I Am Not "'ard"

I played Saturday in the local 'ard Boyz tournament, out at Planeswalker's Magic Bag in Munith. The good news is I got a t-shirt. The bad news is that I got second to last place. A friend of mine got last place, but if we had played scenario 2 correctly I think he would have smoked me, thereby cementing my position as the worst 40k player in southeast Michigan.

Round one was intense. My goal went from winning, to killing at least one of my opponent's models, to have at least one model remaining at the end of the game. I did kill off a few enemies and managed to get a weapon destroyed on a Land Raider (one of four in his list) and at the end all I had was a Drop Pod left, dutifully missing with its storm bolter each turn. The funny part was Tigurius doing "Fear of the Darkness" every turn, which would make my Techmarine run, every time. After rallying, he would run back to immobilized Vindicator he was so desperately trying to fix, only to have Tigurius make him run again. Three turns in a row this happened, until finally a lascannon pen-6'd the Vindicator and the explosion took out the Techmarine as well. I got massacred, and he got all extra points as well.

Round two was vs. Orks. It was a "dawn of war" scenario, so the Orks got a turn to run their heads off at me before I could realistically shoot at them. If he had brought his lootas on during turn 2 (as opposed to rolling for deep strike like we were doing, causing them to come in on turn 4) I would have gotten pummeled. The bad part for the Orks was when the Vindicator rolled onto the board and dropped a pie plate on his Warboss/Nob bike unit that had just finished assaulting a Razorback. Boom. Result was a tie.

Round three was vs. Iron Hands. A fellow I'd met a few times there was my opponent. He had fared about as well as me so far in the tournament, and we ended up tying. It was a good fight, but I was getting a little tired by the end and was making dumb choices.

In order to make myself feel better after my humiliating performance I went home and painted a Blood Ravens Dreadnought. At least I can still paint moderately well!

(Edit: The picture is one of the battles I got to watch at the tournament, having been stomped flat in record time. It was Orks vs. Dark Eldar, and a fine match it was!)

What happened to GW Paint Creek Crossing?

How does something that starts so strong end up so weak? In April 2007 Games Workshop opened a store at Paint Creek Crossing in Ypsilanti, MI. I was pretty excited when I found out, since it's only about 6 or 7 minutes from my house.

I had trepidation the first time I walked in the door there, since I had a prior bad experience at a Games Workshop store (the West Oaks one in Novi, MI.) I had been assaulted by their corporate-approved interaction methodology, which is basically "badger the person incessantly to either play a demo game, increase their current army or start a new army." I think there also must be some clause in the handbook about talking up every event coming up at the store, and shoving a photocopied calendar into your hands to use as a visual aid while describing each of the 5o or so events each month. I was immediately put off by how intense an interaction was required to be in the presence of that employee. That was my first time at the West Oaks store, and my first time in a GW store in probably 15 years. I wanted to look at the painted miniatures. I wanted to watch people playing at the tables. I wanted to look over the assortment of minis for sale. I did not want to have a Jack Russel Terrier of a salesperson following me around trying to draw me into a sale. I have not been back to West Oaks since that first day.

So back to Paint Creek Crossing.... like I said, I was a little wary walking in because I wasn't sure if I'd get the same treatment. I was thrilled to meet Mark and Reynolds, who were much more casual about their treatment of customers. They talked to me but without the intensity of the West Oaks gang. I felt at ease there. I knew I'd found a new hangout.

Over the course of the next year I spent a fair bit of time there. I made friends there. I often impulse bought minis, despite the fact that I could get them elsewhere at significant discount. The idea of contributing to the Paint Creek Crossing store staying open appealed to me, and I tried to make the hobby scene there better by helping people as they sought my painting advice. Unfortunately this idyllic situation ends. Mark went off to college. A new manager was transferred in. Reynolds transfered to a different store. With the changing of the employees came a change in the ambiance of the place. The sales staff started to become intense, like the experience I had at West Oaks. The beginning of Lance's managerial reign really pushed this to it's final stage. As manager, Lance had definitely drunk the "high intensity experience" kool-aid, and he expected his subordinates to show an annoying amount of energy, and to ask everyone if they were going to preorder whatever the new items was every time they came into the store. Seriously. It went from midly irritating to really annoying pretty quick. No, Lance, I don't collect Dark Elves and I'm not going to preorder the $250 box coming out next month. Yes, Lance, I know how cool they are because we've talked about it every time I've been in the store in the last month. As annoying as this was, I could still sort of deal with it because a) hanging out there was still somewhat entertaining due to the friends I had made, and b) some of the employees (Mark and Caleb) would actually interact with me on something deeper than a used-car-salesman level. It wasn't too long before Caleb quit, having found a job in his chosen field of teaching. Good for him!

