Jump to content

Dio

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    459

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Dio

  1. Dio
    On the topic of Ultra Magnus, was there ever a canon explanation for why he was able to be violently and completely disassembled in TFTM (on the Junkion planet), and reassembled good-as-new without dying? Whereas Prime and others took seemingly much less damage, but were killed off. If there ever was an explanation, did it have to do with his exterior armor being a factor?
  2. Dio
    Tried the search function, and even regular search browsers, but wasn't able to find anything like what I'm looking for. The title is also a bit general, I'm not exactly looking for other J-rock bands like Fire Bomber/Hummingbird. What I AM looking for is english-language music and individual song tracks that are of a similar rock style, possibly even with co-ed vocalist teams, that I can purchase and work out to. I also already own the Fire Bomber American album in all its glory, so no recommendations on that one please Think more like, "if Ozma Lee had to shop on American iTunes, what would he buy?" Admittedly, I am extremely deficient musically, and your first thought was probably "this guy's asking an insanely broad question," but please bear with me. I never listened to much variety as a kid, and more than likely would have heard the "Weird Al" version of most songs without ever hearing the originals. I listened to quite a bit of techno as a teen, but now that I'm older and work out regularly (mixed martial arts, and teach submission grappling), I'm looking for something with more of a rock element, or FIYAHH, if you will. I'm a huge fan of all the Macross 7 tracks, and they're on a loop when I work out solo, but it wouldn't do me well to lead a class with a bunch of Japanese rock music. On the other hand, I'm also kind of sick of the constant heavy/rap metal that most gyms play, and contemporary music completely turns me off - I listen more to news radio in my car now than music stations because I can never find something I'd like to listen to. I did discover one band, called Rev Theory, who have some tracks out that really struck me as having a similar feel to songs that Fire Bomber would sing, albeit with slightly edgier lyrics. I actually walked out to one of their songs for my debut/only/retirement fight. I know it sounds corny, but I tend to associate music with scenes or events (probably why I like showtunes and movie scores so much), and a couple of their tracks always make me think of Macross 7: Hell Yeah (reminds me of Holy Lonely Light, when they fight Grabil the first time) Broken Bones (reminds me of My Soul For You, rehabilitating Spiritia-drained pilots) I know there's a lot of musical experience and talent on the boards here, can anyone provide me with a few recommendations? It'll save me quite a bit of trouble trying to sift through dozens of "this is Rock" compilations.
  3. Dio
    That is so weird, I had a declined payment on Caelus as well. Logged back in shortly after receiving the email, input my CC info again, and everything went through that time. My only theory is that it had been so long since I ordered something from BBTS that they had my last CC expiration date on file. I can't wait to get the little pterodactyl, Planet X has done a pretty terrific job with their first couple of offerings and seems to want to fill the FoC niche for fans. Scoria's (MP Slag) price point kind of turned me off from completing a set of MP Dinobots, so instead I'll try to complete the FoC Dinobots (fingers crossed that they'll keep em coming!). That Iron Army set for Grimlock is also incredible looking, I'm just waiting for my preferred store to put it up for order.
  4. Dio
    Believe me, I've hashed this out ad nauseum over on the 2005 forums already... the different 3P Predaking options have really created a divided atmosphere, but my gut feeling has been all along that I want to go with Ares over the other two. Nothing against MMC's design, it just seems to have a little too much of the SD proportions going on in combined mode for me. The beast modes' spindly legs in cartridges on the sides of the shins is something I really can't get past either, especially when compared to what the TFC bots are doing in that regard. If Ares turns out to be a lemon, I'll admit to it, but taken as a whole package (all 3 modes) I felt the most confident about it being a good addition on my shelf. Reviews of Nemean so far have been pretty positive, particularly when focusing on the shortcomings of the earlier TFC designs (such as loose hips). This will, however, be the first ever TFC product that I've purchased, so I'll definitely approach it with cautious optimism.
