That price is definitely disappointing.  I was expecting to be able to pick this up at Target for about $30.  Not sure what I'm going to do now, but now that I just got engaged and there's two of us making the decisions, I'm not sure spending that kind of frivolous money is going to fly with my lady.  Bummer, since I've wanted the Sandcrawler ever since I was a little kid.  Guess I'll have to figure out something.

I'm getting pretty close to proposing to my girfriend (hopefully later this summer), and have been racking my brain trying to come up with something that's really unique, clever, romantic, etc.

Well, it took a little longer than I expected, due to some job and school scheduling issues between the both of us, but I finally did the deed about a month and a half ago!    (which is why I haven't been around in quite a while)  Very relieved to have it done with, but I guess now the "real fun" begins with all the wedding planning.

I racked my brain like crazy for well over a year on creative and romantic ideas for a proposal, and finally came up with a pretty clever one I think.  I go fishing every several months with my buddies, and Nicole (my fiancee) has always wanted to give it a try.  So I set up a weekday that we both took off, and took her out to one of the prettier lakes nearby to supposedly teach her how to fish.  Packed the cooler full of stuff, which she thought was just a casual lunch.

I found a nice secluded and private portion of the lake, and after teaching her some of the basics, like baiting and how to cast her line out, we started fishing.  I intentionally set my "bait" up with something that would never actually catch a fish, so after 15 minutes or so I said I was going to try some different bait.  So I brought my line back in, and told her to stay focused on hers while I re-baited mine.  Now to the fun part.

I pulled out the ring, and tied it to the end of my line as securely as humanly possible, using a special knot that my dad taught me.  Once I felt confident it wasn't going anywhere, I cast my line back out into the lake.  I gave it a couple minutes before exclaiming "I caught something!"  Nicole set her rod down and watched in excitement as I reeled in our first catch of the day.  I brought it right up next to the boat and finally gave it one last yank out of the water and right out in front of us.  Nicole didn't catch on for a few seconds, since she only immediately noticed that there wasn't a fish there after all.  But when I pulled it closer and said "What's this?", she finally realized just exactly what was on the end of my line.  I saw her eyes get all wide, and then start to tear up, at which point I pulled out a knife and cut the ring from the line, and got down on a knee in the boat, and said those magic words!  

Got the response I was looking for, and the rest is history.  After several minutes of hugging and her crying, I pulled out our lunch which included champagne and strawberries, along with a rose and some candles (fake kind, since a real flame wouldn't have stayed lit out there).  Had a nice rest of the day enjoying our new engaged status, and discussing some of our wedding ideas together.  Wonderful day, and I'm more than pleased with how the whole proposal turned out.  Pretty much perfect!  We want to enjoy a nice long engagement, with plenty of time to get the wedding planned out, so we're all set for about a year from now for the big day, which is a good thing since I'm still wiped out from the proposal planning!  

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to catching up on everything I've missed around the forums here!  

Grant

But, what exactly would you have had Wizard do?

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure it out.  It's quite simple really.  Start with dividing up the 1,200 or so busts between the 3 days of the show equally, that way people who attend any day of the convention would at least have a chance to get one.

But much more importantly, you HAVE TO limit the busts to ONE PER PERSON.  That's the easiest solution of all.  Why give all the dealers and non-Star Wars collectors two busts each, rather than giving more of the Star Wars collectors a chance the rest of the weekend.  If dealers and other people had to wait in a 2 hour line to get just one bust, they might be less inclined to.  But double the profits, and they'd likely not give it a second thought.

Sounds like Wizard just blew these things out as fast as they possibly could, to anyone who would take them.  That's pretty much like handing out free money, so I'm not surprised to hear that virtually everyone at preview night took their alloted two busts so they could make a quick and easy $300.  You'd be pretty dumb to just pass up free money like that.

Think that's fair to the Star Wars collectors who traveled to the convention during the weekend just to try to get themselves a Clone Pilot for their GG bust collection?  No.  The bottom line is that Wizard blew it, but I agree with the sentiment above that it seems like Gentle Giant should've at least given them some selling guidelines for their busts, to keep their promise from SDCC about having "learned their lesson" after the blue Clone bust fiasco.  

God, those look atrocious!  I had high hopes for the Star Tours line, and getting some cool looking droids out of it, but they've gone completely too far with some of these pieces of crap!  Johnny 5?  C'mon...    If Hasbro's going to start making characters from other movies now, then at least give us a senator E.T. figure finally!

Highly probable that I'm just going to skip wave 4 here.  This just ain't Star Wars to me.

I've finally started to see some new stuff trickling out the last couple weeks at the various retail chains, including the Ultra, and even some of the Yavin and Jabba's Palace figures.  Thank god, 'cause I was really starting to worry these stores were dropping the line based on what I've seen so far this year.

Good to have some new figures again finally!  Just like old times.  

Good stuff there Deanpaul.    Unfortunately, I'm a dope when it comes to furniture/storage/display design, so I better just keep my trap shut!  Good luck with your project though, and I look forward to seeing some updated pix once it's all done.

Welcome to the funhouse Gary!  Some great folks around here at JD, so I'm sure you'll enjoy it.  See you around the boards!

-Grant-

P.S.  As a "JD newbie", you should really try to refrain from getting the moderators all riled up like this in just your first week here.  Geez!  

Welcome to JD jkno!  Did I read that right, you're from Transylvania?!    Cool!  No vampires around here, but there are some pretty serious Star Wars collectors to chat with.  Quite friendly ones too!  See you around hopefully.  

-Grant-