Japan has too much of my money

The majority of my model kit building comes during the school vacations. There's not as much time during the school year to actually put effort into stuff, other than for the odd 1/144 kits like the Gundam 00 stuff.

Kits that'll be coming once exams and papers are done:



I won a HGUC NT-1 Gundam "Alex" in an eBay auction. Someone with "neither the time nor interest" was getting rid of some stuff he never built. Despite being in this business for awhile, I never quite got to the one Mobile Suit that actually bears my name. I don't know what the lore is behind nicknaming the Gundam "Alex", but it'll help set the stage for the HGUC Kaempfer I plan on getting next year.



I primarily consider myself a 1/100 Master Grade collector, but those kits usually only come after holidays or major windfalls given the amount of effort you have to put into it in order to come up with something that looks decent. The Unicorn Gundam is one I'm way excited about, due to being able to transform it between Under and Destroy modes. It's a Katoki-style kit which means it comes with sheets and sheets of tiny little "Warning: If you can read this, a giant robot is about to step on you" decals, but I'll be eschewing them to go with a more true-to-the-animation look.



And of course, getting the Unicorn, I have to get its nemesis, the Sinanju. I'm really looking forward to this one. It's huge, has oversized weapons, and its a fantastic design. Not sure what I'm going to do with all the gold trim though. I feel silly using all of the little stickers for them, but I don't know if I trust my painting skills enough to bust out the Leaf Gold Paint.

And finally, there's a mystery project, the identity of which is unknown even to me! Fun stuff.

It's that time again, folks!

Happy Friday everybody! It's that time again! That time when any old expression of anger just won't do! You need something with muscle!

That's right! It's a Fuck You Friday!

So fuck you, UWM website! When you decided to enter the digital age, did you set out to create the most ridiculously user-unfriendly website you could design? Or did it just sort of happen? Because I know I use Google when I want to get somewhere on your site rather than have to navigate your silly page organization! You're like the goddamn Winchester House given digital form with your hyperlinks that go to nowhere, your inability to "remember me" and your constantly shifting page content.

Fuck you, Borders bigwigs! Nice going with the slashing holiday payroll at the last minute! I appreciate that you're trying everything and anything to get us out of the red, but cutting hours during the fourth quarter of the retail year is not how to do it!

Fuck you, Straight No Chaser! I don't like the way you sound, I don't like your stupid remixes of holiday classics like "Jingle Bells", and I don't like hearing the entirety of your album over and over again at work because our "random track" button is busted.

Fuck you, guy who cut me off on the way home tonight! Apparently, you were in too much of a hurry to check your rear-view and were just willing to risk hitting another car so you could get out from behind the kinda-slow minivan in front of you. I guess I should be thankful that I have the reflexes to slam on the breaks, even if I lack the ones to slam on my horn to alert other drivers that I am not amused.

Blow off the dust and take ol' Fuck You! for a spin. You'll be surprised by how much emotion you can load into those two words!

So take care everyone, and remember - fuck you.

High Grade Universal Century: FA-93HWS Nu Gundam HWS

Char's Counterattack features the final climactic battle between Amuro Ray and his nemesis Char Aznable. For the movie, they both get souped-up mobile suits featuring the new Psychoframes which assist in piloting the machines, using the pilot's brainwaves alone. Char gets the Sazabi, while Amuro pilots the v Gundam. The heavy armor only made it to the blueprint stage and was never actually built, though it is represented here in the High Grade Universal Century 1/144 scale line.



These pictures are from before I moved out, when I had access to a decent camera, so the model pictured here is all me. The box is a sizable one, given that it has to house 12 runners, putting it on par with many Master Grade scale kits. Build time was somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours and a little bit more time for painting. Only stickers I used were the eyes and the insignias, painted all the other details myself.



The instructions don't tell you so, but all the pieces are included, allowing you to switch between the normal Gundam and the Heavy Weapons System version fairly easily. The kit has pretty good balance in spite of the Fin Funnels hanging off of its back.



Articulation is par for the course when it comes to HGUC. Any additional articulation would compromise stability and its ability to hold up the larger weapons.



And speaking of weapons, it comes with a lot of them. It's just loaded with accessories (a definite plus), including the armor parts, six Fin Funnels, one Beam Rifle, one Heavy Beam Rifle, one shield, one heavy shield, two different Beam Sabers, and the Bazooka.





Comparison shots with its Master Grade incarnation and with its rival, Sazabi, in the same scale, respectively. The smaller one is the High Grade Universal Century kit, which has, on the whole, much more pleasing proportions than the taller Master Grade, especially in the chest and legs. The High Grade version is much more dynamic-looking. The Sazabi was constructed to be much taller than competing mobile suits, and this is reflected with the two figures here.



Snap on a few pieces, swap a few others and you have the v Gundam HWS, a much bulkier suit. The armor hinders articulation a little bit, but not horribly so. Despite Bandai's best efforts, the Heavy Shield/Rocket Launcher is way heavy and the arm holding it will start sagging pretty quickly with the weight. The Heavy Beam Rifle is still heavy, but not to the same degree.



Looks like a bit more of an formidable opponent for Sazabi with the armor on. Shame Amuro never actually used this configuration in the animation.



Overall, definitely the best kit of the v Gundam that's out there right now. It can be had for a fairly reasonable price, though I paid probably more than is justified only because I wanted to get it right after it was released in Japan and was willing to put up with extra import fees.

The more pictures I have available, the more I can write about. :D

"We'd have a funny story to tell people, at least." "Yeah, unless we DIE."

Thanksgiving was boring. Like usual. Moving on.

