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Best time to slack off is at work. As long as your stuff is done on time. I see it as a prime opportunity to talk about models, food, or how to make repairs in your home or car if ya have one. What have you. 😂

So, it's not for power users and certainly not the answer to @David Hingtgen's quest... but Apple just dropped a bomb with the MacBook Neo. Now, I'm saying this as someone who thinks Windows 11 is that bad once you de-clutter it... but the fact that you have to de-clutter it at all is telling. The AI push is adding bloat that no one wants and no one asked for, and yet every time they get called out on it they've doubled down. I think the only thing that's kept me suggesting Windows laptops to my family is that they don't do a ton with their computers, so they just want something cheap. They're just not willing to spend $900+ on a base model MacBook Air. I think the $600 MacBook Neo completely changes that conversation. Yeah, as a primarily PC gamer I'm still going to be running a Windows desktop, and if I'm going on a trip my Zephyrus G14 is going with me. But the next time my wife or dad want a new laptop, I'll point them at the Neo. When my daughter gets far enough along to graduate from an iPad to a laptop for school, Neo. Heck, I have an perfectly good M1 MacBook Air I use for couch surfing (so I know MacOS runs OK even with just 8GB of RAM), and even I'm thinking about replacing it with a Neo because I really dig that green one.

I didn't recognize the names till I saw what series/movies they were in before but yes, solid casting choices.

A-Level is supposed to be Hasbro's plan to have certain figures regularly in circulation by releasing them outside the usual waves, meaning they can be ordered and re-ordered by retailers outside the usual case assortments. In theory, that means that a potentially high-demand figure like SS86 Bumblebee would be readily available for collectors. In practice, it's been nothing but Optimus and Bee, and outside of SS86 Bee they've been shelfwarmers. Just the other day, in fact, I was at my local Walmart and found several Devastation Optimuses on clearance. So while I 've been curious to check out the new A-Level figures, I wasn't too worried when no one was taking preorders and they just randomly started showing up. If you want them, just keep checking your favorite local or online retailers. That is, if you actually want them. As I noted yesterday, Transformers One Orion Pax isn't all that great. Maybe the Bee to this year's Prime will be better... this is Studio Series Deluxe-class Devastation Bumblebee. Out of the gate I'm getting pretty good vibes from this figure. The bot mode is like 90% G1 Bumblebee, with noticeably better proportions than either SS86 Bee or Retro/Netflix Bee. But the panels on his shins and the shape of his feet give me '06 Classics Bumblebee vibes, and I don't hate that. To be fair, those aesthetic choices were really the choices of the team at PlatinumGames; Hasbro simply did a good job of taking the in-game design and rendering it in plastic. Bee does sport a bit of a backpack... but that's really par for the course with the character. The backpack he's carrying isn't any more egregious than the ones on SS86 or Retro/Netflix Bumblebee, and it's largely accurate to the in-game model as well. Are the accessories? Moment of truth here, guys, I don't think I ever bothered playing as Bumblebee outside of scripted parts of the game where you were forced to. That actually goes for anyone not named "Optimus Prime." What I can tell you is that the two pistols are pretty similar to the generic pistol that a lot of guys used in the cartoon, a pistol that's been included with several other Bumblebee toys over the years. As for the bigger gun... *shrugs*. But hey, more is better than less, right? At least as long as the figure itself is good. Bee's head is on a hinged ball joint, so depending on how you manipulated it he's got pretty good sideways and downward tilt, and he can look 90 degrees straight up. His ball-jointed shoulders have the usual swivel and 90 degrees of lateral movement. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivel, but his waist swivels (you might need to move the flap with the taillights on his back). His hips can go forward and laterally 90 degrees, and only a little shy of that backward due to his backpack getting in the way. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have a little downward tilt, nothing up, and his ankles pivot about 45 degrees. All three of his guns have 5mm peg handles that fit into his 5mm port fists. There's also a 5mm port on his back for you to store the extra gun. I don't think he was designed to stow all three in bot mode, but technically the pistols have tabs that fit into slots on his heels. Transformation is a bit wild. The backpack hinges out and away, allowing the rear tires to fold out. His head folds over into his back, then his chest swivels up and over to cover his head on what's actually his back, but the entire torso hinges forward to keep the chest on the roof. The doors on his heels open, the tires fold out, and his feet fold down, with the shin panels rocking down fill in the hood, but then multiple joints around the knees allow the thighs to collapse into the shins, and his hip joints swing the legs up to meet the roof. His arms fold back and tab together, with the backpack coming down to (mostly) cover them and fill in the rear. From most angles, the car looks pretty good. It's game-accurate, which is to say that Platinum didn't want to pay for the Volkswagen license so they more or less took the car mode of Classics Bumblebee, squished it a little, and ditched the extra white paint. The only gripe I have is the largely missing rear bumper. The space has be coopted by his forearms, which stick awkwardly out the rear. But the car does roll. The pistols use their tabs to plug into the doors (which were his heels in bot mode). The larger gun plugs into the 5mm port on the roof. I really like this Bumblebee a lot. It's game-accurate, which is to say it's not technically as G1-accurate as SS86 Bumblebee or Netflix Bee, but the more heroic proportions make him look more dynamic. Likewise, the alt mode is more Classics than G1, but I don't hate that. I mean, Classics is nearly as old today as G1 was when Classics first hit shelves, and Classics is when I started getting into collecting Transformers as an adult, so I'm weirdly nostalgic for it. Nostalgia aside, this is a good-looking, adequately-articulated, well-equipped, mostly G1-ish Bumblebee figure with a pretty interesting transformation. I'd say he's definitely worth picking up.

