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Pontus

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Everything posted by Pontus

  1. Pontus
    CVT is a great idea, and like anything, it has to be built right. My only problem with them is that they're often programmed counter to it's design philosophy; It's supposed to allow your engine to run smoothly at it's peak efficiency without major changes in RPM for the given conditions, but it's often programmed to meet human expectations by making it sound like it's shifting which is not ideal for a CVT to be jumping the belt back and forth across the cones. As a manual loving car guy, I actually loved my Ford CMax which had a smoothly programmed CVT in it. I leased it tho and would NEVER own one, although I know plenty of people at my workplace who've had theirs for years now. Chevy did what is imho the best hybrid implementation on the Volt; You need to make the engine a generator and drive the car on electric alone, not as a assist stuck between the engine and wheels. I always hated how the CMax would turn the COLD engine on when it needed power and rev it to the max to get it. But, if you kept the battery charged up, it hardly ever used it in city driving. I had the person at the service desk AT THE DEALER chastise me for not changing my oil at 4k mi. I'm like the engine never runs. Once a year is fine and even at that I was changing it MORE often than recommended. Funny story with that car... My wife, I, and our 1yr old toddler just starting to walk were going up north to spend time at Lake Wazee and decided to take the "back roads." The car handled the roads like a champ, and I was always impressed with it's handling. Within a few miles of the lake, my options were to get on the highway and take the normal route in, but I saw all these smaller roads leading into the area and decided to cross the highway keeping on the road I was already going down. THEN IT STARTED TO POUR RAIN! Seemed like a nicely paved road at first, but then the lines went away. Ok, but still a nice paved road. Then the road started to narrow until the point where I didn't feel safe attempting to turn back because I was obviously going to get stuck if one tire went off the pavement in this low slung car with like 3" of clearance. It was still paved tho, so we kept going. Then the pavement slowly faded into hard packed tarred gravel. Then hard gravel... then sandy, muddy gravel... and before I know it, I'm doing my absolute damnedest to keep my speed up and my car out of and on top of the muddy, sandy ruts with the traction control constantly cutting power until I found a panicked moment to jam my finger at the traction button. I made it through a mile of this, down a muddy valley and finally up a sandy hill to crest back onto the safety of a paved road again. PHEW! Then around the next corner... mother nature said NO! Road was flooded out about 3' deep. F*&^!!! Now I have to drive BACK THROUGH all that mud again! And it ain't getting dryer cuz it's still pouring down rain! And I have no idea where to tell a tow truck to get me even if they WOULD. But by some miracle we made it. Then my kid went to get out of the car at the lake and promptly landed flat on her face on the pavement. Poor kid had a scratched up face, but she was ok. Then the sun came out, we enjoyed the rest of the day, and TOOK THE HIGHWAY HOME!!! Afterwards the car's suspension started making a clunk sound of a broken front sway bar link, so I took it to the dealer fully expecting them to say that it wasn't covered under warranty because I obviously took it off roading, but to my surprise, they covered it!
  2. Pontus
    Good to see some love for the ol' 262. I've got one of mine set up at work along with a 3Zero VF-1J. In battroid mode, I hate having the wings all up in the air like it's about to go gliding, but it looks a heck of a lot better down low like sortuva mechanical cape... and the big gun sticking up there seems very Macross imho.
  3. Pontus
    I hope that the statement, "the items will be shipped with the Alus Edition UHD Blu-rays" means that the discs are coming soon. This has been dragging on for a while now. I know there was some extra stuff going on, but these were originally promised by last December.
  4. Pontus
    I thought I read somewhere that the styrofoam these were packed in was the cause of yellowing. If that's the case, then keeping them in the boxes may have been the problem.
  5. Pontus
    @Sildani, I'll bite on that one. For such a low budget, you might be better off going with one of the windows based gaming handhelds. I recently went with a Steamdeck because it's purpose built with a dedicated linux gaming OS that's easier on power than Windows, but there's no support for Tarkov, so that wouldn't work for you. But there's plenty of great options out there like the MSI Claw, Asus Rogue, Lenovo Legion (which actually has both SteamOS dedicated support and Windows, so you could dual boot), etc. These are all within your budget iirc. Old school/serious PC gamers may write these off, but the tech is seriously capable now (other than battery life, get an external one), and they all have docking options, bluetooth controllers, and double as a standard PC. Will they do 4k with ray tracing at 120hz? Not even close, but I think most of the latest models can meet your stated expectations not to mention being portable. Some can even connect to external GPUs, although that's not really all that practical... yet. Asus makes a good go of that but it's expensive. USB C vsn5 works but isn't quite up to the task, and the only one that has a PCI connection is the older Asus model. Just my 2¢.
