time and space

Figure painting total - January

2012-02-10T19:03:00.002-06:00

The last bits of my Kroot finally showed up. Also, I picked up 2 Western sets in the
Buck or Two store for $1.50 each. They each came with a wagon, 2 horses, and 6 figures.

40K Kroot Carnivores (in bits) - 12
40K Raveners (in bits) – 3
2 sets Western Wagons and figures - 22
Dreadfleet – Windgauge and Ships’ Wheel – 3
Dreadfleet – Navigation Rod Ruler – 1
Dreadfleet – Treasure tokens - 5

Jan figures bought – 46, figures painted – 0
Running total 2012 – figures bought 46, figures painted 0

Compass acquired

2012-02-09T18:13:00.000-06:00

I had tried to make the bases for the Grid Games – Disc Battle but all the compasses I could find wouldn’t hold a consistent measurement. It later occurred to me that I could probably use one of the 40K templates for the 4” diameter and the 2” diameter.

But I still ended up popping in to Staples and picked up a nice new compass.

So now I can use that to make templates out of card and then trace those on to the black poster paper that I want to use for the grid and counters.

Wendy's Chili

2012-02-07T18:13:00.005-06:00

I was off last week. I didn’t have any major plans but still didn’t manage to get a lot done. I was able to make a batch of chili on Friday.
I’ve tried a few recipes before but I really like the Wendy’s chili recipe from Todd Wilbur of Top Secret Recipes.

I highly recommend his Top Secret line of books. They have a bunch of recipes to make clones of various restaurant and branded snacks and drinks. I use his Outback Blooming Onion recipe whenever I can.

The chili is simple to make but I always have to modify it due the metric can sizes available up here.

2 pounds ground beef (~1kg)
29 oz tomato sauce (~900mL)
29 oz kidney beans in liquid (~900mL)
29 oz pinto beans in liquid (~900 mL)
1 cup diced onion (1 medium onion)
1/2 cup diced green chili (2 chilies)
1/4 cup diced celery (1 stalk)
3 medium tomatoes, chopped
2 teaspoons cumin powder
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups water

- Brown the ground beef in a skillet over medium heat; drain off the fat.

- Using a fork, crumble the cooked beef into pea-sized pieces.

- In a large pot pot, combine the beef plus all the remaining ingredients, and bring to a simmer over low heat. Cook, stirring every 15 minutes, for 2 to 3 hours.

Makes about 12 servings.

For less spicy chili change the pepper to 1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper.
For much spicier chili add a tablespoon of cayenne pepper. For a real stomach stinger, add 5 or 6 sliced jalapeno peppers to the pot. Leftovers can be frozen for several months.

http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/Wendys-Chili-Recipe.html

Gee and Shan don’t eat that much so it’s mainly for me – and D3 eats a bit too.

Furry addition to family

2012-01-23T16:52:00.000-06:00

Gee had wanted a dog for about a year now. We had been putting it off until after the renovations but since that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon, we told her we would get her one for her birthday. So we had popped into the Humane Society to check out our options.

Gee had been keeping a close eye on their website to see what they had available but they were very cute in person. We found a nice dog, Princess, that was adorable. But when we went to see about her, we found that she was a little too enthusiastic for D3.

When we went back after boxing day, we found an older dog that looked a lot like Princess but was a lot more docile. She was a sweetie and we decided to adopt her. (We also found out that Princess was finally getting adopted that day!)
When we filled out the forms and went to pay for her though, someone came up and told us that someone had come in before Christmas and paid for her. At first we thought that they meant that someone had already bought her – but they meant that someone had come in and prepaid for her adoption to whoever chose her.

We were very touched and want to thank our mysterious benefactor.

A maritime flower puts down roots in prairie soil

2012-01-18T18:09:00.003-06:00

It’s hard to believe that’s it’s only been a week since Shan’s mom passed away. She had been in the hospital for a little over a week following stomach cancer surgery and it had been looking like she was making a good recovery. She had progressed to solid foods and was walking around. She seemed to be almost back to her old self even though it still hurt to laugh.

She had an infection but was being treated for it. Shan’s sister had come in for the week and had left on the Friday. We had seen her on the Sunday and she was doing well. The infection had delayed her release but she was expected to be out by the end of the next week.
Then we got the call on Tuesday that she had been sick and they took her in to surgery and that the family should come see her. She did well in surgery and she was expected to recover well. Instead of being out that week, they then expected to hold on to her until the end of the month for recovery.
However, we got another call that night saying that she had taken a turn for the worse. It looked grim. Another surgery was done early Wednesday morning. She had not been expected to survive this surgery, but she did. Again, it was looking promising but she was still expected to be out for the day and we were sent home to get some rest.
We got a call from the hospital at 8 recommending that we come in to see her that morning by 10. Then we got another call telling us to come in right away. We got there and her organs were shutting down. They took her off the life support and she died shortly afterwards.

She was a great lady. I remember her as having a good sense of humor and being quite ‘crafty’. She helped with the costumes we made, and also made photo collages of the families. She was always skinny and had lost even more weight this last year. She had suffered a stroke a few years ago and still hadn’t fully recovered.

The kids will deeply miss the time they used to spend with her during spring break and during the summer. I will miss her deeply. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for Shan or her dad. We were over at their house last week to help clear up matters – it was easier as they had preplanned a lot of it but it was still hard to go through things. In going through her computer files, she had been working on a book of her life and memories - up to about 2005 - the title is above.

We will miss her dearly. Words cannot properly express the loss we feel.

2011 Figure buying total

2012-01-09T15:51:00.002-06:00

40K Battlewagon (in bits) – 1
40K Carnifex (in bits) – 1
40K Raveners (in bits) – 3
40K Tyranid Warriors (in bits) – 9
40K Trygon/Mawloc (in bits) – 1
40K Gargoyles - 10
Dr Who - Daleks - 51
Dr Who - Cybermen - 16
Dr Who - 16 Judoon - 16
7 sets Farm Animals (1/35 scale) - 84
40K Carnifex (in bits) – 1
40K Hormagaunts (in bits) – 16
40K Tau Devilfish - 1
Arcane Legions – starter – 120
Arcane Legions – Roman infantry pack – 40
Arcane Legions – Egyptian infantry pack – 40
Arcane Legions – Han infantry pack – 40
Arcane Legions – Roman Cavalry – 14
Arcane Legions – Egyptian Cavalry – 15
Arcane Legions – Han Cavalry – 15
Dreadfleet – 42
Running total 2011 – figures bought 536, figures painted 0

So far, I still have yet to complete painting any figures although I have come close. I’ve done a bunch of work on the western figures but I haven’t finished the bases so I can’t count them yet. This should be my last year without anything in the painting column.

We will see.

Books read Sept - Dec 2011

2012-01-04T15:48:00.002-06:00

Sept
Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative: principles and practices from the legendary cartoonist – by Will Eisner
The Complete Making of Indiana Jones: The Definitive Story Behind all Four Films by J. W. Rinzler

Oct
The Costume Designer’s Handbook by Rosemary Ingham and Liz Covey
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Electronics 101 by Sean Westcott and Jean Riescher Westcott
Steel and other Stories by Richard Matheson

Nov
Crimson Skies: Rogue Flyer: Wings of Justice: Book 1 by Loren L. Coleman
Artemis Fowl – The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer
Chainmail Jewelry – Contemporary Designs from Classic Techniques by Terry Taylor & Dylon White
Handcrafting Chain and Bead Jewelry – Techniques for Creating Dimensional Necklaces and Bracelets by Scott David Plumlee
The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
Stan Lee’s How to Write Comics by Stan Lee
Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse – Cataclysmic Battles in the 41st Millennium by Games Workshop (Jervis Johnson?)
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Dec
The Making of Star Wars – The Definitive Story behind the Original Film by J.W. Rinzler
Creating the Worlds of Star Wars 365 Days by John Knoll
The People of Red River – A Costume Guide by Barry and Judy McPherson

2011 Heroclix overview

2011-12-30T15:50:00.001-06:00

I didn’t pick up much this year – Heroclix-wise. I got a few LEs at the beginning of the year and some of the Fast Forces and the Doctor Manhattan for Christmas. In between, they cranked out another three sets and my numbers only increased. Even though all three sets were Marvel based, I still didn’t pick up any of them.

Again I finished no Heroclix sets. I’m no closer than I was at the start of 2011 but rather farther back due to the new sets.

I’m still close on Ultimates (6+7), Mutant Mayhem (3+9), Legacy (6+11), Fantastic Forces (0+2), Armor Wars (11+1), Collateral Damage (8+1), Supernova (9+0), Avengers (0/3), Justice League (0/3), Mutations & Monsters (1/5), Crisis (0/11), Secret Invasion (2/6), Arkham Asylum (0/6), Hammer of Thor (3/8), Brave and Bold (8/7), and Web of Spider-Man (9/11). I’m still working away at Sinister (18+3) and Origin (23+0). I haven’t picked up any of DC 75 (33/11), Giant-Size X-Men (45/13/6), Captain America (47/11), or Incredible Hulk (36/10).

Right now, I need 413 figures – 274 REVs and 129 U/SRs. This is close to where I was at the start of 2008. Any bricks would have brought both of these much closer. I have also started counting figures needed by Wizkids or Neca – 155/258.
I did manage to get the Dr Manhattan as well as the reprints of the Apocalypse and both Sentinels from Giant-Size X-men. They look like they’re cranking out at least another three sets in 2012. I’m going to try and keep up with the sets, and pick up some of the previous sets as well as some figures to work at finishing the older sets.
I still need the Spectre, two Fooms, and the Phoenixes as well as the original Manhattan and Galactus. I also need all the new maps – from Hammer of Thor onwards. As well, I am going to try and pick up the other Fast Forces sets – which also come with maps.

I still need that one last LE from Horrorclix. I’m going to try to get that to finish that off. If I can, I’d like to get another map from the Cthulhu set.

Where did I spend all my Heroclix money? I picked up more 40K bits – more Tyranids plus a bit of Tau. I also got the entire set of FASA Crimson Skies rules, and some more Babylon 5 Call to Arms books. I picked up a bunch of Arcane Legions and a lot of Tron toy for use at Keycon. I got a bunch more Dr Who mini figures and a few other books and games.

I hope to get more 40K codices – being caught up on the rest of the fourth editions I am missing. I’m still looking for the Babylon 5 Call to Arms and Earth/Minbari War books and some of the Starship Troopers RPG books I am missing. I still want to get that final ARC-170 from the Star Wars Miniature Battles figure as well as the Power of the Force Luke’s Snowspeeder. I still might even get a bunch of Snowtroopers and Hoth Troopers. I also want to get the All Your Base set from Monsterpocalypse and maybe even a few more of Monsterpocalypse Now. I’m definitely hoping to pick up a Voltron set.
I am also hoping to work away at the Cheapass games as well as pick up a few new games.

Since I don’t have the game room I hoped I would, I don’t have the incentive to chase down the Heroclix big figures as I don’t have anywhere to display them. The storage unit does allow me to pick up some more goodies and store them away - but it's not quite the same.

Arkham City / Asylum

2011-12-28T15:26:00.002-06:00

Arkham City just came out for the xbox 360 and the boy was pushing hard to get it. We picked it up for him right away, for Christmas. But he kept on pushing hard for it. We had to tell him that they didn’t have it at Walmart (which they didn’t) and that we have bought all the Christmas presents already (which we had). When we went out on Dec 16th, we told him that we didn’t buy it that day (which we didn’t).
We told him he could always download it if he gets xbox live points but he wailed that it’s not available on download yet – only on a disc. He was quite worked up about the possibility of not getting it.

While we were out, we saw that they now had Arkham Asylum in the discount bins. I told the wife that we should buy it, and give it to him all excited-like to see his reaction in thinking that we misunderstood him. She said that would be evil and mean. Funny, but mean.

So I picked it up on the 20th at Future Shop. The clerk had one in the back room. He agreed that it was mean – but in a funny way. While wrapping it we showed my daughter who, not understanding the difference, felt that he will be excited to get it.
- - -

Usually, on Christmas day, the kids don’t wake up super-early. Usually, they drag themselves downstairs by 8 or 9 in the morning. This year the boy was up by 6am and all excited to open gifts.

After opening the stockings and Santa gifts, we started handing out the presents. To his credit, when he opened Arkham Asylum, he didn’t look disappointed. He did tell us that it wasn’t the right one though. Then we opened the soft gifts – clothes and such. That’s when he said he was starting to get tired and looked a bit like he had lost some energy.

So we let him open the other one. He was much happier with that one. He started playing the Arkham City first. As of yesterday, he had finished the basic game – he still has additional missions he can play. He has started playing the Arkham Asylum.

He does appreciate the humor in the way it was done but he thinks it would have been more fun if we had done it to Gee instead.

40% off your next free game

2011-12-23T11:33:00.002-06:00

I’m not sure how I missed it but sometime this year Cheapass games has finally updated their website. They are giving away the pdfs of their games and you can donate back to them.

I had made up a list last year of all the Cheapass games and had made another list of the ones I had when we moved around the basement this summer. I haven’t had time to cross reference the two lists yet to find what holes I needed to fill.

I came across the new version of Give Me The Brain now being made by Steve Jackson Games so I decided to check out the Cheapass site to find out what was up. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but most of the missing games on free pdfs.

I pass it along to you out there, as my Christmas gift to the world.
Also, a small donation has been made in your name to the Human Fund – Money for People.

More cycles found

2011-12-19T15:00:00.000-06:00

While out and about on Friday, doing some almost-last-minute shopping, I was able to find a few more Tron cycles at Toys R Us. I picked up two more Kevin Flynn retro cycles. They were even on an unmarked sale so ended up being about $3 each. At that price, I also picked up another Clu Sentry cycle and another Sam Flynn cycle. So I should be in a good position for a light cycle game.

I was also able to get another Sam Flynn at London Drugs for about $4. While I would be happier with a few more figures, that should give me a good half dozen to use.

Happy Holidays 2011

2011-12-14T12:47:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas (as applicable) to you and yours from me and mine.

Tron Grid Games - Disc Battle - advanced rules

2011-12-07T17:59:00.002-06:00

GRID GAMES – DISC BATTLE - ADVANCED

This version requires a bit more record keeping as well as at least two dice. Use the Basic rules with the following changes:

Programs now have Levels. Basic Programs start at Level 1. A Program’s Level will have an effect on the number of Action Cards it has as well as how many Actions Card can be held. High level Programs also have the option of being able to use two Discs in battle. The following chart shows the points required for each Program Level and the number of Action Cards they get, as well as how many Action Cards they can hold during the game and how many they may start the game holding.

Points Level Action Cards May hold May start held Other
Start at 0 Level 1 - 4 - 1 - 1 - 1 Disc
8 points Level 2 - 5 - 1 - 1 - 1 Disc
16 points Level 3 - 5 - 2 - 1 - 1 Disc
32 points Level 4 - 5 - 2 - (1 - 2) - 1 Disc
64 points Level 5 - 6 - 2 - (1 - 2) - 1 Disc
128 points Level 6 - 6 - 3 - (1 - 2*) - 2 Discs*
256 points Level 7 - 6 - 3 - (1 - 3*) - 2 Discs*
512 points Level 8 - 7 - 3 - (1 - 3*) - 2 Discs*
1024 points Level 9 - 7 - 4 - (1 - 3*) - 2 Discs*
2048 points Level 10 - 7 - 4 - (1 - 4*) - 2 Discs*

* A Program may use two Discs. If a Program chooses to use two Discs, they remove one of their Action Cards from the battle and start the game with 1 less Action Card held instead.
[Example - A Level 7 Program using 1 Disc has 6 Action Cards and can start the game with up to 3 of them held. A Level 7 Program using 2 Discs has 5 Action Cards and can start the game with up to 2 of them held.]

Setup
During Setup, a Program always starts the game with at least 1 Action Card held. They may hold additional Action Cards at the start depending on their Level. After Level 6, a Program may use a second Disc in a battle. If they do use a second Disc then they must remove one of their Action Cards from the battle and start the game with 1 less Action Card held instead – but they must always start with at least 1 Action Card held.

Skill Test
In the Advanced game, some actions now require a Skill Test. Some tests will give you a number and some Actions, like Block and Dodge, require an opposed Skill Test and will be made against another Program.

