Hurin

Howdy All, I've had a certain South Park episode sitting on my dvr for probably around two years now and I always thought that a certain scene from it would be appreciated here on MW. I finally got around to trimming it down to this scene and posting it here. There is just something about the music, the lyrics, and the engrish. . . Windows Media Video (WMV) file - Small - 320x240 - 4.32 MB Link Windows Media Video (WMV) file - Large - 640x480 - 22.1 MB Link - Recommended! Those links should stream (start playing before they fully download). Though, if you are using Firefox, it doesn't always work right because the Windows Media Player plug-in for Firefox is a bit flakey. But, you can always just watch it after it downloads. Quick synopsis up to this point (not necessary, but fun): The kids have aquired ninja weapons at the local fair. While playing with these weapons as their (rather cool) anime-inspired alter-egos, Kenny manages to impale Butters with a ninja star. . . right in his eye. Afraid of what their parents will do to them should their possession of the ninja weapons come to light, they initially decide to kill Butters and bury him in Kenny's yard. But, because Stan objects, they instead decide to disguise Butters as a dog and take him to the vet for treatment. But. . . when their arch-rivals arrive on the scene, they quickly hide Butters in a nearby abandoned oven and face their enemies!

Maybe the solid cockpits are just for these prototypes?

The Hikaru doll looks killer! Though it looks like the helmet is a no-go (especially because that's his uniform instead of a flight-suit). Will be picking up the Hikaru. Probably not the valks. I can imagine getting the valks only if I were strapped for cash and didn't already have 1/48s! H

Fool! You'll kill us all!

Yes, the voices are odd. But chalk that up to the original anime (and to a large extent, Robotech's take on it) using actors that just used their normal speaking voices. Whereas, ADV appears to have continued the trend of giving anime dubs very "cartoony" voices where many of the actors are clearly not using their normal speaking voices. I think it's unfortunate as the original Japanese voices weren't cartoony at all. They sounded like your average people on the street with one or two minor exceptions. BTW, there's an existing thread on the ADV dub here. So, feel free to jump in over there. And welcome aboard! H

If there is a pinned Macross 7 thread, that may mean that there will be endless discussion of Macross 7. And if there is endless discussion of Macross 7, AgentONE will be participating in it at all times. Which means that he will no longer be available to hold the fabric of the universe together with his massive ego. We all die. The end. H

. . . The end of an era. I probably got about 75% of my valks through Kevin. Now, with the arrival of my GBP, it's all over. . . <sniff> Kevin was the real deal. Once had a crooked seat on my 1/48 Max 1J. No problem, I just mentioned it in passing to Kevin and he offered to send me another seat! No fuss! Truly great customer service, trustworthy, and reliable. And, great packaging on our precious valks! You'll be missed Kevin! H

Woops, I knew I had read some detailed info about this part breaking before. The old thread has rolled off the first pages. . . but it's here along with some good images. Looks like I wasn't the first (to break it or take pictures). I probably won't be the last! H

Done and done! Here's the write up from that thread since it's a bit more serious and detailed than the one above:

Howdy All, There has been a lot of people mentioning how delicate the "bar" piece is inside the chest-piece of the 1/48 GBP-1S armor set. Basically, as the two red missile-covers butterfly out, they pull on a bar inside the chest piece that then pushes the two chest missile panels out so that they aren't as recessed. It's not exactly perfect and you sometimes need to wiggles things to get the panels to protrude as much as they should. Anyways, while pushing the missiles into the two "missile panels" in the chest, the only thing supporting the panels is that platic bar. And, well, those missles can be pretty hard to get into their holes. So, some people (including me) have been getting impatient and pushing too hard, thus snapping that little plastic bar! The good news is that, unlike the infamous BP8 backpack joint, this is a part that appears to glue pretty well. Once the missiles are actually in the panels, there shouldn't be a need to apply excessive amounts of pressure to the glued piece again. It just gently nudges those hinged missile panels forward. Here's the chest piece all disassembled (which is very easy to do. Just four screws and it pulls apart). Note that I have removed the missile panel from the left side (valkyrie's left). The missile panel on the rigth is still there (the white dots are the butt end of the missles poking through the panel) and you can see where the bar presses up against it which will cause them to shift forward when the bar is tugged on by the red doors (not visible). The red arrow marks where the bar had broken. There is now just a white fracture line where I glued it. I just used "super glue" that I ran down and got at the 24-hour pharmacy. It took about ten minutes to repair. And after only five minutes of curing, I was able to open the chest plate doors and the missiles slid forward as they're supposed to do. All in all, it's a poor design, but not a total show-stopper since it's easily glued and even if it weren't possible to do so, you could always just pull the panel forward by hand. Best Regards, H

