 Hey, what's going on guys? Patriot Prime here once again with another episode of The Sitrep. And my guest for episode number 26 is YouTuber Engineer Hoist. Hoist, how are you doing this evening? I'm doing great. Let me just go ahead and say hi to everybody the way I usually start off on my videos. Bob Weep Grana, Weep Nitty Bong. I'm Engineer Hoist and we're here on The Sitrep with Patriot Prime ready to have a great chat. Hoah. Hoah, that's right. All right. Well, I do that at the end of every video with you too, man. That's a great sign off. Yeah, that I remember when I got back from Iraq, my brother-in-law was joking because I mean, every time somebody asked me something, I'm like, Hoah. I mean, that's how I answered everything. And he says, you don't have to say it after. You use Hoah like normal people use a period. Hey, yo, that's how you train. That's what you do. So I just thought that was a cool gimmick to add to my channel. Oh, it's fantastic. All right. Now for you, let's try this again. For those of you just tuning in and are not familiar with how The Sitrep works, I have 10 questions for my guest. Five questions regarding him as a transformer collector and five questions regarding him as a YouTuber. So engineer Hoist, if you are ready to rock and roll, we'll go ahead and start this off. Let's do it. All right, sir. Question number one is what is the appeal of transformers for you? Well, it's kind of twofold. First of all, I like the puzzle aspect of it. You know, it's not just a robot. It's not just a car. It's both plus there's also the fun of going in between the two of them. And I think a lot of people out there will probably say the same thing. I mean, you know, when I get a new transformer and I open it out of the box, like a lot of people, I'm there trying to figure it out before I open those instructions, you know, but masterpiece of third party. I usually go to them a lot sewer than I used to. That's usually what I do until I got this guy last week. Oh, my God. I'm still waiting for him. He is a challenge. I'm thinking if I do a review on him, I may skip the transformation. I'll pull a deluxe Baldwin. Here's the robot cut. Here's car mode cut. Here's helicopter. Well, that's one reason I've never done a review of a masterpiece figure. I'm scared of that to do in that transformation on camera because I can barely do it without the camera rolling. The other thing I like about transformers is like that. I saw somebody else, I'm sorry, but I forget who said, but like the engineering, it might have been deluxe Baldwin. You know, it doesn't, it's across the range. I mean, like even like one step transformers, this is like a R&D bumblebee. It's simple for the kids. But if you kind of look at it from the side, you look at everything that goes on to make that happen. Simply, it's amazing how they do that. But then all the way up even to the masterpiece figures, you have, what was it? Maz, I think, on, he used to do the blog on transformers or TF source. I think he's transformer square one or something. He talked about a masterpiece moment in the transformers, in the masterpiece figures. And a couple of, here's a couple of examples. One of my favorites is on this bumblebee, how his hood kind of, I don't know if it's coming across on camera, but how it kind of, the hood kind of goes up inside there. It's just, it's amazing. You see that, you're just like, how did they even think about doing that is, and then the other favorite ones got to be inferno masterpiece inferno, where the ladders that are hanging off the back, it just kind of plugs in the back for a very clean back once you fold up that. So it's just amazing how they pulled that off. And so things like that is just keeps me coming back. The only two masterpieces I have, I have MP01, which is back there holding that American flag, and I have my masterpiece Megatron, the MP36. That one blew my mind when I was transforming him. I mean, just the little tiny pieces that they would use to get him in position. Granted, he is going to be transformed only once. And that was it. You know, I haven't even got around to transforming mine. I'm scared. Who is it? Lazy eyebrow reviewer did a step-by-step stop motion. And that's what how I did it. Oh, wow. Okay, I'll have to look that up. All right, sir. Well, question number two is, aside from generation one, which is always the number one answer, what is your favorite transformers fiction? Well, I got a few of them for you. Probably not the number one that comes to mind. A lot of people say it. And I totally agree. Transformers Prime. The stories were fantastic. The animation was great. And it was skewed more to an adult audience. So watching it as an adult, certainly. There you go. And honestly, the lower, the smaller cast actually made it a little bit easier to develop every bot as opposed to like in G1. It's as great as it is. It was like every every other episode you got another bot. And so many of them, we just never really knew. And they were just underused. I'm also a big fan of the IDW comics. I've read