David Hingtgen

99% of Hollywood's size zero anorexic actresses don't. But I still think she'd be better than K.Kreuk.

Just a little pic of the world's biggest and most powerful jet engine: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1230919/M/ 127,900lbs on a test run.

NCV vs NCC: I don't think there's any link. NCC is the general registry number prefix for all Fed. fleet ships in Trek, regardless of class or type. Whereas NCV in MF is specific to the New Macross Class possibly, or at least only the largest, most modern carriers. Macross ships have generally followed US designations pretty closely--FFG, CV, CVS, etc. NCV doesn't make much sense, adding a prefix to "CV". But CVN's already taken. But then again, CVS has been used in real life but is now obsolete. In summary: In Trek, NCC (taken from the US's old NC) indicates "country of origin"--or actually, planet or federation of origin. In Macross, NCV indicates type of ship. (Trek's numbering system is really messed up, it makes no sense at all and is basically worthless for classification---any other show does a better job) Macross's does quite well.

Pssst, Graham----there's more to the new show than the VF-171 you know.

$250 a month to insure? Ouch. Anyways---Pontiac G8 review! http://www.g8board.com/08G8/ Yes, an actual G8, not a "here's the Holden it's based on and this review will be similar".

Spoilery obvious question: M7 did it several times IIRC, and it didn't seem to require some 25-min preparation sequence or something.

No future. Seriously--look at 1/60 VF-1's. 100 bucks. But a 1/60 SV-51? 200 bucks. Same scale, different size valk. Now, a 1/48 VF-1. 200 bucks. 1/48 Sv-51? 300 or 400 bucks. How many do you think would sell at that price? How many people have room for such a thing? (My lone 1/48 F-14 sits on top of a dresser, overhanging on all sides--and an Sv-51 is much bigger)

I wonder if Tomy's "Zoid" engineers are now working on TF's, as Zoids are about 99% dead since the merger.

Top center of the backpack, there's a sort of T-shaped plate. (a fat, hex-rounded-ends T). Pry it up. Screws are under there.

Why is everyone here in this thread talking about yet another VF-1 toy, when there's the premiere episode of a whole new Macross series to watch/discuss/dissect?

Anyone else have audio synch issues? If I just play it straight through it's fine, but if I skip forward or ahead--the audio's not even from the same SCENE. Or just silent. I'd like to re-watch some parts, but that's impossible as it is now--the sound gets totally messed up if you skip around at all. I'm just using the standard current Divx player. Maybe it's a codec thing and not the player. ::edit:: Fixed my own problem from a suggestion on the main MF thread. Rename the file to .avi, and play it with Media Player. Works much better.

If they were in the real world, the VF-1 would be a fairly small fighter plane, and the YF-19 would be very large. (The Sv-51 would probably be the biggest in the world) Anyways---I'll probably sell my 1/60 Focker and Milia to pay for a new Focker. (I got my 1/48 Milia, I see little point in buying a 3rd to replace the 1st 1/60 of hers). Hopefully those 2 1/60 will bring in enough cash to buy 1 new one. Kinda ironic--I think I've sold more Yamatos to buy improved versions, than I've owned.

I just fiddled with my 1/48, and the "BP-8 hinge to backpack" joint is at an acute angle. Now, I did open my 1/48 totally up and did much sanding of the backpack and hinge joints to allow for an easier, less stressful transformation, but I don't recall it ever not being able to properly transform. ::edit:: Fiddled some more. Ok, carefully and slowly folding the backpack, I note the following: It likes to "catch" when the backpack-to-hinge is at about a 135-degree obtuse angle. (in otherwords, raised 45 degrees from from fighter mode). It will hold this position, and wiggle around it a bit. Then, going further, the stress/force required increases, maximizing right around 90 degrees. Then, once past 90 degrees, it becomes almost effortless and folds flush, with an acute angle. I think you may have to open up your backpack and see what's preventing it from getting past the 90-degree point. Alternatively--trust in the fact that it's SUPPOSED to go past 90 degrees, and push it until it does. It'll either get unstuck or break.