ALL FIXED! Okay, first, a close-up of the damage. Here's the chest piece all disassembled (very easy to do). As you can see, I broke the left side (valk's left). I have removed the missile panel from the left side while I glue the "bar" back together. But you can see on the undamaged right side how the bar pushes the back of the missile-endowed panel. A red arrow marks the fracture point. This image is post-glue, However. So, all that's left to see of the damage is the white line where it broke into two pieces. If I had to mount the missiles again, I'd seriously consider just taking it apart like this and applying supporting pressure to the back of the missile panels while I pushed the missiles into the panel. Awaiting the results of the operation. . . BACK IN ACTION! And not a moment too soon as a Meltrandi cat appears to be about to cause trouble! Eyes that glow like that can only mean evil. . . Seriously though. . . some super glue seems to do the trick in this case. It's not like the infamous BP8 where is needs to endure a lot of stress. Once the missiles are in, it barely gets any force applied to it. Best, H

Okay, got mine. It's awesome! But, am I the first person to actually break the little plastic bar in the chestplate that pushes the missiles out? I even read the warnings here but I still wasn't careful enough. I was just thinking: "Okay, they said be careful. . . but Yamato wouldn't have made it that delicate. . . (SNAP!)" I'm thinking a little super glue can fix it. There's not a lot of stress put on it once the missiles are actually in there. It might hold. But it's not a big deal if I have to tug the missile rack out by hand either. I'd almost recommend people take the chest piece apart (screwdriver required) and put the missiles in with the chest piece disassembled. It was that delicate! Or, of course, maybe my clumsy gaijin hands were just not gentle enough.

Looks like Windows Messenger. Which is just a stripped-down MSN Messenger that comes free with WinXP. 367956[/snapback] Nah, Trillian. Universal IM client: Can use ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo. . . H

Posted with permission. . . The day A1's heart broke:

I always assumed that Roy's valkyrie was off-white or just "dirty white". . . it is clearly white at many time during the TV series. Yet, we can't be sure it's not supposed to be white in the movie as well. The movie uses a much, much darker pallette and is more realistic in the way it handles lighting. Given that we never see a VF-1S (much less Roy's) in anything like natural white light, it's hard to determine if it's really grey, or the lighting just makes it appear that way. I think the clamoring for a grey one comes form the fact that Bandai released a grey and a white one. But I think the distinction made between grey/white as "movie" vs "TV" colors is largely artificial. H

Well, no. This only demonstrates if the principle is good for criminals. Again, if you withhold all judgement, then what you say makes sense. But only in a "there is no right or wrong" post-modern, "everything can be justified or rationalized" way. A society can't arrive at its legal and moral principles by asking itself whether its most abhorrent members would approve of them! Appplying that mental "tool" for demonstrating if something is "truly a good universal principle" sure makes one feel enlightened and sounds good if you're trying to prove that you're a "deep-thinker", but it's ultimately just an excercise in mental masturbation. What the far Left always leaves out of this narrative is that Ghandi's techniques only worked because the British Commonwealth was a fundamentally decent society and system of government. Such appeals to conscience only work on nations that possess a collective conscience. Had Ghandi attemped such a thing against a less democratic and conscientious regime (Stalin's Soviet Union for example), all that would have resulted was a lot of dead Indians. Final Vegata, I normally don't bother to respond to your posts. But, in this case, you managed to not actually mention Hitler or Mein Kampf. . . so I thought I'd make an exception. Best, H

I don't think we need to mention Milia, Hikaru, or valkyries in each post in order to demonstrate "Macross relevance." We're clearly still discussing the topic of the thread even if we're not using Macross buzzwords. I think the nature of warfare, killing, and "murder" is fully within the scope of this thread. And I think our mods and mini-mods are fully capable of grasping the relevance.