pretty much all of the modern ones, all the way from all hill Megatron, and even Megatron Origins, which is great. I love love seeing like the pre war stuff. And even all the way out to like the lost light, more than meets the eye, I haven't really quite got into the new series has come out. I've read a couple of issues. It's okay, but I haven't kept up with it. And I legitimately like rescue bots. I know it might have been a joke earlier, but I legitimately like rescue bots. It's a fun little show. It's not going to appeal to everybody, but I enjoy it. Well, what's funny about all these Transformers shows, I brought this up before, each one of them, you know, aside from G1 starts out very kitty fight because they're like, okay, this is for the eight to 10 year old. And then they realized by season two, the 10 year olds aren't watching this. It's their mom and dad. And the stories always flip and get a lot darker and more adult themed. I mean, like Beast Wars season two, amazing. You go and transform prime. Amazing. Even a Transformers animated it. I started watching that again. I mean, those stories got dark. I love it. Yeah, I was thinking Beast Wars exactly when you were saying that too. Because it took me two times to get through Beast Wars because I didn't watch it when I first came out because I kind of went away from the franchise to do adulting or whatever. But so when it was on Netflix for a while, I was like, okay, let me give this a shot. Everybody's raving about it. So the first few episodes, it's just like the whole episode is just nothing but like Megatron, Terrorize, Rhinox, Maximize. I'm like, oh my goodness, it's an info dump every time. And I came up and I was like, no, they're saying it's good. Force your way through it. And then you're right about probably halfway through season one, season two, it really started picking up once they quit getting over the info dumps. Yeah, that's how I think I started watching on USA Network. And then when I was in Iraq is when they came out on DVD and Amazon was kind enough to send us soldiers overseas. You know, we could order stuff and they'd send it to our APO addresses. And I ended up getting the box out of G1. I ended up getting all the Beast Wars and it was amazing. All the fellow Army guys that were transformer nerds too. And we just sit around just the DVDs and just pass along the tent. And that's when I got to watch it from start and finish. I was like, this thing is amazing. So to this day, Beast Wars is still my favorite just because of the story. And like Transformers Prime, the limited cast is what really helped. Exactly. Yeah. And it's interesting that they're both CG animated too. And sure, Beast Wars is dated by today's standards. But back in the day, when it was first out, I think it won awards for the animation. That's how far ahead of its time it was. Indeed. The one thing that always irked me about the show was the characters never cast any shadows. They have this great CGI animation. But if you ever watch a scene, a YouTube scene, you'll see nobody cast the shadows like their vampires or something. Oh, great. Now, every time I watch it, I'm going to be seeing that. Or not seeing it as the case may be. All right. Moving right along question number three. Do you have a favorite figure or grail? This is the toy you will never let go of. So you've got to sell everything. This one's not going anywhere. Oh, man, don't make me choose. Yeah, this is the question I had to put the most thought into. And what I settled on is it's got to be iconic for the Transformers franchise, which would lead you to think maybe Mr. MP10 here. But if it's going to be the only one that I have, I want it to be fun to transform to. And MP10, not terrible on the scale of transformations, but still a little involved. So I'm going to go for my backup in Siege Optimus Prime. That's great. Iconic. He is a great figure. And he's a blast to transform. So I'm going to, if I had to get rid of everything today, Siege Optimus Prime is going to be my one. Nice. Yeah, this Siege line has been amazing. I think there's only been a couple couple of stinkers in the line. And you know, some of them are the QC issues I mentioned before. I love this guy. I hate how his chest falls up just by looking at him. Yeah, but the great, the good thing about it, though, is it's only for transformation. When he's in either mode, it's solid. Oh yeah. I mean, it clips in really good. Yeah. I like, I like how the, sorry. Oh, you go ahead. Good. Now I was going to say, I like how the legs kind of, they collapse to transform or bend his knees or whatever. And then they fill out so you don't have the hollowness. But what's impressed me the most with this series is you look at the robot, that's a perfect representation of G1. Yet the transformation is into these futuristic vehicles. So back to you, what you were talking about with the engineering, hence your name. So I get where you're coming from. I mean, I love that. You got a cartoon perfect iron hide that turns into a monorail. Right. Yeah. I got to get the