T-59 Days until Games Day Chicago

Oh, man. I need to work. A lot.

Last year it took me 28 days exactly to produce an entry worthy of an honorable mention, from shrink wrap to delivery. This year I am trying for six categories with about twice that time left to paint. The scary part is that I actually want to do a seventh category, if I have time. Where am I going to get time?!

Actually, it's not as bad as I'm making it sound. Last year was a huge conversion project, and I spent a lot of the time trying out different versions of the conversion, as well as playing with different paint additives for the first time. This year it's mostly just single model, so precision is the goal.

Nevertheless, I gotta get working.

Goodbye 30-39

That's it. It's done. I made it to my fortieth birthday. According to Bowflex commercials, I'm the perfect age to join a rock band or something.

The multitude gathered to see Prince Caspian on Friday, my one request for my birthday celebration. It was priceless to hear my girls squeal "Reepicheep!" when he first appeared on screen. Reepicheep, the noble mouse who appears in both Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, was their single favorite character from those books. I think he was given good treatment in the movie.

Later, we all went and had pizza at Tower Inn. The kids had a "make your own pizza" thing, where the waitstaff would bring them raw materials from which to manufacture a mini pizza, which was then cooked and returned for them to eat. Okay, people? If you want to eat anytime within this age, do not choose a meal option that lets six children both choose from a long list of options and then perform some action that must be completed before the mere cooking of the meal can commence. Simplify.

My personal approach to giving children choices is that each option of roughly equivalent value beyond two will double the amount of time the decision takes. I say roughly equivalent because some options will artificially weigh the decision. "Do you want a spanking or a bowl of ice cream?" for example. "Do you want a popsicle or a bowl of ice cream?" would be more valid, assuming the child being asked actually likes both popsicles and ice cream. Adding a third option to the decision, "Do you want a popsicle, a bowl of ice cream, or a king-size candy bar?" doubles the decision time, as each option is weighed against every other option. Adding a fourth option will multiply the decision time to 4x the time it would take to choose between two options. Now, for just a moment, imagine a box containing twenty shiny rocks. Imagine handing that box to a child and say, "Pick one." To the child this really means "Choose one of these to keep. The rest you will never see again, so consider this decision as if your very life depended upon it. Alternately you may choose in a brief, cavalier fashion then cry later when you see another child with a rock you want more than your own." This brings us to our correlary: the level of dissatisfaction a child will have with any given choice, once made, is directly proportional to the number of children in the immediate area who chose differently from the same initial choice set.

For the past two nights there have only been five people in my house. For such a small place it almost feels big.

I have been invited to the beta test of Kongregate's online card game "Kongai." It is fun, but it is clearly not complete.

Venting and Gas

First off, how long do you think it will be before photos like this stop being alarming and start making us nostalgic?

Now on to the real subject: venting. I hear many people say "I just needed to vent" after complaining about something. The concept of venting is not foreign to me, but I have discovered its application to be an unhealthy thing, for me anyway. Allow me to explain.

The concept of "venting" is that by talking about something you can feel less annoyed or frustrated by it. In essence you have built up too high a pressure in the holding tank and are venting steam (which I would assume the etymology of this term, although I am too lazy to find out for sure) to lower the pressure. This seems fine if you are a steam boiler. For me, venting has a very different result. It conditions me to be unhappy.

Allow me to psych101 you for a moment. We all have neuron pathways in our brain that become more easily accessed as we practice something. If you practice guitar, your brain gets better at moving your hands around in the correct manner. If you type your computer password every day for several years you begin to type it without even thinking about it. I think venting works the same way. My theory is that if you learn to repeatedly vocalize your complaints you train your mind to run down those same pathways; you condition yourself to dwell on what makes you unhappy. I suppose if you could condition yourself to actually stop being unhappy after venting then you could make it work. My experience is that most people who vent continue to be unhappy about it afterwards, and are really just looking for someone to agree with the fact that they have a reason to be upset.

I approach this very differently as I approach 40 than I did when I was approaching 30. I'm not exactly the poster child for unflappable. In fact, Stef and I joke that only two things I don't like are "doing something" or "going somewhere" which pretty much sums up anything that can ever happen. There are plenty of things that cause me anxiety or unhappiness. What I have found does not help is talking over and over about what is bothering me. The much quoted Ephesians 4:26 says "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (ASV translation.) Okay, the first part is pretty simple. If you are angry, don't sin. (Keep it together, man!) I've heard the second part used over and over to encourage people to resolve their issues, to talk through things or what not. I think there's a false assumption there. Some issues can't just be talked through. Some have to be let go. Personally, I try to examine the things that are making me upset and decide whether these are things that can really be fixed by talking. Often, they aren't. If that's the case, you can still not let the sun go down upon your wrath. All you have to do is decide not to have wrath. Poof. Let it go. And it's not like I'm some super inner-peace guy either. pfft. Not even close. I'm just some slob with an opinion, and blogger is kind enough to save it in their database for your reading pleasure.

