Dave's Transformers Artifact Rant: Armada Lunchbox

     Finally found this at the very tail end of the School Supplies Season.
You know Transformers are "back" when you get merchandise like lunchboxes and
shoes and so forth.  Shoes to come under separate review.  :)
     Oh, and if there's a second variety with Decepticon stuff, I couldn't
find it.  Please let me know if such exists.

CAPSULE

     Armada Lunchbox: Fairly sturdy soft-sided lunchbox with water bottle.
Ideal size for transporting DVDs and keeping them from getting too hot in the
car.  Recommended.  $7.48 at Wal-Mart.

RANT

     This is a soft-sided canvas-and-padding zippered "lunchbox" made under
license by SkyHigh International.  It is mainly blue and black polyester
canvas on the outside, with a stiffened silver fabric handle and a pouch on
the side to hold a black water bottle.  The interior is white waterproof
plastic over padding that is meant to be insulating.  The crush-resistance is
moderate.  
     The main compartment is about 9" (23cm) high and 5" (12cm) wide, tapered
a bit so that the depth is a little less than 4" (10cm) at the top and a
little more than 4" at the bottom.  The opening is at the front top and
zippered, with the top 6" (15cm) folding down.  The flap has a slick plastic
fronting with art of Optimus Prime (cab of Super Base version) with Sparkplug
held in his outreached hand.  Below the flap on the front is the Transformers
Armada logo behind spoarkly clear plastic, flanked by two different Autobot
symbols.  The one on the left is the plain red and white symbol.  The one on
the right is in a circle and fades from blue on top down through white and
into red.  Inside the main compartment is a small red tag with a little
Armada logo on it.  The zipper is the style with two "handles" instead of
just one, a nice touch.
     The strap on top is sturdy silver fabric, a simple double-thickness
strip.  Not that you're likely to be transporting lead bricks in this, so
comfort of carrying isn't that much of an issue.  The shelf tag is attached
to this handle.  It has the Armada logo over an Autobot symbol over the
standard energy-in-space Armada background (pre-Unicron Battles).  Oh, and
the same silver fabric is used on the zipper ends to make them more
grabbable.  
     On the left side (as it's facing you) there is an elastic-topped pouch
about 3.5" (9cm) high in blue with a black band around the bottom.  This
holds the water bottle, which starts out attached to one of the zipper ends
by a plastic tie.  By opening the top of the bottle, its possible to remove
it from this tie without cutting the tie, good for if you want to stick it
back in securely.
     The bottle is solid black, 2.5" (6.5cm) in diameter and 6" (15cm) tall.
It holds 12 ounces if you fill it up all the way, and has the standard pop-up
nozzle to drink from.  There is nothing "Transformers" about it, although I
suppose you could fill it with Gatorade and call it liquid energon.  I tend
to find anything less than 32 ounces insufficient for a container that can be
drunk from as quickly as one of these.  }->
     As mentioned above, DVDs fit nicely inside the lunchbox.  A quick test
shows six standard DVD boxes fit snugly inside it.  You MIGHT be able to cram
three G1 box sets inside.

     Overall: Very nice for what it does.  Too bad much of the stuff I take
to work for lunch is too wide to fit in it, or I'd start using it for my own
lunch.  Get it if you can find it and have eight bucks to spare.

     Dave Van Domelen, now off to review the Armada shoes....