JsARCLIGHT

Nice. I myself have always been partial to two-tone pistols. It gives the weapon a "custom" look even if all it is is a finish difference. I used to have a Sig 232 two-tone with a black anodized frame and a stainless slide. It was a pretty flashy little guy, I used to call it my "double-oh pimp" pistol. Anyhoo it seems everyone has a new project up their sleeves lately. I myself have started building a M4 SOCOM last week and plan to option the sucker into next week. Some goodies already lined up or on order for it are: - Knights RAS with AN/PEQ2 laser - M203 - C-More Tactical Optics Suite - Hogue grip with M4 SOCOM 6 position Stock I have already started ordering parts and I already have spares if anyone needs them. I have a M16 M203 Handguard with front Leaf Sight and a complete AR lower parts kit (kit and grip, semi) if anyone needs them. Drop me a line, I'll sell them cheap.

Nope, I've had my fill of crappy toys crushing my boyish dreams of fun. They could make a Tread and Alpha double this size for a nickel and I's still be very very wary. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. ... I could make a joke there... let's just let that one move on shall we...

Just in case anyone is still reading this thread here is my final update: Got my replacement toy last week and tah dah! Guess what? This one is a piece of crap too. Not nearly as many issues as my original toy but the thing is still gaps aplenty, loose as paris hilton on a bender and still very, very. very far below the quality I was expecting for this toy. At least the replacement I got was not as bad as the original and for that Toynami gets let out of my sights for the moment... but I will never buy their junk again. I don't care if they come out with the next best thing since sliced bread, they have pissed me off into levels of pissed off that I only thought Sam Kinneson could attain. ... and just to leave on a high note: OHH! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH! Toynami this thing is a piece of SSHHHHHIIIIIIII OOOOOOOOOOOOH! OOOH OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!!!

Ah, but to use my seldom used '80s lingo: "Would that not make sir Fett a "poser"?" Poser N. (po-zer) plural "posers" 1. A person or people who wear a stylish outfit usually associated with a certain group, niche or subject who are "cool", but said wearer lacks all necessary elements from those groups and is simply using his outfit in an attempt to "pose" as a member of those factions. 2. A person or people lacking any skill in an area their outfit professes skill in. Usage: "That man weaing that Vision Street Wear shirt cannot skate, ergo he is a poser. Speaking from experience a nice outfit or all the gear is only "cool" if you can back up your appearance. You could put Woody Allen in Boba Fett armor and he would still be Woody Allen... which is one slight step below the normal Boba Fett.

Perhaps the shock of loosing his "much better than him" dad at a young age turned Boba into a big pile of suck. ... at least his dad managed to actually shoot people and take on a jedi and live for a few more days.

... and you forgot to add that it was a blind man that put him there. I swear the Fett family sucks... why do people love him so much? Here is my running total of everything Boba did in the OT: - show up - promise not to disintigrate anyone - follow the Millenium Falcon to Cloud City - hang around Vader looking moody - get whiny about Vader beating up on his trophy - shoot his rifle a lot and miss every time - take Solo back to Jabba - hang around Jabba and look moody - hit on Jabba's dancers - make a half-assed attempt to stop the heroes - get hisself dead at the hands of a blind man On the bad-ass-o-meter he rates a negative three.

The trick with firearms is that they have almost reached the pinnacle that this technology can attain... pretty much all weapons now are just using the same concepts, designs and mechanical principals over and over again and they are just finding new materials to build them out of. Back in the '80s pretty much every weapon was metal then Glock came along and proved you could make a weapon out of a plastic... now everyone makes some sort of plastic weapon. Now that titanium has hit the market and other aircraft materials weapons are getting lighter, stronger and more accurate... but their general funciton and form has not changed in over 40 years. The "Next Generation" weapons, be them caseless, not bullets or what are still in the development stages. Everything you see until then is just one company's alternate take on the same-old same-old... nothing that technically breaks new ground no matter how much they posture and brag. Rolling bolt, rotating bolt, gas delayed bolt, open bolt you name it... they all do the same thing in the end, they just reach it at different ways.

I did not read the link you posted, all I heard were the stories on the radio news today which seemed to leave out the game side and put all the emphasis on the DVD sets... to the point that a local radio talk show host had a guy on who was an "expert" to talk about it. This supposed "Expert" said that despite they listed the total along with the game the numbers they used were fudged somehow... they did something to "cook the books" (I loathe that phrase but the so called "expert" used it in the interview) to come up with that number. My interest was in whether or not this lone "expert" was just a kook or if people knew of actual facts that LFL shifted some numbers in funny ways to make it seem like they sold more than they actually did.

I have not seen a K100 in person yet... in fact, other than industry hype I have not seen much about them at all... or heard much about their parent company. I think the real question will be "is it legal to import to the US?"... a lot of arms makers still cannot get some of their wares into the country due to standing laws reguarding import of firearms. The AWB may be gone but it's blockage of importing certain weapons and the presidential ban on other weapons is still keeping a good number of weapons off our shores. Edit: the main "legal loophole" a company can use to bypass most of these laws is the "US Parts and ownership" provision. As long as the company has an office in the US and the weapon employs a certain number of US made parts it can be made legal for import. That is how Interarms and Hesse get most of their "imported" weapons into the country... by having a shop stateside and slapping on a few domestic parts to legalize the importation.

