Category Archives: Random Thoughts

Or more precisely, new computer parts. My current computer (5.5 years old at this time) is just about dead; it takes around eight hours to reboot and the video card croaked. Being that nobody makes AGP video cards anymore – and that I was very lucky a friend still had an old machine that I could scavenge working parts from – I felt that it was time to get a new machine. My new computer is going to have a 2.66 GHz Intel i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and 300 GB and 1 TB hard disks. I had hoped to include a Radeon 5850 card but they were sold out planetwide when I bought the parts, and as I mainly play console games, I don’t feel too badly about having to settle for a lesser video card.

In keeping with my indomitable spirit of laziness, I’m probably not going to get around to building it until the weekend. No doubt I’ll need the additional time to fix the inevitable problems that are going to occur; something always goes wrong when I build computers.

I got asked to provide a size comparison picture of Kenshin and Meiya, so I also thought this was a good opportunity to provide the goods.

Of the eight figures that I had preordered this month, six have been delayed till next month or beyond. I’m not sure why figure manufacturers don’t tack on extra month on all their pending figure releases just to sync their schedules back up with reality. Even this pornographic figure that I preordered got kicked back a month. You know things are messed up when a small-scale manufacturer like Giga Pulse can’t meet their projected ship date. I bet transvestite Yoko doesn’t make it out this month, too. (And as I type this, I am proved correct! I wish I could say that this prognostication was built upon careful deduction, but anybody could see this coming.)

Serendipitous it is indeed, then, that HLJ is holding a holiday sale with shipping costs waived if you buy a sale item. With funds freed up for this month, this sale is a pretty good opportunity to pick up anything that I had passed on. Or at least, it would be, if there were anything that I wanted to buy. I went through HLJ’s inventory for Alter, Max Factory, GSC, Yamato, and all the other major figure manufacturers and I’m having a real tough time finding something that I want that I don’t already have. I guess Akiha might be a possibility (where’s the Itsuki figure, GSC?). Given the expense of EMS shipping, I feel like I should take advantage of this sale. I was really hoping that they’d have GSC’s 1/4 scale Nanoha or the Aegis Figma still in stock, but unfortunately they do not. I guess I will have to take a second, less discriminating look through HLJ’s inventory. I should probably also take this as a sign that perhaps I shouldn’t throw money at every figure that I want as soon as it comes out.

I got the famous cheap Canon f/1.8 50mm lens today, although I haven’t had a chance to do much with it yet. I’ve heard that it’s a pretty good portrait lens though, so my hopes are high.

Instead of taking pictures, I spent most of the evening wrestling with Meiya, and not in a good way. As I mentioned in my review of this figure, Hobbyfan screwed up her arm positioning so that her sword doesn’t line up properly. It bugs me to have a nice figure with such an obvious error, so I figured I’d tear off and re-position her arm. As I found out, that’s much easier said then done; her shoulderguard and hand make it near impossible to saw through the joint, and I discovered that my Dremel is busted. I resorted to using a hobby knife to cut through it; I was really tempted to try batoning the blade but I guess that wouldn’t have worked all that well. After cutting maybe half of the way through, I pried the arm off with a can opener. Let me tell you, the can and bottle openers on Victorinox tools are some of the most useful things around. I don’t think I’ve actually ever used them for their intended purposes, but they are outstanding small pry bars.

I think I can position her arm so that the sword is reasonably straight, but as one can see, doing so leaves a conspicuous and hideous gap between her arm and armpit. Sigh. I do have some modelling putty around here, but having never used it before, I have no clue what to do with it. I’ll also have to paint over the putty as well as the damage I inflicted on Meiya’s paint job. I hope the results turn out okay.

As everyone in the figure collecting hobby knows, the summer Wonder Festival recently ended. Lots of good stuff was shown, but Good Smile Company didn’t unveil any new Sora Kake Girl figures. Come on GSC, where’s the Itsuki figure? Don’t let your sponsorship of the show go to waste.