VFTF1

I am happy to see the words "new" and "design" together. I will get this if indeed it isn't just a turtle with a shell. Pete

Yeah, not unlike Encore G1 Transformers. There are only so many nostalgic adults to go around I would have happily bought the Chunky Munkies if I had the money to spare, but given the stark choice between relatively equally "expensive" Yamato and Chunkies... Chunky took a back seat - as in - I have none. Still - it's good they did reissues - even limited - for those people who wanted one. Pete

Wanted: White wall plug with black/red rectangles between sockets. Will Trade: 1 1/60 YF-19 from Yamato. Crooked Gunpod. ? Pete

I thought the Red Frame was out already.... but then again I'm probably wrong since I'm not getting it so never really made any effort to memorize the release date... Pete

Easy - you accept that a Robotech product based on Mospedea is NOT "related" to Mospedea, which you love. It would be the same for a Macross fan who "loves to see anything new about Macross-related products" and therefore must own the Toynami Masterpiece Veritech fighters or yearns to own the Alpha fighter that Rick Hunter flew in or needs an SDF-3 or etc etc etc etc It might seem like a hard thing to do - but just do it. I mean - think of it this way: I love Misa Hayese and I think her relationship with Hikaru is sweet. But do I therefore like the Sentinels scenes where their Robotech counterparts get married? NO. Voice acting sucks, it's sappy, it's anti-climactic compared to how Kawamori closes out the series - it's basically something best left to the imagination and the realm of the unknown, just like Macross leaves it. Same with the figures/mecha etc etc.... So... just stick to Mospedea and forget the "related" stuff if it's not "related" but just Robotech. Pete

I don't get it... the plug is colored like a YF-19 because...? Pete

Wow. Looks like the biggest difference between the v.1 and v.2 is hip placement. It's the high hip placement on the v.1 that makes it look chunky. Pete

I'm skipping Movie Fraulein Yoko because a) I haven't seen the movie and b) I like the original. Besides, lotso f nice statues coming pete

OOOOOOOh How nice of them! I also find it interesting that MY comments take like...1 verse to write in Japanese I would love to have this "re-translated" back to english or at least learn how they were translated But I almost can't believe I made my comments so...short? Or did they just do fragments? In any event - that's very cool Yay Japanese Nice Dude Translator Man! Carrot Love! Pete

Gubaba: I agree. Higher ups in Holywood are smart. They are just as smart as the people on - oh - say...I dunno...Wall Street. People like that ALWAYS know what they're getting in to and NONE of them would acquire property that would turn out worthless after a few years. I'm convinced Cynical Pete

Good God!!! The day people are only paying 380 USD for a weathered VF-1S is the day I KNOW that we are only one step away from mass starvation, anarchy and the End Times!!! It's all oooover!! Pete

Nice pics A7 Even thought it is "anime accurate" - I don't know if I like the hips on the 19 so "wide"... I prefer Yamato's sleeker rendition... Pete

What bites is the lack of any response from Crescens... I mean, it's wierd to make a complaint thread; people respond to it and.... nothing. It's like... I have this vision of a a commercial, with the atmosphere kind of like in an AA meeting... "I started coming to Macross World a couple months ago... I opened a few threads hoping to loosen things up, knowing full well that the strict "macross oriented' nature of the board might not tolerate such a thing. My threads were never closed, and lots of people responded; things went off topic pretty quickly - but...it just wasn't enough. It reminded me of the time I went on that GI Joe thread and berated people for not talking enough about pop-tarts. I mean - I know it's a GI Joe thread - but couldn't they just - you know - for maybe a month - switch gears and talk about pop tarts - and not just in my pop-tart thread (which I expect will be closed any day now...though...strangely it's been open for a year and has 130 responses...none of them mine)...but you know - the whole forum could go from GI Joe to pop-tarts. It didn't happen. That's when I knew it was time for me to leave. I came to Macrossworld hoping things would be different. And what did I find? Toy threads. Bandai DX, Yamato, Macross Frontier, DYRL, Macross 7 and...NO POP-TARTS. I was shocked. Yeah, I did google pop tarts, and sure - there's pop-tarts.com, pop-tartlove.com, pop-tarts-for-all.com and pop-tarts-rule.co.uk - but... why can't Macrossworld become Pop-Tart world for a day? It started bugging me. I would open - say - the VF-1S version 2.0 Hikaru Ichijo thread and...day in and day out all people would post about was Hikaru and the VF-1 variants he flew and their Yamato versions...no pop-tarts. I just...can't understand...what's wrong with this world? What's wrong with the Internet? I go to google.com and...if I write in "ford cars" then...I get all these pages about Ford cars - instead of Pop-tarts! Can't google just allow for a little bit of spontaneity? Can't pop-tart links appear even if you write in Ford or Toyota or Transformers. No one understands me. Oh - my aching heart. Pop-tarts and pink elephants is all I dream of. And instead...I get...this unbearable ORDER. Well - I'm off to KFC to try and order some Chicken McNuggets - maybe this time - just maybe - they'll make me some..." Pete

