eriku

If they were gang-molding could they not have put the wing hinges on a mold with most of the rest of the pieces that make up Starscream? Takara was able to work some kind of strange magic to make their wing hinges the same color as the rest of the wing, perhaps when they passed their notes on to Hasbro that page was lost. As for hasbro's color choices, well...there are real imaginative uses of color and then there are just plain bad uses of color and this goes for every product market out there, not just toys.

This is a post from Bumble Prime on TFW2005 regarding MPSS:

I'm sure a Hasbro suit looked at it and said, "why don't you throw something in there to break up all that grey?" And then he greenlighted a few more grey movie toys because he's insane like that.

Has anyone done recast parts for the Masterpiece Seeker mold yet? I'd be interested in recast wing hinges, assuming they're something that can be swapped without destroying the rest of the wing. Maybe recast thruster covers too, but I'm assuming the silver is painted on and thus removable.

Yeah, I don't care about realism, but the black joints and silver thruster covers just look odd with the rest of the jet. I can't think of any good reason the flaps are silver, it seems very random.

It's a 2003/2004 (wife isn't sure when she got it) Satellite A65-S1062. If the thing had other problems I wouldn't think twice about junking it. It runs beautifully though, especially for one so old. I haven't fully decided to operate on it yet. It currently works, albeit in 20 minute spurts. If I get in there and do some meatball surgery it may not work at all. As it is we can at least use it for a back-up machine if anything were to crap out on a new one. As for screws, I think I counted over 30 (!!) VISIBLE screws on the backside. I'm sure there are more waiting inside once the casing is off. And yes, they're several different sizes. Out of curioisty, are there any tinker-friendly laptops out there at all, or are they just mess of compressed nightmares across the board?

I wouldn't bet my life on it, but the reason I think it's the fan is because the fan was making a kind of strained sound for a couple of weeks, and then the fan stopped spinning completely. The shutdown is from the laptop overheating and then shutting itself down before it gets too hot. One thing we've done is put ice packs under the thing when my wife has to write a paper or something, and that will keep it running for over a half hour at a time. I found the exact fan I need on Sparepartswarehouse.com....but even with the $40 fan I'm not confident that I can just get in there and swap it. I can find my way around the inside of a PC just fine but as you said, a laptop is a whole different ball of wax. Still, I'm thinking it may be worth at least trying if the only other option is the sledgehammer. I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollers to have a pro or Toshiba fix it because I'd just as soon put that money towards a whole new machine. Anything else I should know about the guts of a laptop before I crack that sucker open? IF/when I get the fan, my plan is to sit somewhere with minimal dust, lots of light, no clutter to lose anything in, and then just make sure the battery is out and start removing screws and mapping their locations. Maybe even take some photos along the way in case I need reference of where something used to be.

I like the repaints of PowerUp and Reflector, but still...meh. Call me when there's a new Real Gear that isn't a repaint.

Thanks to everyone for the Apple advice. Now I have another question... The fan on my wife's Toshiba Satellite laptop died. Other than the fan the thing runs perfectly. It's a 2004 I believe. Since it's got the built-in shut-down feature so it doesn't melt itself, it'll run for a good 20 minutes or so at a time before it gets too hot. Since this is a relatively unacceptable way to operate a computer, does anyone know of any good way to fix or replace the fan? I've been told the best way to fix it is with a sledghammer, but I don't want to accept that just yet. Certainly there has to be a way to get in there and replace the one component that's gone bad? I wouldn't expect it to be easy since everything is packed in such a small space, but if it's something I could do with a few simple tools and patience I'd be willing to try it. Basically I don't want to be buying TWO new laptops in the near future.

That's supporting the scalpers just as much as buying one on Ebay. But yeah, it's an alternative.

Heh, Hasbro probably thought that it "looked pretty sharp" that way. I'm sure it's no different, but if the Japanese version has grey wing joints I may just cough up the extra dough for that and skip the scalper headache altogether. When is the Japanese version coming out, anyway?

I noticed that yesterday too! They had all four of them for around $100 each, and all in stock. That seems like a very unlikely place for the Encore toys. And yes, I hope all of my fears are for naught as well. The Concept Bumblebee fiasco just really has my feathers ruffled right now.

