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TF Matrix Six Year Anniversary

October 11th, 2015 Comments off

I can’t believe another year has gone by! It has been six years since I started this blog.

I only got about 75,000 hits since the last anniversary, which is rather disappointing. I have been consistently getting more hits every year since the creation of this blog. This is the first year that the hits dipped when compared to the previous year. It’s no surprise I guess, I have been ignoring the blog for long stretches at a time.

There is just too much in my life to keep this going consistently. My day job is becoming more demanding, and I’m also getting married. Too many other obligations taking time away from my beloved Transformers.

But I won’t shut this down! I will make time to write again. Transformers mean way too much to me.

I vow to have more than 75,000 hits for next year! Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Uncategorized

Transformers Age of Extinction in Shanghai

November 15th, 2014 Comments off

This past summer, me and the GF took a trip to Asia. First we went to Japan. We hit several cities while in Japan, including Tokyo, Koyto, Nara, and Kobe. Then we went to Shanghai, China (where the GF is from). After that I went to Taipei, Taiwan by myself (where I’m from). The entire trip was a little over 2 weeks. I had the time of my life! This was the best trip I have taken in quite some time.

While we were in Shanghai, the GF had to show me Jing’an Temple. Actually, we stayed pretty close to the Temple, within walking distance. Jing’an Temple is right in the heart of the city, and it is a must visit if you are in Shanghai.

I was there around June 1st, and wouldn’t you know it, they were doing a Transformers Age of Extinction promotion right next to the Temple! They had a booth set up right beside the Temple. It’s like they knew I was coming! Look at the first pic below and you will see the booth, and parts of the Temple right behind it. In the booth were many TF figures, not limited to AoE toys. I was seeing many of the AoE figs for the first time. Prices weren’t that good though. TFs in Asia are typically double the cost, and this particular location is a total tourist trap. So I didn’t buy anything til I got back to the States. But seeing the AoE booth with a large Grimlock display was still quite cool. Check out pics below.

After seeing Age of Extinction, it becomes obvious why promotion in China is absolutely necessary. I won’t explain it. See TF4 for yourself. And after seeing the movie, check out this Honest Trailer for TF4.

Shanghai is so cool! Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Pics, Uncategorized

Cybertronian Halloween 2014

October 31st, 2014 Comments off

It is that time again my friends! Halloween is upon us. Do Tranformers celebrate Halloween? Probably not, since they can transcan and transform, it’s like everyday is Halloween.

Here is another pic where I take my orange plush pumpkin with some orange Transformers.

Click here for the 2012 version. Scroll to the bottom for the pic.

Honestly, there just ain’t that many orange TFs. I tried to find some other than ones I already used in 2012. What you see in the pic is all I can come up with: Generations Scoop, Generations Sandstorm, G1 Wideload, and Prime Voyager Predaking. Some of these are even questionable as orange. Sandstorm is actually mostly yellow, but with enough orange bits. Predaking is probably about half orange and half black.

And of course I gotta mention that the San Francisco Giants is once again world champs! The Angry Bird plush with the Giants cap is to help celebrate that fact. In the last 5 years, Giants win the whole thing every time on the even number years. So are they gonna be champs again in 2016? And it’s always so fitting they win it around Halloween. The Orange and Black is oh so fitting!

Happy Halloween! Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Pics, Uncategorized

TF Matrix Five Year Anniversary

October 9th, 2014 Comments off

Here we are again! Five years ago this day, I started this blog. On the last anniversary post, I mentioned some “tentative future plans”. What I was referring to was moving off of WordPress and into a self-hosted blog. If you are looking at this now, then you see the fruit of that effort. The transition took longer than I thought it would, but better late than never.

I registered the domain in January 2014, but did not cut over the content til July. The stats appear below. The first pic is total hits up til the conversion, and the 2nd pic shows the hits on TF Matrix since.


The big spike in hits in June 2014 is due to Age of Extinction. Adding up the hits in July from the 2 graphs, the number is pretty close to June’s. As always, anytime a Michael Bay movie is out in the theaters, this blog soars in activity. It does appear that after the transfer to the self-hosted blog, the hits are going down. I think this is just things returning to normal, after the movie.

Total hits of this blog is 407,722. As of the 4 year anniversary, total hits were 283,018. That means in a year’s time, my blog got about 120,000 hits. Not bad. Traffic seems to be increasing every year, which is always a good sign.

As long as there are fans reading, I will keep blogging. TFs will never go extinct! The evolution continues… and fans will forever heed this call… Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Uncategorized

New Look! New Name! Roll Out!