Ripper label set for him so he doesn't have that visible head syndrome. They've got a nice blue window sticker that goes across. Ah, cool. Yeah. I haven't seen that. But yeah, side swipe is another great one there in the Siege line. We need more decepticons though. Yeah. All right. Where are we now? I accidentally threw away my questions on the sheets. I had to pull them up here on the other monitor. Oh, it's okay. I'm going to go through them on the monitor too. Well, nobody can tell that we just, well, we admitted it. All right. Question number four. What figure is your white whale? This is your most wanted toy. And kind of reverse what I just asked. If you buy this toy, you could be done collecting. You would be happy and say, that's it. Mission accomplished. I don't know if I'll ever be done collecting until I'm just not interested anymore, which I don't see happening any time in the near future. That's everybody's answer, so don't worry about that. Nobody's ever answered this the way I haven't typed out. Yeah. But, you know, most wanted, I think is probably a good way of doing it. But still, even with that, I can't say I really have one that I'm really like chasing like that holy grail type of a thing or whatever. But if I had to choose, I'd probably go with something like that flame toys tarn that was out and I passed on that mostly just because I, as many thousands of dollars I've spent on this plastic around me, I still can't bring myself to spend 500 bucks on a single figure as cool as it is. But you asked me in five years and I might have it sitting on my shelf. Well, these days, somebody on Facebook is going to sell a dirt cheap to pay a medical bill or something. There you go. Yep. All right. Here we go. The last Transformers related question. What is your favorite Transformer character? Any fiction? Any media? All right. Now, I'll tell you, I get this question a lot, as you might imagine, during my streams and the answer is always Hot Rod. And it's because of this guy right here. I can't really tell you why it's Hot Rod, but as a kid, I loved him. And of course, I've got the figure and yeah, he's a little broken. So his head kind of pops back kind of like ultramagnuses go over the rules with him like, okay, whenever you're done. But, but yeah, this is my original one. He's got like the rubber wheels even got the diecast feet. And as a kid, you don't think about that. But as an adult, I found that that's actually pretty, pretty, pretty rare, I guess, or is pretty early in the line. But yeah. And I know you talked about the repo labels or repro labels, you know, tomato tomata. But even though he's got plenty of wear on his, the labels, they're pretty much scratched off on the legs. I'm never going to replace them. Because when I look at the damage labels, that's love. That that is a toy that was played with that I enjoyed as a kid. Maybe if I got him secondhand or something, I might feel differently. But this guy, he's going to stay damaged, he's going to stay dirty. Because that's that's history right there. See, that's the way I feel about it. I think toy hacks is what they go by now. I've been working for years. I always call them reprolabel. So toy hacks. But I'm the same way if I'm getting something secondhand and it's beat up one of my favorite things to do as a collector, I love repairing G1 toys. I mean, I love finding them at flea markets and bleaching them. I got a jet fire back there who was yellowed horribly. I Frankenstein him together with a shockwave and two other jet fires and made him shockwave. Wow. The gears inside shockwave shoulders are the same gears for him. Are the ratchets, ratchets and springs. Nice. So he's got shockwave shoulders. Yeah. Well, just for example, just to show that I'm not opposed to that is I recently picked up a G1 Metroplex that I found at a comic shop that one of my buddies works at. And he had the original stickers, but they were kind of bent or whatever. So I did pick up a set for him and got him all stickered up nice and shiny. I got the Encore Metroplex. My very first toy hacks purchase was the upgrade set to him that totally changed his look. Let me see if I can get him. I'll show you. Yeah, this is the one that got me addicted to toy hacks. If you can say he's got different like windows up here, different vents, like vents right here. Yeah, it looks like the sticker on it's not just the Autobot stickers got a little stripe there on his car door. I got the stripe extra, you know, on arms for the towers, windows. Right. Cool. That's pretty cool. And I never prepare in advance to have everything within arms reach. I tried to do my best. But many times during me, yeah, I was gonna say many times during my stream, say the same way, you know, oh, it's in the other room. Yeah, I'd love to stream more, but my internet absolutely sucks. Of course, I live in Poe, Dunk West, Virginia. You know, they charge us per month for sunlight coming in. Oh, we got plenty of it down here in Florida. All right. Well, that wraps up our Transformers questions. Now we're going to get