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Major Focker

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Posts posted by Major Focker

  1. On 5/8/2017 at 5:02 PM, seti88 said:

    Incoming for wonderfest summer! some folks have all the skillz at casting..think these are the manga versions tho i dont know if there are differences between the landmates from the show either...

     

    heading back to Tokyo for Wonfes summer. definitely getting these.

    any info if this guy has a website/blog? hope he'll post his table number/location for the event.

  2. zenmarket seems like shoppingmalljapan, ie. deposit prior to purchase.

    i want to give ZM a try, but based on my experience with SMJ, i have some reservations about the deposit mechanic, specifically about getting it back after a failed bid/purchase.

    when you make a deposit, you lose about 1-2% on the forex conversion (and another 1-3% if your CC or bank charges a foreign transaction fee). but the forex loss is fine, since you would incur this anyway with any foreign purchase that isn't denominated in your home currency.

    the problem is that when the deposit is refunded, the likes of ZM and SMJ will likely refund the yen amount they received ( which is already net of the 1-2% extra you already paid upon making the deposit) and that yen refund will incur another 1-2% loss when it's converted back to your home currency. this can of course be avoided by simply keeping the deposit with ZM and using it for future purchases. this works out fine if you make frequent purchases and the deposit balance is small. but a failed bid on a 100,000 yen auction might still take a while to consume.

    ZM says they use STRIPE, which is 2% on forex conversion. Mastercard and Visa are typically 1.xx%. per ZM, deposits via CC will use STRIPE rates.

    if you use Paypal for the deposit, Paypal can auto-convert to yen, but Paypal forex rates are worse than CC, and likely worse than STRIPE. so the workaround is to make a yen denominated deposit via Paypal but turn off the Paypal auto-conversion and use CC conversion instead. however, when the deposit is refunded (and it will be refunded in yen), Paypal gets to apply their worse forex rates on the back conversion.

    ZM's payment fee (3.35%) is essentially the same nature as other proxies' commission/service fees. they just attached it to deposit payments rather than to the purchase transactions. other proxies do this as well, so they can claim they only charge a minimal flat fee on purchases. 

    still, ZM's 3.35% + 300 yen is a very good rate, and better than buyee's 5% + 200 yen. at least for YAJ purchases >5,000 yen.

    what is hard to beat is that amazon and rakuten purchases via buyee are 0% service fee.

    on the other hand ZM's free consolidation beats buyee's 1000 yen consolidation fee.

    what i noticed in my consolidated packages of YAJ purchases, is that most YAJ sellers use very light packing materials when shipping domestically. some are in paper bags/mailing envelopes, or the item box is just covered with bubblewrap and thick paper. so the increase in size/weight of the consolidated shipment due to domestic shipping boxes has not been much of an issue for me. for sure, they can be consolidated more efficiently if the items were unpacked then repacked, but YMMV if the final box will be materially smaller and lighter.

    for amazon and rakuten purchases, i place multiple items into a big order, and from as few sellers as possible. this way, my purchases are already pre-consolidated (for free) into as few boxes as possible before they're sent to the buyee warehouse. often, they are already sufficiently consolidated and big enough by themselves that i don't bother having buyee consolidate them further and just have them shipped out on their own.

    i guess for me, i will try out ZM only for high-value "buy it now" items on YAJ, so i won't have to deal with deposit refunds and/or maintaining a balance. 

     

  3. watched it on IMAX 3D. the visuals were fantastic. and as the others said, the references were a treat.

    that said, the music was pretty average. i was hoping there would be a Cyberbird equivalent somewhere.

    the dialogue was fine, but not memorable, and a couple times i really cringed when i heard "This is/I am" Major. unfortunately, the latter was just during a climactic moment which kinda jarred me out of an otherwise cool sequence.

    was with someone who was not familiar with GitS, and her gripe was the pacing. she loved the visuals though and thought the story was decent.

