Perfect Effect – 01: Shadow Warrior Review

Perfect Effect (PE) is a new 3^rd party (company or fan group) made Transformers weapons add-on products for City Commander (Fansproject). Shadow Warrior was the first released Target master like style version on last month and I am happy able to reserved one to have a deep look at the toy especially finding out how good the quality and details everyone is expecting to be.

According to the previous news way back in December 2009, PE is planning for four robots to be released this year with different alternate modes which they haven’t announced yet until now. No doubt that I am looking forward getting all of them.

GAIKING Teaser Trailer

The 3D animation these days really improved a lot and I am really amaze by it. The only problem is just how good the stories going to be impress us. This is the new upcoming GAIKING movie (I believe) and its a girl piloting it!

Fansproject Warbot Defender Video Review

I was about to place my order on this, but it somehow the two combaticons get in my way. Anyway, check out the video review.

What is the Fuss over Alcohol Zone?

The more I read, the funnier stories coming from LegCo. The alcohol zone proposal does lighten up big flame over weeks now and even make it to the international blog news site like Dailychilli. I’m sure it sparks majority of the local Muslim are against heavily over this. I understand this also felt like insulting the religious and the country itself. Not only that, if this approved. Probably more incidents and violence will rise over years. Of course, we Chinese community do also concern on this matter. Not that we don’t.

Let’s start breaking this down why creating alcohol zone does help the country in the long run.

• It helps to improve economics.
• Hopefully allow to sell in airport (a free tax zone) for passengers during transit or traveling.
• Helps to reduced locals (non-Muslim) and foreigners’ spending money on other neighboring countries.
• Helps to reduced alcohol smugglers especially prevent locals involving illegally.
• Better monitoring on local and foreign Muslim violating law consuming alcohols.
• Governments have more controls and monitoring over the markets in alcohols zone.

Do note that this is my personal opinions and thought. There are some more I believed but I’m not a business man so that’s my limit on this field. However, what I trying to say here is that we should first starts to understand the plan then everyone can starts making decisions if this would work. If it doesn’t work, never mind. We don’t really care if the ministers going to reject or disapprove it. No one is going to be disappointed as we all know Brunei is a Muslim and we understand very well because everything will goes back the same as before.

Nonetheless, what I dislike the most are people making remarks that never came into our mind before. This felt like being accuse as bad people and make anyone think that we are trying to ruin the country or something. Let’s take the minister from the Religious Affairs today what he said to the Brudirect.com yesterday.

"Today they want this zone, later they may want clubs, then what else? Prostitution zone? Then casino zone," the minister asked.

"All these elements will bring bad name to the country," he added.

I can’t believe he make such an idiotic remarks. Do you all seriously think that we are stupid enough to intend proposing such silly plans in LegCo insulting the Muslim country? We are merely suggesting a tourism plan to help the country future economics, not destroying it.

This is why I dislike religious so much until this date. They make people hate each other. Bring forever uneasy discussions and misunderstanding. I don’t know how you people think about him. But to me, he is a disappointed minister by making such unbiased remarks.

Shutter Island Movie Trailer

Man, this is going to be a good one watching without lights on!

Angolz.com Online Store Review!

Angolz.com (Version 1.1 updated) is an online store based in Hong Kong and has been around for some time now which according to website started in year 2000. My first discover on this website was around two years ago, but I never pay attentions much or even try to shop there until I started searching for Transformers toys while Googling this year that they had in stock.

I already made my first order and cancel it in the end. This will be explains in the review and yes, something went wrong. It was a bad experience being a first time customer. I done a research about them and it appear to be many mixed response reactions about online shop from other buyers around the world. Please note that the feedbacks are both positive and negative so I am going to tell my side of the problem.

The website

If you remember my previous post about Rakuten International, than Angolz Store is no different and does have the similar marketing system. Only small numbers of their local shops are operated in Hong Kong (probably in China too) and each of them sells different products from books, Japanese toys, clothes, electronic and others lifestyle accessories. All of them listed them in one web directory and can be purchase directly. Of course, you can also choose to visit separate shops as well for your own convenient.

