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Pontus

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  1. Pontus
    @Seto Kaiba, see I hadn't even considered that (that the derelict was already there, although I think it's conceivable it wasn't there for thousands of years), and am clearly not as up to the literature as you, so thank you. I guess it didn't make sense that xenos were created solely by David as I thought. I wish movie creators would be more respectful of the franchises they're taking over. The older I get, the less I want to even watch things because of this.
  2. Pontus
    Lol, I don't think "making sense" was really part of their thought process. I thought it made perfect sense in context. Care to discuss why you think it didn't? I'm not arguing, just trying to get a different perspective and perhaps understand their choices better. I also haven't seen it in a hot minute, so I probably need to refresh before I discuss further.
  3. Pontus
    Thanks, I wasn't even aware of Prey. Just looked it up and I think I have to watch that... in the Comanche dub of course! Although, I would include the original Predator as the only other part of my own head-canon of the franchise. Thus I also don't consider it part of the Alien canon. My wife and many others don't like to include Aliens3 as part of the canon, and some don't include Resurrection, and although I can understand that perspective, I really don't agree. I rather liked 3, and I don't see why it needs to be written off simply because they killed off all the characters they saved in Aliens. I happen to appreciate it when film makers aren't afraid to kill of established characters because it's more realistic than happily ever afters. Crap happens, especially with xenos around, which I feel is a stronger established characteristic than human survival. Xenos will live. You'll die. That's cannon. Resurrection, I can sorta agree with tho, as it was a bit silly. But the cast, acting, and direction were top notch even if the writing and premise were a tad sus. I came out of the theater after watching Prometheus very confused and po'd. But it was only the confusing nature of the black goo that had me so. Otherwise, the movie was well made, and I came to appreciate that it had me asking questions and consulting with others online as well as having extraneous internet media that helped fill in things. After reading some conversations online, I was hopeful for some further explanation in the next movie... THEN THEY CUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OUT OF COVENANT!!! 🤬 WTF! I didn't catch that one in theaters, and thankfully so because at least I got to see the deleted scenes on the DVD which were THE MOST IMPORTANT PART to give closure to the confusing BS of Prometheus, as well as being the scariest part of the entire franchise that would have made it the greatest addition to the franchise since Aliens! So yeah, I totally agree that Prometheus and Covenant were crap. Crap that could have been SO F'n GREAT which just makes them so much worse. 😥
  4. Pontus
    I'd bet money that it was a packaging error. The blister plastic seems to hold the nose very securely and was hard to remove, and putting it back into it was a bit difficult as it has to snap quite firmly into the plastic. So my theory is that it was placed in the plastic without making sure it was snapped in all the way, then the lid was pushed on without paying attention and bent the head laser.
  5. Pontus
    You could try to recreate the wormhole it fell through by creating a stable plasma, but you're going to want to synchronize the carrier frequency with the time since it disappeared or else you could end up in who knows when/where. Be sure to account for your movement in the universe by moving it to the location it would have been going to be. Or you could also try to heal the split in time space by remerging the timelines in which it disappeared with your own. That's the method that works best for me (finding it). Seriously though, I repair electronics for a living and often work with small parts, and I have literally watched them fall through an invisible wormhole and disappear before only to have them pop back into existence nearby. I'm only half kidding. I have these aluminum full sheet pans that are made for commercial baking that I use when playing with my valks. They really help keep the bits from falling through wormholes as the aluminum shields the area from timespace interference.
  6. Pontus
    I got mine from Anime Export this weekend with no head laser damage. But it was either a minor miracle or the packages that do get damaged are getting severe pressure on the top because mine was only packed in a cardboard box with just a single layer of thin bubble wrap. And I ordered it with EMS shipping, so it certainly wasn't handled gently, and the box showed it.
  7. Pontus
    Awesome! I'm down for a set if you're going to offer them for sale or putting them on shapeways.
  8. Pontus
    I'm sure you've all seen enough DX 21s by now, but I also got an old Yamato for side by side comparison. I may end up selling one but... probably not. Got a complete collection of Orguss as well, but only what I could find with subs. 02 is out on bluray but no subs. But I don't mind SD for old anime.
  9. Pontus
    Yes, what is that? I must be looking in all the wrong places.
