3 months ago a friend and co-worker asked me if I wanted to go to Muse’s concert in March. I hesitantly agreed and many months past, a set of tickets sold, a new set bought, time booked off work. Then suddenly, March 8th, Air Canada Center, concert day.

The reason I was hesitant originally was due to the ill-conceived notion that because I wasn’t a huge fan like those whom I was going with were, I would end up a 5th wheel and excluded from conversations due to a very limited knowledge of the band. Thankfully this was far from the case, and the concert was amazing. This is the 3rd “amazing” concert I’ve been to and has again re-calibrated how I view concerts.

Blink-182 was an amazing concert because I had no basis for comparison. That’s not to say it was a bad concert, but looking back, it had a lot of moments that don’t live up to the concerts that followed. Some upsides to blinks concert was I had a seat, which I never used, but that meant I wasn’t being bumped into constantly and the people in front of me were lower thus my short stature wasn’t impeded.

U2 was an amazing concert because well, it was an amazing concert. The whole event was spectacular, I had great floor tickets and no maybe one person in front of me the majority of the time. In hindsight now there was a decent amount of space to breathe and move, but which I just mean that I could do those things. The U2 concert also had a great opening act with Snow Patrol, contrasting to blink-182 who had Fall Out Boy, Illscarlet and Chester French, Snow Patrol was simply just on a level above them.

This brings us to Muse and their supporting act, the Silversun Pickups. This concert differed from the above for me because it was really a combination of the two. Blink-182 I had a seat and could see the front row crowd and how rowdy they were, U2 I had the front row seat but it was an older crowd that wasn’t very rowdy at all. Putting the two together, I was in the thick of it all, I was front row center and back by 2-4 people, great spot to be for the Silversun Pickups, terrible spot to be for Muse but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The Silversun Pickups came out to much cheer from the crowd, possibly the best received opening act I’ve seen so far. Not knowing the band very well at all, only having really heard one song of theirs from Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour I wasn’t really sure what to expect. All I knew was I didn’t like “playing” Lazy Eye on Rock Band 2/Guitar Hero World Tour. Silversun Pickups opened with what I believe was “Growing Old is Getting Old” and did a fantastic job at immediately gaining my full attention and interest in their music. The crowd surrounding me were also into it, some singing (poorly lol) along with the songs. Thinking this is how the concert was going to go, comparing it to my U2 experience I was ecstatic with my position and enjoyed every minute of it, until Muse came out.

Muse came out and the crowd went wild, if I may use the term, ape shit, they went ape shit wild and all tried to storm the stage. Pushing everyone into a space that was far too small for their body types, I was stuck sideways between and amongst many men with the whole crowd gyrating to the music and covered in their sweat. It was an experience I tell you, and quite possibly the most homosexual exeperience  I’ve ever been a part of. Men were gyrating all around me, it was as if I was thrown into the biggest gay orgy ever. The crowd at the front would push back at the crowd behind, and the crowd behind would push back at the crowd in front, and I was caught in the middle with all of my 110 lbs of body weight pushing for air. Add to this that the past few days prior to the concert my back was sore, I really wasn’t in a situation I wanted to be in at all.

Eventually I managed to push myself back a few rows and escape from the death that seemed to await me up front. However this put me smack dab right in the middle of a moshpit, getting pushed left and right, back and forth again I wasn’t in a situation I wanted at all. So I worked myself over to the right of the stage away from the moshpit but still 8-10 people away from the very front. It was here I stayed for the majority of the concert, and it is also here that my left arm became trapped between the cutest girls breasts as she pressed forward because of the crowd behind her. Her chin was nearly on my shoulder and she kept speaking into my ear, though obviously at her friend and not me. I must emphasize though, I was not taking advantage of the situation, she forced herself upon my arm, I just didn’t mind at all that she’d done so.

Despite the 2 paragraphs above and all the trouble that befell me during the concert, it was all worth it, the back pain I feel right now and the stiff limbs are all worth the effort. Muse performed amazingly, far better than the CDs I’d been listening to in the 3 months prior to the concert. I’d started to get a bit apathetic towards Muse, they still had songs I liked but I lacked the enthusiasm of my friends. The concert washed all of that apathy away, immediately.

Muse rose up on 3 pillars out of the stage floor hidden behind curtains and animations, opening with an amazing rendition of “Uprising” off their 2009 album “The Resistance” as the curtains fell revealing the 3 band members. Matthew Bellamy on the left with a very sparkly silver jacket, guitar and blue sunglasses, Dominic Howard center stage, and Christopher Wolstenholme on the right.

Muse would use these pillars on and off throughout their performance, rising and falling between songs. Part of me wishes they did their entire concert from the pillars as it would have been easier to see at times, but it was used to good effect and created a nice dynamic throughout the concert. I could easily see issue using them for the whole concert though, they couldn’t move very much and that is rather boring. Later in the concert during “Feeling Good” Matthew played a piano up on his pillar along with good use of a megaphone. On the side of this Piano was the brand “Kawai”, I desperately tried to get a picture of it snickering to myself that I’d add another ‘i’ but the camera simply just wouldn’t focus.