I'm almost positive MP Starscream is going to be a huge unfindable headache. The scalpers KNOW this is a highly desireable toy, not only because it's a very popular G1 figure but also because it's an exclusive. They're going to be crawling over each other to get this thing. Hell, the only people that even seem to have them at the moment are the scalpers on Ebay selling them for over $100. And the retail price is not something that will deter scalpers. It's only in the $50 range, which isn't that much really. They scalp things more expensive than that all the time. We also can't really use MP Prime as a barometer because when that came out there was no OMG TFORMERZ IS DA BOMB!!1! mania going on with the general public. TF was popular, sure, but nothing like it is now because of the movie. The movie has effectively made TF toys 'hot', especially for the holiday season. So with MP Prime it was easier to find because the scalpers were leaving it alone for the most part, and there were also a large percentage of the TF fans NOT buying that one in favor of the Japanese version (myself included). This time around a lot of fans skipped the Japanese version (the original minty frsh color) in anticipation of a G1 color coming along. Also a factor is that it's a larger toy so WalMart might not stock it in the same numbers as smaller toys. Many TF fans are using the 'buy them all' philosophy with this toy, meaning if you come across them, buy them for other fans. You can always return the extras to WalMart. I don't want to sound paranoid or be chicken little, and I would LOVE to see this thing released in massive quantities and scalpers choke on them. All factors seem to point to this thing being 'hot' to scalpers though, which only means ass-pains for the rest of us.

Thanks for the info. The screen size does concern me a little. When I was looking at them at an Apple Store they just seem so small. Granted I'm not going to be doing any professional work that requires a big canvas, but I'm used to a much larger screen so it's more of a comfort thing and I know I could get used to a 13". I was also told the glossy screen on the Mac Book isn't favorable for Photoshop work, but again I'd just be doing non-professional stuff so i don't think it would be an issue. I don't have a desktop computer so the MB I get will be my main machine. Maybe for that reason I should get the MB Pro. ::EDIT:: After checking out that link I'm pretty much sold on the MacBook. I'm far from a power user and I do ZERO gaming. If it can handle CS3 and Garageband with no problems, it's good enough for me.

I need a little advice from the Apple users here since ALL of my damn friends are staunch PC people. I plan to ditch my Toshiba laptop and step into Apple country. I've never owned an Apple before, although I used Macs regularly throughout highschool (long ago, 1989-1994). My question is this: Should I get a MacBook for $1099 or a MacBook Plus for nearly double that price? It'll primarily be used for internet and writing documents, but I also would like to be able to run Photoshop and ProTools. Obviously the MB Plus would be able to handle those more taxing programs, but would the standard MacBook be able to run them just fine? It's a big price difference and I want to make sure it's worth it.

Nooo! I'll wait a bit before cancelling my order just to be sure, but if turns out to be a kit, NO THANKS. I have a hard enough time assembling by damn socks in the morning.

I'm curious as to why this thing is so cheap...or am I just THAT used to Japanese toys with overinflated prices? In any case, I hopped on that HLJ Early Bird faster than a pat of butter hops on a hot skillet. I've wanted a toy of the VV since I was piloting it in 8 bits.

Isn't there a nicely-articulated Yoko figure coming out soon? I swear I saw one somewhere but I can't find it at the moment. I think it's a Konami figure.

Awesome, thanks.

Any news on DVD release for this series? With my current computer set-up (laptop with a dead fan, long story) I'm relegated to watching short clips on YouTube, and that aint cool. From the bits I've seen I'm really excited to see the full series.

You're just biased, you mindless wallaby-loving sheep. Seriously though, I thought she was far more attractive in the film than Megan Fox, and had a much more attractive mind, too. Regardless of my personal tastes for film and animation, my love of Transformers will always be based on the toys. I haven't yet seen a TF series or movie that I would place anywhere on a 'favorites' list, but the toys are another story. I personally don't care if Bay or whomever makes really good or really terrible movies, as long as the toys are appealing.

When you saw that, did you almost expect Bumblebee to say, "Ex-qeeeze me!" in a Jar Jar voice? I know I did.

Yeah, that's the Toynami Voltron and some...really, really buttly shoes...

Ah yes, the cell-phone Frenzy really made me laugh. Aside from mass-shifting, his crab/head form had absolutely no physical resemblence to the cell phone he turned into.

You may be right about them getting us used to the idea. However, I got the impression from Bay and others that mass shifting was a ludicrous concept that they were avoiding at all costs. The reality is that weather it's on a small or large scale makes no difference, mass shifting is mass shifting, period. The AllSpark thing was a glaring example. I remember all the talk leading up to the release of the movie about how things were only going to transform how they would in the real world and how something wouldn't magically go from being really big to really small and vice-versa. Then I see the Allspark filling a giant cavern and then folding in on itself to the size of a basketball...yeah. So much for no mass-shifting. Overall, I don't care if there is or isn't any. I was never bothered by Megatrons or Soundwave's mass shifting because it's all a crazy fantasy world of sentient robots anyway, so I was never prone to applying any real laws of physics to the mythos. One thing I thought was interesting about my perception of the movie is that I loved it at the theater and so did my wife. When we bought the DVD and watched it at home, we both had lost much of the initial joy in watching it and kind of resorted to making fun of many of the stereotypical 'slam-bang action movie' elements. While I still think it's enjoyable, I definitely don't think the designs of the robots in the movie will have the same kind of long-lasting appeal to me that the originals and more 'conventional' Transformer designs do.