The Adventures of Scotty the Penguin

First off, let me apologize for embedded quotes. I have no talent for it.

At Greenfield Village last week (see a few posts earlier) I chatted with a volunteer employee there. He saw that my Lily had a small bag crammed with six Webkinz. He decided that I would like to hear a story.
"My wife has a stuffed penguin named 'Scotty' that she takes everywhere!" he began. I immediately wondered if his wife had special needs. "She takes pictures of Scotty every time we go someplace like the museum. Scotty driving the car, Scotty operating the drill press, Scotty riding the atomic bomb..." Okay, this now has more of a "Garden Gnome tours the country" feel to it than an "I need my blanky" feel. He concludes the story thusly. "One time we were out someplace and a little girl tugged at her mother's sleeve and pointed to my wife. 'See? She got to bring her toy in with her!'"

That part actually made me laugh.

Be Careful What You Ask For

I swung by the GW store last night to shop for a model. I can't tell you what... that's a secret. Anyway, a friend was there and he had brought a model with him. It had apparently placed third or so in another GW store's painting competition, and his demeanor clearly showed that he thought it should have placed better. He told me that he was considering entering it into Golden Demon, and asked for my input. I was... how do I put this... diplomatically blunt. I told him what I liked about the model and I told him what I didn't like. His expression indicated that he didn't like being told what I didn't like about his model. I advised him to take a month and clean it up. He repeated the "take a month" part to himself with a sour face.

Now don't get me wrong... it wasn't a bad model. It looked good, but not competition good. I had never seen competitions models before Chicago last year, but I had seen enough photos on Cool Mini Or Not to know that my average model was not that level. I think he was expecting me to say that he had a chance for a trophy with that model. It was a good looking gaming model, but really had no chance in competition. I tried to offer helpful suggestions, mostly my rules of competitive painting. Here they are:

1. It has to look intentional - Every part of the model has to look like you intended it to look exactly as it looks. No part should look like you arrived there by accident, even if the end result looks cool.
   
2. It's not good enough - No matter what you are working on, look it over again and again to see what can be improved. Never be satisfied, but instead keep improving everything a little at a time.
   
3. If you can't do it well, don't do it - it may be a cool idea, but if you can't satisfy rule #1, then you shouldn't be doing it. This is sort of (very sort of) a Jeet Kun Do approach to painting... play to your strengths. If you're a speed skater, don't compete in the pole vault. If there's a super cool technique that you are dying to try, use it on some other models until you are good at it and then use it on a competition model.

The model I was asked to critique violated rules 1 and 2. A lot. There were numerous examples of places on the model where surfaces met indistinctly or where paint from one area seemed to be bleeding into another. I pointed out some places where tide marks from washes had formed, and I was told that boiled leather looks exactly like that. Maybe it does, who knows? To me, a painter and not an expert on boiled leather, it looked like tide marks from a wash. Maybe the judges will have more leather savvy than me. The model may have gotten first cut, but it wouldn't have won a trophy. Not even close.

I had a few models on me, so I showed my friend what I had been working on. What I got was what I gave, and that's only fair. I know the models I'm working on aren't competition models. Okay, one is a competition model but it's really only just started. I got a detailed list of what he didn't like about the model. At least one of the problems he pointed out had escaped my attention, so I'm glad he showed me. If we both walk away from yesterday better painters, then it was a good day.

I took the time to win a LotR painting competition while I was there. The only other guy to compete had to use store brushes, so it wasn't exactly an even race. Gotta give him credit for competing without his tools. Chutzpah!

So here's the dilemma for me. I'm a "pretty good" painter. Not a great painter. Most of the people who frequent the local shop are mediocre painters. A few of them just enjoy painting, but some of them want to be really good at it. They seem to turn to me for feedback on their minis, but they only want to hear how great they are. Most of the time I oblige and just tell them what I like about a particular model. Sometimes, like yesterday, I give real critique. It's seldom well received. When I met Tim Lison he not only told me what he liked about my model but what he didn't like about it. The didn't like parts were far more helpful. I didn't feel like Tim's comments were attacks or insults. Either I need to learn how to deliver critique as well as Tim or just forgo giving constructive comments altogether. "Yeah, looks great! You should so enter that into Golden Demon!" I don't know... I have a hard time saying it if I don't mean it.