to know you as a YouTuber. Alrighty. So here we go. Question number six, what possessed you a grown ass man to do toy reviews on YouTube? You know, it's it's everybody's got a different journey. And for me, you know, you know, I kind of covered it in that my come to premise video where I was you even mentioned it earlier where I was away from the franchise for a while. Dark of the Moon came around and, you know, and I was able to meet Bumblebee and Optimus Prime in person. And after years of seeing the toys on the shelves, but saying, no, you're a big boy. Now you don't need the toys or whatever. I finally broke down without and got got some toys. After three, four years of just kind of enjoying it on my own and not really knowing anybody else in my personal life that really enjoyed it. I was starting to get a little lonely just enjoying them by myself. So I so I hatched a little plan started a website engineer hoist.com, which I haven't really updated much lately, got a Facebook page and you know, started hitting the social medias. And I mostly was on Facebook for a while, just sharing pictures. There was a lot and it wasn't a lot of video on Facebook at the time. And but but then I was like, you know, I want to do videos. You know, I can explain more, you know, just talking instead of trying to figure out how to type it out because I'm one of those perfectionists when I type it out. I'm like, Oh, no stop. And, you know, it's just it takes a lot it takes a lot to write, which why I generally don't script my videos that I do and why live is so appealing because it's it's live. You don't have to really worry about a script. But so yeah. So after about four years, I went over to YouTube, threw out some review videos. And then I kind of didn't do a whole lot because I found that I was unintentionally copying like Pia or Vangelis or you know, and I didn't want to do that. I want to do something different. But even to this day, I really can't figure out a different way. But it's kind of hard though, because reviews, there's not a whole lot of variety in how you do that. But a couple years after I started YouTube, this Transformers Earth Wars game came out. And I was like, Hey, you know, this is pretty fun. Let's do a little review on the game and did that. I did a couple of videos on on some of the levels and it hit it hit, you know, I started I started getting some more subscribers. And so I just kind of doubled down on that and been just kind of going with that got lucky enough to work with the developers of the game actually went over met them at their studio in London a few months ago. So on their time, even so. Yeah. But it's it's it's been a blast and just being able to talk about Transformers every week is it's it's great, you know, I just downloaded that game. Yeah, I saw it. I saw it. I would I would tell you to join our alliance, but you said you're a Decepticon. I'm an Autobot. Go figure, Patriot frowns of Decepticon. I just think they're cooler. You know, the bad guys always had to cooler stuff. You know, they do have a lot of good characters over there. I cover both sides though in my videos. All right. Question number seven, what keeps inspiring you to get in front of your camera? It's it's it's not hard to figure out it's it's the fans, you know, it's the people who come in after the live streams and, you know, just the interactions with with them. And it's it's helpful having an audience that does interact. So it was difficult at first when there wasn't a whole lot of people. So it was sorry. That's why I would go weeks, months, but with between videos. But once I started getting those regular people coming back and stuff like that, they really inspire me to get in front even on weeks when I might be feeling really low. Tough day at work and just just just not really feeling it. I'm like, no, I've got to get in there because I always feel better after I get on there and do the streams just because of interaction. And you do kind of put on a different personality for the camera. A lot of people do. So so that kind of forces me to be a little bit more upbeat than I might be before I turn on the camera, you know. I have actually mentioned to me once she said, I wish you'd sit down have conversations with me like you have conversations with the strangers on YouTube, Mike. Right. It's it's a you're a different person when you're on YouTube. It's it's there's no air. Yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't take my hat off. A lot of people are like, what do you look like without the hat? I say the same same thing just without a hat. Not to say that I haven't had the hat off. It's just it's not often. I think I've had the hat off once because my office this room is upstairs and I live in an old house. And it's summertime. It's horrible. I've got the AC blasting right beside me as far as the reason I bought a microphone so you can pick me up a little better. But it gets hot up here in West Virginia is a good humidity. Yeah, I bet. All right. So we kind of touched on question eight just a little