My Proto Duffle finally arrived

Packing up for this Friday's speedball evening, I decided now was a good time to blog my gear bag (yes, the one I ordered back in June!). It arrived in September.
PBL screwed up again but I'm loving the Proto Duffle anyway. I was surprised to find it was the new 2007 version of the gear-bag. Same "Duffle" but with cooler graphics on the outside and the outer pockets have been reworked. Interestingly enough, the site still lists the older version of the Proto Duffle.
Anyway, it's got nice big exterior pockets on the ends to fit a hopper and an air tank. Plus plenty of pockets for tools etc. And inside is a padded compartment for a marker and elastic loops for up to three barrels. I'm also really liking the vented pockets on the outside: those will keep my really dirty stuff away from my "cleaner" stuff. The whole thing comes on a padded shoulder strap and even padded grab handle (which is a very nice touch when carrying decent weight in a bag).
I haven't actually brought it anywhere yet but I'm already appreciating it because now I don't have my gear just lying around the house.

My VOTOMS collection

Pardon me while I go totally geek throughout this whole post. Scopedog was voted on ToyboxDX as toy of the year when it came out. That was a long time ago and I had other priorities back then (like hunting down a Soul of Chogokin Grendizer and that sort of thing. But I'll tell you what: I'm suitably impressed now that I have my own 1/12 scale VOTOMS. It's insanely huge and crazy detailed. And the price is right (now that Yamato's in business in North America).

And here's my modest collection:
I was able to grab pretty much everything in the line (well, I mean, all the upgrade packs) for just a bit over $200. A couple of years ago that would have been highly unlikely.

Now that I'm all grown up and still looking at all the accessory kits, I suddenly understand why little girls love Barbie so much... In the end, she's just a simple doll (with very few joints, for that matter). But it's all in the accessories. Something about having add-ons makes the thing more than it is.

In the photo above is the Scopedog itself along with two variations on the heavy machine gun (with and without the long barrel and the stock), the shoulder rocket launcher, an Uzi-like pistol weapon, a multitude of ammo packs and equipment containers, the parachute-pack, and of course the pilot figure (which was also sold separately)... Goes without saying that the ammunition cans all fit in the appropriate spots on the guns and storage hooks. Of course, while the parachute pack doesn't actually deploy, it does open up to reveal a series of removable bits of equipment in its storage compartments. Likewise, the rocket-launcher stores a set of 9 rockets, each with their own opening tail fins. The bazooka also collapses into a portable version of itself. Finally, mounted on the Scopedog itself is the flight-pack for zero-G combat.

I'm such a damn geek right now. Simple pleasures....

Another Yammie update

Got incoming today...

Tube 3 was loaded and fired before I knew it. Amazon shipped me my weekend order of comics and it arrived today. Did I mention I finished reading The Luna Brothers' Ultra last week? It was awesome and was everything it promised. So anyway, I decided it was time to finally follow up with the Annihilation collection. I got the first 2 hardcovers a while back. Say what you will about Marvel Comics in general but they sure know how to package their stuff in the end. I also ordered the first volume of Invincible (hardcover as well). I was amused by the character's guest appearance in Noble Causes and decided now was as good a time as any to check out the proper title.

I got news from Yamato. The rep said he was expecting to send out replacement parts on Thursday and asked for my address. Huh... no questions asked? Cool! Of course, I had already sent him pretty much all the info there was anyway including the photos I previously sent to the store. So that's some good news.

As for tube number 2, it fired some time last week but the tracking service does not extend beyond Hong Kong so I have no idea when it could be incoming. Could be en route or could be held at customs or anything. I hate this part.

Scopedog parts update

A little news: The folks at the on-line store where I bought my Scopedog directed me to contact the people behind the Scopedog, Yamato Toys USA. At the very least, the email was very sincere and came directly from the big boss... and that's very reassuring because I know they're on my side. They even said they'd "investigate the matter" if I didn't hear back from Yamato. And that's got to count for something.

