Hot Toys' Scarlet Witch from Avengers Age Of Ultron - a preview

It is almost been a full year since the release of Avengers Age Of Ultron in the cinemas, and finally one of the iconic character from the series is released as merchandise part of the franchise. Scarlet Witch may not be always known as part of Avenger's team, since the dispute of her and her twin brother's with Tony Stark's warfare as told in the movies.

With her ability to alter reality, she is later known to even change Vision - the android created by Ultron Prime to revive its vision of a new evolved living kind - into a person she would later marry. But enough with the comic book and movie history, let's talk about the figure which later will be released on mid of Q1 of 2016.

I collect figures, and one of it is from Hot Toys. I don't actually exclusively collect Hot Toys' figure (since it is actually quite a bit higher from my price range), but I do collect some worth collecting for. Hot Toys with now promoting its Movies Masterpiece line, releasing many of their products with the likeliness of what can be compared on motion pictures. With many things released now, the production team of Hot Toys are now releasing more and more products that collectors can place the figure on their shelves and adored them to reminiscence of the movies.

After what I saw on their home page at hottoys.com.hk, one figure that caught my eyes is this Scarlet Witch. Portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen in the movies, this figure generate a superb resemblance of the actress and the character on the movies.

What seen in this facebook fan page account, we can really see the resemblance of the character and the actress, at least about 95-99% at the right angle.

Of course it may not have been a perfect, but this figure is the one that need to be placed in the right angle to see the perfect similarities of the character.

Right now some reviewer might already get a hand of the figure and reviewed it. One of them I follow the review is ShartimusPrime in YouTube. Although there has been some cons of the figure, but overall the likeliness of the character and the range of pose it can made is generating a positive reviews.

This might be another that I will collect when it already released. Adding up to some of my small collections of Hot Toys figure :)

Terms and Conditions Apply - how online store is better than physical store

Sales and Marketing are what driven the product to make profit for the continuation of the company. We can't deny that it is actually affecting our lives, and that we live by the influence of good marketing and salesmanship. With the timeline, so these has adapt to more influencing our minds and way of transaction.

Promoting a product, especially in store showcase can sometimes drive us to make a deal of an item or not. With intriguing words and pictures, we sometimes felt like we're being hypnotized into taking an action. Words like "SALE 50% off" or "FREE for any purchase", can make an impulse decision that sometimes later we weigh on the regret and the value.

But of course those words are sometimes not as what they seem to be. Yes - I am talking about the meaning of the "*" behind every promotion word that mislead us. There are many word to describe it, but it usually means "terms and conditions apply".

Terms and Conditions apply may be sound great when facing with legal documents that require times for you to study before making any necessary action that leads to both party bonded by the transaction. This is sounds fair, but when promotion starts taking over to boost up sales, this too can be bent into the likings of the decision-makers.

One thing that happen recently is to cut the middle way through, store nowadays somehow just put a big promotion up front with terms and condition later explained if goes noticed. This is probably one of the cause why people hate doing transaction anymore.

It happen to me just today as I went into this Lego Store at Cilandak Town Square, Jakarta. Sine it is close to Chinese New Year, it is just appropriate for them to put up promotion of "Free Of Any Lego Purchase" with the picture of Lego Creator Chinese New Year Zodiac's Monkey. Being a customer there, of course I am curious about that promo. So I asked the store supervisor there and said that it is free with a purchase of a minimum amount. There it is - the first term and conditions.

I did a quick math on my head and apparently my purchase will earn me that free Lego Creator's Monkey. Because I already did ASK - and the term and condition is just for the minimum amount of purchase. SO there I was completing the transaction, when then the cashier told the SECOND terms and conditions. Apparently the minimum amount is for SELECTED ITEMS only.

One thing for sure is that I will NEVER go to that LEGO STORE AT CILANDAK TOWN SQUARE JAKARTA again in purpose. I even felt it was more of bargain for me if I buy in e-store such as TOKOPEDIA (www.tokopedia.com). One thing I didn't like is how the store supervisor is badly managed the whole situation, instead of apologizing for giving such a misleading info, he instead defending the condition of the promo in which he failed to inform completely.

This is why I prefer online store. They at least put the terms and conditions on writing. There is a page that they wrote long and in difficult words, but at least we have the option to read it first in order to agree with the terms and conditions. Even if they put a wrong remark that they couldn't deliver later, we have the option and opportunity to capture the misleading text information and bring the case to the administrator of the e-store.