bit. But there are thousands of toy reviewers on YouTube. What makes you different than the rest? Yeah, you're right. We did kind of touch on that. But we'll talk about it again. Like I said, you know, it's it's one of the things I struggle with is being different. I don't want to just copy the big guys or whatever. But probably the biggest thing that differentiates me from anybody else is the weekly live streams and specifically about a game primarily about the Transformers game primarily primarily. I mean, I, you know, I do show off the bots all the time. Anytime we've got new new characters coming out. I usually have a figure of them. Not always. But I've got I've got them nearby like they had impactor come into the game not too long ago. So I've got the collector club version of impactor, which they based it off of a lot. So I would do kind of like what I just did there shoved the bot in front of the camera. So it's it's nice. I'm able to weave both aspects of the franchise together. Nate, it seems like the game from what I've noticed, it's a lot of the Combiner Wars figures they based on. Yeah, well, okay. Yeah, the game started in it was launched globally in June 2016 and been in development before that. So that was the height of Combiner Wars. So that's where a lot of the Combiner Wars style is there. And because that's how they started, they've continued a lot with that style. And they're bringing out combiners. We've got four of them now and they haven't announced it yet. It's completely obvious that we're working towards a defense or an abominus, which is why I got them back there. Combiner War style and everything. So I kind of figured as much actually the second Decepticon unlocked was cutthroat. Nice. And then I got Galvatron. So I was all excited. I got some good ones right off the bat. Yeah, Galvatron's a good one. All right. So here we are. Okay, we touched on this a little bit. So I really want to dig in on this one is question number nine is what's your thoughts on the Transformers social community, i.e. YouTube, Facebook, etc. And do you have any special shout outs? It's interesting with the whole, you know, social aspect of it, you know, being a YouTuber and being active as I am and, you know, very outgoing on camera. I'm a huge introvert. I mean, if you see, if you were to see me on the street, I'm just going to kind of put my head off to the side and pretend I didn't see you usually. But and I'm very much the same way on the other social media is like, I don't post a lot on Facebook. And I'm in like all the Transformers groups, but you know, I'm off there in the shadows, kind of just reading and you know, I'm liking and loving and laughing along if I if I see the stuff or whatever. But it's not often that I'm posting stuff. But but I do enjoy seeing what everybody else shares the new figures they get, you know, and celebrating their wins with their figures or the customs that some of these people do are just amazing. And, and even just some figures that I've just never seen before, because it happened in the dark ages of my Transformers experience, you know, like the Unicron trilogy, which I still haven't managed to get back and go see. That's a hard watch. It's on. What's that app to be TV has. And I tried sitting down watching. I just can't do it. Yeah. I don't know. I need to drink a lot more or something to watch that one. Yeah, I mean, even like the Japanese G one stuff like was it victory or go or head masters and stuff like that. I'd like to see that at some point, just so I could complete the told G one. I mean, I've got the Star Saber sitting back over here on my shelf. And that I was inspired to get that figure entirely by the game. I mean, I didn't really know Star Saber at all. Except for in IDW comics, he showed up for a few few issues. And he was basically a bad guy. He was some sort of a religious zealot. But but it wasn't when they released Star Saber and Death Sorus in the game that they're arguably the best box to get in the game. So keep your eye out for Death Sorus there. But yeah, all character to have the end. Yeah. Yeah. So as you as you've probably seen in the game, it's very heavily geared toward G one, but they have expanded a little bit. We've got a few Beast Wars in there. I think these are the only two Japanese characters that were in there. They got Armada Megatron. You got Laser Optimus from G two. So they're weaving a little bit in there. I mean, even Drift is from IDW. They got Barricade in there, who I think originated in the movies. But generally, they're still all very G one aesthetics. A lot of the fact they got the old cartoon music to you. Yes, really, really adds to it. Yeah, they actually didn't start off with that music. That's something that's only been like the last year or so. But yeah, that was that was definitely a big hit when they did that. And yeah, honestly, when they did that, I was a little worried about my YouTube channel thinking maybe I might get copyright strikes or whatever. So I asked that they're like, no, no, no, it's good. It's good. Go