Take a Trans on me ...

...

Safely say; if a pattern existed to my blog updates y' couldn't go wrong associating it with;

a) an unexpected day off work
b) a bottle of Corona
c) my spine being shaped like a pretzel while I frustratingly try (& fail) to fix a bathroom door.

<insert profane Popeye language here>

Profanity which also applies to Death.

Cos lots o' today's free time gets spent trying to weasel my way into the cosmic HR department and summon Death to my office. Work itinerary OVERHAUL, Death!
Couldn't help noticing you took Prince Nelson out of the schedule - 2 days after my birthday I might add.

No high profile political psychos or comfortably content war criminals taking priority there?

But enough, uh? ... Death at the very least swiped Lem Kils away in 2015 with the kinda' deft suddenness and audacity any MoHead speedfreak fan could appreciate.

WARNING: I am about to spiral down into the Mr. Poopy Butthole world that is a vintage Hasbro board game.
But first; cheap crap that shouldn't even exist in the west -

How about "Wild Animal" playset?
A perfectly reasonable premise.  

 

They want a mere $7.603 dollars for this. Which, while very specific on the decimals, shouldn't break any discerning parents bank balance.

And although you tell me; 

"The Colors of Animals Can Let Your Children Happy Growth"

"Many Color A Lot"

and "Selected Freely By You",

I'm not sure this explains why your Chap Mei bootleg veterinarian looks like Cousin It with a stethoscope.

And while you're right, Many Color a Lot, including Dark Horse's Dave Stewart.

Please don't talk about a child's Happy Growth. It might be embarrassing and potentially malignant. 

 

I know a handful of words in a variety of languages. Wrestling Lutters doesn't ring any bells.

If I didn't already have a day-job I'd investigate setting up an anti-Engrish crack division.

Here's your faithful Wiktionary:

Danish

Noun

lutters c

1. genitive plural indefinite of lut

This is not the Prime Sith Lord you are looking for.

But he earns cuteness points for a guy what force strangled his pregnant wife to death.
Maybe he wears white on their anniversary.

Infinitely more important? - HERO STAR SOLDIER

If I worked for LEGO, and resided in New Zealand, I'd be inclined to trot out of my office, into the nearest $2 Dollar Shop and just start punching.
Every Brick n' Mortar retail store closing it's doors in this country (and that is MANY) seems to get replaced by a $2 Dollar Shop. Selling unforgivably inferior shite - deemed equal parts dangerous/shit/toxic and shamelessly infringing on copyright.

"The Best Welcome Gifts For The Children".
Well, where the hell have your children been? And is this really how you welcome them back?
With plastic madness worth $3.  26?

Only appropriate for children of 3+ SGES. Because, hey! The age safety rating. Least important area to employ your spell-check.

HERO STAR SOLDIER also employs 'FORCE STAND' like a guy at a Pantera concert. Or an amateur Jedi trying it on at nightclub.

And tells us 'OUR DOLLS MARMLY WELCOME SOON'.

So very Marmly.

SOON. Not just yet.

Actually, almost forgot, having just checked my phone camera -

FUN TELEPHONE, VIVID AND GREAT IN STYLE:

Fun Telephone - they're not even fucking trying anymore.
Although it does have the best suggestion of a cheap-store figure yet - TRY ME GO HOME.

GO HOME should probably be the name for every $2 Dollar Shop on Earth. If you're wandering the wastelands, and somehow succumb to this cornucopia shelf of solidified nut-crust, the Apocalypse has already won.

Take a Trans on me ...

HASBRO. There's a word that sits in stark contrast to all the aforementioned horrors.

Specifically - Hasbro's TRANSFORMERS Warrior Robot Game (Milton Bradley 1985)

Yay! Hear the kids squeal in delight! It has Bombshell on the cover. I love that guy. I see he's still available on toy shelves these days, but at $25.00, think I'll just stick with my G1 version for now.

There's ya rules. But given what passes for image enlargement on Blogger, good luck readin' that. Never mind, I'll hold your hand all the way from Cybertron.

The players:

Those are no longer feet - rather, the best damn car spoilers you've ever seen!

Look, I know what yore gonna' say - "that's just Snakes and Ladders" (or Chutes and Ladders).
But hold your tongue! No such thing.
It's not "just Snakes and Ladders" at all. It's "Decepticon Snakes & Autobot Ladders" see.
(with an outside circuit to complete, 8 crammed playing pieces, and some dice roll delegation)

Okay. It's Snakes and Ladders.

