One step at a time

It amazes me that they will rent the odd, dangerous tools to those who have no idea how to use them – like chainsaws and jackhammers. Both of these have the chance to do a lot of damage to person and property in a short amount of time.

That being said, we rented a jackhammer last Saturday to break up the stone steps in the back yard. Truly, the internet was right, it was quite simple to use. It made surprisingly short work of the stairs in the 6 hours that we used it. It could have probably done more but it was quite hot and humid that day (felt like 37 degrees Celsius) and the jackhammer got quite heavy at the end. If the kids had been better about moving away the broken pieces we could have seen what was left a bit better.

The kids both tried it, but spent the afternoon tearing down the old shed. Even our neighbor came over to have a try - he used to use one years ago. We didn't get the concrete down to tiny rocks but did I break up as much as I could. There will still be a bit more needed to be done to clear it all away. We joke that the boy can spend the rest of the summer breaking big rocks into little rocks.

The wife has decided to use the medium pieces to edge her garden, and is currently thinking of putting the rest of the rocks under the front deck. Both ideas sound good as it means that we don't have to make a trip to cart away the pieces.

Link - foam shields

I made the shields out of a pack of four foam floor tiles, silver duct tape, E6000 craft adhesive from Walmart, and velcro packing straps, and craft paint from Dollarama. Like the Link costume itself, the shield has many variations. Once we had a picture of the variation she wanted, I drew a grid on it. Using the grid I transposed the pattern to a large sheet of paper.

Actually, I only transferred half the pattern, and then folded the paper and cut out the other side to match. I then used the larger paper to trace the pattern on to a floor tile and cut out the shape with an exacto knife. I cut out four notches for the arm straps and put the bands through.

Then we glued the cut shape to another floor tile using the E6000, sandwiching the back of the strap between the two tiles. We made sure to leave the ends with velcro on the outside. These were then stacked away overnight under some heavy books to dry.

The next day, I cut through the other tile using the first tile as a guide. I traced the rest of the pattern on the fronts of the shields. We edged the shields with chrome duct tape that we also got at Walmart, and the girls painted the fronts with Dollarama craft paint.

Link / Dark Link

My daughter finally came up with a costume idea about a month in advance of Keycon. She and her friend wanted to be Link and Dark Link. I had played the original Zelda on the Nintendo but I’m not a super huge Zelda fan. I much preferred the gameplay of Dragon Warriors – which is what Dragon Quest was called over here.
Due to my unfamiliarity with the character, and wanting her to be sure about what she wanted, I asked her to provide me with pictures of what she wanted.

With two weeks to go, we asked her again at the beginning of May and finally got her to sit down and print out some pictures to use. Shan found some a good site about making the costume. We picked up some fabric and tights at Walmart, and some boots and turtlenecks at Value Village.

We found large t-shirts to use as a guide and got the girls to lie down on the fabric and traced out the measurements for the tunics, and they cut out the rough pattern pieces for the tunics and hats. We tried using Gee’s sewing machine but ended up hand sewing the outfits. Gee sewed her hat while Shan did most of the sewing on the tunics. The girls also made some Navis and pouches.

We took some brown gardening gloves at Dollarama and cut off the fingers to get close-enough gloves. Gee wanted to get a blonde wig but we told her she didn’t need one. She pushed for it, so we made a trip to The Party Store to get wigs, and I have to admit it really does help to complete the look. We also picked up pointed ear tips that we ended up not using due to the fit.

She had foam swords from Keycon last year that she was going to use so we picked up some poster tubes at Dollarama to use as scabbards. These worked out very well as a quick substitute. I also made up some shields out of foam floor tiles and the kids painted them the day before the convention. I’ll post up a more detailed tutorial on the shields.

They were very well received at the convention. Most people overlooked the rough seams and the navis were a big hit for those who knew the character. For the two weeks of shopping and work I believe they did pretty well. We can revisit the costumes to hem the edges and add a proper collar. The girls ended up winning first place in the junior category.

