Gundam Kits

5 things I'm currently into

-building gundam models

What the hell is a gundam model?

Gundam is a popular japanese anime fiction series that features giant robots or mobile suits and gundam is basically how they call these robots. Gundams are easily distinguishable through their heads because they always have a V shaped antenna on their foreheads, a protruding block on their chins and exhaust vents around their faces, more often on the sides of their faces, moreover they are long-limbed robots and they seem to have plated armors around their bodies, shoulders and knees in particular. The Gundam series has been around for almost thirty years and their franchise has gone from japanese manga to different tv series, model kits, video games and anything a cultish object.

amuro ray’s RX-78-2 from mobile suit gundam, the grandaddy of all the gundams.

I knew very little about the gundam universe, I haven’t even seen any gundam episode in one sitting, I only have one gundam manga and I haven’t even read it, I’m only into the model kits. I always fancy looking at gundam models before when I was a teenager, partly because maybe I was into fiction and maybe they just look so goddam cool, some of them cost a lot though. It wasn’t til 2000 when I first tried making one, it was a V2 gundam and though it was the only one I had, I enjoyed the whole trouble of building the kit and staring at it over at my desk. Before I didn’t make much gundam models, say one model in six months or even in a year. It wasn’t til last december when I decided to go back to building these kits again and I'm building fast, I was trying to find a hobby or something to get my head distracted with because I just feel lonely everynight.

In a nutshell, gundam models are divided into scales which are:

SG (speed grade)
or HCM-Pro (high complete model progressive)
these models come in one piece and they need no more assembly, for people who are into gundam models but do not want to go through the trouble of building them, suitable for little kids

SD (super deformed)
As what their name implies, these gundam models look very goofy having very small bodies yet very big heads like they were cartoon gundam figures

1/144 FG (first grade)
I haven’t had one so I don’t know how to describe them much except that these gundam models are small and will take a lot of skill, paint and patience to build, but these models cannot do much movement with their limbs.

1/144 HG (high grade)
These kits usually stand around 4 inches tall, unlike 1/144 scales these models can do more movements, almost every gundam model is available in this scale.

1/144 HGUC (high grade universal century)
These kits are slightly bigger than the 1/144 HG, say about 5 inches. Universal century represents a certain timeline in the gundam universe so I think only certain gundam models that are in this timeline are included in this scale, I think.

1/100 HG
More bigger, around 7 to 7.5 inches tall, better mobility, better details.

1/100 MG (master grade)
Is just around the same size as a 1/100 HG but it is hell more articulate with its limbs becasue they have an internal skeleton system, you could even open their cockpit hatches to see the pilot seats.

1/60 PG (perfect grade)
Very expensive, freakingly detailed, only very few gundam models were given the honor of appearing in a 1/60 scale. I can’t afford one.

conversion/resin kit
these are the hardest kits to build because the kits come in pale resin color and you have to paint everything from scratch

This is sven cal bayan’s strike noir gundam (1/100 MG) from the ce 73 stargazer movie posing hopelessly in front of my old painting of marilyn monroe. I found this painting stacked at the bottom of my closet, I had to find something to cover my desk because it is a mess, I remember I did this painting around seven years ago and I was about to throw it away because I feel there is something wrong with it, her missing mole is one thing but came this girl who saw it and was begging for it so I decided to keep it anyway. It’s like some things you have that you don’t pay much attention to but you start to hold on to it when somebody wants to take them away.

Mecahnical Rodents

5 things found in my room
-car side mirror
-a box of dead mice
-old tennis racquet
-bruce lee poster
-three cases of beer

5 things found in my bag

-can opener
-plastic bags
-box of chocolates
-white shirt
-powdered cream sachets

Actually its five things I just found in my traveling bag since I just got home from manila two weeks ago and i don't bring any bag unless i'm away from home.

The can opener is when I go drinking beers I buy in seven eleven to my hotel room because sometimes you’d find it expensive to keep on buying beers at the hotel.

The plastic bags are for sorting my laundry and all manners of trash on going back home, everything is always a mess when you’re packing things up.