@Big s -- Yeh that's what I meant...LOL....typing at work when I should be working not model foruming... PRIORITY'S people!!! 😂 And yeh, I need a Traeger smoker at the house too! 🤗😃

Should be good, but another Targaryen-focused story? The First Men and their conflicts with the Children of the Forest on their arrival to Westeros seems like it would lend itself to a more fantasy-like world to explore....not that Dragons aren't fantastical enough, but it sort of has been played out....meh, I still will go see it I suppose....

$116 USD, Aug-Oct 2026.

Some excellent casting news for season 2: ‘Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Season 2 Casts Lucy Boynton, Babou Ceesay, Peter Mullan

If you are planning on waiting the RAMpocolypse out, buying in-store and upgrading as things improve might be the way to go. If you want everything there and not have to worry about upgrades for a while, buying direct from the SI would probably be the better route.

I think that other one is actually the four seater. The standard is actually a two seater. Thunder fighter, Quad fighter and the last is an early version if I remember Traeger used it, not sure if he’s related to the bbq.

WELCOME TO THE 50 CLUB!!! IT SUCKS! 😂 @tekering --- Yeh....I'm eventually gonna HAVE to have one of each of those Buck Rogers Designs in 1:48 or 1/32 Scale!!! I always ADORED the single and double seater designs! Was the 3rd one ever in the show???? I can't recall...

Genesis/destiny full video - part of Azure lane series

It was probably the Matata class... another ship in that class was named the Simba...

Oh wow!!! Happy birthday to you and yours. That’s super exciting. I turn 50 in June. Bunch of bicentennial babies right here. ♥️ Please post your VF-1A if you find the time. Would love to see it. Stayed up late lastnight doing the test fit on the Our Treasure 1/144 Gatexion Mark3 Dharmas. This little model has a ton of detail and is going to take a lot of effort to correct seams and paint. It’s really back heavy too. I am going to mess around with the balance when final construction happens. Would like to avoid a stand if possible. I do have to say I’m loving the wild design. There’s a lot going on here.

In all fairness, it definitely looks rusted enough to be a bit more then 15 years old, lol. The Macross Chronicle glossary also says it might have originally been a "self propelled colony capsule." I could see it being a development from the old converted ships as well, since the Frontier fleet seems to adopt them as Environmental ships for housing smaller populations. It's just one of those cases where the lore evolves over time, and new stories try to rationalize older things that contradicts it, if not outright ignore it. It's a somewhat messy situation, but a very familiar one being a Mega Man fan as one of many examples. Story wise though, it's more to show how screwed Isamu might have been if it wasn't for his transfer to Eden lmao. That's another good way of putting it though, many things presented in the Zero/Frontier era seemed to be presenting the same concepts from 7 but with further elaboration under different contexts, explaining the science of things like Sound Energy and Spiritia through Fold Waves, Fold Resonances, etc. It's not too out of reason to imply Fold Carbon and Fold Quartz is apart of that too. In fact, we actually have a game that does this, Macross VF-X2, as Mission 3 involves protecting the Embatelion transport ship (Ironically for us, a Meltran Landing Assault Ship,) carrying a material called "hyperspace resonance crystal," which was discovered in 2043. It seems to check some boxes the fold quartz has, as it creates a spatial resonance when hit with vibrations of a certain wavelength, and was used for communication and hyperspatial navigation through the Die Zauberflöte comm device. Kodachi seemed to made the connection as well, tying them together officially in his Frontier novelization. Not only that, not every government also either doesn't play nice with the UN or more independently minded from them. That was the source of many conflicts with M3 like Cristrania being founded and characterized through Zentradi fundamentalism, the delicate balance between Neo York's planetary government and the New York Liberation League, and the attempted coup by Anti-UN insurgence in Belfan. And with VF-X2, that was the entire conflict! I have a lot of the same hangups with the Master File books too, so I totally get that. But isn't that the beautiful thing about the continuity of Macross? For better or worse, you can pick and choose what interpretation of events, lore, and mechanical details, and make them your own! Headache for some, but opportunities for others I'd say.

