Fresh in my inbox to you is another update from Brian Savage of MasterCollector with regard to a new shipping option, particularly international members.

We have found another way to ship some product to our non-US customers at a lower cost and it has been implemented into the store. It is called Global Priority Mail. This service does have some limitations. The shipment must fit into a box that is no more than 36 inches by adding length girth height. Also, the order cannot be over 4 lbs.

For example a 1 lb package to the United Kingdom via surface mail is $24.25 and takes 4-6 weeks.

The same package via airmail is $16.75 and takes 7-10 days.

The same package via Global Priority is $10.50 and takes 4-6 days.

I know, it doesn’t seem to make much sense but that’s the USPS rates and delivry standards.

We hope that this lowers some of the foreign shipments costs. It won’t work for all orders as the items are tool large or the order will be 100 heavy. We think it will work for the bulk of your orders.

Make sure you check the store each week at transformersclub.com/shop to see what the new items in stock an the weekly specials!

Thanks for your support,

Brian
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[UPDATE:

Plesae note that in my last email I had a typo. The dimensions that limite this type of foreign mail is length + width (not girth) + height. This must be 36 inches or less. About 70-80 per cent of the products will fit into this area, but not all of them.

Its kinda funny how this email was a correction for a typo in the last email, yet the first word of this one has a typo in it too.
-CRAZY]

I want one. Like right now. But I don’t have the spare cash, and if I get a second job then I won’t have time to play it or anything else for that matter. Whats a gamer to do?
I’m going to try to gank one for free. After examining security and risk factors of my local Best Buy, I decided the safest way is to follow up on one of the billions of pop-up and banner ads telling me I can get one free or win one.
First things first, I made up a new gmail account just for email pertaining to these offers, surveys, and contests. I want this free, but I’m not going to flood my own inbox with new spam.
Next I just dropped “Free xbox 360” into google and clicked the first link. It asked me for simple information first like “Where should we ship your free gift?” and then asked me to check out some “great” offers. After clicking “No” to college degrees, cell phones, and diabetes treatments… i was taken to another page of offers. And a lot of them were repeats.
After turning down roughly 70 offers, I get to the meat of it. I have to complete 2 trials off a list before proceeding to the “shipping” phase. At this point, I finally go down to the disclaimer at the bottom. I must complete 2 trails now, with 4 more trials in the future in order to get to the 360. That doesn’t sound too bad, as long as I can cancel these when I’m done and still get my Xbox.
I’ll update later as I get closer and detail any time or actual dollars spent in pursuit of my reward.

By the way, within 20 minutes of starting I already had 3 spam messages in my new email.

According to TNI, Kaiyodo and Xebec are going to be reissuing the popular Eva series in metallic paint.
The listing they link to mentions die-cast in the description, but the originals were plastic/rubber with a two different paint schemes. One with traditional flat colors and another with metallic paints.

The 6 figures to be re-released are:

• Eva Unit 0 (Blue – Rei)
• Eva Unit 0 (Orange – Rei)
• Eva Unit 1 (Purple – Shinji)
• Eva Unit 2 (Red – Asuka)
• Eva Unit 3 (Black – Angel/Toji)
• Eva Unit 4 (Silver – Production model)

This is the tagline on a teaser pic posted at the website for IDW publishing. The picture is a shot of cybertron mostly in the dark but a strange red glow emanating from the back side of the planet. The word storm is in italics. Whether this means we’ll be seeing another unicron storyline based on the picture or a return to a Sunstorm story is anyone’s guess. We can only wait and see.

Gentle Giant is expanding their successful line of maquettes beyond the Clone Wars animated series. According to this announcement, with the addition of another Clone Wars character, classic characters from the original trilogy will also be added. The new maquettes will include Leia with Artoo, Darth Vader and Boba Fett. Each of these statues will be made in the same style as the Clone Wars animation. Between Padme and Leia, there looks to be plenty of fan service for the fans of the animated series.

I was busy all weekend and neglected to post the 20 dollat GOTW, and I’m just know figuring this new system out, so here we are.

After the original Devil may cry redefined action in 2001, capcom followed it up with a rather lackluster sequel in Devil may cry 2. In early 2005 however, the series returned to it’s roots in a major way with Devil May Cry 3, even being a prequel to the original game. Howevber, it ended up being overshadowed by several other titles that year, not the least of which being Capcom’s own Resident Evil 4. Thanks to SOny’s greatest hit’s banner, Capcom has given gamers another chance to check out one of the more slept-on games of 2005.As is the case with many greatest hits games as of late, this version adds in new special features not in the original, such as th eability to play as Vergil. Best of all, if you already have a save file from the original DMC 3, these features are unlocked automaticaly.

Another fantastic rap video from SNL, this time starring Natalie Portman.

Instant classic.

Not unlike Ferris Bueller, I spent my day off in Chicago having an unheard amount of fun with 2 of my friends (powet forum regulars TheOrange and Phil Bond).
First up was GameWorks.  Instead of tokens or quarters they use some weird card system that depending on the day will subtract either points or time after you swipe into your cabinet of choice. As advanced and cool as this sound, the system was DOWN when we arrived and so all we could do was stare at the Mario Kart arcade machine.  A helpful attendant gave a free play while we waited for the card system to be fixed and we sat down to enjoy some MK action.
The action was less than spectacular.  We were not impressed and realized we were missing nothing by not having a machine closer to home.
Then the card system was working again so we gave the game another go.  Wow.  What a difference.  After adjusting to the controls and weapons system a little bit we were having a great time.  We tried most of the tracks and the ultimate conclusion is if these tracks and weapons don’t make it into the Revolution Mario Kart it’ll be a shame.
Elsewhere in GameWorks, my friends tried Guitar Freaks, a precursor to the PS2 hit Guitar Hero.  This game actually did suck, as it lacked any licensed music and controlled a lot simpler.
We had to hop out of there and head for another arcade, Nickel City, for the Soul Calibur III regional tournament.  Powet forum regular Phil Bond has been in Soul Calibur tournaments for longer than the site has been around, and though Chicago hosts some of the best players in the world, this was to be a great learning experience.
Nickel City charges $2 to get in and then after that none of the games take quarters or tokens, just nickels.  Dropping 8 coins into the Mario Kart machine there felt like a lot but for only 40 cents a play it wasn’t bad.  In the back of the arcade there was 2 rows of Free-Play machines.  Older games, but still some really good stuff.  Mortal Kombat 1, Killer Instinct 2, a half dozen variations of Street Fighter, TMNT the arcade game, Ms. Pac-Man, Tetris… yeah it was really worth the $2 to get in there to play all these games until you got tired.  I got a bag of nickels and ended up only really spending it on San Fransisco Rush 2049, which I’ve got on dreamcast in a closet somewhere.  It was a real throwback to about 6 years ago.
After a breif intermission at a Chinese Buffet and JToy (an import shop formerly located in the Japanese supermarket Mitsuwa), we retired to TheOrange’s apartment.  There we played some real Guitar Hero, Mario Kart and Meteos on DS, and I got to see what Halo 2 looks like on an xbox 360 (cleaner graphics, higher frame rate!).
It was the most sunrise-to-sunset gaming I’d done a long, long while.  Why haven’t we done this before?