Bri

REC: romance between an office worker and a seiyu. Il était une fois l'Espace: some of the most beautiful space ship designs I've ever seen and a great opening song.

I really don't care to much for the scale. My priority is with the SDFM toys. So I have a mix of both 1/48s and 1/60s. It still annoys me to no end that there is no VF-1S Skull-001 TV. I'd buy that immediatly whatever the scale.

The Alter one is gorgeous but the price is higher then I am to prepared to pay for a non transformable mecha. I would if it was a very well done Kaname or Sousuke, FMP is more about the characters then the mecha for me. Too bad there are very few good figures for FMP in general. Leaves the Aoshima kits and the Robot spirits line. Similar price range but 1/48 and selfbuilding versus 12 cm(1/72?) and finished. hmm, I'll probably end up buying the Damashii line with the 1/72 VF25s still on the shelf to build.

And one that isn't in her 40s.

Wonder how things T3 and TSCC will tie into the new movie. Sort of hoping for a retcon of T3.

And there comes my first DYRL toy, and I'd swore to stick to the TV versions, sigh...

I hope for a retcon, the way X3 utterly destroyed the Phoenix Saga was almost criminal.

I wonder what would happen if the movie against all odd becomes a succes. Will HG retain any merchandising rights in the WB deal? Alternatively would the WB designs be used for futher HG RT projects? That would open up the chance for Macross to be finally left alone (one can hope).

Amazing that she is able to get information that fast in her long term memory. Normally, people have to practise reguarly to maintain their language skills. I thought that people who exchange words between languages easily are generally raised bi-lingually. They have one concept of language and words and see the words from both languages as synonyms. It's quite common with immigrant children here but they have to be careful not to mix grammar. Seperate languages is normal when one learned the primary language first and a second (or more) later. I guess that's the same for both of us. I can think in both Dutch and English altough switching between the two takes a second. Thing is that some character traits come across stronger in one language or the other. It's funny when I hear from others that I act differently when I speak one language or the other, heh. Also mental conditioning from childhood does not transfer between languages which is great fun. Essentially I find I can say things in one language that I would have a hard time saying in my mother tongue. To get back on topic I hope to be able to think in Japanese in a while too. That is the big step between passive and active knowledge of a language. To that end seeing actors on television link words to actions (without subtitles) and gestures speeds the learning process up so much. The main problem for me sofar is the limitied vocabulary and that will require ye olde cramming from a textbook/dictionary.

I consider any toy I have bought a sunk cost. It's not really collecting. So I open the package and transform the models reguarly. I fold out the boxes and store them in the attic. Not that my toys suffer much. While typing this I look at the G1 Dinobots across the room which I got for my 6th and 7th birthday, heh. Still fully intact altough the decals are slightly worn. So I'm sure my valks will last a while longer.

That is certainly true, I just wonder if the native speaker like abilites aquired by children are due to an age based superior ability to aborb language details, or the fact they are being raised in a native speaker environment. Something an non-native adult can not easily copy. As a side note: I've met collegues who were former refugees from Vietnam who learned accentless Dutch from scratch in less then 2 years. They still have some problems adapting to certain situations but thats due to cultural differences not language. It's easy to correct a child when they do something that is socially unacceptable. Much harder it is to show that same honesty to a foreign adult for fear of offending. Oh yes, children do pick up things faster. My aim was to show it is still very usefull for adults to try and learn a new language as getting (close) to native level speaking level is hard but not impossible.

Uguu~ *splats in to a tree*, so funny I counted the girl at school with the glasses. She has a serious crush on Shinkurou and does everything for him but he is to dense (or pretends to be) to notice. Then there is the university dropout who lives in the same house. Her interest is mostly superficial, and limited to sex, but still. And then the childhood friend and Murasaki (sort of).

The mushiness and moe elements are no a problem at all, I love Tenchi Myu for example. Just had to get used to a cast where all the girls were ditzy (sofar) instead of just one. Yuuichi's (proto Kyon) sarcasm is a delight to watch. I don't use any kind of official definition. For me: one girl is a romance, two is a triangle and three+ is a harem. Shinkurou in Kurenai has 4 girls interested in him so that qualifies as harem for me. Kurenai is really all about character development and is pretty good at that. Unfortunatly I could not relate to any of the main cast and that lowered my enjoyment of the series a lot. Murasaki's background and story is rather common in the history of European aristocracy. It really had no shock value for me.