Time-Life The Old West

One of my uncles used to have the Time-Life book series The Old West. I remember the brown leather (probably faux leather) covers, and the sheer bulk of the various topics – Cowboys, Gamblers, Scouts. Those of us who grew up in the pre-internet days remember how impressive the books collections were whether they were Time-Life, Popular Mechanics, Funk & Wagnalls, or even the sets of encyclopedias that used to line the shelves.

At the thrift stores (Value Village, and Salvation Army) I noticed that they usually had a few of the books so I started buying them when I got into Rules With No Name. Of the 27 books they printed and reprinted between 1973 and 1980, I have now bought 24 of them. Well, actually a few more than 24 as I have bought beat-up copies just to have them and better copies as I find them.
At the Children’s Hospital Book Sale on April 30, I got to the history table just in time to see someone else buy a stack of 10 books, containing at least three that I needed. Then last weekend at the Value Village I was quite excited to see a large group of the brown books. I was able to pick up 4 more books that I needed – 3 with some mild water damage on the bottom on the pages but I stored them near the dehumidifier and this cleared up .

This means that I now have all of the first 21 – The Cowboys through The Ranchers, am missing The Mexican War, have the next 3, and need the last 2 books – The End and The Myth, and Master Index. I do still need a better copy of The Spanish West which is split down the seam, and could get an even better version of The Canadians if I really wanted to be picky.
I had been getting a bit dismayed at not finding any books at all lately but these last few finds really made it close.

Books read January to April 2014

Jan
Warhammer Armies: The Empire (6th edition) by Alessio Cavatore
Time-Life Books: The Old West – The Trailblazers by Bill Gilbert
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Extreme Pumpkin Carving by Vic Hood & Jack A Williams
Of Dice and Men by David M Ewalt
Thrice Told Tales by Catherine Lewis
Odd Men Out by Matt Betts
Dynamic Posing Guide: Modern Techniques for Digital Photographers by Craig Stidham with Jeanne Harris
Greg and Tim Hildebrandt the Tolkien Years by Gregory Hildebrandt Jr
Get Animated! Creating Professional Cartoon Animation on your Home Computer by Tim Maloney
Hellboy II – The Art of the Movie by Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola

Feb
Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts (6th edition) by Alessio Cavatore
The Art of the Brothers Hildebrandt by Ian Summers
Nothin’ to Lose: The Making of Kiss 1972 – 1975 by Ken Sharp with Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz From the story by L. Frank Baum Illustrated by Greg Hildebrandt

Mar
Tubes – A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield
Inventory by the Writers of the A.V. Club
Time-Life Books: The Old West – The Great Chiefs by Benjamin Capps

Apr
Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish by D. Roland Hess
Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide by DK Publishing
Time-Life Books: The Old West – The Rivermen by Paul O’Neil

Grail Games - curent

Those games that are still on my grail list are currently pretty small.

I’m looking for a copy of Dune and the expansions. I would ideally like to get a copy with the sandworm on the cover as that was the one I kept seeing at Cellar Dweller about three decades ago. It always tempted me – but I hadn’t read the books back then and never picked it up. Now that I have read the books, I would love to get this but it seems so would many other people. The info was on Colin’s site to make your own but the data seems to have been compromised. I’m not interested in the Fantasy Flight reprint – Rex: Final Days of an Empire because the theme, rather than the gameplay, is what’s drawing me to this. There are usually some Dunes on ebay but I am not yet willing to pay over $100 for a game I haven’t actually played. I may have to play one of the Rex: FDoaE just to see if the gameplay holds up enough to afford a set.

I saw an ad in the back of Dragon magazine and sent away for the Attack of the Mutants mini game. I remember it being fun enough to play. That copy is tucked away in one of my boxes through three moves. I would like to play it again and have been occasionally looking for the full Yaquinto version. I never got into the Yaquinto album games in the day but have picked up a few since then – Demon’s Run, Adventurer, and United Nations. I always had a fond spot for them from the catalogs but just never picked them up while they were easily available.

