Reminds me when i started working and needed a phone. Called up their 800 number and asked them how much a basic line was for our area... they insisted on doing a credit check before they'd answer the question... Seriously, does a basic minimal land-line cost more if you have less than perfect credit? Geez... Ended up going with US Cellular instead.

RIP Radio Shack

I must admit... we used to be close.
But its time we break up
its all me ... Not you.
I ...I just ... amazon..
Free...shipping..
I will miss you..
when.... I need a weird battery
please remember the good times...

oh man poor radio shack

Lol Radio shack isn't dead. filing for bankruptcy these days is not a death knell for businesses at all. Several have filed, only to later buy out other businesses (Notably K-Mart filing then buying out Sears). It's not the end... yet.

no no no

I already crossed that line and ended my relationship with Radio Shack... there is no going back now... Best Buy and Staples will laugh at me..

Actually, they're dead dead. They made a deal with Sprint that turns half the stores into Sprint, and the other half are going out.
Staples is looking to merge with Office Depot.

we as in transformers fans call him shackwave
because he was sold at radio shack

and off course you didnt get decepticon stickers with him he wasnt a "real" transformer
ie not released and repackaged by hasbro

shackwave is a rerelease of shockwaves original mold astro magnum

Rather sad, I really to get my new rig going

I knew their were no decepticon stickers to be had. logic dictated that. I just wanted to complain. :)

i didn't know about astro magnum. that's very interesting..

astro magnum's original manufacturer was toyco if i recall correctly ( sky lynx and omega supreme were from toybox who are now owned by tomy who merged with takara in 2006 )

the transformers line was a bit of an insane amlagation of different japanese toylines
the idea started with hasbro who contracted griffen bacal to turn the concept in to something workable

grfiffin bacal were the ones who turned the robots fro mechs in to swentient robots and divided them up in to two sides they also came with the names of the two sides and the faction symbols

griffin bacall contracted marvel to develop the storyline the comics and the cartoon

anyway the 1984 line were re purposed and repainted from 3 takara lines
diaclone ( most autobot cars and the decepticon jets )

microchange ( soundwave megatron and the casettes )

and penny racers ( the mini autobot cars )

transformers became a bit ...successfull

so succesful in fact that hasbro quickly released wave 2 in 1985 which were most recolors of the 84 toys
and pushed for more product
but takara couldnt really keep up so hasbro liscenced other toys from:

bandai ( takatoku toys actually but bandai bought them up later and turning a veritech figure in to jetfire )

toybox ( sky lynx and omega supreme )

toyco ( astro magnum the original shockwave )

bandai again ( the deluxe insecticons recolored from armored insect battallion beetras )

bandai again ( the deluxe autobot vehicles roadbuster from armored troopers dorvack and whirl from the same line )

toyco the original lisencor of the shockwave mold is a korean toymaker and still around

lets not start about regional european diaclone liscensors ( ceji and joustra and later MB ) or regional pre transformers lines ( diaclone diacron diakron and trasformer ) we wil be here all day otherwise

Or was it Amazon? Still rumors at this point.

First PC? I bought my crystal radio kit there. I bugged my parents constantly trying to get the radio broadcaster kit to work with our living room radio. My best friend and I spent hours with the 101-projects-in-1 electronics kit. Yeah, Radio Shack was a boy's fantasy store back in the '70s.

Radio Shack use to be a great store for electronics before computers became mainstream. Now, all they are is an expensive store, with no customer service, locations suck (at least here in Ohio), and they never sell anything you really need.

The last time I went to a Radio Shack was to get a cable for my PC, a 4 prong white cord to attach to one of my power supply cables for a optical drive but it used the hard drive square, so I had a dongle I needed, for $6.

I haven't been to a Radio Shack in like 10 years until last year, once.

this explains so much.
I just read a little about griffin bacal. this is why I liked those decepticon stickers - they were based on my favorite decepticon's face. I can't believe I never quite put it together. I knew there was something familiar though.

penny racers must have been like gears and cosmos and beachcomber.

I knew jetfire came from somewhere else. that's like the one hint of all this that I had.

this probably isn't a coincidence then, I thought omega supreme was a supremely goofy looking toy - he was effective in the comic but the toy seemed unnecessary - and then sky lynx was the space shuttle / dinosaur head who appeared on the cover with all those plank-walking children which is when I got out of transformers and into g.i. joe. I wanted to see megatron screaming insanely while half his face was torn off by predacons, not some children walking a space plank! now I know to blame toybox for diluting the essence and pushing me away. okay, it was also the battle android trooper episode of g.i. joe that was my gateway transition drug that parlayed me from transformers to g.i. joe. still, toybox's aesthetic was all wrong for me.

so all this is why the transformers were all motley, size-wise and transforming-wise.

this is what going to radio shack is supposed to be like. you learn something and you learn something about yourself.
and pine for soundwave stickers.