Chiri Chiri Jori Jori Babe~

Finals

2008-12-04T21:55:00.002-05:00

Well I'm in the midst of finals right. 2 exams down and 4 more to go: one final on Saturday then my last 3 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. These next few days are gonna fly right by I bet! Anyways, nothing new to report.. can't wait to get back to Calgary for the holidays next week!

Awesome Lucky Star pic jacked from gelbooru.

Nu Metallic Coating Ver Complete!

2008-11-21T22:34:00.007-05:00

Hey guys,

Just a quick update. I managed to finish building Nu Gundam today so I decided to snap some quickies and post it up. This kit was a going away gift from my good friends, so thanks for the kit guys and sorry it took so long for me to build it, lol..

Looking shiny..
It also looks like Destiny wants to slash Nu from behind..

Just a random snap of the desk with all my completed Gundam models that I've done in Thunder Bay so far. 2 more left to go! MG Strike Sword/Launcher and Force Impulse.

A random picture of my desk. Got KOS-MOS the other day, and she kicks ass =) Probably one of my 3 favourite figs right now along with Alicia in the front there, and my other fave is Lacus who is barely visible on the left side.

It's the final push in school before the end now with only 3 weeks left until I go home for Christmas =) Can't wait!

Peace!

Mini loot update!

2008-11-04T22:52:00.002-05:00

Hey guys,

Just a quick update..

So, got this stuff from a proxy on Yahoo Japan Auctions. It finally arrived today, and I'd rather not discuss how much this cost, lol..

From left is the Lacus (Megahouse RAH-DX) from Gundam Seed Destiny, Alicia Florence (Max Factory) from ARIA and another Lacus (Megahouse RAH-DX) from Gundam Seed.

The GSD version of Lacus is freaking impossible to find on Ebay etc for some reason.. and the same goes for Alicia Florence. I really really wanted both of these figs, so I'm really really happy I got them. Definitely worth it. Alicia especially is freaking sweet.. she's probably my new favourite fig followed closely by Chua and Lacus (Destiny ver).

Anyways, I'll do a quick picture shoot of Alicia probably whenever I get a chance, maybe this weekend, so look forward to it!

Peace!

Finally done!!!

2008-10-30T23:00:00.006-04:00

Hey guys,

Well after 6 exams spread out over 3 weeks I'm FINALLY done my midterms. It's been a hell of a time and I'm just so relieved to be finally done midterms. Having said that, it's only 2 weeks of "relaxing" (if you can call doing homework 5-6 days a week relaxing, lol..) until I get to start studying for midterms. Can't wait!!! =)

Picture jacked from moe imouto as usual! It's the cover of the Kannagi Opening single CD. The song kicks ass and is currently my fave op song, lol.. (Oh! Crazy Shining Love! Yay! Unbelievable!)

Peace out!

B-Day Gift!

2008-10-20T18:15:00.003-04:00

Hey guys,

I just got this in the mail today so I decided to take some quick pics and post it up. Shout out to Soupy for the great B-day gift!

With this my Chu X Chu Idol harem is complete for now, lol.. I have every Chu X Chu figure out right now I think.

Box was a tiny bit damaged, but luckilly there was no damage to the figs.

Shot of the back of the box.

Ahhh so cute.. I think Chua (pink hair) is cuter than Melissa in this set. But both are still good!

A picture of the whole harem right now!

That's all.. thanks again to Soupy for the great b-day gift XD

Peace!

Midterms midterms..

2008-10-20T10:53:00.004-04:00

Mini update:

Welp, in the midst of midterms right now. 2 down, 4 more to go. I won't be completely done midterms until the end of October and then crazilly enough it's only 4 more weeks after that until finals. So basically, I get to rest for about 1 week after midterms before I get to start studying again.. fun times, fun times.

Random picture of Nagi from the anime Kannagi taken from moe imouto. Ahhh I'd love to be like her and sit around and do nothing.. lol.. anyways, if you're not watching this anime yet, do it!!

So I lied.. Sazabi.. COMPLETE! (Mostly)

2008-10-13T11:32:00.003-04:00

Sooo..

I said I would post progression pics on my Sazabi but during some late nights after studying I had some bursts of inspiration over the past 2 days. So during this time I managed to complete Sazabi, lol! Basically complete, I just need to do the weapons. So here's a mini post I guess! Overall I'm really happy with how it turned out.

A front shot. He's very impressive.

Side view. Notice the nice boosters underneath his shoulders. Sazabi actually has a ton of boosters.. a TON. And they originally come in black, so I had to paint them all gold to make them look sweet.

Back shot.

.. and the other side.

A little closer look at Sazabi.

In addition to the boosters below his shoulders, he has these boosters in his side skirts. Again, they were originally black but I painted them gold to look better. It's a shame that most of the boosters aren't visible and are covered by all the armor, but it still looks pretty cool.

Underneath that massive skirt armor for his legs are.. you guessed it! More boosters~!

Just to give you an idea of how big Sazabi is compared to an Xbox game.

Like I said earlier, overall I'm very happy with how it turned out. Definitely worth the purchase for the "metallic coating version" of Sazabi. There were a few spots where you could see the cut nubs but there's not much you can do about it. One word definitely came to mind after finishing when it came to Sazabi.. "imposing". This sucker is huuuge!

Anyways, that's all for my mini-post. I hope everybody enjoys their Thanksgiving (in Canada).. as for me, it's back to studying for mid-terms!

Peace!

Good Smile Company Miku Hatsune!

2008-10-09T20:19:00.002-04:00

Hey guys,

I didn't originally plan on making any posts cause of how busy I am, but I decided to take today off from all the studying and stuff! I received my Good Smile Company 1/8 Miku Hatsune today so I decided to do a half-assed photoshoot. Will definitely take better pictures in better light whenever I have time (which is never btw.. lol).

So anyways, onto some pictures!!

The mandatory shipped box. I got Miku off of Ebay cause I originally missed all the preorders. It sold out pretty quickly on all the sites as well. Notice the string strung around the box.. who does this anymore.. ?

Upon opening the box I was curious as to how this guy managed to find a box that was EXACTLY the same size as the box of the fig. Like there was seriously no wiggle room between the shipping box and the packaging. This guy must've had a box custom made just to fit it! I had to rip apart the shipping box to get the box out..

