David Hingtgen

Woah, Accu-Paint? I know that stuff (being a model railroader). I bought 1 bottle and found it to be more like colored extra-thin cement than paint. WEIRD stuff.

Lacquer/Enamel/Acrylic is generally far more important for the factors you mention, than if it is for models, cars, etc.

That actually made me smile.

I always get depressed when I see cars like mine at the "cheap used cars for high school" type dealers, and being driven by highschool/college kids etc. My car was brand-new when I got it, and despite the excellent condition, mine is now seen as no better than an upper classmen's.

All depends---I have a bottle of Testor's metallic green I've used for a decade, same for brass. Then I can have bottles go bad in 6 months--it's all about that particular bottle's lid's seal IMHO.

Generally, Tamiya "everything" is universally praised as among the best. Their tape and putty and lacquer paints simply rock. Acrylic paint---better than most acrylics. But I do think thinning with water is probably it--I generally don't thin Tamiya to brush paint. And Japanese paints (Tamiya, Gunze) do seem much more "discriminating" in that they prefer their own brand of thinner--substitutes don't work as well. Finally---are you sure you got fresh paint? I mean, I could easily drive to a store and buy a 5 year old bottle of paint. It all depends on what that store sells.

That primer coat's smoother than a lot of my final finishes! --where do you get it? Craft stores, Wal-Mart, hardware stores?

Echo gets my vote for fugliest car ever. I still remember the first time I saw one, it was that ugly to me.

400HP in a 3200lb car was still significantly better than I've experienced before. Sigh---my driveway, but not my car.

Not sure quite which forum to put this in, but since CCFL's are popular among case modders, I figure this is it (being the quasi-gaming forum). Anyways, I'm looking at some CCFL's for lighting up model starships, since my preferred EL sheeting supplier is no more and no other brand will do. However, too many CCFL kits have too much extra stuff, or big inverters, or excess mounts/covers at the ends of the tubes, etc. Basically, I want to get just the tube itself (with leads) and an inverter, and nothing more, as every millimeter counts in installation space. (As in, packed inside the 0.5 inch wide warp nacelles of a plastic model kit) I've only found one place that sells "raw" tubes so far, but they only have white, and I want "spaceship engine blue". There's plenty of cheap CCFL and LED kits in the auto aisle of Wal-Mart etc, but I don't want to disassemble them for parts, especially without having detailed specs. Also, I'd like a 7.5 to 8 inch tube, whereas I can generally only find 6 and 9 inch. And 4.5 inch tubes or so. Almost every length seems to exist, but actually finding them for sale is hard. Or, if anyone knows of rather easily disassembled brands (or with the least excess stuff attached to the tube itself) available at Autozone etc, that'd be helpful. PS--rapid light-up to full brightness is highly preferred, some brands seem to take a while.

Still it would have only taken 30 secs of programming to fix flat-out errors. There's a big difference between not using an entirely new script, and not fixing "He is are the silences".

Uncle's Vette is not a Z06, but is a convertible.

VF-11 legs break from looking at them funny. People have bought it, transformed it once or twice, then left it on the shelf in battroid mode for six months---then all of a sudden it falls off the shelf because the legs broke off from just standing there. Plus, there's one's where the legs have come off before the box has even been opened.

Halfords is water-based? That could be the big difference. I don't know of any like that in the US. We basically have lacquer, and "very harsh" enamel for automotive sprays. (Much more "hot" than normal enamel like for modeling or house paint)