August 3rd, 2014 Comments off

Welcome to the Transformation of this blog! After about a seven month hiatus, I’m back! You are looking at the first post of TFMatrix.com.

I had been blogging on WordPress.com for over 4 years, which was great. But it was time I moved off their site and went to my own self hosted blog. So in January of 2014, I registered for a new domain. I meant to transfer the old content here as soon as I could, but of course life gets in the way. Many things delayed the launch of TF Matrix, including work, going on vacation (multiple times), getting sick (multiple times), researching just exactly how to transfer content off of WordPress.com, and other personal obligations. Before you knew it, half the year has passed. I did not mean to be away from blogging for so long.

But now I’m back and better than ever! In my last post I said I have “big changes planned for this blog in early 2014,” and you are looking at it. It took longer than I thought it would, but better late than never. Moving forward, I have even more planned for TF Matrix. As a lifelong TransFan, I promise to keep the Spark alive for eons to come.

Coincidentally, this is the 200th post of this blog. I’m glad this milestone celebrates the launching of TF Matrix. Transformers are constantly changing and evolving like their namesake, so it’s only fair that my blog emulates this behavior. Look for more great TF content in the future. Long live Transformers! Now and forever… Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Uncategorized

Transformers Roll Out Four Year Anniversary

October 9th, 2013 2 comments

Happy Birthday to this blog! It is that time again, when I reflect back on what happened in the world of Transformers since the previous year. I can’t believe it has been 4 years already since I started this blog. A lot has happened since then. Transformers are always evolving and transforming like their namesake, and I’m glad to be along for the ride.

This blog managed to get over 100,000 hits in the past year. I think that’s pretty good, considering I do no advertising or marketing campaigns whatsoever. The huge spike in July of 2011 is because of the last TF movie, Dark of the Moon. The next movie will be summer of 2014. So can I expect another spike in hits? Only time will tell.

I do have some tentative future plans for this blog. Among them is to move it off WordPress, and host it on my own domain. I’ve been meaning to do that for some time now, but just can’t find the time. I think I’ll make that a goal for year 5.

Anyway, I’m happy to still be blogging. Long live Transformers. Now and forever… Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Uncategorized

Transformers Roll Out Three Year Anniversary

October 10th, 2012 5 comments

Well here we are again! Another year of happy blogging has gone by. To me it certainly seemed like much less than a full year since the 2 year anniversary. I think when you get older, time just seems to go by much faster. When I was a kid, a whole year feels like forever. Now it passes in the blink of an eye, or maybe I should say the refresh of an optic sensor.

As I look back on the past year, I see various trends developing in the world of TF. Some good, some not so good:

  • Third party items seem to have caught on like wildfire. I think we saw more of this in the last year than any previous years. I can’t even keep track of them anymore!
  • Prices of all items skyrocketed. Even adjusting for inflation, prices have soared. Using official Hasbro Deluxe class figures as a benchmark, in the 2000s they were around $10 a fig. Now in 2012 they average about $15. A 50% price increase seems like a lot to me in such a short span. And I won’t even go into third party products.
  • 2012 was a non-Movie year. Toys are not produced in major quantities, like DOTM, which perhaps explain why they cost more.
  • Release through store exclusives seem to be on the rise. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer limited release over no release at all. But it’s kind of a problem when you have to be vigilant about every exclusive release, or risk them running out and you have to pay some scalper a markup to get them.
  • Hasbro are still releasing too many Bumblebees! The latest batch of TF Prime deluxes all come with a DVD. And I see deluxe Bumblebees in the DVD packaging, meaning they were just made. C’mon Hasbro, STOP THE BUMBLEBEES PLEASE!!!

As far as the blog stats go, I’m pretty happy on where it’s at. I have nearly 100,000 hits in the past year. Pretty modest by today’s standards, but not too shabby for a personal blog. The huge spike in July 2011 is from the release of Dark of the Moon. But after that, there appears to be a sustained momentum. Most of my visits come directly from Google. Sometimes I wish I knew how their search algorithm works (me along with everyone else).

It is amazing that the Transformers brand is still going strong after 28 years. Very few other toy lines can say the same. I was away from it for 16 years (1988 to 2004), but I’m happy I’m back. Will TFs ever stop? Will I have another hiatus? Your guess is as good as mine. I am proud to be a TransFan, and I will keep this blog going for as long as TFs are part of my life. Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Uncategorized

500 Transformers. OMG.

June 9th, 2012 4 comments

I knew this day was coming. One purchase here, another one there, and before you knew it, I have amassed an army of 500 Transformers.

