jwinges

I thought the animation rooms and strobe displays were amazing. And the catbus is awsome...If I were only a little kid. My heart just sank when I saw a large room taken up by wallace and grommit and a hall taken up by some other annimater I've never heard of. Overall, its worth going. I think our expectations were just a little too high. BTW I really like how its an open tour. There is no set route. Your asked to explore the museum. Looking in little nooks and crannies is worth your time. We found lots of nice little touches around...even in the bathroom.

The link that the museum gives you is for some place in Chicago. We had forgotten to order out ticket and called 4 days before we left (March 16). The place in Chicago next day aired them to us so we could go last Friday. They also told us to make sure we bring our passports to Ghibli but they never did check them. There's some pretty cool stuff in there. But I was still left wanting more. If your into Ghibli make sure you see the Myazaki animatronic clock outside the TV Nippon building near the Shiodome. There's a TV Nippon store below it that has better prices and stuff than the Ghibli store. If your looking for plushies that is. If you want uber expensive models get them either at Ghibli (for the rare one's) or in Akihabara (cheeper there). If you do decide to go you might want to get a list of what shorts are being screened. We got two to choose from but I wish we could have seen a different one they have. In particular, we wished we could have seen "Mai and the Catbus." I believe they switch their movies either weekly or monthly. The puppy one is very good though and has some familiar characters in it.

Forgot some.

Last Friday, the wife and I hit the Ghibli Museum. Your not allowed to take pics inside but you can on the rooftop garden and outside. Here's a few pics. Overall, we found it to be a bit disappointing since two rooms of the museum were dedicated to non-ghibli animation. Persoanally, the though of ghibli stuff being replaced by Wallace and Grommit was sickening. Additionally there wasn't much for ghibli stuff available in the store...I found more in TV Nippon and some stores in Akihabera. Anyway, a ticket gets you a screening of a ghibli short. We had a choice of one about a water spider or sometning and one about a lost puppy. We chose the lost puppy and really enjoyed the film. Its worth going to the museum especially if you have kids. However, I doubt we'll go again when we're in Japan next time. Last I'm including some pics of the TV Nippon Displays. TV Nippon was pretty cool...especially the animatronic clock outside. Its about 2 stories tall and is worth the wait to see. If you search Youtube for TV Nippon you can see it go off.

So when I was in Japan we had some time to kill in Kyoto before checking into our hotel. As we were wondering the streets of Kyoto we came across the International Manga Museum which was holding a special gundam exhibit. We saw a couple of cool things at the exhibit but couldn't take pics of them all. The two highlights were the exhibit at the entry (shown in the pics below) and a lifesize damaged and crashed core fighter (I could not take pics of this though). Overall, both my wife and I were disappointed with the exhibit considering its cost. The primary focus seemed to be the idea of living in colonies and how science can learn from the gundam Universe.

I'm actually a bit surprised. I've purchased 6 in the states for myself, relatives, and friends so far. I must have just lucked out.

Bandai VF1S Joke machine. I think I played with that more than any other toy I ever had.

So I'm in Akihabara on the 31st and go over to the grand opening of the Asobit city toy store (they moved across the street and down the alley. Anyway I was at their old store a couple of days earlier and got some sweet deals: -CM Myria wedding set for 100 yen -a bunch of HCM pro gundam toys for 600 yen So at the new opening they have the SV-51 in a display case in fighter mode. If your in the area you should check it out. I had a great trip and in the words of master hopposai: "whatta haul, whatta haul" I'll post pics of my goodies later.

Those are the valks that were at the Macross/Kissdom/Aquarion booth at Tokyo Amine Festival. I was a little shocked by the color schemes too. They did however have a display of Big K's lego creations for macross, kissdom, and aquarion which was pretty cool. I'll try to post some pics later after I sort through my trip. The girls running the station were pretty cute too. I'll post some pics of them too.