Honestly, I'm "speechless" that you find this so abhorrent. To say that a policeman shooting an armed and dangerous criminal is the same as a woman shooting a man attempting to rape her is the same as a soldier shooting an enemy combatant is the same as a man sawing the head off of a bound and screaming captive for rebroadcast. . . it just seems to me that your being wilfully undiscriminating in order to make some larger point: That killing is bad. Well, I agree with you. Killing is bad. But some things are worse. Such as: Allowing killing to continue instead of killing the bastards who are doing all the killing. If you're looking at simply the end result: Deaths. . . then yes, someone is dead in all cases. And you are correct. . . there isn't much of a difference to the people who are dead. But, what is the purpose to the death? What were the motivations of the killing? And, what will be the results? Was the killing done in self-defense? Thus, to preserve life? Will this death cause fewer deaths in the future? More? Was there an alternative to the killing? Was such an alternative truly feasible or even reasonable? Might a refusal to kill have led to more killing at a later time? All of those questions are worth asking. And it troubles me when people simply say: "Killing is killing. There's no point in belaboring it any further." Though you don't seem like a pacifist, that's essentially a pacifist argument. And, let's not forget, pacifism can lead to just as much killing as aggression. Especially when pacifism is the only response to aggression. So, are there heroes in war? Yes. I believe there are. Especially among those whose acts led to fewer deaths than would otherwise have been the case.

Lynn Kaifun would disagree. But, of course, he was an idiot and possibly the least sympathetic (human) character. H

Like I said, it's very fashionable to think this way now. Everything is relative. There are no capital -T- Truths anymore. Everything depends on a point of view. All of which is true, but there is also objective reason, and post-modern moral relativism doesn't totally supplant objective facts despite people behaving as though it does (usually because spouting such things makes them appear to be oh-so-enlightened). Really, my understanding is that former enemies in war often develop friendships later on. There are even individual stories of people paying respects cordially to family members of those they are believed to have killed (in aerial combat especially) with no rancor taking place. And I would daresay that the vast majority of people who lost friends and family in WWII no longer hold a grudge against their former enemies (though I personally know of a rare exception). How many people do you know who behave that way when their loved one was murdered on the street? Again, "murder" and "kill" are two very different words with two very different meanings. The distinction between them is important. To conflate the two is to give up on having any meaningful dialogue about the nature of killing and whether it is ever justified. And again, as is usual with rhetoric like this: That is an overly simplistic way of looking at things masquerading as sophisticated and enlightened fair-mindedness.

I think you might have an odd understanding of the word "murder." "Murder" and "kill" are not synonymous. To kill is to extinguish life. To murder is to kill unjustly. Or, again, a dictionary is helpful: 1. The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice. Accidentally killing someone with your car is not murder. Killing someone in self-defense is not murder. Killing an enemy soldier on the beaches of Normandy is not murder. Incidentally, the "Thou shalt not kill" commandment was originally "Thou shalt not murder." Only recently has it been translated as "kill."

Yes, "fashionable". . . As in: It makes people feel cool and hip to believe such things. . . Dictionary defitntion of "fashionable": Conforming to the current style; stylish. It's been very fashionable for quite some time now among the Hollywood set and intellectual/media circles to be very, very relatavist and post-modern in one's worldview. Those who do not conform to such views are considered old-fashioned, uninformed, or simply stupid. . . but most of all, they are considered very, very uncool. Getting close to politics now. . . so I'll leave it at that . I went out of my way to stay away from such words as liberal or conservative. H P.S. It ain't "murder" if the other guy is trying to kill you. Can we try to be a little less simplistic in our terminology here? Otherwise, this thread's heading for trouble.

Isn't that sorta like saying that there is never a good side or a bad side in a war? Which, I realize is fashionable nowadays, but. . . really?

Well, taking the translation at face value (I have not idea if it's accurate), "The Lost Two Years" (check out this thread) states that anyone not "living underground" was killed. It also states "over 99%" of the earth's population was killed. And there were 40,000 people on the Macross at the end of the war. At mid-year 2002, the US government estimates that there were 6.2 billion people on the planet. Though, perhaps there was less in the the Macross timeline since the Unification Wars might have involved a lot of civilian casualties. But, working with 6.2 billion as the base, the most conservative estimate (.009 -- or less than 1%-- of 6.2 billion) is 55 million survivors. But, that's probably very high. And just doesn't sound right to me. I always thought it was more like 1 million. 50 million is 1/6 the current population of the US! I wonder if that 99% is supposed to be interpreted as 99.9%. . . otherwise, why mention the 40,000 on the Macross as a signifigant number? H

I always assumed that while Minmay was living with him and talking about marriage, they at least engaged in some heavy-petting. But I don't really care either way. Edit: I'm referring to post-rain-of-death. . . not while they were stranded together inside the SDF-1 early on.