As of 8/13/2010, the TF count was 300. Almost 22 months later, I bought 200 more TFs. Doing the math and rounding down, that’s about 9 figures a month in this time span. That also translates to about 2 figures a week, or roughly 105 figures for a year.

9 TFs a month in about the last 2 years is definitely more than 4 a month in the 6+ years prior to that. What exactly accounted for this increase? I’m trying to draw some conclusions by looking at my TF List. It’s too bad I didn’t keep records of the dates of my purchases until this year, but I can still determine approximately what were the figures bought since August of 2010. There were about 43 DOTM figures, 23 TF Prime figures, 16 PCCs, 34 Reveal the Shields, and 31 Generations. All these I’m pretty certain came at or after Aug 2010. That brings the total to almost 150. Add in some misc purchases here and there, such as Star Wars and Marvel crossovers, the later figures from ROTF, some newer MPs, and 3rd party products, it’s easy to see how that brings the total to 200.

So what does this all mean? Well for one thing, it means that Hasbro released a freakin’ boatload of Transformers in this time span. The 3rd Transformers movie probably has something to do with that. And it also means I decided to buy many of the figures released. But looking back, I can’t think of that many TFs that I regret buying during this stretch. Sure there are some figures here and there that I wish I can return to the store, like some PCCs and some Star Wars stuff. But for the most part, I’m glad I bought most of these 200. In the last 22 months, it was rare for me to be sorely disappointed with a purchase. The logical conclusion to draw here is that the quality of the figures have really gone up.

Another big reason for all these TFs is I started hunting for them at discount stores (eg. Ross, Marshalls, TJMaxx, etc). Generally speaking, deluxes are usually $6 or $7 at these places, while Voyagers typically run for $10. Scouts or smaller are at $5 or less. At these prices, I don’t even blink and just grab the figure to checkout whenever I see something I want. And I found just about everything that was in mass retail at the discount stores, like the Movie figures, PCCs, Generations, the Crossovers, and Reveal the Shields (RtS). In fact, for RtS, very often I only found them at discount stores. At such low prices, I bought multiples of many figures, mostly from the CHUG-verse. Movie figures are generally very affordable regardless of where you buy them. However, with some TFs, there’s no getting around paying full MSRP. This is the case with TF Prime figures, the MPs, and of course the 3rd party products.

Still, 500 TFs is a lot. So this year I’m making an effort to not buy as many. As a rule, I stopped buying multiples (unless there’s a good reason, like for example the Vehicons, which sadly I still haven’t found any as of this writing). However, there are some good stuff on the horizon, such as the upcoming FOC figures, more TF Prime toys, and some Asia only exclusives. Keeping that count from growing will be difficult.

In the comments for the 300 post, Gemini said it won’t be long before I have 400, and danbugman said 300 won’t be nearly enough. Oh how right they were. 500 and growing… Long Live TFs! Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Uncategorized

Transformers Roll Out Two Year Anniversary

October 12th, 2011 3 comments

This post is 3 days overdue, but 10/9/2011 was the two year anniversary of this blog. This was on my radar in the month prior to the date. But as we have all experienced, life happens, stuff gets in the way, and before you know it, the anniversary has come and gone. I’m having a little off-time here at work today, and all of a sudden it hits me, “My Blog is 2 years old!”

As I sit here analyzing the stats, I’m happily content with how the blog has performed in the 2nd year. Total hits for year 1 were around 10,000. In year 2 it climbed to almost 80,000, indicating close to 70,000 hits for the year alone. 700% growth is not too shabby in my opinion, though admittedly the bar wasn’t set too high to begin with. Still, I’m in awe at the fact that there are people out there as interested in Transformers as I am, this helps me keep the blog going.

As you can clearly see, there is a huge spike in July 2011. Obviously it had to do with the release of Dark of the Moon.

For those that are interested, here is the one year anniversary post. And here is the very first post.

Here’s to many more years of blogging about Transformers! Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Uncategorized

Transformers Roll Out One Year Anniversary

October 9th, 2010 1 comment

Today is the one year anniversary of Transformers Roll Out. This has been a great experience so far. I want to thank everyone who has been visiting the blog, reading, sharing my posts, leaving comments, and just discussing anything and everything Transformers related.

As the graph outlines, more people have been visiting in recent months. I am pleased that there are people that care about Transformers as much as I do, and this inspires me to keep this blog running.

And for those that are interested, here is the very first post, exactly one year ago.

Here’s to many more years of blogging about Transformers! Transform and Roll Out!

Categories: Uncategorized