JsARCLIGHT

You missed my point entirely. This is a fanciful show full of tons and tons of fake things that require a constant suspension of disbelief. To muse about specifics in the details is akin to asking a figment of your imagination what kind of music it likes. The answer is always whatever you want it to be. If a specific label is not applied it is up to your imagination to fill it in. All the show gives us is the "fact" that Roy drinks... what he drinks is as important to the show as what kind and style of shirts Hikaru wears when not in uniform. I have no doubt that Kawamori, when asked what Roy drinks, will simply state "He drinks".

I think the point is that we have already suspended disbelief with the whole giant invading aliens, space warping super battle ships, transforming jets, schoolgirls turned pop idols that save humanity and gravity defying hairdoos that asking what sort of booze they drink is in the same line of asking "who's shirts does Hikaru wear?".

Seeing as how they are on a spaceship, stranded thousands of miles from earth and all the liquor bottlers in exsistence, my guess is he drinks whatever they can make on the Macross... which is probably something akin to low level moonshine made out of rice or grain mash. Any bottled booze they had on hand that survived when the ship folded out into the deep black most likely got drank up quickly in the first few weeks after the fold. After that someone on the ship had to start making their own hooch, perhaps there was a microbrewer on South Ataria that started his business up again, ala Nyan Nyan. It's not like the Macross was a Royal Caribbean cruise ship that had a chance to stock up on drinks and shrimp before they set off. By all accounts the ship was barely ready for takeoff when the war began and most of South Ataria Island was smashed during the fold.

Please repost in the Aircraft gotterdammerung thread.

I practically live at MW, Anime Punch, AR15.com and a private firearms board. With these four places I need not go anywhere else... plus when one is down, the others are there to support my internet fix. Funny how it always seems to be MW that goes down.

Who polices the police? The coast guard. Who polices the coast guard? Uhhh... the the air traffic controllers, I dunno. What I see in that thread is an argument between some people distantly removed from a situation claiming first hand knowledge of a situation. The police roll in and start laying people out to correct the situation. EXO, in my eyes, was being information control in his own way. Everyone has a personality on here, even the mods. We can't just simply "turn off" who we are when we are modding things. That extends to our posting style as well. I see nothing out of the norm for EXO in that thread... [Extreme Sarcasm Mode] Then again I am simply his bestest buddy in the whole world and will agree with everything he says and does all the time reguardless of what it is because I'm a mod here. Just last week he called all us mods up to come over and hang out and drown bags of puppies in kerosine and light them on fire with roman candles. That was a lot of fun. You should have seen it. Roy hit this one shnauser puppie with one of those big pink plastic bam-bam wiffle ball bats and it flew over the fence and lit the neighbor's garage on fire. We just stood around and laughed before going inside to plan out this week's list of people we are going to go out of our way to harass and lock their topics. [/Extreme Sarcasm Mode]

While I have seen a few macross rank insignias I have never really seen a good reference for all of them, side by side. I'd be glad to make some more icons for the board, but I'd need someone to get some reference art for me to go off of.

I just thought of something... do KS and PB have fidelity insurance? My company, amidst it's pile of other insurance, has fidelity insurance... which for those who don't know what that is is insurance against theft or embezzelment from inside the company. If one day I roll into the office to find my copier missing and one of my employees is to blame, my fidelity insurance kicks in rather than my normal insurance. Same thing if we are going over the books and we find money missing. Adding fidelity insurance to our policy was one of those "lawyer said we should have it" sort of things way back when I bought into this company with my two friends. We have prepared for every contingency it seems and we have a battle plan for every emergency... and just like the US government we have plans to attack ourselves if it comes to it. The more I read about this situation the more it points to KS being a rank amateur businessman who employed other rank amateur businessmen. While it is true that many small businesses suffer the same problems as they are going through now, it generally does not bring the company to it's knees. I still place the lion's share of the blame on a poorly run house... one fox in the henhouse should not destroy the henhouse. Crime is crime but the real death knell is poor management and planning. KS should learn a harsh lesson from this and start over. And is it just me or could this be a blessing in disguise? This could be the excuse for them to cut back, restructure, rethink their workflow and process and turn out some new, different product in a cheaper, more efficient manner? Lord knows if this sort of incident played out at my company there would be a massive rethinking of things going on.

