David Hingtgen

I own the MG Zeta, and it's still little more than "tucking in the arms and legs and sitting on its shield". You also flip up the chest and slide down the head. Big whoop. It just has a REALLY BIG shield/wing thing mounted on its back, that it can tuck its arms into to hide them better. It's still a flying shield, with a gundam torso and legs sitting on top of it. It's incredibly finicky and time consuming to transform, but that's not due to complexity or anything. (I did ONCE get it to lock together rock solidly--never figured out how, and could never do it again---it was either a mistake, or some hidden feature no one else has ever found that was actually designed into it---as everyone else (including me) complain about how floppy it is)

Sorry, gotta correct that: The Sv-51 includes the AA-9 "Amos" missile. Sidewinders are much smaller, and American. At least the toy's supposed to, I think that's what's in the animation and listed in the official specs. But the toy's don't look like AA-9's at all. ::looks:: Well, the specs say it's supposed to be an R-33D Amos+. But that doesn't really exist. (Also, the basic Amos is the R-33E, so a D should actually be older). Still, it's different-looking enough that even a "Amos+" wouldn't look like that IMHO. ::edit:: Well, anyways, they're not Sidewinders. Don't know what they are. Look more like a Matra Super 530 than anything. But that's an old French missile.

Yes, ARC is the best place in the world for airplanes--both real and model. Dark blue is the second-most common color, so that should be easy to find. The numbers all vary in size and shape a little, so you should be able to use decals from almost any modern plane. MiG-25, MiG-29, Su-24, all would work just as well as Su-27 decals.

Is the color important? I can find large "01" but only in red. (I'll ask at my favorite airplane modeling forum if there are any decals that are easy to get in France)

Did you use the kit stickers? From what I can tell, Yamato did use Flanker markings. PS--I would have expected Russian-style modex numbers. Like this: A big, bold, outlined/shadowed number on the nose would make it look very Russian. Just a suggestion. I have seen ones more like you did on recent Flankers, but a big number with a white border is just so very "Russian" for planes.

I've been checking printers, and the problem is, almost none will physically fit where it has to. Of those that do, the text quality sucks, or the photos aren't good enough to make it worth buying a new one. Arrrgh. And a new desk costs more than any printer, plus it'd be a heck of a lot of work to disassemble and haul away the old one. (Big old oak desk from my parents) Plus you just don't see ones with slide-away printer drawers any more. There does seem to be a "superior in every way" pinter out there. Canon's ip5300. But it's only sold in Europe, India, Australia, and Canada. WTF? I may import it, seems many people in the US do. But it won't fit anyways, it's a top-loader. Current "most likely, if any" ones are HP's 7x60 series, (they fit, and have the absolutely-required separate tank for each ink color feature, but the text quality seems poor from the initial demo tests---which is bad when 80% of what I print is pure text), and HP's 43xx series---which while having good text and decent photos, has the "all in one" color ink tanks, which will cost me the cost of the printer in sheer wasted ink in just 2 refills. My #1 requirement probably is "separate tanks for each ink color". I've wasted hundreds of dollars over the years (OLD printer, but still as good as it gets for raw text from an inkjet--and very fast and reliable) of 2/3 full cyan and magenta ink, because yellow ran out. It's always yellow, regardless of design. People with the printers I'm interested in with separate ink tanks have reported buying 2 replacement tanks of yellow, yet cyan and magenta are still 1/2 full. Annoyingly, the HP C8180, while costing more, has good quality and speed in all aspects, and separate ink tanks (6 of them) but is just one-half inch too tall. (And I seriously considered chopping out my lower shelf's upper layer to lower the printer drawer, but it won't work---there's nothing left). (Only HP seems to make bottom-loaders any more, every top-loader is WAY too tall when the paper's loaded)

Why doesn't Canada buy Super Hornets? Proven design, TWIN ENGINE (for Canada's cold wilderness---one of the main reasons they picked it over the F-16 in the first place, same reasoning as Australia), a lot cheaper, and available now. Plus, they already have maintenance and training in place to support it, at least partially. Or, because Canada only buys new planes every 25 years, can they not afford a stop-gap fighter like the Super Hornet, and are thus waiting for something truly next-gen, including stealth etc?

How things could be different, if only Matt would have served waffles...

I think it all comes down to lack of waffles. Seriously--1st season rocked, and often had waffles. Mrs Bennet made waffles often. Hiro and Ando had waffles in several cities. Didn't Nathan and his family have waffles while they were being interviewed? This season? The only waffles were made by West. And I don't think anyone is very fond of West.