I've upgraded my current PC about as far as I can. It's 11 years old, and despite almost nothing being original besides the case, I need "new everything" to really take advantage of any new tech. I've never had a PC this long before. The case itself is an issue at this point, incompatible with USB 3.1/3.2/C. PSU (#3!) doesn't have 6x2 12-pin for modern GPU's, and is borderline for 5070/5080 wattage requirements. So that pretty much dictates "new everything", to accomplish a GPU/CPU upgrade at this point I came very close to buying a 5060 ti on Black Friday, but was still REALLY waiting for the 5070 Super/Super ti to come out. Well, that's not gonna happen now, and everything is skyrocketing. It's either get something now, or be stuck with an old PC for a very long time or pay a LOT of money for something new a bit later. At the moment, I've swung back towards CostCo again. I could buy it, see if it works/see if it's one of the ones with the better mobo, and return it in-store if not. I dread the thought of ordering a pre-built, waiting for it, then something doesn't work. Much harder to troubleshoot "mystery components" and even harder to ship back.

So what’s the reasoning? Are you looking for something to buy now, upgrade later or to have a system that provides a lasting out-of-box experience that you don’t need to worry about for a while?

He looks really happy to be a part of the collection

Picked one up at HLJ which is perfect, I can ship it and the HMR Scopedog with my VF-17S and and Toyrise Legioss at the end of the month.

Thank you! A while back, I sketched out some jokey ideas for spaceships -- one based on a triangle, one based on a rectangle, and one on a circle. This is the triangle ship. I designed it in Studio, and since I was also in for a copy, I only used pieces currently/recently in production. I figured that way, if anyone likes it (including me), they can easily/cheaply bricklink the parts. Well, semi-cheaply. Europe seems to have way more stores and better prices. Dang, the head doesn't rotate? I guess with the back of the helmet flat against the top of the air tanks, there's no way for it to swivel. I definitely would have preferred an astrofig to the droid, especially in a color we haven't gotten yet (blue, black, or light bley like you said). I was also hoping for some sort of gimmick, like opening the backpack to reveal some trans yellow panels and a computer room or something. It'd be cool if the back of the printed panel had another print, something like these:

That's kind of assuming that those ultra-high efficiency renewable energy sources and thermonuclear fusion power capabilities are being freely shared. As the Macross Galaxy Fleet suggests, not every government plays nice with its civilians. However, putting all that to the side, this could be a sign that Kawamori-san had the concept of Fold Coal and Fold Quartz in mind all along—akin to the Energy Conversion Armour idea that he purportedly had way back at the time of SDFM but didn't formally introduced until Macross Zero. It also goes a long way to justifying why there was a mining settlement on the planet Basara visited in The Galaxy Is Calling Me. (Perhaps a precursor or initial attempt at the idea that got refined and clarified in the Macross Frontier materials as Fold Carbon & Quartz?) I agree that those explanations are neat. However, due to some other oddities and unusual hangups in those books, I can't fully accept them into my head cannon... 😅

Oh wow, you must've procured those designs elsewhere. I think I saw those on Thingiverse. All I did was send you the cockpit interior STL files. I can send you the rest if you'd like. As for myself, I think I'll finally get started laying down decals on my Kakizaki green VF-1A from DYRL by Hasegawa. It has a gloss coat now and is ready to go. I've been slowly working on this for a couple of years now, always getting distracted. I can post pictures of it tonight. It would otherwise be a slow evening after work and the perfect opportunity for hobby time tonight, but today is the commemoration of the female spousal unit's manufacture date. She turned 49 today. Which is fine, but I turn 50 on Sunday. Crap.