The design on their website doesn’t change much since discover few years ago. Although, I do have some trouble looking for some brands, luckily the search feature works pretty well and help the finding easier. The only draw backs are out of stock items are mixed together and even listed as in stock which is a serious problem.

Competitive Pricing

Yes, based from my own pricing survey. Most of the items Angolz selling have the lower prices that really can compared to others even against Japan retail shops. For example, like Bandai HGUC Jegan plastic kit are selling US$10.00 while HLJ selling for around US$15.00 so that was really a big money saver. Even some Saint Seiya fans collectors also recommend me to get there too.

The Services Are Full of Shit!

That’s the part makes me so angry about Angolz services. Their customers’ services are the planet worst and have been long well known. I can’t believe had to experience it for three weeks to just enquiry one simple order from the 1^st March. The worst had to wait for their reply at least once a week. I send another reminder on the same week and the fastest response is 3-4 days later telling me its coming.

After coming third weeks, I still haven’t seen my order ready and continue showing the same processing status. Three days has become three weeks for waiting three in stock items and I was really pissed off when seeing one of the items was out of stock in their directory at the same time. Again, I send another message for enquiry and it took 3 days to receive response from a guy name Gabriel Li, telling me it’s ready to be shipped out by tomorrow morning.

Am I relieved yet? No, suddenly the next day’s one of the name Donna Wong telling me one of my items is out of stock. Everything turns upside down and had to send yet another message to ask them for confirmation about issue because the guy told me it’s ready. Again and again, no response from them for another 2 days for one simple question and continue to ignore the third days.

I had enough and demand them to refund all my money by the next day. It’s pointless to wait another 4th weeks for one orders. They did, and even stupidly enough sending email telling me all items are out of stock. What a bad liar and wonder why brother bother telling me this in the end? Probably they think I would regret canceling my order just because they are the only place selling it with good price? What a douche.

An Order Takes Longer to Ship

Another problem is the availability of those items had to wait for another extra 2-6 days (or more) before they can shipped out from their warehouse because Angolz never had any in stock items in the first place. Everything has to depend on the selected retail shops in Hong Kong for availability and this takes longer if they had to enquire others shops to fill up the pending orders.

Payment Methods

They accept both Paypal and Credit cards (Visa and Mastercard). But do note that if you are using Paypal, it will be in US dollar. Paying using credit cards will be in Hong Kong dollar. Also, beware that this is direct payments for both pre-order and normal orders.

Shipping and Packing

There are three shipping methods available. You can either used Air Mail, Air Parcel or EMS services. Please note that Air Mail does not have any tracking numbers and not registered. I do recommend using Air Parcel because the fee is reasonable and even cheaper if you placed more orders.

As for the packing, all will be using bubble wrap and put it into the cotton box before shipped out. Well, according to Angolz. No worry it was also confirm by the buyers from many countries.

Your Own Choice

This is the first and the most disappointed online store I ever shop with. Not to mention the customers’ services are the crappiest ever in my many years online experience. Angolz proof that the eBay customers are happy with them is nothing more than a setup including cover up their negative side. If you are experience eBay sellers, we all know that eBay are really strict on their policy and check every buyer’s feedback details. A few mistakes can damage their store and buyers reputations.

Nevertheless, I do not recommend anyone of you shop with Angolz Store. My reason is simple, because they are very dishonest in the business and I’m not the only person who sense that. Anyway, this is  your own decisions if you want to shop with them or not as this is just my personal experience.

March 2010 Online Order

This month is surely quiet for me. I did received my orders but been so lazy to post it up. But today is a bit special because some idiot from eBay shipped out a brand new Hasbro Transformers R.I.D (1992) Space Case to me when I didn’t pay ANY single cents to him. Man, this is the funniest online thing happen in my life.

I’m not really expecting this coming when thinking that probably was my last month orders finally arrived due to delay almost coming one month now. Not sure if that was a happy things or not because no one knows how the seller would actually react by this. Well, let’s hope he didn’t make any serious complains on me in eBay because I do willing to shipped back to him or maybe not.

