BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02795 I was online today and saw that Target was selling an Optimus Prime popcorn bucket shaped like his head. I checked the Target app for my local store and they had two in stock so I bought one. The think has light up eyes! While I may probably never use it for popcorn, or I may use it every year when I watch Transformers The Movie, who knows.

Photo-A-Day #02794 After work I went over to The Laughing Shield Comic Book Store to get my weekly comics. That is what I end up doing with my cash tip money each week, getting my comics. Luckily I either collect very few comics or my tips have been good because I can usually cover it. I also bring the owner a few pretzels when I go there after work.  At work today we had a new guy training. He is a former funeral director who is on disability and can only work 20 hours. We are hoping that he can help do the baking on the weekends.We also had our student from the high school who is part of an outreach program. He's an interesting one. He's autistic and the program is so that the student can work someplace and get evaluated on their readiness to be working on their own. Our last kid was super quiet and took forever to do anything. This new one is not quiet and has some issues with regulating their voice and activity. It has been an adventure. The major thing in the comics today ...

Photo-A-Day #02792 I found an artist online who has created a bunch of Transformers designs including this one of Wheeljack. I think I'm going to wear this when I go to see Transformers The Movie in a few weeks. The movie is being rereleased in theaters and even though Optimus Prime dies in the movie and that is going to be extra sad this year because Peter Cullen passed away this year we cannot forget that many Autobots also died in this movie including Wheeljack.

Photo-A-Day #02781 Forty years ago a toy company broke the hearts of a generation of kids when they killed off a beloved character in a major movie just to clear up shelf space for a new cast of characters. The movie was The Transformers: The Movie. In it the leader of the heroic Autobots, Optimus Prime, is killed and as he dies he hands the mantle off to the new generation of Autobots. It was crushing to me and many others. Forty years later and Hasbro has been having an "Apology Tour" for traumatizing us kids. They are re-releasing the movie into theaters in the next two weeks with all new footage. There was a special concert by bands from the cartoons of Transformers, G.I. JOE and Jem and the Holograms at San Diego Comicon.  But before the release of the movie the universe decides to kick us Gen Xers one more time with the death of actor Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime for the past forty years.  This has been a week of big deaths including Dolly Parton and Tim Cur...

Photo-A-Day #02780 I was at McDonald's before work and I had parked my car and when I came back out there was a white care parked right next to mine and it had a Decepticon sticker on the front and one on the window. I had to laugh because of my Autobot stickers and other items. I sat in the car reading my comics and waited for the driver of the Decepticon car to come back. When he did he looked about my age, wearing a Top Gun t-shirt and I shouted over, "I had to wait to see the Decepticon driver." He looked over and then realized that I had Autobot stickers on my car and laughed. Today at work we got a new kid that comes in twice a week. My boss and his wife signed up for a program where a local high school student who has special needs comes and works in the store to get some experience while they are evaluated to see if they are able to handle working in a real world scenario. Our last kid had zero personality and needed guidance for everything they did. Nice enough k...

Photo-A-Day #02768 Finally Wheeljack is getting his own story. They've got Wheeljack by himself rebuilding what will ultimately be Autobot City in Chicago in the current storyline. He's holed up by himself in this big location. Or is someone or other someone's there with him. He's known as the mad scientist of the Autobots and in this issue he meets a real mad scientist, Dr. Henri Arkaville, a future villain who has it out for the Transformers. Wheeljack is called in to help save the life of new Autobot, Shredhead in this issue as well. A lot of story was in this issue.

Photo-A-Day #02755 Today I wore my Transformers shirt from Battlesea that Allison and Eva got me when they went to London. Yesterday, it was announced that a figure for Battleplex was going to be made. Battleplex is the character that is the actual Battlesea Station Transformer that was created as the mascot for the Transformers store at Battlesea Station. Anyway I was in Stop & Shop and the cashier was a young girl and she complimented the shirt. Then proceeded to tell me about all the G1 figures she got from her dad. She was so excited about them. It was very cute to hear about her collection and love for Transformers. Then I walked to my car and a woman saw me and came over to my car to look at the Transformers that I have in the rear window. She asked if I had painted the figures because her boyfriend paints figures. Both interactions were within minutes of each other. Strange night.

Photo-A-Day #02725 To celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Skybound's Energon Universe a series of interconnecting covers were commissioned to be done by the artist Tom Reilly. I couldn't get them at my store so I turned to eBay and got them for a great deal. The whole set was $14 plus shipping. Each book is between $5 & $6 so that worked out well in my favor. There is also a black and white variant of these books but I stuck with the color one. The art is really well done.

Photo-A-Day #02671 I have a new item on my car, it is a solar powered Autobot symbol. I put it on my gas tank door. It lights up at night and goes from red to green and other colors. 

Photo-A-Day #02657 I made a random Temu purchase of an Omega Supreme figure. It is a third party figure and so it came with a different name other than Omega Supreme. It was called Miracle God Robot. I did not try to transform it I'd rather keep it in robot mode for display. It isn't huge but it is decent sized.

Photo-A-Day #02645 They really do an amazing job photographing items on Temu. I thought I was getting a much bigger Optimus Prime in toxic colors. It is super tiny but really well detailed. It does come with some attachments like additional hands for posing and also the energon axe from the first episode of the show. I have not transformerd it yet but it is a bit loose. For now it is just in there for display.