...and here's where the breaking point came, but first a disclaimer. Mark was a friend of mine before the GW store opened. I encouraged him to apply there. I really thought he'd be happy there. For quite a while, he seemed happy there.

On September 8, 2008 Games Workshop released a fancy new starter set for their best selling game, Warhammer 40,000. This was a great deal for gamers, and it was going to sell big. Still under the impression that I wanted to support the Paint Creek Crossing store, I preordered and planned to attend their midnight launch event. I showed up at 11:30 PM roughly Friday night to await the midnight release. Lance and Mark (as the only two employees left at that store) were there running the events and getting everyone whipped up for the release. It was silly fun. Lance was especially silly. Less like enthusiasm silly and more like severe sleep deprivation silly. Multiple times I saw Mark step up and take over for a faltering Lance. Mark really went above and beyond that night.

Apparently my observation was not shared, because Lance fired him the next day.

No, that's too easy an explanation. After the release event that went late into the night and the cleanup afterward Lance asked Mark to come in early the next day. Only then, before normal shift the next day after the event Mark carried, did Lance fire him. Seriously, are there any GW regional managers reading this? So why was he fired, you ask? Personally, I think it had a lot to do with Mark's personality. Like Reynolds and the first Mark, this Mark was pleasant. I think they have a corporate policy against being pleasant.

Okay, so here's your google search phrase:
I will not shop at Games Workshop Paint Creek Crossing again.

The recent management has consumed all the good will built up with me in the first year of that store being open. I considered Paint Creek my "home store." I don't know whom they are tailoring their store experience to but it's sure not me anymore. It's sure not people who walk in cold either, because I've seen a whole lot of people who just pop in to see what the store was all about go running scared after being assaulted by an over-intense salesperson.

Oh, well.

EDIT: This store is my gaming/shopping home again, thanks to manager Brett and his pro-hobbyist approach.
--More--

We're Back Online!

Stef just called me at work to tell me (almost tearfully) that DSL is working at home again! We're back online after an excruciating week!

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. A week without net? That's not terribly long, and there are plenty of places to get internet other than your house, presumably. That's true, except:

1. We don't have a laptop, so we can't be portable.
2. We have an online business to run and shipping labels to print, which is nearly impossible to do outside your own setup.
3. We do most of our business late at night, which isn't exactly conducive to going over to someone else's house to borrow their connection.

I think Stef was about to have a mental breakdown last night over it. Life as a Luddite did not suit her, and even the kids were getting bored of the computer without Maple Story or other connected games. Now, to catch up on the backlog! I know I've lost customers over the turnaround time from August/September, and this outage hasn't helped a bit.

School Day #1 ... for everyone

Yesterday was the first day of school. Ever.

Up until this year, Stef and I had home schooled our kids. It went well enough, but it became more and more of a struggle to get them to focus on actually working and not on all the distractions home provides. After much consternation, we decided to check out schools for them. The first thought was the Christian Academy relatively close to our house. While that was considerably cheaper than the Christian Academy many of our friends send their kids to, it ended up being out of our realistic price range. We reluctantly enrolled our kids in the nearby elementary school. I took half a day off work to attend a tour, and was pleasantly surprised by how nice the facility was and how well spoken the staff and administration were about the way the school operates. I had no reservations sending them there after that tour.

Sarah and Lily both tested into their respective grades, and both absolutely love it so far. Granted, it's only been one day, but for them to love it after one day makes the transition for us (especially Stef) easier. We went out to eat at the local Coney Island to celebrate the first day of school last night, which thrilled the kids all the more. We don't do that often.