A lot of those things will instantly "undelete" when you try to simply delete them---it's "too easy" to get rid of a virus that way. Anyways---google! Every process, task, and file you don't recognize---google and find out what it is. Honestly, at a time when you have your PC "running perfectly"---write down every single thing it normally runs to operate. That way, you can easily check when something "odd" happens in the future--malicious or not. PS--running Windows XP? Just in case things can't be fixed any other way, there's a little-known but super-useful type of re-install that will NOT destroy all your settings and files, but it's 99.999% as effective as doing a total wipe and formate of the entire hard drive when dealing with worms etc. I don't know of anything it can't fix, but it's a whole lot easier than actually re-installing windows/formatting the drive. ::reminds self to backup hard drive, it's been way too long, and the hard drive is too old to trust much longer and it was making a funny noise yesterday:: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm (it says OEM/restore CD's don't work, but my HP recovery disc did) However, it will remove/revert to the most basic version of XP the PC had when XP was first installed. Suggest getting SP1 and SP2 and all the critical updates you can on a disc so that you can immediately reinstall them before you even think about having the PC hooked up to the web again. And activiate XP's firewall. Your PC will be "naked" once you do this, and very susceptible to getting something again as while you will have lost whatever nasty thing you had, you will have also lost all the virus protection updates etc, and some 2002-era thing could be floating around. Unless you can quickly put it all back on WITHOUT going to microsoft.com to download it. Your PC may be new enough that its "virgin" state of XP already has SP2. But you'd still be missing the updates.

Personally, I'd like to see an almost "double" cosplay----Mylene with Mylene's valk. The ultimate valk-girl. Or Milia with Milia's valk.

I'm thinking this should be stickied, or at least very often referred to.

MSN/MS/Windows can't help for 99% of things, nor will most of the big-name big-buck anti-virus programs---they can PREVENT, but really suck at CURE. Google the virus's exact name and the name of any file you know, and any odd running programs/apps. Then start seeing on the various PC tech/help forums what everyone else who caught it had to do to cure it Seriously, if you really want to get rid of something, you're probably going to have to do it yourself and not rely on "corporate" solutions. Registry edits, nifty little free removal programs some helpful guy wrote tailored for that virus, etc. PS--I recommend Avast!. Totally free with free constant updates, and caught things every other one missed, and didn't miss anything any other found.

It better be cheap (as in under 100 bucks) or it's pointless: We already have $200 VF-1's, they're just 1/48 instead of all the other recent 1/60 valks. A 1/60 VF-1 (new) has got to be a lot cheaper than the current 1/48. I have but one request: PRINT THE SKULLS ON THE TAILFINS STRAIGHT.

I'm currently looking at the A30----only 250 right now at BB. Hopefully it'll go LOWER in the future, and not shoot back up over 300 once the Xmas sales are over. (A30 does 1080p, A3 doesn't---trying to future-proof where possible) (hey, with many TV's I'm interested in coming down 150 to 200 from just 6-8 weeks ago, I should be able to swing a TV and HD player----assuming prices don't rebound to Sept/Oct pricing soon)

What really sucks are the guys who just put in 48-hour codes, and have had over 24 hours of outage.

Possibly stupid question: With Blu and HD discs taking so long to load (and WHY do they?) does that affect "normal" operations of skipping chapters, fast-forwarding, etc? I mean, if it takes a disc 55 secs just to eject, (same problem I have with printers that take 45 secs to turn on) does that mean the player is always needlessly wasting time for the most basic of tasks?

Well, it's severe enough that MS is actually reporting issues on Live's status: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/?WT.svl=nav

Well, it was insane at the boards: http://forums.xbox.com/14/ShowForum.aspx They finally locked all the threads and made a new sticky thread. PS---yeah Mike, you show up as being online. But none of my other Live friends. PPS--I need a new gamertag pic, and while I'd prefer ME, few of them are any good. Half are so small/dark you can't tell what they are. "N7" is too common. (I have both the preorder bonus and the LE bonus, so I have most of the ME ones out there)

LIVE is down for me, and a lot of other people it seems. Surely someone here is having problems. I haven't been online since before the latest update, and I just went online today to try to get it, and Live won't connect.

Actually, the rattling was likely because it's an Airbus. Was it an A320, and was it the overhead bins? Inherent issue with that design.