  4. just saw it. haven't read the comics nor watched the anime and previous movies. 

    thought it was pretty self-contained, so i actually didn't have a lot of questions at the end. left me curious though about what else the setting has to offer.

    the CG was more than decent. good actually. and the movie was fun enough that i can gloss over some of the cheese.

    my only disappointment is that Reika didn't show up in this:

    unnamed_6f446f41-b63b-4915-9a27-d363d927

     

  5. very nice diorama!

    at that range, without Roy and Max, the Monster would've been toast.

    are those 1/100 buildings? where did you get them?

  6. 7 hours ago, vlenhoff said:

    No Aston Martin love for Bond?

    other than the recent  Volante in the previous page, i haven't bought an Aston Martin since the ERTL DB5 some years ago. that one hasn't aged so well, and i'm contemplating replacing it with a more recent release. is last year's Hot Wheels Heritage DB5 any good? were there other 1/18 DB5's with the ejector seat released in the past 3 years?

    here's what got me started collecting Bond cars a decade ago, the Aston Martin Vanquish:

    P4192489-golgoaston.jpg

    i haven't started on the Craig Bond cars yet. i figured they'll be easy enough to get because of their recency. that, and the Craig cars not having much in the way of car gimmicks, means the regular/non-007 Autoart releases will do just fine.

     

  7. 23 minutes ago, spanner said:

    Nice! so what is that AMG six wheeler like? I have ummed and ahhed about one of these things for a while but im still rather conflicted about it. It looks like a cool model to have but im not the greatest fan of the actual car. I do like to pickup odd ball or different cars and this would be that.

    it's detailed and well-made as what to expect from an Autoart model. i would find out later that it's not entirely diecast but is the first in a new line of what Autoart calls "Composites". so it is lighter than it looks, but still quite hefty. 

    as for the actual vehicle, don't really know much about it. i didn't know these things existed until i saw it displayed in the shop. i just happened to be picking up some Acid Rain ~1/18 figures and Alien marines, so i thought it might be cool if i plopped some of them in the back of the truck since it had a paramilitary vibe to it.

  8. On 3/10/2017 at 4:45 PM, spanner said:

    I'd love to get one but I already have a list of cars on my wishlist (including a non-Bond version of the GT2000) which I have to work through before I would get one.. 

    20170310_182514.jpg

    nice collection! i should learn from your discipline.

    i tend to pick up stuff unrelated to my collection. like this:

    DSC_0600.thumb.jpg.8a54e93bdf93234d77d2a52a43272864.jpg

    these on the other hand were on my list for some time, particularly the one on top:

    DSC_0954.thumb.jpg.f4cf3327aba930e39491c039fe80390c.jpg

     

  9. 7 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

    ^ Well guys, good thing I already have this. ^_^

    IMG_5472_zpsbk3eoflj.jpg

    All I need to do is put these two on top of my Bose speaker and Voila! Instant 'digital surround speaker' display. And it sounds better too for sure. :rolleyes:

     

     

     

    would you say these are ~1/18 or 1/20?

     

  10. 4 hours ago, derex3592 said:

    there's just way go much awesome going on in that picture....it's puuuurfectly done...Ok...someone had to do it. Which 2 Bond AutoArt's are those???

    Toyota 2000GT from You Only Live Twice and Lotus Esprit from For Your Eyes Only. 

    good price too. ebay seller said they were from an estate liquidation of a 007 nut. too bad i already had the other cars he was also selling.

    just to share: after a decade of anticipation, Autoart finally released last year an Aston Martin Volante, albeit not a 007 version (red seats not black) as they seem to have lost the license.

    s-l225.jpg

    settled for it in the meantime to fill the gap in my collection. but still holding out hope for a proper 007 version as seen in The Living Daylights

    57c5b1ae0c2e4e6d70d56eb3f3be6b57.jpg13df1ee7b93ca8fc3638ae14d31afd10.jpg

     

    4 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

    Do you mean Rare Breeds? ^_^

    lol! they're just the usual Persians. tried to shoo them away and pathetically failed. 

    they are also apparently resin junkies, ignoring the treats i put on the floor and instead kept on sniffing the 1/144 Destroids

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