Jay is the only child home during the day now, and we're still not sure about whether to put him in pre-school or not. He's four, but he's a very young four, and all boy. Maybe we'll try preschool this year. Maybe we'll wait a year before he goes to preschool, then send him to Kindergarten when he's six. It's a tough call.

im in ur culture, satirizing ur memes

One of my daily interweb comic stops is PvP. Supposedly it's about a group of people who work at a video game related magazine, but that's just a sly cover for some character driven humor and strange diversions.

One of those diversions is the adventures of the lolbat. He made his entrance in this strip. I thought it would be a one-shot, but he has had an entire story arc now, starting here. It's been going on for four days and I don't know when it will end. How do you even end something like that?

Scott Kurtz is an interesting guy. He certainly has a knack for the homage, including drawing in the style of other comic artists. I thought this was absolutely inspired.

Handout from Painting Seminar ... 28 Weeks Later

4 Days Later: In case anyone lost theirs and wants another copy it is available HERE in handy pdf format.

28 Weeks Later: Stef and I watched zombie sequel "28 Weeks Later" last night. Meh. I thought 28 Days Later was an inspired take on the while zombie flick thing, but 28 Weeks Later just seemed poorly conceived in comparison. It just never felt particularly focused. When the movie was over I didn't even care enough to watch the deleted scenes. The ones they left in were tedious enough.

The Wonder of Horrible

Have I mentioned I like the work of Joss Whedon? No? I'm pretty sure I have. Well, if I haven't then I'll say it now: I like the work of Joss Whedon. I won't list it here. You have an internet for that.

His latest work is called "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog." Go watch episode one and come back. It's only about 10 or 15 minutes, and I know you don't have anything else to do right now or you wouldn't be reading this. Go now. I'll wait here.

[LATER THAT SAME DAY]

Great. You're back. Okay, if you didn't like it then just go away and I'll see you next post.

Stef and I were able to watch the first three or four episodes for free before they went all iTunes give me money give me money on us. I'm pretty sure I'll end up paying for future episodes. I'm not sure I've watched a serial about a lovesick wannabe super villian before, but it really works for me. And the singing? Yeah, I like that part too. In fact, I'm pretty much just a Joss Whedon fanboy at this point. He could film a guy in a mascot costume kicking a telephone pole for a half hour and I'd probably download it and watch it from start to finish.

LATE BREAKING NEWS! I was immediately notified by an alert reader of The Guild, which stars Felicia Day as well. I am going to have to watch this... it looks like it's been going on for a while.

Thanks, guys!

I want to take a minute to say thanks to everyone who attended my first painting seminar, and thanks to Planeswalker's Magic Bag for setting everything up and hosting. You guys were great! Congrats to Corwin on winning the Winsor & Newton Series 7 brush, too. That was a mighty cool Chaos Sorcerer.

It was very encouraging to see you all actively applying the techniques I was explaining was very encouraging, and I got some great advice from you guys too. From what I saw in the class I'm really looking forward to what you have to show me next time I'm there!

The web site for the tutorials I was talking about is http://miniature-mentor.com.
Also check out the free tutorials here: http://www.coolminiornot.com/article
The OSL (object sourced lighting) examples I was talking about are here and here. The painter of the Neo Soviet scene in the first example is the sculptor of the Armorcast gun-blast add-ons that Dave was talking about seeing at GenCon.

Buck's Final Meal

Today Buck, Ann Marie, Subbu and I went to Tower Inn to celebrate Buck's second to last day of employment at EMU. After two years, he decided to bite the hand that feeds him and take a job somewhere sunny. What greater insult can you deliver to your Michigan coworkers, I ask. Sunny. Florida.

While there we had the waiter take a group shot of the four of us. Paul would have been there, but he's busy testing grade submission through WebCT Vista. It's just as well.... his switch to the AAS team from the PSS team makes him part of them, not us. You lose. You get nothing. Good day, sir.

Tower Inn is an interesting place to have a last lunch, since one of Buck's first meals here was at Tower Inn, and the waitress dumped a glass of diet soda in his lap. Today there were no such mishaps. On the way back, Ann Marie stated, "Awwwww, somebody lost their lunch!" Against all bounds of common sense I turned to look at the spot in question and saw this, thankfully.
Colloquialisms were forgiving this time.