The ability to learn languages as an adult is quite depended on the individual. Learning is a skill. As child you learn to learn as it were. The capacity to learn is rather similar to muscle usuage, it you don't use your brain to learn the ability becomes weaker over time. This is really were the current generations of say below 40 have an advantage over previous generations. When you stop learning, routine kicks in, the mind fixates, starts to specialise in what you already know and it becomes much harder to absorb new information after a while. Adults do retain the ability to learn languages fast. Some psychologists claim adults are even better at it then childern due to improved analytical skils and a greater awareness of figurative concepts and non-verbal communication. The advantage of young childern is really in the area of memory and time. Dedicated teacher like parents and school teachers plus not having to work for a living gives them so much extra time to work woth a language. This is why having a boy or girlfriend in the target language is so benificial. They act as a pseudo parent in the other language. The main pitfall ofr adults is motivation. They are aware of how much bloody work it is and may give up, a child has no such option.

hmm tough one, Minmay is basically the winner of Macross Idol (Kawamori beat all those reality shows by some 20 years ) so that puts her in the same doubtfull league like Kelly Clarckson or Leona Lewis. Ill pass Ranka/Sheryl/Istar generic pop singers, so you want the good, the bad or the exotic? Nice to see a song or two, but not worth a concert. Sharon Apple: Boring attempt at progressive trance by an AI. Firebomber: Simple rock but fun so I'll go for that. For visuals, a guest performace by Mylenes older sister is a must, for some song battles with Basara.

I've bought a few Bandai kits, the Gundam and Macross ones are in pre-collored plastics. I'm a bit in doubt how to prime them. Normally I either prime a model white or black with an airbrush depending on the brightness or the colors I want to use. Would you recommend to ignore the colors in plastic and just reset everything to white or black or use some transparent primer? And if so what kinds are there? I only work with acrylics.

Currently watching: Kanon: Great use of color and light to create an atmosphere. Very enjoyable if you can get past the brain-dead girls. Kurenai: Rather weak, supposedly controversial, but really little more then a character driven harem-comedy touching some socially sensitive areas. Kiki's delivery service: Kids story, but nice animation from studio Ghibli in an idealised Stockholm setting. On the to watch next list: K-On Twelve Kingdoms

Very impressive how the OP puts in so much time in self study. Well done, don't think I could keep up that pace. Personally I'd like to be able to read Japanese sources directly, for research, as a lot of economic material never gets translated. However that is a long term plan. First I'm trying to understand the spoken language from television and movies. Text books etc. are usefull, for understanding grammar and special conventions, but for me to listen to the actual spoken language works best. I got some books, recordings and a dictionary from a friend, who studied the language at Leiden university. She has been a great help. It's a bit like the way I learned English when I was a kid, from an (un)healthy dose of Tranformers, Robotech and GI-Joe... Anyway, one funny thing I learned from my past experiences. Talking to native speakers became harder the closer I got to fluency. When you get to the point where the person you speak with no longer is constantly aware of you being a foreigner, it just opens up a whole new world of possible misunderstandings.

The detailed pilot figure at that scale is amazing.

Seto is probably right. If Warner ever gets to make a Robotech movie it will need some sort of origen. Using a very generic Macross like story should be enough. I mean take Transformers, it has virtually nothing in common with the original story, remove Optimus and you could have called it Go-Bots without anyone noticing. For Robotech it's not to hard to imagine a random enemy like Robotech Masters, Invid or Vorlons..err Haydonites I mean. No particular need to use the Zentradi.

Robotech got me into Macross, saw it for the first time in '87. Taped the whole thing on the reruns. Macross and Southern cross parts were great but I disliked the New generation/Mospeada thing. The Sentinels killed Robotech for me and I was close to forgetting all about it. Things changed when I got a hold of the Kiseki Clash of the Bionoids and Macross II. Loved the different direction and the Mikimoto designs. These tapes got me in to Macross. Only thing I did not like so much about Mac II was the far future bit. Macross Plus was a real let down. The mecha action was great but the characters were a total turn off. I didn't like their design nor personalities. So I almost stuck with Mac II. Luckily there were several stores across the border in Antwerp and Bruxelles that carried model kits, figures and Chines bootleg tapes. So I got my hands on Macross 7 which got me totally hooked on the normal continuity Macross.

Very nice conversion with the joints. Shame the highlights and shading are only aplied to the dark grey parts. Would have ben more consistent if used on the whole.

I understand where you are coming from. Question in this case is if they will destroy the tools, I can imagine the airforce requesting or paying for storage. For example when Fokker when bankrupt the equipment to build more F-50s and F-100s was put into storage and there were a lot of other companies interested in buying them (which didnt happen but that was for other then technical reasons). I'm aware that the costs would be very high to start up production again, but if 187 current Raptors are not enough for a given situation then I doubt money will play a role if there is a need fore more. IIRC the Soviets reverse engineered a B29 to the nail in 1945. So its in theory possible to rebuild a plane without the tools.

I don't think it's wise to go into politics that much in a thread about aircraft. As we were discussing the end of the production of the Raptor here is my two cents: The number of F-22s in service is not as important compared to the fact that it exists. The F22 project has not been cancelled nor is the plane taken out of service. If anything crazy were to happen like the rise of a highly advanced hostile airforce then I'm sure the production lines can be openened again even if it takes time. I doubt Lockheed will destroy all the blue prints. The lessons learned in developing that fighter will be used for the F-35 and other future projects do nothing is lost.

Please keep your facts straight. HG filed the first trademark in July 1999, the first BW filing followed in Aug 1999. HGs trademarks were awarded, BWs werent. The trademark case predates the court case, not vice versa. We do not know the reason why BW never got the trademarks. They may have filed for to many different ones or HG being first may have caused it or any other reason. BW never had the trademarks hence you cannot request non use.