26662

2 hours ago, seti88 said:

Well...you could sell your VT-1 in the future and get back some opportunity cost on the IRA interest.....😂

Hahaha!  Never, never, NEVER sell the preciouses!  :-)

On 1/16/2024 at 10:59 AM, 26662 said:

I wanted to but I just learned that with my turning 50 in a couple days, the gov’t is allowing me to play catch up on my Roth IRA by authorizing an additional $7,500 in contributions over the typical annual cap.  I gotta max out to make up for the decades of neglect.

I’m such a hypocrite.  I forgot I wrote this.  What did I do the other night?  Ordered one from Luna.  🙂

22 minutes ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

That made my antenna go up. could you share more please.  They seem legit having a phone app and YouTube channel. I wouldn't be against having a snuggle session with either one of them myself.🫢

I’m giving them a shot for the first time.  I’ll let you hose me once.  Once.  Hoping they come through.  Their uniquely-protracted order window is curious. 

Mine arrived yesterday - on my 50th birthday, no less.  Transforming it was an exercise in patience with pieces popping off left and right.  The metal hinge assembly on what becomes the backpack in battroid mode was *incredibly* tight on my copy.  I’m glad I had Scorched Earth’s transformation guide on YouTube to warn me what I was getting into.  I’ll be surprised if I transform it even one more time.

On 12/29/2023 at 11:58 PM, Lolicon said:

Isn't it great that Yang had the foresight to predict that the 19 pilot might need to eject the rear seat occupant in case he tried to kill the pilot mid-flight, and included a means to reseal the cockpit?

Lockheed Martin should be taking notes.

How about Boeing?  This tech could be the solution for when planes jettison "door plugs."  If only they had hired Yang.  😉

4 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Got a payment request from Amiami. Cheapest shipping was 3160 yen for boat mail, or ~$230 total. I went with air mail for 4860, which cuts down on shipping time by hopefully 2+ months and is only $10 or so more thanks to the exchange rate.

That's $20-50 cheaper than stores stateside (+ tax), which isn't anything to sneeze at.

Got the same notification, but I only knew to look for it because of your post.  Many thanks!  I went with DHL just to be done with it. 

With shipping rates being what they are, I think 2024 will be my year to shop for sale/clearance items rather than pre-ordering.  I might even try to cancel one or two pre-orders.  [I've had a Gigapower Dinobot pre-ordered since 2022.  TFSource says the figure should be released around March.  We'll see.]

4 minutes ago, Sandman said:

That seems like a lot of work.

It was a lot of work, but it's been wonderful having everything reside locally on a server.  It was a good solution for us because with my AppleTV purchases over the years, we currently have somewhere north of 5000 titles (when you include TV and movies together).  My only complaint is the cost: the initial server was thousands and thousands of dollars, and thankfully, we've had to upgrade only once due to storage limits.  We've had to replace only one drive thus far, but because of how she arranged additional drives to serve as backups (don't ask me, I don't know the details), we didn't lose any data.  I wouldn't recommend following in our footsteps because it's a slippery slope in terms of always having to buy additional storage space.  I buy a lot less media than I used to, but with the release of 4K titles we're chewing through disk space even faster than before.  I'm not looking forward to the cost of the next upgrade.

7 hours ago, betocc said:

1 YF-21 available, run

https://www.yoyakunow.com/en/robots/20615-dx-chogokin-yf-21-guld-goa-bowman-custom.html

I wanted to but I just learned that with my turning 50 in a couple days, the gov’t is allowing me to play catch up on my Roth IRA by authorizing an additional $7,500 in contributions over the typical annual cap.  I gotta max out to make up for the decades of neglect.

3 hours ago, derex3592 said:

I'd buy that grey scheme in a heartbeat Bandai. 

Amen!

3 hours ago, PointBlankSniper said:

In the midst of the YF-21 preorder madness, I noticed amiami had these readily available for preorder, and under msrp at that.

Then I got seduced by this footage:

At the thought of bandai never completing product lines, which means waiting for teal CF being a bad gamble, I buckled.

RIP wallet. 😭 Wasn't planning on stomaching the USD markups for the 21 anyway. Will just have to go on the hunt again near release, or on mandarake afterward. Still have an affordable 19 to hunt for too...

A sexy beast below MSRP?  Don't blame you a bit.

4 minutes ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

I'd keep refreshing AmiAmi, many times preorders have reopened later.

That’s my strategy at the moment.  I tend to get up in the middle of the night to work a bit.  I’ll play the refresh game and see if I get lucky. 

1 minute ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

Got cartjacked, but my good friend Germán (Darotower MW member) got one at AmiAmi,  and he told me he does not want it so I can have it 🤪

That happened to me too!  My longtime buddy, Ignacio Ocamica, said he was gifting me his YF-21 along with his YF-19 preorder!   MW members are incredibly generous! 

