Transformers Powercore Combiner Smolder

I'd been meaning to write this review sooner, but I contracted bronchitis and had been bed bound with a high fever and coughing and spluttering out gobs of phlegm for a whole week. Worse still, even after I'd recovered, I still wasn't feeling 100% for the next few weeks after that - so while I was able to maintain some semblance of normalcy, it wasn't quite normal. Amazing how debilitating a simple cold can be. All that while worrying about the work piling up on my desk at the office. Then I got nearly 30 Transformer toys appear on my doorstep over those 2 weeks (including the Wave 2 PCC commanders) - and not being able to get round to testing them out. Quite a miserable fortnight indeed. But enough excuses aside, on with the show.

A small change in the review format - rather than a thoughts/summary section, I thought I'd sum it up succinctly with answering whether I liked it enough that I'd definitely buy a double or repaint. To me, that's a good indicator of how much I enjoy the toy.

Powercore Smolder

Vehicle Mode

Powercore smolder's alt-mode is a fireman's utility pickup. Rather than putting out fires, he sets fires. It's fairly decent but is ruined somewhat if you look at the back, where Smolder's head is exposed.

Robot Mode

Smolder's robot mode, thanks to his head, reminds me a lot of Inferno. This is because the helmet resembles Inferno's, but with a bit of a WW1/2 German soldier's helmet styling to it as well. Of course he's a Decepticon, so Smolder's only a Smoulder - not an Inferno. Another way of describing his head (and G1 Inferno) is that it looks Mickey-Mouse-ish. Not saying it doesn't.

Overall, robot mode is what I'd probably call average-good. Not bad, but not outstanding either. His shoulders are rather huge, and the extended roof plates on the back  restricts some shoulder articulation. Despite this, it still has some very good shoulder and elbow articulation thanks to the double-jointed with ball joint elbows. Legs are fairly basic.

Not a lot of vehicle kibble unless you count the shoulder pylons, the grill kneecap guards and the combiner pegs.

Smolder has standard 6mm pegholes in his fists holding weapons - which is noteworthy because standard weapon pegs in the fists for holding weapons appear to be declining in scout class figures.

The minicon peg in the middle of the chest is quite nicely detailed too, so you can pretend it's a chest cannon. There is an additional minicon peg on his right shoulder plating at the back, which is used for his alt-mode weapon interface. Might seem useless, but attached a rocket launcher or gun type minicon or Energon weapon to it, flip shoulder forward and raise forearm to look like he's supporting it, and bam, a big shoulder weapon.

I also feel he looks too much like a good guy to be a Decepticon - but then again a lot of the cooler or more heroic looking bots are Decepticons, while some evil looking bots turn out to be Autobots. The alignment generally sorts itself out with future repaints, of course!

Gestalt mode

Shown here with a combination of the Aerialbot and Combaticon drones.

It's not terribly bad, but one thing that I think may put some folks off is the fact he's so wide in respect with his shoulders. Hardly any vehicle kibble on it though except for the grills at the knees.

Now, to break away from the official mode, you can instead pretend his gestalt modes' shoulders start at his original shoulders. It does mean his elbows are always akimbo, but it does provide for some dramatic fighting stances, especially with the Combaticon tank drones as arms. Or to be more precise - forearms.

My main complaint about gestalt mode however is the fact that when you are using the the gestalt mode head, there's nothing left inside the chest cavity to prevent it from moving backwards. This makes the chest cover looser than it should be, so the whould head and chest section aren't secure as when in standard robot mode.

Transformation

Not overly complex, and easy enough to do without the instructions. There is one little bit when transforming to and from alt-mode when transformign the arms and the siding to make it easier. Releasing the arms or storing them away is a two step process. Either way you are going, first bend the arms at the elbow to 90 degrees. Then either close or open the vehicle side panels.

Combiner pegs

They stick out like a sore thumb by clashing against his red, but you could imagine them being water tanks even though water isn't naturally baby blue. His blue Protectobot repaint however will blend well with the blue.

Summary : Will I buy a double/repaint?

On a scale from No! to Yes!, he resides at a "yeah maybe". If he's cheap and/or has extras or a better minicon to make it worthwhile.