  10. Pontus
    Btw, I just got back from Target, and they have these perfect, single cube display boxes disguised as clear bins for only $15! You can use them like a drawer as designed or set them on their side to pull out sideways like this:
  11. Pontus
    Yeah, that's only about half of what used to be there. Not only was it WAY too cluttered, but I figured I'll be posting a lot of pics from this cabinet so better make it pg13. Those are all Nekopara, and I honestly have no idea what possessed me to start collecting them. It started with some cheap cast offs from ebay that I quite enjoyed piecing back together and couldn't believe how... nice... they were. My favorite is a Super Sonico in her wedding tackle that was missing some bits, loose broken pieces, etc that was clearly a prototype after I looked up the actual figure... and saw the real price!!! I don't mind paying a fraction of that to fix and keep a bunch of beautiful broken plastic outa the ocean. The problem with the Nekopara stuff, and the reason I never buy cast offs to collect a set - or of anime I actually like - is cuz then I have to get ALL of it. Macross is hard enough on my wallet, and it's good to know thyself. But after getting a few of these mind meltingly cute Nekos, I found myself paying full price to complete the set/s. The 1/4 scales were $500ea! I did check out the "game" (a very loose term in this case), and... lol, this is a ridiculous series. It really seems to be catered to a type who likes to fetishize their own sexual repression. I don't want to over generalize an entire culture, but that does seem to be a strong aspect of culture in Japan. These anatomically correct yet fully clothed figures take it up a notch.
  12. Pontus
    The top shelf of the cabinet is for my Alien collection which didn't feel right being shelved and lit like the rest. I was hoping to find some sort of scale grate flooring that's so ubiquitous in these movies or at least some sort of space ship interior, but couldn't find anything to my liking. One day on a trip thru the hardware store I saw a 24x48 ceiling tile grate. It's not perfect, but after some cutting, melting, and flat black paint, I think it looks pretty good. I wanted it to look like the aliens had ripped apart and partially melted the flooring. I didn't quite get the melty effect that I wanted by using a lighter (the plastic kept wanting to catch fire, lol), but it works. And here's the current state of my cabinet just to get things off my bed. I have a lot of work to do to clean, organize, and set up displays. I'm gonna have to redo the aliens too. I was hoping the grating would be sturdy enough to hang valks from, but it very much isn't, especially after modifying it. My plan here is to hang much of my collection by fluorocarbon fishing line, and several 1:60 scale valks get heavy quick.
  13. Pontus
    Since I couldn't sleep cuz all my toys are on my bed and I have nowhere else to move them to even if I could, I pressed through the night and made a lot of progress. First I added a light strip at the top facing down and connected it directly to 12V instead of the dimmer because it needs to remain as bright as possible. More on that in a minute. I also needed a place to plug in the TV cuz the cord doesn't reach out of the cabinet, so I wired up an outlet below. Then I got to setting up the TV and became very frustrated just trying to display one picture from Google photos. I'm gonna have to set up a usb drive. I've wanted to set up a star ceiling for a long time now in my daughter's bedroom with the sky at her birth, but I needed a smaller proof of concept before diving into such a big project. Using a sheet of black corrugated plastic, I popped a short piece of fiber optic thru to see if it will work with such a short piece just pointed at a light source. Normally, a professional star ceiling runs all the fiber to a dedicated light source in a huge bundle, but that gets very expensive. It works! When I built the cabinet my intention was to be able to slide the side glass forward for ease of installing backgrounds, and that came in very handy for a test fit and final install. I put a small screw in at the top to keep it tight to the grooves in the back panel which keeps the glass from bending (same as the plastic strips of a detolf). Now for the fun part; I attached a sheet of black velvet to one side of the plastic panel. I did a test with spray adhesive which bles right thru, so I had to use strips of the 3m adhesive on the top and bottom. I put said strips on the back so that I could lay the velvet out smooth then fold it over to stretch tight and stick. As you can see, light just falls into it! Next was the arduous task of poking a bajillion tiny holes in it and filling them with various sizes of fiber optic as randomly as possible. I installed them all angling upward toward the light source and hot glued them in place. After wrestling it into place and fighting the velcro for proper position, I think it turned out rather nice. Next, I can finally start loading it up starting with my Alien collection on top.