Anyway, in the picture above that was my Hobby Search order for TF Henkei! Megatron, Tamiya drill bits, Evergreen angle bar and Bandai MG Blue Frame decal. I was really lucky this time able to grab the brand new Henkei! Megatron off the list when I saw them restocks it. Good news (to me) also that the exchange rate for YEN has goes back to 64! for this month so I did save a little buying from Japan.

LegCo – Brunei PR Issue

I really have to thank Mr Goh King Chin speaking this loud (here and here) in LegCo session and trying to help us over the PR problem for many years now. Of course this also raise an issue among peoples in Brunei not knowing that or aware of two type of PR holder exists until now. I didn’t know either after when I found out from a Malay PR who is also local and born in Brunei. You see, even local Malay was also treated this way by not giving him full citizenship and had to go for examination. Although his PR status is better mine, I simply do not understand what are the ministers are really thinking these days and why this have to repeating every years again and again during any big meeting.

No one really knows how long does this issue have to drag on but I’m glad Mr Goh are continuing to stand for all PR peoples and bravely suggesting ideas improving Brunei tourism plans. But based from my instincts, this telling may not happen probably even after I retired from my jobs. I don’t know, The Brunei Times wrote about the ministers’ responds sound like they are not convincing at all over this PR matter and rather rude to say like, no point of bringing this up and just get over it. Whenever the ministers uses the phase “taking considerations” on this and that, it just rarely happens all these years. There are a lot of words are meant to be broken from them. This is why we see talents people living the country and pursue better future.

Well, let’s hope for a good change tomorrow for Brunei.

Lady Gaga - Telephone (Official Explicit Version) ft. Beyoncé

I don’t really like Lady Gaga songs and her weird taste in fashions, but this video worth to check out. Warning to parents, this video may not suitable for minors!

Robotkingdom.com Online Shop Review!

After regain interest collecting Transformers toys again last year. Looking for TF shops online took me quite sometime because most of them are from either UK or US. This is a problem for us collectors living in Asia had to pay for expensive shipping. I’m not going to include Japan because buying those more than three years old products are simply too slim finding in Japanese retail online shop today.

Luckily for me, Robotkingdom.com is a widely known in selling many Transformers toys and site sponsors. Finding them is very easy and most importantly the shop is located in Hong Kong.

Drive into the Kingdom

The website does look a bit outdated, but the availability stocks and new products are updated weekly. It just the problem they don’t always update their ‘Just Listed Items’ so it’s quite a bit hard to track down those out of stocks items in some of the TF categories. You won’t able to notice it unless you browse the site regularly to check it out.

There are many TF titles you can search over there, from the old to today. This even includes the 3^rd party and exclusive toys from Botcon and e-Hobby so this quite a good place to start your collections. Although, I can’t promise if you can still able to find the availability stock in the shop. Not to mention the prices are quite competitive and many items I found are almost lower than any others sold in Japanese and US retails online shops.

Of course, you can find the other different toys selling in RK like Star Wars, G.I.Joe, Marcross, Gundam and other actions figures. Not as much as Transformers though, it’s worth to check it out. Better yet, tried used the search feature on the site to helps along with your search. It works pretty good and able to find many.

The Disappointed Experience

Even though you won’t be expecting any big discount coming from RK rather than waiting for the price reduce happen. What disappoint me was after pre-order PE-Shadow Warrior (which was due to released on February) and Henkei! Megatron (in stock) in the beginning of the New Year. They never reserved my Henkei! Megatron and just sold it off to someone on February.

I was totally outrageous by their action because it was suppose to be meant reserved for me, while I already done the direct payment on the first month of January so why they afraid of keeping my items? No doubt that I am very disappointed by it, they knew about it too because I did question them about this issue. They just kindly asked me to replace with other one and shipped it next few days without charging me any extra on the shipping.

To be honest, I don’t really like their customer’s services sometimes. They don’t show much respect for someone asking questions. I have no idea if they even understand what we are trying to asked or not. But they just don’t take it seriously and just show their true face like not interested serving us with just a few reply with words like ‘No’ and ‘Yes’.

Payment Methods

You can pay either using Paypal or Western Union payment. However, do note that it has to be done in direct payments for all orders and pre-ordering. Canceling orders is not possible too. But I had never tried to cancel during pre-orders so I need to ask them for more information’s.

