Apollo Leader

I just saw these last night and I gotta say I am very impressed by what Toynami is offering here. When the word was first past to me about three months ago that Toynami was going to be putting out more Macross stuff, I didn't expect it to be this much stuff. When the 12" figures were leaked online last month, I thought that this was the extent. These 1/100 Valks were a pleasent surprise. Looks good! Now here is what's confusing me... besides some of the detatchable parts (namely the landing gear) how can anyone can compare these to Banpresto's transformable VF-1's? If any comparison should be made it should be with Bandai and Takatoku's 1/100th scale VF-1's which ARE THE SAME FRICKIN' SCALE!!! With the exception of needing to detach some of the parts (namely the landing gear), Toynami's 1/100th scale looks like it beats the old Bandai/Takatoku design in overall appearance (same with Banpresto's VF-1, too). The Toynami and the old Bandai/Takatoku 1/100th scale Valks are a little bit bigger then the Banprestos in overall size. As for the solid cockpit, the solid cockpit is not a surpise. The old Bandai/Takatoku s and the Banprestos have solid cockpits. Yamato's 1/100th scale VF-0 was to be a solid cockpit if I remember correctly. At least here, Toynami took a que from Bandai's 1/55th rerelease and are going with a swapable canopy and heatshield. Along with these being in the $20 to $30 range, Toynami has finally brought out a more afforable variable VF-1 toy for the US and international market. Looking forward to the 12" figures, but where's Misa, Minmay, and Millia!?!? Looking forward to all these goodies, but my wallet isn't. I thought I was going to be able to take a break from Macross for a while!

You forgot Boeing F-15. That's the first time I've heard of Boeing reaching that far back in either McDonnell Douglas', Rockwell International/North American, et al's past and claiming those as their products. In the case of the F-15, that is plausible for them to claim since the Eagle has been manufactured well after the merger took place. The F-4, the Space Shuttle, DC-3, P-51, etc. that is just plain ridiculous. But Lockheed Martin is guilty of this, too. While the F-16 continue to be manufactured by them, they have the rights of saying that is their product and design, but I have seen advertisements by Lockheed where they refere to the F-111 and even the F-106 and F-102 as "their's"!!! I believe in newer toys and models of these older General Dynamics aircraft along with video games (like Konami's recent Delta Strike game for the PS2), these older GD aircraft have Lockheed's trademark! In Jay Miller's new Aerofax book on the F-22 (F/A-22), there's quite a few pictures of GD's ATF wind test models. With the exception of a few pictures, Jay identifies many of them as being "Lockheed's" wind test models! Whether this was a slip up by Jay Miller or if Lockheed forced Jay Miller to do this (though in some shots he'll identify the wind tunnel or display models as being GD's designs) is not known.

Yeah he's one in the same guy. He also posts a lot at that Robotech Headquarters (think that's that name of the site). He used the term "Macross retards" there at least once, but he did give an explination of who exactly he was talking about. It wasn't suppose to apply to all Macross fans as one lump sum group. Perhaps he would care to give us an exact explination of what he is referring to.

There is a video out there somewhere of a fanducted VF-1 some Japanese fans built awhile back. It's 11 Megs big so even if I zipped it, it would be too big to post here. Maybe someone else still has the link to this video.

Mike, what time are you on your 360 these days? I have yet to play with you or against you in any game! I did get myself a wireless USB keyboard a few weeks ago and that has made it far more easier to type messages to anyone I am communicating with on the 360. Pretty good. I haven't been using it much lately, though. No, I can't stand playing with strangers. It seems I either play people (usually in FPS) that are just way better than me, or I play people (usually at fighting games) that seem to enjoy cursing me out when I beat them stupid. I have about half a season done on Madden, maybe a quarter season done on NHL. I'm... somewhere along the PGA Tour in Tiger. I beat Call of Duty and Perfect Dark. I kinda lost interested in Project Gotham after I got the awards for Lamborghini club and Ferrari club. I just kinda stopped on NFS... meaning to get back to it, never have. As for DoA, I just have to unlock Tengu and get the rest of the costumes. Yes, as a matter of fact I have. And they're why I haven't been on Xbox . Megaman X Collection, Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition, and Ape Escape 3 are all very fun games I've been playing on PS2. And Maverick Hunter X is officially my favorite PSP game now. It'd be better if I could find a new job. 366620[/snapback]

Also it's come out in recent weeks that the Ultimate Warrior is taking Vince McMahon/WWE to court over that DVD they put out about him a few months ago. Suck to be Vince these days!