The idea is to get yer two play pieces from the start point on the outside circuit to the 80th space inside the board. Also known as the POWERHOUSE. Because the Autobots really need to get to a book launch or painting exhibition or something.

But it ain't so easy as hitching a ride to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Things start nice.

First off you gotta' zip your 2 cars around 36 outer circuit play spaces.
This is pretty sweet. You just head clockwise, rolling 2 dice, you can split the numbers as shown on each die between cars or move one car the combined total. Your entry point to the 'inner track' is located directly behind your start space.

Feeling clever?

Feeling Good. Because there's 8 spaces which, when landed upon, allow a die to be rolled and any car of your choice to be moved back that amount of spaces. Given the roll combinations and car selection it isn't hard to get your token back behind the start margin in order to proceed to the inner track.

It saves you grinding gears for 36 spaces.

Let's also forgive the rules stating throw 'one dice'. No one cared about the plural of 'die' in the eighties.

Alright. Fun's over. Time to spill your Coke and chippies in a temper tantrum. The above shows the red car's space which leads to the inner track. Arrow pointing at space 9.
Not to be taken literally ... otherwise ...

... yellow gets a somewhat gargantuan unfair advantage. Yellow's arrow points directly to the 80th space. AKA the POWERHOUSE. AKA GAME OVER. 

"Hey, kids, who wants to play Transformers?
"Okay, who wants to be yellow?
"No, Timmy, we've decided to let Fat Mark be yellow, because he already has an ice cream in each hand and a personal chauffeur waiting outside. Sorry."

... something, something Allen Gregory.

Practically everyone out there seems to believe that you enter the inner track precisely where the arrow directs, making for interesting off-balance gameplay amongst players.

I'm not buying. It isn't specifically stated in the rule list, so I fear it's just the mistake of 'Geek Taking Something Too Literally' syndrome.

*When the 'Walk/Don't Walk' sign turns green you don't step out in front of a steam roller.
*When a television advertisement tells you to 'Rush in-store now!" you don't grab the keys and hit the road at 11:59pm.
*Road markings have arrows which literally point up, only because if they pointed forward on a horizontal sign-face you wouldn't see the bloody things!

Not because you're meant to drive into the sky.

Sigh. You are not meant to drive into the sky.

Start at space one, like good little Witwickys.

>ahem<

And now the game's only really begun (sob).

Snakes and La ... I mean, Transformers, only seeks to get more migraine inducing at every turn, at least we're at the point of the game which allows placing your pieces all over pictures of Slag, Grimlock and Bumblebee. And myriad explosions.

Up until this point we've been careering our cars around the board with freedom of choice between dice rolls, number splitting, which vehicle to move if not both. Finally hitting an Autobot symbol, 'transforming' our playing piece and ... uh, getting punished for it?

When you're in robot mode you have to delegate which piece you'll be moving before you roll, and it's a single die roll at that. Essentially slowing down what has already become a pretty painful board game experience. 

It was exactly this point my nephew quite clearly stated he didn't want to play anymore. Leaving me and Dad to finish up. 

Anytime you're playing a 'Warrior Robot Game' and intentionally go out of your way to avoid becoming a Warrior Robot, something's off.

AVOID.

Hooray! Salvation in the form of the Decepticon emblem.
Hmm, that's not entirely true, it's still frustrating to get thrown down the board. But it does revert your play piece to car mode.

Autobot mode is only any use in the last stretch of board. Why so? Due to exactamundo requirements for parking spaces at the POWERHOUSE. You count and bounce backwards from the end space if your roll is too high.

Yep, parking at the POWERHOUSE is tight. You and your compadres will be bouncing around there for a while yet.

Sorta' like those YouTube bad parking clips which any PowerPoint presenting visitor to your workplace feels obliged to subject you to for 6 minutes before talking bollocks for the remaining 24.

But what's this? It's over? We won? We're done here? Yes, but probably only because everybody else fell asleep, had the childhood sense to walk away, or got their brains scrambled by one of Bombshell's Cerebro-shells (mercy).

Truth told, perilous in it's mediocrity, I only played this thru 3 times. Once with family, recently with friends (they never recovered), and first time J-Rex saw me sitting, listening to Waylon Jennings, contemplating playing alone, so she selflessly engaged me there. (Appreciated, baby, take a bullet for you too).

I've since mailed it to the other end of the country to my bro and his 3 sons.
Though I can't pinpoint what he did to deserve that.

"Autobots, transform and roll out ... and don't bother transforming back again."

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"If somethin's driving you crazy, give it away. It beats losing it." - rihia2k