Don't know about anyone else but I haven't heard of any fifty foot women walking around in real life - cosplaying Klan Klan or otherwise Oh, don't worry If I didn't want you guys giving me advise about my personal life, I wouldn't be writing about it. In fact, I think it's cool to consider relationships by using Macross girls as archetypes for various womanly behavior All my relationships are stormy - er - no...that sounds bad...WERE stormy...that is - all the relationships I've had were stormy I'm a difficult guy to be with and I always end up being with "demon women" That used to bother me, but the older I get the more I accept it's just how I am and how the women in my life are My girlfriend is smart enough to have texted me a few years back - after one of our routine bitch-fest-fights: "I want to argue and quarrel with you until the day I die." I think that basically sums it up It's not that we're not happy togther. She has a stressful job and I'm ALWAYS happy no matter what and we just clash because I hate when people who have no mortal illnesses complain about mundane stuff. I think part of the reason is my philosophical nature ("not dying? have all your limbs? not starving - don't complain!) and another part is that I once had a girlfriend who did have cancer and was supposed to die (miraculously it went away - but as everyone knows - it can come back). That experience kind of desensitized me to any kind of complaining on the part of women that revolves around mundale and banal stuff:) In any case we spent a lovely evening together and are sleighted for another one tonight I showed her the Sheryls on this page and the other cosplayers and she was like "I wish I had time to dress up like that and pretend I was an anime girl!" So at least her heart is in the right place. Pete

I want to discourage getting to far into discussions of history pertaining to whether America is a "good" country or not. I would just remind everyone of what Thomas Jefferson once said "I fear my government but love my country." Every government in the world has done something bad, and greed and badness are part of human nature and not characteristics of any one particular country. So - with all due respect to everybody's national experiences - let's not get into a discussion of whether America is a "good" country or not because guess what? Every person who points out something BAD about America will be RIGHT and every person who points out something GOOD about America... will also be RIGHT. The same for every other country and even for every individual (since I'm sure there's always something bad and good in each of us as people). Or - if dudes want to share their pesonal histories/national histories a little like our friend above - let's not get overly picky and jump on him over minute details cause therein lies the path towards the Dark Side of Taboo Subjects and the kind of "political" discussions we all want to avoid. And I say this knowing that I'm one of the people "pushing" the thread onto the border of forbidden subjects - but yeah - thanks Edwin for pointing out that my post probably also went too far into stuff we shouldn't discuss. Let's all guard ourselves like that. As for "Cosby/Brady Bunch values" ... Well - I wouldn't get too hung up over it. Civilizations come and go - but love and friendship amongst people will always be strong where ever people choose to practice it. Pete

I totally want those - but it's hard for me to muster the money when there's so many version 2 1/60s out now that I'd rather get them But I'd love a shirt... Pete

Well - the definition of a "recession" is supposedly two months of negative growth - but it's not like there's some "economics rule book" like in basketball where they define a foul and what's not a foul - and it's not like there's an umpire who says "recession!". Statistic also depend on who's counting and what they are factoring in. I personally agree - we are not in a recession. We are in a DEPRESSION. It's the worse Depression - for the USA - since the Great Depression. With this much - in terms of popular wisdom/conventional wisdom - I do agree. Bernarke said recently that it'll all be over in six months. I was shocked that he said that. I don't believe it. I think the worse is still to come. Exchange rates are going crazy right now because nobody knows what to expect of the future. Everyone wants to find a "safe" area - a safe industry, a safe bank, a safe currency, safe real estate... But nothing is safe - and no country is safe. Every single one of us is going to feel this thing and feel it hard and it will not be pretty. I think that the only event that we can compare it to from recent history is the fall of the Soviet Union. We're talking the implossion of a major power. I'm not saying this because I "want" it to happen - I don't. But I believe - and go ahead and laugh at me - but I believe America is going to fall apart within my life time. I'm an American and I'm not happy to be thinking this or believing it and if it doesn't happen I will be happy. But I remember how people laughed at the few who saw what was happening to the Soviet Union and how NOBODY except the few people who had a clue predicted that one... Well - if you look at what the USA is doing and has been doing for the last 30 years - it's a sad sad sight - and if you cut through the fluffy talk and just look at the numbers and look at the data - it does not look good. Again - if I'm wrong: I'll be happy. But it just looks bad and I'm sad for the country I grew up in Pete