Transformers Powercore Combiner Searchlight

Welcome to the first of a short series of articles where I mumble on about the Transformers Powercore Combiner toys. I'm planning this to be 4 articles in total, covering the wave 1 Commander 2 packs known as Search Light & Backwind, Smolder & Chopster and Huffer & Caliburst. I will be doing short reviews of Searchlight, Smolder, Huffer followed by the three minicons. I'm treating the minicons independently because they're going to do a reshuffle of the pairings with the recolours in a later wave.

Each short(ish) review will be broken down into smaller segments just to add a bit of structure to them. They will cover:

- Vehicle Mode
- Robot mode
- Gestalt Mode
- Combiner Pegs
- Transformation
- Summary and Thoughts

This first article will cover the rescue helicopter known as Searchlight.

Searchlight

Vehicle Mode

To sum up the alternate mode: Searchlight is a gray and blue rescue helicopter.

Except for the visible thighs on the underside, it's a fairly decent alternate mode. There is a minicon peg on the underside of the cockpit, as well a the retractable peg on underbelly of the helicopter. My only major criticism of this mode is the lack of landing gear to support the helicopter when it is at rest. It has to sit at an angle. It's made worse when minicon weapons are attached to it.

One small observation: the rotor blades are not identical. The one with the smallest diameter has four blades while the larger one has three. I would have thought that it would be easier to recycle one rotor blade to make a symmetrical pair for the windmill shoulders on the gestalt mode.

Robot Mode

Before I go on, I just want to highlight one aspect of some of these new PCC commanders have that I find to be absolutely brilliant: The retractable minicon peg on the chest. This gives them a place to install minicons to act as a chest-plate, but can also have retracted when not in use. You could even pretend that they're a chest-gun of some sort. Pity not all of the commanders have one, but it's a great idea all the same, and one that would've been really useful when powerlink pegs were introduced in the Armada line. But I digress.

Searchlight's robot mode is in my opinion his weakest mode thanks to his shoulder assembly and thin legs. I do like the impression of a 5 o'clock shadow on his face. It makes him look worn and tired. Actually reminds me of the junkyard robot in Season 3 of G1 for some reason.

His weakest point, in my opinion, his the shoulder/back assembly with the helicopter cockpit halves. They are loose and the whole shoulder and sides rotate freely. The cockpit 'coat tails' don't really have anywhere to go and hang loose behind him. These aspects aren't too good, but are still workable. Now comes my main fussy point - the shoulder interface. They are just flaps with the ball joint attached to it. This does gives great articulation but it does not look very good at all. It makes it look like his shoulders floating away independently of the torso.

He has beefy arms with, but very thin legs that are mostly made up of thin helicopter siding. Being top heavy, his toes need to be spread out to take most of his weight when standing upright. The combiner pegs on his knees also give him very large kneecaps. Transformers with fairly hollow legs have been around, but they generally make up for it by disguising the hollow legs to make them look stocky, such as the ones on Animated Jazz or G2 Hero Prime. Searchlight manages that from the sides, but try not to look at his inner leg too much.

Articulation-wise, he's very good. The elbows have double-joints, with one being a ball joint on the lower arm. His shoulders are ball jointed and the plate that holds the ball joint has a bit of motion. This gives him excellent arm articulation. Head is on a standard bal joint. Hips are not ball jointed (a step backwards in the right direction in my opinion - they often get it wrong with the hips when they use ball joints)but instead use a good old 2 axis joint that holds firm. The hip also rotates mid-way. The knee is a fairly standard joint offset a little to allow the whole lower leg flip back for its alt mode and gestalt mode hip mode.


To go beyond the official modes (one should never confine themselves just to the official modes): one thing I would suggest to disguise his offset shoulders is to deploy his gestalt mode chest plate siding. They hide the shoulder interface. Again it's a facade, but it makes Searchlight look less unfinished.

As for the cockpit tailcoat, the minicon peg is wasted on it. Consider tipping the shoulder pylons forward a little and clip both cockpit halves together. This gives you a central minicon peg on his back where you can install a weapon minicon of your choice.

Finally, the rotor blades seem to be neglected in the instrucions and don't appear to have anywhere to go. Common senses dictates that they be used as weapons. They can be plugged back into their sockets to give Searchlight a pair of spinning arm blades, which he can use to mow down enemies - and maybe trim the treetops. The pegs on the rotor blades don't seem to be quite the right dimension for his fists, but can be put in. I would recommend sticking to the arm slots instead.