I was in Akihabera the day they released the new LP OST. They had the voice of Haruhi signing the LP's on Saturday. BTW does anybody know the name of the new LP? I didn't get it since I don't have a player but they were playing it at the signing at gamers and its really good.

Guys, wouldn't expect the wii shortage to end anytime soon. I was in Akihabera several times over the last 2 weeks and nobody has them. ALso when I was in Osaka on the 18th there was a line over 100 people long waiting for wii's and 6 cops watching to make sure everything went smoothly. If they are still short there I don't we'll be regularly finding them on shelves anytime soon. BTW did anybody get blazing angels? What is the control setup like? I'm hoping for a flight stick style control.

What's gundam Ace Pilot...I've never heard of it. Please include a pic of the cover if you have one.

You must see this movie...No exceptions! Deciding not to see this movie is punishable by a death. A death you will not enjoy and will not be quick. Damn now I gotta go buy God of War 2 when it comes out on Tuesday. This just reawakened my spartan bloodlust.

Anybody know of any good gamecube game s that were only released in Japan?

I came across this info and thought I might share...below is a 100% free swap method for the wii and some other tips and tricks. I personally have not confirmed any of these. Swap method There is a method for playing GameCube imports on the Wii without a mod-chip. It involves a tricky swap, but it is 100% confirmed. To quote as follows It's actually possible to run original NTSC GameCube discs on a PAL Wii console without modification, and without the use of Datel's Freeloader software. The method goes like this: Pop a PAL GameCube disc into the Wii, and head to the 'Disc Channel'. A GameCube logo should be up on the screen. Point the Wii Remote's cursor over the 'Start' option so it's highlighted, and while keeping your hand steady, press the eject button on the Wii. For about one second, the 'Start' option will remain active. In this window of time, hit the A button on the Wii Remote and then swap out your ejected PAL GCN disc with an NTSC (Japanese or USA) disc, which the Wii will accept into the drive. If you get it right, the Wii should boot up in GameCube mode and run your NTSC game! We've tried it with several different games from both the USA and Japan, and after learning the timing, we got every game running on our PAL Wii first time. What's great about this trick is that unlike many 'disc swap' import tricks in the past (such as those that worked on the Sega Saturn and the original PlayStation) this one doesn't require any physical modification of your console, and probably won't even harm it since the Wii is simply using its own disc loading mechanism the whole time. Apparently the reason it works is that the Wii takes a couple of seconds to power itself down to GameCube mode, but for the sake of brevity it tells the disc to boot before the transformation is complete. It is the window between the two that allows this trick to work. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work with inported Wii discs at this time. Wii tips and tricks A great list of Wii tidbits that you might not know. Thanks to reader Grant who stumbled upon these over at the IGN Messageboards… • In the Photo Channel, you can catch the evil cat that runs across the screen to get tips! It appears in the Fun option, and you can grab the cat with the A and B button. • You can have a 194 piece puzzle by holding down the 1 button before selecting any piece amount. • If you don’t have an SD card and still want to check out Photo Channel, you can e-mail a Jpg to your Wii Message Board. There is a size limit for any mail you send to it - possibly 1mb. • In Bowling, you can throw your ball into other people’s lanes. • If you put mp3s in your SD card along with your photos, you can change the background music during a slideshow to one of your mp3s. • When the messageboard records your play time, if you don’t exit to the Wii Menu before you power off the machine, it records the play time as “otherâ€. If you properly exit to the menu and then shut off it will record it as the correct game. • You can rearrange almost anything on the wii…like the channels and messages by just holding the A and B • The plasma burin reduction kicks in the second the wiimote shuts down. • when you get an e-mail, not only does the disc drive light up and pulsate blue, but your Wiimote sends out a little chirp • when you’re in the Mii channel and you don’t use the Wiimote for a little bit and your Mii’s start walking around, if you then suddenly use the Wiimote, all the Mii stop and follow the ‘hand’ for about 3 seconds…. • when typing messages, and you need to go back and edit the message(while still typing) instead of deleting letters, just point to where you want to edit to move the type cursor. • In Wii Sports Bowling, when you press up on the Directional Pad, it will zoom in on the lane. The zoom in sound is the exact same sound from Super Mario 64 anytime you moved the camera. • Co Op Jugsaw puzzles in wii photos • You can place the sensor bar upside down and it doesn’t reverse the directions of your movements… • In wii sports bowling, you can release on the back swing and throw the ball backwards. It scares all the miis behind you. • Classic controller has analog shoulder buttons. With the GC “click†at the bottom

