As a TF collector, it’s no accident that I would frequent Toys R Us. As of this writing, Toys R Us is no more in the United States. It’s sad to see the giant toy chain go under.

I moved to the Unites States in 1984. And on the very first ride from the airport to where we would live, I saw a giant Geoffrey sign right on the side of the highway. I didn’t know any English at the time, but I would very quickly learn later that it’s a toy store. And what a toy store it was. Coming from Taiwan, the toy stores at the time were all small mom-and-pops, or a small section in a department store. There was nothing in the scale of Toys R Us. First time I went into one, I found myself in complete shock and awe. Here I was in a store the size of a present day Walmart, with nothing but toys! God bless America!

Growing up in the 80s, I loved going to TRU. I don’t care how down I was. If my parents said we were going to TRU, that lifted my spirits almost immediately. I stopped playing with toys in the traditional sense starting in the late 80s, and moved on to video games. But this still made me visit TRU on occasion, going straight to their electronics section. In 2004, my interest in TF rekindled, and this only made the visits to TRU more frequent. As a TF hunter I made visits at least once a week. Sometimes twice a week. Especially if I’m bored at lunch (I’m lucky to always have a TRU store near work). Most of the time I wouldn’t find anything new. But that didn’t make me stop visiting. I’m filled with anticipation every time I hit up a TRU. In some ways I find the trips therapeutic. There has definitely been some days when work is pissing me off, and I needed a quick getaway from the office to recharge my batteries. A trip to TRU would always do the trick. I may not find anything, but for me, it’s calming just to be in the toy aisles, with nothing but me and my beloved Transformers.

As much as I love TRU, one thing I never liked about the store is that nothing is ever on sale. Sure they got “sales” every now and then, but it’s all the crap you don’t want. All the TF figures I bought there were all at regular price. If something was on sale, it’s only because it was shelf-warming for months and they had trouble moving the merchandise. It was the same for video games. Other retailers (like Target or Best Buy) would sometimes have real sales for just released games, and TRU never does. As time went, it was clear that TRU was not competitive in its pricing. In some ways the bankruptcy does not surprise me.

My daughter was born in late 2017. And upon hearing the store closure news in early 2018, I thought about taking her to TRU, so she could see it for the first and last time before it’s gone for good. When TRU had their inventory sale, I went on the first day of the sale by myself after work. It was such madhouse in the store that you could hardly get around the aisles. And the sales weren’t even that good. TRU was having a fire sale without the fire sale prices. The lone purchase I made for TF Studio Series Thundercracker was at regular price, and I only did so because that was a TRU exclusive. The checkout took forever, with so many shoppers. The store employees seemed less than helpful. They were either temps that knew nothing and were brought on board just to help with the sale, or long time staffers that appeared angry that the store is closing and not motivated to do their best work. I went back there the next day, trying to grab another Thundercracker for my buddy Gemini. It was all gone. There were even more shoppers, and I didn’t see any new sales. After these 2 trips, I decided not to take my daughter to TRU. The toy chain has such fond memories for me, but it’s not the same now. Fighting through the masses just to look at the store and not buy anything seems like a waste of time. She’s not gonna remember this anyway.

In 2017, I bought some items from TRU, but less than previous years. There was Stormshot in January and Sixshot in March. There was Roadburn in May, like I mentioned in my last post. Around July, my wife and I happened to be near a TRU, so I decided to stop by to look for some TFs. I found nothing. But we happened to wonder into the electronics section, and we saw that they had 2 units of Nintendo Switch! The Switch was rare at the time, so I got one along with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. In December I made 2 purchases online from toysrus.com, for Titans Return Arcee and Grotesque. And around March of this year, I made the purchase for Thundercracker that I already mentioned. These were my last purchases at Toys R Us.