As for what was in the second tube, that was loaded and fired late last Friday... I'll take pictures when that gets here...

Lamenting Scopedog

Well, I got good news and bad news. That big huge box (about 3 or 4 cubic feet) arrived at my door on Friday. The idiots decided to leave it there unsecured but luckily my folks were there to grab the box before something bad happened.

So what was it? It's a 1/12 scale "Scopedog" mecha from Armoured Troopers VOTOMS. And with the crazy sale that was on at the shop, I was able to snag the limited edition "Red Shoulder" elite model with the option clear armour parts. And on top on that, I was able to get a whole bunch of add-on packs like the additional weapons sets, the zero-G flight-pack, and the parachute module. All for a fraction of what it would have cost under normal circumstances.

Sadly, there's been a little, um, snag:


That unsightly seem? It's actually the first sign: the upper arm was flimsy and came apart the moment I took him from the box. I was needless to say, severely disappointed thinking that it was broken or something. But then I looked at the pieces closely and noticed:
Those are the 2 pairs of armour bits that should wrap around the upper arms. Notice anything? The pairs are supposed to snap-fit pegs-to-holes. But I've actually got only 1 "peg" piece and 3 "hole" pieces! Crap.

I've already written a message to customer service asking what my options are. I don't want to
ship the whole damn thing back (this sucker's huge!). But I asked about sending me a replacement piece...

So what if I can't get satisfaction? Well, I have 2 choices then... Firstly, because it's the limited edition, I guess I could just always display it with the clear parts (which would be kind of cool in itself). The other option is to mod the "hole" piece into a "peg" piece myself by cutting the correct elbow joint into it (because the "hole" piece only fits on the back of the upper arm outside the elbow) and then figure out another way to make some kind of pegs for it out of toothpicks and super-glue... hmm...

Reaction: 3:10 to Yuma

Hollywood is too lazy to come up with anything but a remake... so I will be lazy too and simply repost what I wrote in an on-line forum earlier today.

A little bit of context is required however. After the movie my people went out for a late supper and at the time, over a stack of mini-cheeseburgers, I had given the film 7 out of 10. I reasoned then than just because I disliked certain story decisions did not make for a bad film, it just wasn't my cup of tea. The post follows:

Having slept on it, I'm going to tune down my rating from a 7 to a 6 because it occurs to me that on the scale, I enjoyed some movies more and still gave them 7.

Slick, lots of action... Crowe played his usual smart-alec character full of bravado. Most folks complained that there were under-developped plot-lines and red-herrings, but I tend to believe that it was the character's bravado and tall-tales. There was enough testosterone around the camp-fire to drown in, so I don't doubt a lot of what was said in the dialog was just trash-talk.

Christian Bale provided a suitable counter-balance to the big-talking villain with his quiet simmering... well, except whenever Jodie Foster was involved. I don't blame him. If anything, given the weakness of the script, I'm amazed the cast did what they could with it.

But the burgers sure tasted good. I would also remind folks to eat them when they arrive because once they start cooling down, they tend to dry up a bit. Oh wait, where was I?

Messenger roll-out screws me!!

Messenger is arguably the most polished of the IM clients out there. I tried a few others in my day but nothing is more intuitive than Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger). It keeps me in touch with friends and family (particularly my mother who likes to go on-line early in the morning and sometimes we video-chat; and it's all free - unbeatable!).

Well, if you haven't heard about it yet, this past week Microsoft decided it was time to roll out version 8.1 - but in the process crushed any sense of normality I had come to expect with Messenger. Somehow, the network refresh completely wiped me out!

Now there's an up-side to this... For the last 11 months I've been using an outdated email address to sign-in to Messenger. An email address acts as one's LiveID. You can change your email in your LiveID profile, but you cannot change the actual LiveID itself. This morning for whatever reason (I guess somebody else claimed my old Sympatico address finally) LiveID prompted me to update my username. So I gave it my new Rogers email address. Easy right?

Wrong.