To make a Skill Test against a number you roll a die and add the Program’s Level. If the result is equal to or higher than the number needed then the test is passed. If the result is less than the number needed that the test is failed.
To make an opposed Skill Test against another Program you both roll a die and each Program adds their Level to their roll. The Program with the higher total succeeds.

Actions

Block – If you have your Disc and another Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses your Action Base you may spend an action to attempt to Block it. Make an opposed Skill Test against the Disc’s owning Program.
If you succeed or tie then you are successful - Roll the Direction Die and place the small end of the Disc Marker against your Action Base in the direction shown on the die.
If you fail the Skill Test then you are struck by the Disc.

Dodge - If another Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses your Action Base you may spend an action to attempt to Dodge it. Make an opposed Skill Test against the Disc’s owning Program.
If you succeed or tie then you are successful - Roll the Direction Die and place the small end of the Disc Marker against your Action Base in the direction shown on the die.
If you fail the Skill Test then you are struck by the Disc.

If you have no actions and want to Dodge then make an opposed Skill Test as above. If you fail then you are stuck by the Disc. If you succeed then you become Prone. If you are already Prone you may not Dodge.

Disc Movement
When moving a thrown Disc, you now can arc it instead of throwing it in a straight line. Instead of placing the Disc Movement Base flush with the end of the Disc Marker by the arrow you may choose to place it at an angle. Place the Disc Movement Base at the angle you wish and make a Skill Test. If the angle is up to 45 degrees you need to make a Skill Test of 6. If the angle is between 45 degrees and 90 degrees you need to make a Skill Test of 10.
If the Skill Test is passed then move the Disc Marker to the other end of the Disc Movement Base. If the Skill Test is failed then move the Disc Movement Base back to be flush with the end of the Disc Marker and then move the Disc marker as normal instead.

A Disc that belongs to a De-Rezzed Program may only move in a straight line – it may not be arced.

Recalling a Thrown Disc – The owning Program may choose to recall their Disc at any time it would normally move. To Recall the Disc you would need to make a Skill Test of 6. If the Disc Marker is more than 4 Action Bases away from the Action Base of the owning Program, then the Skill Test required is 5 instead of 6.

Levels
Programs start at Level 1 with 0 points. They gain points as below by competing in matches. Programs may increase their Level between matches if they have gained enough points. During a match, at the end of every turn, when the Action Cards are shuffled, the scores are saved. If a Program is De-Rezzed, any points they have earned from the last save are lost.
Points are gained for the following:
De-Rezzing a Program – their Program level

In addition, Programs gain the following bonuses for winning:
Winning a solo match – your Program Level x 3
Being part of a winning team – your Program Level x 2

Any Programs that do not gain any points gain their Program Level in points just for being in a match.

Greetings programs!

2011-12-02T17:26:00.002-06:00

While out and about yesterday I popped in to the Dollarama on Taylor. I was able to pick up two more Tron figures - a Clu and a Black Guard.
With the two Clu Sentries I had found earlier, as well as the other figures I had snapped up when they first hit Dollarama, I should be okay for the Tron - Grid Games - Disc Battle. I will need to repaint the energy lines on these so that it is more clear that they are different than the regular Clu and Guard.

If I could get a few more Kevins, Sentries, or Clus I would be a in better place.

Tron - Grid Games - Disc Battle - basic rules

2011-11-30T14:38:00.003-06:00

Here are the basic rules. They are pretty fleshed out at this point. I'm still in the process of making counters and advanced rules but this is the gameplay from which I'm basing it.
[BREAK]
Tron - Grid Games - Disc Battle

Each player controls a program in the games. They must battle each other until only one remains.
Alternatively, they can play as teams of 2 - 4 programs until only one team remains.

Components:
Programs - Each Program has unique icon to represent it. You may either use a figure or even one of the 2" program discs. You will need one Program for every player.

Action Base - Each Program also has a 4" Action Base. These are the same for all Programs. You will need one Action Base for each Program plus at least one extra Action Base for movement.

Disc Marker - Each program has a corresponding Disc Marker to represent a thrown Disc. You will need one Disc Marker for each Program. In the advanced game some Programs may have two Discs instead of just one. The Disc Marker is 1" wide and 2" long with an arrow pointing to one of the smaller ends.

Disc Movement Base - You will need at least one Disc Movement Marker in order to move thrown Discs. The Disc Movement Base is 1" wide and 6" long.

Grid - The playing surface is known as the Grid. This is a clearly defined area that can be as small as 12" x 12" for a quick two-player game to 4’ x 4’ or even larger for a multi-team battle. A Grid with sides between 2’ - 3’ long is big enough for up to 6 players.

Action Cards - You will need 5 Action Cards for each Program.

Direction Die - This is a die with arrows on the faces. If you don’t have a Direction Die, every time you would have to roll for random movement of the Disc instead use the direction back to the owning Program instead.

Setup:
Set up the Grid.

Each player takes an Action Base and a Program as well as the corresponding Action Cards and Disc Marker.

Each player places their Action Base on the Grid and places their Program on top of their Action Base. Try to place the Action Bases so that there is room for at least one Action Base between them. If you cannot decide how to place the Programs on the Grid, take an Action Card from each program and shuffle them. Flip the Action Cards over one at a time and place the corresponding program on the Grid at that time.

Each Program starts the game with one Action Card held for reactive actions and the remaining cards are shuffled together and placed face down.

Turn Sequence:
Flip over the top Action Card. The corresponding Program may either perform an active action at that point or hold the Action Card to perform a reactive action later. Players may only hold a maximum of three Action Cards. Actions Cards may be held from turn to turn but once held they cannot be discarded unless used.

After every active action played, any Discs that are already being thrown move. A Disc that was just thrown this action does not move again.

Once all the Action Cards have been turned up and either used or held, reshuffle the used Action Cards and start the next turn. Action Cards that are being held are not reshuffled. Action cards belonging to De-Rezed Programs are removed unless they still have a Thrown Disc in play.

Winning:
The last player or team with an active Program when the others have De-Rezzed wins.

De-Rez.
If you unable to Block or Dodge a Thrown Disc or are unable to Dodge an Attack you are struck by the Disc. You are De-Rezzed and your Program is removed from play as well as you Action Base. If you De-Rez and your Disc is being thrown it De-Rezzes after it hits a wall or another Program or after another Program Blocks it. A Program struck by a Disc belonging to a De-Rezzed Program will still be De-Rezzed before that Disc also De-Rezzes.

Actions:
Each Program has five Action Cards. Each Program starts with one Action Card held for reactive actions. Shuffle the remaining Action Cards.
Programs take actions as their Action Cards are turned over. They may either perform an active action at that point or hold the Action card to perform a reactive action later. Programs may only hold a maximum of three actions. Action Cards may be held from turn to turn but once held they cannot be discarded unless used.
Once all the Action Cards have been turned up and either used or held, reshuffle the used Action Cards and start the next turn. Action Cards that are being held are not reshuffled.

The actions are:
Attack, Block, Catch, Dodge, Move, Stand, and Throw.
The active actions are Attack, Move, Stand, and Throw. These actions may only be preformed when the Program’s Action Card comes up.
The reactive actions are Block, Catch, and Dodge. In order to perform one of these actions you must have an Action Card held already and have your Action Base crossed by a Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base or by another Program’s Action Base.

Attack - If you have a Disc and your Action Base overlaps a portion of another figure’s Action Base you may Attack them. They may Dodge your Attack if they have an Action Card held as above.

Block - If you have your Disc and another Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses your Action Base you may spend an action to Block it. Roll the Direction Die and place the small end of the Disc Marker against your Action Base in the direction shown on the die.

Catch - If your Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses your Action Base you may catch it by using an action. If you don’t have any actions you may dive for it - you catch your Disc but now are Prone.
If you moved your Action Base over your Disc Marker you still need to spend an action to make to the catch or you may dive for it. If you dive for it you catch your Disc but are now Prone.

Dodge - If another Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses your Action Base you may spend an action to Dodge it. If you have no actions and want to Dodge then you become Prone. If you are already Prone you may not Dodge.

Move - Place a new Action Base adjacent to the one that your Program is currently on and move your Program to that base. If you are unable to place a new base adjacent or you don’t want to move that much, you may place the new base partially covering your current base. If your move causes your Action Base to cross a portion of your Disc Marker you may also attempt a Catch if you have a held action.

Stand - If your Program is Prone, the only action it can perform is to stand up. If you are using the program discs, flip it over to indicate that the Program is no longer Prone. If you are using a figure to represent the Program, then stand the figure back up to indicate that it is no longer Prone.

Throw - If you currently have a Disc you may throw it. Place the one of small end of the Disc Movement Base adjacent to your Action Base in the direction you wish to throw and place the Disc Marker flush at the other end of the Disc Movement Base with the arrow pointing in the direction of the throw.

Disc Movement
When you Throw a Disc, the small end of the Disc Movement Base is placed adjacent to your Action Base in the direction you wish to throw and Disc Marker is placed flush at the other end of the Disc Movement Base with the arrow pointing in the direction of the throw.

After every active action played, any Discs that are already being thrown move. A Disc that was just thrown this action does not move again. Starting with the Program who just played an action, move the Thrown Discs of the Programs clockwise around the table. To move the Disc place a Disc Movement Base flush with the end of the Disc Marker by the arrow. Then move the Disk Marker flush to the other end of the Disc Movement Base.

If a Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses a Program’s Action Base and the Disc belongs to that Program they may attempt to Catch it.

If a Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses a different Program’s Action Base they may attempt to Block or Dodge it. If they successfully Dodge it then it has no effect on the Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base. If they successfully Block it roll the Direction Die and place the small end of the Disc Marker adjacent to that Program’s Action Base in the direction of the arrow on the Direction Die.

If a Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses the another Program’s Action Base and that program is Prone then that Program is hit and they De-Rez. Roll the Direction Die and place the small end of the Disc Marker adjacent to that Program’s Action Base in the direction of the arrow on the Direction Die.

If a Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses the edge of the Grid then use geometry to match the incoming angle with the angle of reflection. If this is too hard then roll the Direction Die and place the small end of the Disc Marker adjacent to that Program’s Action Base in the direction of the arrow on the Direction Die.

If a Disc Marker or Disc Movement Base crosses the another Program’s Disc Marker then nothing happens in the basic game - Thrown Discs ignore other Thrown Discs.

Recalling a Thrown Disc - If a Disc Marker is more than 3 Action Bases away from the Action Base of the owing Program, that Program may choose to Recall it. When the Disc would normally move, place the Disc Movement Base flush with the end of the Disc Marker by the arrow. Instead of moving the Disc Marker to the other end of the Disc Movement Base, turn the Disc Marker around and place the other end of the Disc Marker against the Disc Movement Base. Then turn the Disc Marker so that it points toward the owning Program.

Prone
If a Program is Prone the only action it can perform is to Stand. If a Program is Prone and Attacked by another Program or hit by a Disc then that Program De-Rezzes.
If you are using the program discs, flip it over to indicate that the Program is Prone. If you are using a figure to represent the Program, then lie the figure down to indicate that it is Prone.

- - -
Notes
Still working on the size of the Disc Markers and Disc Movement Bases - originally 1"x4" and 1"x8".
Also originally allowed holding 3 Action Cards but changed to 2 as too hard to De-Rez a program that turtled.
The ‘advanced’ rules include more dice rolling for skill tests - Block, Dodge, Prone as well as the ability to gain levels for bonuses - like using 2 Discs, being able to hold more Action Cards or even starting with more Action Cards held, as well as getting more than 5 Action Cards.

The Monty Hall problem.

2011-11-28T14:08:00.006-06:00

The set up is based on the old Let’s Make a Deal scenario. You are given a choice of three doors. Behind one door is a new car! Behind the other two are zonks – dummy ‘prizes’ – usually a goat or animal or a wrecked tractor.
You pick one of the three doors. The host (Monty Hall), who knows what is behind which door, then opens one of the doors to reveal a zonk. He then turns to you and offers you a chance to switch your pick to the unrevealed door.
The question is, should you change your pick?

As proposed on Mythbusters, in the movie 21, and in various YouTube videos, they say that you should.

The key thing is in the explanation - in picking originally you have a 67% chance of being wrong. After being shown the zonk door, in switching to the other door you now only have a 33% chance of being wrong (or if you don't believe the math, a 50% chance of being wrong). Both beat the original 67% chance you had.

I still believe that the assumption is wrong though. Once you open that extra door, why would your 1/3 odds still remain at 1/3? Once a door is shown, why would it not change to 1/2? Think of it this way, at the beginning, whether you have picked a zonk or a car, Monty will still show a zonk, leaving the other door either a zonk or a car. The fact that you only had a 1/3 of guessing the car right from the start does not change the fact that when he offers you the choice to switch you now have a 50% chance of the car being behind either unshown door – one of which you have already picked. The key point in this is that you can now not pick the one door that he has shown you not to be a zonk.

Another example is flipping an unbiased coin heads 3 times in a row. At the onset, you only have a 1/8 chance of success or ½ x ½ x ½. However, after already flipping heads twice your odds of the third flip also being heads doesn’t remain at 1/8 but now becomes 50%.

Since the internet seems determined about this think of it this way - Try reversing it - pick two doors at the start instead of one. This gives you a 33% of not picking the car. Monty then opens one of your doors and shows a zonk and offers you a chance to switch.
Since you haven't done anything to the other door that you originally picked you are now being offered a 50/50 chance again between the remaining two doors - one of which you had picked at the onset.
- - - - -
update
Nope - turns out they were right all the time.
After arguing on the Mythbuster forum I come to this:

You pick door 1 - you have a 1/3 chance of being right at the start and a 2/3 chance of picking a wrong door. Monty removes 1/3 of the doors - 100% of the wrong one and 0% of the right one, 0% of being the door you picked.

However, at the time of the choice, you now have two doors each of which was originally only 1/3 a chance of being the car.
If you had picked the car to start (1/3 of the time) and now switch you have 0% chance of winning. If you hadn't picked the car to start (2/3 the time) and switch you now have a 100% chance of winning.

That's what I get for questioning Mythbusters.

Tron - Disc game - figures

2011-11-25T08:17:00.001-06:00

There are two sizes of Tron figures that would work for the Tron – Disc grid game. Both the poseable 4” figures as well as the 3” figures would work. You could conceivably use the 6” or even the 12” figures for added realism, but you would need a lot more space. The rules will scale upwards without too much trouble.

While the 3” figure sets never made their way up here I did get one through the mail in a pack with a light cycle. The figures (and cycles) in these packs come on 2” hexes. I did pick up a bunch of the 4” figures at Dollarama when they appeared for $2 each. Now that I want more I can’t find them anywhere. Although after checking 4 stores I was finally able to find two more Clu Sentries that I can repaint for the Grid. These 4” figures also come with a stand that is 2” in diameter.

Since I plan on making zone-of-control discs to put under the figures, the same ones will work for both the 3” and 4” figures. You could even use counters if you wanted to. I suppose I could always make a 2” counter to replace the figure if needed – like the pogs in Heroclix or Crimson Skies. But, since any figure that would fit on the disc could be used, you can use Star Wars figures, superheroes, or even the small GI Joes.

While I could use the discs that come with the 4” figures for the game discs, I will probably end up making some out of either layered styrene or even cardboard. If I was more proficient with molding I could make a gang mold of them and cast up discs to use.

Tron - Disc Battle - first thoughts

2011-11-23T16:03:00.001-06:00

Because you never know when an idea will strike you, I keep a small notebook in the car. This way when I am out and about, I can jot down notes. Case in point, coming home on Friday I got stuck in the traffic who had forgot how to drive in the fresh snow. While waiting I came up with a foundation for a Tron disc battle game.

Whenever I come up with a game the tipping point is usually how the movement works.

In this case, since I already have to make a game grid for the Light Cycles game I am making I was thinking about how it would work for figures on a disc battle – especially with how the discs would move. The figures could move on hexes or squares (or even triangles like my Jugger game) but the discs would need to be more freeform.

I was thinking about how they would move on the grid when I realized that they didn’t have to move on a grid at all. They could move independent of the board which would allow the board to remain in a nice grid pattern.