Toys R Us’s demise is a perfect storm of changing shopping trends coupled with its own failure to evolve. My very first TF purchases in 2004 were online from Toys R Us, but fulfilled through Amazon. I know they had tried to do their own online operations before that, but failed horribly and had to resort to using Amazon. It was too late by the time TRU got their online act together. By then they had already racked up massive debt. Older toddlers were also playing with electronic app based games in addition to traditional toys. And I already mentioned their non-competitive pricing. None of this is a recipe for success.

It’s unclear to me what this will do to all the Toys R Us stores around the world. I know all stores are closing in the UK. I’m glad I was able to see a Paris store and a Shanghai store. I regret not going to a store in Sydney, but the current rumors are that Toys R Us will stick around in Australia.

Goodbye Toys R Us. When life kicked me down, you were there to pick me up.

Transform and Roll Out.

One more year, one more anniversary. This blog has been around for 8 years now. Here are the most current stats.

I only got about 51,000 hits in the past year. That’s not good. I really thought that the Last Knight would inject some life into Transformers. But that proved to be short-lived, and overall TF interest seem to have hit an all time low after The Last Knight ended its run in the theaters. TF toy sales have been lackluster. Robots in Disguise don’t seem to be generating much TF buzz. 3P companies are producing some good stuff, but I’m worried that they may be over-saturating the hardcore TransFan market, which is already pretty limited to begin with.

It’s the long time fans that are now carrying the franchise. Hopefully Hasbro realizes this and have something planned moving forward.

As for me, I need to pay more attention to this blog. I love Transformers and I will blog about it as long as I live. Long live TF Matrix, and long live Transformers! Transform and Roll Out.

So I finally watched this movie. And I’ll get straight to it: I was entertained, but this is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination.

I watched Transformers the Last Knight with several others. We probably had more fun making fun of the movie than really trying to follow what’s going on. The Last Knight is filled with humorous and ridiculous sequences. One example is a scene where Cade Yeager had to jump off a building and onto some TFR automatons as if they’re platforms, like if he was playing Frogger or Pitfall. The Last Knight is the least successful of the 5 films, financially speaking. That’s no surprise. I watched the first 4 movies in the theater, but passed on this one. We rented the movie from iTunes, but only because we had free credits. So technically we spent no money on LK (not counting some figures I bought).

The Last Knight is going for a Arthurian knight motif. That’s obvious by looking at the trailers. Both Prime and Megs look more like knights in this one, and personally I think it’s kinda silly. Mark Wahlberg returns from the previous installment. Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, and Stanley Tucci come back for more as well (though Tucci as a different character). Anthony Hopkins joins the cast. Why someone of his caliber wants to lend his talents to this hot mess of a movie is beyond me. Tyrese wanted to come back, but he obviously wanted to spend his time in a superior franchise (FF8). Early reports were that Megan Fox would be back, but I’m guessing people got confused since Laura Haddock looks so similar in some early leaked shots. Good thing Peter Cullen and Frank Welker are both back as Prime and Megs.

LK is full of your usual Michael Bay movie mayhem. Big explosions, check. Bad editing that jumps for scene A to F to M, check. Immature, racist, and juvenile dialogue, check. Robots that all look the same, check. Uber male objectification of women, check. Plot that you can’t follow, check. And even if you could follow it you see that it makes no sense, check.

But believe it or not, I don’t think LK is the worst film in the franchise. Here’s how I rate the 5, from best to worst:

• Transformers
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon
• Transformers: The Last Knight
• Transformers: Age of Extinction
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

As for the toys, LK is below average when compared to other movies. As of this writing I have bought 6 figures total from LK, and I feel like I have enough to rate the line as a whole. Here’s how I rate them, from best to worst:

• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon
• Transformers
• Transformers: The Last Knight
• Transformers: Age of Extinction

Both Michael Bay and Mark Wahlberg have said they are not coming back for more. I suppose that’s the good news in all of this. Bay must be sick of this franchise after 5 outings. Personally I feel like he never really cared for what Transformers represents to long-time fans that have supported it all these years through thick and thin. After the first movie, Bay has so thoroughly twisted the Transformers mythos that anything moving forward bear only a shallow semblance to the original source material. I actually like Mark Wahlberg as an actor, but I think he’s got better things to do. Wahlberg has complained about this franchise after LK hit theaters, including that he doesn’t like his haircut in part 5. I agree. Time for a new leading man.

