Found this label right on the bottom of the 8-track player. Wiring problem resolved.

Need to give some credit here, both to Frog Boy who bought these for me, and to Hasbro for making them. While Smokescreen is cool, I really want to talk about Unicron. Back when Hasbro was releasing the Powerlinx TransFormers, they released a scaled down version of the Optimus Prime cab as a separate, lower priced toy. I'm not privvy to Hasbro's reasoning, and it really doesn't matter, because when all was said and done it meant that parents who may not have been able to afford a $45 Optimus Prime for their kid were able to buy a smaller version of Prime for $10. The net result is that a kid who otherwise might not have had an Optimus Prime would be more likely to have one. I am a BIG fan of that, and Hasbro's done it again. If the giant $50 Unicron is out of reach, this smaller Unicron tank is available for $10. It even has a cool backstory that ties in with the 1986 animated movie to explain why he's not a planet anymore. I'll cover this more in depth on my upcoming Unicron article, but in the mean time, I'm sending out a big heartfelt thanks to Hasbro for releasing this one in time for Christmas; this is good for families down on their luck, its good for collectors, and its good for people like me who are just crazy about Unicron. I now own two of these little guys, and I can testify that its a great toy. Big huge thanks, inappropriately gropey hugs, and sloppy wet kisses to Frog Boy and Hasbro. I ♥ mini-Unicron.

You ever get a present you expect to like, but wind up being completely floored by how much more over-the-top fantastic is is than you were ever expecting? Welcome to Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose. This album is fucking unreal. Its too bad you have to be a talentless black felon or a 14 year old white slut to get a video on TV these days, because if young audiences could hear this we'd have a whole new generation of hard rock fans on our hands. God fucking damn it, this is so good. Jim Steinman is God, and Meat Loaf is his voice on Earth. Amen.

Up and coming ridiculously fuckable Norwegian hot-body and damn good rock vocalist Marion Raven sings with Meat on "Its All Coming Back To Me Now." You may rememer this as the song that Céline Dion tortured the world with in 1996. Jim Steiman wrote it and its just now being recorded properly, with Meat at the mic. The way Meat Loaf and Marion Raven turn that song into a rock n' roll love anthem is truly insiprational. Seriously, I heard the Céline Dion version just a few days ago, and it sounds almost silly compared to this. Just amazing. Turn your PC speakers up to 11 and click the pic above to go to Marion's website, where you'll be treated to her new single "Heads Will Roll" followed by her and Meat Loaf on "Its All Coming Back To Me Now." You're welcome in advance.

That being said, concerning the definition of 'sci-fi': we are NOT going down the old "40 years ago" road, because that train of thought leads to only one logical conclusion: that every invention ever crafted by the hand of mankind was at some point science fiction, and is therefore valid for inclusion on this site. NO DICE. Sci-fi is the realm of the as-yet unreal. For example, planets that transform into giant robots in order to kill other planets that transform into giant robots.

Meet Cybertron Primus. I stole his pictures from Seibertron.com because I didn't have time to take pics after removing him from his 70 lbs. of packaging this morning. He transforms into the planet Cybertron, and while his planet mode is passable, there is also a goofy-ass battle station mode which I will not waste server space by uploading a picture of. Grammar am hard.

The best thing about this guy is that he is one of the special edition versions that comes with the severed head of Unicron, which has been orbiting Cybertron ever since Rodimus Prime unleashed the powah of The Matrix and blew Unicron all to hell in 2005. Thank you, Ma Sci-Fi!

Occasionally I get sci-fi foodstuffs as presents, and I usually love them. This time, though, not so much. Ma Sci-Fi has a yearly tradition of giving me peanut M&M's for Christmas, but this year I asked for dark chocolate instead. Along with the big purple bag 'o love I got two tubes of Star Wars mini M&M's, of which the candies inside promised to either be Lava Planet or Yoda color coordinated. While the Chewie and R2 tubes themselves are totally great, the mini M&M's inside the R2 tube smelled like plastic melted in acetone. I dumped the R2 tube right in the trash, and opened the Chewie to find that it didn't have the same funk. Thinking it was safe for human consumption, I popped a few. I can't describe to you the taste. It put me in mind of M&M's covered in no fewer than four coats of semi-gloss acrylic house paint. The chemical flavor was horrendous. I think I got through two actual chews before the whole mouthful was spit forcefully into the garbage can. Parents be warned: while these little guys may look totally cool, the candy inside tastes more like two-cycle gasoline than chocolate. Never feed these to anyone you care about. I would have been better off eating the tubes. Fortunately, the delicious, smokey, sex-in-my-mouth dark chocolate M&M's were there to save the day, and they are da bomb. The only complaint I have with them is that they do not make a 55-gallon drum sized dark chocolate M&M's package. At least I don't think; I'll have to check the candy ailse at Wal-Mart next time I'm there. 

Sci-Fi Girl and bj got me this excellent Titanium Series Snowspeeder, so's I can display my love for the very bestest movie of the Star Wars franchise. This thing is not a great toy, which is okay, because its not supposed to be. Its a great model. And as a model, I have forced it to pose for me under unusual lighting in various uncomfortable, unnatural positions so that I can more easily exploit its natural good looks for my own photographic pleasure. Check 'em out:

Speaking of the Titanium Series, here are my two new Titanium Series Optimus Primes. The one on the left is "The War Within" version, and it came either from the parental units or Frog Boy and Moose. To be perfetly honest, they gave me so many Transformers so rapidly, I don't remember. The one on the right is the classic version of Prime and comes from Mark and PopRox. And while two Optimus Primes would be enough for most people, my little bro knows me well enought to know that I need more. Below are the two newest versions of Optimus Prime, one a recolor of the Armada Optimus, and the other a recolor of Beast Wars Optimus Primal. Frog Boy, you're my hero.

 

I really meant what I said before about open comments, and I'll prove it by showing you this: 

HELL YEAH! This is my totally non-sci-fi present from DanN, and its something I've wanted for years. Those of you whom are not familiar with the 1970s will not know that this is an 8-track player you mount under the dashboard of your car. I've mentioned here and there on the site my love of old vinyl records and 8-tracks, but this is the first time you're getting to see any hard evidence of my 8-track mind. Believe you me, once this sweet baby is oiled and cleaned, it'll be bolted directly into the Sci-Fi-mobile… as soon as I figure out the wiring.

Keep your eyes peeled. There's more to come…

By the way, folks, all the teasing of Q is meant purely out of love. Well, a wee mite of schadenfreude, but mostly the love.

An 80 gig iPod?! Do you even have that many songs? By the way, I’m not sure that counts as a sci-fi Christmas present unless you’ve got some sci-fi stuff on there. Quick, click the pic and download the Paul Oakenfold remix of the TransFormers: Cybertron theme to your new iPod.

(Do you have any idea how long it takes down download a 14GB archive?)