Gestalt Mode

Note, as I couldn't find my set of instructions for writing this review, I think I may have the normal arms set up in the wrong position in this photo. Also featured in the photo are the Aerialbot drones.

Most of my concerns from his shoulder siding in the robot mode translate across to the combined mode as well. The negative points are that his thighs amount to really thin legs with facades. Just looking at them from the side ruins the image somewhat. The windmill shoulders bother me - partly because they're not functional and partly because I feel like the instructions are just including them there simply as somewhere to put them.

Now for the good points. As mentioned earlier, Searchlight's gestalt mode comes with its own chest plate, which is actually part of his sides for his small mode. The head flippy gimmick where you swap his head works really well - better than Smolder's. Also the big head has a small resemblance to Animated Ultra Magnus, which earns it a few extra points from me. Clear plastic is used for the eyes, but there's no light piping block at the back of the head - this works on the similar principle as the light piping used in the deluxe Cybertron Red Alert toy. It works by viewing it from the side.

Now, if we go beyond the official modes, take away the shoulder windmills, you can actually use his normal arms as an extra set of manipulators, giving you a four armed robot. That can let you arm this bot with more guns and other weapons that the large arms cannot carry.

Transformation

Fairly simple but also interesting. I quiet like the way the arms fit into the roof. They are polar aligned, so you have to make sure you get the right arm in the right direction otherwise they won't clip into the legs or cockpit halves.

Combiner Pegs

Because of the colour scheme, the baby blue pegs actually fit into the whole thing seamlessly and don't stick out like a sore thumb. They still protrude in most cases.

Summary and Thoughts

My verdict? Well, as I was writing this review, my impression of Searchlight started to improve somewhat as I discovered the ways to mitigate the few sore points I had with him. However, my verdict will have to be that Searchlight is an average minus. Probably the weakest of the three of the wave 1 PCC 2-pack commanders, but certainly not the worst toy ever made.

I would say get him if he's on special, but to concentrate on the other two wave-1 2-pack commanders before Searchlight. But that's just my opinion - yours may differ somewhat once you have him in your hands.

Now, I do rate his minicon - Backwind - quite well, and I will cover Backwind on the 4th installment. However  I wouldn't recommend getting Searchlight just to get the Minicon. There will be repaints and reshuffling of the drones and minicons with a few recolors in Wave 3, and one will have an Autobot repaint of the Bombshock Mold paired with the Backwind minicon. That would be the best time to get it.

If you want to see the larger 640x480 versions of the photos used here (I had to have the blog shrink them otherwise they were being hidden by the sidebar), you can see them under the PCC Searchlight section no my Photobucket account.

Some Heavy Metal thoughts

Still writing notes about all these funky new Transformers I've bought recently, and learning how to use my brand spanking new Fujifilm camera (with so many options, buttons and knobs and dials, I'm feeling rather lost). Also last month - well, mostly the month before - I was busy with a little project repainting a Gundam kit to enter into a Gundam contest hosted by Hobbylink Japan and Tomopop.com. No,  didn't win, but it was a great experience all the same, and the results were absolutely stunning. Will post about it - after my promised article on the first wave of PCC Transformers.

In the interim, I busied myself with a console game. Well, I do that all the time, but this time I picked up a rather entertaining title called Brütal Legend, partly because of some good recommendations and because it was reduced in price. If you've ever played the Lucasarts adventure game known as Full Throttle, you'll really enjoy this as the same chap responsible for Full Throttle has his name on this game. Heaps of well known voices and even heavy metal rockstars contribute their voices in this project. It does have decapitations (of which they are only singificant in the intro and outtro) and foul language (which I am not a fan of, but I don't mind it at all), none of which were present in the more family friendly Full Throttle. They're toggleable too - and I just left them on. A generous dose of humour in it too. Played it from start to end on the hardest available difficulty level right from the word go too - I think this is becoming a bit of a trend that I've adopted since playing the X-COM series.


Of course, this article is not about Brütal Legend - it's about the genre of music known as heavy metal. The game has well over 40+ heavy metal songs in it, in addition to a few of the original instrumentals made for the game. By the games end, by clearing many of the side quests and hunting for various buried relics, and whatnot, you practically end up with a jukebox of actual heavy metal titles that you can play while riding your car, the Deuce. So, in a matter of a few weeks, I've been inundated with more heavy metal music than I have in all 30 years of my life. And it has dispelled as well as confirmed a few misconceptions of my own that I've had of the genre.