It will be interesting to see how things wrap up in part 6, which is already confirmed for Summer 2019. I’m curious how the movie would feel without Bay’s influence. But before this, a Bumblebee spin off is slated for late 2018. I’m not sure where or when the story would take place in the TF Movie-verse. Hailee Steinfeld is confirmed to be in the movie.

I hope the Bumblebee movie will be better. New blood will be good for the franchise. Transform and Roll Out.
 

Now that I’m done chronicling my purchases for 2016, it’s time to count them up and compile some statics. 2016 breakdown as follows:

• 7 Masterpiece (MP) figures
• 19 Combiner Wars (CW) figures
• 23 Titans Return (TW) figures
• 5 G1-reissue figures
• 7 Robots in Disguise (RiD) figures
• 1 Cyber Battalion (CB) figure
• 8 Third Party (3P) figures

That makes the grand total 70 figures for 2016. Not bad. Since I started tracking my purchases at the start of 2012, this has been the lowest in a single calendar year.

Total spending for the year is $2126.10. This is also the lowest in a calendar year since 2012.

All this tells me that I’m more selective about what I buy. Which is good. I got way too many TFs already. Only the best makes it into my collection.

And as I look at my stats, some things stand out. Here are some random thoughts:

• All MP figures were bought at the first half of the year. From Jan to July, I got at least one MP figure each month (except for June). Not sure why they all came so early in the year. Maybe Takara was starting to make time for toys for The Last Knight towards the later half of 2016.
• Most of my purchases came from Titans Return, and they all came from the latter half of 2016. Not surprising. That is the active CHUG line currently, even as I write this in 2017. Though TR is winding down and Hasbro is starting to make room for Power of the Primes.
• The next most purchases for the year is from Combiner Wars. Again, not surprising. CW was winding down at the start of 2016, and I guess I bought the last waves early in the year.
• 7 RiD figs is more than I thought. As a whole I’m not too impressed with this line, so I’m surprised I bought that many. I guess I buy them when I don’t see anything else worth buying.
• The lone CP figure was bought in Shanghai. I should have bought the rest in that wave, which was an Optimus Prime, a Megatron, and two Bumblebees (a G1 version and a Movie version). I thought for sure they would make it to the States, but they didn’t. Oh well. Maybe I’ll find them online later.
• 8 3P figures is way less than last year. In 2015 I bought 15 3P figures. I wonder why there is a drop off. 3P offerings get better every year, so I actually expect to buy more every year. I need to take a closer look at what I bought for 2015 and 2016 and make some comparison. It’s possible that I spent about the same money in these 2 years, but each figure in 2016 is more expensive.

Now for some year over year stats. This first graph shows the number of purchases by month, from 2012 to 2016. Each color represents a different year.

Looking at the overall trend, 2016 follows the usual pattern within the year. There was a spike in February, like many of the previous years. A small spike in summer, which also follows the pattern. There was no spike in October of 2016.

The following two graphs are yearly totals from 2012 to 2016. In terms of both TFs purchased and money spent, 2016 represents all time lows. For me, that’s good. Although, it appears my blog stats are at all time lows as well in this period. Maybe there’s a correlation here. More on this next month.

It’s time for 2017! Transform and Roll Out.

This past 4th of July weekend, I traveled to Southern California, where I grew up. We made a stop in Pasadena for some good ramen. On the way out of Pasadena, I drove past the Pasadena Convention Center. This made me think of BotCon, and how much I miss it.

I’ve been to three BotCons: 2009, 2011, and 2014. All 3 was at the Pasadena Convention Center. Notice all these BotCons coincide with the movie years. I made a post about my BotCon experience for 2009 and 2011. I didn’t make a post for 2014. If I knew that was gonna be my last BotCon, I totally would have.