The plan now is to watch Buck tweet his way to Florida with his iPhone that he is far too pleased to have. (Rise before Jobs. Now kneel before Jobs.)

Returned, immersed in RegEx ... and lost keys

I'm back from vacation! Portage Lake Covenant Bible Camp was big fun, great worship and deep teaching; it was refreshment for body, mind and spirit.

I'm writing Perl scripts at work right now, and am bogged down in the language of regular expressions. Years ago I had some cursory exposure to Relay Ladder Logic, the language of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC's) and decided that anyone who could fully grasp RLL was a little unhinged. I'm starting to feel that way about regexp's.

Returning from vacation I realize that I have lost my keys. My house key, my truck key, my work keys, my P.O. box key...... gone. I'm sure they are in the bags somewhere, but until we have emptied out every reservoir of stuff that came back from camp with us I don't think I will find them. Losing keys is a funny thing. They really are tangible connections to things that happen in my life, and losing them makes me feel disconnected from my everyday activities.

Saturday is my painting seminar at Planeswalker's Magic Bag. I think 10 or 12 people are coming specifically to hear me talk about miniature painting. Hopefully none of them will be better than me, so I don't have to rough anyone up.

Animal Sertivude and Cosmic Ark

For no good reason, the subject of the Atari 2600 game Cosmic Ark came up today at work.

The concept of the game is that you fly from planet to planet rescuing little animals before their planet gets destroyed. In the screen shot at left you can see the large ark, the flying rescue craft just to the left of it, and two squiggly animals on the ground in need of rescue.

The part that always confused me was that the amount of fuel you received to travel to the next planet was directly proportional to the number of animals you captured on the previous planet. The only rational conclusion I could make was that the animals were being used as fuel. Ann Marie had a different take on it. "Maybe they're being forced to run on little treadmills."

hmmm. I hadn't considered that.

Still Basking

Thursday at about 11:00 AM the photos of the Golden Demon winners from Chicago were posted on the Games Workshop website. The Ork looks pretty darn good! I'm a little surprised at the level of local celebrity I've received because of this minor accomplishment. The guys here at work are geeked, people at the Paint Creek GW store are geeked, and people at Planeswalker's Magic Bag (where I hang out on the very occasional Saturday) are geeked. I'm even doing a painting clinic at Planeswalker's on 8/23. I'm still awaiting the posting of the honorable mention pics, because I'm really hoping the duel looks good in the photo.

Last year my goal was first cut, and I got honorable mention. This year my goal was a trophy, and I got a bronze and an honorable mention. Next year's goal: a silver! I suppose now I should start thinking about my '09 entries...

Mysterious Victory!

I'm back, and I have a trophy! I won a bronze in the 40k Large Monster category for... my Ork Warboss!

Yeah, go ahead and scan the completion meter. You won't find it. It was a piece I painted earlier in the year when the Ork army was released. It was meant to be high quality, but not competition quality. All of the models that I put 50 or so hours in on didn't even make first cut, with the exception of the Duel, which got an honorable mention. I also got more feedback from Tim Lison on the judging, which will help me a great deal in the year to come.

I also got to meet a number of people whom I have known about for some time, which was quite a thrill. Anja Wettergren of Games Workshop, James and Cathy Wappel, Chris Borer, Mathieu Fontaine, Dirty Steve, etc. It was a great thrill to meet all of you, and I hope to see you again at future competitions. I missed meeting Vincent Hudon and jeff Wilhelm, but I got to see some of their great pieces there.

See you all next year!

'Ere We Go! Chicago Games Day!

This is it! After a marathon completion session I have six entries ready to go for Golden Demon! Not all were the ones originally planned and some are stronger than others, but six shall be submitted.

Okay! It's off to Chicago!

Last Day before Chicago!

(As opposed to being "upon us"... there are only so many ways to say that the time is approaching.)

I've officially dropped Warmaster Skaven and Moria Goblin Shaman as entries. Instead, I am going to do a touch up or two on my little Grot Orderly and enter him (her?) in the open category. It's a unique little conversion. Maybe the judges will look favorably upon it.