I wont go into detail about each and every song that was played as that would take longer to read than to just listen to each track played at the concert. So here are the setlists, they’re not the definitive setlist, but they’re what I could find via some simple Google searches. Unfortunately as has so far always been the case for me, I was not able to find a setlist for the Silversun Pickups (why does Toronto suck with setlists for opening acts?), so I was forced to piece their list together from 2 past concerts where they opened for Muse. If anyone comes across anything that should be corrected, by all means, I want to know. I like having playlists on my iPod of tracks in concert order.

Setlists

Silversun Pickups

1. Growing Old is Getting Old (Swood)
2. Well Through Out Twinkles (Carnavas)
3. There’s no Secrets This Year (Swoon)
4. The Royal We (Swoon)
5. Future Foe Scenarios (Carnavas)
6. Substitution (Swoon)
7. Panic Switch (Swoon)
8. Lazy Eye (Carnavas)

Muse

1. Uprising (The Resistance)
2. Resistance (The Resistance)
3. New Born (Origin of Symmetry)
4. Map of the Promlematique (Black Holes and Revelations)
5. Supermassive Black Hole (Black Holes and Revelations)
6. Guiding Light (The Resistance)
7. Interlude (Absolution)
8. Hysteria (Absolution)
9. Nishe (Unintended CD2)
10. United States of Eurasia / Collateral Damage (The Resistance)
11. Feeling Good (Origin of Symmetry)
12. Helsinki Jam (No Album)
13. Undisclosed Desires (The Resistance)
14. Starlight (Black Holes and Revlations)
15. Plug in Baby (Original of Symmetry)
16. Time is Running Out (Absolution)
17. YYZ (snippet) (Rush Cover)
18. Unnatural Selection (The Resistance)
    (Encore)
19. Exogenesis: Symphony, Part 1: Overture The Resistance
20. Stockholm Syndrome The Resistance
21. Knights of Cydonia Black Holes and Revelations

Addendum

I think my only wish for the concert would have been if Muse played for another hour. That’s it really, they really were great live and I miss listening to their live set, the CDs just don’t live up to it.

-Aka

PS: I apologize for the very poor quality pictures. The camera I was using was a borrowed  FujiFilm Finepix S1000 and threw artifacts all over the pictures, had poor low light performance and well the crowd was rowdy and near impossible to take pictures in (biggest factor).

Other Videos

Adding videos here as I find ‘em. These are all far far better than mine. Latest finds are at the bottom.
(Updated: 2010-03-09 @ 20:45)

Already having owned a great Corti figure by GSC I was hesitant to buy Orchid Seeds version, but despite that I closed my eyes and let the money magically vanish from my possession.  Since pre-order I’ve been on the fence with Orchid’s Corti, many aspects of her seemed awkward, but obviously I didn’t cancel my order.

I’m sure I told myself after purchasing my first Corti figure that I’d watch Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica but… I still haven’t. So I still can’t tell you if I even like Corti’s character, or the series, or much about the series other than what Wikipedia says. So I’ll move on, this particular Corti is modeled after some artwork by Kannatsuki Noboru whom I believe was also an illustrator for one of the light novel covers. Given the artwork that’s out there, it also appears to be perhaps the only time she wears these clothes. I have to admit, I much prefer the clothes in GSC’s Corti, they seem much cuter, I think it’s the garters, I must not be a fan of them.

Orchid has chosen to stick with their scheme of using 1/7th scale to increase the cash required to purchase their figures. An interesting scheme that seems to be working for them, despite the fact their figures really are closer to 1/8th than 1/7th. Comparing GSC’s Corti to Orchid’s they’re pretty much the same size in most respects and that’s a 1/8th scale figure. Yamato Sagami was the sculptor of this Corti and according to MyFigureCollection.net is the only figure they’ve sculpted, not a bad ‘first’ attempt I suppose. Corti was released last month, February 2010, for an MSRP of ¥7,800 / 90 CAD but I purchased her through Hobby Link Japan at a mild discount of ¥7,057 / $82 CAD.

In terms of matching the original artwork Orchid Seed has done a fairly competent job, matching most aspects even down to how she’s tied her corset. However as often is the case with figures they’ve managed to mess up her face. If you look at the original artwork she gives off a much more engaging and happy expression. Orchid’s rendition looks to have made her hesitant or only half-assedly acting happy, her eyes are also taller and don’t match the emotion. It really affects my enjoyment of the figure because I don’t get that happy emotion I’m looking for in her face. Additional screw ups, her arms and hands aren’t in the same positions, and I feel they’ve made her legs and torso slightly too long giving her maybe a more balanced appearance but still differing from the artwork, or at least the impression I get from it.

