When the spanish language broadcast of the World Cup in the U.S. rates better than the Stanley Cup finals (featuring 2 American teams), it seems to be a significant story.

So I heard this nasty rumor that the VC Vader might be the same figure as the Saga Legends Vader.  Is there any verifiable proof of this thus far?  Or is the Saga Legends Vader actually the TLC BLUE figure from 2008?

Yeah, because only 19.4 million people watched the U.S. team play Ghana.  And 14 million watched the U.S. play against England.  To put that in perspective, it's on par or better than NFL prime time regular season games.

The funny thing is that I keep running into Wave 15 - the one that includes all repacks and General Grievous. 

I even had two more cases of Clone Wars brought out to me this afternoon and they were the Wave 15 cases.

Hasbro is actually referring to these waves as wave 1 and 1.5.  And of course Grievous doesn't include the cape, contrary to what Hasbro told us.  Personally I think they got mixed up with this one and the Vintage Collection ROTS wave Grievous.

Interesting question overall.  There are ways that Hasbro could change things up with the cardbacks, but there has to be some method to their madness. 

Take Vader for instance.  That original Vader card has a pretty iconic look.  And even though Hasbro used it in the VOTC line, there seems to have been enough time that's passed between that line and the new Vintage Collection that it seems perfectly fine for Hasbro to use that same art this time around.  HOWEVER, if Hasbro were to issue a different Vader in late 2011 or early 2012 while we're still in this line look?  Then I'd like to see a different photo on the cardback to differentiate between the two Vaders in the one line.  Make that image more scene specific to the new figure.

In the case of the rumored R2-D2 with pop up lightsaber?  Even though the POTF card art doesn't match the feature, I think it would be cool to see that little-seen cardback artwork come back.

OMG!!!  I don't know if Maradona can ever go home to Argentina after the way Germany just took the Argentine defense apart. 

And then Spain - Paraguay this afternoon?  Wow.  I've never seen that many penalty kicks that close together in regulation time.  And then to have one PK goal being disallowed, and then two getting blocked?  Amazing soccer today.

And from what I've been reading the American TV ratings for this World Cup have been 40% higher than they were in 2006.  Good news for the world's most popular sport in the United States.

Quote from: Rob on July  1, 2010, 12:14 PM

At Toy Fair the word was that they were saving stuff for SDCC.... no reason to save stuff for Celebration

At Toy Fair they said they'd have new stuff to show at both SDCC and CV.  That is why Toy Fair was lacking since they had to save stuff for both shows.

My guess is SDCC gets us a look at the full line of Fall 2010 stuff and Celebration V is where they will tease the Spring 2011 stuff (instead of the presentation during SDCC like they usually do).

I'm not so sure about that.  There have been some feelers put out about what sites are sending staff to which events this summer.

DirecTv....there's none better.

As a TV professional, I respectfully disagree.

Direct satellite services are always going to leave you at the mercy of the weather.  Unless you live somewhere where it never rains or snows (even the Southwest has monsoon season), you're probably going to have to deal with some kind of rain fade at one point or another.  It's just the way the technology works.  And when you actually need to know about the weather or news, there's a strong likelihood that it doesn't work.  That's what keeps me from going with any kind of DSS system for my own home.

There are also bandwidth limitations on what services like DirectTV or Dish Network can deliver when it comes to HD signals.  The HD signal requires a great deal of bandwidth for transmission.  Most HD broadcasts that you receive at home are going to max out around 720p.  So you will almost NEVER get the full HD resolution of 1080p on most broadcasts.

The systems that perform the best in terms of signal quality?  Those are the ones where fiber optic cable is being run directly into your home.  Verizon Fios is one of those services, but there are others out there.  The fiber infrastructure in your areas may vary.  Fiber does have finite bandwidth, but it's still far greater than any copper cable transmission can handle.  And fiber will not be susceptible to rain fade like a DirecTV or Dish network receiver.  I'm actually on a notification list to be alerted when Verizon Fios is available in my area.  It's a far superior system than regular cable.

My current provider is Cablevision, and they suck.  But they're a better option than DirecTV where I live.  And I'll ditch them as soon as Verizon Fios becomes available.  I'm also getting really tired of the hardware charges for a DVR.  $15 a month for a DVR receiver is just ridiculous.  It's basically standard equipment nowadays, but it seems like the cable providers are nickel & diming us for the hardware.

DVR's are a whole other issue, but I understand your frustration over the DVR capacity Bill.  Again, it's a bandwidth issue with the HD signal eating up a lot more disc space than standard def.