Behold! In celebration of surviving another year, Dollface gifted me with this classic Transformers 3-D Jigsaw Stand Up Puzzle, featuring Bluestreak!

It transforms from puzzle, to robot, to car, and back! With help, of course. In truth, because of the complex and thoroughly unique shape that these pieces had to be in order to perform this stand-up engineering marvel, this turned out to be the most fun puzzle I had ever put together in my life, even before the stand-up part. (It didn't hurt that the finished picture features several pieces of box art.)

Read the rest »

Yesterday I drove with a couple Transfan buddies to CybCon 2008, a small Transformers convention in Tacoma, Washington. CybCon is run by Greg Gaub, one of the few people whose Transformers site has been online longer than mine. Back when I first started the Transformers Box Art Archive in 1998, I was using Gaub's animated "spinning logos" throughout. (You know, back when animated gifs on the internet were actually cool.) Anyway, I brought home quite a substantial haul, and I thought it important to share the details with you, because you never know when this information could save your life!

Read the rest »

This is Oil Slick, one of the new figures from the Transformers: Animated line that I have been rabidly collecting. He is awesome (AW350M#!!1!1!). This is his promotional image, which was my first impression of the toy.

Read the rest »

Last week, in celebration of our third wedding anniversary, my wife and I journeyed to Seaside, a small beach where Oregon meets the Pacific. Seated in the nicest restaurant we could find, I watched myself order the most expensive thing on the menu, the Alaskan Red King Crab Legs. ($29.90) They were fucking awesome. Armed with that little shell-cracker tool and that tiny little fork, but mostly using my fingers, I tore that bastard apart. It was the first time in memory I really, really enjoyed the act of eating instead of quietly begrudging it. In fact it was hard to keep up conversation with Heather, I was so distracted with fishing every little possible piece of succulent crustacean meat of the every joint. Fucking. Awesome.

I often enjoy consuming crab on special occasions. Honoring every literal interpretation of the old adage "You are what you eat", I feel more essentially more crab-like, similar to hunters partaking of the heart of the kill in order to absorb their life essence. Except, you know, I didn't catch the crab, I didn't even kill it, clean it or cook it, I just ate the fucker. (I would like to personally cook and clean a nice-sized Dungeness crab myself one day, but I just don't know from whom I would learn this skill, and it doesn't seem wise to just "wing it".)

Read the rest »

Last night was my first absinthe experience. I'd never tried it before, but as soon as I became aware that it was now available in Portland, I had to give it a whirl. So we invited a couple friends over, picked up a bottle of Lucid (the best-reviewed brand of absinthe locally available according to reviews by The Wormwood Society), and commited to experiencing its full, mystique-laden embrace.

Though rumored to have a mildly hallucinogenic effect in its past, there's no real proof of this, and modern absinthe does not boast that result. That said, intoxication through absinthe is different than anything I've experienced before. Despite being pretty strong — though you dilute it, it is 124 Proof out of the bottle — it was actually very difficult to become "drunk". Rather, one early on achieves a sort of "lucid" buzz, a clear-headed inebriation that persists. Our first several servings were all traditionally prepared (sugar, slotted spoon, chilled water) before moved on to absinthe cocktails with pineapple juice and 7UP, but it wasn't until our 6th or so serving that we experienced what I would consider "intoxication". Even then, it remained a comparatively bright and un-muddled sensation.

I recommend trying this unique, faintly licorice-like beverage for yourself, both for the flavor and the experience. At $60 a bottle, it's not cheap, but compared to $10-$20 per serving at a bar, a bottle is the right way to go if you're going to do more than just sample. After more than 20 servings between 4 people, we still have about half a bottle left.

Also recommended for the experience: good conversation; vinyl on the turntable; lots of black clothing; 90 degree weather; and shrimp cocktail. Got all that?