GD Category Update

Current category intentions for Chicago Games Day Golden Demon:

40k single: Commissar (0% complete)
40k squad: Plague Marines or something Eldar.... not sure
40k vehicle: maybe an Ork Deffdread...
40k large:

WHFB single: Skaven Warlord (60% complete)
WHFB regiment:
WHFB large/monster: Dwarf Gyrocopter (20% complete)

LotR: Moria Goblin Shaman (10% complete)
Duel: (secret project!) (0% complete)
Youngbloods: (missed it by 25 years! shucks!)
Open: Warmaster Skaven (1% complete)

So that's SIX categories I'm planning on competing in! Six! I could easily enter something I've already painted for one of the other categories, and I'm really struggling with whether to enter 40k and whfb units. Maybe I'll hold off on those for now. Considering what I went through to enter the one model last year, even six might be a little much. Duel is going to take a lot of my energy, that's for sure!

A Day Out with Thomas

Lily, Jay and I went to Greenfield Village yesterday to attend "Day Out with Thomas." My mom and dad brought my brother's kids Daniel and Rebekah as well.

I was impressed that Thomas was an actual coal burning steam engine. Off to the left you can see my dad and Jay.

The Application of Division

My house is 950 sq. feet.

Last night my house contained:
3 x adults
2 x girls, age 9
2 x girls, age 6
1 x boy, age 5
1 x boy, age 3
1 x boy, age 18 months
1 x boy, age 2 weeks

Total: 11 humans of varying sizes
950 sq. feet / 11 people = 86.3 sq. feet per person.
I haven't decided how I'm going to use my 9.3 ft. square allocation of area. I hope mine contains the toilet. Or maybe the door.

What Finishing Last Looks Like

I participated in my local GW store's painting competition. We had 25 hours to paint the 25th anniversary model. The size of the prize was dependent on how many entries they received, ranging from a $5 gift card for 1-5 entires all the way up to a battalion box for 10 or 15 entries.

There were all of 4 entries. Last time I entered a contest there, there were 3 entries. The time before that, I was the only entry. I think I've lost interest in competing there. What they should do is have an open painting competition where you have to buy your model at the store ($20 minimum purchase on a gift card or something) and they award a prize for the winner and another prize for a random entrant. I think they'd get more participation that way.

So back to the competition that just finished... out of 4 entries I finished ... drum roll please... 4th. Hmmm. #1 was well painted, but was gloss coated (and I hates gloss coating forever.) #2 was mediocre painted, but had the whole base assembled and painted, which was a feat to behold. It really is a huge base. #3 was a clever conversion from fantasy to 40k. Then came me. I can't question the judging, but I still think mine was pretty good.

The unpainted figures, being so limited edition, are going for $40-$50 on eBay. I've listed him on eBay, so I'm curious to see if my paint job added or subtracted value from him.

Iron Man L.A. Times Review

I haven't seen Iron Man yet. I don't know when I would. I did, however, read Kenneth Turan's review on the L.A. Times web site.

Here is an excerpt. Emphasis is mine.

Traveling to Afghanistan (actually, it's nearby Lone Pine, Calif.) to demonstrate a new weapon system, Tony gets kidnapped by noticeably cranky jihadists who consider him "the most famous mass-murderer in the history of America" and want him to build them one of his "masterpieces of death" in the dank cave they've imprisoned him in.

Though his heart has been damaged by (how ironic!) shrapnel from one of the bombs his company created, Tony, it turns out, is not a man to mess with. Turning dour and serious, he fools the jihadists, who show themselves to be bears of very little brain, and constructs his first Iron Man suit, which makes him look like an especially fierce refrigerator-freezer.

Considering the number of people with whom I spoke who positively gushed about how great Transformers was, I do not intend to take any of the normal geek-squad recommendations for Iron Man. Sorry guys, but you've used up your credibility with me. Kenneth Turan, on the other hand, has gotten my attention. I will be reading his reviews in the future whether I have any interest in the film in question or not. I think it was the "(how ironic!)" part that won me over. You can almost hear the fake gasp. Nicely done, Kenneth.