  5. Dio
    The price tag has me kind of scared away from Scoria... I'll be able to complete the FoC Dinobot team for less than half the cost at this rate. However, this brings me great excitement:
  6. Dio
    Three discs in and my laptop burner quit working... think I just need to reinstall Nero since it still reads correctly, but this is quite the hassle. If I didn't love Mac7 I probably would just throw my hands in the air at this point
  7. Dio
    I think I'll follow the "4 episode allowance" method, that's a good idea. However, from the first 2 I'm still not feeling it on this show. The Coulson character seems to be written as the exact opposite of everything that made him charming in the movies. A character like him isn't meant to be a deeply involved leader, or have a huge amount of backstory - the repeated hinting at an old romance with the Peruvian military officer seemed quite forced, and also very much out of character. He's supposed to be the messenger, the guy who follows orders and colors within the lines, but has a little bit of a bumbling quirkiness that makes him endearing. The "Charlie" to the Angels. (Side note - he seemed to look quite a bit different in Episode 2, did his hair style change?) Fitz/Simmons, I am actually the happiest with. I like their constant argument and banter, and the "nerd" element isn't overplayed. The show needs to provide them with some opportunities to really be useful though, sort of like the lead engineers on the various Star Trek series. "The Cavalry" seems pretty typical as well, just with an added twist that she hates combat situations, despite having to do so very skillfully every episode. She's like an antithesis to B.A. Baracus (hates fighting, and is quite comfortable flying), but less funny. Hacker-girl, meh. She's quickly turning into the eye-candy-with-mysterious-motives cliche, and is completely unconvincing as any of the elements she's meant to be - talented computer whiz, activist, or rebel. Two episodes may not be enough to judge yet, and she'll probably get some highlight/focused episodes in the future to try and expand on these elements, but so far she seems completely useless. The attempt in Episode 2 to give her some relevance and relate to the other characters fell pretty flat, and seemed almost like dialogue from a kids' show (the whole "if 100 people can provide 1% of the solution..." speech was particularly annoying). Enforcer-guy, there's not really a lot to him either. Parkour-guy from Alphas played this role much better. As for this episode in particular, I hate to sound harsh about a show with so much backing, material and talent to draw from, but it really hasn't "wowed" me yet.
  8. Dio
    I'd like to see this customized to remove the mid-wing engines, and add a hinge to fold the wings back a la hi-speed mode on the 19. Battroid would look kinda cool like that, and it would clean up the fighter mode too.
  9. Dio
    I'm going to chalk it up to being the pilot episode, but I felt like the trademark Whedon snark factor was turned up to 11 throughout. It didn't really fit Coulson's character in particular, but hopefully it settles back down as the cast/crew find their footing.
  10. Dio
    LOVING the Nemean color scheme! I can't wait to see the other modes!
  11. Dio
    Seeing lots of love for Hans Gruber, but I think Alan Rickman had a slightly more memorable bad guy role that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned yet: And a couple more from my younger years... to overcome General Kael required nothing less than "the greatest swordsman who has ever lived," and his boss Bavmorda was quite chilling as well, sacrificing infants and turning entire armies into pigs (and had a smokin' hot daughter to boot). You know you remember them as awesome bad guys.
  12. Dio
    2003 - MP01 Optimus Prime (die-cast legs version), picked him up for $50 at Wal Mart off of a very well-stocked shelf. Picked up another one (also die-cast version) to make into my MP Soundwave custom for $30 on clearance a couple months later. 2008 - Watched MP Starscream shelf-warm at Wal Mart. Picked one up for a friend outside of the US ($50), but never got one for myself because I wasn't all that interested in it. 2009 - Found a couple of Grimlocks at the local TRU for $60, a few weeks after the initial buzz had died down, so I bought one. 2010 - Similar story for MP Rodimus, saw a couple at the local TRU for $60 right around the time he came out, and snagged one. 2011 - MP10 Prime I only saw ONCE at retail ($120) while I was out of state traveling, and got him. Considered myself extremely lucky. Still haven't seen an MP Soundwave, and I have pretty much given up on finding him (ironic, considering I built what I consider the original almost a decade ago). This is why I buy more 3P figures than the regular issues these days. Over a very short time frame, it has just gotten too difficult/frustrating to try and find the domestic releases, and the trend does not seem like it's going to get easier.