Not all is bad though, rotating her around, her boots are well done with enough detail, the bow in her hair and on her back are also pleasant. And keeping towards the back, her hair is quite well done, lots of strands going in slightly differing directions, and skillfully crafted in such a way that you don’t notice all the seams. I tried to count all the seams in her hair, but I’m not sure what are and are not actually seams, impressive.

Orchid’s choice of colours with comparison to the original artwork seems off as well. Corti’s hair seems much more pink than the red it should be, as are her eyes. Her dress seems to lack some red as well, which does have me wondering if the original artwork I’m looking at has the red turned up slightly higher than it should be. But over all this effect creates a more subdued tone for Corti and like her face gives off a different feel from the original.

If one is to ignore the comparisons to the original artwork Corti does look to be a pretty great figure albeit perhaps slightly awkward appearing. She has great sculpting and a solid (if wrong) paintwork that come together to make a pretty good figure. Soon however after holding her in one’s hand one will notice there’s still yet one more problem. Corti’s right leg doesn’t feel rigid like it should. Comparing her to other figure with one legged poses, they all have what feels like a different plastic, likely ABS. Orchid’s Corti though seems to have a PVC leg, and I suspect will be very prone to leaning as her weight distribution is already quite far forward. This is the first figure I’ve bought that I’m actually considering putting back into her box. Which is a shame, I much prefer having them on display.

Ever since placing my pre-order for Orchid’s Corti I’ve been feeling a little bit of buyers remorse, and after receiving her this hasn’t really gone away. In many ways I’m surprised with the figure, Corti is decently done no doubt, but just doesn’t have the feel of a $90 figure  in enough ways to make her worth $90, or the $82 I spent. I feel kind of bad putting her down though, because it does feel like a lot of effort went into her, yet she still came out… off.

Corti, your legs seem so looong….

-Aka

Scoring

Sculpting: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Painting: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Pose: 2 out of 5 stars
Cost: 2 out of 5 stars
Satisfaction: 3 out of 5 stars

Overall: 2.8 out of 5 stars

Gallery

Ah Seena, finally you’ve taken your clothes off for me and put on a sexy bikini. This will be the 3rd copy of you I buy as well, already having your first 1/7th variant along with a 1/7th by Orchid Seed as well.

This was simply a must have figure. As soon as I saw Seena in her swimsuit I was all over it on Twitter. Ok… I wasn’t exactly crazy for her at that moment, I was somewhat cautious because it was a swimsuit figure and they tend to be just too boring even when well done. The poor quality magazine scanned pictures really left something to be desired, but the hints were all there.

Now that she’s up for order she’s got plenty of official pictures available and she looks spectacular. Standing up on her tippy toes, arching her back ever so sightly backwards hiding her (what I imagine to be) wonderful bum. Best of all though, she’s got perfectly sized breasts totally to my taste, or at the very least, my tastes at the moment. They’re definitely not too big and seem totally suited to her body type. Way to go Max Factory!

The stats on Seena are once again 1/7th scale, wonder what it is with Seena and 1/7th scale figures. She’s 23.5 cm tall, has an MSRP of ¥6,800 / $79 CAD, and wont be released until JULY! I hate waiting. This is also the first figure sculptor Nanako has done according to MFC’s database, and it looks like a great first. She can be had from AmiAmi for 19% off MSRP, or ¥5,150 / $60 CAD.

More Info.

This is the other Horo I ordered by Gobal as mentioned in the previous, Horo (A Rest in the Forest Ver.). Like the other she’s probably not worth her price, but I’ve given in anyway.

Crazy morning it’s been. After seeing the email about Horo (A Rest in the Forest Ver.) pop into my inbox, I also noticed that Global’s other Horo figure was scheduled for re-release this month. So being in a delusional not quite awake Horo purchasing state of mind, I ordered both figures.

I’d avoided this figure in the past due to quality concerns and really those concerns are still there, and I don’t expect the figure to really be super great, and definitely not worth ¥10,680 / $124 CAD. But I am a devote Horo-ist and it got the best of my wallet this morning. Horo here is 1/7th scale, 20 cm from head to foot and has an MSRP of ¥12,000 / $140 CAD, the price stated previously is AmiAmi’s 10% discounted price.

I look forward to the figure arriving, because I do think it’ll be a nice addition to the collection, I just don’t understand why cold cast figures tend to cost a good portion more money, and don’t seem a good portion better than their PVC counterparts.

More Info.

It’s safe to say I’m crazy, really it is. Because this figure is mad expensive and admittedly doesn’t look to be worth it, yet despite that, I’ve ordered it, along with another crazily priced Horo figure, also by Global.

During all the commotion with Wonder Festival 2010 Winter there was  a single picture taken of a Horo garage kit that got posted as a figure on MyFigureCollection.net. Having subscribed to any addition of a character named “Holo” to MFC’s database I was immediately emailed upon the inclusion of this figure. Immediately I loved this figure, it was unpainted but put Horo in yet another believable and casual pose just like Volks’ Horo. To top it off, it was Horo in a ponytail, just like one of my favourite pictures of Horo. In fact, this figure is based off this favourite picture of mine, which of course added to my desire to own it.