I heard on the radio today that LFL released a press release claiming something like $115 million in sales for the DVD set on it's first day of availability... but then after that story a local radio talk host I listen to had a movie "expert" on who debunked it saying LFL fudged those numbers by including the Battlefront game sales in there as well as preorders and gross unit dispersal sales... meaning LFL did not actuall sell $115 million worth of DVD sets they just claim to have. Has anyone heard anything to prove or disprove that guy's claim against their claim?

[Complete Dork Mode] Hey did anyone watch the "Birth of the Lightsaber" special yet? Did anyone find it ironic that GL goes on about how the lightsabers in the early movies where "two handed weapons" and his direction to the actors was that they were "very heavy and required two hands to propperly use" with the actors going to one hand later on and then showing off the feats of the early Jedi in the newer movies?... ... then how come the first time you ever see a Lightsaber in the darn movies Luke is one-handing it like he's playing with a sparkler? I found that just totally weird. [/Complete Dork Mode]

I think the only thing I like about the Last Starfighter is the actual ship itself. The ship is pretty neat and the concept behind it was interesting (using the whole pilot / gunner Apache thing). But as for the actual movie and this supposed stage production: bleh. Lance Guest does not an action hero make and the Last Starfighter is a hard sell as an opera... how in the hell do they pull off the final battle? Interpretive dance? People in costumes like a third grade play? Running around with their arms out yelling "peeeoooo! peeeoooooo!"? What's next? Tora, Tora, Tora! the musical?

I broke down and went and bought a WS copy at Best Buy tonight... suprisingly the Best Buy near me seemed to have them just falling off the shelves. Both WS and PS versions... tons of 'em, just sitting there. I watched ANH a little while ago and the audio "glitches" (as some call them) are noticeable... but mainly only to dorks who have seen the darn movie ten billion times (like me). I watched it with my wife and found myself saying things like "Aaahhh! Aaahhh! There it is!" and she would just say "what? what do you hear that I don't?"... that is when it dawned on me... these "audio mistakes" are only noticeable by us dorks. Other than that picture is immaculate on a upconvert DVD on HDTV. Ironically I find these DVDs a worthy purchase. This is the cleanest I have seen the OT in a long time.

Recent games that have wowed me are GTA, Doom 3, Max Payne and a few others... they all brought something "fresh" to the table I felt. Doom was all atmosphere, GTA was freedom you rarely see or experience in a game and Payne was your typical game with your typical plot but for some reason it was a blast to play. Most of the games that hit the shelves are me too titles, offering nothing more than a themepack revision on an exsisting gameplay to squeeze another fifty bucks out of the fanbase... now take a game like Knights of the Old Republic. THAT was an innovative SW game... and yet it was just an RPG rehash. But it did it so well and it mixed themes and elements to make an engrossing game that was not just another Final Fantasy or DnD with a skinpack.

A game has to do a lot more than that to get my interest nowadays... having been playing games since the days of pac man and moon patroll all the way up to today I find myself so disenchanted with most games. It takes a real genre twister or an advance in the feel, look or play mechanics of a game to make me sit up and take notice. BF1942 to me was just Quake 2 with trucks. One big "meh". Now SW:BG seems like BF1942 with AtSt's. Once again, "meh". Yet again I have the typical whiny fanboy reaction of "they could have done so much more with the game than they did" but it is what it is, a simple shooter with trucks featuring SW things.

Disco Star Wars? Need I break out my Mecco Star Wars Disco and unleash it on the unbelievers? I have been reading a lot of "negatives" about the DVD transfers and it seems that some people have different thoughts on this... being a video/audiophile I really want a nice clean SW to watch but the reverse sound issue, the audio issues and some people even claim video issues are keeping me from buying a set. Am I just being paranoid or is it really all that bad? Mind you I'll be watching this on a HDTV with a nice stereo and I'm one of those people who start adjusting the equalizer settings in the middle of a movie based on one tiny sound I keep hearing in the mix that is not right.

I was all set to go out and buy this game but got sidetracked with a slight ohhhhhh flight to LA and hullabaloo with a client for the last 48 hours... Anyway I got back a while ago and went to the office just to check in and make sure nothing was on fire and some of my team had a copy of the game and were playing it. It did not impress me... it almost felt like a level/skinpack for BF1942. I thought it was going to be so much more... then again I seem to have this habbit of expecting so much out of things that all along come off as so simple. Oh well, after reading about the problems with the DVDs and now the game not grabbing me I guess I can keep this franklin away from king george for another year or so again.

I've seen one of those before, they are hilarious! Give that to your 7 year old and dress him up in a mini SA outfit and BAM minikraut!

OK, Stupid question time... is this game multiplayer only or will it have single player capability? I keep seeing the TV commercial that has the split second cut of the ewok getting blasted right in the head and I seem to want this game more and more... then again any game that features death to ewoks is a must have in my book.

Welcome to the wonderful journey of mawage.