One of the things that this experience has taught me is that there are a lot of great metal tunes out there, which are unfortunately ruined once the vocalist opens his mouth. Then there's this very common use of a guttural voice (imagine the Orc voices from Warcraft 1/2) that works against the great tunes. Not all of them are bad, of course.

The themes that are often touched on are incredibly broad as well. A lot of them appear to be fantasy based and a good chunk of them also lean towards the macabre (think: horror films, and Halloween). In fact, I almost felt like they were singing about some sort of Dungeons and Dragons session half the time.


The spikes, dark leather, skulls, chrome, horror props, etc are just a style. That's it. Nothing wrong with it, though I can also see how it would concern the parents! Or, I suppose, the cops.



Finally I never knew there a slow version of KISS's God of Thunder. I've only ever heard the ones that were played or similar to the versions on the Kissology (Vol 1.) Guess you learn something knew every time it seems.


So am I heavy metal convert? Nah, not exactly. I always liked the various sub genres of rock. Now, just so you know where I stand, I enjoy listening to any type of music as long as it's catchy. With such a broad range of music that I enjoy , this has unfortunately left me unfamiliar with many of the singers/bands or types of sub-genres that are available. I don't know my Bach from Led Zepplin from Weird "Al" Yankovic from Hatsune Miku. Well, a bit of exaggeration there, but I just mean I'm not that knowledgeable about music.


On one last note: Just got try Brütal Legend. It's fun. It's available on various platforms like the PS3 and XBOX 360.

New Zaku additions to the family

Being a special month for me, I took a week off work. It's my first real extended break from work since the end-of-year batch of statutory holidays.

Over this time, I did all sorts of things, like get my provisional drivers license. In addition to that, I promised myself that I would build at least 5 of the robot model kits I've been collecting. Frankly I've got a lot of them now that are just waiting to be built. 21 or so off the top of my head. I've been holding off on them for various reasons. Probably weariness caused by work. However, I managed my quote. I said five, and I built six. Five of them were Zaku's, one was a GM. The GM is complete as far as construction is concerned, but there's custom paintwork I've got planned for it.

Of Zakus, there were two different Zaku II v2.0's, a 1/100 Zaku II F2, a 1/144 Zaku II F2 (EFF) and a 1/144 Zaku I Sniper. For some photos of them, they can currently be seen on my  Photobucket account. That link will take you directly to them, along with a few other items I've purchased in June 2010.

The one I want to show off is the third addition to the White Ogre platoon I've slowly built up. This time, White Ogre #3 will be called - using completely original and not deliberately descriptive nomenclature: Air Ogre (w/ crystal eye)

Made up from parts of a Zaku II MS06-R1 "Shin Matsunaga Custom" and a MS-06 J "White Ogre" custom to make it look like a White Ogre with all the necessary flying parts, as well as the customized skirting, elbow armour, shield with extra joists, detailed spiked shoulder armour and a right shoulder with vents. Also the prototype Zaku Bazooka that looks partway between a Zaku Bazooka and a Big Bazooka.

Note, I've not used any of the markings for the White Ogre on any of the kits so far as I don't want to relate these White Ogres to the proper "White Ogre" custom used by Elmer Snell from the MS Igloo 2 series.

The reference to a crystal eye just means that I've not painted the mono-eye camera in its head. I've always painted them with clear colours like red, blue, green, orange, etc. However, this is the first time I've built a Zaku 2.0 kit without painting the eye, and it looks quite nice for a change. You could say I was just being lazy, but I wanted to use an eye colour that I hadn't used before as I've gone through the entire range of Tamiya clear colours so far - with the exception of clear and smoke.Clear would be redundant, and smoke would just make it darker. (I did use a clever combination of pink food colouring and Klear floor wax (that's Future to those in the US) for the Zaku II F2 to get pink).


I also spent a bit of time detailing the randsel jet pack as well as the vernier bell thrusters on the legs with  chrome silver and metallic red marker pens.

I usually only use chrome silver to paint the inside of the bell as well as dab the edges of the thrusters to make it look like the darker paint peeling away from the inner-metal surfaces. I like small shiny and metallic details like this in small quantities. This time though, I decided to do something different. Gundam models often have the inside of the thrusters in red (or in some cases yellow such as on the Kampher). I don't find myself particularly fond of that, so I went with a compromise. I've used a red ring around the edges. Not entirely sure of the significance of it, but it has resulted in a nice effect. I particularly like the effect it has had on the legs:

It's a pity though that you're not generally inclined to look at the feet or anywhere that far down when viewing  a completed model kit that is on display, so you lose out on these details unless it's on a display arm in a flying pose.


