emjay • fish
Week 4: Big Boi Blues
We're back, with a big boi Tamagotchi and a grumpy Transformer, what's not to love? This week is, well, a week late, meaning week 4 is technically week 5? Eh, don't think about it too hard. Let's just dive into some silly toys that bring joy to my life, and hopefully entertain you, at least a little bit.
Tamagotchi of the Week:
Home Deka Tamagotchi — Blue
Released July 2005
Name: Chunky
Whoa, that's a big Tamagotchi! Yeah! :) The Deka Tamagotchi line is a series of companion devices, meant to sit at home while you're out playing with your regular tama, ready for you to come back and transfer Gotchi Points you earned on them to your primary device. For that reason, this tama doesn't let you raise a character like normal, but rather you play minigames to earn Gotchi Points, and use those to upgrade your home and transfer to other compatible devices, in this case the Keitai, Keitai Akai, Entama and Uratama, the first and third I've already featured on the blog. It's also just a cool thing to have sitting on your desk! And a very big and awkward thing to carry around with you day to day.
Transformer of the Week:
Generations Sergeant Kup
Released 2011
Designed by Hironori Kobayashi & Andrew Scribner
Hey, it's Kup, everyone's favourite cranky old man! Kup's got no time for your nonsense, he's been bashing Decepticons since before you were born, kiddo. Kup transforms into a pickup truck, but I'm not interested in that scene, as far as I'm concerned he transforms into a ute, and no-one can tell me otherwise. Kup looks great, he really does exude the grumpy old man vibe in robot form, with the visor covering the lower part of his face and his big backpack sticking up behind him. His musket laser is lovely, enabling an intimidating two-handed grip, or visibly slung over his shoulder when he needs to get his hands dirty. And I love how it forms the exhaust pipe in his vehicle mode! A really neat detail that sold me on this figure.
Hot Wheels of the Week:
2007 Porsche 911 GT3 — Metalflake Brown
Released 2025
Designed by Ryu Asada
Toy number MB729
Wait a second, this is a Matchbox car, not a Hot Wheels! Well too bad, I make the rules here. The Porsche GT3 is legendary, it was first produced in the 90s, but has its roots in the high performance homologation models of the 70s. It offers a nice balance between the standard 911 and the more stripped-down, less practical but more insane 911 GT3 RS, turning it into a car that can turn heads but isn't as much of a pain to daily as an RS. A car I could feasibly own, how exciting! This particular example is part of the 997 generation of the late 2000s, which happens to be at the tail end of when my taste for cars started developing, thanks to the Need for Speed games, so I happen to think this generation is gorgeous looking. I think it's captured really well in this Matchbox as well, the tampograph on the lights is a little janky, but the shape of the body is wonderful.
Bread Tag of the Week:
Palpatophora glyphodorsalis — green
Manufactured by Kwik Lok
Manufacturer code J-NRP TGR-2
Ah, the glyphodorsalis, one of the most widely distributed species of bread tag in the world (I think??). It's the little brother to the ubiquitous and iconic Palpatophora utiliformis, sporting the same body shape but a shrunken down mouth. This thing used to be a very common sight in supermarkets here in Australia, but it's been slowly replaced by cardboard occlupanopsids in recent years, making its fate rather uncertain, much like all other plastic occlupanids. The shade of green I picked out for this week's specimen is actually quite a common colour among Kwik Lok bread tags, but I really like it, a nice slightly blueish light green. This particular specimen also has an expiry date of the 4th of July, possibly the single most American date on the calendar, and yet the only one they pronounce in the correct format of day before month ;)
Trucksim Mod of the Week:
ETS2 Globex Paint Job Pack
Released June 2019
This was the first trucksim paint job mod I ever released on Steam Workshop, and it remains my most subscribed mod to this day, with over 10 000 current users. Maybe not surprising, given the considerable amount of
work that went into making it. This paint job features a circular logo and stripe that line up perfectly when carrying a Globex-painted trailer with a 4x2 chassis truck, which took quite a while to get right on
every truck. Globex was a VTC, or virtual trucking company, that I was a part of throughout its lifetime. Rising from the ashes of the Southern Freight Company VTC, cruising with the Globex gang marked a
wonderful spot on my weekly calendar, so this paint job is pretty nostalgic for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
You can grab it on Steam Workshop or
TruckyMods!
Another week down. Why was this a week late? Err, umm, you see... a blog post is never late, dear reader. Nor is it early. It arrives precisely when it means to. Or something like that. Maybe next week will be on time, one can hope!