Childhood Tunes

When I was a youngster I used to listen to music by means of plastic disks with little bumps that encoded the music in analog. We called them records because sounds had been recorded on them. One of these records contained a series of American folk songs, and I committed many of them to memory over time. The result of one such memorization is that I was trotted up in front of the Miller elementary school play finale to sing the verse to Irving Berlin's "Grand Old Flag" since I was the only person in that school to apparently know it. (In the parlance of songs of that era, the "verse" is a unique portion at the beginning of the song, treated more as an optional introduction nowadays.) I remember my teacher being a bit puzzled when I asked her, "Why aren't we singing the whole song?" She asserted that we were singing the whole song. I remember her astonishment when I proceeded to recite the verse for her. She immediately dragged me in to do it for the music teacher, and next thing I know I am leading the finale at the ripe old age of 7.

Anyway, I digress...

One of the songs I have had bouncing through my head for the past, oh, 30+ years or so was a story about a man walking past a dilapidated cabin wherein an old man was playing a fiddle. When the traveler advised the old man to fix the roof the old man replies, "I couldn't fix it now, on a rainy day." Maybe you already know this song. I didn't know the name until this weekend when I heard someone playing it on "Prairie Home Companion" and the song was referred to by name. It's called "The Arkansas Traveler." I've heard the tune so many times over the years, but never the name. This weekend I actually sought the lyrics and found them.

Oh once upon a time in Arkansas
An old man sat in his little cabin door,
And fiddled at a tune that he liked to hear,
A jolly old tune that he played by ear.

It was raining hard but the fiddler didn't care
He sawed away at the popular air,
Though his roof tree leaked like a water fall
That didn't seem to bother that man at all

A traveler was riding by that day,
And stopped to hear him a-practicing away
The cabin was afloat and his feet were wet,
But still the old man didn't seem to fret.

So the stranger said: "Now the way it seems to me,
You'd better mend your roof," said he.
But the old man said, as he played away:
"I couldn't mend it now, it's a rainy day."

The traveler replied: "That's all quite true,
But this, I think, is the thing for you to do;
Get busy on a day that is fair and bright,
Then pitch the old roof till it's good and tight."

But the old man kept on a-playing at his reel,
And tapped the ground with his leathery heel:
"Get along," said he, "for you give me a pain;
My cabin never leaks when it doesn't rain."

(Copied from here.) I have yet to find a vocal version with these lyrics in my intertube searchings. I'm a little shocked that the song is pretty much as I remember it. Granted, I couldn't recite all the lyrics, but I remembered the concepts and some snippets.

Teeny Little Rat

I took a little break from Rectificators late this evening to paint my first Warmaster model. Of course it's a Skaven.

Wow. Just.... wow. So much fun. I absolutely love this scale.

The fact that nobody actually plays Warmaster in my immediate area (or potentially anywhere) leaves me free to paint for fun rather than feel pressured to build an army.

Some Chicago Decisions

Okay, I've been mulling it over and I have some decisions for my Golden Demon entries:

Warhammer single figure: Skaven Lustrian Warlord
Warhammer 40k single figure: Imperial Commissar
Lord of the Rings single figure: Moria Goblin Shaman
Open Category: Warmaster Skaven characters

and if I have time....

Warhammer 40k unit: Deathguard Plague Marines
Warhammer large model: Dwarf Gyrocopter

I have some Eldar that are still catching my eye and begging to be painted for competition, so maybe things will change later.... who knows?

Heading Back to the Temperate Zone

Kevin and I are sitting in the airport waiting for our 12:30 flight from LAX to DTW. Unfortunately it's only 10:00 AM local time, and we've been here since 9:00. The laptop only has another half hour or so of power, so after that I'm reduced to reading books. Like a savage.

Speaking of Luddite pursuits, I have a big nerd confession to make. Ready? Here goes.

I'm reading an "in universe" novel series based on a game.

Shocked? Yeah, me too. I swore I would never spelunk this dark cavern. It can only lead to reading Star Wars novels, writing ST:TOS fan fiction and eventually going to cons dressed at Drizzt. I swore I'd never do it, and yet here I am. How did it happen? Angelos thrust a book into my hands and said, "Read this until about page 50, or whenever they get to all the shacks." I did. I was compelled. I read on. I'm on the second "omnibus" now, each of which collects three or four novels in one volume, so I'm officially on book five of the "Gaunt's Ghosts" saga. Nerdy? Oh, yes. It takes place in the Warhammer 40k universe. Juvenile? A little.... it has some smack of adolescent war fantasy to it. Fun? Embarrassingly so. The sad part is that I am considering reading some of the other "in universe" fiction that Games Workshop has licensed now. Yeah, the cavern is deep, but I'll only go in a little ways and I've got this canary. It's a female canary, so it should die of disgust if things get too nerdy. Unless it's into cosplay or something. I guess I never found out if the canary likes anime. Hmm.