BotCon is the ultimate Transformers convention. There are several theories as to why it’s called BotCon. Some fans think it stands for Robot Convention, while others say the word is a mesh of Bot and Con, short for Autobots and Decepticons. Whatever the reason, I have thoroughly enjoyed every BotCon I went to. I’m from Southern California, and I have a home near Pasadena. This is why I only been to the Pasadena BotCons. Pasadena is also not far from Hollywood. Around a short 20 min drive when there’s no traffic (but anyone from SoCal can tell you that there’s always traffic). And this probably explains why all the movie years have BotCons in Pasadena; it makes sense for a city close to Hollywood to host the convention of a major Hollywood franchise.

And this brings me to the point of this post: I miss BotCon. This is another movie year (though I have yet to see TF5… not sure if I will see this in theaters or wait for home release… the reviews are not encouraging, but that’s a discussion for a different day). So if BotCon was still running, there would have been another BotCon in Pasadena this year. And of course I would be attending if there was.

I can only guess at why BotCon ceased to be. Here is one link documenting this sad turn of events. The article is real vague, though. My theory is Hasbro wants to directly control and monetize all conventions associated with their intellectual properties. They have come up with something called HasCon. But this convention deals with all Hasbro properties, and not devoted exclusively to Transformers.

BotCon will always be special for me. I remember the first time I entered the dealer room. I reverted back to being a 8 year old again, and got so psyched over all the robots in the room. The surprise visit by Tyrese during the 2009 con had me and all other TransFans freaking out like the fanboys we are. I can’t begin to count how many new and upcoming TF toys, both official and third party, I first saw at BotCon. Seeing customized TF figures by other hardcore fans was always a treat. And I love going to Pasadena. It is the perfect venue for BotCon. In my opinion, BotCon is just the right size too… big enough to have a decent number of fans to support all the activities, and not overly big like AX or SDCC where it’s too crowded and you spend most of your time waiting to do anything.

I will indeed miss BotCon. HasCon is in Rhode Island this year, close to Hasbro headquarters. I’ll check it out if it ever makes it to the west coast, but I have a feeling it won’t be the same. Of all the cons still running now, TFCon probably has the most resemblance to BotCon. I will try to make it to TFCon one day. But until that day… til all are one! Transform and Roll Out.

I mentioned in my last post that I just got back from vacation. I traveled to New Zealand and Australia, and those are awesome places to visit! Whenever I come back from a big trip, I start thinking of other big trips that I’ve taken in the past. This made me think of the time I went to Europe, in September of 2015. I made a brief mention about it back in this post.

For this Europe trip, first we hit up Munich. We were there for Oktoberfest, and other things. We spent a few days there before we took the train to Paris. The French capital is a beautiful place. On our last day there, we decided to visit the La Defense District of Paris, just to check out areas that weren’t so touristy. Once I got there, I realized there’s a Toys R Us! And of course I had to go in there and see if I can find any good TFs. In this post I will outline my TF hunting adventures in Paris, like I did for Shanghai.

La Defense

La Defense is the business and financial district of Paris. It is much like the Financial District (FiDi) of San Francisco. During the day you will see many people dressed in business attire walking about. La Defense is located northwest of the central Paris area, just a short subway ride away from Arc de Triomphe.

The distinguishing monument in La Defense is the Grande Arche. And because of that, La Defense is still a bit more touristy than we thought. Still, I’m glad I saw it. Here are some pics of the main area of La Defense.

Standing at La Defense, looking east, across the Historical Axis of Paris. In the distance you can see the Arc de Triomphe.

Similar view as the first pic, but looking more southeast.

Looking south, at the mall where the Toys R Us is.

La Grande Arche de la Défense.

Close up of La Grande Arche.

Right inside and underneath the La Grande Arche, looking up at its ceiling.

Going past La Grande Arche and looking further west.

Back to the main area and looking north.

Back to the main area and looking northeast.