Having assumed that since this figure was so obscure I’d have no chance of ever owning it in addition to the fact it was a garage kit there’d be little point in me trying anyway, since I can’t paint. Fast forward to this morning, I wake up and see an email in my inbox with the subject line “New Figure” which can only mean one of two things, either it’s a new Horo figure, or a new Tohsaka Rin figure. Immediately I thought Horo because that’s who I’m always thinking about, and sure enough “A figure of Holo has recently been added http://myfigurecollection.net/figure/30106“.

So, as the link states, Horo will be 1/7th scale and measure 22 cm tall. She’ll be a limited run and very limited at that, 100 pieces total. So at this point I’m not entirely sure I’ve even managed to get one, though I’ve definitely already put my order in. The kicker though on that page is really just one of the stats, price. This here Horo’s MSRP is a whopping ¥18,000 / $211 CAD! However the actual resale price is somewhat lower, for example AmiAmi where I ordered her from has her listed as 10% off. But still by far the most expensive figure I’ve ever ordered to date.  I’m sure you’re screaming at the monitor now saying “Aka! That’s crazy! She’s not worth ¥18,000!!” and… well you’re probably right.

But taking into account the facts stated above, this was never going to go down in my wallets favour. A Horo figure^[1] made in the image of my favourite Horo illustration^[2] that’s limited to 100 pieces total^[3]… There’s no resisting that for a Horo fanatic, so sorry Aka’s Wallet but you lose this round.

Some observations about the production figure vs the garage kit. It looks as though Horo’s head is turned more in the garage kit than the production version, additionally it also looks like her tail is bigger in the production run. I don’t suspect the tail is actually any bigger though, it’s likely just an optical illusion. Seems the production run is closer to the picture than that of the garage kit, which is a good thing. Neither has Ayakura Juu’s Horo face though, but admittedly that would look strange in 3D.

This figure definitely has the worst name of any figure I’ve ever purchased. Either it’s PSE Product*01 or CDB Chair, neither of which mean much of anything to me. The only thing that really matters here though is Range Murata the artist behind this figure (though likely not the sculptor).

CDB Chair doesn’t have much back-story or character, so I guess there’s not much I can be wrong about in this paragraph. The figure comes from an illustration by Range Murata in one of his art books titled “Form Code”, his 3rd art book. The art book it self is somewhat unique in design, just like most of Range’s works, it’s more a binder full of illustrations and pull out posters than it is a book. While I would love to grab a copy of this gorgeous looking art binder, the prices I’ve seen on eBay make it prohibitively expensive, so for once buying the figure was the cheaper route. I wont go any further into Range’s works than this, but he definitely has a unique style all his own. If you’d like more info Wikipedia is always helpful though limited in this case, more ‘help’ can be found at moe.imouto and danbooru, though beware, those sites are not safe for work.

The details on this little figure are few, but here they are. CDB Chair is a 1/10th scale figure which like most scales always slips my mind as I seem to assume 1/8th with everything. When she arrived I was surprised to find she was the size of a figma, perhaps slightly smaller even. Her original MSRP was ¥6,800 / $65 CAD though I picked her up for $63 CAD for an open box. I thought I’d ordered an unopened box, but after receiving it was obvious she’d been opened before as there was cut tape everywhere with new tape applied over top. I re-checked the listing and no where did it mention it was unopened, so it was a poor assumption on my part. CDB Chair was released back in June of 2008, and she has an alternate paint scheme limited edition as well. Both are about 10 cm tall and about 13cm in length.

My reason for purchasing CDB Chair… ok from here on out she will be referred to as Becky for no other reason than CDB Chair is a terrible name. Moving on, my reason for purchasing Becky can be wholy attributed to one ’super rats’ from Happy Soda. Before seeing the pictures of Becky on his site I’m not even sure I knew this little figure existed let alone any thoughts of purchase. So I send my thanks to ’super rats’ because Becky really is quite fun to photograph. Had I more time I think I would have tried to do something more interesting than I did.

Overall Becky’s a fairly well done figure. Her paintwork is above average with quite few flaws in it’s workmanship. A little over-paint here and maybe a speck there, it’s quite acceptably done given the various small places one’s required to paint. Becky’s skin tones give a nice lively feel to her, though from some angles it’s fairly obvious that her tummy differs from the rest of her. Lets just say she hasn’t tanned in a bikini.

Becky’s sculpt is pretty well done but I do have some issues. All down her side there’s a visible seam, while not apparent in the photos nor at a casual glance, it was visible during the photo-shoot and kind of disappointed me as I’d thought she was very good up to that point. The other issues I have has to do with some design choices made for the sculpt. The first of which is Beagle’s choice to re-design Becky’s head and re-angle it vs the original artwork, perhaps she would have looked strange in 3 dimensions with Range Murata’s original work, I’m not sure but it is an annoyance. The second has to do with Becky’s head, Beagle has decided to flatten the back of it and add a ridge so that her head fits the corner in the chair. This caused issue during the photo-shoot as when I moved her, she would rise up on to it, and you’d have this terrible look as if the back of her head was cut clean off, it was disturbing.

