Weve long had in bad on this dusty little pebble. Being ripped off is something we’ve become accustomed to. Be it by the government with its double taxation on cars… the shock and awe volley in “new” utility bills… paying another Malta tax for being a far flung capitalist colony millions of miles away from civilisation, where for any good to arrive requires god knows how much fuel… We are very advanced… our roads are a training ground for future lunar rovers and Air Malta pioneered the no frill, squeeze the sardines in sort of airline before Ryan Air or Easy Jet were ever heard of (yet they charged premium prices!)… The rich get richer and well the flying amphibians blog.

Electronics was one area where prices in Malta were sky high compared to abroad. Gadgets, gizmos and orgasmatrons all had a huge price difference compared to abroad. Economies of scale one wondered…? The cost of importation perhaps? Taxes and levies…? yeah the all contributed. But these should have been done away with with our acesnsion into the promised land.. that Eden that were 2were promised to be the EU. What’s more.. things seemed to improve! The price difference when buying a Mac in Malta and the US was no longer the price of the trip to New York itself! Prices are still higher but just like the prices of cars, there has been a noticeable improvement!

Until I came across these cunts -

My first reaction was “finally.. it’s here.. ah wait it’s prolly an unoficial import…” Then I saw the price and something didn’t sit well so I immediately went to apple.com to check out the prices abroad. For comparison purposes… I chose not to go to the US store cos that would have been a bit unfair. I proceeded to the UK, Eire and Italian online stores…

The uk price roughly translates to €730, whereas the standard EU price point is jsut shy of €700. Forestal’s price… €898.99 or a whopping €199.99 difference! On a hunch I thought some other bright sparks might be importing it. Indeed so.. scanmalta.com have the 64GB +3g version for €935.

So this is Scan’s price for the 64GB wifi + 3G version :

Overseas pricing -

Not as awful as forestal’s mark up but it’s still quite an impressive €136! But somehow I expected it from Forestals who have been ripping of the Maltese playstation user for more than a decade… Scan well they’ve gone down the drain in both service and price.

A great start from the inter camp with sneijder hitting the post and the nerrazurri creating a few chances including the goal 10 mins into the game. Till then inter definitely had the upper hand but were already penalised by the refereee as a 2nd minute foul by Ronaldihno should have been sanctioned with a yellow card.

The referee continued with some inverted decisions, but at least had the guts to card Becks. Then it got surreal. Sneijder got his knickers in a twist when he found the ref in his way and basically disrupted a build up action towards goal. It did not even appear that the ref apologised. A few minutes later Lucio broke out of defence and was tackled by Ambrosini. I can’t tell if there was contact or not but Lucio doesn’t dive for nothing - the very nature of Ambrosini’s tackled was dangerous and deserved to be whistled. Lucio even got up to continue his prgression. the referee instead gave the foul to Milan, carded Lucio and made Sneijder lose it completely.

The little dutch boy clapped at the referee and though I think that Sneijder was clapping the ref for a job well done, the ref decided to send him off. Oh well. A yellow card wouldn’t have done? Let’s spoil a pretty nice game. Let’s see what happens in the second half.

I must admit that I’m a bit of a fan of panic software (www.panic.com). I use their Transmit FTP software on a daily basis. There are main FTP alternatives on the Mac and must admit that some are pretty good especially when they’re free. Transmit does have some user interface shortcomings that I hope might be improved in the future and if Unison 2.0 is anything to go by then the next Transmit will be awesome.

Unison, for the uninitiated is a newsgroup reader and manager. Newsgroup as in Usenet newsgroups - an area of the internet that is forgotten by most and can be quite scary compared to the safe confines of the web. It’s vast and has a huge collection of groups where people post discussions and most importantly, files. Any sort of file you might look for can be found there but the trouble more often than not is finding it. Unison, is the software with which you can connect to a usenet server and trawl the newsgroups in search of that elusive piece of info or file you were looking for. I tend to use a website that already takes out the tedium of searching through the newsgroups. Unison’s new interface is perhaps its greatest improvement.

Unison is now perhaps the most polished mac app out there and just shows what can be done with a well thought approach. One of the best new features is that Unison takes care of post download processing of files. As more often than not, downloading files from usenet means downloading 100’s of smaller files which need to be stitched back together again. Before you’d have to download all the files then run them through a separate array of apps. Now Unison handles it all internally once all downloads are complete. Even the most simple new feature like the grouped downloads is very welcome. And very importantly for me, it shows you the total speed at which the software is downloading.

A thoroughly recommended update.