The Mall
Toys R Us is inside this mall at the main area of La Defense, a short walk from La Grande Arche. I don’t know the name of the mall. Sometimes I marvel at how similar malls across the world looks to malls of United States. I guess American consumerism is infectious everywhere.

Right outside the entrance to the mall.

The mall food court.

Another random shot of the inside of this mall.

Toys R Us
The Paris Toys R Us does not look that different than any American Toys R Us. Even the writing in the store is mostly English, and not French. Unfortunately, I did not find any TFs that I couldn’t find before, so I didn’t buy anything. Nevertheless, I’m glad I went there to see the store.

The entrance.

Transformers section!

Some Age of Extinction and Combiner Wars figures.

Same shelf as above, lower angle.

Star Wars section!

More Star Wars figures.

Lego Yoda and Darth Vader!

Lego Eiffel Tower!

Paris was awesome. I want to go back!

Transform and Roll Out.

Today I’m going to share some of my recent eBay experiences. Specifically, I’m talking about buying from eBay sellers located in China. The title pretty much says it all. But if you’re curious and want to learn more details, read on.

I usually buy from respectable online TF retailers that specialize in Transformers and it’s third party variants. Most of them are based in the United States. Some based in Japan. If you’re reading this post, you know who they are and I don’t need to list them. Every once in a while, I find out about a good figure after it’s been all sold out at my usual online retailers. It is times like these that I turn to eBay.

I’ve been an eBay user since the late 90s. Sure, I recall several times when I had an issue buying. One time I didn’t receive a $10 video game that I won (FYI… this seller had excellent communication, and he swears he sent it… it was only $10 so I chalked it up to bad luck). And there was another time where the seller possibly shipped it to the wrong address (which I got a full refund from eBay). But out of the hundreds of times I bought items on eBay, those were the only 2 complications. Neither of them felt like scams, and more like honest mistakes. My hundreds of transactions include both US and international, including China. No issues whatsoever, other than the 2 I just listed. I have come to trust eBay as a reliable source. That is, until recently.

In Oct of 2016, I decided to get a knock off MP Starscream, I think from KBB. I heard that the official MP-11 Starscream is extremely poor in terms of build quality, and that a KBB knock off might actually be better. I found a eBay seller from China selling this buy-it-now for about $58. The seller has perfect 100% positive ratings, with about 200+ ratings. So I buy it. In a few days I received a tracking number. When I try to track it, the site says “waiting for the item to reach our warehouse”, or something to that effect. The site will state too that it’s a valid tracking number. About a month goes by, and the tracking is stuck in that state. Contacts with the seller went ignored. That’s when I contact eBay. And looking at the seller ratings at a month later, it is now filled with negatives for the month before. This seller is now banned from eBay. I got a full refund.

I figured that was just bad luck, so around Feb this year I tried again. This time I was looking for Unique Toys Buzzing/Runman (their homage to Blurr). It’s sold out on all my usual sites. And once again, I found a different eBay seller in China, asking buy-it-now for about $84. Again, this guy has all 100% positive ratings, with close to 200 ratings. I buy it and get a tracking number. This time, the tracking seemed legit (initially anyway). It tracked its location in China, and that it got onto a flight headed towards the US. After nearly 2 weeks, tracking shows that it arrived at an airport in the US. But that’s where things got stuck. 3 weeks go by, and it’s still the same status. And once again, contacts with the seller goes ignored. So I contact eBay and get my full refund. This seller is still active on eBay. Seller ID: wanli-chengke. eBay hasn’t banned him yet, but he’s racked up close to 40 negatives in the past month.

So this seems to be a trend. Buying from China on eBay used to be ok. eBay sellers in China dealing in TF products are not to be trusted today. This post is not a commentary against eBay, but sellers doing business on eBay in China. I won’t buy from them again until I see hard evidence that this trend is reversed. And I do think eBay could do more to police this.

In summary, I urge everyone to not use eBay to buy items based in China. These scams can only go on for so long before buyers wise up. Transform and Roll Out.