To interact with the figures I decided that the figures would be placed on a separate base that would define its zone of control and that the discs would be on their own counters. Movement would work by putting a new zone of control marker touching the current one and moving the figure to the new marker.

This is what I started with:
Tron – Disc battle

Disc
Thrown – return after 10 spaces

Move – 5 spaces per turn

Can catch own disc

Dodge

Can Block if have disc.

Actions
Figs – [move up to 3 bases?]

5 actions per turn

Move, Throw, Catch, Attack, Block, Dodge

If Dodge and no actions then prone.

I also had drawn a little sketch of a figure on a round base and a disc on a bent wire attached to a rectangular base.

Figure painting Oct - updated

2011-11-18T15:52:00.002-06:00

So I was able to count the Dreadfleet figures to add to my October list.

As packed as the box is, it only contains 42 paintable figures.

There are 10 main ships, 7 small ships, a dirigible, and a dragon.
There are 6 islands and 5 shipwreck pieces.
Also included are three extra figures - a leech wyrm, sea giant, and bone hydra.
As well, there is a wind gauge, 2 ship's wheels (for turning), a navigation rod, and 5 mini trophies.

Once put together, they may even be able to fit back in the box without too much trouble.

Oct figures bought – 285+42, figures painted – 0
Running total 2011 – figures bought 536, figures painted 0

Oct Figure buying / painting total

2011-11-09T15:09:00.004-06:00

So the buying total takes a big hit due to Arcane Legions purchases. If I could figure out a proper number for the Dreadfleet, it would be in here as well.

40K Tau Devilfish - 1
Arcane Legions – starter – 120
Arcane Legions – Roman infantry pack – 40
Arcane Legions – Egyptian infantry pack – 40
Arcane Legions – Han infantry pack – 40
Arcane Legions – Roman Cavalry – 14
Arcane Legions – Egyptian Cavalry – 15
Arcane Legions – Han Cavalry – 15

Oct figures bought – 285, figures painted – 0
Running total 2011 – figures bought 494, figures painted 0

Shopping for Tron

2011-11-08T08:03:00.004-06:00

So I finished cleaning up my stuff out of the kitchen last week and moved it downstairs. But I just didn't shift the mess, I also sorted a bit more so I now have my stuff contained. I'm still in a bit of a pile on my desk, so I need to move a few boxes before I can work and move them back when done.

While shopping last week I picked up a Tron Recognizer on Tuesday for $15 at Zellers and the Tron racetrack at Winners on Thursday for $10. This now gives me 4 of new light cycles for the racetrack game.

I also picked up Light Bikes online. It looks simple enough but not quite what I was looking for. I'm still going to modify my SNAFU rules.

I also popped into Games Workshop. It seems that, even though I have a subscription, I had missed the June issue. Mark was nice enough to hook me up with one - at no charge. I picked up a water pot and would have snagged some liquid green stuff but they were out.

ODST - rain delay

2011-10-27T11:43:00.005-05:00

I got outside yesterday and did some more work on the armor. The bondo I had must have been pretty old as it wasn't runny. With the resin added I was able to get it to pour but it was still very thick. I was able to pour it into the chest piece and spread it around most of the back.
I was also able to put a layer of resin aound most of the inside of the helmet except for the top. The weather was cool but with no wind so I left the outside to cure.
I did some work in the basement and when I came up to bring them inside it was raining. I brought the pieces in to dry off and finish curing.

The chestpiece seems to be fine but the a bunch of the seams on the helmet have given way overnight. The resin in the top also seems to still be tacky. I'm hoping it will dry enough to reglue.

Shopping across the border in the USA

2011-10-24T21:02:00.009-05:00

We were in the states for Valleycon and to do some shopping. I had a few specific items I was looking for and was mostly denied in many of them. While my shopping trip to the states was a bust in what I was looking for, it did pay off in unexpected ways.

I was hoping to pick up some of the Heroclix Giant Size X-Men big figures from Toys R Us but they didn't have any.

I was also hoping Target or some other places might still have some Tron light cycles for the Tron game I made but was unable to find any anywhere I looked. I was able to pick up a Jarvis figure to go with all the others I had picked up at Dollarama.

I also wanted to get some more socks from Scheels but they didn't have any of the multi-packs. I was able to pick up another four pairs but it was a far cry from the dozen I was hoping to get.

I did pick up the Tetris card game - which looks interesting and has rules for solo play.

One of the dealers at ValleyCon was Paradox and they were blowing out their stock of Arcane Legions. They had the starter for $10, the army boxes for $4 and the boosters for $2. After much consideration, I fiured I'd give it a try. I picked up the starter, an infantry and cavalry army pack for the Romans, Egyptians, and Han armies, and one Roman booster and two Han boosters. This was almost all they had left.
If this wasn't cheap enough, when I was unable to convince any friend of the value of this and decided to buy it myself, it was a further 20% off. This meant that I got the starter, 6 army boxes, and 3 boosters for $32. I figured that I could always use the figures for Bushido and Valley of the Pharoahs at the least but the game seems solid enough. It will be a big hit to my painting versus buying total but the value was too good to pass up.

I also picked up the Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse rulebook - which was still covered by the 20% off.

Dreadfleet is the newest Big Box release from Gamesworkshop. While it has a lot going for it, I wasn't going to pre-order it or rush out to get it. That said, if this had been a rerelease of Man O' War, I would have snapped it up. I had the original Space Hulk when it came out and snapped up the new set when it came out.
I had missed the boat when Man O' War first came out but was able to get the rules for them later. I haven't played it nearly enough to chase down all the figures on ebay. We did upsize it for one of the Wincons - I made a Dwarf fleet and JP made a Bretonnian fleet. But, since he didn't use the magic rules when he ran it, the Dwarves crushed the Bretonnians.

Dreadfleet is its own game. The beautifully detailed ships are larger than the Man O' War scale. The plastic islands look nice in the pictures. It is certainly a tempting set - but not enough to tip me into a buyer - not at the price it is listed at (over $100). However, with the lack of other purchases, I decided to get the Dreadfleet. With the 20% off that would cost $85 but when I went back, they had raised the price from $115 to $150. I couldn't justify it at that price. We went by the store itself which was also was giving the 20% off for convention members. They had it listed there at $115 but said it was excluded from the sale. The wife was okay with it though so we still picked it up.

All-in-all a worthwhile trip, even though I didn't get what I was looking for, I did get some cool stuff.

ODST - breaking eggs

2011-10-18T18:04:00.002-05:00

I was able to finish pepping the top chest armor last week and was able to put a coat of resin on it on the weekend. I was also able to start putting some resin on the inside of the helmet. However, since I did this on Sunday and it was super windy I had to bring in the chest piece and let it cure inside. I was able to leave the helmet to cure outside with some rocks inside it to hold it down. I checked back on it often and it was fine but when I went out to bring it in it had blown off of the table and had cracked the top slightly.

I was able to repair it but I am not sure how much more resin work I can do before the weather breaks. I am hoping to be able to rondo it (a mixture of bondo and fiberglass resin) next week. I am not sure how much more of it I can finish before Halloween, but it is a solid start to the costume.

I also started in on Gee’s sock monkey costume. We cut the bottoms off the legs of the sweats and used the material for ears and the tail. We sewed the tail and ears to the hoodie.

helmet fibreglass coat worked!

2011-10-11T17:01:00.002-05:00

The outside coat of fiberglass seems to have worked fine. It partially soaked into the paper and dried a pale blue color. I finished off fibreglassing the bottom half of the helmet outside yesterday and brought it in from the coolness to cure. I wedged a few skewers inside to help round out the bottom part and make it easier to put on.

I still have to put a layer of resin on the inside and lay in some fiberglass matt. That should make for a light, solid layer. I will have to try and mold a visor – either from a soda bottle plastic or even a face shield.

I have also printed out the chest armor to pep. If I can get both pieces and the shoulders done by the weekend I can harden those and then attach them to the straps. I’ll also have to see if I can pep a weapon for him.

Solid helmet or a sticky mess?

2011-10-09T19:10:00.004-05:00

I finished pepping the helmet on Saturday. Today we picked up some vinyl gloves, brushes, and plastic cups and I started fibreglassing the top of helmet. The resin I had was a bit old and it was a bit chilly today so I had a few concerns about it not curing.
I has been a few hours and it seems to have mostly dried but it is a bit tacky still. I brought it inside to see if it will cure overnight. I can then harden the rest and lay in some fibreglass mat inside.

It's promising. If this works as it should, then this opens up many options of what else can be done.

Costume status pre-Thanksgiving

2011-10-07T15:50:00.001-05:00

Shan’s friend has dyed her hair red and decided to be Jean Grey this year instead of Alice from Resident Evil. This means that the leatherwork for her shotgun holster is off my table for this Halloween.

I do also have to do some work on Gee’s sock monkey and see if I can tape out a pattern for the Human Spider sweatshirt this weekend. Also I have to see about sewing on the red stripes on the sweatpants while we’re watching shows.

Out of the 20 pages that the ODST helmet prints out on, I have put together 12 of them. I have another 3 already cut out and ready to assemble. I should be able to finish assembling the helmet tonight. This will allow me to start with the fibreglassing this weekend.

Otherwise, I can start ‘pepping’ the chest and shoulder armor, as well as working on a foam weapon for him. If all above goes well, and the Thanksgiving meals don’t take too much out of us, I can see about foam legs. Depending on how much gets done this weekend, next weekend is the final crunch time for creation and painting. Then I can assemble belts and straps during the next week. Whatever doesn’t get done by the 22nd can be finished up the following week when I am off.

pre-Halloween costume baseline

2011-10-03T16:58:00.001-05:00

On Saturday we popped in to Value Village and got some grey sweats and a grey hooded sweatshirt for Gee’s sock-monkey outfit. Shan also picked up some felt for the details.

I cleaned the desk a bit and tried on the pieces of the Human Spider costume. The sweats will be a bit snug but should be passable – I can sew the red piping on the sides if I have time. The sweatshirt is fine – it just needs the pattern. We were also in Walmart and we picked up some black fabric paint that will work. The balaclava fits fine and while I don’t have the right gloves, the ones I do have should work fine – I will try to shrink them a bit though.

I got off to a good start on the pepakura helmet for D3’s ODST. Even though I am using a highly detailed pattern, I am hoping that the extra time spent in making it will save time in detailing it after hardening. With only a few hours into it, I am quite impressed with the look. It should prove workable.

HALO ODST

2011-09-28T13:56:00.002-05:00

I’ve already been peeking around the 405th site and two options have come forward - pepakura and foam matts. Pepakura is a papercraft program that takes 3D files and unfolds them to be made from paper. Then you can use fiberglass resin to harden the paper. You can also use the Pepakura patterns to make the armor from foam matts by cutting the matts and using hot glue to stick them together. You can also carve details in the foam with a dremel or even exactos.

Both methods have merits. I’ll probably end up doing a mix of both styles. I’m leaning towards making the helmet and main chest armor with pep and fiberglass and the legs and arms with foam. I’ve got experience with making buckles from the Hit-Girl costume, foam work from the foamie Stormtroopers, and working with fiberglass from the Tusken Raider ‘teeth’.

Depending on how much trouble it is, I can then make HALO Spartan armor for us or even Star Wars Clone Commandos

Pre-halloween plans

2011-09-26T15:36:00.000-05:00

I was able to get a bit of sifting done on the desk over the weekend. Shan wants more done in the pantry so that will need to be completed as well.

Aside from that, I am now transitioning into pre-Halloween mode. Gee’s costume this year should be pretty basic. Presently, she wants to go as a Sock Monkey. Shan found instructions online about making from a sweater and sweats. As long as she doesn’t change he mind in the next three weeks, we should be fine there.

Shan’s thinking about getting together a steampunk look, so that should be fairly easy as well. I might have to work at some bits and bobs for accessories as needed.

With the room-switch, I even found some of the pieces I had been collecting until critical mass was achieved on the Human-Spider costume. Now that I have the red balaclava I can sew the pinstripes on the blue sweats and paint the sweatshirt. This shouldn’t prove to be too difficult either.

I even told one of Shan’s coworkers I could make her a Resident Evil 3 backpack/holster. That shouldn’t take too much time.

D3 is going to be more of an issue though. At the beginning of the year he had wanted to be the Green Hornet which would have been a simple trip to Value Village for a green suit and coat. Then a bit of leatherwork for the mask and some quick building to a gun would have completed a light year of costuming.
However, he has changed his mind and now wants to be a Halo ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper). Normally this would be too much to do at too late a date but with everything else being so light, this isn’t impossible – merely very difficult. The other point in his favor is that there is a lot of good help online with this through the 405th – which is the Halo version of the 501st – which does Stormtroopers.

pantry, table

2011-09-19T18:04:00.002-05:00

I picked up some metal rack from my folks and set them up in what used to be the comic storage room. D3 and I then moved over all the canned goods from the pantry shelf to the racks in the new pantry. Then I was able to clean off the table in the family room by moving stuff to the shelves.

That opens up 3/4 of that room at this point. By clearing the table we can now get to the games behind them and even play them on the table. It also gives me an extra space to clear the desk albeit very temporary as I need to keep it clear at the end of the night.

We picked up a new dvd player (as the old one went to G with the old TV) and hooked that up as well. I confirmed it worked by watching the first disc of Red VS Blue season 6.
We took another small load to the storage unit. We are getting pretty close to our limit until I resort the skid of extras. I also packed up another box of books.

Now I just have to sift my desk to clean it down enough to clear out the stack in the kitchen. I’m hoping by the end of this month – maybe even by the end of the weekend.

Then I can start ramping up for Halloween costumes.

Floating City soundtrack

2011-09-16T16:58:00.002-05:00

In the Floating City, as you collected and traded cargo you completed songs. Completing a song gave you the download code for that song. Once you completed all 9 songs from an album you got the download code for that album. Even though I am still missing 5 pieces, I had managed to borrow the pieces I need to collect all the songs. Or at least the codes for all the songs – as I haven’t downloaded any of them yet. Actually, I haven’t downloaded anything yet so this will be a first for me.

With completing all the albums, we also were supposed to get a code for a fourth album, Oceanea, which wasn’t part of the game. This code came but it has an expiry date of two weeks. So if I want it, I’m going to have to try and download them sooner rather than later.

I was planning on trying to download them this weekend anyways. This just puts a bit more impetus on it. I’ll let you know how it works out for me.

Update - I got another email asking for my info for an address - it seems they may mail me an actual CD - so a bit of the download pressure may be off.

Frozen City wrapup

2011-09-15T10:26:00.003-05:00

So the Floating City finished up on the last Sunday in August. It had been a good game. I certainly spent much more time on it than I should have but it was good fun.
My tribe, the Frozen River, was in the lead when I joined but drifted into second about mid game. Then we slipped into third after the alliances started happening.

Some of my favorite moments were in figuring out parts of the game itself. We weren’t really given a lot of information about scoring or game mechanics beyond simple instructions on trading. We were based in ships, trading cargo for movement. The cargo was divided into songs – with five items completing a song and nine songs completing an album.

I got to know a lot of the players in my tribe and some from other tribes. I want to thank Skipper2501 for telling me about the game – since I’m not a huge Dolby fan I never would have heard about it. My first trade was with Dog Gone back on June 29. I missed the very beginning of the game but was able to catch up. I found a nice trading group with Lee Marvin and Dog Gone and we started to make good distance but then we drifted apart. Gunther Prelude and I were online at similar times and we covered a great amount of distance with flotsam trades. He was supposed to miss game time for work and traded me a bunch of his cargo and t (to do with as I wanted - with no strings attached) but never really missed time. I was glad to give him back the money needed so that he could buy a blimp ticket.
Some of the big names in our tribe when I started were, Ya Arrg, Ronnie Raygun, Pax Luminous, and the Doggedlys – James, John, and Jo. They were all very active on our forum. It was very exciting to finally catch up to them and cross them off my list as I made trades with each of them. Flatrock, Captain Chaos, Captain Merlania, Cap’n Tron were other familiar faces as was Yankee White, Kaigun Chusa Yakamoto, Villamouri, umo, Stacey Quiche from the ‘person above me’ thread. Athena, ian kanai, Captain k-man, Prof Xenia Hitchcock, Nerissa Panic, and Gypsy Fox were others.
Hulu Zoon and Monkey D Luffy were the first players to make a dedicated break for the pole. We were all heading Northwards but they were the first to really devote trades to getting there. Other tribe or not, we all cheered them on and were very excited to see the new achievement of the first two Floating Citizens. I made sure to get at least one trade in with both of them.