Just a picture of the box from the front.

A shot from the side. As you can tell I really like my box pictures.

Back of the box. She's so cute!

Taken out of the box. I noticed a little chip in the paint in her hair but there's always defects in all figs. It's not really that noticeable.

One of the things I liked about this figure is the shininess of the various parts of her clothing. The legs reflect light really nicely.. looks pretty cool!

Some shots taken of Miku. If you're curious about where she's from, she's actually from a piece of software called "Vocaloid". Basically the software will make J-Pop songs with her voice. It's pretty cool and it's pretty huge in Japan.

Here's an example of one of the songs you can make with the software.

Here's one of Miku singing "Apologize" by One Republic. Just another example of the kind of stuff you can do, it's pretty cool.

Back to the pictures!

And for those of you who care.. her skirt IS removeable! You can't have a fig without some clothing being able to come off right?

Skirt off!

Some nice pictures without her skirt.

A shot from behind.

One more for good measure.

Close up of her panties. Do girls really wear panties with a nice ribbon on it like that on a normal basis? I guess maybe they do.. you never know when someone will see them yeah?

Hope you enjoyed the post. We'll see when I get another chance to make another one!

Peace!

Midterms!

2008-10-08T17:55:00.004-04:00

Hey guys,

Well as usual school is very busy. Now it's getting busier than before though with midterms starting next week and continuing for 2-3 weeks after that until the end of October. After that there's only 1 month of classes left before 2 weeks of exams at the beginning of December. It's amazing how fast time flies! Next Thursday I have a midterm on two of my harder classes, on the same day. So needless to say, I look forward to that, lol..

Anyways, that's the update. Been very busy and I don't have too much to post about so that's it until something new comes up!

Peace!

Random pic of Kimikiss girls taken from moe imouto.

MG Sazabi & Armored Core: FA

2008-09-28T13:10:00.003-04:00

Hey guys,

As usual, busy with school all the time so I'm finding it hard to find time to post. I'll update as soon as anything more interesting besides school happens though, lol..

Lately I've been preoccupied with Armored Core: For Answer for the XBOX360. It came out in the middle of September and the game is freaking AWESOME. More on that after Sazabi.

I finally had time today to continue working on Sazabi so I decided to post some pics. I only made the head for today, but at least it's getting somewhere!

Here's a pic of the head before I put all the fancy shiny red armor on. In the pic it's actually upside down but I didn't notice that until now, lol..

Meh, I hate the stickers that come with the Gundams. They look weird. So usually I decide to paint whatever I can with my Gundam markers. In this case I painted the eye of Sazabi. The outside of it is a shiny metallic green and the centre is yellow.

A properly oriented head with the eye in place. Time for the shiny armor!

Well I have problems taking these pics. I don't really have great lighting in my Gundam area so I try taking pics with flash and without and see which turn out better. This is with flash and it shows the shininess of the armor.

Here's a pic without flash. It shows the detail a little better, like how I majorly screwed up with my Gundam marker on the head part. Notice the right side line is a bit wobbly? Bah..

Again a pic without flash. I think Bandai did a pretty decent job so far with placing the nubs in good places so it doesn't show up too much when you build the kit, but there's still some parts that are fairly obvious. There's not much you can do about it though..

A pic with flash. Showing off the shininess again!

A side shot. The upper body is looking pretty good so far and it's pretty huge. Easilly the biggest I've built so far and it's much bigger than my Destiny and Hi-Nu.

Miku was a bit curious so she came over to take a look at Sazabi.

And because she's so cute, here's a close up pic of Miku!

I most likely won't be able to continue building until next weekend or if I get a burst of inspiration I might continue building tonight. We'll see! There's Code Geass R2 final ep out and a bunch of other stuff I need to do.

Anyways, I recently decided to buy "Armored Core: For Answer" for the XBOX360. I must say, this game is amazing. I'm hooked on it and even though it's only about 5-10 hours long to get through the story the first time, there's multiple missions and the amount of customization for your AC is amazing. Not to mention the White Glint is probably the best AC I've seen!

Here's a vid of White Glint in the opening of the game.

And here's a video of White Glint in action.

I remember one of my first games for the original PS was the very first Armored Core game. I had a lot of fun with that game but there was one stage that was freaking impossible with all these jumping blocks and at the end you had to fight a really hard AC in a very confined space. Being the impatient kid I was back then, after playing for a while and not being able to beat him I got sick of the game and gave up, lol..

Fast forward years later and the PS2 launched. If you guys remember, the PS2 games launched BEFORE the console did, so it was actually possible to buy games for it before it came out. I remember for my bday my friends actually bought me Armored Core 2 for the PS2.. for some reason I never actually played it. I was far too busy with all the other games for the PS2 and never really got around to it. I think I popped it into the system once and that was that, lol.

After that I skipped all the other AC games and now finally I've decided to delve back into it! And what an improvement it is.. I highly recommend this game for anybody that loves mecha. The game is like mecha porn, lol..

Anyways, that's all for today. Peace!

Ah yes, the images were jacked from IGN.com.

A Tour of My Place!

2008-09-20T12:54:00.002-04:00

Hey guys,

Jeez, it's already been 7 days since my last post. Sorry for the lack of updates. Between being sick and school I didn't really have much time or energy to do anything else, heh. Thanks for all the get well comments as well. Not 100% yet but I'm much much better than before.

Anyways, I decided I'd give you guys a tour of my place! As you may or may not know, I live all by myself in Thunder Bay. First time living by myself so it was quite an adjustment.

The front door of the house. I live in a house that was converted into an apartment. On the first floor (the door is directly across from that main door) there are 4 or 5 chicks living there. I haven't run into any of them yet but I think I saw 2 of them before.

Stairs.. these are a bitch when you're carrying your backpack and a ton of groceries, lol. The ceiling isn't very high either so you can see at the top there they padded it in case you nail your head. Good thing for me I'm pretty short so I just have to duck a little bit when going down.

My door! The left door heads onto a patio that's for the guys that live on this 2nd floor. Behind me is the door to the 2nd floor room, and there's 1 guy and 1 girl living there.

