Arii’s old 1:100 Heavy Missile Regult battle pod plamo from Macross complete

I had posted a scan of the box art in an earlier post.

I completed the old 1:100 Arii Heavy Missile Regult plamo this week. Surface detail is in some ways better than the old Imai kit, with how there is molded detail for the lights on the head for this smaller Arii kit, whereas Imai’s larger Regult model only provides decals to represent those lights. As it is though, proportions on the missile pods is off and makes the model look a bit awkward because they are too large. I drilled out the cannons because those parts instead had protruding ends rather than resembling actual gun barrells. I used Wave’s H-Eyes parts for lenses and Kotobukiya’s M.S.G. verniers for the thrusters. This kit has molded detail for the lights on the feet, but they protrude way too much. I cut them off and used Wave’s lenses instead. The mono eye is simply molded into the face of the pod, so I first painted it silver and then clear red to give it more of a lens look.

I used Mr. Color 323 Light blue and 311 Gray for the white parts. The gray was a mixture of 32 Dark Gray and 72 Intermediate Blue. the decals were still usable after all these years. They were a bit yellowed, but I taped them to my window for several days to bleach them. They went on fairly well. I have a pre-order for the 1:72 Hasegawa version of this kit, which will be released after the first of September.

The proportions on the Regult itself seem fine, but Arii made the missile pods a bit too tall. It makes the model look a bit awkward. Also, there is no ball socket articulation with the cannons. They must be glued into place. I might add a bit of weathering to this. One thing I need to do is repair the knee joint. I had to replace the broken piece with brass rod, but the 2-part epoxy putty I used turned out to be soft because I didn’t make it the proper ratio. I might try polyester putty instead.

Ulan is the friend to all dragonflies

We went to the trout farm in Katashina two weeks ago, and enjoyed the cool 28°C. As always, the air was filled with dragonflies flying about.

There is a trick to catching dragonflies. As you know, they like to land on the reeds standing out above the water, right? If you point your finger up, the dragonflies might land on your finger. Ulan is a master at it!

Paper lanterns for Takasaki Matsuri

I took this picture last week at the east exit of Takasaki Station. These lanterns were put up for the Takasaki summer festival, which is for the last weekend in August, the 26th and 27th. I love Japanese paper lanterns.

Tokyo night photography from January 2000

When I flew to Japan in January 2000 to propose to Mayu, I took a second camera loaded with slide film. I took these pictures on Fujicolor 200 slide film. First up is Shibuya.

Next is Akihabara.

These slides have been packed away in a box for so many years. I recently took them to a photo shop in town and dropped them off. They were sent away, scanned, and put onto a CD-ROM for me. I am so glad to have these now.

Pride month is over, but…

So June is “Pride Month.” What other months can we celebrate?

Greed Month. Well, that’s pretty much every month.

Lust Month. “Illicit sexual desire.” That ties in with Pride Month, I guess. Lots of overlap there.

Envy Month. I guess that’s every month.

Gluttony Month. Gosh, I guess this is every month too.

Wrath Month. Yikes.

Sloth Month. Well, I guess that depends on the individual.

So if we celebrate Pride Month, why not celebrate any of the other 6 deadly sins people indulge in? I can’t imagine a Sloth Parade prepared for Sloth Month though. Everyone would be too lazy to participate. Gluttony Month… I can only imagine that would be filled with those disgusting hotdog eating contests and such. I guess Greed Month is kicked off every year with Black Friday, turning Christmas from a solemn, joyous celebration of faith and family in the name of Christ into one of blatant commercialism in the name of Santa Claus.

An example of cognitive bias in linguistic paradigms

“Hey guys, can’t you read this sentence? Why can’t? ‘Cause you are Japanese.”

A Japanese coworker showed this to me. As an American, I can read this easily because I was not raised in the Japanese education system. If you know any Japanese people try this out on them and see if they can read this. My wife couldn’t read it. My bilingual daughter had a bit better luck, actually. It goes to show that it is true that bilingual people have a different approach to problem solving than regular people. This goofy font is meant to look Japanese, borrowing from actual Japanese writing to come up with an alphabetical substitute. A Japanese person will see jibberish while someone who was not raised to read Japanese can read this fairly easily.

This is an example of cognitive bias. One’s biases shape how they perceive the world. It shows how people need to expand their thinking in order to change their worldview. We are constantly lied to, such as diamonds being rare gems, soy being healthy for you, fluoride being good for your teeth, flu vaccines can prevent you from catching the flu, chemotherapy being able to treat cancer, etc. And as this example shows, cognitive bias can depend on the context of one’s culture. We’re taught that Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack out of the blue, or that aluminum airplanes could slice straight through solid steel-frame buildings like butter on 9/11. The good news is that it appears that increasingly these days, more and more people are waking up to the fact that they’ve been lied to about a great number of things. Welcome to the Great Awakening.