Ooh, I'm a big fan of 4th Gen F-bodies, the '97 Camaro in particular--that's the best year for the Camaro IMHO. Got the amber tailights, but didn't have the 98's front end. I loved 96/97's with the added body moldings. Plus you could get red interiors--looked awesome on white/silver/black cars. I almost had a Silver '97 RS with the performance axle, but ended up with a '98 Grand Prix GT (same engine but FWD). Soon traded up to my current '99 Grand Prix GTP. As I've already said twice, performance in snow is a huge factor. If you own a RWD vehicle here, it means you also own a FWD one for October through March. I think I have seen a grand total of ONE F-body being driven in the snow here. (Silver Firebird when I was in college---I think like me he was only out that day because he HAD to---it was finals week) A RWD Grand Prix is basically a GTO marketing-wise, but nowadays people ONLY ever compare it to the new Charger. I just plain like most Pontiacs, how they feel when you sit in them and how you like where they put the buttons and gauges is a factor that no magazine or number can really tell you. (I've always felt uncomfortable in Dodges for some reason) I've liked most Mazdas I've sat in. PS---my uncle got a new 'Vette this summer, picked it up at the factory, he got EXACTLY what he wanted. (Of course, Vette's have pretty much everything standard, and he wanted everything). He brought it by and I got to ride in it--haven't been able to drive it yet.

Can't offer anything else, I've heard that TrekFX is "on hiatus". I need to order a set or two and have been waiting for an update. I would suggest asking here: http://www.starshipmodeler.net/cgi-bin/php...ewforum.php?f=6 As they are AFAIK the most prominent board, and he posted there often.

All (via SNES, Saturn, and PSX), and just went through all again in the collection (PS2). Beating X4 with Zero is purely a matter of luck for me---basically which heads attack and if Sigma's head does the "debris spewing" or "blowing into spikes" attacks most of the time. And how often he just starts off with "The End" so you never get to attack. So long as there's not too many "debris spewing" or "yellow head firing lightning" I can win--but I can find myself in a battle with nothing BUT those two attacks for like 6 rounds--and I'm dead. Once I dodged all the yellow head's attacks, but I have yet to actually figure out how. Gate in X6---use one life tank. Other tank and the "limited" tank still in reserve. Of course, that too is based on luck, depending on what color orbs he tosses out. I hate the "two glowing squares" boss just before far more. PS--I'm very annoyed they didn't fix ANY of the errors in the collection version of X6. Still typos and translation errors, and they still show Blizzard Wolfang's picture for EVERY boss in the summary. Also I think the Master Saber is supposed to turn the saber pink like in X5, but it doesn't.

Which is my point---the good sound system absolutely requires the sunroof. Period. Even custom-ordering from the factory won't help. Same with the HUD---now only available on the V8 model. (Sorry, but a 300HP V8 via FWD with a 1980's 4-speed Auto on a *2.93* axle is an incredible waste and not good for snow--any car I own MUST be decent in snow) That's the only way the GXP comes AFAIK. (We GTP owners hate our 2.93 axle---the GT's 3.05 is bad enough, but the 2.93 sucks) (Testing it out I found the GT will do 92 in 2nd, but a GTP only does 88) (I've owned both) Anyways--I have an early '99 GTP. Every option but sunroof and block heater. Been flawless since the day I got it. Until November, when I had to swerve on a rural highway to avoid a suicidal deer and spun out the car on the gravel (forgot I wasn't on the interstate---I moved 6 inches and was off the pavement and in gravel)---thus "graveling" the right rear. Still haven't gotten it buffed out. It really needs repainting but it's such a large area it's not worth the money. Bought replacement wheel (it looked sandblasted, you could easily feel the big chunks dinged out), waiting until after winter to install it. My wheels were perfect until then. But I won't spend 4 grand on purely cosmetic damage so I will only replace one wheel with a used one and get the paint professionally buffed, and fill in the larger chips myself as best I can. (Basically the entire lower half of the car from front right wheel to rear bumper would need to be repainted plus new hand-polished wheels to get it how it was) I take incredible care of my car, the dealership always thinks it's half as old as it is. I had new car smell until 2002/2003. (Mechanics always asked me how I did it) Yes, I hate GM option packages and deer. (that's the real problem---you can never just get an option, you always have to get the big huge packages that group random things like speakers and sunroof or HUD and brakes together) And deer are the DUMBEST animals on the planet, I've owned goldfish that were smarter.