Regarding the F-117, you must be talking about these tests from a few years ago: http://home.earthlink.net/~stealth_aircraft_photos/id9.html http://www.holloman.af.mil/sunburst/2003/d...117%20GRAY' http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200482423.asp http://www.codeonemagazine.com/events/jan_...4_events12.html Of course the first F-117 prototypes did fly around with a single shade of light gray and I believe it was the first F-117 that had a camo job. From what I can tell, the recent effort to turn the Nighthawk gray didn't go through.

What does this patch do? Keep the system from crashing or overheating? 366137[/snapback] http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/10140/Xbox-3...pdate-Released/ Nothing much but a few little fixes or upgrades.

How does Halo 2 look on the 360? 365932[/snapback] I just have a plain Jane 25" TV so I can't fully appreciate (yet) what the 360 graphical boost does for it (I know it suppose to appear as 720p on an HD TV). But even on my current TV, I love this game to death.

Regarding the Punisher, the way they killed Frank's wife and son made me think back to the original Mad Max. Clearly the first Mad Max had an influence on this film. As for the Mad Max movies, the first one is my favorite. It will be interesting to see how number 4 turns out since the series had the chance to rest for 20 years. I wonder how old Max (Mel) will be depicted for this one?

Is this the version we've been watching at Anime Sunday these last several months? Any chance Yamato will ever see a subtitled release in the US?

BTW, I was curious who around here has ever gotten one of the Jumbo Grade Gundam figures (the original releases or the rerelease last year which had more markings on the figure)? I recently got the RX-78 (Marking Type) and the grunt Zaku II (Real Type) and all I can say is that these guys are B-I-G! These are two of my most favorite Gundam items added to my collection to date.

That is just frickin' awesome! Looks like it was recorded during the early to mid 1980's using an 8mm movie camera or early camcorder. The music in the opening and closing is the opening and closing music from the TV series (1979-1980). The way Amuro's battle with the Black Tristars is depicted is from the movie adaption (I think from the second one in 1982)... some of the music if from movie version (namely the tune played when Amuro and the others are saluting Lt. Matilda and some of their other fallen comrades). Anyway, pure awesomeness! Does anyone know if a downloadable version is available anywhere?

I see this is gradually becoming a 360 thread again! In 360 news, there was some sort of upgrade/patch for the 360 that came out several days ago. I was firing up COD2 and the system had me download and update for the system. And in COD2 news, there was a patch that came out yesterday designed to fix a glitch or two with single player mode. Apparently some people's game saves were going bad. Also, there is suppose to be more or one updates for multiplayer coming soon - fixes for the lag problems and apparently some more maps and other stuff. System's still working fine after 2-1/2 months of heavy use (lots of COD2 and Halo 2!). After I get COD2 beat on Veteran, I'll finally start spending time on DOA4, RR6, and PDZ.

Just some food for thought, if Macross Plus and II switch hands at this points (let's say the rights go to Honneamise), would HG now say that Honneamise is violating HG's Macross rights? Or would this be like when ADV picked up the rights for the Macross II and Plus soundtracks from JVC and didn't have to credit HG? I'm just thinking that what had protected Manga and US Renditions (them picking up the rights and releasing II and Plus well before HG starting addressing their Macross rights issues at the end of the 90's) may not extend to Honneamise/Bandai Visual. Time to make a few calls! Also, I forgot it's exact name, but there was this awesome OVA that Kawamori contributed design work to that Mangle currently has. It was originally released by US Renditions, all three episodes, and with a sub version. When Mangle picked it up and released it on DVD, the DVD has only the last two episode, AND IT'S DUB ONLY! If Honneamise picks it up and does a proper complete DVD, I'll definitely get it.

