Well, thanks to a preorder shipping from Kebco, and getting some figs from my buddy JediMAC, I think I'm "almost" caught up now.  Over the past week I have received Ephant Mon, Aayla Secura, Barriss Offee, Wedding Padme, Yoda and Chian, Ashla and Jempa, Vader Throne Room, and Luke Throne Room.  I am waiting on another preorder to ship from Kebco with Mynock Chewie and the Snowtrooper, and I think I will be all caught up until the Concept Stormie/Elan/Obi/Ayy/Dignitary wave hits the stores.  I hope that retail will be brighter for the upcoming year than it was in 2003.

Yeah, I think that plot outline looks pretty sweet too.  Hopefully it will be something like this, but I'm never sure what to believe with spoilers (especially a year and a half in advance).  I really think that this movie could be really good, and I hope that Star Wars goes out with a bang.

I know what you mean OCB, I always kind of look forward to the first snow of the year as well...although we haven't quite gotten it in my area yet.  We had some ice overnight though, some tree branches are down around town, but no major problems that I know of.  We have a chance of our first snow today or tonight though .

I really can't stress enough how nice it was dealing with JediMAC.  I had a chance to pick up my package from him at the post office today, and it arrived perfectly.  I have honestly never seen figures packaged so carefully and so well.  He was very good about keeping in touch with me, and was so polite and nice to talk and work with.  Even in the middle of all of this terrible California wildfire, his house being threatened, he still sent a package to me this week, and it arrived in 2 days!  He even went out of his way to find me another one of the figures I was missing!  Don't hesitate to deal with Matt, he is a great person and a credit to the Star Wars community.

I saw this as well this morning.  Surprising that we haven't heard of anything prior to this.  My first thought was that it could be someone painting it and returning it to the store, but who knows.  Hopefully they will release them in the red colors, it looks like they are shown that was in the cartoon at least.

Yeah, the Lakers really looked pretty good tonight.  Payton (and Malone for that matter) really seem to fit in perfectly, and will help to get the fast break moving again in L.A.  San Antonio only led for 45 seconds of their game, but I guess it was the most important 45 seconds .  Looking forward to a lot more action tonight, including the regular season debut of "King James".  Hopefully people won't expect too much from him too soon, but they probably will.

Thanks for posting this OCB!  I was hoping we might get a look at these figures this week, and I think they look great.  I've always really wanted a new Lando Skiff, and its great to see more aliens to add to Jabba's palace.  This whole group of figures really looks good to me.  I think that the 2004 figures continue to impress overall, and I really hope that everyone who is looking for these can find them.  It looks to be a great year of collecting IMO .

I'm becoming more concerned with this after shopping for figs this weekend.  At the Target we go to (the only store around with new SW stuff), they had an abundance of figures...but almost all CW.  There were six "regular" Saga figures (repack Leia, Maul, Han, Wat Tambor, Yoda w/Chian, and Aayla Secura).  Other than that there was probably about 25-30 of the Yoda/Anakin/ARC Clone Wars wave.  Now, I can see the ARCs getting picked up (there was the fewest of these), but the Yodas and Anakins I don't think so.  I'm starting to get concerned that this will (as others have said) hurt our chances of getting new product in 2004.