People should be aware of this -  I mean online store, it is like a building. You need to plan before you take an action, because your action can later be brought as evidence of what failure of act could lead in the future. Of course there is a tolerance of the failure -  but once you put it in writing, it bond with the condition you have with your store.

I think this should be publicly known.

A journey to publishing a paper... for my master degree

As I am writing this, I am faced with 3 notebooks that all runs on different OS, 2 CISCO routers, 1 CISCO switch, several LAN cables, 1 Network Area Storage, 2 Raspberry Pi's (type A and type B), 1 Intel Galileo, a Gopro camera, one DSLR camera, 2 Mikrotik Routers type RJH750 (I think), and several bunch of tools and gadgets that I not yet adapted to use.

Why all of this? It's quite easy - I need to publish a paper, especially on electrical engineering specified on computer network configuration related as a thesis for a paper on my last term of master degree. The reason I am writing this is not as for boasting or bragging - in fact it is the EXACT OPPOSITE of that.

The start of my final term will begin in a few weeks. To do that, I should be ready to present any idea of what I wanted to apply with the research methodological from the course of what I am studying, and summarize to a conclusion. This, by the way, ideally should've been thought from the beginning of my study for this degree, which is roughly one and a half year ago.

Along the course I learned quite a lot, and each pretty much on the surface of things. For the depth, I should've study myself. Instead, I have been seduced by the finance rewarded work that makes me forgot the purpose of taking this study.

This been going on, and now I am actually been facing with the consequences of my own action in the past. In near future, I should've presented something that at least direct me to the kind of research of what I might being interested in.

This is depressing, but along the course I've heard lots of promising words such as "Big Data", "Network Security", "Internet of Everything", "Long Term Evolution Multi Cast", etc, etc - but until now, I haven't got any slightest idea of how connecting all those threads. One general idea of at least converging into one particular study that I could took the summary of all of it.

At least I have some things working on - a free and widely use software such as Wireshark, NS-2, NS-3, R statistics... but even so, it's nothing yet to be able to pull any strings on it.

The first thing I should've done is study any paper that has been released up until now and stick to one research that I am interested in. I have making a hard copy prints of several journals from various trusted sources and summed up into this 12 rims of paper front and back for me to check and study.

And it has been printed since 2 weeks ago...

S.H. Figuarts Shadow Trooper - or more like ebony Storm Trooper

I am a casual Star Wars fan. What it means is that I watched the movies, theater release, re-runs on HBO etc, I played few of the games occasionally, but no I did not follow the series, cartoon series, the novel, the fan fiction,  or anything. I just based my knowledge of Star Wars universe based on the 6 episodes George Lucas' made plus one (for now) made after Disney bought the Star Wars franchise. I am so sure there are countless other Star Wars casual and die-hard fan that actually learned until the depths of knowledge surrounding the Star Wars universe, but for me - as said above - I limit my knowledge from the world-wide release motion pictures. That being said, let's talk about one of the merchandise based on the Star Wars franchise released by Bandai Tamashii Nations.

So when I first knew about this figure, I somehow try to relate it with Dark Trooper as seen on PC game Star Wars Battlefront 2. I kept fixating on it - while I know that it is completely different. I don't need to describe what it is the Dark Trooper looks like - one thing for sure is it looks totally different than this one.

I don't really actually knew where this figure comes from, probably from one of the franchise that happens outside the motion pictures. With the help of Google of course, I can look a bit about this character.

Now, Shadow Trooper actually exist, and it has been quite spreading to other manufacturers that wishes to create the sculpting of this character. I don't know what the background story of Shadow Trooper, but one thing for sure is it definitely had quite some difference than the original Storm Trooper.

One example I look is one by Hot Toys on SideShow Collectibles. It may not look much different than Storm Trooper, but one thing is that it has small differences like the pad on the right shoulder, and few even got a different emblem mark on the left side chest, while others also includes different weapon used by the Shadow Trooper like a long blaster.

Not the same thing I see from what Tamashii Nations made for their S.H. Figuarts Shadow Trooper. If I didn't know any better, this one is just Storm Trooper painted black. Nothing more and less, and doesn't differ any much than its color with the Storm Trooper.

It is quite disappointing to see a new kind of action figure to play or pose, because it doesn't actually stands out than Storm Trooper. Perhaps the other thing that differs this version than the storm trooper is the box this figure cased into.