Some of the players kept in a persona more than most of us. Haunted Dolls kept in character through the game as far as I could tell. Ya Arrg as a polar bear expressed concerns over the warming arctic and LindseyKai’s ‘just a cat in a boat’ always made me smile.
The other tribes had interesting people as well. Andromeda Strayne was another I traded flotsam back and forth with. There was some confusion about one of our trades when the cursed items came out but we worked it out and I made sure to keep filling in her cargo where I could. When our tribes aligned, we were on the same team!
Lulu Garou, Picup Andropof, hobvias sudoneighm, A. Nomalous had some great names.
Of the people I invited, only a very few accepted and joined. I tried to send messages when they joined to help guide them but most were not very active. My sister Ditch Hopper did become active enough – and did pretty well considering she started the game late. I’ve spoken to her more on the phone in the last year over this game than anything else.

I’m sure I’m going to miss many of names that I should mention but I have to give a special mention to The Cannon. She was fun and enthusiastic and I was glad to finally catch up with her but unfortunately she had to leave the game and missed the formation of the City. We hoped she would make it back in time for the ending but she never did.

A special thanks to the GODs as well – notably Soot Sparrow, Andrhia, and Europa/Verre Darkly. A great big thanks goes out to Captain Smith – besides all the work he did in coding, he was also helpful with a few good trades in the later parts of the game. I was also able to make a trade with Europa directly after the first trial for the elusive Honey.

Even though I am still missing five pieces of cargo, through trading I was able to complete all the songs. Thanks to Dolby for this. I haven’t really heard much of him prior except for She Blinded MeWith Science so this was a nice exposure. For many of the Sorties in the game, they would play a song and you had to decipher the items from the lyrics. I will try and get some actual CDs as I’m still leery about this whole downloaded-music thing. I look forward to downloading them in the near future – they will be my first downloads.

While I didn’t do as many patents as some (Ronnie Raygun, Always Pining) I did enjoy coming up with patents to match the required challenges (birds, pirates, acid rain, curses). I love Lars Elk’ liquid courage anti-squid patent and was honored to see my OSHA curse patent make the Gallery. It certainly helped me to learn the new version of MSPaint – as timing was critical to sketch and scan. The linking to a picture was a bit tricky to get to work though – but I also got to learn WindowsLive’s (Hotmail’s) SkyDrive.

As I’m sure all tribes did, Ronnie Raygun had a set list of the songs we knew and the items contained within. I kept getting him to fix the lists to match they way they were presented in the cargo. Then I had my ‘a-ha moment’ and noticed that the items were always alphabetical.
When we finally started getting a fourth column of songs, I noticed that the songs themselves were alphabetical as well. I had issues with Firefox for a bit and had to use an older version of IE. In that I noticed that if you shrank the songs, they left gaps where later songs would come out. This allowed us to quickly figure out which songs were the likely ones to fill in the missing spaces.

Around this time I also noticed that some songs gave downloads and some didn’t. By making another list we sorted out that it was only songs from 1st column that had no downloads. This made sense as the 1st column was songs from the new album.

Working out where each of the IP addresses sorted into tribes from my Pushing Boundaries thread helped with knowing who I could send invites out to – so they would still be sorted into the correct tribe and we could get the points for inviting.

Working out the different achievements was fun as well. The rampant speculation over how to get the Tidal Master achievement was amusing. As was locking down exactly when the Stealthy Trader was achieved. Luckily they hadn’t fixed the message links yet and I was able to recover all my deleted messages and sort it out.

The ending came as a bit of a letdown. We had been putting together clues and scraps of intelligence throughout the game and the actual final challenge was a lot less difficult than we had thought it would be. It ended up being more a matter of who could get the answers in quicker than the others.
Our alliance of Poison City/Frozen River/Delta ended up in last place. 17 Hills was the one tribe who ended up not aligning with anyone else and they finished in a close second. The winning tribe was the multi alliance of Eastern Bloc/Clubland/Northern Seaboard/Mulberry/Mulu who also won the controversial Book of History challenge.

All-in-all, it was a fun diversion for the summer. I met a bunch of new people and heard enough of Thomas Dolby’s music to decide I liked his work. The game was involved enough to keep interest up and yet didn’t have to take all your time. Good times.

Figure painting total - Aug

2011-09-09T16:26:00.002-05:00

I have a few other figures that I have most of the pieces from but not all. That is the downfall of buying in bits. I'm really going to have to work at getting the final pieces. Still I was able to get these:

40K Carnifex (in bits) – 1
40K Hormagaunts (in bits) – 16

Aug figures bought – 17, figures painted – 0
Running total 2011 – figures bought 209, figures painted 0

With (most of) the room shuffle done, I have to work at clearing down the desk to be able to work on it. That should let me get some of these done before we open Christmas presents.

Well, in theory at least.

Books read May to August - 2011

2011-09-07T17:57:00.002-05:00

May
Building Decks by the Editors of FineHomebuilding
Spicy Air Tales, Vol 2 – includes The Great Helium War by Robert E Vardeman and Manhattan Mayhem by Loren L Coleman
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber

June
Make it Right: Kitchens and Bathrooms by Mike Holmes
How to Create Fantasy Art for Video Games: A Complete Guide to Creating Concepts, Characters, and Worlds by Bill Stoneham

July
Badass – a relentless onslaught of the toughest warlords, vikings, samurai, pirates, gunfighters, and military commanders to ever live by Ben Thompson
Damn You, Autocorrect! Awesomely Embarrassing Text Messages You Didn’t Mean to Send by Jillian Madison
When Gadgets Betray Us, the Dark Side of our Infatuation with New Technologies by Robert Vamosi
Eddie Trunk’s Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal by Eddie Trunk with Andrea Bussell

Aug
World of Geekcraft: Step-by-step instructions for 25 super-cool Craft Projects by Susan Beal
Ridiculously Simple Furniture Projects: Great Looking Furniture anyone can build by Spike Carlsen
The Japanese Grill – from Classic Yakitori to Steak, Seafood, and Vegetables by Tadashi Ono & Harris Salat
Vampire Forensics – Uncovering the origins of an Enduring Legend by Mark Collins Jenkins
Time – Albert Einstein – The Enduring Legacy of a Modern Genius by TimeLife Books
Enemies & Allies by Kevin J. Anderson

Slide puzzle - basically done!

2011-09-06T18:32:00.003-05:00

The family-room-shuffle went much better that I had thought. On Saturday we moved over the TV, and pulled out the toy shelf. We moved over the desk and pulled out the bed. We moved over the game shelves and table. We only had to half-empty each one before moving it and then put the games back afterwards. Then we were able to set up the bed again.

All told, it took Shan and me about 4 hours to do all this. This was almost half the time it would have taken if I had to empty out everything before moving it myself. We started early in the morning and were done well before the boy finally awoke at 3pm. We found that the small desk wouldn’t fit behind the door after all so we would have to move a bookcase there. We were much too tired by that point to continue moving furniture on so we took a break and I worked away at boxing up books. We also went out for supper and to get more bins. Gee spent Friday night through Sunday over at a friend’s so at least she wasn’t underfoot.

On Sunday afternoon we got back downstairs and moved the bookcase behind the door. Then we moved the books from the next bookcase to that one and moved that bookcase aside. We then moved over the toy shelf and then took everything off the small desk and then moved it next to the toy shelf. We put the bookcase on the other side of the doorway where the small bookcase had been and moved over the books from the last bookcase into it. Then we took out the extra bookcase. D3 and I did two loads to the storage unit to get rid of the books and newly purchased bins now full of toys.

Having moved the last of my stuff out of his closet and desk, D3 was able to move down his legos, clothes, and toys. I worked away at cleaning down the stuff piled on the bed and Shan worked away at Gee’s room. At this point, the kids are mostly settled, the main part of the family room is back to usable quality again, and my stuff still needs to be sorted and cleaned from my desk. There is a bit to be done on the table and I need to go through and pack away some of the games we have that we aren’t likely to actually play soon. But we’re mostly done.
Quite the weekend (and summer).

Then we can start gearing up for Halloween.

Begin the slide puzzle

2011-09-02T18:25:00.004-05:00

Last night I popped in to Walmart and Home Depot on the way home and bought some outlet covers, childproof plug covers, and some flat ended extension cords. I fixed the one cover behind D3's bed and put plug covers on the outlets except one - which I plugged in the extension cord for a light and his clock.

I finished emptying the books out of the first bookcase. Even though he said he didn't need one, we moved that bookcase into the corner of his room. It was a tight fit but it's there. He actually slept down in his room for the first time last night.

Now I can begin the slide-puzzle moves to get the rest of the family room usable again. I have to move the TV where the bookcase was and move the toy cupboard so I can put my desk in that corner. I can move the bed and pile games on my desk so I can move the game shelves where the bed was and then put the bed where the game shelves were.

Then we can work at emptying another bookcase and moving them down so we can put the toy cupboard on the bookcase wall. That may take a bit longer.

Room - basically done.

2011-08-30T16:01:00.001-05:00

We picked up the bed and dresser last night and brought it over. I had to glue two of the drawers but otherwise it was in pretty good shape. We set the bed in and put the dresser beside it. We moved the metal cabinet over by the desk and turned the TV so it was viewable from the bed.
It’s starting to look like a room.

I still need to work away at cleaning out the desk but he can start moving his clothes in to the dresser and closet and start getting settled.

Task 1 – basically done. There is still a bit of stuff on the extra desk that needs to be moved but that is now a lower priority.

Still need to get G’s room adjusted once his stuff is out of it. That is not a big change.
Still need to finish cleaning and rearranging the family room.
Then I can move the stuff from the kitchen down there.

Desk out!

2011-08-29T12:48:00.001-05:00

I was able to put some good time towards it on Friday night and we took a load to the storage locker on Saturday. I did the last little bit on Sunday and was able to clear my desk right down. We took apart the spare bed in the family room and the boy and I were able to fight the desk out of the room. That took a bit of effort.
We had to take all the shelves out and we were unable to take the desktop off so we had to flip it on its side and slide it through the doorway. Even with that we had to take the door off of the hinges.

The only part of the carpet that was damaged was in the corner where we had some wood piled up when it had flooded years ago. The rest of it looks passable. Since that corner will be covered by the bed we should be okay with keeping it for now.

My folks had previously said that we could have my old bed and dresser to use for D3. I called my folks on Sunday about getting them. They still had to clean off the stuff they had piled on it. It seems even though we had told them weeks ago that we would take them, they hadn’t cleaned it off yet either. So we’ll try and get them this week – ideally tonight.

With the desk in the family room, the push is now on to empty out a few bookcases to start the slide puzzle that will need to happen. To that end, since we were unable to get the bed last night, I packed up another box of books. I could pack them away much faster but I am writing up cards for the books that are going into storage so we can find them if we need to.

more headway

2011-08-26T15:47:00.000-05:00

I got downstairs last night and put some more work into it. I cleared off the bed in the family room and packed down a few more boxes which got moved into the storage room. Which I suppose is technically ‘my new room’. I also picked up some nice packing boxes and put a few together for use with the books.

If I can get some of the books boxed up tonight I can take them with the boxes I have to the storage unit tomorrow. I need to empty out two bookcases worth. One of the bookcases will go into storage and the other will go into the boy’s room. With those two out of the family room, it should free up enough space to tuck the other desk behind the door and then I can move my desk out of D3’s room.

The carpet is looking not too bad so far. With a carpet cleaning, it may be able to be kept for now. That means that he can start moving clothes downstairs into the closet. We can take over my old bed and dresser from my folk’s place and he can decide where everything goes.

This should give him a week or two to settle before school while I plug away at the family room.

What weekend?

2011-08-22T16:34:00.001-05:00

Where did that last weekend go? On Friday my brother came over. They had recently moved and we got their old stove to replace our older, flat-element one. The previous owners had also left behind an older washing machine so we got that to replace our washing machine – which has been having issues. With fighting unsuccessfully to remove the stove door and then having to remove the side door and then hooking up the washing machine, that ate up most of Friday night.

Saturday we were busy at Cindy and Alain’s nuptials. It was a very lovely ceremony at St Vital Park by the duck pond followed by a nice reception at Harbour View. The meal was very nice and G would have danced all night if she could have. We wish the happy couple all the best.

On Sunday I had some vital issues to deal with on The Floating City. I missed out on an important sortie but was able to cast my vote in the trial. We’re coming down to the last few weeks and the storylines are winding up. It has been a very exciting game – I can see how people can get caught up in these sort of games.
I was also able to get downstairs and put another two hours into cleaning the family room. A few more hours tonight and we should be closer. I’m fast running out of time on this.

The dog ate my homework

2011-08-15T13:45:00.003-05:00

To no-one’s surprise but mine, I’m still not done yet. We ended up having an issue with the white car – in the belt/flywheel area. Haven’t had time to get it looked at but it created a lot of squealing and then smoke.

The other computer finally went. It’s been hobbled together a few times in the last 10 years and finally gave in. So we popped over to XS Cargo on Saturday and bought a refurbished Dell for $99. It’s not great, but it has 1GB RAM and I spent a chunk of time getting it connected for the kids.

Plus my dad’s been a bit short of breath for the last while. We finally convinced him to go in and get it checked. No heart damage but he had an angioplasty done to clear two blockages – one was 95% and was 70% blocked. So we popped over on Saturday to see how he’s doing. He’s much better now.

Our neighbor came over last week to talk about our crab apple tree. Some of the branches are over his yard and dropping apples onto his lawn. We haven’t pruned back the tree in a few years. The last time we did he complained about how much the missing branches opened up his shade. But we spent about three hours on Sunday climbing a ladder into the tree and we cut off a few branches. Then we cut them down and took them into the back. The kids helped with that, more or less grudgingly.

Also, the bumpers on one of D3’s Xbox controllers were not working. A check on the internet showed that this was a simple problem to fix – as long as you had the right tool to open them, a T8H torx screwdriver. I checked and don’t have one yet – I have torx but none with the security hole. I ordered one off of ebay but also popped in to Digikey while we were in the area on Saturday at XS Cargo and picked up a set of torx H screwdrivers for $10.
On Sunday, I got him to open up his controller and we put small pieces of duct tape on the back of the bumpers as the internet instructed. He sealed it back up and it seems to be working fine again. Problem solved.

I did manage to get down there and put a few hours into it. With a bit more tonight, I should have enough for another load to the storage unit and should have cleared out a lot of the mess from the family room.

But we’ll see.
---
Update
My dad, who's not really supposed to be doing anything this week and next, popped over and looked at the white car. He thinks it's coming from the air conditioning unit. The one we just had fixed.

closet cleared

2011-08-12T18:10:00.003-05:00

So, it took all of the extra six bins to pack away the model kits. That makes twelve bins of models, plus a big box, plus a bag of three kits. There are still three kits that didn't make it but they will hang around for now.
We took them all to the storage locker and they stand in two big rows of blue bin happiness.

So I hope to clear my desk and move it out of the room by tomorrow. Then we need to decide on the carpet - maybe clean it, maybe pull it out. Then we can move the bed and dresser in there. Then the boy can start moving his stuff down while I finish moving the furniture in the family room.

It's like one of those sliding puzzles. I have to move this to move that, in order to move this over there. Then I have to move it all back.

cubicly packed

2011-08-11T08:28:00.005-05:00

It's a term I often used to describe my room. It's definitely appropriate to describe the closet. I had packed the closet with model kits. I mean seriously packed.

Home Depot is having a sale on bins. I had picked up 6 of the flip top ones to clean up the assorted bits from my desk and to have solid boxes to put on the bottom of the stacks. I had gone back and picked up some regular bins for the model kits. I don't need super strong ones as the model kits aren't that heavy. When I found some big ones for $3.99, I picked up 6 of them.

While it made a serious dent in the pile, it didn't clear out all of them. So I went back last night to get another six bins. I can't help but feel a bit of smug satisfaction when I think about all the kits I have stored away. That and a bit of apprehension about the amount of space the take up.