Yep that's the one. I'm hoping its still open but i've been reading things saying that it might have closed on August of 2006.

Can anyone confirm if the Gundam Musiem is now closed? I heard that it might be closed perminantly.

If your looking to play the best of the mecha and anime games for ps2 you might want to look for one with a modchip, get one and have a mod chip installed, or get one and have a flip top installed (cheapest option). That way you can play macross and all of the gundam games. Don't forget to get God of War (best ps2 game ever) and if you like that get God of War 2 when in comes out in a month or so. I have a wii and really enjoy it. It definitely has greater appeal to non-gamers. For instance I can sit down and play it with my wife and family and everyone has fun rather than I play the ps2 while she reads a book. PS2 prices will be dropping again soon (they are at $99 buck now, I think). I think my ps2 library is up over 300 games, many I have yet to play but they are there when I want them. If you have the bank I'd get the wii but the dollars add up fast when you have to buy another Wii-mote and nunchuk for $39 & $19 respectively, and you start spending wii points on old games. Don't forget to get wii-play. Better, more adult games are on the way for the wii...in the next month or so we get blazing angels and heatseeker. You also can get Call of Duty 3 and a few other adult oriented titles. Tiger woods golf comes out soon and madden is already out. Gundam Scad hammers is for the kiddies (looks fun) but comes out this summer I believe.

anybody know when the wii will have online play in games? I was really hoping that either the upcoming blazing angels or heatseeker titles would but it looks like they won't. BTW anybody play blazing angels on the xbox 360 or PS2? Is it any good? thanks,

I've got a rip of the R0 and it looks much better on my plasma then the new R1 release.

Is anybody elses copy extremely grainy. For instance theres a lot of little dots on noriko's hair in ep 1 while she is jump roping. There are many other instances of this also in ep1. It wasn't as noticable in EP 2. I actually think my old copy dl'ed rip from years ago looks better.

Whoops...edit the below, I didn't see it was already responded to. Find the odd mii out: - look for mii's that aren't doing what the other mii's are doing. One or more might be looking a different direction while watching tennis, or one or more might be out of step with all of the others.

I'm from Minnesota. I see a couple each week it seems. There isn't even a line anymore at target or best buy when they are in the ad on Sundays (that's the hint that a store has them...Nintendo pays for the ad and forces the store to release the wii's on that Sunday). I still have a copy of wii play I've been meaning to take back. The duck hunt clone is fun but you don't get to shoot many ducks...mostly aliens, baloons, cans, targets, and your opponent. Wii Play: -My wife rules at the Find the Mii. She's past level 62 and has the gold. I can get to like level 10. - The bubble game is fun to frustrate an opponent. My mother-in-law likes that game - I love the tank game - Cow racing is funny if you play with 2 players. - ping pong sucks...Wii sports tennis is so much better - The billiards game is ok at best. All you get to play is 9 ball. - Laser hockey is fun...I can't play with the paperclips though...I have to change them to the old school disk. - Fishing is pretty boring since you don't get to reel and the fish don't fight that much. So what's everybody's best Wii Sports Fitness age? I bounce b/w 21 and 26. Not much of a fitness test as its a skill test.

that's funny. I have this image of thousands of wii's being sucked into a black hole while a really long line of people watch in dismay.

please say that this will be made available to everyone. I'd buy 2 for sure. Also may I suggest you make a dub of Gunbuster next. Please