The chair on which Becky is situated is actually quite a neat little base. You can throw this chair into a number of different situations and it fits in just fine. I think it’s the only base I have that works well with other figures and figmas, yet it’s so simple in appearance. Taking a closer look you can see there are a few details that really add to the realism of it, such as the legs, the tiny screws, and it’s metallic finish. Pretty superb little base I really like it.

Before concluding the review I’d like to point out a few flaws on the figure that I feel can be attributed to the previous persons wear rather than production of the figure originally. If you look in this picture of the front side of the chair, you can see some scuff marking in the bottom left on the orange. Additionally in that picture you can see some marking or scratches on the silver metallic area near Becky’s arm. There are also some very very minor lines through Becky’s face that maybe could be due to production, though I’m unsure. They’re totally invisible though unless using the macro lens.

While I wish Becky was in the usual 1/8th scale form factor, it’s pretty neat that she’s nearly the exact size of a figma thus making her chair a useful prop for potential future ideas. Overall I’m quite happy with the figure, though mildly disappointed in some ways as well.  Becky seems to fit in nicely (despite her size) with the rest of my unique base figures, and I look forward to more figures that make use of props or diorama like bases. Disks are getting old real fast these days.

That’s not really a chair is it… bench? couch? Whatever…

-Aka

Scoring

Sculpting: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Painting: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Pose: 4 out of 5 stars
Cost: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Satisfaction: 4 out of 5 stars

Overall: 3.7 out of 5 stars

Note: More pictures, Gallery and Drossel fun on Page 2. Enjoy!

As of February 24th, 2010 @ 8:34 Eastern Standard Time OMGWebsite is exactly a year old! Somewhat surprising for myself considering the reason I started the site was really just to rag on a single figure producer.

Originally OMGWebsite had no plan whatsoever, and well, it still doesn’t but it does have a general direction I suppose. Originally I’d just got angry and decided to voice my opinion to the world, in what I think was a pretty level headed post about TAKI Corp’s Horo figure and how they pretty much ruined my beloved character. Oddly though since that post I’ve started to hate Cospa’s Horo more than TAKI’s just due to Cospa’s Horo’s face sucking so terribly where I feel TAKI Corps somewhat resembles Horo still. I personally find it amazing that I continued to even collect figures after purchasing TAKI Corp’s Horo as my first ever figure.

Since the begining there’s been 133 posts on OMGWebsite, 44 of which are figure reviews. Which I find pretty amazing considering the fact that when OMGWebsite started, I only owned 7! I now have in my possession 55 figures displayed in 4 IKEA Billy Bookcase cabinets with an additional 16 figures on the way over the coming months. And that’s just the pre-orders, it doesn’t include any impulse purchasing that’s yet to come. My collection has exploded over the past year, receiving 5 figures in all of 2008, 39 in 2009, and already 10 in 2010! Just how many will I buy this year?!

But that’s not all OMGWebsite has been about this past year, from time to time I’ve posted about various other things, in fact, in the very beginning before I saw a real purpose to the site, I wrote very random posts about rather unrelated topics which spawned the subtitle for the site “Whatever I want to talk about”.

One such post is a very popular post about Edward Burtynsky. It seems the main appeal of this post is the pictures contained with in, likely due to the fact I searched long and hard for the best copies of each picture. I often wonder if I’ll be asked to remove them at times, as they’re not mine, nor do I claim them to be, but I never asked permission to use them. Re-reading it, it seems I might have been a better writer a year ago than I am today, maybe it was the content I was talking about, I was totally into it.

Other posts include one about the Barenaked Ladies breaking up, followed by another, a U2 Concert, blink-182 concert, annoyances with Yen Press and posts about my car and cars in general.

The BNL break up was pretty shocking to me since I’d been listening to them a very sizable portion of my life. From If I Had $1000000 in 1993 through One Week in 1998 when I even wrote a (bad) paper for school on, right up until Peterborough and the Kawarthas off their Barenaked Ladies are Me CD. It’s a shame I never got to see them in concert together, maybe the reunion tour when or if there ever is one.

Some other interesting tidbits about OMGWebsite…

• 40,708 visitors since February 24th, 2009
• 23,905 of those were unique
• 378,293 pages were loaded
• 1,809,811 hits
• 39.8 GB of traffic
• Currently averaging 276.4 visitors per day
• Overall average 111.53 visitors per day.
• 800 comments
• 1,923 spam comments
• 370 tags

Often times there are things I want to comment on but don’t seem to merit an entire post about them. I’ve found Twitter to actually be useful in this regard, not only posting small thoughts on things quickly but also seeing and reading what others think about it quickly. Since signing up there in November 2009 I’ve ‘tweeted’ 269 times and gained a modest following of 23 users who’ve not only helped promote OMGWebsite but also given me some interesting feedback. I’ve seen an obvious bump in traffic since joining Twitter as well, I suspect I can attribute  a good portion of this to @animefigures as he works as a scripted aggregator of figure content and news of which I’m included in.