When was the Beta/Tr(l)ead first shown? The 2004 or the 2005 Comic Con? Just looked over at robotech.com, and it was first shown at the 2005 Anime Expo with the painted versions being shown the Comic Con.

Isn't the main writer/creator for Megas XLR also involved with Robotech Shadow Chronicles? I've seen Megas XLR a few times and though it was funny. I really got a kick out of the episode having fun with Voltron (Go Lion) and Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman).

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msv/ems-05.htm It's one of the numerous MSV designs that were suppose to have been used to attack Jaburo if the attack had taken place at a later date, but Char's discovery of the entrance (or a entrance) led to the attack being moved up and a number of newer Zeon designs didn't have the chance to get used.

Did a little bit more searching and found his announcement here. I missed it since I don't look in that forum too terribly often. I usually look on his site every few days or so and it was just yesterday when I saw his announcement posted on the main menu page for the first time. Not surprising he's having to call it quits (I'm at the point where I'm going to have to cut some things out of my life, too), but it's still sad that it's over.

http://www.valkyrie-exchange.com/indexb.html I was just looking on the Valkyrie Exchange this evening to see what was up with the Yamato GBP-1S set when I saw the sad news... the Valkyrie Exchange will no longer be an online store. Maybe I should have posted this in the "where to buy" forum, but it's because of Kevin's efforts since the end of the 90's that many of us have been able to build up our Macross and Robotech collections beyond what we could have thought possible. Kevin also brought us a lot of news and developments on the Toynami and Toycom fronts... every now or then, I was able to give him heads up on a few things too (such as those Popbox Macross figures in the works). In my case, I remember first e-mailing Kevin back around November of 1999, making some comments and such about his collection he had posted online. The very first thing I bought from him was a few weeks later - a CD copy of that Singapore Macross DYRL sub job. Besides all the stuff I've bought from him, Kevin often shared insider stuff with me that was unable to be posted online. It was because of him I was able to be in touch directly with George Sohn of Toynami back during its early days of operations. Thanks, Kevin, for all the hard work and efforts you have made for Macross and Robotech fans all over. And for being a friend. Enjoy your time off with your wife and daughter. (If this has been posted already, I apologize for repeating the news).

Estes has done a few different incarnations of the AGM-86, but haven't done a Tomahawk, at least not yet.

Ha! With the issue of system failures for some people, it just occurred to me that maybe the removeable hard drive wasn't such a bad idea after all. If my system one day fails after my extended two year warranty runs out, I can easily pop the hard drive off, buy a core system, and clip on the old drive. That couldn't be done with the original Xbox. Right now these days I've been mainly focusing on playing COD2 and Halo 2 online and working my way through COD2 on Veteran difficulty... talk about a serious spanking!

So far so good.

I figured from the outset that both President Palmer and Michelle were going to get bumped off because both actors were listed as being "Special Guest Stars" while Carlos Bernard (Tony) was listed as a "regular" star. The one complaint I got is the loose end about Jack's "dead body"... after his faked death, wouldn't his friends and family want to see his body? How about the funeral? Obviously they would have had a funeral and something would have been said about there being no body or somebody else's body in the casket...

Finished watching it here in the Midwest almost two hours ago! I-N-T-E-N-S-E! Anyway... David Palmer - D-E-A-D! Michelle Desseller (sic?)- D-E-A-D! :( Tony Almada- pretty banged up! Since David Palmer was about to leak something that I think was damaging to the Logan presidency, I had the feeling that either Logan or his right hand man who tried to have Jack bumped off last season was involved in the $hit going down now, and it looks like I was right at the end of hour two!