The boy has expressed an interest in doing some models when we have the time. That was part of the reason I had picked up all the kits when I could find them on sale. I figured they would come in handy at some point.

Room excavation

2011-08-08T11:47:00.003-05:00

I’ve gotten into the corners and gotten most of the boxes out. At this point, I still have the closet full of models and the two desks to clear off. I picked up some more tubs from Home Depot and took another load to storage. I did more work on Saturday morning and more on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully tonight I’ll get some more big tubs to pack away the rest of the models and keep plugging away at the desks.

I have also cleared a bit more out of the family room where I have been pulling the boxes into in order to get to the rest of them. It’s also a bit of a staging area that I am using to sift the boxes together before taking to storage. I’m combining stuff that has been put in different boxes over the last 8 years together into the same boxes.

By this weekend I hope to see what we’re doing with the carpet and move the bed into that room for the boy. When I cleared into the corner, I also cleaned an end off of the desk that we are leaving to put in the spare TV. He’s got it hooked up to his x-box so he’s been spending quality time in his new room already.

The week so far

2011-07-28T21:08:00.004-05:00

Monday I had to take the white car out to get the air conditioning fixed. It should cost between $200 and $400.
The tire in the van had been low after work and I drove slow on it until I could get it filled.

On Tuesday morning it was flat again so Dad swapped cars with me so he could have it looked at while we went to work and the movies. It turns out the sidewalls were in rough shape. He ended up getting both the rear tires replaced. The cost - $260.

On Wednesday I drove out to pick up the car. The cost - $500, so far.

So, it doesn't look like I will finish cleaning out the room before this weekend. I'll see what I can get done on Monday.

Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour

2011-07-21T19:14:00.000-05:00

I remember when Enterprise took its flight off the back of an airplane way back in 1976.
We’ve followed the shuttle program since then, although it has become less riveting as the successful missions piled up. It’s always been cutting-edge dangerous but repetition made us blasé.
They had a fleet of 4 shuttles in service. Columbia was the first, launched in 1981, followed in 1983 by Challenger, in 1984 by Discovery, and in 1985 by Atlantis.

Then Challenger went and blew up on liftoff in 1986. The missions had been going off so well they had even brought a school teacher along for the ride. Besides bringing home the inherent danger of riding a missile, it also created a bunch of jokes that those of us of a certain age will always remember.
What was the last thing Christa McAuliffe said? - Hey, what does this big red button do?
What does NASA stand for? - Need Another Seven Astronauts.

After a suitable delay, the missions went on. They launched Endeavour in 1992 to bring their fleet back up to 4 shuttles and missions progressed again. In 2003, Columbia disintegrated upon reentry due to a failing of its thermal shield. That caused almost a two year delay before the next mission.

Rather than risk more accidents, they have phased out the remaining shuttles this year with Discovery finishing her 39 mission in February, Endeavour finishing her 33 mission in May, and Atlantis just finishing her 25 mission today.

It’s the end of an era.

Floating City

2011-07-09T21:10:00.004-05:00

Lately I've been immersed in the Floating City.

Thomas Dolby (She Blinded Me With Science) is releasing a new album. He created an online game to help promote it.

It's set in an alternate version of the 1940s. WWII turned out differently with a global energy experiment having gone haywire. The Earth’s magnetic fields have been reversed, and the planetary climate system violated. The world is flooded and we are trying to get to the North Pole.

You create a persona, with a boat, and get items that group together in sets. In trading the items you complete sets of five and that unlocks a code to download the MP3 of that song. Finishing the tutorial trade with the purple ship will complete the song 'She Blinded Me With Science' - Chemicals, Spheres, Trench Coat, Tubes and Wires, and Careful notes. There are nine songs on each set - getting all nine will unlock an album - with three albums being available.

Trading will move you on a Google map of the world, with your tribe working to move their way north. As you complete trades you get points for you and your tribe. At the end of it, the tribe with the most points is supposed to win a free release concert in their area in which Thomas Dolby will perform the entire album.

I'm listed as Frozen North (Canada) so it will probably end up being in Toronto and out of my reach - but so far we are leading.
vate concert at which Thomas Dolby and his band perform the album in its entirety.

This is my referal link:
http://www.floatingcity.com/Register?id32=3ba9a8939870f59b0f...
If you sign in through here I get a few extra points and extra cargo bits. This will put you in the Frozen River tribe though - so central and Northern US and Canada.

Otherwise the regular link is http://www.floatingcity.com/

It's lovely looking from a graphics view with sepia newsletters and design. From a marketing standpoint, for someone who hasn't really released an album in 20 years, it's making pretty good use of technology. I'm not what I consider a big Dolby fan, but the combinations are intriguing me and I'm definately going to noodle around in there for next while.

Check it out.

X-Men First Class

2011-07-04T18:09:00.000-05:00

Unlike some of the other Super-Hero movies that have come out, I did read and follow X-men. I started with the new group and also read a lot of the classic ones. With the depth of history and various configurations of the groups I was quite excited to see a movie about the original group. X-men First Class is not that movie.
That’s not to say that it’s not a good film. It’s one of the better stories and the characters are all well represented. It’s just that they play fast and loose with the history and characters. Most people who have only ever been exposed to the X-men through the movies will not be bothered by this.

The Hellfire Club is well represented and the White Queen is basically wearing her comic costume. As a matter of fact, the accuracy to comic costumes is quite close in this one. Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw was a fine choice as a villain. If only Oliver Platt had a character name other than “man in suit” to match his fine role.

As super-hero films go, even as action films go, it’s quite good. If you have no preconceptions of who would be in the ‘first class’ of X-men, and don’t know who designed Cerebo, the Blackbird, and the yellow and black costumes, if you don’t know when Hank turned blue and fuzzy, when Xavier ended up in a wheelchair, and when Banshee, and Havok joined the X-men and when Shaw, Mystique, and Emma encountered the X-men and when Emma gained a diamond form, and if it won’t bug you that Moria and Banshee are no longer Scottish, then you should have no trouble with this film.

I knew all this going in and it’s probably what prevents me from liking this film more. I liked it quite a bit, but could have liked it even more if some of these had been closer to what I already knew.

oh, and another thing

2011-06-29T16:51:00.000-05:00

Peter Falk died.

He will be known forever as the rumpled detective Columbo. I remember watching him when I was young and watched the movies when they brought him back. As Colombo, he was always underestimated and yet kept plugging away at the inconsistencies until he revealed the killer. Even with the glass eye and gravelly voice, he was a true star. I will miss both him and his character.

Blood Bowl redux

2011-06-28T17:02:00.001-05:00

While I have been enjoying the Blood Bowl over the last few weeks, Shan has been a bit snarky about it. Even though I specifically bought the laptop to be able to watch TV and play games and do the internet in the living room. But it wasn’t entirely just normal surliness – and now I found out why.

Over a month ago, before I had even bought the Dark Eldar version of Blood Bowl for the computer, she had picked up the regular version of Blood Bowl for the x-box. Talking about it and about getting the Legendary version of Blood Bowl only highlighted the fact that I had already bought a gift that she had bought me for my birthday.

Truly though, they are completely different. As the x-box is not ours but rather our son’s so my playing on it is dependent on his whims. Plus I wouldn’t be able to play and watch TV. On the upside, I can now play easily against him and he can learn how to play without having to use the computer.

Plus, the thought counts for a lot. As we had been looking for the DS version of it for the last year and haven’t seen it. She had to get it from EB Games. Normally, I’m pretty good about not buying things in the month or two before my birthday or Christmas due to these very reasons, but the game wasn’t really on one of my lists. That’s what I get for having a wife that knows me so well.

Red River Ex

2011-06-27T15:25:00.003-05:00

We went to the Red River Ex on Saturday. The kids and I got all-you-can-ride wristbands and Shan got the admission. In addition, two of Gee’s friends came along with ride passes as well. This meant that I didn’t need to ride the Polar Express with her.

We did the Crazy Mouse and there was a great picture but someone had thrown a drink at the camera after us and they were unable to get the computer to print.
We did the Drop of Doom. Gee was tall enough last year but we decided to skip it so she has been looking forward to it all year. I hadn’t been on it before either so it was a first for me too. Not being afraid of heights, I didn’t find it too bad. The drop itself is neat but it only lasts a second or two before it starts slowing down. We even did it again later in the day.

We managed to see a nice aerial act and we got to see David Smith being shot from a cannon. Shan was very excited. D3 and I watched the dog show and the girls went to the farm.

The only bad thing was that it started to rain about 11:30pm as we were leaving so the parking lot became jammed. People weren’t merging properly and we didn’t manage to get out until 12:30. That’s right – it took an hour to get out of the parking lot.

These pictures are all from last year.

In brightest day, in darkest night

2011-06-23T12:08:00.004-05:00

Again, while I have read some Green Lantern comics, I didn’t follow Green Lantern avidly. The movie hit all the points I was expecting, galactic adventure, Green Lantern Corps, Guardians, OA, Abin Sur, Sinestro – all are in here. It’s just what they do with them.
Ryan Reynolds manages to pull off Hal Jordan and Green Lantern. The costume is still recognizable to the comics. But with all the time in space he doesn’t convey any sense of wonder to us. Even a test pilot should have some awe at flying under his own power and that doesn’t come across.

A hero is defined by his villains. Green Lantern does have a great villain, a true challenge but, while he does appear briefly in the film, he’s not the villain. Instead we have a big black and yellow cloud called Parallax and a big-headed guy called Hector Hammond.

The ring allows you to create anything, limited only by your mind. Using it to bring the beat down on a wheelchair-bound big-headed balding guy does not make for good visuals.

All in all, a passable enough film but only a tease of what the second one might be. We saw it in 3D and again it wasn’t used enough to justify the additional cost at the ticket counter.

There was nice scenes with him trying "the oath", and with Carol Ferris recognizing him in costume. I really look forward to the next film - with a full-on Sinestro and Star Saphire.

lil' Tuece coupe

2011-06-21T17:32:00.003-05:00

For Father’s Day I got a pair of T-shirts and some movies – including Tron Legacy. We had gone to my dad’s for a barbeque and I climbed up and retrieved my Apple IIc boxes from the garage rafters.

In packing away my Tuece (Apple IIc) for storage my daughter said that my keyboard was “broken”. She is learning keyboarding already in school. I explained that my keyboard was fine – what I had done was changed the layout to Dvorak.

The Apple IIc had two dip switches on top. One would let you change your monitor resolution from 40 characters to 80 characters across. The other would toggle between Qwerty and Dvorak. I had to fix a key and I ended up removing a third of the keyboard to get access to it. At that point I had changed over to Dvorak. My then-girlfriend could touch type when she needed to use the keyboard and I could hunt and peck as it was.

Good times. Good memories of GEnie, and many hours of Lode Runner, Ultima III and Ultima IV, and Moebius.

Blood Bowl

2011-06-17T15:32:00.003-05:00

We used to play Blood Bowl a lot. We even had a league going one year. I ran an Undead team - using Warhammer figures - an Undead Blood Bowl team still maintains its position on my want list.

While at XS Cargo I found a copy of the Dark Elf edition of the computer game (with 9 teams) for $6. I'm super impressed with it. But then I’m only playing the classic game – not their real time version. I'm finding it very true to the rules I remember - including the campaign rules.

It took me a few games to remember the rules enough to be dangerous. I’m playing campaign – I lost the first tourney (of 4 teams) and have won the next three cups. The last one was pretty close though; I’m playing Humans and my Ogre was sent out on the first turn of the final. But I still squeeked out a win.

The only odd thing is (possibly due to the British-ness of it) you often have to right click to confirm. That might be changed in the Legendary edition. The Legendary edition also contains 20 teams - including my Undead team.

I'm putting it on my want list as is my son - who is putting the x-box version on his want list.

Snafu - intellivision

2011-06-15T12:05:00.002-05:00

Back in July of 2009 I had posted this to Game Design Concepts Forum for the game design course I was taking at the time.
We had to take an older video game and translate the rules to be a board game. I didn’t post it here as it is a very simple game. It could also be done with laying tiles into a gridded board.

What has caused me to revisit it though was the new Tron movie and some other games that people have made with light cycles. Using the diecast lightcycles as models and acetate sheets as the trails, this makes it much more visibly interesting. I’m going to have to look at this again with that in mind.

- - -

SNAFU
From INTELLIVISON

Players: 1 or 2

There were 2 main versions of the games (trap or bite) with 16 variations of these on the cartridge. You (and up to 1 other) could control a head that would either create a trail that you would use to block your opponent’s trail to force them into a collision [very similar to the lightcycles in Tron] or in the bite version would try and nibble away at the opponent’s tail. In addition to the two trails that could be player-controlled, there were also an optional two trails that were computer controlled.
I will do the trap version.

The game board is 37 squares across by 21 squares down. In the prototype this is very easily drawn out on a piece of paper and photocopied for the trap games.
In trap games, the trails are represented by marking in the squares with colored pens (crayons/markers) in the variants where the trails remain after a collision. In the variants were the trails disappear after collisions, you could use erasable pencils (or marking in letters for the different-colored trails and erasing the appropriate ones.) Alternatively, you can draw the grid on a dry-erase board and use dry-erase markers for the trails.
You would also need a 6-sided dice.

Game:
The four starting spots are as follows:
The green trail starts 19 in and 5 down. This is optional and game controlled.
The red trail starts 6 in and 11 down. This can be a player controlled trail.
The blue trail starts 32 in and 11 down. This can be a player controlled trail.
The yellow trail starts 19 in and 33 down. This is optional and game controlled.

The basic rules:
1. Each turn fill in a new square attached to the end of your line. (You may not wrap around off end side to the other).
2. If there are no squares for you to add to the end of your line you have a collision and your game ends.
3. If two trails want to enter the same square – both trails roll a dice – with the higher roll getting to add that square first. A tie would mean that both trails have a collision with each other.
4. The last trail still able to play wins.

The game controlled lines always move in a straight line if possible. If doing so would cause a collision, then they move to a random non-colliding space. If they have no valid spaces in which to move, then they have a collision.
The starting direction is decided by rolling d6. If diagonal lines are allowed, then a second roll is needed - 1-3 diagonal, 4-6 non-diagonal. If diagonal then roll again - 1 up left, 2 up right, 3 down right, 4 down left, 5-6 roll again. If non-diagonal then roll again - 1 up, 2 right, 3 down, 4 left, 5-6 roll again.

The variant rules:
Players – the red and blue lines are always in play. The variant would allow all four lines to play. [In a board game version – all 4 lines could be player-controlled.]
Movement – all lines only move to adjacent horizontal or vertical spaces. The variant would allow diagonal moves.
Trails – normally the trails remain after collisions. The variant causes the trails to be erased after the trail has a collision.
Obstacles – Obstacles are 2x2 square boxes that are placed on the board. Trails may not move through obstacles. Normally there are no obstacles on the board. The variant allows 5-8 [4+1/2(d6)] obstacles to be placed on the board.

Garage sale

2011-06-08T11:28:00.001-05:00

My daughter wanted to have a garage sale. Shan and I have been involved with them before and know what is involved and don’t believe the time spent outweighs the value earned. But, since G is young and because she has pretty much ground down our will, we said she could have one. So, we have been saving a few things for a garage sale instead of putting them out for the ‘free give-away weekends’.

Luckily Shan’s friend Erika called about helping her out with her garage sale. She has had garage sales before so we packed up the van and went over to help. Her sale was scheduled only from 10am to 1pm so it wouldn’t take up too much of our day.
We got there a bit after 9 am to find she hadn’t set out anything yet. We unloaded the van and then helped her bring out an endless supply of items. By 9:45 people were flocking in and we were still bringing stuff out.

By 11am G was already getting bored so we did a walk around the block to check out another garage sale. By 1 she had picked though Erika items and bought a curling broom and some rub-design toys.

She was really impressed by all the money in the cash box (the float) but ultimately we only sold a few things – a bike, some toy guitars and music set, a few books, and some outgrown costumes. Total haul – between $10 and $15. None of the large yard toys we had priced for a couple of dollars went.

We packed the remaining items back in the van and reloaded Erika’s stuff back into her house. The leftovers were taken to Value Village. We did keep a few things – G had enough fun that she wants to have another one

battle of the dinos!