Yes! More stairs! On the bottom of the stairs to the left is where the door is, and after climbing up more stairs you'll be at my crib. As you can see, my shoes are strewn all about the place.. on a good day I arrange them nicely on the stairs, lol..

A view from the top of the stairs looking left. From left to right we got the washroom which I don't think you can see, the kitchen, and then my bedroom. On the floor there, due to lack of space is my Gunpla, lol.

Looking right from the top of the stairs is my living room.

Another view of the living room. Got my TV there which can be conveniently watched when sitting on the can, lol.. and a ton of boxes.

Right in front of me is my backpack and the books that AREN'T in my backpack. Oh yeah and some dirty socks, lol..

My gundam models that I brought with me to Thunder Bay. I still got 3 more from this pile to build, not including Sazabi.

You might be wondering why there's a plastic sheet overtop of them. Well, when I first came here I left them without the cover on it for like a month. When I went to grab another model there was soooooooo much dust on top of them it was absolutely disgusting. I decided then and there that I'd leave them covered.

The mandatory washroom shot. Not much to talk about here. As I mentioned earlier, the throne is positioned perfectly with the TV in the living room so I can watch TV when taking a dump. Isn't that convenient? Hahaha..

A really bad picture of my kitchen.

The table in my kitchen that's littered with food! From the left we got.. expired milk. I kept it for like 3 days after it expired and kept drinking it until I decided I should probably throw it out, lol.. Next to that is some Hamburger Helper. Love the stuff! So easy to make and absolutely delicious. Then some Apple Cinnamon Cheerios which I had this morning.. absolutely the best breakfast cereal there is. Except besides maybe Corn Pops! Then a bunch of granola bars, some fruit cups, Frank's Red Hot Sauce and olive oil. Those cans there are some cans of soup that I got for pretty cheap ($1.49 at Superstore!) and some cans of Beefaroni.

All my appliances in one shot. Microwave in the top left there, water boiler, rice cooker, toaster behind that, and my George peeking out on the right.

A poorly lit shot of my refridgerator. As you can tell, it's pretty empty, lol.. In the top there's a bunch of mini-pizzas. Umm.. my Brita water filter, some lean ground beef (for my Hamburger Helper), whole wheat bread, strawberries, and some milk. There's some eggs on the right and some condiments and stuff.

As any poor student will tell you, noodles are a mandatory food group in the student life! On the left is some instant ones that you just add hot water to and let sit for a few mins, and on the bottom are the ones you actually throw into a pot and let sit for a bit. To the left of that is a sack of rice.

A shot of the view from my kitchen window. I like this view as it lets me see if any punks are messing with my car, lol..

Onto the bedroom! As you can see, it's pretty neat and tidy... lol.. on my bed there is a plush toy of Mashi-Maro. I've had it for almost 10 years now I believe. And as you can see I have my Calgary Flames jersey hanging on my wall. Hockey season is almost starting by the way! GO FLAMES GO!

Just a shot of my clothes and my jeans laying on the ground. Again, nice and neat yeah?

Onto the living room! This is where I spend most of my time when I'm not at school. As you can see, the laptop is nicely positioned in front of my couch. At the very front is a little one person sofa thing that I throw all my jackets and hoodies on. I normally hang them up but when I get lazy I just leave them there.

A shot of my TV and Xbox360, as well as the mountain of boxes that are accumulating. Still playing Tales of Vesperia by the way.. I have about 55 hours put into it right now and I think I'm still a fair bit away from the end of the game. Beside the TV is a bunch of books and random school stuff from the summer.

A closer look at the mountain of boxes. Maybe when i get a whole bunch of them I'll put them all in front of my couch and jump off my couch onto them. That'd be pretty fun I think, lol.. but yeah, I should PROBABLY start throwing some of them out. Maybe.

My figure/completed Gunpla corner! I'm basically out of room here so I think I need to start finding another place to put these.

From the left we got MG Hi-Nu Gundam. This was the first Gunpla I completed in Thunder Bay. Then we got Exelica from Trigger Hearts Exelica in the back taking up lots of space. In front of her is the WonFes 2008 Exclusive Saber Alter. The head on this fig differs from the normal version of this figure and I think it looks a LOT better. To the right is the lovely T-elos from Xenosaga. Hopefully KOS-MOS will be joining her in a few months. To the right of her is the ever cute Figma version of Miku Hatsune. Behind her is MG Destiny Gundam Extreme Blast Mode.

And here is a shot of my lovely Chu x Chu Idol harem. I love the characters from this game even though I've never played it. It's an eroge (x-rated Hentai game) and I don't understand Japanese so I can't play it if I wanted to, lol.. From the back on the left we got ChuChu Astram. She's one of the main characters in the game and she's a vampire. In the middle is Chua Churam. She's actually the "combined" version of ChuChu Astram and this other human girl in the game. Think Dragonball Fusion between Goku and Vegeta. But unlike Dragonball, to form this chick, the two girls kiss each other, lol. To the right of her is the loli-bait Melissa Seraphy in her "devil" outfit. In the front are the Nendoroid versions of Melissa Seraphy. The one on the left is the WonFest Exclusive Melissa Seraphy. She differs from the normal Nendo Melissa because she comes with different faces and the crown and cape. On the right is the normal Nendoroid version of Melissa Seraphy. As you can tell from the pic, WF Melissa is bullying normal Melissa by stealing her pumpkin and making her cry. That's just terrible Melissa!

Here's a shot of my Gunpla building corner. Basically just stuff sitting all around the place.

Closer shot of the desk. As you can see, there's my Sazabi in progress! Haven't had a chance to work on it so maybe today or tomorrow I'll get a chance to continue working.

A shot of the deck door. This wasn't always here. But in July/August it used to be a ratchety old door with 2 windows on each side. The landlords demolished it and put in this door, but it took them like a full month to do. At one point there was a freaking big hole in my wall with nothing between me and the outdoors besides 2 pieces of plastic, lol.. needless to say, there were a bunch of bugs in my house at that time. Not pleasant!

A shot from the deck. I like the view here.

As you can see, there's lots of trees.