ahead and have a great. Yeah, I had to change up a lot of things. As soon as I got hit that thousand subscribers, like, if you watch my old videos, I had that Hulk Hogan theme right my intro for the longest time. And all of a sudden ding ding ding is like, okay, let's find some non copyrighted music. Gotta love those copyright bots. Yeah. So before we get off that question, I did want to shout out a couple of couple of buddies. He doesn't have a YouTube channel, but he runs a fantastic Facebook page. Go find long haul. Okay. Yeah, long haul. He's he and I got to give him a shout out because when I first started on Facebook, he was one of the first people to actually welcome me into the larger community and and just supported me all along. And we're friends to this day. He posts mostly transformer stuff, but he'll throw in the what I like about him being a constructicon. He does actually find humorous construction vehicle pictures and say, oh, scrapper, what do you do? And yes, things like that. So yeah, definitely check out long haul on Facebook. And also, Jen one red alert is a good friend of mine. He actually lives nearby. We've hung out a few times. He's got a Facebook page just just goes by red alert, but he also posts a few videos every now and then under Jen one red alert over there on YouTube. So yeah, both both good papers. Yeah, long haul. I've talked to Jen one red alert before. Yeah, I think you're friends. He does seem like a good guy. Yeah, you know, yeah, I've seen your friends. You know who he is. All right, here we go. This is our last question and I'll let you go for the night. Do you have any channel goals for yourself and where can our viewers find you? This is your chance to promote yourself. Well, the best way to find me is on YouTube at engineer hoist. I'm sure you'll have a link in the description or whatever. I do have, you know, a Twitter, I've got Instagram, a Facebook page, but they're mostly abandoned. I just can't haven't figured out a strategy for using those because I don't want to just use them as a here. Go watch this video. Go watch this video, which if you go look there, you might find that on my Twitter. I can't figure out Twitter. Yeah, I've got one. I barely used it. Yeah, yeah, that's what I did. So I have those accounts, but I'm not very active on there. But if you contact me that way, I'll probably get a notification. So as far as channel goals, I've got quite a few. First of all, I want to get back to doing more reviews. And it's something that I think about a lot. My house is kind of overrun with boxes and bots and stuff like that. And trying to find that one location where I can do a review to where I don't have to do a whole lot of setup to where I could just sit down and do a review is something I'm really working on. Trying to find that and make sure that because right now I've got a studio here, but it's really geared towards live streaming. I don't really have a review area. So definitely want to do something along those lines. But I also want to talk more about current events in Transformers or more news, not just about the game, but also in the toys or Transformers in general. And having more conversations like this where it's a conversation live in person, nothing against the people in the chat. We do great, but having that back and forth is something that I'm missing and it's something that I really want to get to. And what's cool is I've never talked to you face to face before, but it's like you and I are sitting across my table with each other at Applebee's just like we've known each other forever. And it's all because of these plastic robots back here. Yeah, absolutely. I never would have imagined that I've made so many friends because of those things. Yeah. Especially at 46, well 45, I'll be 46 a couple of days. Yeah, you got me beat by a few years. Not too far behind. You can tell all right here. Yeah, I got that growing into. All right, well as you said and for you guys watching, I will have a link to engineer Hoist channel in the description of this video. And at the very end of the video where you see the Patriot Prime salute, I'll have a link to his channel and a couple of his videos so you guys can find him fairly easy. Hoist, thank you so much for being on the set rep. I really enjoyed talking with you tonight and thank you again. Yeah, absolutely. I had a great time. Like I said, I hope to do more of this. Excellent. Excellent. I do too. Maybe I can get you on one of my three way streams. That was a hoot the other night with me and me, Tatum's Prime and M from Transformers and Video Games. We had a blast. Hey man, you got you got my contact info. Hit me up. 10-4. And guys, I want to thank you for watching and checking out the video. Don't forget to like and don't forget to subscribe. I'm trying my best to reach 2000 subscribers by TF Con at the end of October. So hashtag 2000 by TF Con. Once again, I want to give a special shout out to engineer Hoist for joining me for tonight's set rep. And thank you guys for watching. This is Patriot Prime signing out.