And here are the left over parts from the White Ogre and Shin Mastunaga Custom - enough to make another Zaku II MS06J. Has black pipes, gray chest sides, white  knees and cockpit and gray soles. I may use this for a complete repaint job one of these days. The white knees, surprisingly enough, were surplus parts in the Shin Matsunaga custom set.

Note: This photo is not flipped horizontally. I deliberately swapped the positions of the spiked and shield shoulder guards - though I suppose it wouldn't matter either way.


That certainly looks like a lot of weapons (spare from the other 3 White Ogres that aren't being used) - but certainly as many as I could have it displayed with if had borrowed the weapons from my other Zakus. I did learn a cleverly new way to clip the bazooka and machine guns over the shoulders. Similar to how they are stored in the Target in Sight PS3 game. Done by simply popping the arm off and slipping the handle on the shoulder joint, and putting the arm back on. That's given me two more places to clip weapons in addition to the weapon mount ratch on the back armour skirting. 


In my next article, I'll have a short natter about Transformers - since that consumes  as much time, if not more, than general robot model kits! Not sure what I'll talk about at the moment, but I'll think of something. Might make a few mention or do quick review of the Powercore combiners that have recently been released, and my mixed reception of them.

Let there be pie!

And as a haute cuisine type chef would say: Ukulele!

My very first pie! The first real bit of cooking I've ever done that doesn't involve omelettes, boiling (ala instant noodles) or just plain heating up. It looks malformed, but otherwise didn't turn out too bad for my first ever pie, and proved to be a very filling lunch. Learned plenty of lessons on what I should do next time and what to improve on.


Filling consists of chicken mince, reduced cream, mixed veg. and cheese on the inside and a few sprinkled on the top for decoration.

Now, this entire article seems a little pointless, but so is the direction I've taken with this particular blog. 

I can drive!

Well, as of today, I have crossed another of life's stepping stones towards independence. I have passed my practical driving test and am no longer a learner driver. I'm not a full driver as of yet, but I can now drive around town unsupervised by a qualified driver.

I've dithered long enough but have at least achieved this before 30. It will have its fair share of problems - but I'll worry about them when I get to it.

"Asymmetric"

What does it mean? Well, without referring to a dictionary, I'll try and explain it off the top of my head. Something is said to be symmetric when both sides are equal. Therefore, Asymmetric means the opposite, where both sides are not. A persons face for example is (often) symmetric. If the hair is brushed to the side for example, then the face is no longer symmetrical. It is said to be asymmetric. Enough with the explanation.

Now that's a word I am fond of. Quite a useful word to use when describing toy robots, as the terms are useful for describing the symmetry of the toy's appearance. However it is a word that I am constantly forgetting whenever I get to an appropriate point that it can be used.

The brain is a funny thing. You will often know something, and be very confident in your knowledge of this subject. But, at the critical moment, perhaps due to some brain activity that's related to stress, the pathways that lead to all this information seize up or get blocked. Thus you are at a loss to remember what it is at the critical moment. Later on, when the information is not particularly relevant at the time, it may come flooding back in great detail.

This is why I often did very badly during school exams. It's this pressure introduced by the time limitations (and lack of access to reference materials) that often made me forget something that I otherwise knew very well. If it was an easy question that I could do in my sleep, that was fine. But if it was something I wasn't too certain on, but knew the answer, then the numbness of the mind occurs.

Stage fright is also caused by this. Only that has the added stress of having you feeling nervous while being observed by many. The worry that you will fail, the prejudging, etc. All the little stresses don't just stack up, they come in an tidalwave, as you're being observed by many. If you don't go on stage often, your confidence can quickly get shattered and start doing mistakes.

But again, the mind is a funny thing. It might recall snippets of a song at sudden moments and you get a part of the song playing in your head all day long. a terrible thing to happen if it's a song you don't like. Me? I don't particularly mind it when I recall the Badger chants. (Badger, badger, badger..etc)

Oh hang on, what was this about? Oh yes, the word Asymmetric. And Symmetric. They're fun. Look them up some time and find an excuse to insert them into your everyday conversation!

