I Love This State

It would have been nice if Christmas had been this white.

Some people complain about South Eastern Michigan's weather. They claim that it's too volatile and that the skies are gray almost all year. They complain about the fact that the temperature bounces around freezing all winter, which causes the roads to fall apart.

Personally, I like gray skies. I feel at my best when I don't have to squint. I like my light to be ambient.

Another mini... and false encouragement

I painted a Khador "manhunter" mini, and was pretty pleased at the end result. He is currently posted on CMON and getting savaged in the voting.

Stef and the kids were over at our friends' house for the night, and it was just me and the dogs. As I was pulling a handful of Harry & David multi grain tortilla chips from the bag, both dogs sat on the floor looking expectantly at me.

"I don't know what you're looking at, 'cause I'm not giving you anything," I said to them. At that exact moment I pulled a chip out of my handful of chips to eat, and two others accidentally came flying out of the handful to land exactly at the feet of each of the dogs. They each gobbled their chip, then followed me around until my chips were gone.

In Case You Were Wondering...

Never put an ice cube in a pan with hot oil in it "just to see what happens."

The mess is truly epic.

Water > Earth ... Varnish > Ink

The Odwalla truck fell through the earth today. It was backing up to the loading dock of the building in which I work, and its left rear tire fell through the pavement, revealing an extensive sink hole that goes under the building. Do you know whose office is right next to the loading dock? Yup. Good guess. Depending on the type of repair necessary, I'm guess I may have a move in my future. The current "story" is that there was a water main break, but honestly I think there would be more actual water evident if that was true.

Now, on to painting. Hey, guess what. Ink has no binder in it. I was reminded of this when I tried to use some brush on varnish over a freehand done in ink. I ended up with tinted varnish and no freehand. Anything worth doing once is worth doing twice, I suppose.

Dead Trucks and Improptu Haircuts

The truck's dead again. Yeah, it's sooner than I thought it would be too. I was headed home from Angelos' place last night when there was a loud pop and then a scraping noise. I knew immediately what had happened... a tie rod end had broken. The tie rod is what controls the direction of your front tires, so having one broken means that the associated tire is free to go where it pleases instead of obeying the tyranny of the steering mechanism. I had stopped for gas, so I was barely moving when it happened. I had it towed (once again) to Maynard's for repair.... $400 plus tax. Ouch.

I haven't had a haircut in a while. Wait, I guess I should say that I hadn't had a haircut in a while. This morning, as I was getting dressed, Stef beckoned me over to her desk. When I got there, she grabbed the hair on the side of my head and hacked it off with scissors. Then she turned me around and did the other side. I was a little stunned. Spring is here, so I suppose it's time to cut the hair and shave off the beard. Sigh.

Dance! Dance, I say!

My girls had a dance recital on Saturday. Technology invites you to see.

Sarah's Hip Hop Recital:


Lily's Ballet Recital:

Final Eldar Push

This weekend is the final push to get all Eldar done. Honestly, I don't think I'm going to get the Saim-Hann Autrarch done, but I will mail that to him separately.

It's been an awfully long job, and I've gone back and forth spending serious time on it. I'm glad it's finally getting shipped. Actually, the owner may have some more models he needs painted before Games Day, so I likely haven't seen the last of Eldar.

There's a huge Khador job coming down the pipe to paint in a record short amount of time. Angelos and I will be splitting it up to get it done. Expect WIP photos here. Oh, yes. Expect them.

M. Night Whatshisface

Stef and I watched "Lady in the Water" last night.

Wait, let me go back a little. Does anyone remember the teaser trailer for Lady in the Water? The one that doesn't really show much except the main character and some splashing, but ends with the question "How many of you are there?" I found that teaser very evocative, and I was greatly looking forward to this film.

Wait... let me go back a little more. Remember how great "The Sixth Sense" was, and how excited we all were to see the next movie by this mysterious new film maker with the odd name? We got Unbreakable.

Okay, back to the movie in question. After a teaser trailer that made me so eager to see this film, Lady in the Water was just.... awkward. It had way too much exposition, and while it had interesting characters I just don't feel like he did much with them. It would have made a much better novel, where the author has plenty of time to build minor characters until their moment of usefulness. When all you have is ninety minutes in which to work, that building process equates to about 15 seconds of screen time.

I can't say I'm terribly surprised though. M. Night S. has been hit and miss for movies. The Sixth Sense was amazing for pace and revelation. Unbreakable was moody, but seemed more like an undeveloped project than a follow up to such a huge success. Without Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson it would have been ignored. Signs was jumpy and creepy, but way too heavy handed and weakly ended. I don't have a lot of complaints about The Village; I rather enjoyed it, and felt like it lived up to its promise. Lady in the Water has an interesting monster, and I liked the main character Cleveland Heap, but other than that it just more or less failed to make me give a crap one way or the other about what happened. Advice for the millionaire filmmaker: make smaller stories. I can't really get excited about thing that will change the consciousness of all humanity. I want a story where interesting characters experience things and have them resolved in their own context. I'd take small and interesting to epic and vague any time. It shouldn't take an alien invasion to make a disillusioned preacher realize that events in his life have meaning. A girl from another world being pursued by a monster doesn't need to change the course of human history... just make us care about saving her.