And a final shot from the deck. The view from my place is fantastic as you can see Lake Superior directly ahead. I can actually even see it just sitting on my couch. I think I got a pretty good deal on this apartment so I'm pretty happy with it overall. It's big enough for me and has everything I need. It was quite an adjustment at first living by myself, but after a few weeks and months at it now I've pretty much got the hang of it.

That's all for today's post. Hopefully if time allows I'll be able to post more frequently.

Peace!

Sick.. so very sick..

2008-09-13T22:19:00.002-04:00

Well I somehow ended up getting sick. I kinda had a feeling this was going to happen.. a lot of people in my classes are sick right now and a few days ago I ended up sitting beside some dude who was super super sick. I ended up feeling sick with a sore throat on Friday and today I've been super sick. Slept most of the day and hopefully I can get over the worst of this before school on Monday.

I actually got my Gundam markers on Friday! Got the Gundam Seed Destiny set and Destiny 2 set as well as a silver plating marker. One of the marker was a gold one and I was trying it out on Sazabi and it looks freaking wicked. I went and painted the yellow coil pieces as well as the front and back yellow pieces. I think it looks pretty killer now.

Anyways, I won't be updating until I feel better.. peace!

MG Sazabi Metallic Coating Version

2008-09-10T13:25:00.003-04:00

Welp, things have been pretty busy in Uni. It's been a while since I've had a full course load and you really get tired out by the end of the day. I noticed that the professors tend to go through things a lot quicker as well so you really gotta pay attention. The assignments are starting to come as well and I haven't done any studying after 5 days of classes already and I already feel like I'm way behind. Gotta get started on that stuff..

Anyways! I was working on Sazabi over the weekend so here are some pics I thought I'd share. For those of you who don't really follow Gundam, Sazabi is the last mobile suit ever piloted by Char Aznable (a popular character who first appeared in the original Gundam 0079) in the movie "Char's Counterattack".

The box for the Sazabi. This sucker is pretty big and I believe it's one of the biggest MG kits out there. When completed Sazabi should stand quite a bit taller than any of my other models. In terms of price Sazabi is the most expensive MG kit I've gotten. It cost about $150 CDN. Damn you Bandai!

A look at the inside of the box. There's the instruction manual as well as all the parts for the model. Being the "metallic coating version" all the pieces are painted in a nice red metallic paint. This causes a bit of problem when you're trying to clean up panel lines as they don't want to come off once they've gone on! So basically, don't screw up, lol! It also causes a problem for when you're trying to clean up the nub marks from the cuttings but supposedly the branches for the parts are located such that it won't be that visible when cut. Or at least so I've heard.

This is a snap of the back of the instruction manual. After I'm done hopefully it'll look something like this.

A peek inside the instruction manual. Some people like to build certain parts first and in a certain order such as head first, then chest, then arms and legs, etc.. I tend to just follow the manual so whatever order the manual does it in, I do it in. It looks like I'll be starting on the chest first in this case! For people who aren't familiar with building Gunpla, the instructions are in Japanese, however, as you can see from the pic, you don't need to know any Japanese to build them. The pictures are all clearly labelled and drawn.

Some of the parts strewn about. All you need is a wire cutter to cut these out. Even if you don't have one, you can actually just twist and pop them out by hand which I highly recommend you DON'T do, lol.. When I was a kid though, that was actually how I built them as I didn't have wire cutters handy.

Ah success! The first part of the chest is completed, but it's not quite done yet. Something I noticed with building this kit so far is that there's a lot of little pieces that you have to cut out.. this could end up being quite a pain, lol..

The coil I'm working on there in the picture requires you to cut out each individual yellow "thingy" that then strings onto the coil. Each side requires about 4 or 5 of those yellow pieces. After you put them on the front, congratulations! You get to do it for the back too now! lol.. this was only the beginning of small parts hell..

A pic of the chest with the coil thingy done and the metallic parts mounted onto the chest.

A back view of the chest with the coil as well. I think you end up cutting out like 20 or so of those yellow pieces for the coil, lol..

Alright so Sazabi has these sweet funnel weapons in a pack on his backpack. What these funnel weapons do is they can fly out on their own, and shoot little beams and such. These are a freaking pain in the ass to build. There's a lot of small pieces for these.

Here's a nice little video to give you an idea of how those funnels work. It kicks ass! But what a pain to build... ><

Ah yes, more small parts. These were particularly fun, as you had to be careful not to damage the paint too much when cleaning off the nubs. As well I had to marker the lines to make it look better..

Ahhhhhhhhh success! This is what they look like after being completed. Whew! Worth the effort, they look pretty sweet.

And then you load all these suckers into the backpack holder thing for them.

After building the main backpack which wasn't too much work, you can attach the funnel holders and it looks like this. If you look closely at the funnels you'll notice that some of the paint has come off. This is due to the use of my exacto knife to clean up the nubs from the cuts. Apparently Bandai didn't place the cuts for these in a good spot but there's nothing I can do about it.

And finally, you attach the backpack to the main chest. You can also tell a bit more from this picture the damage to the paint on the funnels. Grrr..

A front view.

And the mandatory back view.

That's about as far as I'm along right now. I probably won't get a chance to continue building this until the weekend so hopefully I'll be updating as I continue to build!

That's all for today, peace!

Number 13 Baby!!!!!

2008-09-08T21:02:00.002-04:00

Feds does it! Dispatching Andy Murray 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 to win his FIFTH US Open title in a row!! Unheard of! The last time something like this was done was in 1920 just to give you a little perspective of how hard this is. People were counting him out after a "bad" year, but I guess the man still has it in him. Good for you Roger! Hopefully we'll see a great year next year and breaking Pete's record of 14. Go Feds go!

Picture taken from TSN.

MG Destiny Extreme Blast Mode

2008-09-08T15:24:00.003-04:00

Well this is my first Gundam post. I'm a big Gundam fan so it's only appropriate that I build Gunpla! First up is my completed MG Destiny Gundam Extreme Blast Mode. This is basically the special version of the MG Destiny. You can click these images for higher quality images if you care to check out the details.

I could've taken a bunch of pics with different poses and such but I really like this pose so I decided to just take pics of the one pose.