Tracking numbers!

If you are regular consumer of on-line retail shops like myself, it's a most exciting experience when the parcel finally arrives and you get to rip it open to see what treasures await in the (recycle-able) cardboard box. It's like Christmas every time.

But then there are occasions where the parcel never arrives. Tracking down where the fault is along the line is one headache. One thing that helps this laborious chore immensely is to have some means of tracking the parcel. Mainly by way of a tracking number.

I'm currently experiencing one of these moments. No, I've actually got 2 - 3 parcels I'm waiting on. I have since discovered, with the help of the only parcel that has a tracking number that my local postal service attempted delivery but failed, sent the parcel back to the depot and left a note-to-call. I have never received the note-to-call, so would have never known whether they'd attempted to send it or otherwise. But with the help of the tracking number, I might yet be able to recover the parcels. Well, one of them at the very least.

The lesson learned: tracking numbers are handy. Most well established sellers like Amazon.com and many on-line shops will have a tracking number as a standard part of their deliveries. But for personal sales such as those made through on-line auction sites, it may pay to pay a few extra dollars for the safety of a tracking number.

Bovril is not Bovril anymore?

Warning: This blog entry may not be suitable for extra-hard-core vegetarians since it's mainly just me babbling on about a product derived from beef extracts. Beyond that I have nothing against your diet lifestyle of choice - but that's beside the point.

Growing up, I used to enjoy a product known as Bovril, which I understand might not be familiar to everyone. It's similar to products like Marmite or Vegemite. Only it's made of beef extracts. If your country was previously colonized by Britain some time in its past when all the major world powers went mad and tried to lay claim to most of the world, you might have it in some local grocery stores. If not, perhaps it'll be in shops specializing in imported foodstuffs from Britain.

Back to where I started, I used to have this product when I was growing up. Either as spread in cheese sandwiches (toasted or plain), on plain crackers, as flavour for rice porridge or even as a nice broth by just mixing it with hot water.

Though I do like beef, I do not eat it very often. In fact, I hardly have anything resembling a beefsteak at all during the course of a year. This is because one of my parents has an allergic reaction many meats and seafoods, thus the whole family's diet follows suit. Thus I used to enjoy having Bovril for its beefiness - even if isn't really meat nor can it substitute for a piece of leather.

Suddenly, a new turning point in my life, I leave college and fly to New Zealand to live and as well as continue my studies at University. Bovril turns out to be not a particularly common product in the local supermarkets. More prolific are Vegemite and Marmite. Marmite being the local speciality, and Vegemite more Australian than Kiwi. Still, they were the major source of the salty dark pasty non-meat extracts spreads, and they are just as delicious. Once or twice I've found real imported Bovril in shops (a South African goods shop, actually) and took advantage of them. It's probably a decade now since I've really had a good taste of Bovril.

Just a few days ago, I saw one in my local supermarket. I took it off the shelf thinking it would be a nice change for a spread. Then something on the label caught my eye. 'Suitable for Vegetarians'. For a moment there I was left a bit confused. Bewildered even. Then after reading the label, my world shattered.

There's no beef in it. Not even just the extracts. I must admit though that I did not check if had any imitation beef flavouring. Bovril is now just another Vegemite or Marmite.

Now, I can only assume the worldwide Mad Cow problem we not too long ago may very well be responsible for the removal of the beef.. I might just be overreacting, but what's bothering me the most at the moment is why are they still calling it Bovril? Where's the Bovine in it?

That's my aimless rant for the day. And I bid you a good night.



edit: I might give up on the e-mail posting if this keeps up. It seems to play havoc with the text formatting and inserts carriage returns that were never there. Or it might just by my e-mail options. Might give it a few more tries. In the meantime - manual edits! There, all fixed.

The never ending battle against Technology

I'm trying out this new Technology doohicky (which probably has been around since the stone ages, but I've only discovered recently) whereby blogs can be updated by e-mail.

Amazing stuff. Doesn't help that I often make new posts and then spend the rest of the night editing and revising it and then re-publishing it before I'm finally satisfied. If this works, then perhaps more frequent blog updates would be forthcoming. Pictures and formatting may require direct intervention, but simple text such as this should be no problem.

Take that technology, you have not bested me this round!

edit: on second thought, maybe I have been bested. My screen is showing some odd paragraph formatting. Next time I'll go with a plain text e-mail.