Photo-A-Day #02605 When Allison and Eva returned from London Eva had brought back some itty Pops of Transformers for me. However the mystery figure in this set was a Lite Brite and not Soundwave of The Transformers. There were other Mystery sets and I found a low priced G.I.JOE set. I figured that I would give it a shot and maybe get Soundwave. No, I actually got the real G.I.JOE mystery figure, Dr. Mindbender. So now I have a whole set of G.I.JOE but I am still missing the bitty Soundwave figure. I have a feeling that this is going to rabbit hole very soon. In other news tonight we had our first dress rehearsal in front of people. A handful of The Masons came down and watched the show. This is our last rehearsal before opening night on Friday. I had most of my lines down so I'm feeling pretty good on it.

Photo-A-Day #02599 When Allison and Eva went tot he Transformers Store in London they picked up a Funko Bitty Pop! Retro Toys set of Transformers. The way that Funko did these sets was that they had 4 different Bitty Pop! Retro Toys sets, each with a different Hasbro Retro Toys Theme. There was Transformers, G.I. Joe, Mr. Potato Head and Board Games like Monopoly and Operation. However, in these sets of four figures there was one figure that was a mystery figure. The mystery figure may or may not match the overall theme of the set. Int his case it does not match because I got Lite Brite with my Transformers. I didn't have the heart to tell Eva that I already had this set on my wall of Transformers. She was so happy to have found something fun for me in London that was Transformers themed. And they are very cool. I opened this one because I have an unopened one on my wall. I didn't know about how they worked the "mystery figure". So now I am on the lookout for Soundwav...

Photo-A-Day #02594 Allison and Eva went to London ... and all I got was a sweet Transformers t-shirt, and more. While in London, Allison, Eva and Mimi went to Battlesea Station, a converted Power station that is now an indoor mall. Inside is a store that is 100% dedicated to Transformers. I had seen it on Tik Tok and joked that if they saw it they need to go. I wanted a pin from the place but they came home with two pins, some mini Transformers Funko characters and a keychain and a t-shirt of Optimus Prime with the Battlesea Station. Inside the building they have a large mural that tells the story of Battlesea Station actually being a Transformer. I thought that was cool for lore of the place. It makes sense to have a London store dedicated to Transformers. One of our greatest Transformers writers Simon Furman wrote the UK version of the Transformers comic books for years and then over to the US for many more.

Photo-A-Day #02582 I finished reading my first Comic Book box. This second box includes the next iteration of Transformers comics. These are the ones that were done by Dreamwave. The problem with these was that Dreamwave went bankrupt during the middle of the runs of many of their books. That means that a set of Transformers vs. G.I. Joe comics did not get completed. They only produced book #1. And a bunch more books were never done. The comics were good and the designs were great to see. 

Photo-A-Day #02573 I've been playing a solo D&D RPG this year with a daily calendar. I learned about this Transformers deck building card game and I picked it up. It has a solo mode and a multiplayer mode as well. There are many expansion packs. I'll see how the game is before I look into expanding.  Speaking of Transformers I finished reading my first box of comics today. I finished with Regeneration One Issue #100. I'll go put that box back on the rack and bring up Box #2 tomorrow. More Transformers. I think I have 6 or 7 that are just Transformers  related. The kids finished watching The Lord of the Rings tonight. I came down when they were making popcorn and about to start disc #2. I could hear them from downstairs and they both exclaimed "2 Hours!" These were long movies.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02570 I've been making great progress in rereading my comics and also reading some I've collected and yet never read before. One series I had never read was Regeneration One which continued the original Transformers run of comics from the 80's some 20 years later. But, since I had never actually read the whole original run I didn't want to read these until I had completed that. So, now I am there and ready to read these books.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #025689 With a major snow day yesterday and a second snow day for Andy today plus a 2 hour delay for both Allison and Eva we had more time at home. Yesterday Andy made some chocolate/coconut cookies and Eva made chocolate chip cookies. Today Andy made everything but the kitchen sink cookies with M&Ms, pretzels and potato chips. Needless to say It has been a challenge to stick to the Virta diet that I am on. I had a few of these cookies. Each was good but my favorite are the coconut ones. Andy did a great job on them. Although next time we figure that they leave out the chocolate chips and dip the cookies into melted chocolate instead. I continue to work on reading my comic book collection.Today I completed the 12 issue series of Transformers Generation 2. Good story, not the best but I was so excited in 1993 when Transformers came back to comic books. I don't think I'll ever tire of reading these stories.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02564 I purchased these 8 comic books from 616 comics. They are special covered done by two different artists. The ones on the left are by Tiago Da Silva. I have all of his other Transformers split view comics where one side is of a pristine robot and the other is battle scarred. I did not know that he had done Soundwave and Jazz until recently. So when I got some Christmas money I decided to get these comics. The ones on the right side are by Bjorn Barends. They depict Optimus Prime facing off against Megatron. The Megatron one is the perfect comic book for him because in it Megatron returns in a huge way.  I recently reread and read for the first time all 80 comics from the original Transformers comic book run from Marvel. I never had all of them until last year. Now I have them and also a compendium of all of them plus the UK versions of the comic and some short stories and more. There is a lot in the compendium. I've been trying to reread my entire Transformers...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02563 Today I received a new Transformers figure called Road Rage. He is an Autobot that is the same style as Tracks. Tracks is the blue Corvette and that was the original one that I've had since the 80's. Road rage is a great looking figure, too. It arrived in robot mode and I was able to transform it down to a car so that he could slip in with the rest of the Autobot cars.