I think the greatest enemy of the word "Valkyrie" is that it is one of the only Macross units, outside of the Destroids, that a lot of people have heard called by it's propper name in the actual show. I have never once heard someone call something a Thunderbolt or a Nightmare or an Excalibur etc. etc... I've only heard Valkyrie this and Valkyrie that. I fully understand that it's like calling every Disney character a "Mickey Mouse" even though you are talking about Goofy but in the end it's all semantics to me. Last week my wife called toilet paper "kleenex" and I still knew what she meant. Now use the word "Veritech" and we have an argument.

I'm not sure MW is totally "back up and running". I'm still getting reports from some people that they can't get in still. Also just by looking at the small number of people online this morning either others may be having the same problem or they just aren't aware the site is back up yet.

I think he means the second DVD set of the two DVD set series. I bought my FX set through Kev many moon ago and it came in two sepparate multi DVD box sets, set 1 and set 2.

I never got into Kevin Smith movies, especially his later efforts. I've watched them all except Jersey Girl and have to say I have a decreasing interest in his movies. The first few where OK, as time went on the later ones are so-so... but the same can be said for every director. After they "make it" a combination of fan demand/expectation and a general "been there done that" beings to creep into everyone's works. And am I the only one who wants to murder Jay and Silent Bob with a shovel? I can't stand those characters... Dante and Russel where by far the superior characters out of all of KS'es works.

Why isn't ADV the distributor? I thought they had a deal with HG that they released all of the Robotech stuff? Why should HG be needing to shop for a distributor when they have really only used one distributor in the last five years or so for DVD media? HG, through ADV, has released numerous different iterations of Robotech so why would they suddenly be "looking for a distributor"? Something is rotten in Denmark. If I had to throw a guess... which is what everyone is doing anyway... I'd say they blew the bank on this thing and they are having to shop for a distributor because their current distro (ADV) wanted too big a cut to produce and distribute the thing. Either that or they want their regular cut and because HG sank so much loot into this thing they need to make more profit to break even they need a distro who's cut is signifigantly lower. I will not be suprised in the least if this gets a shoddy release in sub par packaging from a no-name house just to save coin on production... either that or HG is just going to have to suck it up and go with ADV as they usually do.

I'm not too well versed in the legal rights of PB's game system but isn't that just about all they do hold the rights to? Other than the whole RIFTS world? Every PB book I've seen looked like it was a licensed adaptation of something else using their ruleset. Selling the "rights" to their RPG system would be like the Beatles selling the rights to their songs to Michael Jackson. It's KS'es bread and butter. Without his RPG system and ruleset all this stuff is is just bad fanfic with bad art IMHO. I still have a few palladium RPG books somewhere in my house and from what I remember the art was terrible (most of it looking like someone traced over something else and then inked it terribly), information was all complete left field "making stuff up" things and the general layout of the books was abysmal. The books I have are a few of the PB RECON series and the Weapons compendium series. It's quite blatantly obvious they did little to no research on the subjects they presented in those books. Sad really.

I don't believe they own the rights to the RT RPG... I think they are a licensee of Harmony Gold. All they own is the game system, to which they applied the RT license they got from HG. My guess would be if they are in a money crisis they might not be able to afford to pay HG for the license (I don't know exactly what their agreement is mind you) and they could stand to lose the license, which would mean they could not legally make the RT RPG books anymore. That is the problem making something that hinges on something or someone else, you are always at the whim of your licensor. Hell, HG could up and yank the license or just price it out of their reach if they felt PB was "Bad for business" right now.