In my three holiday seasons of working retail, this was definitely the lamest post-Thanksgiving weekend I've worked. Black Friday was pretty tame, namely because we at the bookstore didn't have anything really interesting to sell and something something economy.

Not even a single customer trampled to death. Not much in the way of craziness, though I did get to utter the sentence, "Yes, sometimes books do have pictures in them, and yes, the price is clearly printed on the back" to some lady over the phone. And yes, I did get the guy who angrily snapped at me for answering his question with the phrase "pretty much". He had only asked if the price on the sticker was the same as the price printed on the jacket. Ask a stupid question.

But that's actually a disappointing turnout, because I know for a fact that the good people of Fox Point, Wisconsin can crank the crazy up to 11 when they want to.



OH HEY GUESS WHAT. I figured out how to make the Description line up at the top of the blog display random phrases! Go ahead, hit Refresh and try it! SHUT UP THIS IS AWESOME.

I think I'm-a gonna go make dinner.

People who are not us are generally terrible people

There is no better way to spend an evening than to be furiously and relentlessly judging every single awful person that walks into Five Guys Burgers. Especially when you and your roommate have already ordered and eaten half an hour ago and have naught to do but eat the free peanuts and watch people until House comes on.

(House was excellent, by the way.)

(Like it's ever not)

(Has anyone ever bought a Hot Dog from Five Guys anyway? Why would you?)

(Parentheses)

Things I hate: People who hold the door open for you when you're still like a mile away from the door. You're suddenly obligated to pick up the pace and get through the door so you can stop wasting their time. They thought they'd be nice to you, but they didn't realize that you were so far behind so pick up your fat butt and get over here already.

The Road is supposed to be out today, which is the 25th, despite what this entry's timestamp will tell you. But it's not. Neither of the theaters within walking distance are showing it, even though they totally had posters up for it for the last month. And if movietickets.com is to be believed, not a single theater within 40 goddamn miles is showing it. How long do I need to wait before seeing Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece on the big screen by way of Viggo Mortensen acting like a crazed hobo?

On the subject of books, Zadie Smith has a book of essays out and I kinda want it. Even though I'm not much of an essay reader. The author is way awesome, though, so maybe I'll borrow it from work.

Aaaand Josh just left with his parents for Thanksgiving festivities. Cody has already left for work and will be heading straight for home as well. This leaves me alone in my apartment with very little to do until tomorrow morning when I head home for my own family's Thanksgiving, something that is a fairly minor affair in the Butschli household.

I don't even like turkey.

I shall use it to recharge my powers in preparation for the impending Blackest of Fridays and the following Saturday of the Damned, which I'm sure will provide endless material for later postings.

I am just the worst

In class today, I was the only one in my small group, a small group otherwise made up entirely of young college girls mind you, who knew that the werewolf in Twilight is named Jacob and is supposed to be Native American. They're supposed to be the Twilight experts here, not me! Clearly Borders, pimp of all things vampire-related has poisoned me and all of my friends must stay away. The disease is already inside me.

So, Facebook. The wonders of technology. It's at the point where all you could conceivably need are a face and a place where they frequent (like, say, UWM) and bam. If you're willing to do a little digging, you can learn their name, birthday, dating status, and whether or not they think The Dark Knight is a pretty good movie. We are this close from having an iPhone app that allows you to take a picture and it will then automatically search the internet for data on any object or person that appears in the frame, turning your phone into what is basically Boba Fett's helmet. Or the Eden of the East system.

It strikes me as a good thing that apparently Facebook and iPhones do not exist in the Death Note world, because Kira could just as easily have Googled all of his opponents and not gone through with all the Xanatos Gambits to learn their names. I was able to do it with just a login onto Facebook. Fortunately, I do not have a Death Note, just a mildly creepy tendency towards e-stalking.

House was pretty great, and I can't say I'm terribly sad over Cameron leaving. I'm annoyed that they got her married only to write her out eight episodes later, but I'll get over that. Taub and Thirteen are back, who sort of cancel each other out, so we'll see where the new and improved team goes.

Heroes? Matt trying to get himself killed in order to kill Sylar is probably one of the more badass and heroic things he's done, given his past moral ambiguity. And the trend of characters having IQs inversely proportional to the strength of the power they currently have or are pursuing is maintained.

It's rude, it's unprofessional, and worst of all, he's neglected to introduce me!

Borders? Not a decent substitute for a singles club. In case you were wondering.

Apparently hiring out family/friends/hobos off the street to assist with the dishes for you has become a matter of course in the Butschli-Zentner-Dhein household. Perhaps next I'll go out and get help when it comes time to do the laundry.

This time could be used to study for the impending Intercultural Communications exam, but there is slightly more appeal in complaining to the Internet (mostly Facebook, which is a territory of the Internet).

I really like my British Literature class, and I really like the instructor, but she changes her mind far too much. I was doing decently well with Jean Rhys's Good Morning, Midnight, but then she up and decides that we're going to read Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust instead. I do not actually possess that novel, and my adventures between yesterday and today have failed to yield it.

Between the UWM Library, Boswell Books down the street, the Shorewood Public Library which I don't have a library card for, Downtown Books (which is otherwise an amazing place), and the East Milwaukee Public Library which I don't have a card for either, there is not a single copy of A Handful of Dust available. And there's no way I'm going down to work to buy it.

Please.

So I'm going into class armed with nothing but Wikipedia (and maybe Sparknotes, if I'm feeling dedicated enough). Wonderful.

On the Season DVD Box Set that is my life, you could probably safely skip this episode. Three stars, at best. Really just filler.