The Skaven Warlord still needs a backpack and static grass, but other than that he's done. It's a couple hours, tops.

The gyrocopter needs foliage, and I have some lichen I'm going to use. Other than that, it's done.

If I get those done, then maybe I'll consider cranking out the orderly or .... I dunno... something. Last year, a friend of mine from The UnderEmpire entered one of the staff categories just for the heck of it and won gold. These weren't models he had painted for the competition, they were just nice looking models that he had brought for a gaming tournament. Granted he's a great painter, but it's pretty cool to walk in with no intended entries and walk out with a trophy. Maybe I'll bring a model or two for categories I don't have real entries prepared, just to see what happens. The worst case is that they don't win.

Chicago Games Day 2008 is Upon Us!

Let the freaking out.... begin!

No, I'm actually better off than I am letting on. The duel only needs snow. The gyrocopter has one good night left and the Skaven warlord will be done tonight, Wednesday. I think I'm going to go ahead and just drop the idea of the Warmaster Skaven, unless I suddenly explode with inspiration tonight and paint up three bases of them. The Moria Goblin Shaman is also going by the wayside. Too bad. I like the figure, but I just could never get it started with that one.

Is anyone going to be there? Any of you folks from Chicago Terrain Factory? Leave a comment and let me know!

My Inner Mason has +49 Holy Studded Diamond Mail

I love Progress Quest. It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something, even though I cannot affect my characters advancement in any way. You just let the process run and your character merrily advances up the ranks, killing monsters, finishing quests and upgrading kit. It's like WoW without the $15/month, and you get to keep your life.

If you are a fan of the old single player PC dungeon crawl type game, then make sure you read carefully when the game first starts, as the first few progress bars fill. It made me laugh as they set up a (flimsy) premise like just about every game of that genre ever has.

My character, an Inner Mason named "MelFarrSuperstar" (seriously local Detroit reference) is level 79 on the Oobag server. If you really want to join up, join my guild "106".

Oh, and I guess I owe you some Chicago news... the Duel entry progressed considerably over the weekend. I have five days to wrap all this up, and it makes my stomach hurt to think about it.

One Down, Five To Go

As you can see in the completion meter in the above right, I finished the Commissar last night. Sorry for the lack of photos. That leaves five more entries to finish by next Saturday, three of which are coming about quite nicely. The other two (which should be pretty obvious on the meter) are in danger of not happening, which is okay. I'd rather walk in with four competitive entries than six mediocre ones.

Okay, from the dubious accomplishment department, I have now successfully watched the entire first and second seasons of the new Doctor Who series in preparation for the big season finale last night. Between Stef and Susan I had plenty of encouragement. I have made some assumptions about what is going to happen in this upcoming episode and I can't say I'm looking forward to it even a little. Okay, maybe a little. Okay, maybe I'm really curious. Yeah, maybe that.

Math is Funny

If you have never read xkcd then please do. It's not all kiddie-friendly, but it's intelligent in ways that math geeks (even not particularly knowledgeable math geeks like myself) will enjoy.

The internet argument one is amazing.

The Chicago Games Day To-Do List

With hotel paid for, tickets in-hand and entries taking shape, it's time to start the list of things to do before Chicago Games Day.

Duel:

• finish base colors on marine
• battle damage on marine
• finish banshee
• OSL
• snow
  

Commissar:

• riding crop
• touch up freehand
• shell casing

LotR Shaman:

• redo eyes
• armor improvements
• weapon OSL

Gyrocopter:

• finish pilot
• improve wood grain
• basing shrubs / figure

Skaven Warlord:

• trophy rack
• long grass on base
• fungus on base
• improve skulls on back

Warmaster Skaven (not looking quite so likely)

• Finish Eshin base
• Entire Moulder base
• Entire Skryre base
• Entire Warlord base
• Entire Pestilens base

Even with six categories I realize that I am likely to walk away with a couple honorable mentions at best, which is a little depressing. I find myself intimidated by things like this. I just don't feel like I can match that level of quality, and it's hard to say I'm seriously contending for trophies when I keep seeing minis that are out of my league, so to speak. I don't want to win a trophy because some category was poorly represented on a given year. I want to win because I painted a world class mini. I'm just not sure I'm there yet.