  14. Pontus
    Moving on to dust abatement... I previously experimented with foam strips for the door seals (everywhere else is sealed), but this failed because it was impossible to get it to seal properly with the upright, aluminum L-bars moving about. I could probably find some whiskers instead, but with the rest being glass and simple lines, anything else is somewhat detracting from the display imho. So I thought it better to simply creat a higher internal pressure using a fan and filter its intake. No dust. Bonus that I didn't even think about until I got the TV, it's going to need some ventilation. And since the inside will be warmer, I'll never get condensation in or out, and no mold behind it (I have concrete block walls that sometimes get condensation in winter and will mold anywhere not open to air). I had a 12V axial fan and some spare furnace filters lying around. Time to make a vent in the base with a spade bit and a chisel. A little paint to seal the rough wood, and it may not look great, but it'll be covered by felt anyway. This 3m VHB tape is "used to hold aircraft parts on" as I was told. I'm not sure what that says about aircraft maintenance, but this stuff is great. It held my fan instantly and securely underneath. And this gorilla tape does a nice job of covering wire runs and keeping things sealed up. Ran the fan to the power supply output (both 12V), and WHOOSH, AIRFLOW! I carefully cut down a 25x20 filter to match the width of the cabinet opening and took off the cardboard end to reapply over the now bare end and made it whole again. Now it fits snuggly to the width of the lower cabinet. I initially thought I'd install some sort of door with a filter, but I like it open. So I decided to put it all the way in the back over the fan. Used some of the leftover foam tape to seal at the top, jammed the filter back up there, and taped the bottom to the back of the cabinet. Clean, filtered heat ventilation and a slight, positive air pressure keeping dust out. Coming up next; No one can hear you scream in SPACE!
  15. Pontus
    And after moving the rear, inner rods forward (and drilling through the bottom nearly drilled right thru my lighting wires), here's the reveal! Instead of doing backlit backgrounds, I figured TVs have gotten so cheap, even good ones, I can do whatever background I want, even and especially video! I'm hoping the picture is bright enough to reduce the reflections, as I did not think of that, so this might not be as nice as I thought. Next step, dust prevention...
  16. Pontus
    If you're squeamish about seeing expensive and somewhat rare toys and figures in compromising positions, look away now. I had to get all my stuff outa the cabinet to work on it, but rest assured that I was very careful with head lasers and such. This won't be moving anywhere until I'm ready to put them back on display. The horror 😱
  17. Pontus
    Indeed, and... WHAT?! They stopped making those? That's a shame. I see that they have some similar displays for the same price, but they're not frameless and open. Now that I've seen how they're made, it'd be pretty easy to make your own, but not everyone is as handy as all that.
  18. Pontus
    I gotta give credit to NASA for that one. All I did was take their amazing space photography and slap it together. It blows my mind when I think about the fact that we sent a high rez camera a bajillion miles out to get such gorgeous shots of... well ANY of these planets really, but especially Pluto 🤍! And yeah, Pluto is a dwarf "planet" which last time I checked means it's... still a planet, along with Ceres, Haumea, and Makemake. Technically, by the IAU's own definition of a planet both Jupiter and Earth have not "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit" as they both have "trojan asteroids" in their orbits. So yeah, teach the kids that there's 12 amazing planetary bodies in our solar system... that we know of.
  19. Pontus
    If you plan on watching it all in one go, I've read (but not tried) that you can change your region on the PS4 up to 4 times. It should ask you upon inserting the disc and attempting to play it, but it might be buried in settings. Just found the instructions online: Step 1. Open your PlayStation, and click the control panel icon. Step 2. Navigate to System and Maintenance > Device Manager > DVD/CD-ROM. Step 3. Open the Device Properties windows and choose the DVD Region option. Step 4. Select a number according to your DVD region code. Change DVD region code of PS4 For some PS4 models, after you insert the DVD and try to play it, you shall see the following notice: "To play this DVD, change the DVD region code of the PS4" (see screenshot below). Altert to Change DVD region on PS4 Hit Next until you see the region map. When you are scrolling between region number 1-6, the corresponding region will be highlighted on the map. You can also refer to the chart above on the DVD region list.
