Long-time readers may remember that I once displayed and discussed a vintage Transformers birthday featuring the box art for Hubcap (erroneously labeled "Bumblebee"). Well, Prial got his hands on a half-dozen of these vintage cards and was good enough to scan them for me! While they all feature a character's box art, because of the low print quality only the character art for Galvatron and Cyclonus was an improvement over what we already had in the Archive. Still, that's a nice bonus! Thanks much, Prial.

Since it actually happens to be my birthday today, I am especially pleased to share the rest of these cards with you. See if you can notice the subtle psychological lesson revealed by careful study of these cards:

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As you can see, I have started buying the Transformers: Animated toys. Even though I have not yet watched a single episode of the show. At first, I just bought Ratchet and the Optimus Prime vs. Megatron 2-pack (above). These toys are cool. Not mind-blowingly awesome, but clever, posable and certainly the most uniquely cartoonish-looking Transformers ever released. But after opening them, I realized I wasn't content. I actually went back to two different Walmarts late last night looking for more, but they were already sold out of everything except the ones I already had (ha!) and Blackarachnia, so I bought Blackarachnia. This is most likely a good thing, because I realize I probably would have bought any and all that I had found.

What the hell is wrong with me?

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Though his electronic lights, revolving turret and motorized tank mode were all functioning properly, the awesome and battery-powered Omega Supreme could not walk. Well, one leg walked, but one didn't, so he walked in circles. The last of the ancient guardian robots was, in effect, an old robot with a bad hip. He must be repaired!

This is actually a very common breakage with Omega Supreme. The problem lies in the white, plastic cylindrical gears that turn the square metal rod which, in turn, moves the legs. These white gears break often. Replacing them looks pretty easy... if you can get the part. However, since this is such a common breakage, finding a loose Omega Supreme tank that has one or both of these pieces in good order is the challenge. So, for now, old man Omega sits in a state of disrepair, awaiting his new hip joint component.

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I'm ready to tell you about the band I am singing for, because we finally settled on a name I love: Our 6-song self-produced demo is now available for listening and downloading from our MySpace page (myspace.com/idisagreeband), or you can just download the entire "I Disagree" demo as a zip file.

Go listen! Add us as a "friend"! All that shit. Also, feel free to take a stab at describing what kind of music we are. I plan on stickering demos with this description: For fans of Soundgarden, Tool, Alice In Chains, or System of a Down. Maybe. No one who's heard us thinks that's an unfair description by association, but they are less quick to agree when I suggest that our genre is grunge. Apparently, "grunge" has some stigma for some. Well, in my opinion, if grunge can encompass Alice In Chains and Soundgarden, then we're in there. That said, I'm eager to hear what others think.

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My recent fascination with deception started with a game played at a Halloween party called Werewolf. If you're not familiar with the game, it basically involves everyone closing their eyes ("night has fallen") while one or two secretly determined "werewolves" kill off one of the other players (the "villagers"); with each subsequent "dawn", the victim is revealed, at which point the villagers point fingers and make accusations as to who is secretly a werewolf while the actual werewolves maintain their innocence. Everyone selects and "kills" someone they all to believe to be a werewolf, at which point that person reveals whether they were really a villager (oops!) or actually a predatory man-wolf (gotcha!). Then repeat. The game is essentially about lying — at least if you're the predator.

The odds are against the hunters: it's 2 against 10, and no one else has to pretend. Consider the endgame: if you're the last werewolf, and there's only two villagers left, you still have to convince at least one of them to vote for the other instead of you, over the desperate objections of that innocent villager.That Halloween night, our first time playing, I actually won as the werewolf. Twice games in a row. Thus was my curious interest in lying reignited.

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