Shipping and Packing

RK offers three different shipping methods during your check out. You can either used Registered Air Mail Parcel or Small Packet and EMS to ship out your orders. Using Registered Air Mail Parcel does seems cheaper based from my experience especially delivering to Brunei. I have no idea why Registered Small Packet is much more expensive (EMS are more) but all of them come with tracking numbers so no worry.

The packing was not bad also. It was well packed using strong boxes and plastic foam to protect your items. Better than ishop2go.com.

Conclusion

Robotkingdom.com is no doubt a good place buying Transformers toys. It has a competitive price against most retails store offers and even offer more 3^rd party toy selections in Asia. It just too bad it’s not a perfect spot looking for discounted items.

Even there are price reduce from time to time but you just going to expecting price goes up as well. I’m not joking about this. I notice it the moment delaying my buying decision on some toys and their price suddenly went up after a few months like eBay style. Probably the reason due to the low stocks or rather the reason telling us these toys are going to be discontinued in the market anytime.

Miku’s Day

Seriously, this is crazy. I just caught up with the news about a virtual idol Hatsune Miku live performance in Japan. According to the news about the virtual live was actually successful with more than 2,500 fans (including Otaku) attending the concert. I kinda like to see it myself and experience such virtual concert one day. Nah, I’m not those creepy people so obsess on Vocaloid characters, but I do really like the songs.

C&C Motion Comic – Episode 1

Getting last C&C PC game this month! Hopefully able to get mine new graphic card before the game arrived!

First look! - KO TOYS

Some of you might wonders why ‘KO’ word was often used in toys community these days. Just don’t get yourself confused, it actually just a short term refers ‘Knock Off’. Today I am going to introduce KOToys.com to you all. Well, you can say they are the China toys seller specializes selling imitation products (Transformers etc).

I never really think of introducing a site selling knock off toys. But it actually worth checking out because there are quite few people does collecting KO toys especially those Transformers G1 version because according to most of them, it has exactly the same quality like Hasbro. I have no idea if that is true, of course you need to get one yourself to find out that answers.

It is just surprising that 95% of Transformers toys that were selling on this shop are all imitation toys. You can find most of the popular title from Transformers G1 until Revenge of Fallen. I am really having so much fun browsing all categories seeing how many KO TF toys were being produced all these years by the China market. I have to say the Encore version does looks pretty good and very close to the original designs.

There is also a non-KO toys category. The owner appears do have personal interest collecting original toys. But he is currently clearing his shelf and selling all (new or loose toys) to make some room on his shelf so probably there are one of two might interest you.

Anyway, this is just a fun introduction and don’t really recommend any of you getting knock off toys because no one knows if these toys has been going through any material safety check or not. But it is a good resource website finding out which products might have been copy and produced selling in the market today because some of them using the same box and designs.

eBay - February Bidding: TF RM-13 & RM14

Finally! My Transformers Robot Masters toys, Smokejumper (RM-13) and Dread Wing (RM-14) have arrived at the post this week. I got both of them from eBay bidding and won for US$29.90. That was considering cheap actually for six years old brand new toys. It just only the hardest shitty thing going to hit you was the shipping fee. It cost me US$35.00 (with tracking) shipping to Brunei and that’s the original standard USPS price even for one items only. Geezzz…luckily mine are two items, so it’s worth it.

Japanese Online Shops March Promotions

Ami-Ami and Hobby Search have been doing promotion on their discount quite aggressive last month and decided to extend yet again this month. Although I did see Hobby Link Japan (HLJ) also doing sales from time to time, but there is no doubt something big might be coming.

I am holding my money at the moment and wait, looking out for more discount at this current three top Japanese shop in the middle of the month. For my opinion, the most attractive promotion is Ami-Ami offering half price on EMS shipping and that you shouldn’t missed it. Unlike Hobby Search, they are only promoting their new SAL shipping service so all items 15%-20% off (except books or magazine). The good thing are, discount also applied to hobby tools and other plastic parts so it is still a good deal, just not the shipping only.

Good toy hunting everyone!