2011-06-03T14:37:00.005-05:00

With the cleaning I'm going through old boxes and came across a box of my old artwork. The kids thought it was neat to see how I used to draw and how I had improved over the years.

Here's one from July of 1993 - it would have been around the time of the American Godzilla release. We had been chatting about how the creature looked more like a T-Rex than Godzilla.

So we lost about 20

2011-06-01T15:56:00.000-05:00

We watch a lot of TV. We’re willing to give a lot of shows a chance and we check out shows that contain people we like. Usually they don’t last but they have been more lenient about giving them a chance since the writer’s strike.

This year we watched and are losing:
Breaking In, The Cape, Chaos, The Defenders, The Event, The Good Guys, Hellcats, Human Target, Lie To Me, Life Unexpected, Mad Love, Medium, Mr. Sunshine, No Ordinary Family, Off the Map, Outsourced, $#*! My Dad Says, Smallville, Tudors and V.
Of these we’re really going to miss The Good Guys, Human Target, Off the Map, and Mr. Sunshine. Outsourced and Smallville were both good as well and Hellcats, Breaking In and Chaos were also fun newcomers.

For whatever reason, Desperate Housewives and One Tree Hill (both of which we watch grudgingly) both made the cut and are coming back – even though One Tree Hill had a great final episode that wrapped up all its loose ends and would have been a great ending to the show.

stored and sore

2011-05-30T09:09:00.005-05:00

So we were able to get another three loads taken to the storage locker on Saturday. On my last load I noticed that they had some carts to use to help unloading. This would have been good to know on Friday when I had carried boxes of books down the hallway to the locker.
Then I helped Shan turn the soil in the garden so she could plant before the rain started.

On Sunday we took the back seat out of the van and took two loads of comics to the storage locker. Shan and D3 carried them up the stairs and we loaded them in the van. This filled one of the skids 6 layers high with longboxes and regular boxes. That's almost 6 feet of comics - the stack towers over the rest of the family.
(We have a lot of comics).

So we have emptied out the storage room and the comics room and still haven't filled half of the locker. That means I will have plenty of room to move over a bunch of boxes from my room. The funny thing is, because this was all in our storage room and the comics were in the storage closet and hidden from view, even with these moved over it doesn't look like we've made a dent yet. My room will be the same way.

Pack away your troubles

2011-05-27T23:59:00.005-05:00

It's not really that I can say that we're now the proud owners of a storage locker but rather necessity has driven us to have one. I have a 10'x10'x8' temperature controlled unit. It's costing us $200 a month. In four years it will be $10,000 gone away with nothing to show for it instead of being paid towards renovations done but gang aft agley.

I took a load with me when I went to register Friday morning. I wanted to make sure we got one before they all filled up at the end of the month. The unit came with two skids in it that we will put to use. I was able to get three more loads done in the rain and now our downstairs storage room is over half empty.
We'll try and do another few loads on Saturday, and then see about moving over the comics on Sunday when the rain stops. After that, I can make a start at emptying out my room and we can see what condition it is in.

It's not the best solution but we're trying to make the best of it.

Game Day

2011-05-26T15:27:00.003-05:00

Some friends had a games day on the holiday Monday. They invited us and two other couples over to play some games. While some played some longer games we banged out a bunch of the smaller games - most of which we hadn't played. At the smaller table, we sat down with Lee, G, and another daughter of one of the friends.

We started with a couple of quick rounds of Toss Up. I've played it before but we like it. It's quick and simple. Of the two games we played I won one.

We followed up with Scrabble Slam. It's another simple game. Of the two games played I won one.

Next we played two games of Feed The Kitty. It belongs to the friend's daughter but is simple and fun. The nice thing about it is that when you are out, you still have a chance to get back into the game. I won one of the two games.

We played a game of Uno Junior and one game of Zombie Dice. After these the kids went off to play and tried some of the newer games.

We tried Spooks. It takes a round to get used to the variations but it was fun. Of the three round played, I won the last two. We didn't try the Master rules but it is definitely one we'll be playing again.

We tried a game of Gloom, which I won. While it seems like a neat game, the cards are difficult to read and I suspect will get harder once they start to scuff. I won but Shan had been confused about the scoring - even though we had gone over it a few times. So we didn't play a second game.

While Lee went to make supper we switched around players and played another three games of Scrabble Slam - which I won another two. Then we played five quick games of Cthulhu Dice. While I only won one game, madness was had by all.

It was a fun day. With good friends and games played - we need to do this more often.

Spring chores

2011-05-19T12:52:00.002-05:00

A few things have interrupted my western town building of late. The first is finally getting a new laptop – which means that I can finally play Hellgate after all these years. So far, I’m liking it!

The second is having the possibility of a game room in our renovation plans dashed by the bank. It was a long shot but as the time went along I got more and more used to the idea. The vision of being able to spread out a game and walk away from it afterwards – cleaning it up later became more and more appealing. With that off the table for now, we’ve had to take a bit harder look at our current set up and have decided we need to put a lot of stuff into storage for now. Not just some of the non-played games (that we want to keep) but also older toys, and other stuff.

That said, we’ve never done off-site storage before. I’m figuring that we probably want a heated/cooled unit. Has anyone out there done this before? Our basic storage unit is a printer paper box. Would these hold up? Anyone have good experiences or is storage always a bad step before just getting rid of everything?

Finally, now that we've gotten some nice weather (and having no renovations to interupt us), we have yard work to do. We did our first mow of the year on Monday. Shan raked the front yard yesterday - we still have the back to rake. We'll have to turn the garden, move the last composter to the back, and see if I can cut the metal pole by the back gate to make room for a shed. I'm thinking about removing the pole for the old pool cover as well.
Then we have to decide if the summer will be warm enough to set up the pool.

Renovation-less

2011-05-13T16:06:00.004-05:00

So the bank came back and renovations are out for now. Even though the appraisal for the value after renovations came back at $270K (and they had said we needed at least $250K) it was still denied by CMHC as it would eat up all the equity that we currently have in the house. Since we have no plans to move in the next two decades we didn’t see it as a problem but they don’t see it that way.

We had to notify our renovator again. He was quite understanding about it. We look forward to trying to proceed again with this at a later date. We’ll give it a few years and try again. In the mean time, we’ll have to move D3 into the basement – which means that I’ll lose my room (which, since it was cubically packed, I wasn't getting too much use out of anyways).

So the plan now is to move a bunch of our boxes from storage in the basement to off-site storage. Then we’ll move everything out of my room into either the space created or into off-site storage. Then D3 gets moved into my former room and we'll have to reconfigure the downstairs as needed. Then we’ll also have to reconfigure D3’s and G’s room into being just hers.

It’s going to be a busy summer.

Thor

2011-05-11T13:18:00.002-05:00

We took Shan to see Thor on the weekend – for Mother’s Day. I had a few concerns before seeing it but was very pleased with the way they had managed them. While I had occasionally read the Thor comics I didn’t follow it closely so, while it seemed fine to me, more faithful readers may have issues. I am fairly conversant with Norse mythology, unlike some of the other people we saw it with – but both sides were able to follow along.

Thor is portrayed as a belligerent bully only interested in glory and gets humbled by his time on earth. His costume, another Kirby one, made the translation to the big screen without too much modification. The look of Mjolnir, and its use was very consistant to the comics - the spinning, throwing, steadfastness, and return were all well represented. Odin, Heimdall, and Lady Sif are all handled well. The Warriors Three appear in more than just a cameo, Jane Foster comes across a bit goofy but plausible.
I did have a bit of an issue with the movie making it look like Odin lost his eye in battle with the frost giants instead of giving it up for knowledge but most people won’t know anything amiss about it. The Rainbow Bridge was a bit cheesy but still worked. I really liked how Thor explained the World Tree to Jane - it helped to bridge the myth vs science part very well.

Who really stands out is Loki. Not only does he actually wear the crazy Kirby-horned helmet, but they actually made it look not goofy. He is portrayed as scheming more to bring about a good end rather than scheming for evil’s sake – Luthor and Doom could definitely take note here. It’s a lot easier to see him as a misguided hero than a two-dimensional villain. I think he was very well done.

Little nods to long-time fans include the references to Donald Blake, the appearance of Stan ‘the Man’ Lee, the billboard listing “Land of Enchantment, Journey Into Mystery” (Thor first appeared and starred in the comic Journey Into Mystery before eventually getting his own self-titled book), and Hawkeye. While barely seen on camera, the sarcastic wit in his brief scene really makes me look forward to Hawkeye’s next appearance. Shan may be a big Green Arrow fan, but I’ve always been a bigger fan of Hawkeye.

All and all, we were very pleased with the film. I feel it felt true to both of the source materials (comics and myths). The costumes and look were true enough to the comics style and the sense of a bigger world that the Marvel comics do so well was handled well. I think it is a good addition to the Marvel set of movies and will help bring nonreaders up to speed in preparation for the Avengers film.

FCBD - results

2011-05-10T18:13:00.001-05:00

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. We hit Galaxy Comics and Comics Factory IV as usual. In addition to the free comics, and Green Lantern Herocix, we also picked up some comic and magazine boxes, some comics and graphic novels.

We also popped in to Pendragon Games. We picked up another copy of Crimson Skies (WizKids), the card games Ren Faire and Weapons of Mass Destruction, and G picked up Chicken Pox and Mad Cow Disease (like beanie babies but with cutesy diseases).

We also popped in to Michaels and picked up some fabric markers and t-shirts to make the kids some cup-o-dirt shirts.

Books read January to April - 2011

2011-05-09T16:07:00.001-05:00

Jan
Starship Troopers RPG – The United Citizen’s Federation by Greg Lynch
Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer
The Battles of the War of 1812 by Pierre Berton
The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics by Klaus Janson
Steampunk Style Jewelry by Jean Campbell
Jewelry Design Challenge by Linda Kopp

Feb
Last Words by George Carlin with Tony Hendra
Leather Jewelry: 30 Contemporary Projects by Nathalie Mornu
The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer by Doron Swade
Dust City by Robert Paul Weston
Blood Lines: Richard Matheson’s Dracula, I Am Legend, and other Vampire Stories edited by Mark Dawidziak
Intercepting Fist – The Films of Bruce Lee and the Golden Age of Kung-Fu Cinema by Jack Hunter
Ceramic Bead Jewelry: 30 fired & inspired projects by Jennifer Heynen
Stan Lee’s How to Draw Comics by Stan Lee

Mar
Creative Silver Chains: 20 Dazzling Designs by Chantal Lise Saunders
Creating Comics – 47 Master Artists Reveal the Techniques and Inspiration Behind Their Comic Genius by Judith Salavetz & Spencer Drate
The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz
American Conspiracies by Jesse Ventura with Dick Russell
The People: A Historical Guide to the First Nations of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba by Donald Ward
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

Apr
Creative Woodcarving for Beginners: Basic Techniques – 50 Projects by Reinhold Budeker, Jorg Hille, Nicola Mazrek, Mareen Pries & Karsten Selke
Halloween Trivia: ghosts, Ghouls, Skeletons, Vampires, Witches, Graveyards, Spiders, Zombies, Haunted Houses by Tonya Lambert
George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy & Stephen Hawking
Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter

Renovations - second chance

2011-05-05T12:39:00.003-05:00

So I had a nice chat with the bank manager. It did look like the rep we had been dealing with had mixed up the plans and forgotten about our primary renovation option - with just the second floor. Even though this had been our main goal originally.

The end result is that we are resubmitting the info and they will have an appraiser re-evaluate the second floor renovations alone and see if it helps the numbers to get our approval. I contacted the contractor and he seems pretty good about it. He sent through an updated detailed quote and I have forwarded it along to the bank.

The manager said that they'll try to push it along a bit quicker and hopes to let me know (one way or the other) by next weekend. If it is approved and we still have our slot, it could be a whirlwind time for the next month as we pack and get things ready.

It might be a bit of a hassle, but it would be one I would gladly go through for the end result.
Interesting times.

April figure buying total

2011-05-04T10:53:00.003-05:00

So a few more bits came in to complete the following:

40K Trygon/Mawloc (in bits) – 1
40K Gargoyles (in bits) - 10
40K Tyranid Warriors (in bits) – 3

Apr figures bought – 14, figures painted – 0

Running total 2011 – figures bought 192, figures painted 0

I really need to wash the animal figures and base them to make a good dent on my total for this year.

Renovations – denied

2011-04-29T17:10:00.003-05:00

So the bank came back and is now saying that they don’t want to lend anything for any renovations. This is certainly a surprise to us as the only reason we were even trying for the full renovation amount was based on the understanding that the second floor renovations were going to be no problems. After all, if we there was any question about being able to afford a $130K renovation project, why would we try asking for $240 instead?

I’m going in to talk to the bank manager next week to complain about the agent. I don’t expect anything to change about the loan but I do want to express my displeasure about the agent and ensure that we never have to deal with her ever again. We’ve dealt with her twice over the years and been frustrated both times. A third time when she was on holidays we got to deal with a different agent and had a wonderful experience.

As frustrated as we feel about this, we feel even worse about our renovator – who had done proposals and floorplans and who we had told to pencil us in for starting in June. He had been great and we were looking forward to dealing with him for this. Now he’s going to have to try to move up other projects or get a project to fill the slot that we're leaving empty. I told him about our meeting next week but to start looking for some other project as I don't expect a different result. If we somehow manage to get approval for our minimum renovations we'll just add on the end of his list.

Regardless, the game room is out. We’re going to have to look into getting a storage locker and cleaning out my room and our storage room and moving the boy downstairs. It’s not our first choice, but it should be workable for a few years until we get to try again.
I’m so looking forward to going through this again.

Komarno - now that's a mosquito!

2011-04-27T15:33:00.003-05:00

We didn’t really look around Komarno too much. I know I have an uncle buried there but we didn’t visit. We did stop by their local monument though.

It’s a giant mosquito.

And it’s on a pivot so it can be turned.

fist full of happiness

2011-04-19T11:31:00.002-05:00

After finally getting our laptop we went to buy a trackball. While I grudgingly have to use a mouse at work, our computers at home have had trackballs since 1996. They’re harder to find than the mainstream mice but so much better to use. I’m still using the original Trackman Marble I had bought back then. My wife is using the newer Trackman Marble (with the center trackball) on her older laptop and it wasn’t even a question about getting one for our new laptop. (Since we will share the new laptop, my thoughts on changing the keyboard to Dvorak were met with less acceptance).

Since they haven’t been adopted by the masses, the selection is notably smaller. The new Logitech M570 is very similar in style to the Trackman we use on our main computer. It loses a button for a scroll wheel and forward/back buttons. It’s also wireless. Best Buy had the Logitech M570 on display – but again had no stock. We popped over to Future Shop. They didn’t have any stock either. In fact, they only had 14 in their system – 4 in Coquitlam, 5 for the Future Shop online eastern division and 5 for the western division.
We were running late so I had to use the touchpad included with the laptop on Saturday. While passable, it still had issues that would take a while to get acclimated.

Calling Staples however, I found that they had stock – 6 at the location I called and about 18 here in the city. I find it amusing that Staples has more in stock here in this one city than Future Shop has in their system for all of Canada. We picked it up, it installed with no trouble, and works like a proper device should. The back/forward buttons will take a bit to get used to but the thumb ball works just like the old one and the scroll wheel feels nice.

As a note of interest – the trackball was invented over a decade before the mouse. The trackball dates back to 1952 as a result of the Canadian DATAR project and the mouse followed in 1963. Contrary to what I always say, the mouse was not simply a precision tracking device turned over and rubbed clumsily against a table.

Laptop of joy

2011-04-18T13:14:00.001-05:00

We had popped into Best Buy last week to get a laptop. After checking out the stats and the feel of the keyboards I decided on the Gateway NV53A63U. It would have come home with us if they had any in stock. Or if they had any at the other location, or even any coming in. But it seems that they didn’t. Which makes me wonder why they still have it on display.

So I spent the week checking options and narrowing it down to my next option. I decided on the Acer AS5253-BZ611. It has 3 GB RAM and 500 GB HD, a Radeon HD6310 graphics card, a SD reader, 3 USB ports and HDMI port. So it hit all my needs. The graphics card doesn’t have any dedicated memory so I won’t be able to play all the new graphics-heavy First-Person-Shooter games – but since I don’t play those, it should be fine.

