Pilot's Log

I guess I need to post a thought or two here.

Suruga-Ya's website appears to be back the way it was so my habit of scrolling and looking over their wares has resumed.  So much stupf lust.

A very long time ago, I received a bunch of built-up 1/72 airplane models--including FIVE F4U Corsairs.  (One Airfix, two Heller [now SMER] and two old-production Revell, to be specific.)  They were all in bad shape and poorly built to begin with, so I stripped the paint off, carefully disassembled them and started looking for alternative parts.

My search is a little more serious now.

If High Planes did a detailling set for F4U-1(A), F4U-1D, F4U-1C and/or FG-1D, I'd be all over them.  As it is, I may just get some F4U-5N sets from them, "impossible variant" be darned.

FP

Looking through my archives here I realize that I've been a fan of Flames of War for almost ten years now but have only actually PLAYED it ONCE.  (It was a demo of Team Yankee last year, as you might recall.)

I'd love to put together an army, but I'm more in sticker shock than I am enthused.  That and I tend to think outside the limits of the rulebooks, if history gives me an excuse.

Last year in the After-Holidays Sales, I got a bunch of Phantom jets as "Air Support", and I'll give them a repaint soon.  But that "special ingredient" set what I want to do with the companies I want to build:

* U.S. Army Reserve/National Guard Company (I haven't decided on Armor, Airborne or Airmobile, but I wanted them to be less modern than the regular forces--still stuck with battle bowler helmets and Vietnam-era equipment.)

* French D.O.T. [Defense Ops, Territorial Army] Armored Car Company (Found this in an old publication.  A second-line, rapid reaction unit that would have been in action if the Warsaw Pact invaded the West.)

* Rest of the West Company (A scratch force of Dutch/Belgian/Luxembourger/Dane units.)

Tomatoes are a staple of Italian cuisine now, but there weren't any tomatoes in Europe until the 16th century, when Spanish explorers brought them from Central and South America. Likewise, Malaysia has become a major producer of rubber, but it had no rubber trees until seeds were smuggled out of Brazil in the 19th century. And bananas are currently a major crop in Ecuador thanks to 16th-century Portuguese sailors, who transported them from West Africa. I foresee the possibility of comparable cross-fertilizations happening for you in the coming months, Sagittarius. Do you have your eye on any remote resources you'd like to bring back home?

Mainly the Gundam model kits and Duel Company card sets I keep stupf-lusting over these days.  Need a job to pay for them, though.

I won a $50 gift card for Amazon.com in a sweepstakes over the weekend, and I'm looking forward to spending it.

Because of the event, I decided to look at a bunch of quasi-gift cards I received from car dealerships for GoShoppingMall.com and selectyourgifts.com (which are one and the same company!) that I've had for years.  They're still "good" because I hadn't "spent" them.

The business model of American Sales Industries is kind of hard to grasp.  You can't exactly buy direct from them like a normal retailer...you have to have been issued a prize card, usually from a car dealership sales event or some other such promotion.  The dollar amount shown on the card doesn't mean an actual cash value: it's quasi-credit for inflated prices on the catalog of items, whose actual retail value matches the "shipping and handling" fees, which the consumer has to pay out of pocket (the prize amount then only sets a limit on what you can buy, but doesn't go towards buying anything!).  So to actually get "$500" of use out of a prize card, you'd have to spend probably $50 to $100 of real money yourself.

So what's in the catalog?  Basically the same kind of stuff you find in the tourist-trap stores like Golden Eagle and Lily's...but not as many of them.  Steak knives.  Travel mugs.  Little tool sets you can keep in your car.  Chintzy jewelery and cheap watches. Tote bags and gunny sacks.  Obsolete electronics and software.

In theory, my "$1550" in collected quasi-credit would get me 38 of their RC model cars.  But I'd have to spend about $645 in real money for the shipping and handling.  That's why I haven't used the cards yet.