Define "Cheap"

EMU has been trying to cut costs. One of the expenses chosen was departmental budgets for little niceties that employees have enjoyed, like coffee or a water cooler. We also used to have a cake once a month to celebrate the employees' birthdays for that month, but no longer. We now contribute $5/month to a coffee fund, and twelve volunteers were forced to bake a cake. Actually, the $5 is far more than we've actually been spending on coffee, so I suppose we'll have a little nest egg built up for when the coffee maker dies. It's one of those three-warmer models that has a direct water feed, and I'd hate to go back to a single pot that you have to pour water in the top of the thing to make coffee.

It's the cake thing that I find puzzling. Not EMU's cessation of providing cake, but my coworkers' lack of willingness to volunteer to bake one. Out of 40 or so employees in our little area, only five signed up for cake baking duty. We even have a departmental cake pan that requires two $1.50 cake mixes, plus frosting. I volunteered for March, and the whole operation took about an hour, from opening boxes to baking to frosting. In an attempt to inspire my coworkers, I wrote SIGN UP FOR APRIL in huge letters made of colored sugar crystals across the cake. No one has yet been inspired to do so.

He Probably Wasn't That Tall

Second 300 post. Deal with it.

Apparently the Iranians are upset because a movie based on a comic book based loosely on events of 2500 years ago portrays them poorly. Oh, sorry, I forgot to add that the bulk of the movie is actually one character retelling of these events, so add another layer of abstraction and exaggeration. Oh, no. What an insult.

Then again, if the Iranians made a movie wherein a nine foot tall androgynous George Washington attacked the middle east offering pleasures of the fleshly variety to those who would turn on their noble brothers, I think some people here might get a little upset.

I Learned a New Word

Saturday, my friend Mark and I went to see 300. It is based on the Battle of Thermopylae the same way many movies are based on the cover illustration of the novel with which they share a name. It was pure style, bloody and unabashedly direct. It mirrored everything I remember about Frank Miller's comics.

After the movie I decided to read a few things about 300, just to get some viewpoints. One columnist called it "as bloody as Apocalypto and twice as stupid," which made me laugh despite having never seen Apocalypto. The moment of education came when I read this word: warnography. It fits 300 perfectly. 300 relishes in every spear piercing torso, every severed limb, every drop of CG blood floating across the screen in this slow motion death dance with such a carnal sensuality that "explicit" doesn't convey the amplitude. This is the erotica of violence. Still, it was somehow cartoony, especially with the slow motion / real time cuts interspersing the fight scenes. It reminded me of Miller's "Hard Boiled" in that regard, which was so over the top violent that I couldn't always tell if the violence was satiric.

One interesting aspect was the portrayal of Persian King Xerxes. Since King Ahasuerus from the book of Esther is commonly thought to be one and the same as King Xerxes, it certainly shakes up my mental picture of the events in Esther to insert Frank Miller's Xerxes. So where did my vague images of ancient Persia originate? What would the Persian court have really been like then? We have our "biblical times" generic look and feel for an awfully wide range of times and places. I feel a bit inspired to look into things a bit more when I study them.

But not right now. I have painting to do.

Ya Buncha Fairies...

Ths weekend the girls and I started painting the same figure, a Fairy Princess by Reaper. Sarah (8) is painting the red one and Lily (5) is painting the purple one.

The first step was a basecoat in multiple, thin layers. This was difficult for them, since they have a hard time understanding anything but one coat coverage. After a couple coats they seemed to get it, although I don't think it looked better enough in their eyes to have bothered. We then tried a highlight layer in a lighter color. In both of their minis you can see the darker/lighter, which I think is pretty cool. I might do one more level of highlights with them, just on the extreme portions. I think we'll do skin after that.

Funny side note. While painting, Sarah became concerned. "Dad, is it okay to say 'breasts' when I talk about painting her?" "Yes, dear, it's fine."

Me != Winner

Okay, the guy I was bidding on here went for $40, a fair bit above what I could afford. Instead I bought a commercial grade fire extinguisher from someone at work for $25. Not quite the same, but a bit more useful in keeping my family safe.

Cutest Headbang Ever

Did I mention this one previously? hmmm

Go here: http://www.noggin.com/shows/jacks.php
Watch "Steve Burns and Steven Drozzt: I Hog the Ground"

It's about 34 seconds in.

Irritating Flashback

Ages ago I had an Atari 800XL home computer. Viva la 6502. One of the programs I had played a song called "Passionately" while displaying the lyrics, karaoke style. It was pretty cool at the time, but our coolness threshold with computers was a lot lower then.

