The Fort Wayne Hilton is sold out for BotCon 2000, and so is the BotCon dinner. John DeLuna’s ATT Buzz gets a sneak peek at the second wave of Car Robots deluxe cars and cheers Takara’s G1 Convoy reissue in an imitation G1 box. John then shares his tips for buying Transformers online, from careful eBay bidding to Usenet bargains. It’s also John’s 20th birthday, and RFC switches to a segmented format to ease the load on its server.
News
BotCon 2000 Hotel and Dinner Sell Out
John DeLuna reports that the Fort Wayne Hilton is fully booked for BotCon 2000, with no rooms left. The BotCon dinner is sold out too. He hopes anyone going has already booked a room, and jokes that any other convention in town that weekend had better not be a GoBots convention. Like it or not, BotCon 2000 looks packed. [Source: not found]
Car Robots Second Wave Deluxe Cars Previewed
alt.toys.transformers got a sneak peek at the second wave of Car Robots deluxe cars. Mach Alert is now an Americanized police car, and Speed Breaker is now a red Viper instead of a blue one. Some fans are disappointed they’re only repaints. John reminds them that Takara is still on the rocks financially and these are still nifty repaints. Nobody has to buy them, he says, so save your money for the Battle Convoy. [Source: not found]
Takara Reissues G1 Convoy in an Imitation G1 Box
Takara’s reissue of G1 Convoy is coming in an imitation G1 box. The only difference is that the box has no flap, and that hasn’t stopped fans from being exceptionally pumped. [Source: not found]
ATT Buzz: Moving On From the Flame Wars
ATT held a little powwow this week to reflect on its latest flame wars, and John’s takeaway is to move on. With a flame war every five hours, he says ATT has built up a protective flame-retardant layer. It’s like eating Spam: the first can makes you sick, and after a while you can down a whole can without missing a beat.
Poll Results: What Do You Think of alt.toys.transformers?
Results from RFC’s poll of about a month and a half ago drew 123 votes. 7 percent say Usenet is archaic, 29 percent say ATT is A-OK and 41 percent say ATT has seen better days, which Brian agrees with. 14 percent say abandon ship and 10 percent say ATT equals hell. Brian notes that RemarQ counts about 2,500 ATT posters including aliases, so it’s a fair cross-section. Write-in responses included a pointer to alt.music.pink-floyd as worse, and a complaint about too many insults and too much profanity.
Buying Transformers Online, With John DeLuna
Following last week’s selling tips, John covers where to find the best deals and trustworthy dealers. Tip one: use eBay carefully. eBay isn’t evil and has bargains, but search for the one or two items you really want. Browsing every Transformers listing leads to foolish off-the-cuff bids that tie up your money right before you find what you actually wanted. Research prices first, and skip toy magazines, which are outdated by the time they hit shelves. Instead, try online price guides like coldhardslag.com, which track what Transformers sell for on eBay and elsewhere.
Be patient with timing. Some toys run hot, like a Fortress Maximus or a sealed Ultra Magnus, so wait for the lull in demand after everyone who wants one has one. Bid when lots of auctions for the same toy split the bidders, and watch for warehouse finds, like a case of Double Dealers or Powermasters, which bring prices down. Tip two: Usenet has real bargains, full of fans trying to make a quick buck rather than a huge profit.
Trivia
Last week’s answer was “Call of the Primitives.” Jaxus, Rodimus123 and Chris McFeely got it right. This week begins Rattrap007’s Impossible Trivia, which he’ll record himself in future; Brian fills in because Rattrap007’s microphone isn’t working. Brian explains Rattrap007’s reasoning on last week’s question. In “Megatron’s Master Plan,” Chip escapes in the back of a truck and gets off at a truck stop he calls his stop, so it must be near the Ark.
RFC Notes
Today is John DeLuna’s 20th birthday, and Brian turns 21 in about three weeks and plans to blow money at HeroesCon. Thanks to Greg Galp, RFC is now split into segments. Listeners can skip ahead with the arrow on their RealPlayer, and RFC isn’t serving one big file over and over, which eases its server load and net congestion. Brian promises something next week.
Radio Free Cybertron is the world's first and oldest toy and action figure podcast — broadcasting from the heart of the Transformers fan community since October 1999. What started as a scrappy fan show has grown into an institution, with nearly 1,000 episodes and over 25 years of coverage. Every week, host Brian Kilby and the RFC crew dig into the latest Transformers news, toy reveals, collecting, and everything hitting shelves from Hasbro, Takara, and beyond. No fluff, no hype — just informed, passionate collectors who have been doing this longer than anyone else on the planet. The original. The longest running. Till all are one.
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