Here in the United States, we just had our Presidential Election of 2016. It was one WTF of a election. Donald Trump was elected President. Not in a million Cybertron eons would I have believed it if I didn’t witness this crazy outcome with my own eyes. Many are calling this the US version of Brexit.

Early Tue morning on Election Day, the Donald was only projected to get 212 Electoral Votes, well short of the 270 necessary to become President. Around 5pm Pacific time the tally started. Trump started slow and behind, like predicted. But as the night went on, the counts for the Donald slowly went up, like the water level steadily going up in a clogged toilet. And around midnight, that water would flow over the bowl, and the floor that is America would be drenched in all the poop outcome of this wacky historic election. The whole thing unfolded like a reality show. And speaking of reality shows, this is not the first time on this blog that I wrote about Trump. Back in this post, I mentioned that I don’t think Trump is in the business of war, but he might look into it. Well, he has to now. It will be interesting to see how our Commander in Chief deals with the Middle East. Sometimes I think I’m scarily prophetic.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m a fan of Hilary. I don’t like either candidates, so I voted third party (because I love third party Transformers.. j/k). It really feels like this election is about who you hate less, and America has clearly indicated that we hate Hilary. Myself included.

So what is the point of this post? Nothing really. I think I’m still in shock at the outcome, so blogging about it seems like a good distraction. I would not be happy if Hilary had won, but at least that would be normal. Sometimes you keep doing the same things even though it makes you miserable, but you keep doing it because you’re familiar with it, you’re used to that misery, and you know how to deal with it. That’s what it would be like if Hilary was elected. Trump in charge turns everything upside down, in the same manner that he won this election. He might turn out to be a crappy President, but he has already transformed the US political landscape. His election forces us to deal with change. In a way, that’s a good thing. Optimus Prime would not want us to live continuously in a comfort zone. He would want us to transform for the better. He knows we have the potential. “Like us, there’s more to them than meets the eye.” — Optimus Prime

But just for kicks, let’s imagine if Trump ran against Optimus Prime. The great Autobot Leader would win in a landslide. It wouldn’t even be close. Here’s how Optimus would deal with the issues of our day.

Healthcare
Appoint Ratchet Chief Medical Officer. Use all that Cybertron technology to research cures to common human illnesses. Cures would be cheap and effective. Even those near death can still be saved (like how Starscream saved Dr. Arkeville by turning him into a cyborg).

Clean Energy
Convert all of Earth’s resources to energon, the most advanced form of energy. Have Grapple build Solar Energy towers all over the Earth. Clean and cheap.

Education
The great minds of Cybertron would have much to teach the humans. There are no better instructors anywhere.

Travel and Commute
Build Space Bridges and Land Bridges all over the Earth.

Overpopulation
We have seen Spike visit Cybertron without wearing any kind of space suit. So apparently Cybertron can sustain human life. Humans can go live there.

National Security
Seriously, would anyone mess with the US if Autobots are in charge?

I can go on and on, but those are just some bullet points. Yes, we need Optimus Prime for President. I’ve seen those T-shirts around.

But for now, we gotta live with Trump. It’s strange, but life goes on. Onward and upward, which is the same thing as… Transform and Roll Out!

As promised in a earlier post, I am compiling some stats on my TF purchase and spending habits. But before that, let’s take a look at how 2015 breaks down.

A total of 77 figures were purchased in 2015. This is by far the lowest total since I started tracking my TF acquisitions in 2012. The figures in 2015 break down as follows:

• 2 figures from Age of Extinction
• 4 Masterpiece figures
• 3 figures from Generation Thrilling 30, which ended either late 2014 or early 2015
• 47 Combiner Wars figures (yikes!)
• 5 figs from Robots in Disguise
• 1 Generations fig
• 15 Third Party figures