I was planning to give the boxes of chocolates to somebody but its past christmas already and they’re still inside my bag.

The white shirt is the only shirt I hadn’t worn when I was in manila two weeks ago.

I got the sachets of powdered cream from the hotel and airport when I was having coffee, I had a flight going back home at five in the morning and I had three cups and I saved all the cream sachets because I didn’t like cream anyway.

I had one hell of a trip back home from manila two weeks ago, I was supposed to fly back home on the night of december the 10th, I almost got to the airport late because of the december traffic. I also had trouble packing my things back to my bag before I left because I was carrying a lot of things back home that I had to get a used rice sack where I placed all of those other stuffs and tied the sack to a knot, hell it looked like a sack of trash if you saw it.

I did look silly going to the airport dragging a yellow rice sack but it wasn’t as heavy, and when I was checking in the sack at the airport, the clerk said that my goddam flight was cancelled til next morning and it didn’t hit me all at once because I was still staring at the scale and how my rice sack weighted but when I began to realize that I’ll be staying for another night in manila and how much money I have to be spending, I started complaining like mad about the whole mess that they are getting me into. I swear I hadn't complained to somebody like that before.

Anyway they got me a hotel room for the night plus paid everything in between, they led me to their shuttle bus outside with passengers from different screwed up flights, I lit a cigarette before going up the shuttle because maybe I wanted to calm my nerves a bit and it made me look more upset to the airline people while I smoked there. The shuttle had a friendly bunch of people except for this guy who was talking a lot about his christian faith, he told us about how these miserable lives we have now are just trials for our afterlives and all that crap like Im sure his flight to the afterlife will not be delayed anymore, He was close to preaching but at least he calmed down this girl in the shuttle who was sobbing like hell because the airline people also screwed her connecting flight abroad. The driver had to drop her first at the international airport fast and I could have told preacher man there to pray to jesus to give the driver stiffs while stepping on the gears. The preacher man did stop talking when we got to the international airport though, I almost forgot that it was in time for the hajj and the international airport had muslim pilgrims lining up for a flight to saudi, and preacher man had his faith outnumbered there.

They later brought us to this hotel that’s in the middle of nowhere, everybody started coming out of the bus and into the hotel restaurant for dinner and the goddam food at the place was terrible, everything was dry and coarse and they should have at least served it with a soup of some sort, luckily my father called on my mobile phone to ask me where the hell I was so I got the chance to stand up and answer my call and leave the restaurant first.

They had me staying in a big room with three other passengers and hell I almost lost my yellow rice sack I was carrying back home because the bellboys at this hotel thought it was trash from the bus and they almost threw it away, I swear it doesn’t look like a luggage when you look at it. From the three other passengers at my room, two were fathers who were coming home for christmas and the other guy was some deaf ship crew who was also having his christmas vacation, the two married guys talked a lot about family life while in bed and the shipmate was watching tv but it was hard getting to talk to him anyway, he can hardly hear you. Besides I sort of felt uneasy sleeping with three strangers so I just headed to the hotel bar at the rooftop and drank some beers and came back after everybody was sleeping.

I barely slept, only for maybe an hour or so and by the time everybody else was up at 2:30 having breakfast, all I had were just coffee from the coffee shop, they kept serving it with cream though, that's how I got to save all those sachets in my bag.

Facts in Five

5 things found in my room
-car side mirror
-a box of dead mice
-old tennis racquet
-bruce lee poster
-three cases of beer

5 things found in my wallet
-driver’s license
-credit cards
-band aids
-unknown numbers written on all sorts of small papers
-pocket calendars of years past but have good looking women on the other side

5 things found in my bag
-can opener
-plastic bags
-box of chocolates
-white shirt
-powdered cream sachets

5 things I want to do
-go on a vacation, to a beach in particular
-to buy a new office chair
-to hire a programmer
-buy a pressured coffee maker (the one that goes pphffft!)
-get rich

5 things I’m currently into
-building gundam models
-alcohol rehabilitation
-work
-hell that’s enough to keep me busy