  13. Dio
    Many thanks to Technoblue for putting me on the right track to fix this, I just verified my first corrected disc on the PS3! I based my fix on the process you laid out above, but due to some circumstances I had to go a different route - IMGburn appears to have bundled a ton of adware in the latest version, so I used Nero instead, and IFOEdit wouldn't download for me no matter how I tried, so I went with DVDSubEdit to make the corrections after some educational adventuring. Here's the process I used: I. Copying the files from the DVD 1. Copy the disc to the PC. Pretty much a straightforward copy-paste in Win7, no special extraction program used. II. Revising the Subtitle Color Values with DVDSubEdit (note, some content is copied from russ869's post, but expanded on) 1. Open your DVD (using “Open full domain”) 2. Click on any of the colors next to 'b,' 'p,' 'e1,' or 'e2.' Now you'll see this: Note: This set of color boxes represents the entire 16-color palette set up for the subtitle text in the IFO file - subtitles in the video can only contain these 16 colors within them, for body text, borders, background shading, etc. It's also worth noting, starting at the upper-left corner and moving to the right, row by row, the colors are assigned a number from 0 to 15 in ascending order (these are the assigned color numbers you see in the IFOEdit table). 3. Shift-click on one of the colors in the pallet which is white or black in color. This will bring up a Windows color pallet, where you can enter a new value for the color (and thus modifying the available colors in the palette - once this is modified, it applies everywhere that color is used throughout the entire subtitle data). 4. Here's where it gets trickier. The numeric values shown earlier for the IFOEdit colors are numbered per DVD standards (Y, Cr, Cb values, also known as "luminance and color difference code"). The values in DVDSubEdit, on the other hand, follow the RGB standard, with the numbers signifying amounts of primary color mixed into the final color. You'll get very different colors if you use the numbers interchangeably, but I found a conversion website to determine the RGB values (cited below). Depending on the color you're editing (white or black), input the following values in the RGB pallet to get the equivalent colors: White = 234, 234, 234 (actually results in a very light gray) (YCrCb value = 234, 128, 128) Black = 16, 16, 16 (results in a very dark gray) (YCrCb value = 16, 128, 128) 5. Repeat for the remaining white/black colors in the pallet. There should only be a few, no more than 16 per subtitle file (obviously). 6. Save the compilation, which will write the corrected palette into the IFO file. III. Burn the DVDs with Subtitle Fixes 1. Burn the contents of the copied folder (roughly 6-7GB) onto a Dual-Layer DVD-R. Color code conversion references: http://www.dvd-replica.com/DVD/colorrgb2.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YCbCr Many thanks also to russ869 for the IFOEdit screenshots, where I first got the idea to look up the YCrCb standard. When I tried RGB values of [0,128,128] it resulted in aquamarine instead of black, so I knew something wasn't adding up
  14. Dio
    I dunno, something just looks "off" to me with that new Bruticus, he's big but blocky and several pieces seem slightly out of place on both the component bots and the combined toy. Colossus has better overall proportions ,despite being 70% Hasbro Energon figures. Maybe the color selection will make him pique my interest more. In the meantime I'll happily await more Ares reveals.
  15. Dio
    I enjoyed the eye candy and creative weapons and mechanical designs, but the story seemed to have a lot of plot holes and the supporting characters seemed more like exaggerated caricatures of what they represented. The social commentary could have been more thought-provoking, but Blomkamp himself even admitted it was intended as more of a setting than a message. Worth seeing, in my opinion, but I'd go in expecting the type of shallow special-effects fest that many initially wrote Pacific Rim off as.
  16. Dio
    Thanks for putting that together! I'll have to try it out this weekend!
  17. Dio
    Likely I'm incorrect, but I think the latter 3 characters mean something like "found" or "retrieved/collected." I noticed them on a few other quest descriptions, after taking the scattershot approach to clearing a few quests by just loading my inventory up with every single-quantity quest item at the hangar and flipping back to the bridge to check which conditions had been satisfied.