Anything can fail or be brought down, it just takes the right hit in the right place to start a chain reaction that causes a topple. Businesses are only as stable as their main workforce... if you have a leach in the blood then the whole body is poisoned. It's rather scary actually... I know if I suddenly died, my company would suffer a large hit. The other two owners would have a lot of scurrying to do to stabilize things. Such is the nature of small business. The shop is the man is the shop.

Corporate bankruptcy law grants certain conditions and relief that definately help certain forms of businesses when in trouble, but he has not been too clear on exactly what his "problem" is. If I where to guess, by his tone and the use of certain words I would say an officer of the company embezzled a good deal of money and then vanished into the ether... or got caught... either way embezzlement means hard money is gone from the coffers. To a small business, this can be catastrophic. No money in the bank means bounced checks, can't pay your rent, utilities or employees. Under certain forms of Bankruptcy restructuring, what he could accomplish would be aid in putting off paying his creditors... which in the case of this particular company would be people like his landlord, utilities, equipment suppliers and perhaps any business loans he has out. What bankruptcy will NOT cover are his immediate payroll or any outstanding contractual debts (such as unpaid contractors, employee benefits, etc). Businesses generally use funds they would normally put towards bankruptcy covered expenses towards paying their people, thus "keeping afloat" by declairing backruptcy. In other words they screw their debt holders in favor of themselves and their employees. But many forms of corporate bankruptcy come at a high price... usually involving liqidation of assets and redispursment of funds. The .gov will not let you simply give the finger to your debtors and walk away intact. Corporate bankruptcy would also damage his company's credit potential, which would might hinder any future development that needed bank funding. If they lost all that money out of the bank AND have a serious cashflow problem then bankruptcy will not do much for them... and unless the bulk of his employees are family members or dedicated workers my guess would be they are flying the coup by the busload. Who wants to *hope* you get paid next week? When it comes to the ship aflame and sinking faster than you can paddle there comes a time to just let it sink. Throw what you can overboard and swim for shore. KS *can* salvage his company without outside help... it many not be the same company when all is said and done but it is possible. He just needs to make some hard choices, fast. His best bet is 1) to shut up, 2) to lawyer up, 3) choose the option that best suits him. His fans need not know the company is in shambles. He could have spun this thing around without any of this customers ever knowing... and I think that is what makes this situation so sad. I think he's spinning in his chair, he's in over his head.

Looks to be working just right, Thanks Roy. So... what's next?

I believe they are out of production and have been for some time now. Bootlegs do not seem to be kept in "backstock" when they run out like normal legit releases. I'd say scope out the usual suspects and see if they have any more on hand. If they don't then there is a good chance you will be waiting to snipe something on eBay.

Being a businessman myself there are two types of business opportunity I get presented with a lot: growth funds and bailouts. Growth funds are when a young, struggling company comes to you and asks for an investment or donation so they can grow and become something bigger and better. A bailout is when an exsisting company is failing due to one issue or another and asks for an investment or donation to stay afloat. Business wise you NEVER EVER give in to the bailout offer. You at least stand a 50/50 chance of benefiting being an angel investor in an up and commer but when you dump funds into, let's face it, a dying company you are throwing your money away. The business world is like nature... only the strong, adept and most of all lucky survive. Some businesses deserve to die while some do not... but the truth is that small business is a gamble. Sometimes that gamble pays off and other times it does not. Palladium needs to either restructure, abandon their current business model and start over or just wave goodbye as they sink beneath the waves. They obviously are doing something wrong if they are going to fans to bail them out. "Trechery" aside, my guess is KS still holds the rights to his designs, system and books as well as the controlling interest in his company. My advice is to pull up the tents, dissolve the current company and restart. Hell, governmental tax code benefits him in a situation where his business is crumbling. Then again some people are not born businessmen. Just look at the massive graveyard of dead small time comic book and other nerd interest companies. Business is a cruel world and it takes a shark to swim these waters successfully. I wish them the best but I strongly advise their "fans" to let them die rather than keep scooping the water out of the boat.