We went back to Best Buy and, even thought they didn’t have the model on display (they still had the Gateway) they did have them in stock so we purchased one. I turned down the service plan and turned down their ‘cleaning’. They also offered to charge $150 to clean out the ads and load on Nortons.
That’s okay. I spent about 6 hours starting up the Windows 7, creating my backup disks and startup disk, connecting to our network, and setting up the user profiles. I spent another 4 hours the next day installing our firewall, and loading on Diablo 2 and Hellgate. I look forward to playing them this weekend.

Sucker Punch - good times

2011-04-15T15:34:00.002-05:00

It’s certainly very stylized. I can understand why some people have a problem with it – in that they feel like they’ve been cheated by the ending. We didn’t – we liked it. If you’re paying attention to the narration, the opening story, and who picks up the action after the first change then the ending doesn’t surprise nearly as much.
The girl’s dream costumes are pretty sparse – but this is clearly shown in the ads and posters. If they offend you, this may not be the movie for you.
We liked Zack’s take on 300 and thought he did a great job with Watchmen. Sucker Punch fits in nicely with those two. If you didn’t appreciate either of those, you may not like this one either.

It’s very pretty with the entire film appearing in muted colors reminiscent of Noir films or sepia photographs. Except a brief framing sequence, the majority of the movie takes place in a noir/caper dream with various genre sub dreams as the story progresses.
While the mix of modern and old in the sub stories can be a bit jarring (notably the WWII vs the Fantasy Orcs) the soft focus makes it all work together. It does seem a bit like Zack couldn’t decide on which genre he wanted to make so he mashes them all together for this film. But as it’s for the story within the story – it all makes sense.

While Emily Browning shows off her great legs as the lead Baby Doll, I feel it is Jenna Malone’s Rocket that steals the show. Vanessa Hudgens manages to hold her own as Blondie. Jamie Chung plays the pilot Amber and Abby Cornish rounds out the main cast as Sweat Pea.

Shan and the kids also liked the film. G was a bit concerned about the fates of the other girls – but it is sufficiently vague about what happens to them in the ‘real world’. It could be that I’m deep into Crimson Skies right now but I liked the Noir story and the various sub stories as well. All in all - I'd recommend it - I'm certainly looking to pick it when it comes on DVD to hear some of the commentary.

Game Room - Denied!

2011-04-13T09:42:00.003-05:00

So the bank (credit union actually) finally came back with the bad news. Due to the current general softness of the housing marking, our proposed renovations don't fall in our range of risk. They are okay with the numbers on how much our monthly payments would be for the money, but due to their regulations, our amount borrowed compared to the assessed value after the full renovations would be about 87% - over the 80% they are comfortable with lending.

So now we have to go through the assessment process again (and pay the assessment charge again) with our alternate choice. With the numbers so tight, we'll forgo the third option (which would still give us a game room) for now. Rather, we'll try for the second floor addition and deck off the kitchen and look at adding the wing in a few years after the market recovers. This should be less intrusive and take less time in the short run but will end up costing even more in the long run.

At least the subsequent addition should not require us to have to move as much when it gets done. We will probably have to get a storage locker for some of our long-term items and work at getting some new sheds.

Of course, if we hit the Lotto Max in the next few weeks, all bets are off and we're back to doing it all. Here's hoping.

Picture Overview

2011-04-08T13:23:00.004-05:00

Even though we have digital cameras, I still wait until we download the pictures onto a disk at Walmart every few months. This is why I use the 'pictures to follow' label as a place holder and the 'pictures' label after I have gone back and update them. Some posts I try to delay a bit if I know I'll be doing the disk soon but mostly I'll post as it comes up and fill the pictures in later.

That said, here are the kids on the roof above the kitchen shovelling off the snow. This is from early March when we had a bit of warm weather. It's good to get the snow off to prevent it leaking through the vents as it melts. It may also be the last time we have to do this - with a new roof we won't be able to get that high.

I've also added pictures to the following posts:
How may Daleks do you need?
Figure Painting Total Mar 2011
Western Town - Supplies
Tyranid conversions
William – destiny fulfilled - as a note, we finally buried William yesterday. The ground finally being thawed enough to be able to dig a hole. It was pretty sad for the kids.
need zamboni
Ice to see you
ice weather

Figure painting total Mar 2011

2011-04-01T14:49:00.006-05:00

I'm digging myself a bigger hole for this year. However, I still remain optimistic.

While I added a lot of figures this month, I feel that I should be able to touch them up enough to finish them pretty quickly. Maybe not before the summer but certainly afterwards. The Cybermen and Judoon should be easy to repaint, and the Daleks are too cute to avoid. The animals should be easy to finish once I decide on colors. I seem to be getting closer and closer to a tipping point on the western figures.

Daleks - 51
Cybermen - 16
Judoon - 16
5 sets Farm Animals (1/35 scale) - 60

Mar figures bought – 143, figures painted – 0
Running total 2011 – figures bought 178, figures painted 0

How many Daleks do you need?

2011-03-30T15:46:00.005-05:00

I dunno. How many Daleks are there?

I’m on a list for the Dr Who Miniatures game. They had mentioned that the Doctor Who Adventures magazine had plastic Dalek figures coming. The magazine is targeted towards kids and usually has a neat add-in each issue.

I checked around and was unable to get it locally but was able to get someone over there to buy them for me and send them over. The issue came with 17 of the new Daleks in fabulous technicolor! There were 5 red, 5 blue, 5 orange, 1 yellow and 1 white. The following issue came out with a pack of 8 Cybermen and 8 Judoon. While these weren’t as nice as the Daleks, they’ll do nicely to bulk out the forces in a game. So I got three of the Dalek issues and two of the Cyberman/Judoon issues.

Of course, they’ll need a touch of paint to complete them, but even without they look pretty nice. They’ll look nice with the old Citadel Dalek/Cyberman boxed set I have from decades ago.

What am I going to do with 51+ Daleks and 16+ Cybermen? I’ll probably paint up one as a stone Dalek and a few as the Ironsides Daleks. I may even be able to run the War of the Daleks from the Salute site.
The rest? Someone on the list suggested that they could easily be used as a Necron force in 40K. Now that really gets the mind churning. It’s definitely being added as a project.

Renovation plans – there is another

2011-03-25T18:24:00.001-05:00

I had the day off yesterday and had my eyes checked. It’s been 6 years since my last visit – the optometrist gave me warning about glaucoma and said I need to come more often. But my eyes are fine. My prescription has improved again slightly – one of the benefits of being myopic in my youth – as my eyes age and my lens flatten out, my eyes get better.

I met Shan for lunch and went to Dairy Whip (had a Fatboy, Fries and Chilli – hmm, happy belly). While there, Shan came up with a third option for upgrades. We could still do the second floor changes (extra bedroom and bathroom), and part of the wing (basement and game room), deck, roof, siding, etc. We would skip the extra bedroom over the game room.

Hopefully our numbers come in okay for everything.
If not, we still have this option which includes my workshop, gameroom, and Shan’s deck. As a second choice, this should crunch through the numbers and still give us what we need.
Otherwise, the second floor only addition should clear the numbers as a last resort.

Interesting times.

Western Town - test pieces

2011-03-23T14:16:00.001-05:00

I drew the upsized buildings on a piece of posterboard then cut them out and glued them together. I’m starting with a few test pieces – a shed, an outhouse, and a log cabin. If they prove too difficult to work with I can stop, if they seem to work okay I can proceed with upsizing some of the more complex buildings.

The posterboard seems a bit flimsy right now. I am hoping when I glue on the roofs and bases they will firm up. Then I will glue on the match sticks for window frames and stir sticks for planks.

For the log cabin, I found a set of dowels that are the same scale as the pattern printed on the Hotz Artworks design – 10 logs high. I am not sure if I want to rough them up a bit or not to better simulate logs. I also have to decide if I want to sand the backs flatter to make them easier to glue.

Road Trip - Gimli

2011-03-21T13:27:00.005-05:00

We used to know when we getting near to Gimli when we could see the distillery.

Gimli used to be a little community about an hour north of Winnipeg. Over the last decade or so, it has had some real growth. While there is still a lot of people using it as a cottage town, there are also a lot of people living there year-round. They still have a movie theatre and a lot of restaurants for their population.

They have done extensive upgrades to the beach area. They still have the big wall to calm the waters of the Lake Winnipeg for the Harbour and for fishing. They have moved around some of the big monuments including the plane that used to be at the end of the main street.

The Viking has been around for many years, and is now tucked away in his new location.

They run the Icelandic days festival in the late summer and have recently added a waterpark to their main park.

Renovations - funding - flag on play

2011-03-18T14:11:00.003-05:00

We had an appraiser come out to check out our current house and give a value for the upgrades we want. It seems that the numbers don't come in as quite as nice as we had hoped. We're valued at about $195K and throwing $200K in renovations only brings us up to $335K. Considering we are only adding a bathroom, two bedrooms, and a mass of square footage, as well as new roof and siding that's not too bad. The deck, basement and game room don't add much in the way of 'value' to an appraiser even though they are highly valuable to us.

When the bank is crunching the numbers, they don't get the values they want. They have to submit it through CMHC to see if they will give it their blessing. It's a bit frustrating to be so close to a game room and now have it possibly be whisked away, but it's hard to fault them. Part of the reason we aren't having the housing trouble that they are in the States is because we are stricter about these numbers.

If they don't approve them in their entirety, we'll probably able to do the second floor upgrades now and will have to see about the wing later.
On the upside - we will have less disruption and it should take less time.
On the downside - it will end up costing more and we will have to go through renovations twice. But the wing addition should be less disruptive if done later.

Now, if we hit the numbers on LottoMax, this all becomes less of a concern.

Pictures - followed

2011-03-16T11:46:00.004-05:00

I had a bit of time and went back and updated a bunch of the 'pictures to follow' posts from last year by adding the pictures to them. You can check them out here:
Olympic medals at mint
Fabric for Hit-Girl costume
Hit-Girl costume updates
More Hit-Girl costume updates
Even more Hit-Girl costume updates
Updated the ValleyCon pictures
New Hit-Girl costume updates - Tactical vest
Work on Hit-Girl costume and Sonic screwdriver
More Hit-Girl costume updates - Tactical vest
and Halloween

Hopefully I shall get the next batch soon and be able to update some more.

Road Trip – Pinawa

2011-03-15T09:44:00.003-05:00

Pinawa is a small community on the edge of the Whiteshell. It was a former company town – with the nuclear plant being the main industry. There is a park near the old dam and a lovely golf course. They also have a small suspension bridge. In addition to the beach, they also have a swimming pool.

In town, they have a wonderful large sundial.

In addition, there is often a deer population that roams the streets – and have become quite blasé about people.

No pennies for your thoughts

2011-03-11T12:01:00.001-06:00

Just so you know - I blame you.

Again they are talking about phasing out the penny. Since it costs more than a cent to make a penny and they have to keep making them every year. Like all coins, the penny doesn’t wear out as fast as the paper bills do. This is why we changed from paper ones and twos to the coin loonies and toonies. The problem is people aren’t spending the pennies and putting them back into circulation so there is always a draw on them. This hasn’t been helped by the revisions to the currency act which only allows you to pay up to $0.25 in pennies at a time.

So where are the pennies ending up? Some people keep them in jars or plastic tubs. Some people keep them in big bottles. Some people drop them into penny campaigns or donation boxes.
Me? I keep them in a film canister with my nickels and dimes and use them when I make purchases to ensure the change that I get back works out to even quarters. This usually confuses the clerks who can’t do simple math but often they understand when they punch in the amount and the cash register tells them how much to give back.

I’m also older, so I have memories of the folks getting together to play Michigan Rummy for pennies. This was back when people smoked so I have memories of the top half of the room being filled with blue-grey smoke. We all kept tubs of pennies to be able to use to play. I keep meaning to get people together and play again – it’s more an excuse to hang out and chat but the money kept it fun. We had tried it with nickels two decades ago when we were younger but losing up to $2 in pennies wasn’t that much while losing $8 in nickels was more noticeable.

The concept on phasing out the penny only affects those people who pay by cash. People paying by cheque, credit cards or debit would pay the actual total. People paying cash would have their total rounded down to the nearest nickel if the total ended in .01, .02, .06, or .07 and rounded up if it ends in .03, .04, .08, and .09.
If you are for this plan then you don’t have to do anything. If you’d rather that they don’t phase out the penny, then start using some of yours. Or roll some and cash them in to the bank. Or, at the very least, get a baggie of 20 or 50 or so and donate them the next chance you get – most stores and malls have a bin for some cause, as does the zoo, museum, planetarium, and so on. It’s not that hard to get rid of them if you really try.

I’m doing my part. If we lose the penny, I blame you.

Diablo - update

2011-03-08T14:25:00.001-06:00

While I still haven’t taken a run at Diablo himself, I did manage to complete one of my goals. I finally was able to upgrade my gems to have all six perfect gems and use the Horadric cube to change them into a resist-all amulet.

On the down side, it looks like the resistances top out at a max of 75%.

On the up side, it clears up a lot of space in my stash.

Road Trip - Petersfield

2011-03-07T15:52:00.007-06:00

Coming back from Winnipeg Beach, we stopped at the Petersfield duck.

There's not much of the town itself but they have a nice little park where you can pull over and see the duck and take some pictures.

Fig painting total - Feb

2011-03-04T13:04:00.002-06:00

I was doing fine for figures bought this year – with nothing I purchased in January completing any sets and only 11 sets completed in February – until I came across some farm animal sets in BJ Super Toy Sales. I’ve been looking for 1/35 horses and cattle for the upsized RWNN and haven’t been able to find any at Dollarama or Michael’s. At $1.50 a bag, it was worth picking up two bags to see what was usable.

It was a good find – with 2 horses (1 foal), 3 cattle (1 calf), 3 pigs, 3 sheep (1 lamb), and a goat. 5 to 10 bags should give enough head of cattle to simulate a decent herd come to town, enough horses, and even enough sheep to make a cattle/sheep war viable. Especially if I can find the bags for less.

Also, I’m hoping to use these figures to hone my painting skills for the regular figures.

40K Battlewagon (in bits) – 1
40K Carnifex (in bits) – 1
40K Raveners (in bits) – 3
40K Tyranid Warriors (in bits) – 6
2 sets Farm Animals (1/35 scale) - 24
Feb figures bought – 35, figures painted – 0

Laptop - finally?

2011-02-28T17:30:00.003-06:00

I got a bit of a bonus so I'm going to put it to buying a laptop. I'm hoping to be able to save up the remainder by the end of March.
My needs are low - I'm looking for a minimum of 15", wireless, 2GB RAM, 250 GB HD, and a decent video card. I'm hoping to keep the cost under $400. I've got my eye on a few models that should work.

With these requirements, I can finally play Hellgate:London, Dawn of War, and City of Villains. As well as finally being able to be online while watching TV. I'll probably load Diablo (and Diablo II) on it as well so my son and I can play online together.

It's been quite a few years coming but now I am so close.

Shan had picked up an old laptop from work - but it didn't have wireless and she wrecked the one usb port because she left the trackball plugged in it. Plus, it was 'hers' and we didn't get to play with it much.

Road trip - Winnipeg Beach

2011-02-25T14:18:00.008-06:00

One of the other places we stopped in at last summer was Winnipeg Beach. This is where they had filmed some of the series Falcon Beach.

It's a small town - the biggest draw for most people is the beach - it's quite a nice beach with a huge boardwalk beside it.

On the ends of the boards they have dedication plates. These ones tell a neat story.

My big reason to go was the surviving arcades. They have three arcades in a row on the main street.

I wanted to make sure that the kids got to see some real arcades while they still could. The two Playlands had some old decor - with vintage posters from the eighties.

They had some old games and even some skee ball games. In the Boardwalk Station they had a pool table, old arcades, a pair of coin-op horses, arcade games, and some vintage pinball machines.

The kids had a great time. I hadn't been to Winnipeg Beach in the last two decades, but it's definately on my list of places to go back to soon. The beach is so nice that it shouldn't be hard to convince the family, but I'm heading back for the arcade.