  20. Pontus
    If there's a better place for display cabinet projects, let me know, but I've seen others' here, so... here goes! I'm finally ready to finish this up soon, so my ulterior motive for posting is to force me to actually DO it while taking time off work next week. ADHD sucks like that. I have so many projects that overwhelm my poor brain. I would NOT recommend following in my footsteps though; After adding everything up, it cost me over $1000, so I could have easily just bought a new display cabinet for that. This will be way cooler tho! This all started with a trip to Ikea to pick up 3 detolfs and a TV cabinet wide enough to put them on. But when I got home and got the TV cab put together, I quickly realized that its structure was woefully inadequate for the weight. I had a spare piece of plywood in my garage tho, so I thought I'd use it to replace the cardboard backing (which was the only thing lending any structural rigidity). But it was plenty long enough to be taller than the detolfs if I use the whole sheet, and after looking at how the detolfs were built with just slots in wood bases, I figured I could restructure them all to make one big frameless cabinet. I really hated how the shelves in the detolf are held in by a cheap wire ladder frame and aren't adjustable, so I went to the hardware store for some threaded rod instead. T-nuts hold the rod on the top and bottom: Then came the need for lighting, so I ordered a power supply, controller, and strip lights and picked up some angled aluminum from the hardware store. I routed the wires through the top of the TV cabinet and installed the power supply onto the back panel plywood with an AC cord out the side. I used one of those cheap little controllers with remote for dimming, and it's been working well for a long time now (I actually started this project a year or so ago). The aluminum angle and lighting covers the threaded rod in the front. I used high CRI neutral white strips from superbrightled.com. I see a lot of display cabinets where people use cheap, very blue LED strips with really bad color rendering which irks me. But I would probably not know any better myself if I didn't work for a high end lighting company. I really hate how good lighting has been slowly replaced by cheap, crappy bulbs over the years in the name of efficiency, and with cheap LED bulbs taking over the market, they're all just low quality garbage that hurts my eyes. It's actually hard to find bulbs that list their CRI rating at all because they don't want to include a number on the box that tells people the TRUTH. Anyway, rant over... I painted the back panel with high gloss reflective white for a really cool reason that I'll get to in a minute. I also cut up some shelf rails out of aluminum as well as some custom plexiglass shelves. I also found that I could use the original glass shelves by cutting down the clear plastic rails that used to hold the vertical glass panes together and cutting slots in the ends. I installed a matching shelf on the top to hold the glass in place, slid it all together, drilled holes for the door hinges, and it all came together pretty nice! Nothing to see on the bottom shelf. As you can see, I lined the bottom shelf with a very short pile, outdoor carpet for a grass look. I was going to use felt, but this is basically really thick, tough felt and a lot cheaper that comes in big wide rolls from the hardware store. You might notice the little black squares and the black strips on the side. The reason for those and the reflective white paint was to put strip lights on the bottom and top in the very back facing up and down such that it would be backlit. Then the plan was to print a background onto transparent film and install it with the velcro (black strips and squares) such that I'd have backlit backgrounds (basically the same as ads on bus stops which is where I got the idea). This is what I was considering using for the background to include all the planets featured in the original SDFM: But now I have a better idea which I'll be implementing this weekend, so stay tuned...
  21. Pontus
    If there's a new toy on my doorstep, nothing else is getting done until it's transformed and on display. Gotta get my fix first... yes, very much like a drug and just as expensive it seems. And my wife is going to be pissed... Speaking of, thank you @Robin-11 for letting us know about the AE stock. Although I just picked up an old Yamato full set for the same price after seeing the instructions posted, the mess that Bandai made of this, and decided against getting it... I must have had a mental breakdown this morning and couldn't resist. I think I'll compare the 2 and sell the one I don't want... or (more likely) this will make 3 YF-21s for me.
  22. Pontus
    I know I said I wasn't going to get a crappy Evolution VF-2SS, but I've got everything else except that and a VF-4 in 1/60, and I found one new in box, so I caved. I got really disappointed when I opened it and found it extremely yellowed... Fortunately, upon opening the tray, I soon realized the yellowing was just the tray. PHEW! Still a floppy mess of a valk tho, so it will be getting glued in fighter mode.
  23. Pontus
    The more I look at it, the more ridiculous that backpack looks. There have been other perfect transformation designs (and HMR of course) that have resolved a somewhat similar issue with VF-1 with the wings being too big for battroid by simply making the wings detachable and providing a smaller set. Since the backpack on the YF-21 is pretty much all wing, it would make sense to have a similar solution here and have a swappable backpack/wings while keeping the larger one for perfect transformation. Since it's safe to assume that's not being done here, perhaps a 3D print for such could be made in the future?
  24. Pontus
    Not to be argumentative, but I wouldn't consider $20 less to be that much better considering the fact that BBTS has excellent customer service and packages things with respect. I think that's worth the extra $20, but ymmv. Know the risks. Yesterday, I fell for that $20 discount and just received my YF-19 from Amazon this morning. It arrived without issue fortunately, but only by happenstance. All they did was slap it in a cardboard box with no padding or packaging whatsoever. Then the driver set the box in the rain on the very edge of my large, covered porch where it would have gotten soaked if I didn't just happen to wake up late today and found it right away. If that were to happen to a limited stock preorder, yeah, Amazon would refund you without question, but you're out of luck if you want another one, or if they ship the next one badly too.
  25. Pontus
    +1 Waiting for a deal on Mandarake/Amazon IF I ever get one, and ONLY if I can get it for less than a Yamato. I already have a Yamato which is a great toy imho (thanks to @jenius awesome reviews for helping with that decision), but I guess I HAVE to get a second 21 one way or another since I just picked up a second 19 on Amazon. Pretty hard to justify $350+ when I got the latest 19 for just $230. And since that piece was clearly a shelf warmer considering there's still plenty of stock on hand, I wouldn't expect the 21 to be any different. Unfortunately, this doesn't bode well for future releases or new designs if it's not profitable.
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