  6. Pontus
    But seriously (well, half), these things have shoulder mounted missiles, cannons front and back... and freakin' valks have hands for no apparent tactical reason other than holding a ridiculous, handheld gun that makes zero sense (if design was considered BEFORE they knew they'd be tackling space giants). At least Spartans have big, heavy duty hands for both load handling and non explosive, close range tactical use on a SPACE ship where you don't exactly wanna be firing inside your own ship. In that regard these things make perfect sense.
  7. Pontus
    Has anyone had a chance to download the Alien3 4k fan edit yet?
  8. Pontus
    Pardon me if this is common knowledge and/or been asked before, but I just watched DYRL for the first time on this 4K release (just beautiful, glad I got it!) and noticed something; Flashback 2012 is not the first time the VF-4 was featured. Unless I'm mistaken here, in Hikaru's apartment scene, he has a blue model of a prototype VF-4 on his shelf. The only thing that might be different is that I don't see the front kenards on the model. (what am I talking about, I must be confusing my valks) But it's only a small part of a few frames. Anyway, I was just wondering if that's been noticed before, or is this only just now noticable (or perhaps confirmed) due to the high resolution?
  9. Pontus
    I was disappointed at first too especially after having to wait so long for a preorder, but looking back at the OG pics from SDFM to compare, it's really growing on me. Maybe I'm just being contrary after seeing all the negativity here, but I'm going to add some positivity and risk ridicule by saying... I think this is pretty good! Is anyone else making Max figures that look half this good with such articulation? Maybe a model kit, but ain't nobody got time for dat (and no articulation at all)! Sure, there's some nitpicks to make, but it looks like Max and has REAL CLOTHES that are quite nice. I am very happy to have finally gotten another great addition to their figure line up, and I hope they keep it up. All I ask for is Kakizaki (and it better have a steak), but Global, Claudia, or even another Misa in real cloth would be killer. Anyway, just my 2¢ and wanted to lend some perspective to what seems like a very negative reception. I mean, there's a fan with a company out there that's still making toys from an 80's anime for crying out loud! I'm so thankful for this. Still not doing kickstarters tho.
  10. Pontus
    Max will be shipping soon. Just got an email from KC asking me to confirm my address.
  11. Pontus
    I got mine yesterday. This is my second shipment from Crunchyroll after returning the first, and although it arrived without damage this time, it's not for better packaging. This time, they chose a "box" that was actually just a prefolded cardboard piece with no corners just slapped around it, and it was way too narrow so they just bent it over the edges, slapped some more miracle paper in there, taped it once across the middle, and called it a day.🤦‍♂️ For those that had issues extracting the disks from the book, I see what you mean, and I found the solution. It's tempting to wanna crank on that disk to get it out, but that only makes it harder to extract like an inverse finger trap. It's actually a rather nice retainer imho (better than too loose), but you have to really press hard in the center while supporting the back of the book with your other hand, and DO NOT pry on the disk - only use enough pressure such that it pops out when you press. It pops right out without stress that way, or at least it did for me.
  12. Pontus
    Interesting, mine spent several additional days in USPS shipping too after it came up with an error saying it was getting forwarded back to the shipper, but then it went back through the local shipping system again. My box only had a single wadded up sheet of paper under one side. I'll see if they'll exchange it, but I don't want to wait for them to get the return before shipping my replacement in case they run out of stock in that time, so I think I'll see if they'll ship the replacement before I ship it back.
  13. Pontus
    DO NOT buy this from Crunchyroll. They packaged mine in a box with zero padding other than some craft paper under one side. The whole corner of the box ripped out. Fortunately, it only dinged the corner a little bit, but this is unacceptable packaging!
  14. Pontus
    Got mine today. Very nicely done... other than powering the lights with 4 different battery sockets! And I love the instructions, "insert the batteries according to the instructions." These ARE the instructions ffs! And WHAT batteries?! They don't say what model to use anywhere that I can see. Does anyone know? I think I'll rewire it for USB power some day. As for scale, I bought it to match 1/100 instead of getting HMR because I feel like 1/72 regults match HMR valks better (and cheaper). I was already planning to build the bandai kit, but since I had super custom plans for that (a purple stealth sniper) this is really great to have a proper regult. But as the pics above show, it does seem a bit large for HMR (which isn't really 1/100). Happy to have it finally tho regardless.
  15. Pontus
    Gee, must be nice. I ordered mine YEARS ago, and I still haven't gotten any tracking. Oh wait, they can't keep track of email changes despite it being my main login... nope, nothing in my old email. Let's check my account... OH, it says "partial shipped" on the 15th of Sept. That's great, nice of them to let me know... wait, where's the tracking? No tracking, so MAYBE mine will finally show up on my doorstep one of these days (sans figure of course).