It is my personal belief that when a thread may be teetering on the edge that if I think a warning will turn the thread around then one is issued. Sometimes a warning will not do it and the thread is just locked with an explaination given. Warnings sometimes don't work though and in my experience a warning around here carrys all the weight of a fart in a subway to some folks. If that warning is ignored I may lock the thread or I may issue a more serious warning. That is my moderating style though. I myself was not watching that thread as closely as I think I should have but it seems Roy was. He made a judgement call to lock it. He may have received a complaint about it that I was not privvy to. I'm not going to put words in Roy's mouth and try to give you a reason but I will say that whatever his reason was he had one and he locked it. I'm sure he did not intend any slight against you. Just my advice but I would try PMing him and seeing if he will tell you... calling his decision out in a public venue like this never really breeds the best speaking arrangement if you know what I mean. I'm not casting any implications with this but usually these kind of "why did a mod -blank-?" threads spin around like Shemp on fire and never really accomplish much.

Sometimes we don't say something because we don't see something... or perhaps it is because we ourselves may not be close enough to the issue to notice it. And to that end is why the users can "call 911". Any time you think you see a problem, PM a mod. In the whole time I've been a mod here (which is not that long) I have only received a handful of action requests... most of them being housekeeping requests from areaseven which I cannot actually do anything about (mini mods don't have edit ability). What I am trying to say is that if it seems we are letting something slide that concerns you, ask us. If it's in my area (which Other Anime is), ask me. I will always respond to PMs and I will always look into things people request me to in my areas. It's not like this job is balls to the wall something always happenging nuts... hell, most of my days are spent just sitting around being a normal member. I'd rather people see me as a mediator than a dictator and we are here to help. Don't take it for granted that we "agree" with something just because it exsists. That is like believing we all agree with scottish haggis just because it exsists and we don't say or do anything positive or negative about it. Then again at times the mods DO agree that something should stay when people want it closed... again that is a personal call based on our own views and opinions. When it comes to threads and topics usually several people agree with us and several people disagree with us. At the same time I cannot control the members or any of the other mods as much as they cannot control me. Well, the other mods and admins actually CAN control me... I'm the lowest rank on the pole and if I cause trouble I'm gone like the trash. What I'm trying to say is there are a few constants in the world (and Macrossworld): Liars will lie, stealers will steal, killer will kill, a-holes will be a-holes, problems will come up and sometimes those problems cannot be solved easily or immediately... or ever. If we all lived virtuously then trouble would never happen but heck, trouble happens from simple misunderstanding as much as it does from outright hostility. We all just need to take it for granted that things are going to be said and done on here that we all disagree with at some point and we need to just let bygones be bygones and sail over it all. Message boards should be the modern hedonism, live in the now of the board and try not to bring up the past... it will only bitter you as to the potential future. Live and post for the moment, enjoy the now. When the now is gone, live and post in the future. In the end a message board is simply words on a screen, simple ideas and such. Nothing to start wars over. I have yet to find a Helen of Troy online if you catch my drift.