14/18 I spent most of my preteen years in arcades... and yet almost all of those sounds are from home systems...

Finally got ahold of some real people today and they are finally ironing things out for me. Seems my little pack in letter I sent with my return was one of "many" (their words not mine). They also let me know that a few people in their "customer service" department have been in trouble over their dealings with some people... I think they just said that because my name came up on their screen when they were talking to me and it had like ten little satan heads next to it. So long story short my exchange is set to ship today and I'll have it soon they said. When I pressed them about the quality level of their products they made several hints to this being almost an epidemic, using words like "common", "bad issues" and "regretable". They assured me the next release would be much better checked over and that they are trying to address the issues brought to their attention. The guy I had contact with was more than happy to address most of my questions and treated me with respect, for a change. I feel this is a first step to calming me down in this matter and when I get my replacement toy if it is better in quality then I may just shut up about this finally. All it takes is one courteous and understanding person at a company's customer service department to avoid all these problems.

That is a problem though, the 37mm Bird Bomb shells are illegal. No matter who tells you otherwise the BATF's position on 37mm loads is if it is anything but a flare it is a DD and thus an NFA Item. Now they will not come kicking in your door over a few Bird Bomb shells but those things to them are just as hot as an unregistered machine gun or a hand grenade. There has been a massive cracking down on 37mm launchers and supplies of late because of that. Many companies that once built or stocked the tubes have discontinued to do so due to litigation and federal charges being brought against them. 37mm, while many believe it to be legal, is right on that grey boarderline of law. ... plus add to that that most 37mm under barrel launchers look and function nothing like a real M203. Most of the current ilk like the Cobray and RPB launchers hang waaaaay too low and loose and have really crappy mounts and build materials. Plus they have giant gold or white lettering on the barrels calling them out as signaling devices along with other "read your user's manual" things... really fugly. As for the STEN guns they are what they are: bargain basement open bolt SMG's. While some seem to be great guns others are horrid. The STEN has to be one of the common era's most built automatics as all it usually takes to build one is a nice thick exhuast pipe tube and some time at a workbench. Some pros and cons and cons on the STEN family are as follows: Pros are the weapons are simple, light and relatively durable. Being made from so few parts and almost entirely of metal stampings with only one machined part (the bolt) they are uber cheap. The Cons of STEN weapons are just what you'd think they would be. The weapon's barrel is too short to be effective at longer ranges and the inability to fire on semiauto on most models make them the classic "spray and pray" weapon. Most models even do not have sights and you just shoot from the hip or sight down the barrel. Two hazzards of STEN weapons are heat and the magazine. Being made almost entirely of metal and with no real gripping areas the weapon heats up fast and becomes too hot to handle at times. Oh and never, ever hold the weapon by the magazine. Holding it by the magazine puts pressure on the mag and actually on some models puts a slight "angle" to the mag and causes feeding issues. The only STEN design I have ever shot was a Mark 3 with the wire loop stock. It was a Class II demo unit that a local manufacturer made in his shop just or kicks. All it took was a pre-marked tube section, a few hours at a workbench, a Mk3 parts kit from the war and some time finishing and assembling and bam... instant STEN. The weapon actually feels like you are holding something you built yourself in a garage. Recoil is manageable but the wire stock is a pain on the shoulder. Mag changes are fast and rate of fire is slow compared to modern compact SMG's like micro UZI's or Ingrams... but at the same time the tubular nature of the weapon acts a bit better when it comes to holding and firing it. If given an opportunity to shoot another I would like to shoot a later model variation like the Mk5 that has some wood on it or a pistol grip... that wire stock was a killer.

I've built so many ARs for myself and my friends that I might as well be an armorer now. Ask any questions you need to. As to your M4 dilema I have a thought that you might want to explore. There is a guy I know in Florida called Kurt who runs a shop called KKF (Kurt's Kustom Firearms). H specially makes a 2.25" flash suppressor that appears to be an elongated A2 birdcage that he can perminantly pin onto the 14.5" M4 barrel to get the BATF legal 16" but it keeps the 14.5" barrel and has the illusion of being much shorter. Kurt does super kickass custom brakes and suppressors and I own a few of his pieces. Follow this link to his site: KKF As for your M203 dilema have you ever just wanted the look of a thumper without the paperwork or hassle? DPMS sells a "replica" M203 launcher for $200 that is a dead nuts correct M203, just with a dummy trigger. I have one and it is a dead ringer for the real deal just that it is DOR rather than live. It is indistiguishable from a real M203... the levers work, the tube opens and everything. The only wiener is that the trigger is fixed and it has no hammer or guts inside, plus the barrel is a smoothbore stepdown incapable of chambering a round. A real life M203 is a bank bleeder waiting to happen, because acording to BATF regs not only do you have to pay the $200 stamp tax and fill out a form 4 for the launcher itself but you also have to do so for each round you purchase for it. The 40mm rounds themselves are considered to be DD's just like the tube. A real pisser unless you are Daddy Warbucks.

If some strapping philanthropist like EXO were to buy me one to review I would kindly review it with pleasure... But the day Toycrappy gets another dollar of my money is the day they start selling "kick toynami in the balls for a buck!" coupons.