8000 Educators Drink a Lot of Starbucks

Greetings from Anaheim, CA! I'm here for Sungard Higher Education's "Summit" conference, basically a gathering of their clients to talk about the gigantic enterprise software we are all using. There are 7500 clients and 500 Sungard employees here, and about 12 of us came from EMU. It's..... loud. There was an outing to Knott's Berry Farm amusement park last night, and I rode a few rides. I neglected riding Ghostrider, the granddaddy of wooden coasters, and I regret it now. Oh, well. You hear that Scott Short?! I was at the queue entrance to Ghostrider and I didn't ride. Ha ha!

So far I have made quite a few peer contacts, but it's hard to know who will be helpful and who will be in need of help. I'm hoping for that magical 50% mark, but who knows?

Okay, see you all on Friday.

People To Avoid Having Conversations With

Gee, I can't wait until I'm old enough to feel ways about things.

Spend Hundreds, Save $1 !!! (RETRACTED!)

So GW is having this 25th Anniversary of Warhammer army "deal." I say "deal" because it doesn't seem like much of a deal. Let's take my beloved Skaven, for example:

25th Anniversary Skaven Army Deal $260
Grey Seer
40 Clan Rats
1 Ratling Gun
40 Plague Monks
10 Plague Censer Bearers
10 Poison Wind Globadiers
2 Rat Ogres
6 Giant Rats
3 Packmasters

Now let's compare that to walking into the GW store and buying all those models right off the shelf at full retail price:

Skaven Battalion $90 (includes 40 clanrats, 20 plague monks, 2 rat orgres, 6 giant rats and 3 packmasters)
Grey Seer $12
Ratling gun $12
20 Plague Monks $35
10 Poison Wind Globadiers $60
10 Plague Censer Bearers $50
Total: $259

Wow, guys. Thanks for the dollar. On top of that, the army isn't legal! You can't field a Grey Seer in fewer than 2000 points. If you add every single option to increase the points of what comes in the box, it comes out to 1480 points maximum even including 100 points of magic items for the Grey Seer.

Also for discussion: Why would they eliminate 40k Megaforces? No, seriously. I want to know. If Sam Walton's idea had been to sell smaller quantities of items for more money, do you think he would have been successful?

RETRACTION: Captain Math here, letting all you boys and girls know that $259 is less than $260. When I posted that you save $1 on the big new box I was wrong. You spend $1 more. Now that's economics.

EDIT: Apparently I was a little slow on the draw on this one. My favoritest Skaven site had noticed more than a month earlier. ...link link...

I <3 Google Docs

No, seriously. I really do.

I keep copies of many of my important documents there. I am working on a slideshow for my upcoming painting seminar there. I'm tracking things I sell there.

I'm still not quite ready to store, oh, password or pins there. I'm not really sure how secure it all is, but anything that I wouldn't mind exposed to the public at some point is going straight to google docs.

Countdown to July 26 Games Day

I'm getting a little excited about entering Golden Demon again this year. I plan on entering at least three categories, but I still need to decide which three. Here are the models I am either actively painting or considering:

1. Warhammer Single Model: Skaven warlord (in progress)
   
2. Warhammer 40k Single Model: Commissar (purchased)
   
3. Lord of the Rings Single Model: Moria Goblin Shaman
   
4. Warhammer 40k Unit: Eldar Swooping Hawks
5. Warhammer 40k Unit: Deathguard Plague Marines
6. Warhammer 40k Unit: something Orks....
   
7. Warhammer Unit: Skaven Night Runners
8. Warhammer Unit: Snotling Swarm
   
9. Warhammer Large Model: Dwarf Gyrocopter
10. Open: Warmaster Skaven Heroes

So many choices.... and rapidly closing time.

A Guilty Verdict

Yesterday Orange Taylor III was found guilty of the murder of Laura Dickinson. It's been an ongoing saga here at EMU, and I now find myself sympathizing with Tina and Orange Taylor II, the parents of the convicted man. Their lives are as transformed as the Dickinsons' must be. Their son is going to spend life in prison. One can argue that at least their son is alive, but I'm not sure that's going to be much of a consolation to them. As far as I know they didn't do anything wrong, but they will pay for his actions for the rest of their lives. Every Christmas. Every birthday. Every wedding. Every time someone talks about grandchildren. I don't remember where I heard this, but I'm pretty sure they have practically bankrupted themselves defending their son in this trial. Regardless of whether they say they believe he is innocent or not, there has to be the nagging doubt. The evidence was just too strong. In their hearts, they have to have imagined their son killing her. I can't imagine what that is like.