I must admit I have always been a fan of the original conehead seekers. I realised from an early age that some figures were rip offs as they were just repaints. However, the 3 coneheads had different moulded wings and more interesting colour schemes. I recall my grandmother getting Dirge and Thrust down with her when she visited. I had to choose between them. I went for thrust. Later I bought Ramjet. I never did have Dirge : (

23 or so years later and finally I have my Dirge. I already had Starscream and ramjet Classics figures which are amongst the best updates to the original toys (my only gripes being the shite undercarriage and Starscream’s oversized guns) so when hasbro then Takara release the two remaining cone-heads I was a bit annoyed by the prices. hasbro, in a very short sighted move made theirs’ botcon exclusives and Takara’s are over priced (averaging about $70usd for a deluxe is unacceptable).

So when I saw hasbro releasing a completely new ROTF called Dirge my interest piqued. He is a delightful little bastard of a figure. His jet mode is very cool and very sleek - a futuristic VTOL harrier like jet. His transformation is completely new and thogh his nose cone turns into his arm, hasbro have made sure to include enough throwbacks to the original seekers to make him a proper homage. for example he has a little transparent chest panel that harks back to the original conehead’s cockpit for a chest, has little shoulder pads and of course the conehead. He does look a bit aquatic in his robot mode - and his different arms make him seem a tad unbalanced at times but hey he is a decepticon unbalanced is a prerequisite for joining their ranks.

Figure rating - 7.5/10

Thrust is a repaint of the ROTF breakaway figure. That figure was interesting mainly as a playable character in the ROTF game. His original beige and brown colour scheme was not the most attractive. The maroon red and black redeco suits the mode better and looks better as an evil character - Breakaway looked a bit comical at times Thrust looks a bit better. He doesn’t have the amount of throwbacks that the Dirge figure, in fact other than the fact they transform into planes and are red there’s little else to make a connection. There is a lot not to like in this figure from the top heaviness, the amount of kibble and the rather small head, however whole is greater than the sum of its parts and the figure isn’t that bad - just not excellent and not a must have. However, he does make an interesting inclusion in my classics line up. There are way too many autobots anyways.

I’ll give this one a passing grade of 6/10.

I am not a TF movie toy collector - I focus around the original toys, the reissues and the re-imaginings of the original. Homages and tributes are always welcome. They already released a Bludgeon figure in the movie line, but it wasn’t too exciting, however the new voyager class bludgeon is a triumph in so many ways. The transformation is fun and spot on, whilst the engineering is very well done - everything snaps together perfectly and the sword hiding gimmicks are interesting too. One thing I appreciate about new transformers compared to the originals is that most strive to use all accessories in both modes so it becomes much harder to lose them.

Bludgeon, also has partly rubber tank treads! Never have I come across a tank transformer with rubber treads before! So let’s see what’s bad about the figure? The sword is a rubbery plastic that can bend out of shape easily. His robot mode lacks fire power which might be apt for this samurai themed bot. My Main grievance lies with his tank mode where the turret has no elevation, nor do his secondary weapons. I would have like to see the turret or his rocket launchers get redeployed in his robot mode too. The rocket launchers could’ve been hinged to rotate up as should mounted turrets.

This is the figure Universe/Classics Galvatron should’ve been! I don’t know if they can remold or repaint him easily into other characters but considering the mount of work takara/hasbro have put into this I’m sure they’ll try and milk it a bit. Any candidates?

I’ll give this a 9/10 - a must have figure for anyone into either the ROTF line or those who like me, will add it to their Universe/Classics collection.

So what has the new year brough the flying amphibian. Lots of physical misery so far. A clear sign of my aging is the fact that for the first time in my life i’ve suffered from serious heartburn. Most uncomfortable. Adds to the insomnia and now the bad cold that I can’t shake. AlsoI have to go to the dentist cos of a rotting tooth. Damn my chocaholism.

So I’ve had to console myself with a couple of new toys. Namely: Bludgeon, Dirge, thrust and Optimus Prime. The latter was a special edition version of the universe classics deluxe version. I did not want that one dammit. I wanted the voyager version (ie larger version). T’was my mistake - a clear sign of senility I guess. I also picked up the total film magazine instead of the empire because I mistook one for the other. Again, aging. At work I sent the wrong artwork to the wrong person.. Also bought a new iMac. All these will be reviewed in separate posts.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the human race has developed over millennia features such as opposable thumbs and dexterity in their hands in order to become the ultimate cat grooming accessories. Basically we’ve evolved into the cat’s best friend - the cat’s pet that can reach those hard to get places to scratch that itch without damaging the skin or the shiny fur.

We’ve developed doors that we open and close for them, we developed cans and can openers, which they appreciate. They prefer seeing us work hard to kill their prey so 8 cats out of 10 still prefere canned food rather than these new fandangled pouches.

We developed the litter tray and the kitty litter then we tried to automate it. And failed. We neuter them then give them fake testes…

Starving cats in the morning are a sight to behold - 3 hungry mouths to feed is a daunting prospect, 3 mouths with extra sharp canines which were tapered and sharpened when growing up by gnawing on your fingers is even scarier.

For everything else there is mastercat?