when I saw these words in the following webcomic strip (as created by DilaZirK at deviantART), I thought it was one of the funniest examples of onomatopoeia I’d ever seen.

Do I have your attention yet, DilaZirK? If so, I’d like to see you do something similar for your next Christmas edition of Fun-ness On A Stick, possibly with the BotCon 2009 exclusive Elita One figure (as seen in this ACTOYS photo with Classics Optimus Prime/Henkei! Convoy) and Cybertron Optimus Prime.

I’m sure the response would be very encouraging, but it’s up to you, of course.

On other matters, I’m still a bit uneasy about the ICW event tonight. There are still only 3 announced match-ups so far, and if any less than 6 matches occur, then it’ll give me another reason to not go to their next event. Hell, for all I know, there may not even be a next event, so it’s not easy to remain positive about it.