Windows 8 - not a fan

With the new year I was finally able to convince the wife to get a laptop of her own. Since she was having issues doing what she wanted on the old laptop and we kept swapping it back and forth (to update our Castleville accounts) a new laptop would start her fresh – and free up the old laptop for me to use.

Because her laptop is new, it comes with Windows 8. My first impression of it is that I don’t like it. It’s app based – like a smart phone or ipod – both of which I am not comfortable with. With some help from the web, I was able to load Diablo 3 on it for her. Now I just have to load Office and she will be set.

Then I have to try and figure out how to get flash working on her tablet so that she can play Castleville away from home.

Heroclix overview - 2012

While I didn’t achieve many of the goals I left last year, I do feel better about my Heroclix collection. I did get a few packages to start filling some of the gaps in my sets and picked up a few of the LE/single-figure-box sets as well as kept up with the starters and Fast Forces sets. I didn’t pick up any bricks but did get a brick of Batman:Streets of Gotham as well as a few boosters for Christmas. I did manage to complete one set – Justice League. I also picked up most of the Batman Alpha sub set, including the Target exclusive figure, now only needing 4 more to complete it.

In addition to the 4 regular sets that they published, and the single-figure-box sets that went with them, they also churned out another 5 mini-sets as well as eight starters/Fast Forces sets to go with them. That’s too much. Even if I had dedicated much more resources to keeping up I still would be behind.


I’m still close on Ultimates (6+7), Mutant Mayhem (3+7), Legacy (6+11), Fantastic Forces (0+2), Armor Wars (11+1), Collateral Damage (8+0), Supernova (6+0), Origin (9+0), Avengers (0/3), Mutations & Monsters (1/5), Crisis (0/10), 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 (14+2), DC 75 (33/11), Avengers Movie (17/18), Chaos Wars (38/9), DC 10th (18/0), Marvel 10th (18/0), Batman (47/11/5), and Batman:Streets of Gotham (26/15/3). I still haven’t picked up any of Giant-Size X-Men (45/13/6), Captain America (47/11), Incredible Hulk (36/10), Galactic Guardians (36/10/6), The Dark Knight Rises (29/0), and The New 52 – Justice League (21/0).


Right now, I need 760 figures – 561 REVs and 199 U/SRs. This is almost as many as when I started keeping numbers – back in April of 2007. Any brick purchased would have brought both of these much closer. Counting figures by Wizkids or Neca – 126/634 compared to last year’s number of 155/258 you can see that I made a little progress towards the old figures and see the amount of new figures churned out this year.

I kept up with the starters/Fast Forces sets – managing to find the ones I had missed so all of those are current.

On the large figure side, I still need the Spectre, two Fooms, and both of the Phoenixes as well as the original Manhattan and Galactus. I even picked up some of the maps but still need most of the new maps – although I did get the Helicarrier maps.


That one last LE from Horrorclix still evades me. I’m going to put a bit more effort into finishing that off. I’ve still been looking for another another map from the Cthulhu set.

I’ve got that last ARC-170 to get to ‘complete’ what I want from Star Wars minis. I’ll probably try and get some more Monsterpocalypse figures. I still have to look out for the Voltron set. I am also hoping to fill in the gaps in my Cheapass games as well as pick up a few new games. This will cut into my ‘Heroclix budget’ for 2013.


I’m going to try and keep up with the Fast Forces/starters as well as some of the smaller sets. I’ll try to pick up some of the previous sets as well as some of the figures needed to work at finishing the older sets. I’m hoping to complete at least two more sets as well as keeping the number of figures to under 1000.   I'd like to see the number of pre-Neca figures be under 100.

Figure buying total 2012

So my January purchases ended up being all the unpainted miniatures that I ended up buying for last year.  I did pick up two tubs of pirates and skeletons in October that I did not add here - mainly because I have no current plans to paint any of them for any games.  If this changes I will add them to the buying total.

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

Final total 2012 – figures bought 46, figures painted 0

I also did not paint any figures this year.  I came close with the Tron figures and the animals for The Rules With No Name but still have not been able to complete any.  The pressure on my first completed figure now builds.  With the new edition of 40K and the rules worked out on the Tron games and TRWNN, I have hopes of finally painting something this year.

However, I also have hopes of picking up more 40K figures - ideally not until I get over the edge of painting some for use.

Books read - September to December 2012

Sept

Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
Heat Wave by Richard Castle
Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare by Jason Fry

Oct
Secrets to Painting Realistic Faces in Watercolor by Carrie Stuart Parks & Rick Parks
Artemis Fowl – The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer
Changes by Jim Butcher
Side Jobs by Jim Butcher
Ring by Koji Suzuki
Mail Order Mysteries – Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads! By Kirk Demarais
Future Shop by Daniel Nissanoff

Nov
Ghost Stories by Jim Butcher
The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity by Elizabeth Rusch
Mastering Comics by Jessica Abel & Matt Madden
Earth Unaware by OSC and Aaron Johnston
Star Wars: The Secret Life of Droids by Jason Fry
Ductigami: the Art of the Tape by Joe Wilson

Dec
The Old West: The Cowboys by Time Life Books

Scale Model Addict - the next step

Scott Girvan from ScaleModelAddict has taken the next step. In addition to the videos, and the website, he has now made ScaleModelAddict into a bi-monthly magazine.

The first issue is set for January but they have already been printed so if you order he will send one out.

We wish him all the best in this endeavor. I’m trying to shuffle some funds to see if I can get a subscription – the magazine price isn’t bad but the shipping is a bit of a bear up here.

knobs and taps

We popped in to Rona and picked up more knobs to finish changing the cupboard knobs in the kitchen. We also picked up some handles to match and changed the knobs in the bathroom as well.

We were going to change the taps in the bathroom last weekend but I couldn’t find any Teflon tape. So that will have to wait for this weekend. Walmart was out so we ended up at Rona again. It took a bit to find as I’m used to the tape being in a blue reel but Rona has it in a red reel.

Nutchos – for nut nuts

At this time of the year I get nostalgic for Nutchos. For those of you who aren’t “nut nuts”, Nutchos were a chocolate that Nestle used to make that was loaded with nuts but didn’t have caramel. They used to come in a six inch cube with three or four layers of chocolates and they were only really available around the holidays.

They were always hard to find. Luckily, Shan was also a fan so when we came across them shortly after getting married, we bought a half dozen of them to tide us over through the year. For the next few years we made sure to top up our reserves when we could. Then they came out a few years later with a flat box and a slightly different recipe – having swapped out some of the nuts for crisps but we still picked up a bunch of boxes.

We haven’t seen any of them at all for the last few years so they might have been taken out of production again. There doesn’t really seem to be an alternative - with the Pot of Gold nut collection being pretty hit-and-miss for quality, it seems that we are out of luck.