Actually - you're right. My girlfriend is NOT Misa. Misa is waaay to much of a provincial, simple sweet girl (pronvicial in the good sense of down to earth). I have come to the conclusion that I THOUGHT my girlfriend was Misa - but in reality SHE IS CATHY!!! She even has this frickin' Leon in her life who she dumped four years ago to be with me but he's always slithering about in his Hawaii kakis and with his bad hair. She hasn't the faintest bit of sweetness and is completely self absorbed, worries about wrinkles and hates the fact that I don't have 100% time for her the 1% of the time when I actually don't (cause normally I do) - but then berates me for "doing nothing" when I make an effort to spend more time with her. She's totally like Cathy. And she can't stand the Rankas in my life either So - yeah - I guess it only took me four years to realize that I THOUGHT she was Misa - but hey - Cathy and Misa look pretty similar and the character archetype is similar as well... Pete

I would just add one element to Jenius's example - which is a GREAT illustration of what HAPPENED. Now here's what's HAPPENING: Screw Up Banks and Businesses: Help! Help! We're going bankrupt and if we go down the world will end! We're too big to fail! Solvent Conservative Prudent Banks and Businesses: Dag, we aren't doing too well either. We hope we'll be able to weather the storm that those idiots above caused. Government: Actually - since you guys aren't going under we're going to take your money and give it to those first guys. Solvent Conservative Prudent Banks and Businesses: Huh? Screw Up Banks and Businesses: Yeah! Help us save us! Government: Ok - We've taken lots of money from taxpayers and productive businesses and banks - here - you guys who are screw ups can have it. NEXT WEEK Screw Up Banks and Businesses: HELP HELP! Even though we just got 50 gazillion billion trillion million dollars we still can't run a business! Help! Save us! Solvent Conservative Prudent Banks and Businesses: Good god...why can't those bozos just go bankrupt so we can buy up their assets for 25 cents and kick start the economy? Government: Hey screw ups - thanks for existing and making it look like businesses can't function without us. We'll be sending you a check for another gazillion dollars in the morning. Oh - and can we now buy 55% of your assets and tell you how to run things? Screw Up Banks and Busineses: Whatever! Just keep giving us other people's money PLEASE! And now - we've got a plane to catch to Vegas for a conference about the economy... Government: Funny - so do we - see you in Vegas friends. Solvent Conservative Businesses: Warning: soon we will have no money to hand out because you two guys are killing us. Government: Don't worry - we have a printing press.... We got it cheap from Zimbawbe. The End (of the World) Pete

Why don't you get him some of the Bandai Origin of Valkyrie 1/55 reissues? Those are perfect for kids I think. The VF-25 is also kid friendly, but it's rather expensive and the Ozma lasers are bent and they're ugly. At least the Chunky Munkys don't suffer any such faults. They are chunky and retro - but that's not a fault. Although...I guess he could break the backpacks off of those if he tried.... Hm... Kids...and Macross..hmmm.... I don't have kids. My girlfriend has a 10 year old daughter and I got her DX Yotsuba summer set for her birthday. Pete

So - wanna start guessing at the potential QC faults? Pete

Because the USA doesn't charge any duties for toys and models and the like. Never has. You guys are lucky in that regard Pete

I wish I was a cell phone... Pete

I found it particularly all the more consufing given that the implication was that when a cell phone makes love to a chinese restaurant advertisement doll, a singer gets pregnant. Pete

Now I could be wrong - but I think the key - or a large factor in that cosplay Sheryl's hotness is her hair. It seems that it is not a cheap whig, but a) her real hair and b) she actually went to a stylist, paid the 200 bucks or whatever it is and got a GOOD hair cut. Or if it is a whig - it's a pro job, she basically has a good hair stylist helping her out. The other ones seem to usually just buy a whig and dye some of it pink and put it on and say 'I'm Sheryl!' The dream Sheryl Cosplay would be a girl with great hair, who got a professional stylist to do it up as Sheryl. That's not far fetched since stylists do girls up all the time for special occasions (parties, weddings etc etc). Anyway...yeah... if my gf keeps this up, I'm just gonna have to change her in for a Minmey equivalent... I'm starting to feel like Hikaru did in that one episode of SDFM TV where Misa ordered him on another patrol as soon as he got back from his last one. Grumble grumble. Pete EDIT: Well - I think my Misa Hayese (aka my girlfriend) has simmered down and put her demon-horns away. She's realized that I love my airplanes more than I love her and told me she's sorry and she's happy we'll be going out this weekend etc etc etc... I swear - a guy thinks older women are better because they are more womanly and mature - but really, sometimes the only difference between them and younger girls is that when an older girl yells at you - she does so with motherly authority It's hell out there I tell ya!