With packaging such this, there should be a special treatment for the figure itself to stands out more rather than just replacing the color. My suggestion when you have this figure is to try to look for another accessories that fit with this figure and start to remodel it yourself. See how you fit, and try to make it standout. Or perhaps, just buy one from another manufacturer like Hasbro's Dark Series. 

I should've write more

Hi blog-readers

I don't know the exact term of people who are following to read the blogs and everything. So I guess netizens? perhaps. That's not actually the point here.

I run an online shop that is on the shoppers gatherer website that provides its own escrow account. It was good and all, have been running it actively again in the last year - and I've got a good advice from one of the haters who had this transaction envy. See, I think in every store - an actual store, there bound to be a showcase, of item that is just to put there as to show the stuff that the store sells. Some perhaps put a decorative figure that is not purchasable on that store. So I tried to adapt one on my online store and this person start commenting on running my own blog instead.

See the thing is if I run a blog, then it wouldn't be able to read on the online store. There is no actual direct link that could help people to try to make an decisive observation to the blog.

But then I thought, this person might be one of the niche selected few who runs the trouble on browsing through many sources before coming back to purchase or not. So I think I wanted to give it another try on running a blog and an online store.

So, in the next few days or weeks, I think I'm going to try it. I'll write a blog of stuff I sell, and try to see the effectiveness of my own personal feeling towards the item, with the actual experience after my online costumers buys them.

Publish again - so many things I want to share to lots of you

So it has been quite an interesting few weeks I had.

Sold my phone, sold bit of my items also, almost sell my laptop - but overall everything starting to build up bit by bit again.

Well this few weeks lots of things have happened. Just recently after 10 months another coordinated terrorism attack happened in Paris. The aftermath that resulted of a hundred more people death with many injured, and now the investigation has been undergo for it. And then we saw how the people of France and the world reacted from the attack, and they are getting strong by it. I still hope for the best for humanity, and to wish a better future for all of us.

So next maybe I wanted to talk a little bit about lighter stuff - games, entertainment, stuff - and I have been entertained with the console game MGS V recently. Yes it is launched in multiple platform, like PC - I've tried also playing on the high-end PC, and it looks and feels amazing. Compared to what I experienced on my (still) PS3. More on that maybe on the next post later.

And then the recent launch on Fallout 4. Spectacular game as I only experienced it about 40 minutes or so. Again I tried it just a few times on high-end PC - and it truly overwhelms the gaming experience. Also just finished some of the playstation plus free games they offered, also some free games currently I played on PSVita.

On movies we have Spectre, I just watched The Man from U.N.C.L.E, some other stuff mostly on TV Series is the finale of Da Vinci's Demons, Supergirl continuation from the Pilot, and then there's Fargo, The Flash, Gotham for season 2. On Anime I just watched Prison School (Kangoku Gakuen) - a pretty vulgar yet interestingly funny anime, and then there's an absurdly powerful superhero - One Punch Man (WanPanMan as the Japanese version saying it).

On technology is still security for computer and network for me. Recently attended this seminar of cyber security, so that's probably a news. Threat report I read from many various sources still tells about embedded device and wearable device threat. Now that the communication of devices has shifted into more smaller scale of device and area, there bound to be another security threat on that.

Another one on technology stuff is of course there will be new gadget coming out. I don't know about that yet but there bound to be another gadget with their perks coming out. I haven't had a time to explore more on that area. 

So yeah -  I got my stuff, now next just to get to the writing. See you again in the next post.

Sold my games, sold my phone, almost sold my laptop too...

Hi everyone

Well, I guess you can see from the title and sum up to the economy is turning bad. There is actually a discussion and debate whether economy in Indonesia is worsening or weakened by the global market. For me personally - the reason of my doing is probably not affected by the economy, it is for another reason which hopefully turn better.

The reason I've been selling much of my personal stuff is because I'm saving up to buy a PS4 :) Not exactly - it actually because I have to save up to buy a house. It's been quite a few months that I have been discussing with my wife to buy our own house. Although people says that in the current economy in Indonesia you bette save up to hold on a cash, but I personally thought this is probably a good time for to buy me a real asset.

If I lucky enough, my house would be an asset - thinking of renting to someone. I have been living over my abandoned parent house in the same area, and I can barely living with my current income for my family and I.

Who knows, if you are interested, I open up an e-store at www.tokopedia.com/timostudio - sold some of my action figures collection, brand new or back in the box, as well as other stuff for sale :)