A close up. A lot of people are pretty hardcore and like sanding and painting their Gundams. I don't really have such inclinations, lol.. the most I do is use Gundam markers to do the panel lines. In the future if I have more time/money I'll probably start painting the models as they really do look a LOT better when properly painted.

I remember building my first model many moons ago and the quality on those were pretty crappy. They were basically High Grades or poorer and it kind of discouraged me from building them. About a year ago I got re-introduced to Gunpla by a friend and discovered the beauty of Master Grade kits. They're basically the highest quality models you can get besides Perfect Grade kits and the price reflects the quality.

A typical MG kit costs between $30 - $70. In the case of the special version ones, like Sazabi, those run for $100-$150. Perfect Grade kits in comparison, run from $150 - $400. Being a poor student I stick to MGs.

A view of the back. I love the backpack, weapons and wings on this kit. The plastic burst coming from the back of the wings is special to the "Extreme Blast Mode" version of Destiny.

There were some problems with this kit after I finished it. Normally MG kits have really stiff joints so you can pose them without any problems. The shoulders on this MG kit were loose for some reason so when I posed with the arm sticking out, after a few hours the arm would limp back down. This reaaaaally pissed me off.

I discovered a nice solution to this off of dannychoo.com however. If you take apart the joint and fill it with some craft glue, like Elmers white glue, and stick it back together and let it dry overnight, you end up with a stiffer joint the next day. I tried it out and it works like a charm. I plan to use this technique in the future if I run into problems like this again.

Anyways, that's it for this post. Honestly I don't like seeing "Completed Kit" pics. I always found the process of building them a lot more interesting than the finished product. If you want to see a pic of the finished product you can search all over the net and find a whole bunch of pics. Tomorrow or the day after I plan on posting pics of my progress on MG Sazabi Metallic Coating Version, so look forward to that!

Peace!

Federer vs Murray Final!

2008-09-07T18:04:00.004-04:00

Well he pulled off the upset! 6-2, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 win for Andy Murray today. What a great match.. Murray played fantastic, it was a hell of a show. Tomorrow at 5pm EST will be the finals! Can't wait!

Federer advances to US Open Final!

2008-09-06T15:05:00.004-04:00

As expected, my boy Feds beat Djokovic at the semi-finals of the US Open 6-3, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2. You can read more about it at ESPN. Now he waits for the winner of Nadal and Murray being played right now.

Remember! The final is on tomorrow so make sure you watch it!

Picture taken from the US Open Photo Gallery.

Update:
Well since it rained it looks like Nadal-Murray is going to be postponed until Sunday along with the Women's Final of Jelena Jankovic vs Serena Williams. The men's final is going to take place on Monday instead!

Right now Murray is leading 2 sets to 0, but in the 3rd set Nadal has already broken. It'll be miraculous if Nadal comes back to win but the guy never gives up so you never know!

Alter Trigger Heart Exelica - Part 2

2008-09-06T13:06:00.003-04:00

Alright as promised here's Part 2.

A shot of Exelica without all her armor. I decided to go outside again for the pics. Until I find a better solution I think I'll take all my pics outside for now. The only concern I have is the lighting. There's an overhang thing on the deck that kinda blocks the sun, so I don't have the best lighting for the pics but I think this is the best I can come up with!

Side view. Doesn't she look helpless without all her weapons and armor?

Other side. Notice the booster around her ass area. That's a separate piece you attach to the stand.

Back view.

The leg armor. You have to take this piece apart which when I was doing it for the first time was a pretty scary proposition. I've had bad experiences in the past with taking apart Gundam models, in fact, I broke a piece off my Gundam Destiny two days ago trying to fix something >_>.

Whew. After some sweating and praying that I don't break anything I managed to get it all apart.

Leg pieces attached! Front view.

Side view.

Other side.

Back view. She's starting to look meaner isn't she?

A look at her weapons D'rfend and Ar'stear. Can you guess which is which?

Ar'stear! It's the "attacking gunship". I guess it looks more of the attacking type doesn't it?

A look from the other side.

D'rfend.

I think this thing d'rfends her pretty well!

Her other wings and stuff attached. Bad ass! Who's gonna mess with her now?

Side view.

Other side!

Back view.

Tada! The whole thing put together. I must say, she looks pretty bad ass. All in all, a great figure and highly recommended!

She sure looks right at home with Hi-Nu and Destiny doesn't she?

Anyways, that's all for today. I took a few pics of Destiny and I'll post those tomorrow. Peace.

Alter Trigger Heart Exelica - Part 1

2008-09-04T17:42:00.002-04:00

So I said I'd put up some pics of this fig. but I haven't gotten quite around to taking more pics of it. I'm going to be posting it in 2 parts and I'll post the 2nd part whenever I get around to it. Probably this weekend sometime!

Anyways, here we go.

Model: Trigger Heart Exelica
Manufacturer: Alter
Scale: 1/8
Release: March 2008
Original Retail: 14800¥ / ~$135.00 USD

For those who aren't familiar with this character, she comes from a game released for the Dreamcast back in the day. The game is called "Trigger Heart Exelica" and it's one of those flying shooter games. Never played it myself, but it looks pretty sweet, heh.

Funny story: A few days after I won this auction and the guy sent me my tracking number I was looking at the guy's other stuff and saw something else I was interested in. Then all of a sudden while I was looking at his listings, all of the guy's items were GONE. All the listings just disappeared and haven't been put up again since. So naturally I was pretty concerned and was joking with my friend Soupy that they'd end up sending me an empty box. Anyways! The box arrived after about a week from when it shipped from Japan. Pretty fast! I was pretty impressed with how fast it came actually. The box is pretty huge and the shipping was $45 USD just to give you an idea. It was pretty heavy so at least it's not an empty box! There were a few dents in the shipping box when it got here but I wasn't really concerned.

Popped open the box and I'm greeted with this. What the hell!? Where's the bubble wrap?! Turns out the dude on Ebay just wrapped it in a piece of wrapping paper. NOW I'm worried about those dents in the shipping box..

BAM! Exelica! She's freaking huge. Honestly. This fig with all the parts and everything is just huuuuuuuge.