A lot of the weight is the batteries actually. The blade weighs more than the hilt when empty, but adding batteries swaps that. Of course, this depends on the exact hilt design and if it's a 3-battery or 6-battery saber.

Final boss of X1 is weak to to Rolling Shield. It has a weird firing pattern, but it's worth it. However, you probably will run out of weapon energy before he dies. Then use X-buster for the last 2 or 3 shots. X4 with Zero is still the toughest IMHO, or final boss of X3 (even with the Z-saber you can die 20+ times before you get the timing/positioning right).

A cheaper Qui-Gon was my most-wanted 1:1 scale, but it's still not quite cheap enough. That's still 6x the price of a .45 scale. And twice the price of an FX. Frankly, it should cost about the same as an FX---better hilt, but no blade/electronics.

Halford's is always mentioned on the model airplane forums, but AFAIK there is no US equivalent. Of course we have many spray paints from various stores, but there's nothing we would praise/use like Halford's it seems.

Rare that I can chime in, but owning a Grand Prix GTP and closely following Pontiacs over the past few years, I can. So here's a comment from someone owning a Pontiac and looking for potential replacement: After all the "overview" stuff you get down to the details. And THAT is where Pontiac seems to have really screwed up lately. Check Grand Prix, G6, or GTO sites. Stupid option packages are KILLING sales (or at least, prospective owners are b*tching about them a lot). Examples: Heads Up Display. Coolest feature there is, especially to plane-freaks like me. Used to be available on almost any Grand Prix. Now it is only available and standard on the V8-powered Grand Prix. So 95% of Grand Prix's cannot get it, despite being a popular option for many years. Sunroof. Nearly every single Grand Prix ordered by a dealer has it. Some 90% of those ordered by individuals DON'T. There's a reason for that--low roof-line. Anyone over about 5'8 can't have a sunroof in a Grand Prix. But almost every one on the lot has it. There's not the slightest chance I can deal with a sunroof in a Grand Prix--I got the only GTP in Iowa without one that I've seen--and it was brought in from Nebraska. Now, like most Pontiacs there's a bunch of audio options. But for the good one it is only available with the sunroof. Beyond stupid. People over 5'6 like amps too. To get the Monsoon system you need to be short. So basically, my current Grand Prix has no sunroof(and thus headroom), the best sound system, and a Heads Up Display. And an auto-dimming rearview mirror. And lots of other little things. But I can't get anything like that now. HUD is only available with the V8, and those are both hard to get and don't do well in snow (300HP+ via FWD on wide tires is not good for the midwest) (plus there's no spare tire and they have an even HIGHER percentage of sunroofs than the other models). Electrochromic mirrors flat-out don't exist--yeesh, even cheap Chevy's have those, and GP's used to--but not anymore. Sound? I can only have the cheapest single-slot CD 4-speaker system if I don't get a sunroof. Not the nice in-dash changer with amp and XM. Finally--onstar. It's standard on nearly every GM car now. That's $600+ of an option I don't want/need, that I'm paying for. It's just built in to the base price now. I could use that money for wheels. Also it adds an ugly antenna and its base to the rear window. I very much like my current antenna-less look. Sorry for the rant, but I'm just ticked that a car I like can't really be "replaced". I do not want to buy the same car but with half of all my options missing. I like all my comfort/convenience features, there's a reason I paid for them. And I want those same ones on my next car---and they really should be available, now that the GP has even higher-level models. And should be available without a sunroof.

XFA-27 has the same layout as a Super Flanker or F-15ACTIVE. It simply has a cruciform tail (which I am fond of for redundancy/damage reasons) instead of a typical right-angle v.stab/h.stab arrangement.

Cool video of the day, very fast *VERY* low F-15 passes. I want to go to that airshow! http://www.flightlevel350.com/download.php?id=4798