These numbers are pretty much what I expected. 77 total figs for 2015 is good. I have way too many TFs already, so it’s a good thing to be more selective about what I buy. This number is trending in the right direction, and it comes to about 6.5 figs a month, or about 1.5 figs every week. As for the individual categories, it’s no surprise that Combiner Wars accounted for more than 50% of all purchases. CW was the main thing going in 2015 for hardcore collectors. As a whole I think CW is ok, but could have been better. I probably bought up everything that was put out as CW, and in retrospect some of those I probably should have left on the shelf. Age of Extinction and Generation Thrilling 30 were already on its last legs by the time 2015 rolled around, so the low count here is completely expected. 4 Masterpiece figs seems about on par with all the other years. Robots in Disguise was the major mainstream TF line for 2015. Personally I’m not terribly impressed with this line, which accounts for the modest 5 figs. The 1 fig from Generations was that rare and weird find of Scourage.

As for Third Party items, 15 also feels about on par with how much I buy every year. But since my total purchase count went down, Third Party items now account for a bigger percentage. As a whole, Third Party items are getting better every year. Multiple companies will often now do the same character in the same time frame. Choosy collectors like me have lots of pick from.

OK, now let’s take a look at how things shake out from year to year. Gathering all the stats I have from 2012 to 2015, below is a plot of how many TFs I buy from month to month, in this 4 year span.

The vertical axis is number of TFs bought in the month, while the horizontal axis is the month. Years are coded by color. The obvious thing that sticks out here is that October seems to have the most action. With the exception of 2013, all other years in this period have Oct as a TF heavy month. I have mentioned that several times on this blog already. And looking at the plot as a whole, most purchases seems to be centered around 2 periods, one at Oct-Nov, and the other at Feb-Mar. Oct-Nov I can understand, since it’s right before Christmas. Not sure why there is an increase in activity around Feb-Mar. Also of note are years where there is a TF movie. In this period, 2014 was the only year with a movie (Age of Extinction). So I guess it’s no surprise that 2014 behaved differently from all the other years. Only 2014 had a sharp peak in the summer months, which is probably all the movie toys.

I’m not sure what other conclusions I can draw from this plot. Maybe it will help me in budgeting. But I usually just buy something when I see it, so perhaps not. Ironically enough, the TF heavy months are also when those of us that live in the United States pay property tax (in California anyway). For you foreign readers out there, property tax in the US is super steep. Not a good time to be releasing non-essentials in these months. But it appears I’m still very active in my TF shopping during property tax time, so perhaps this has no impact on the TF community whatsoever.

Now let’s look at some trends from year to year. Below are two bar graphs that summarize my purchase counts and spending totals from 2012 to 2015.

Again, 2014 seems to be the oddball year in this 4 year period. I guess having a movie in the year really makes that much of a difference. 2014 was the only year where I spend more than $3000 total on TFs. The obvious thing to point at is AoE. But I didn’t like the AoE toys that much, so I would be surprised if the all extra spending really went there. I’m gonna have to look at my detailed stats for 2014. Other than that, the overall trend is I’m buying less TFs. Again, that’s a good thing. I got too many. Which reminds me I really need to start selling off some of these figures.

I will start cataloging my 2016 purchases from this point forward. A bit late since 2016 is almost over, but better late than never. Hopefully soon I catch up to where I am currently, and I can have my purchase posts at the end of every month for that month like I used to.

Transform and Roll Out.

Another year has gone by. I totally forgot about the anniversary for this blog until WordPress reminded me. The stats appear below.

Stats wise, this has been a lackluster year at only about 55,000 hits. Last year I vowed to do better, and I didn’t exactly meet that goal. I will say though that we are kind of in a drought as far as overall TF interest. When you go into the toy aisle these days, other franchises such as Marvel and Star Wars totally dominate the store space. There are times that I have to look long and hard at where the TFs are. So this does account for some of the low traffic this past year. But I’m not making excuses. I have not been making enough time for this blog.

I won’t let this die though. I did get a new job recently, and hopefully I will be able to make more time for TF Matrix with this new job.

Next year is a movie year. As much as I hate another Michael Bay crapfest, I will say that it does do favors for my blog 🙂 That alone should increase traffic, but I promise to make more time to writing.

Transform and Roll Out!