SJG - annual report - Tribes

2011-02-24T22:43:00.002-06:00

Steve Jackson, of Steve Jackson Games, releases an annual report about the state of SJG and the industry. He's usually pretty open about successes and failings. It's usually a good read and, as usual, this year's can be found here. This link always shows the current year's report so if you are reading this after 2011 the link for this year will be at the bottom of that page.

While he used to be know for Car Wars and Ogre, as well as GURPS, lately he's been kept afloat on the back of Munchkin sales. I'm not as big a fan of this game as his others so, while I wish him well, and am glad that he is still around, I would like to see him get back to making some other games - like the fine Cthulhu Dice and Zombie Dice - both of which are quick and easy.

Another game I'm waiting for them to reprint is Tribes. You basically control a caveman tribe as it grows and prospers or doesn't. I keep thinking I can upsize the rules to use as a convention game but haven't even been able to get a hold of them. The basic game has been out of print for a while and they aren't going to reprint it as they plan on releasing a Deluxe version of the game.

Someday.

Just not in 2010 and they have said it is also not in the pipeline for 2011 either. They further said that the regular version is so old that they would have to reformat it to rerelease it and if they are going to go to the trouble of doing that they might as well make the deluxe version.

So, Tribes - one day, you will be mine.
Just not likely this year either.

White Dwarf - renewal

2011-02-17T22:40:00.003-06:00

I renewed my White Dwarf subscription today. I have mixed feelings about it. More and more people keep saying that it is merely their monthly catalog - hyping the newest releases, but I still look forward to it.

Not to say that I am without misgivings about it though. Ever since they went back to a North American issue (instead of the American and Canadian versions) there have been some concerns. Notable that the issues reach us long after they are in the stores - I received the January issue at the end of January and only received the February issue at the end of last week. Granted, they have been a bit of delays with Canada Post since the Christmas holidays but that still seems a bit excessive.
Secondly, when they came from the Canadian source they were in a plastic bag but when they come from the states they are not. This means that the shipping label is affixed directly to the magazine cover and I have a difficult time removing it without tearing even a small part of the cover.
Thirdly, they no longer even bother to list the prices of the new figures anymore. I suppose showing a split price would be too difficult - especially with our dollars floating around par.

Another note - with the Canadian issues, the spines for a year formed an image - it was not needed but was a nice touch. The downside of the Canadian issues was that they started renumbering at 1 so that I have a disjoint in my sequence.

On the upside, I can pay for my renewal at the local Games Workshop store. I could even have them hold the issues for me at the store as an in-house subscription. The only thing keeping me from doing so is that the 'local' Games Workshop is on the other half of the city - which wouldn't be so bad if they were open on Mondays or Tuesdays and if they were open before 1 pm during the week.

Ah well, I will continue with the mailed copy for another year and see how it turns out. Let's hope for the best.

scale creep

2011-02-07T17:33:00.003-06:00

There was some discussion on one of the boards I am on about vehicles “in scale” to figures. With the prevalence of ‘heroic-scale’ 28mm or 30mm figures compared to the old-school 25mm figures with which I started. Games Workshop was a big reason for this. Their figures were 28mm – about right for 7 foot tall Marines and Orks but the figures were bulkier than your standard figures. This made them slightly larger than the 1/72 figures that are 25mm but they were about as wide as 1/35 figures. 1/35 accessories looked the right size as 1/72 accessories weren’t bulky enough.
The bases were another issue. Each figure was effectively standing on a soapbox which made doorways and vehicles look shorter. A lot of people recommend using 1/35 or 1/38 vehicles with the 30mm figures but they are just too big to me.

Again, I come out on the other side of the scale issue. I don’t mind if the buildings and vehicles look a tad ‘undersized’. You have to think of the game as a whole. Which is more important to the game? The buildings? The vehicles? Or the characters?
If the characters are a bit ‘larger than life’ compared to the rest of the game world, I’m okay with it. Since the figures are the most important part of the game and even still they are tiny compared to the rest of the scenery and tabletop.
In fact, I’ve even cheated the scale further (dynamic foreshortening) when I did Heroclix builings – with the ground floor of buildings being 3” tall and upper levels being only 2” tall. But then, to scale with the figures, streets would be wide open spaces and boring – both visually and game-wise.
Even when I upsized Car Wars to 1/32 scale, 1/35 figures (who should be smaller) wouldn’t fit in the cars without major surgery – like removing feet and torsos and filing heads flat. But, in that case, the cars were more important, with the people as a seldom-used component.

So, while most of the people tend to want to use even bigger vehicles to go with their over-sized figures on soapbox-height bases, I still like using vehicles and buildings that are closer to what the scale should really be – even if it looks a bit smaller when a figure is actually standing close to a vehicle or doorway.

I’ve seen a Doctor Who Miniature game from an UK convention – SALUTE that featured an oil rig. The pictures looked stunning and, even though I didn’t see it firsthand or play it, I’m sure it worked fine for the game.
But, if it was in ‘true scale’ to figures, the rig would have almost filled the entire table, leaving little room for the town.

Ultimately, do what works for you. But keep in mind the costs and practicality of both use and storage as well as transportation as need be. You may find that having a town with over a dozen slightly-smaller buildings may look more impressive and play better than having a town with only six or eight over-sized buildings made to accommodate the bases. That said, even in cheating size, you have to make sure that the vehicles and buildings are going to work with the figures you have and the space to set them up.

Western Town - supplies

2011-02-03T18:41:00.002-06:00

I had popped into Dollarama and picked up some more supplies for the western town. I picked up some clipboards – for the hardboard to use as bases. It’s actually cheaper to pick up a sheet of hardboard at Revy/Home Depot if you are doing a bunch but for small projects, the clipboards are a quick measure with less waste.

I also picked up some 1/4” wooden dowels, some 3/16” wooden dowels and a bamboo gate – to use for the log cabin and for fence rails.

I already have a few bags of stir sticks from both Walmart and Dollarama for the wood planks. Even at this scale, popsicle sticks are too thick for most purposes.

I also picked up some big sheets of cardboard. The wife has a tendancy to fold up my sheets if I leave them around so I usually need to buy it as I need it.

Upsizing Whitewash City

2011-02-01T16:24:00.003-06:00

Okay. Forget what Eric recommends about upsizing via photocopier. It doesn’t work to upsize to 1/35.

I tried upsizing the last page of Out Buildings set (the one labeled Sheds & Privies). It did indeed upsize the width by 129% and the length by 155% as we figured it would based on the math instead of the 171% we need. This makes all the doors on the buildings about shoulder high and of varying widths depending on which way they were oriented on the page. It may still be usable for small sheds but will look odd next to a figure.

So I will have to upsize each building by hand. This is not a huge issue, but it would have been nice to quickly print out the textured pictures. I might still be able to scan them and manipulate them at home to print out at the proper size.

With the walkway, the Imperial Saloon will be a bit over 40cm long (a bit over a foot). This will make it a bit tight to lay out a town, even on a 4’ x 8’ table. Unless we set up the buildings oriented with the long side – which would make a smaller town - which should both work and be pretty accurate.

Upsizing Whitewash City

2011-01-28T15:32:00.007-06:00

So I am upsizing the Hotz Artworks Whitewash City to use with the 1/35 figures I have for Rules With No Name. I’m trying to upsize it for the larger figure scale and I ran into a bit of an issue.

I’m working with the free sample – The Imperial Saloon and the out buildings in the Pioneer Set. The listed scale is 30mm or 1/60. So I tried measuring out the buildings and redrawing them at double-size to see how they would fit. They were much too big. In checking, I had forgotten to change the print setting from fit-to-page to print actual – which meant that the 10’ scale marker was only 47cm long instead of the 2” it should have been at 1/60.

When I reprinted with the right settings, the 10’ scale marker comes out at 50cm instead of the 51cm it should be but that is actually easier as each scale foot would then be half a centimeter (or 2’ real = 1 cm scale). This means the drawings are actually closer to 1/61.200 instead of 1/60 but that is pretty close and the difference is minimal for our purposes.
Either way, my double-size redrawings (even from the smaller print) then came out way too tall for my 1/35 scale cowboy – who is 5’10” in 1/35 scale (with hat – about 5’2 without hat but the base will make him look taller). Instead of doubling, according to the math, I should really upsize the measurements by 1.71. So I will redraw with at the new size and try again.

Eric recommends taking the 8.5 x 11 prints and reprinting them at 11 x 17. I will try that as well and see how that compares to the upsized drawings and to the figures. According to the math, upsizing this way will be smaller that redrawing, but the convenience of having the pretty colored versions to assemble may be worthwhile compared to having to redraw them and then use those measurements to scratchbuild the buildings. We will have to see.

- - -

For those interested in the math, as I am, it is as follows.
To find the scale: 10 feet in reality = 2 inches in scale.
120 inches = 2 inches in scale. So scale = 2/120 or 1/60.

To convert the scales: 1/60scale to 1/35scale.
1/60 x = 1/35
35x = 60
x = 60/35
x = 1.7142857 or x = 1.71

Doing the photocopy upsizing.
From 8.5 x 11 to 11 x 17.
11/8.5 = 1.2941176 and 17/11 = 1.5454545.

The figure size in scale: Figure height is 2 inches. If scale is 1/35, then 2 scale inches equals 2 x 35 = 70 real inches. 70 divided by 12 equals 5 with a remainder or 10 so the 2” figure in 1/35 scale is really 5’10”.
Without hat, the figure is a little over 1.75 inches or 1 3/4”. If scale is 1/35, the 1.75 scale inches equals 1.75 x 35 = 61.25 real inches. 61.25 less 60 (12 inches x 5 feet) leaves 1.25 so he would be about 5’2”.

Man in your Pocket

2011-01-26T14:29:00.004-06:00

When you are making terrain or scenery, it is always a good idea to keep a figure or two of the scale in which you are working nearby. This allows you to check often to ensure that buildings, vehicles, and blockades will look proper and that figures can actually fit where you want them. This also ensures that figures can see over hills or hedges and that doorways and windows look like they could actually be used.

In addition to having the figures handy when at home, it is also a good idea to carry a figure around with you when you are out and about. When I first started into 40K, I carried an unpainted plastic beakie marine around with me for about a year. After that I had a good idea of the size needed. Plus I found that, in a pinch, if I bend my pinkie, the middle joint is close to the size of a marine (being a bit over an inch long).

With starting to make scenery for my western figures, in roughly 1/32 to 1/35 scale, I should really start carrying around a cowboy in my pocket. This would really help in trying to find horses and cattle – both of which can come in random scales and can often look tiny. This will also come in handy in finding wood I can use for scale log cabins.
I was in Dollarama recently and noticed a nice folding bamboo fence that might be a great size. I didn't pick it up yet but may pop back with a little buddy. Otherwise, I was thinking about looking at those disposable chopsticks to see if they are cheap in bulk.

Terrain sites

2011-01-21T18:05:00.002-06:00

I’ve had to refer some people to terrain building sites lately and have given them the classics.

Major General Tremorden Rederring’s Colonial-era Wargames Page.
This is one that I used to check in with all the time. Since it hasn’t been updated since June of 2006, it’s probably unlikely to change anytime soon. Which is a real shame as the General has a lot of good ideas. He’s mostly doing colonials but has some great information about ships, landships, and scenery. Of notable interest to the new True-Line-of-Site 40K is the Tabletop viewer and the Tall Grass section.
I just spent a bit of time going through it recently. I’m a bit sad about the lack of updates as it means that I probably won’t get to see the rules for the VictorianTech – a War of the Worlds-esque Battletech-type game.

From the Major General’s site I found the Terragenesis site – which is sadly no more. It has been replaced by the new Terragenesis site which has most of the old content on it. The Articles Index has a lot of good ideas and the forum is nice to visit. They do seem to be heavily into the contests lately, which is partly why I don’t frequent it as much as I used to. But I still recommend it to anyone about terrain projects.

A newer site that is also updated occasionally is the Hirst Arts tips section. Even though it mainly deals with using the Hirst Arts brick sets, there are a lot of useful info – like making a fence from epoxy glue, using water effects, and sci-fi ideas. I don't use any of the HirstArts products but they keep giving me ideas.

Another good site for inspiriation is the Necromundicon.
He's done a bunch of 40K and Mordheim stuff and has a good gothic feel to them. In addition, he has put up some rules for some games he made and terrain and bits for them. The Star Wars rules for the Galactic Heroes and the terrain to go with it are worth checking out.

Heroclix etc overview

2011-01-18T17:01:00.002-06:00

While I did pick up a few Heroclix last year, and picked up a brick of two of the three sets released – Brave and the Bold and Web of Spider-Man, I haven’t yet picked up a brick of DC 75. I do like the DC characters – it just seems that if I pass on a brick, it seems to be a DC one. I did also pick up the Watchmen set – also a DC.

I finished no Heroclix sets. I’m a bit closer but basically where I was last year – even a bit behind due to the new sets.

I’m still close on Ultimates (6+7), Mutant Mayhem (3+9), Legacy (6+11), Fantastic Forces (0+2), Armor Wars (11+1), Collateral Damage (8+1), Supernova (9+0), Avengers (0/3), Justice League (0/3), Mutations & Monsters (1/5), Crisis (0/11), Secret Invasion (2/6), Arkham Asylum (0/6), Hammer of Thor (3/8), Brave and Bold (8/7), and Web of Spider-Man (9/11). I’m still working away at Sinister (18+3) and Origin (23+0). I’m still deciding if I’ll pick up a brick of the last set otherwise I have DC 75 (33/11).
Right now, I need 245 figures – 140 REVs and 105 U/SRs. This is over the 200 figures I was hoping to stay under and for the first time since 2008 I am over 100 Uniques/Super Rares. A brick would have brought both of these closer.
I didn’t manage to pick up any more big figures, but have Dr Manhattan on order for spring. I am not sure how many sets are coming out this year. I hope to keep up with the sets, ending the year back under 200 figures and getting the Uniques/Super Rares back under 100 figures. I’m still hoping to get the Spectre, one of the Fooms and maybe a Phoenix as well as at least one Manhattan.
On Horrorclix, I finally got the last regular figure I needed to come my basic sets. I only need 1 LE and would like another map from the Cthulhu set. I easily achieved my goal there and would like to finish these off and put them behind me.

Where did I spend my money instead of Heroclix? I added a few more sets to the Starship Troopers miniature, finished the first two sets of Monsterpocalypse, and am now down to only 1 extra figure on Star Wars Miniature Battles. I also got back into 40K, picking up 33 codices including the Sisters of Battle rules from the second edition. I also got Armageddon, Cityfight, and Eye of Terror from third edition. Also, I bought a lot of bits – both a horde of Orks and started getting my Tyranids back up to a viable level.

I hope to get more Tyranids, and more codices – being caught up on the rest of the fourth editions I am missing. I also plan to get the Babylon 5 Call to Arms books and some of the Starship Troopers RPG books I am missing. I want to get that final ARC-170 from the Star Wars Miniature Battles figure as well as the Power of the Force Luke’s Snowspeeder. I might even get a bunch of Snowtroopers and Hoth Troopers. I also want to get the All Your Base set from Monsterpocalypse and maybe even a few more of Monsterpocalypse Now. I’m definitely picking up the Voltron set.
As well, I am thinking about picking up the FASA rules and books to Crimson Skies. While these will cut into my budget, I still hope to peg away at the older Heroclix sets and maybe even grab a few more big figures – especially if I have a game room to display them.

Renovations - funding - part 2

2011-01-17T14:21:00.003-06:00

So the talk with the bank went quite well. They have to have someone look at the house again and the proposed plans, but it sounds like we will be doing something renovation-wise.

I had forgotten the deck off the kitchen Shan had wanted to add, so the second-floor upgrade (with deck) was about $100K not $60K. Payments on that should be about what we're paying now for our mortgage and child care.
Payments on the upgrade plus wing will be significantly more, but still within the realm of possible.

This is good news for both. There are still some hoops we have to jump through and we have to have that guy take a look at it. The biggest concerns will be that this will reset the mortgage to 25 years left again plus if the economy surges back and interest rates jump significantly, we're screwed.

So much for an retiring early. Unless we hit the Lotto Max - then, no worries.