Firstly, I've since discovered that I lost all my custom emoticons, custom avatars, and backgrounds for chat-windows (which was a very ero-kawaii Misaki Kureha from Divergence Eve, by the way).

Secondly, I don't know if this is new or what... but just now a buddy helped me test my setup. And boy did it act funny. Let's say we're in already in a chat window and I decide to hide by going "Appear Offline." Suddenly my friend could not continue our conversation... any further messages he typed into our chat window instead went to some kind of temporary hotmail inbox (and I assure you, I don't have a hotmail address). Talk about bizzarre!

Anyway, excuse me while I go try to rebuild all my missing emoticons and stuff.

Fire Tube 1 of 2

Timing is one thing that tends to screw with me a lot. I had intended to build a new PC for my folks before the next time they visited me, but here we are, less than a week before they're coming over again. Pfft...

The other thing was a bunch of stuff I've had my eye on for an eternity on-line... but I had put it off while budgetting for my Toronto trip... Well, after the trip, and in spite of my damage report posted earlier today, I decided I was still good for the one big sale I got an email about...



Hmm... in transit over the weekend, eh? And it left from LA? Probably going to cross the border from BC. I'll be dinged on customs for sure there. Oh well, that's the game I play. That doesn't bother me so much as wondering how much time wasted that it'll be held up at the border.

I'm expecting a pretty huge box (I saw actual samples while visiting Toronto last week). I seriously lucked out with the discounts this time. I'll blog it big time when it arrives.

Damage Report: Toronto 2007

Sorry for the lack of posts but, I was out of town on my annual trip to Toronto. I don't have much to say about the trip itself but my friends know me too well and have already asked if I accumulated any goodies.
My first stab at this post organized everything by day but I've decided to sit down and completely re-edit the thing because I felt it ...just sucked the way it was. So I broke down the list into topics.

Missing comics: to be blunt, my ulterior motive for visiting family is to also scour stores for missing items from my collections. I managed to find G.I.Joe Special Missions "Manhatten." Elsewhere I grabbed 4 issues of Warhammer40k "Damnation Crusade." Sadly I'm still missing one issue (hopefully I can still find it locally for cheap). I also stumbled on a collected edition of Tony Takezaki's "Space Pinchy" which serves as my guilty pleasure for the month.

UFS cards: If there's one thing where my brother influences me, it's my gaming habits. He has a funny way of looking at value-for-money. He's willing to spend a little to save (I tend to disagree with this philosophy). But in total, I spent over $100 in cards and related supplies these last 14 days. We found a crazy good deal on cards if we bought in bulk. So my final tally was actually 2 booster boxes (24 packs each). And I also picked up some fancy card sleeves (just under $10 for 100 sleeves). I've been home 4 days and I still haven't opened all the packs yet so I haven't really taken the time to tweak my decks or build any new ones. On a side note, I also found a small store that was selling individual character cards for a dollar apiece, luckily, I haven't opened any packs yet to find doubles of stuff I bought separately.

Gokin: I bought CM's Patlabor Ingram die-cast metal figure. I think I overpaid by just a bit, but it's all subjective because I didn't have to pay for shipping and handling. I'm happy but for a minor Quality Control issue on the paint (one of the prominent stencils seemed to be mis-applied). Bummer.
You know, for the months where I skimped and saved, this shopping trip was a on the light side for robot toys and kits.

Gashapons: When will I ever learn not to waste my time and money on non-gokin mecha toys? I picked up a couple of Front Mission trading figures. These are blind-boxed little PVC-plastic robot toys ... the operative word here is "cheap." On one of them both hands broke at their wrist joints. One side I could 'repair by drilling it out and plugging in the optional hand. I guess I'll just super-glue the other back into place. On the brighter side, I also found an entire set of Evangelion SD people. They're funny and cute... I'm thinking I'll let them live in my cubicle.

Lastly, I finally have my own set of Settlers of Catan. It's a strategy board game where players compete (or work with alliances) to expand their populations on the "Catan Island." I already got a lot of mileage from it during my time in Toronto.