First thing I notice.. a DENT! NOOOOOO! I don't know about you guys but I'm really really really annoyed whenever there's a dent in my boxes. I'll most likely never ever use the box again and it'll probably get damaged by me personally somehow, but when I buy something I expect it to be flawless!

Dent!!! ><

Close up of some of the writing on the box. I'd like to thank Tsumezuka Hiroyuki for a great sculpt and Alter for a great production fig..

Some info on the "real" Exelica.

Weight.. classified! I guess you should never ask a lady about her weight.

Her weapons are the "Semi-Autonomous Enhanced Gun Ship System "Ar'stear"" and an "Anchor Unit "D'rfend"". D'rfend.. that just sounds like some terrible Chinglish or something.

The back of the box.

With all the fake crap on Ebay you never know if you're getting a fake item or a real item. Authenticity check: The shiny Alter sticker on the bottom of the box. Although I heard these days, people put fake figs into real boxes, so you never know.

The fig pulled out of the box.

Picture of the back. There's... instructions? For a figure..? That's a new one..

Instruction free back view.

A picture of the box with the figure taken out. There's a nice cardboard backing thing that was in there.

This is a picture of it pulled out. It's pretty sweet. I guess you could use it as a poster or something if you really wanted to.

Just to give an idea of how big the box is.. it's almost as big as my freaking TV!

The box by my laptop.. another idea of how big this box is.

The instruction manual! There's actually quite a few steps to put it together. Kinda reminds me of a Gundam model..

The inside of the instruction manual.

One of the pages closer up.

The other page.

I thought this picture was pretty cute so I decided to take a closer pic of it, lol..

Back of the instruction manual.

Just taking more pics here. Took off the top plastic covering on the fig.

Closer pic of Exelica. She's cute!

Her leg armor. You have to take this piece apart and put it on her leg. More on that in Part 2.

One of her wings.

Some random pieces that attach to the leg part.

Her little booster pack thing that goes on her back.

There's actually 2 layers of parts. Let me tell ya, getting these two layers apart was an incredible pain in the ass. I've never seen so much freaking tape used in my life. I guess I should be grateful they did a good job when they packaged the figure to make sure nothing moved, but it was a pain!

The top layer of parts by itself. It includes Exelica herself, her leg armor and wings.

The second layer of parts! This part has the stand and her 2 weapons that stand on their own.

Anyways, that's it for this post. I'll post Part 2 sometime in the next few days!

Peace!

Still alive..

2008-09-02T18:16:00.002-04:00

Hi guys,

I'm still alive.. managed to make it through my finals! I won't find out my marks for a few more days but I've been trying to take it easy for the next little bit. The Fall semester starts on Thursday so I'm pretty excited about that.

Has anybody been watching the US Open? Nadal and Djokovic have both made it to the quarter-finals as expected. Right now Roger Federer is playing Igor Andreev and it's not looking too great. He's down 6-7 and 4-4 right now in the 2nd set. Seems like he's misfiring a lot and making a lot of errors.. but I have faith in my boy. Roddick will be playing tonight as well.

Anyways, I'll be updating tomorrow with a new figure post (I got it in the mail today!) so look forward to image spam tomorrow!

Peace!

US Open - GO FEDERER GO!

2008-08-26T21:16:00.007-04:00

The US Open kicked off yesterday and it celebrated it's 40th anniversary. They had a nice show and everything.. you can find some nice pics here.

The US Open this year promises to be pretty exciting with a lot of stories heading into it. Can Federer defend and go for 5 straight US Open titles? This hasn't been done since 1920 when some other dude won it 6 straight times. Of course, Federer's had a really really really bad year (by his standards). Only 2 tournaments won and no Grand Slams yet. He lost to Djokovic at the Australian Open semis, got blown away at Roland Garros to Nadal in the final, and lost the heartbreaker to Nadal at Wimbledon final. The only consolation for this year is that he won a gold medal for doubles at the Olympics.

Another story heading into this US Open is whether or not Nadal can continue his dominance over.. everything! The guy has 2 Grand Slams under his belt, a whack of titles, and a Singles Gold medal from the Beijing Olympics to boot. He's had a hell of a year but usually at this time Nadal starts fading away so we'll see.

There's also Djokovic who has beaten Federer in the AO, beaten Nadal in another tournament earlier this year, but lost to Nadal in the Olympics. He won bronze there, and also won the Australian Open earlier this year. So basically for the first time we have 3 legitimate contenders for the title and it's impossible to tell who can win this.

Whew! Having said all that, I gotta cheer on my boy Roger. He's had a terrible year and I think the main cause of this is the mind job put on him by Nadal. The mark of great champions is the ability to rebound after being knocked off the top and although everyone's already writing him off I think Roger's still got a ton of years and titles left in him. He'll get his #1 back eventually.. And hey, until someone beats him here at the US Open, the guy is still the FOUR years in a row defending champion and the man to beat. Good luck and all the best Feds.. I know you can do it!!

Results so far:

Nadal has already made it past the first round defeating Bjorn Phau 7-6, 6-3, 7-6. Seems like he had a pretty hard time.

Federer has got past his first round easilly against Gonzalez. 6-3, 6-0, 6-3.

I plan on continuing to update as the tournament progresses. No updates for the next couple days until probably Saturday due to studying for exams!

All images were taken from Day Life.

Nendoroid Saber Lion

2008-08-25T18:09:00.003-04:00

Original picture from amiami.

Isn't this cute!? How can you resist? lol..
You can preorder it over at HobbySearch.

You can find also find a little blurb here on dannychoo. Check it out! It's a great site for everything Japanese and one of the inspirations for making my own blog.

Study study study / Tales of Vesperia!

2008-08-25T17:41:00.003-04:00

Unfortunately I probably won't be posting so much this week.. I have 2 finals to study for (one on Thursday and one on Saturday).

This Thursday, Tales of Vesperia comes out! Canada probably won't get it until Saturday though. I've been waiting for this game for quite a while so I gotta get it for sure =) IGN gave it a rating of 8.2. You can find the review here.

I like the look of the characters so far. The main guy looks pretty cool and the main chick looks cute.

As with all Tales games, the battle system will be fast paced and action oriented so it's bound to be a ton of fun. I've been waiting for this game a long time so hopefully it lives up to my expectations!