Problem: I can't get that song out of my head today. It's even worst because I can half-remember the lyrics. The song is basically about someone who has been abandoned, and is waiting for their lover to phone. Now you are gone, and time just seems to drag on. Without your love, I could not live for too long.

All the while, a set of bars on the screen show the notes being played, including bends and vibrato. You have to admit, you and I fit... Passionately.

Grrr. Not being able to find a real copy of the lyrics keeps this song preserved in half-memory. Number was dialed wrong. For you I still long passionately.


EDIT: Check this out!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiX8Ba2L4u0

Good From Far

I'm trying to get back into the habit of posting WIP shots here. Mark came over tonight, and while he started on Captain Rengrave I painted this fellow. I am really trying for extreme highlights, since this is a gaming piece. I want it to have maximum pop for minimum view time.

I really love Stef's new camera. Best. Snapshots. Ever.

The Opposite of Selling

No, I didn't paint this. For the first time ever, I am bidding on a painted mini on eBay. The painter, Shawn R.L., is a CMON regular whose work I have admired for some time, especially in the lighting simulation. Since I have never really seen a really well painted mini in person, I figured I would take a stab at buying this one with the meager funds in my paypal account.

Part of me wants to win. Part of me wants him to get $100 for it. It's a really nice looking mini.

Standing Water

So plans changed a little last night. Instead of finishing the Eldar infantry, I ended up helping my neighbor Don figure out why his basement was flooding. We figured out that it was because of the rain. Couple of geniuses.

It rained a lot here yesterday, and because the ground was still frozen from our cold snap last week the water just piled up on top of the ice. I oversimplified when I said that rain caused the flooding; it was really the 8 inches of standing water against Don's foundation, right where there was a crack. We ended up booking it out to Lowe's before they closed to buy 350 lbs. of sand to build up that low spot and hopefully send the water out in to the yard. It seemed to do the trick. In addition to the crack in the wall, his floor grate appeared to have backed up, which shouldn't really have been related to the rain. In any case, he got the clog out just before I arrived, so sanitizing the floor was the only issue there.


Isn't homeownership a hoot?

Behold My Top 5

Okay, nothing much in the way of updates. I found a way to display one's top 5 CoolMiniOrNot minis, so I included it on my blog here. It's on the right, a little ways down.

I still can't figure out why that Black Templar sergeant has the best score. Sadly enough it's probably more the subject matter than the paint job.

Side note: my spell checker doesn't like the word "Templar." It suggested, among other things, "Exemplariness" as a possible replacement. I cannot imagine a situation where using "exemplariness" would be the best word choice. Who knows? Maybe you, the reader, use it daily.

Wheels!

My truck is 12 years old and 30 miles shy of 100K. It still looks nice. It still seems to drive okay, especially for a 4-cylinder. It has been basic, reliable transportation for quite a while, and only the odd catalytic converter, muffler, blown gasket, etc., has kept it off the road.... until this past November. On the way home from work the battery light came on. I observed that the volt meter on my dash had dropped from its normal 15v or so to about 12v. Oops. I hypothesized that it was probably the alternator. We really didn't have the money to fix it with Christmas coming up, so it sat.

Last Sunday, my neighbor helped me out and took a look at the car. He surmised that the battery might be the issue, and took it to an auto parts store where they verified that the battery did indeed have a bad cell. I bought a new battery, and the volt meter was back up at 15v! Hooray!

Based on how much text is left in this entry, you can probably guess that new battery is not end of story.

Within a day of driving, the voltmeter dropped back to 12v and the battery light was on. I figured what the heck... I'm gonna drive it to work and see what happens. All week long the truck took me back and forth to work without issue. Even starting the truck was unchanged. My (faulty) logic was that if the battery was draining then starting should sound progressively more strained over the course of the week.

My coworker Buck invited me to go hear Scott Hahn speak. On Saturday morning I was driving out to meet Buck when things turned significantly south for the truck. The volt meter started a steady downward trend... 12v... 11v....10v.... uh, oh..... 9v. I start looking for an exit so I'm not stuck on the side of the road. Ah! Zeeb Rd. Good. As I approach, the engine RPM's to maintain speed increase, and I'm now fearful that the transmission is failing as well. I manage to nurse it into a parking lot off Zeeb Rd and give Stef a call. She comes out and charges the battery for me for a while so that I can try to nurse it home. I get as far as the freeway before it quite enthusiastically dies on me.

It was about 10am when I hit Zeeb Rd. It was about 3:00pm when the tow truck pulled up to my house. I missed the Scott Hahn thing (grumble) of which Buck gave rave reviews this morning. Sunday, neighbor Brian and I changed my alternator in the freezing rain. Well, it was more him doing the work and me squinting and handing him tools, but I learned a fair bit. We took the old alternator to the auto parts store to make sure it was bad, and it failed all the tests... whew. If it had passed we would have been quite puzzled.

But now, drum roll please, the truck is really fixed! I have my wheels again!