Some of you may have recognized the title picture for this post from other places such as MyFigureCollection.Net as well as Flickr, others may not have known I even had accounts in these places. I don’t post in these places often, but I tend to use them a little like how I use Twitter for items that don’t really deserve an entire post, or at least I don’t think they do. But keep an eye out in these places for additional content that may get uploaded from time to time.

All in all it’s been an interesting experience attempting to update a website weekly with new self produced content. Having never done that in the past, always just commented on others works and ideas, producing my own content was a new challenge that I think I’ve managed fairly decently, but there’s obvious room for improvement. I’m not where I want to be with my photography, and while I’ve definitely advanced since a year ago with the simple shots I take there’s still plenty of room for improvement with creativity, something I lack too often. Hopefully in the coming year I’ll be able to improve this aspect of the site, or at the very least introduce a new lens to my camera body that would allow me greater range than I currently possess.

To another year of collecting and posting!

Cheers!

-Aka

PS: Wish Tier over at Tentacle Armada a Happy Birthday as well as they just turned 1 yesterday!

Last week I finally decided that it was time for more space as my desk was getting awfully crowded. My first cabinet had long filled up and I’d amassed a total of 19 figures taking up it’s valuable real estate. It was time for more space, much more space.

I bought an IKEA Billy Bookcase corner system which consists of 2 single width Billy Bookcase’s and a double width, all with glass doors and shelves, except the corner piece. Hopefully with this I can last a while longer before my desk repopulates itself and I’m forced to find new options for figure storage, as I rapidly run out of space in this room of mine. Unfortunately I forgot to take before shots, but I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway.

I decided to go a different route than my original setup where I used halogen lights to light up the cabinet. This worked great for light but there was a small oversight on my part, heat. Obviously halogen lights get enormously hot, and I really would rather not melt all my figures so I rarely turned these lights on. Having been able to live  half a year without turning the lights on, I decided I probably didn’t need to light the cabinets up for viewing, I have a ceiling light after all. So I opted for some fun lighting I can leave on all the time for a nice effect, IKEA Dioders. They let you select I believe 7 different colours, or have it rotate through automatically and with smooth transitions, that’s the setting I used. They’re not cheap though at a goatse-like ass tearing cost of $80/set CAD x3 they made up a very sizable portion of the overall cost. IKEA prices in Canada aren’t very comparable to those in the US, the same lights in the US cost $50 USD which works out to $52 CAD, a $28 difference and over half the US price. Bit of a ripoff, yet I bought them anyway…

Some of you keen observers probably would have questioned this next point so I’ll just say it first. Yes that’s a door behind my desk, and yes there’s a light on. I forgot to turn the light off when taking the picture and it annoys me to no end. That door does indeed go somewhere useful, however there’s an alternate door into that room from the hallway so it’s an unneeded door that also was wasting space. No longer does it waste space, just appears odd. I’ll probably put a poster over it in the future to hide it more.

-Aka

Some useless stats:

• 103 separate pieces of wood/fake wood
  • 12 unused
• 12 additional glass shelves to replace original wooden shelves
• 324 Screws and fasteners
  • 54 unused
• 12 pieces of double-sided tape
  • 10 unused
• 12 lights w/ 3 controllers and power units
• 4 glass doors
• Total of 470 pieces
• 52 squirts of Windex
• 10 drilled holes
• 2.9 m² of shelving space (31.22 sq-ft)
• Combined weight 174.6 kg (385 lbs)
  • Unused weight 16.8 kg (37 lbs)
• 2 screw ups (1, 2)

This Sunday a couple of friends and I decided to head to the Toronto Auto Show to check out the latest and greatest cars available over the course of the year. It’s become an annual event amongst my friends, even eating at the same restaurant each year after the show. Ordering the same meals even.

The Show

This year the auto show was a bit different from past years, in fact, all past years since I remember going, which goes way back to when my age could be represented by a single digit. This year they did NOT have cars located in the Skydome, instead only the North and South buildings of the Metro Toronto Convention Center, making the show considerably smaller than in the past. Yet they still charged the same amount of money for entrance to the event, $20. I feel it should have been 1/3 less money for 1/3 less show.

Because the show was smaller, each manufacturer was of course given less space to showcase their models. Floor space at the Toronto Autoshow is given based on market share in Canada, the bigger your market share the more area you’re able to use. This always means the domestic companies get quite large exibits, along with Honda and Toyota. This isn’t a problem and one expects this, however this year with the smaller overall floor space, it meant that the manufacturers without a large market share were pushed into even smaller areas. This caused my friends and I to miss out on a number of manufacturers.