Gah! X-32 was the worst fighter in a long time. Fugly, and couldn't even hover when it was EMPTY. The F-35 at least didn't have hovering problems until they fattened it up. X-32's failures and overall suckiness are easily explained IMHO: Boeing. Boeing's never built a fighter jet of any kind. Or even a fighter at all AFAIK. Don't expect their first attempt at a cutting edge, hovering, stealthly one to do that well. If it's not a large, high-aspect ratio jet, then Boeing's not very good at it. Few of their props were all that wonderful, and their only non-airliner jet successes are very airliner-esque: B-47 and B-52.

For audio, I currently have everything jury-rigged via several adapters from the switchbox into my 300W stereo via standard RCA cables. I don't use it often though, just "important" stuff. Nothing compared to a receiver, but it's better than simply a TV. (Everything outputs to the TV and stereo simultaneously, I just turn on the stereo when I want better sound--then I effectively have 4 speakers and quasi-surround due to the stereo's speaker placement---the TV always seems to "fill in" a certain range, I never use just the stereo for games/movies) Hmmn, I never turned it on for Mass Effect, will have to see if it affects the "quiet NPC dialogue" issue.

Went to Sears today---they redid their setup again. Much better than BestBuy IMHO. Lighting, while flourescent, is the most "yellow" flourescent I've ever seen and is simple overhead lighting like the rest of the store. As opposed to BB, which uses back-lit blacklights in the TV section... So TV's look much more "normal". (All TV model names are "approximate" as I haven't memorized them all---but you should certainly be able to figure out what I mean) I'm dead set on 32in, so that's all I look at. Anyways---Sears eventually rotated to a long BluRay promo for "Cars"---and we all know high-end CG animated films are among the best stuff you can get to evaluate a TV. Clearest image I've seen yet on a display around here. Even though checking around all the signals were RF/coax cables from 8-way splitters. (yup). Also, Sears leaves the remotes out, so you can check out how they feel, button placement, TV menus, etc. The Samsung LN3253H had the blackest black by far. Surprised. Also, it was one of the "yellow" LCD screens, as opposed to the more common now blue/purple. But, it was just plain much blacker. Its yellow hue was VERY slight, as opposed to even the blackest of the blue ones being noticeably blue. (NO TV is black to my eye---shut off CRT's are not black IMHO---they all have a hue and/or shade) The last "yellow" LCD screen I saw was terrible in every way. But that was an old, cheap, PC monitor. Or maybe that Samsung was just so black and hue-less, the slight yellow tint was actually the store's lighting. That Samsung also looked really good overall. It was next to the 1080p Sharp, so that was a good opportunity to compare. (All TV's were set to super-blue white and super-bright contrast, but I wasn't going to go through and adjust a half-dozen TV's to compare under more realistic settings--too much effort, and the all-important Sony S3000's remote wasn't there) Anyways, I still can't see 1080p on a 32in at a distance of 5 feet or so being better 99% of the time. Again---only large, static text shows a difference. I watched like 5 mins straight of "Cars" and the only time I saw a difference was the logo---the edges of the lettering is less jaggy on the 1080p. The input was 1080i according to several TV's, and all the 720p's seemed to scale it flawlessly. Though maybe getting a decent connection like component or HDMI might reveal differences, both among TV's and 720p vs 1080p. Best Buy seems to use component, but through SO many splitters it looks like an antenna reception in a snowstorm... Sharp 1080p models are still around 300 more than the best 720p models. (Here at least, BB and Sears have nigh-identical prices) Currently leaning towards Sony 32S3000 and Panasonic 32XC700 at the moment, as they have non-gloss bezels and seem pretty similar. (I hate glossy bezels). However, that Samsung did look overall about the best I think, and certainly had the best black. (Of that store that day that source). It did have a glossy bezel though. Maybe I can learn to ignore it. I hate having to compare TV's with such "not how it'll be at home" settings, but it's all you can do unless you can find every remote and can figure out what mode etc they should all be in. (Dynamic pic, motion control, noise, etc--some TV's have all that hidden and automatic, some have their own button on the remote--hard to get them truly all set to the same settings) Honestly, all 3 of the ~1000 buck 32's seem VERY similar, with individual store/settings making the difference I think. Will have to check the Samsung at BestBuy again, see how they have it set up then. (BB changes around the main 3 or 4 I'm interested in EVERY time so I can never get a good comparison among them) PS---as you might gather, I don't buy things on impulse. And as things increase in price, I spend exponentially more time analyzing. But hey, this'll be the most expensive thing I buy for a long time. (hopefully) PPS--the Samsung has 3 HDMI and 2 component. Sony is typical at 2 of each. The Panasonic is only 2 HDMI and 1 component, which'll fill up quickly when I get a PS3 and likely HD-DVD player, in addition to my 360 and DVD player already . Don't they realize anyone buying an HDTV is probably going to have a LOT of stuff to plug in? You should see my pile of cables and splitters with my current setup. (And I leave my Dreamcast unplugged--it "shares" the connection with the DVD player as that's the easiest one to unplug)

A-6F would have helped a lot. Cheap and easy. Heck, new-build A-6E's would have worked decently well.