  16. Pontus
    I think you got a QC reject considering the paint issues and loose ankles. The ankles on mine are perfectly stiff, seem quite well designed, and allows for some confidently aggressive posing. As for the hands, I personally have no issue with the lack of fixed fold ins because I never display them on any of my valks of any model (unless forced to) because they always look tiny and delicate. And since you'd never get folding SDFM style hands to fit in the arms without something being out of proportion, I don't see any other way around it short of some complicated folding. I just put up a display shelf at work. This and Roy's will be placed here since I don't need more copies of the same thing at home, and these seem pretty tough and relatively cheap. It's kinduva shame to put these up at work tho, because so far, these are my favorite iteration of VF-1 and looks quite sharp! But it looks like I'm going to have to find some more to display here as it's looking pretty empty.
  17. Pontus
    Welcome back! As per the thread topic tho, did you choose @BigInJapan because you're a Tom Waits or Alphaville fan, or did you simply like the phrase as it applies to our hobby? And why did you choose that particular avatar pic?
  18. Pontus
    I hope that means I'll be seeing my 4k preorder arrive any day now. Edit: Google says any of the blue ray releases are not due until Nov. 29th. Did you get a Japanese release Shawn?
  19. Pontus
    I never ordered any valks because I thought the legs looked too skinny, weren't well reviewed, and seemed kinda cheap. Plus they were an odd scale that didn't mesh with pretty much any other toys. But I was really hoping for more figures since they seem to be the only ones making them for SDFM. I hope they don't flake on the Max figure before they go under. If they make any others, I'll buy them, but not directly. A Claudia (with pineapple salad), Kakizaki (with large steak), and/or Milia (with baby Komilia) figures would be awesome, but I'm not holding my breath.
  20. Pontus
    Have you watched the show/movie/s yet? I feel the same, but I haven't watched any of the other stuff yet. If you have watched it and still feel that way, then I'd chalk it up to bad writing or character development. For VF-1 valks, you really feel like you're buying "Roy" or "Hikaru" instead of just their valk. SDFM characters just have a special place in my heart, and I have to have all of their valks. That's why I never got a YF-29 until they made the Max version which I had to have despite never seeing the movie. I have bought 3 of the SV-262 tho, and preordered "the red one" because I really love the design of it, and I'm not into (or have time for) building model kits. Other than the fiddly bracket buried in the middle of the thing, I found the DX to be quite nice, but I haven't played with it enough to argue the point.
  21. Pontus
    Got my 3rd SV-262 (for the only model I can display in all 3 modes) with another draken set. Also got the 3zero VF-1J from amazon. I think this is the nicest iteration of the VF-1 I've seen so far!
  22. Pontus
    I got mine from Amazon yesterday, and color me impressed! Except for the less than Bandai quality stand that is, where it doesn't even hold it in battroid. It just sits on the stand in a couple of grooves but doesn't snap in or actually hold it at all. Lame. I bought this (and preordered a 1S Roy) to have something to display at work and brought it in today, but I think this is nicer than any other iteration I have.
  23. Pontus
    Considering that they asked for final payment back in June, I think it might be too late by now and doesn't accomplish much other than guaranteeing a loss of the downpayment (which is nearly 2/3 the total), but has anyone else considered reporting KC to Paypal for taking our money for a final product and never actually sending anything?
  24. Pontus
    I just opened and took my PF outa the box for the first time, and man this thing is crisp! I can't bring myself to transform it, not to mention that bits be popping just from putting out the landing gear and getting fins and such aligned. A little rectangle brown metallic piece fell off when I moved the lower rear stabilizer, and it seems like a piece that should be glued on...? But man that cockpit and pilot are well detailed!
  25. Pontus
    Be careful with the super glue. It's good to have a fan on it while it dries. Super glue can get "bloom" which appears as a white haze from the curing fumes. At work we use a low bloom CA glue made by Resinlab called Cynergy (bottle is marked CA 6704), but it is really expensive stuff. Do they make low bloom CA glue for modeling? I've actually wondered before if model glue would work on this type of plastic, does anyone know for sure? You'd have to scrape off any paint from any contact surfaces first of course since it reacts with the plastic to do the gluing (at least as I've understood it). Edit: Unfortunately, model glue only works on polystyrene and no other types of plastic like our toys are made of. Just make sure to ventilate so the super glue doesn't haze up. You could also use an accelerator, but I wouldn't recommend it around painted parts as it will take off the paint. Some accelerators are safer for that tho if they are hydrocarbon based (usually labeled foam safe) like Bob Smith Insta-set.
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