It’s somewhat surprising the list of manufacturers we missed out on, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen and Volvo. Aston Martin, Bentley and Porsche just weren’t here this year, though some Porsches were on display in the PFAFF Porsche tuning feature area. Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo were all along the same section of the floor next to 2 big domestic manufacturers, GM and Chrysler causing us to pretty much ignore them due to ignoring most of GM and Chrysler. That was a disappointment because while Audi’s and BMWs are nice to check out, I was hoping to check out a Volkswagen Jetta or Golf because of future plans to buy one, but ended up forgetting due to just not coming across them in our meander through the displays.

One last little point about the show itself, it wasn’t that busy. Normally opening weekend, which this was would be packed, and given the smaller overall size of the show, one would expect it to be even more crowded, but it wasn’t. Not a popular show this year it seems, I guess that speaks for the market right now.

The Bad

Domestic cars. They honestly just suck. There isn’t a single Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep product I would buy over another manufacturers, but if I was forced to buy a Chrysler product, I guess the only cars would be a Dodge Challenger SRT or a Viper. General Motors follows the same path as far as I’m concerned, they don’t even have confidence in their cars. If you go to their website, they have only one shot of the front of the Chevy Malibu, and 3 ass shots, is there something wrong with the front of the car? The only GM cars I want are again performance oriented, either a Corvette or a Cadillac CTS-V because they’re solid performers in the series in which they race.

The Good

Ford moves away from the two failures above in a few ways. They’ve always made pretty decent cars in Europe, and I’ve always been envious of the cars they make for the European market and wonders why they so rarely brought them here. In fact, the last car I really liked from Ford was the Ford Focus, a car originally made for the European market years before it made it here. That car was inexpensive, lasted forever no matter how much I beat on it, and was just a fun car to drive. It wasn’t fast, but it was hellafun. Ford’s finally doing the same thing again and bringing over their cars from Europe for the North American market. This year with the Ford Fiesta, and 2012 with the new Ford Focus.

The Ford Fiesta has some great styling for a little car and really helps make you feel you’re not buying a cheap car, just a small car. I’d heard many great things about the car from reviews in Europe and kept hoping they’d bring the car over here so I could take a look-see myself. Having seen one in person I’m a little disappointed. Part of this is because Ford isn’t bringing the the slick looking 2-door hatchback over, and part of it is because the interior really didn’t live up to expectations. I was expecting more foot room in the rear, and a bit more quality given it’s European origins. However, comparing prices, the car does start for $6,000 CAD less in the North American market than the UK. Some other differences between US and UK models, US only offers one gasoline engine, UK model offers a gasoline or a diesel option. Diesel isn’t a popular option in North America, but I still think they should offer it. Diesel’s aren’t the black smoke spewing cars of the past, they’re much cleaner now.

That said, Ford still fails with the rest of their North American produced line up. I sat in a Ford Escape which is not a vehicle I’m very interested in, I dislike nearly all SUVs, and sitting in that vehicle really solidified that dislike. About the only good thing was the height of entry into the truck, it was easy enough to get in and out of. But everything else was just either ugly, confusing, or cheap looking. The center dash for example had way too many pointless buttons separated into odd groups that made for a busy and ugly dash that would be terrible to operate while driving. Another good example of poor quality or cheap feel would be the center console of the Escape. The truck featured at the auto show had this very very cheap feeling and looking black gloss plastic, the kind of plastic you might find on an arcade machine. I could go on, like with how the fact the Ford Taurus SHO w/ AWD costs $60,000, or how it and the Lincoln MKZ seem to be the exact same car, but lets remember the good, Fiesta and Focus.

The Great

Ford deciding to bring the Euro styled Focus back to replace the awkward and ugly US model was perhaps one of the smartest things they’ve done in recent memory. I’m sure Ford will still manage to mess up some key features but for now, the 2012 Ford Focus looks amazing, definitely a hot hatch as they call them in the UK. My question though, why 2012? Hurry the hell up, the current Focus is embarrassing. I’m curious what engine choices Ford will give for this car, if there will just be one option like the Fiesta, or if they’ll have a few options. I would hope they have a few, like an eco-friendly engine, normal engine, and a performance oriented model. Ideally Ford would bring over the 301 hp Focus RS, but I doubt that’ll ever happen.

Another great little car making it’s way over from Europe is the Fiat 500. As Wikipedia claims, Fiat and Chrysler formed a partnership in which Fiat received a 35% share of Chrysler as well as gained access to their North American dealer network in exchange for providing Chrysler with the platform to build smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles in the US as well as Fiats dealer network in Europe. This all of course means that Fiat 500s should start showing up in North American showrooms! This quirky little car looks great and should likely compete with the Mini Cooper. But what’s really cool is they’re bringing the Abarth version over as well, which while having a defecit of power to the Mini Cooper S, I suppose will be competing with it. Hopefully they also bring the Abarth SS as it has more horsepower, but we never get the cool cars.

