Encore Trailbreaker
Today I received my Transformers Encore Trailbreaker from Japan. This figure is number 13 in the Encore reissue line and is one I have been waiting for a few years now to be released. This figure is one of the Autobot cars that were originally released in 1984. He was reissued in 2001 as a convention exclusive and planned to be reissued at Toys R Us here in the states, but was never released when the U.S. reissue line was cancelled in 2005.
Two main differences from the original and this one are the blue eye piece which on the original is red and the autobot symbol is stamped on the hood rather than being a sticker.
With this reissue I now only have 2 more left to complete my set of all the 84-85 Autobot cars. I’m almost there.
Final Grades
Yesterday my final grade showed up. I knew what this one was going to be, but wanted to wait until I posted about this. I’m not one to normally brag about my grades and such, but I feel like I have to share this time. Some how I managed to get a 4.0 this semester. I was expecting maybe an A- or two and possibly a B+ from one class that the teacher never during the semester let us know where we stood.
I really never thought I would ever have a 4.0, but it is nice to have finally gotten one my last year of school. Now onto the final semester.
Inside the Box
Christmas is finally here, so I was able to finally find out what was inside the secret Santa box. The person that got my name really outdid themselves. Everything they got me fit right into my Luke Jedi focus.
Here are the pics
Here is the breakdown of the items by number
1. German Return of the Jedi Lobby Card
2. Waddingtons Luke Jedi puzzle with accompanying poster
3. Vintage Carded 79 Back Luke Jedi with Anakin Mailaway offer
4. Vintage Mint in Sealed Box Desert Sail Skiff
It was awesome to get some vintage Star Wars items this year and I hope to participate again next year. I hope the person I got liked the item I gave them.
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas
Star Wars Collecting: Reflection ’08 and Goals ’09
It’s that time of year again to make new goals. I figured I would followup from my post last year and see how well I did.
Reflection ’08I said last year I wanted to get at least 4 more coins this year. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. I was able to add 2 of the 4 I wanted and they were in excellent shape. They were Luke Bespin and Han Solo Hoth. That brings my total to 44 with 18 left to go. Here are some pics of them:
The other items I somehow left out last year that I wanted this year was to add the mailaway Boba Fett and Action Display Stand. I added both of these items to my collection this summer and they pretty much finished my mailaway set. Boba Fett is definitely one of my favorite of the mailaways. I think it has to do with the rocket firing changes that were made just before it was released, so it has a note to consumers included explaining why. Here are pictures of those items:
Another original goal I had was to finally add a carded Darth Vader. This one again didn’t happen this year, but I added several key figures to my Luke Jedi focus that more than made up for it. I also picked up two of these Luke’s for well below market prices and was really happy about that.
The first was the Blue Saber 65A Back Luke. I picked this up from a buyer that I think didn’t know that the blue saber was harder to come by than the green. One major significance of this piece was that it is packaged with a cape that has a snap. It was originally thought that all blue saber Lukes has a sewn cape. It proved an original theory wrong and I think it almost proves that this would have been the first version of Luke available.
Next up is probably one of the hardest to find carded Lukes. This one has the face in the same color of plastic with the hair painted on. All other Lukes are the opposite with the face painted on and the hair the color of the plastic. The other thing of interest is that the cape is folded behind the figure and is contained in a plastic bag. No other Lukes were packaged this way. There are basically a dozen of these that have been reported in the collecting community and I’m sure there are a few more out there, but that is still a really low number. This Luke is also on a 65A back card, so it was only available very early on like the Blue saber Luke.
The other Luke I added of note was the Trilogo version. These figures became the standard packaging in Europe with the text in 3 languages. I’ve wanted to add a Trilogo figure to my collection for some time, so I was glad to get this one.
That covers most of what I added this year that goes with some of the goals I had in mind from last year.
Goals ’09
Coins: I’m starting the goals off again this year with more coins. I really want to focus more on these and have been coming up with a budget to try and add more. I would like to add 4 again this year and think I can do it. The main ones I have in mind are Bib Fortuna, Lando Cloud City, Creatures, and Droids. Luckily coin prices have been dropping over the last year and hopefully that will stay the same.
Luke Jedi: As far as Luke Jedi go I have quite a bit now and only have a few pieces I would still like to add. These include Blue Saber sealed in Baggie, carded Power of the Force with coin, and a 79 back with Anakin Offer.
Droids: This year I added my first Droids figures from the 1985 cartoon series. I would like to add a couple of more during the off times.
That pretty much covers it. This post became a lot more lengthy than I was planning, but I guess it shows even after all these years I still love to collect.
Xbox 360 Running Again
I decided to try one more time to see if I could get the 360 up again. I reread the xclamp tutorial and found out I had overheated it wrong this last time. The step I missed was putting the fan over the CPU, so the GPU could overheat. Basically if the CPU overheats the 360 shuts down and gives 2 red error lights. By putting the fan on the CPU it doesn’t do this and runs normal while heating up the GPU. I let it warm up for about 15 minutes and then got the 2 red lights from the CPU overheating. I let everything cool down for another 10 minutes and then fired it up and got a picture back. I just finished playing roughly 2 hours of Guitar Hero World Tour and it worked without a glitch. The main culprit with a lot of this is that Microsoft used a lead free solder. Here is an exceprt on the 360 wikipedia page:
One possible cause of the General Hardware Error is cold soldering. The added mass of the CSP chips (including the GPU and CPU) resists heat flow that allows proper soldering of the lead-free solders underneath the motherboard. This causes cracking and voids in the solders themselves from prolonged constant temperature changes inside the console. Lead-free solders, however, might be the cause of this because, when properly soldered, they take on a dull appearance that professionals take as a cold solder joint in older methods, thus leading to confusion. Lead-free solders also require a greater amount of heat (213 degrees celsius) to solder properly when compared to older lead/tin solders (185 degrees celsius).
So the idea is to overheat the GPU so the solder melts back to fix the connection. That was apparently the problem as it is working now. I still have another 360 coming that I picked up on ebay that had a red ring of death. I’m thinking now I will fix it up and see if I can make a little extra money.