ARC's down so can't ask our resident F-22 pilot. (Dunno if he could say or not, but he surely knows if anyone)

I found normal with a soldier to be very easy. Died a few times early, but then never died more than once in the same place--generally I only ever died from: 1. Mako. Sometimes you'll take 6 rocket hits and have no idea where they're coming from. Far more Mako deaths than "on the ground" deaths. 2. Unexpected Krogans. If you blindly stumble into one turning a corner, you are likely dead, as they will charge you. I don't know if any geth ever killed me, maybe once or twice in the game once I got past Eden Prime and had the slightest clue what I was doing. Oh yeah, the only real "boss" of the game besides the final one--the very cold planet. Took 2 or 3 tries before I figured out it was your standard "kill the lackeys, not the boss" type of fight. But since it was my first run, being a paragon--I wanted it to be quick and easy. For my 2nd run, I might skip straight to hardcore, to use that character later on insane. (If it's way too hard, then I'll do veteran then hardcore) (my 2nd run is always my "master" run in Bioware-type RPG's)

I avoid team battle 1 for that reason. People don't seem to understand that every stage is played different, not just a different ground texture. Your other team members just fly around randomly. Of course, if you're the ESM-carrier, the other team always seems to know and they ALL come after you. Really, all I play is team 2 and 3 (3 with NPC off, so it's just "open and free" to dogfight in). I'd play battle royale a lot more, but it's rarely going on. And if it is, it's set up for 20 min battles with 16 players and the host won't start it when only 15 are ready and waiting...

Looks like FAST packs and stand at the moment. We haven't even seen a drawing of a fold booster for it.

I used ONLY the assault rifle my first run. Not a single point into other weapons. (Had I known about unlocking stuff for future plays, I would have switched to sniper rifle--by the time I knew, it was too late to make it worth it--I wasn't going to try to learn and put points into a new weapon at the end) By the end with high-end mods, the AR simply wouldn't overheat. "Overkill" became worthless. And I found just running right into the middle of the pack was the best, fastest way to take people out. I'm going to play as a vanguard next time.

And using that scheme is basically cheating. I don't know WHAT it does, but it makes the missiles trail green smoke, and they're like super-QAAMs. I died like 5 times in 10 secs. They HOME and TRACK like you wouldn't believe. In a week or so maybe the novelty of it will wear off, but for now---online sucks if people are using that.

I support the F-35 as a Harrier replacement and that's it. For an F-16 replacement---for how much it's costing just buy F-22's! If everything's going to small-diameter-bombs anyways, there's no need for big external 2000 pounders.

Yeah, but it's the third time I'm worried about.

I know what I missed (that's how I know I missed it) but want to see it for myself. I thought having won there'd be no spoilers, but I keep encountering stuff I hadn't seen, or am already spoiled for some funny lines, renegade-only events, etc. I need to stop reading "I won the game" threads. Annoyingly, I keep reading Wrex has all the good lines (and of the few I've heard they are), but I'm not bringing him along until the THIRD playthrough. (It'll mess everything up unless I decide to play as an Infiltrator on the 2nd run--but I don't plan to)

I bet they could get the rights to Dobber's scheme pretty easily.

Anyone playing ME, awesome sidequest easily missed (I did): Attican Beta Cluster / Hercules System / Eletania Go there. And bring the thing you get from I don't know if "the thing" is easily attainable as a renegade (it can be done but many don't have it) so it might be a long while before I get it. Darn, and I found every other and none of them did anything other than get my hopes up for something cool. Apparently the one in Eletania does something. Though I swear I was there, but didn't find anything.

Graham--the Super Nova schemes are clearly based on the F-15 prototype schemes (IMHO). Just have them do those. Though the Super Nova schemes have extra striping. Or hey--how about the ACTIVE scheme? That's awesome, and well-known in Japan. (It has to be, Namco puts it in every Ace Combat game from the past couple of years)