Good to Know

Over the course of the auto show I learned a little fact that I didn’t know previously. The fuel economy ratings in Canada differ from those in the United States when using MPG. This is because in Canada not only do we require the testing to be performed differently than the United States, but we also use the Imperial Gallon instead of the US Gallon. This explained a lot of my incredulous looks at the auto show when seeing the claimed mpg on many vehicles. It became apparent that the best way to compare in the future is to use the metric standard of L/100 km since that’s the same everywhere and would only differ based on testing conditions. Initially before knowing this, I thought that the Porsche Cayenne Turbo was getting better fuel economy than my little 2.0L Saab 9-2X Aero, but thankfully it doesn’t. However it is terribly close at 26 mpg (Imp.Gal) vs my 31 mpg (Imp.Gal) (when my car was stock-tuned). It’s for this reason I’d like to buy a diesel Volkswagen, or even a gas Volkswagen, they’re so much better on their economy. A good example I recall from last years auto show, I believe it was the Jetta TSI that they race in a Jetta only series. This car managed to get 25 mpg (Imp.Gal) in race conditions! When I drive my car hard I get a measly 19 mpg (Imp.Gal) on my stock-tune, yet to figure out how poor it is with my current, but it’s not going to be any better.

theend

So to conclude, the Toronto Auto Show this year was pretty poor and pretty small. I find it sad that the cars I talked about most with friends weren’t Ferraris, or Lamborghinis, or Aston Martins, or even little sports cars. Instead they were econoboxes from Europe. Perhaps my friends and I are getting old and are losing our edge, but I’d like to think it’s just the state of the auto industry for the time being, and that next year we’ll have something interesting to talk about. Maybe Toyota’s new coupe will be out, with it’s Subaru boxer engine and RWD. Who knows, but surely next year can’t be as boring a show as this years was.

-Aka

PS: Normally I’d take tons of pictures of my own at the show, but opted not to this year due to boringness.

Buying Maria was a test of SEGA’s quality and what could be had at such a low price point. At a cost of $17 CAD I was able to pick up this figure, but what was one to expect at this price?

Maria is from the Manga and Anime series titled Hayate no Gotoku, or Hayate the Combat Butler. She along side Ayasaki Hayate work to take care of Sanzenin Nagi, the only heir to the Sanzenin fortune. Maria has no last name in the series, due to her backstory and spoiler spoiler spoiler. Maria’s probably the most normal character in the series, or at least has the most common sense, she’s very intelligent and has a more womanly appearance than most characters, though she’s only 17 years old. She often acts like a surrogate older sister or mother to Nagi as her real mother passed away. But all that aside, Maria is my favourite character in the series.

SEGA has produced the 2nd only Maria PVC figure, after Jun Planning’s. This forced me into a bit of a corner, both companies aren’t great quality, but who’s do I buy, since I wanted a Maria figure. I recalled Rico from PolyVinyl Crush mentioning that SEGA wasn’t terrible but not to expect Alter or Good Smile Company quality of course. Given the price point of both I decided to gamble on SEGAs because she was cheaper, and I could throw her in with another shipment from Hobby Link Japan, saving additional money on shipping. Maria’s about 18cm tall which probably puts this in around the 1/9th scale, but she’s a non-scale figure.

I must say SEGA’s quality has surprised me, it’s surprisingly good. At first I was telling myself that it’s nearly Kotobukiya quality for 20% of the price, but that’s a bit much. She doesn’t have the fit and finish of Kotobukiya and not even the paint quality which I always find mediocre. But for the $17 she’s excellent quality.

The sculpt is fairly simple admittedly, but represents Maria quite well. I love the way her hips are thrown to her right exaggerating her figure and giving her a certain sexiness. Her hair is cutely sculpted with it clipped up at the back and the tilt of her head is quite cute. The detail is fairly uniform all around the figure, enough there to be happy with, but could of course use more. Her cat ears and tail are quite cute as well, but those are nearly always cute, no matter how they’re sculpted.

Having the price point she does, it’s fully expected she wont be perfect, but the list of faults is quite short really, all things considered. There’s some paint in areas where it really shouldn’t be, such as the right side of her apron on her hips, there’s a blue colour there that really shouldn’t be there. Same with the left side. She’s also got some shiny marks here and there, but they’re really not that noticeable. And lastly there’s what looks like a bristle from a brush under the paint on her left side in the tie hugging the apron around her.

All things considered I’m quite impressed with her. She’s sculpted enough to be Maria and painted well enough to be Maria, she’s cute enough to be Maria. And all at 20% of the cost of all the top Manufacturers. It’s really making me reconsider some items I’ve got on order and their costs. Are they really worth so much more than SEGAs efforts, or am I getting ripped off on them. But I think in the end what matters is more that I enjoy what I’m receiving, and if I can enjoy an item I spent $100 on or an item I spent $20 on, so be it.

MMmmmm Maria

-Aka

Scoring

Sculpting: 3 out of 5 stars
Painting: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Pose: 3 out of 5 stars
Cost: 5 out of 5 stars
Satisfaction: 4 out of 5 stars

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Gallery