Just now, PointBlankSniper said:

Tried amiami just now. The button turned orange a few seconds late, then seems like it instantly got botted to no stock the moment I loaded to cart, and then to preorder closed. Button came back and cycled through the same thing a few times before it stayed closed. lmao

Same.

30 minutes ago, betocc said:

It is live now

Just picked up one from Nin Nin.  I don't like price, but I'll "dollar cost average" with ones I pick up later.  The trouble I had last night/this morning when trying to order one was due to my credit card's automatic fraud detection.  I buy a lot from overseas, but maybe I got flagged because of the odd local hour I was trying to make a purchase. 

1 minute ago, MKT said:

Hobby Genki seems to have pulled a bit of scummy move by raising the price when it went live. It was originally Yen 38.5k, and then it went straight to Yen 39,750 lol..

 

I couldn't even find the link to begin haha.. I'm sure there must be some tricks   

 

I noticed the pricing shenanigans and shifted immediately to other vendors.

Had one in my cart but I decided last minute to wait for it on Amazon.  All of the recent DXes are still for sale on Amazon, even the YF-19, so I figure I'll snag a few from Tamashii a little later.  If that plan fails, I'll pay the late tax.  No bigs.

4 minutes ago, MKT said:

Amiami PO only opening on the following day, in what has become their usual practice now.

I noticed that too.  Of all the pre-order sites I've seen thus far, Ami Ami is the only one I've used previously.  I've registered new accounts with a couple alternative vendors, but w/o prior experience I'm a little wary.  I've been in the game for over 30 years and I've been burned more times than I care to admit.  If there's a silver lining, it's that credit card companies have been pretty generous lately with clawing back "scammed" funds.

4 minutes ago, spacemanoeuvres said:

https://www.amiami.com/eng/detail/?gcode=FIGURE-164591

This is the one I was waiting for.  TY!

2 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

They don't turn on the in-flight wifi until after takeoff typically.

Also: China Airlines, going to Taiwan.

Send me the bill.  I'll cover the connection fee:  [Offer declined.]

36 minutes ago, no3Ljm said:

5 minutes off the ground? You can probably still try on your phone once the 'do not' lights turn off. If you're still in the tarmac or taxiing, go for it! Take a chance!   

Don't be a cheapskate.  Pay for the in-air internet service.  American Airlines offers in-service internet for about $15.00.

35 minutes ago, betocc said:

Is the PO scheduled at 3 pm or 4 pm Japan Time of Juanary 10th?

I've got a clock counting down for me: https://time.is/1600_10_Jan_2024_in_Japan

4 hours ago, treatment said:

Same effort to do with the Movie version, but you'll have to find the old fansubs to get the proper english-subs.

That is due to the JP-BD's movie-edition having engrish-subs.

The old US DVD Mangle had burned-in subs.

See diff here:

US Mangle dvd's old burned-in subs:

 

vs

JP-BD native engrish sub:

 

vs

JP-BD with old fansubs:

 

 

TY!  I didn't realize there were so many options.  My better half is the media expert so I'll ask her to help piece all of this together.  [She managed a Blockbuster in college and ended up with something like 2000 titles when they finally shuttered the store.  It took a year of on/off effort, but she finally ripped everything (Handbrake?), added subtitles and artwork found online, and put all of it on a media server to stream throughout the house.  I think that's the first and last time she did anything remotely related to her engineering degree.]

57 minutes ago, Rhubarbarian said:

The movie is currently doing the theatre circuit, and Anime Ltd. is supposed to be doing a four-volume vinyl release of the soundtrack this year. No official word on a streaming or blu-ray release for the OVA or the movie, but I imagine it is coming pretty soon.

Like Seto said, if you don't want to wait, your best bet are the old DVDs. They are surprisingly not super expensive; I remember having to pay kind of ridiculous prices for the Megazone 23 DVDs before they did the blu-ray re-release.

I picked up a DVD copy (Japanese language with English subtitles) on eBay today for ~$40.  More than I wanted to pay but asi es la vida.

My search here at MW didn't provide an answer to my question: where can I watch Macross Plus in its original language but subtitled in English?  I *loath* dubs.  Help a brother out.  Thanks All.

11 hours ago, twich said:

I have not seen any other date other than this one on amazon.  Since we are almost done with December, some official clarification would be nice!

Twich

Response from Threezero regarding release of VF-1J:

”We are sorry that there is a delay with the release of ROBO-DOU VF-1J Veritech (Rick Hunter) and the estimated shipping date would be in the 1st quarter of 2024.

Best Regards,
Threezero CS”