  18. Dio
    It's unfortunately a locked down thing for now, as my subs are hard-coded into the DVDs with the color values out of PS3 range. It sounds like the fix would have to be made via replacing the discs with re-coded subtitles, and can't be done by changing any settings on the PS3. Can I use my current discs to generate adjusted copies? Or would I need fresh DVDs and separate sub files to add into them?
  19. Dio
    Still standing by my theory that Ahsoka Tano is the next Disney princess.
  20. Dio
    Glad to see this thread resurrected! A question : Is the black subtitle coloration on the PS3 a fixable issue or am I just out of luck? I have the DVDs with subs hardcoded in (thanks again to JasonC!), but just recently donated my dedicated DVD player and started using my PS3 for everything... and noticed the coloration issue. I can use my laptop or PS2 I suppose, but it would be mighty convenient to get this fixed up.
  21. Dio
    I worry that it says "Memorial" edition on the box... though calling it "variegated" also gives me hope that it's just lost in translation
  22. Dio
    Speaking of the guide, would it be possible to update the web version to match the completion of the Google Doc? I tend to surf to it on my Vita if I need to look something up while I'm playing, and it's incompatible with the document format. Also, are the only time-sensitive guild quests the ones listed in Yuria? I'm trying to 100% this thing on my second playthrough. Lastly, would it be possible to translate some info in the bonus features section? In between the videos and pictures you can unlock, there's some short informational texts that you can also view, which seem to describe Macross history, in-universe info on the jets, etc. They're not overly long, but I think they might add quite a bit to the story, and they're conveniently all in one place so it wouldn't take an extremely long time to list them out. It would probably be a bit of a grind, however, since there's quite a few of them, and I don't know if they would even add anything that we don't already know as fans.
  23. Dio
    Deadeye and idontknow: Both of these were tried a couple pages back, and don't seem to be recommended fixes. The saran wrap doesn't work as an effective shield, and certain types of erasers can actually react in worse ways than the silicone rubber caps.
  24. Dio
    So after my last post I tried an experiment... I had several of these little 3/8" foam rubber pads lying around the house from when I padded all my drawers & cabinet doors, and it seems like the foam rubber is what I've been looking for. It isn't sticky/tacky on the upper side like the silicone rubber caps, but if you can balance a Valk on the 3 legs of a flightpose stand, they stay in place nicely on the ends of the rods (they have an adhesive sticky back). The shape conforms to whatever you balance on it, doesn't take off paint, and leaves no residue on the stand's leg if you switch it back off to the silicone rubber cap. Right now I've got the same Sound Booster sitting on 3 legs in the same arrangement as before, but replaced the one tip with a foam rubber pad, and it has contoured quite nicely. As a bonus, they're available at most local home improvement stores, in the same section as the felt pads you put under furniture to keep from scuffing wood floors. Unfortunately, tan seems to be the only color available, but they're small in profile and pretty much disappear under whatever you stand on them. Trimming them down may also be an option. For my experiment, I pinched one against the painted tail fin of a 1/100 Toynami Veritech (expendable) with a clothes pin for a month, undisturbed in a naturally-lit room, and absolutely nothing happened to the paint.
  25. Dio
    I actually looked into this recently, partly out of curiosity and partly because of a big order on HLJ that I didn't want any susprises over In the US, there's a thing called the "Harmonized Tariff Schedule," the current (2013) version of which is available online at the USITC (US International Trade Commission) website. Macross toys would fall under Chapter 95, section 9503 (dolls, toys, scale models). The description of this section is extremely vague, but I looked up some recent customs evaluations cases in the public record for imported collectibles and confirmed it. For items under this classification, items imported to the US from nations with "normal trade relations" have no import duty applied to them. Items from restricted countries (currently Cuba and North Korea) are subjected to a 70% duty rate. Additionally, if the value of the shipment is under $200, they usually don't even bother to look at it unless something is suspicious (according to the Customs & Border Protection website). Disclaimer: This is an extremely small snippet of a much larger policy, you might look into it yourself to determine the specifics for something you're importing.
×
×
  • Create New...