All the images were taken from IGN, so full credit to them.

That's all for today, peace.

Daily Life

2008-08-23T10:01:00.002-04:00

Well, today I'm gonna let yah guys take a look into what the daily life of a poor student is like.

This is usually the first thing I see every morning.. and the first thing I curse at.. lol.. classes start at 9am, so waking up at 7am is perfect and gives me enough time for everything. Usually though, I don't actually get up at 7am ^^;; I just slam the snooze button..

... and then I see this. And start freaking out and jump out of bed to get ready. This is on good days.. sometimes I don't get back up until 8:45am.

Breakfast! I love breakfast.. I know a lot of people don't like eating breakfast but I absolutely have to. It's one the best meals of the day! If I'm not having some delicious Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, I'm having toast + Peanut butter and boiled eggs.

After getting getting ready I hop into my beloved Jess (my car) and head to school. Anybody else name their car? I know I can't be the only one! The drive to school is about 10 minutes from my place so it's actually pretty close. Not close enough to walk but certainly close enough to bike.

I have a parking pass for the University starting in September 2008 until April 2009. It only cost $150 for 8 months of parking! What a deal! I remember the ludicrous parking prices at SAIT and the University in Calgary and I can't believe what a rip off it is.. but since it's only August I have to park my car in a neighborhood close to the University.

This is the sign that's along the street I park on. When I first saw it it totally confused the hell out of me! I've never seen a sign like this before.. but according to this sign, you're not allowed to park on this side of the street from 9am - 5pm on ODD calendar days, from November 15 to April 30.

Directly across the street on the other side we have this sign. No parking on EVEN days.. lol..

After walking up a hill about 3-5 minutes I arrive at the outside of the University. There's like 4 or 5 different entrances into the university and this is just one of them.

I found this sign pretty amusing the first time I saw it. Apparently "Bearskin Lake" is a residential area on campus.. and I'm not really sure if they have a real lake or not in there..

This is the ATAC building which I believe is the newest building at the University. As you can see, it looks pretty impressive! At night with all the lights it looks even more impressive..

This is the first building I head into. I think it's called the Agora/University Center building.. It has a bunch of big lecture halls and houses all the services in the University. So things such as Registars Office, Financial Aid, Bookstore, etc etc. are all in this building.

A look at the inside of the building. It opens up into a big open area. The shop in the back is actually a Tim Hortons, so on crappy mornings sometimes I like to grab a coffee before heading into class.

One of the typical lecture halls. Nothing too exciting here! In this class there's typically almost 200 students but on a normal lecture day you only see about 2/3 of the class here. The instructor wears a mic so you can actually hear what he's saying at the back of the room.. it doesn't actually work very well though.. >_>

After lecture is over (all 3 hours of it..) I pop outside. This is the view from outside the University Center. During the summer they have all these events with a bunch of kids (the ones in the orange shirts) so you'll see them all over campus during this time.

Another view from the University Center. Lakehead University is actually a pretty nice campus. It seems the designers wanted to build around nature and incorporate it into their design and so you'll see a lot of trees and flowers all over campus. After this, it's time to head over to the cafeteria and have lunch!

Typical lunch. Doesn't look very appetizing does it? ^^ I love Beefaroni though! The little dessert on the side is oranges in a mango gel? Or something like that.. either way, it's delicious!

A view from the cafeteria. I absolutely love the view from the cafeteria. As I was talking about before, instead of ploughing over everything the designers decided to build around nature, so the lake makes for awesome views like this.

Another view from the cafeteria.

After a quick lunch it's time to head to the library and hide in the cubicle. I like using this time to pretend to study.. but there's computers everywhere in the library so it's hard to resist just jumping on the net and wasting away my lunch hour..

After pretending to study I head to my next class. If you ever get lost all you have to do is follow the signs! The writing below the English signs is actually some Native American langauge. There's a lot of Natives at the University and the University offers a ton of Native American related programs.

Since it's summer, they also have a BBQ outside every day. For a couple bucks you can buy a hamburger, hotdog or whatever.

The entire University campus is surrounded by a ton of trees. This is the view from beside the ATAC building looking out into the parking lot.

This is the other side of the ATAC building.

And a shot inside. I don't particularly like the design for this building as it feels kind of "cold". There are windows all around which is very nice, but all the concrete and steel makes the structure feel cold. I don't know what the designers were thinking but they decided to paint everything a bright ass yellow and blue and reminds you of the playground during Elementary. It makes for a very confusing building..

One of the cooler aspects of the building I thought. This is the elevator with a cool post for the buttons and a kind of corrugated steel all around.

The classrooms in this building are a lot more technologically advanced than the earlier one I was at. There's 3 projector screens where the instructor either projects stuff from the computer or writes notes. In addition, all around the room are speakers as well as VIDEO CAMERAS! I guess it's so the prof can stay at his or her desk and see if anybody is cheating during exams, lol..

This is another cool feature in this room. Each row of desks has this sucker between every 2 seats. You just press the button and speak into it so everyone can hear you. Anyways the system is called the "Danish Interpretation Systems" or maybe that's just what the company that makes it is called. There's 3 settings for this.. "ENG" "FRE" and "FLO". English, French, and... what the hell is FLO? Is that Danish or something?

After lecture is over I usually head home or I stay at the library for an hour to study. Once I get home I jump on my laptop and chat with some buds on MSN and watch TV until time for dinner.

This is a man's best friend. I'd love to have an actual BBQ but I can't afford to have one out here. For a George of this size all it'll cost you is $20! What a deal!

Aaaaand here's dinner! Chicken thighs grilled on the George. Before cooking I cover it with Frank's Hot sauce and a bunch of seasoning. It's absolutely delicious. I usually cook about 4 chicken thighs for dinner. If it's not chicken, I'm usually having some delicious Hamburger Helper + Ground Beef.

After dinner, I kick back and watch more TV, sit on my laptop, play games, or whatever to kill the time.. as you can guess, it's extremely exciting, lol..

So there you have it! A look into a typical day for me. I hope you guys enjoyed this post. Peace!

Alpha x Omega Kallen & Shirley PVC

2008-08-22T17:12:00.006-04:00

Just saw this on Kumo's blog and decided to share it.