I'd like to think I don't discriminate against topics but then again how I view myself and my actions on here is irrelivant. I can be blamed for discriminating in choosing NOT to delete things rather than deleting them. I cannot please everyone all the time, no matter what I do... so in the end it is a judgement call I have to make based on my own personal bias. Jem, while I agree with some of what you say you also have to take into account that everything on here and in the regular world is a judgement call based on someone's bias. In a sense you are stating the obvious with your argument. At the same time as I said before, changing the name of this section or changing the "rules" of the section will still not remove the override law that the staff has final say over what stays and what goes. If you play things 100% by the rules even then problems can arise. The rule in effect is there as a contingency to prevent problems rather than cause them... but like anything in the world it does not make everyone happy. While I agree it is kind of a sh!t rule that allows one person to decide if something says or goes it is needed to maintain order. Order means a lot of things to a lot of people, sometimes order is simple structure and organization and other times it means keeping things "in theme". If this is "abused" or not is a valid question and in some instances I would have to agree that, yes, it can and is abused. But there is always a reason for those abuses... sometimes the reason is as purile as "something does not "fit" MW style" but when the staff uses that as a reason we have to take it at face value. It is a complete cop-out answer but it is the only true answer, which is we do not own this board. Shawn and Graham do, and the staff is (supposedly) chosen by them to enforce the rules and code of conduct of the board. Sometimes the police are your friends and help you out and other times the police seem to be dirtier than the criminals and only there to make your life a living hell. A lot of times that is all in your perception of the police though. We all make calls on things on this board every day or so, sometimes it's a good call and other times it's a bad call... but in the end it's a judgement call based on our bias of how we percieve the situation. We are only human after all and it is impossible to be everyone's buddy all the time. I would say that if you feel we are a bunch of pigheaded male bastards in the way we handle things perhaps that is simply your perception of our attitude. I like to think I'm NOT that way but my actions, when viewed through the right lens, may make me out... and other mods... out to be just that. Suffice it to say I (and the other mods) are not actively trying to be your enemy. We just want to maintain order, tidyness and civility around here... or at least I do.

Every message board has it's share of constant sh!t disturbers. I've only been a mod on two boards, this one and one other one and the other board I almost don't think of as a message board anymore because it has limited membership... in other words the owner of the board controls who is a member and can post and who can't, it isn't "open to the public", which really cuts down on the "random jackass factor" if you know what I mean. I have no doubt that the majority of MW's membership could maintain a calm, intelligent and collected use of a pure OT forum but it's that darn 1% that worries me. On some subjects on here there always seems to be a kid just waiting to push you off your bike if you follow my analogy... and sometimes the grumpier members decide they are going to just go shoving people because they feel like it or they'll sit down in the middle of the table of a calm discussion and start screaming just because the topic is not something they feel like talking about. MW has surprised me with both it's maturity, diversity and intelligence but at the same time it has embarrased me with it's immaturity, myopicy and pettiness. And because of that I feel that sections like the Other Anime section must remain sort of "controlled" in just the right way as to walk the line of open discussion and anarchy. Back on topic... In all truth, we could claim just about anything with the Other Anime section... we could come out and call it an OT section if we liked... but at the end of the day the notion that the forum is controlled by the "whims" of the mods and admins remains. I know it urks some people to high hell and back but no matter how open or closed a forum's posting guidelines are to some degree what stays and what goes is up to the staff and I'm sure a simple section name change will not do much to alter that. It's just my opinion but changing the section name from Other Anime to This, That and The Other Thing simply just grants "paper legitimacy" to the exsisting topics that sort of defy the Other Anime label... it doesn't do anything to allow any new topics or prevent the staff from stopping a topic they do not want to continue due to one reason or another. I'd like to hope topics are not closed just because someone in power "doesn't like" that subject. Lord knows there are about ten topics on the main page of Other Anime right now I would close just because I have no interest in them... but I'm not going to do that. I don't see that as my "main" job. My main job is to keep the peace and enforce the "laws" of MW. Simply put, I'm a cop. Some people will like me but a lot of people will think I'm just here to hassle them and ruin their fun. I try my best to be fair and friendly to everyone and their threads and I hope that what I do on here is seen that way but let's face it, some topics just don't belong here and I'll close them. I'd like to think I have a more liberal view of the Other Anime section than some other mods but then again if another mod wants something gone I support them... and if they want something to stay I support that decision as well. It's not like it's a mass conspiracy to lock threads and burn puppies. All I ask of the membership is to not take everything so seriously. Sometimes a thread will live, sometimes it will die. I'd like to hope that when I lock something all the people reading it agree with me that it needed it, but I know that is not always true... or EVER true for that matter.