HOUSE OF UNPACKED HORRORS III: Roll with the Punch-Outs

I do a lot of walking and biking and I always keep my eyes peeled for loose change on the ground. I'm usually able to collect abandoned pennies, nickels and dimes at a rate of about 7 cents a week. This is in addition to the naturally accumulated pocket change that piles up around the house. Once I get about fifty bucks worth of change in the piggy bank I go to the corner grocery store where they have a machine that converts loose change into real money-paper money. The drawback is that this change machine charges eight cents for every dollar of paper money it gives me. It sucks and it makes no sense because the machine does the same amount of work whether I'm cashing in one dollar or a hundred dollars. It's a total ripoff, which is where the pennies come in. I love the sense of accomplishment when I cash in my piggy bank at the change machines and the extra pennies I've found on the floor everywhere partially pay for the change machine commission. Well the other day my son and I are driving around in Optimus Lime and he throws a quarter out the window, effectively undoing 25 days of abandoned penny collecting. I was like DAMNIT!



THE HIGHEST ENDING BID PRICE IS A TESTAMENT TO THE INTELLIGENCE OF ALL BUT ONE PERSON

The only thing that kept me from spazzing out and doing a u-turn on the highway to get that one quarter back was remembering how I screwed up and lost 300 quarters earlier in the year, which brings me to this week's entry in the House of Unpacked Horrors. I was on ebay back in June when I found an auction for what the seller called a "Hasbro Takara G1 TRANSFORMERS Display Set 1985 MINT". [He's been selling more of them lately with the exact same description.] It looked to me like some fantastic SUPER RARE VHTF Transformers store display with all sorts of Transformers standing around looking Transformery. I didn't know what the heck the thing was because the description was rather vague but he used a lot of different sized bolded fonts and many of the words were in bright colors. If there's one thing that I can't resist it's an auction with bright colors and crazy fonts. So I stuck to my rare store display theory and I got in a bid war with another bidder and when all was said and done it ended at 73 bucks! What a steal! NO, MORE LIKE WHAT AN IDIOT!

OH HOW IT PAINS ME TO WRITE THIS

So then the thing comes in the mail unassembled on sheets of cardstock with a sheet of photocopied instructions and as I'm putting it together I see "ISBN 0-087135-077-7" on the instructions. I thought, Hey! What kind of SUPER RARE VHTF store display has an ISBN? And then I look it up and to my horror I realize what exactly this thing I paid 73 bucks for really was. It was a Transformers punch out book from 1985, just missing the cover. This guy scammed me to the tune of 290 quarters with something that sells on ebay and Amazon for usually under 20 bucks! It's really embarrassing and I feel totally stupid for not being able to recognize every piece of licensed Transformer merchandise from 1985 off the top of my head. I'm trying to come to terms with being duped so I figured I'd trade in my 73 bucks and the shame for some stories to tell and a blog post.

Nothing says advanced alien robot technology like a 70 inch plasma TV and giant chrome knobs

And so my fellow Macrocranians I present to you the fully assembled contents of the 1985 Transformers Punch Out book as the latest entry in FlickrMacrocrania's House of Unpacked Horrors photo set. It's not a horrible thing, but seeing it brings to mind horrible memories. It's actually a pretty cool little stand up diorama with all sorts of quirky details. There are jets with strangely colored wings and strange off model renderings of Bumblebee and Ravage that are kind of crazy. Optimus Prime's trailer has a fold up panel so you can see inside of it and marvel at the awesome home theater on wheels he keeps in there. Once I get my robots collection up how I want it I'll put this little diorama on top of one of the robots cabinets. Maybe one day it will stop reminding me of how with one bid I undid 25 years of being smart about toy robots like a quarter flying out the window of my truck.