Alpha x Omega is coming out with Kallen & Shirley (from Code Geass) in December 2008. Must get FOOOOOR SURE!

Original pic from Figure/GK

Poker

2008-08-22T16:10:00.001-04:00

Well it's Friday so I decided I'm just gonna talk about whatever..

One of my favourite past times is No Limit Texas Hold 'Em poker! I absolutely love the game but unfortunately out in Thunder Bay I don't really know anybody so I can't play unless I go to the casino or play online.

Back in Calgary we had a poker league. It was called the "Poker After Dark League"; obviously the moniker is taken from the popular NBC poker show "Poker After Dark". A bunch of us (usually between 10-18 people) would get together once a week, usually Fridays, to play poker! The way it was organized was we'd have 3 games a night. Each night of poker was called a "Round" and in the "Season" we'd have 10 "Rounds" (or 30 "Games"). These games started at 7pm and ran until 4 or 5am, lol.. I miss those days!

We ended up getting our own shirts to wear during "league play". It was a ton of fun! We kept the buy ins low at $5 with rebuys within the first hour. The intention the entire time was for the league to be just a fun social activity so we never intended it to be about the money. Having said that, the pots for each game usually got up to around $80+. The winner would usually take about $35-50 for each game depending on the number of players.

Everybody had a unique number and their last name on the back of their shirt, kinda like a hockey jersey. So how did we determine the winner? Depending on your placement you get a certain # of points. Obviously the higher you place the more points you get. At the end, whoever has the highest winning % (Points won / Points played) wins the bracelet =) Of course there's a ton of other little rules and idiosyncrasies but I won't get into all that!

At the end of the Season (10 nights of play) the winner would end up winning one of these babies =)

You get your name engraved onto the back as well as the Season you won. It's pretty sweet lol.. as the Seasons went by we started adding more stuff to win.. (eg. a prize pool at the end for the top 3 contestants, the winner would get $75, 2nd place $50, etc etc..). The rules are constantly evolving and getting better! As you can see, I won this sucker for Season 3. I'm quite proud of this achievement!

When me and a few poker buds went to Vegas earlier this year we played some cash game poker and tournament poker. We joined a poker tournament over at Paris Casino. If you haven't guessed, it's the big Eiffel Tower + Balloon part in the picture, lol.. The buy-in was $65 (no rebuy) and there were a little over 60 people in it. I ended up winning ^^ Won almost $1200 which is not bad at all =) But of course, I suck at cash game poker and lost about $400 during cash games in the course of the trip.. oh well! I'm quite proud of this achievement as it's only the 2nd real tournament I've ever joined (the first one I finished 20th out of 64 people or so). Hopefully in the future I'll have more chances to play.

I could go on and on about poker but I think that's enough for today. Tomorrow should be a fun post.. going to give you guys a look into a regular day in my poor student life. Peace!

Alter T-elos

2008-08-21T15:08:00.014-04:00

Alright, so this is the first real post! I'm currently trying to figure out how I want to organize my posts and such, but I think I'm gonna go with a different topic for each day of the week and then try to post something related to that topic each week. So Thursdays have been designated as "Figure Day!".

First I gotta admit that I'm pretty new to the PVC figure scene. I only started recently collecting them after a loooooooooooong long time of trying to resist.. but I finally couldn't take it anymore, lol..

So for my first figure, I bring you.. T-elos from the Xenosaga series. Here's some quick info.

Model: T-elos (from Xenosaga)
Manufacturer: Alter
Scale: 1/8
Release: January 2008
Original Retail: 5800¥ / $50.40 USD

This figure was actually not on my original list of figures I wanted to get, but after my friend Soupy showed me it I was blown away. I had to find it off Ebay since it's been loooooong sold out.. and it's not a cheap figure ^^;; The shipping was super fast though.. and when the box arrived I was pretty excited!

Ohhh.. what lies underneath all that packaging? The guy did a great job packing it up for shipping.. why can't everybody on Ebay pack like this?

... it's T-elos! What a pleasant surprise!

The figure in the box! The box is a bit dirty but I can't really complain, lol.. at this point my hands are shaking in anticipation.. well.. not really.. but I was pretty excited =D

A look at the box from the side..

A close up of the text on the front of the box. Alter makes awesome figures. Their figures always look really high quality and are extremely well sculpted.

Opened the box! There's a strong smell of plastic.. smells great! Like new car smell.. (which I hate.. lol)

Fresh out of the box! After checking out all the "details" on the figure I decided to prop her up on my laptop and take a quick pic. As Danny Choo is fond of saying, she has nice "eyes".. lol..

T-elos outside up close! The detail on this model is really amazing =D

Picture of T-elos from the back. The hair is probably one of my favourite parts of the model.. it has this cool translucent colour and is sculpted extremely well.

View of T-elos from the side w/ stand.

T-elos from the back.

Other side.

Decided to prop her up on the deck and take a picture. I think it turned out pretty well!

At this point I'm hoping there isn't a strong gust of wind all of a sudden that'll knock my T-elos 2 floors down ^^;; That would absolutely suck..

One more close up of T-elos ^^

All in all this was a great purchase. Worth every penny for sure!

I'm not quite sure what I want to talk about tomorrow yet. I have a ton of things on my list but I haven't quite decided yet so we'll see!

Peace!

First Post!

2008-08-20T20:21:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone,

Just a quick introduction to everyone about what this blog is about and why it's being made.

I'm currently a student living away from home for the first time taking Civil Engineering at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. My home is in Calgary, Alberta (about a 22 hour drive) so I'm a pretty long way from home. Anyways, I told some friends back home that I'd keep them updated on what's going on with me over here so here it is!

This blog is bascially going to cover everything that I like and feel like talking about.. so expect a lot of posts about anime, figures, Gundam models, school, life in general, and whatever else I feel like posting about! I'm going to try to update this blog once every day or two.. so guys if I don't have any new posts for like weeks at a time I probably got killed over here in Silent Hill.. lol..

Anyways, that's it for now! Once I get this design crap sorted out (there's a lot of it..) I'll make another post (tomorrow probably).. so don't be surprised if the design changes a ton of times. Peace.