I’ve played Blood Royale. My friend David has it. The one time we played, we noticed that there was a finite amount of armies and stockpiled them. This led to an arms race and the game quickly evolved into the wargames sub part of the rules instead of the marriage/bloodline main part of the rules. Still, even that held up well enough. I would like to get a copy to try this again but it seems pretty rare.

Those are my three big ones at the moment. I’ve got a few more that are lesser needs but would still be very nice to fill the holes in my collection.

Another game that David had that we played was a small press game called ‘Za! 30 Minutes or Free. It was by a company called Howling Falcon. The play was okay and I always wanted to upsize the game to store in a pizza box, using Hot Wheel cars as counters. I hadn’t seen a copy of it in many, many years but I finally saw one on ebay.

I never got into Battletech back in the day but did get some of the Mechwarrior when it came out. I was even one of the judges. By the time they got around to releasing the 4 sets for Solaris VII I was already less interested. I finally picked up the Light Mech set. I had plans of upsizing the mechs to play a larger version but will need to pick up the Medium, Heavy, and Assault packs.

While I don’t follow NASCAR at all, I did like WizKids RaceDay racing game. I have all but one promo from the 2005 set but I am missing about half of the 2006 set. I will need to get a box of the 2006 set but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

I got into Arcane Legions a couple of years ago when they were blowing it out at Valleycon, after it stopped being published. I was able to get all the booster figures (thanks to the booster sets), and even got the Roman War Machines and Han Dragons but was unable to get the Egyptian Servants of Thebes. I could still get the 6 League packs and another set of the booster sets, but am in no rush until I can get the Sphinxes.

Grail Games - achieved

Grail games are those that you have not yet added to your collection – either for too high a price or lack of availability. The internet has made it easier to find those games but it has also made the value of those games more known. It also has exposed us to a lot more games that we wouldn’t have known that we needed to have. I’ve been lucky enough to have gotten most of my grail games over the years but more are always being added to the list. Most have been ones that I had a chance to buy at one time but didn’t, some are ones that I didn’t become interested in until long after they were out of print.

Circus Imperium was one of my early games. I played it at Gencon and tracked down a copy. I ran it for many years at various conventions and my wife eventually tracked down another copy to have. I even tracked down the miniatures but haven’t bought them yet as I keep using my scratch built ones.

Conquest of the Empire was one of the Milton Bradley Gamemaster series. My friends and I had each bought one of them to have the set. I bought the Fortress America, others bought the Axis & Allies. My friend later gave me the Conquest for one of my birthdays. By then I already had the Broadships and Boarding Parties.

Space Crusade was another game I first played at Gencon. Gloria, a friend of a friend, brought one back for me from the UK. There are two supplements but I don’t expect to even be able to get them.

I’m not sure where I first played the Aliens board game - I believe it was at a Wingames. The rules used to be online but I was finally able to track down a copy. I even managed to get a copy of the Aliens RPG last year. I’m still missing the Aliens board game expansion though.

Star Wars The Queen’s Gambit disappeared shortly after it came out. I was able to get a copy at retail ($80) in a Thunder Bay game store while we were visiting my wife’s sister.

I wasn’t into LARPs as much as many of the locals. I did get the Star Wars Live Action supplement but never got into the White Wolf set. I was intrigued enough to eventually get Cthulhu Live – both the first and all the books for the second edition. I haven’t picked up the third edition yet but it remains one of my games that I hope to play one day.

I used to play Car Wars back in the day. We had the pocket box sets, the Deluxe sets, and most of the supplements. When I found out about 5th edition it had already been out of print. It took a bit of time, but I was able to get all the books through ebay.

I never played the old FASA Crimson Skies but I do remember the big board at Gencon with the buildings under plexiglass as being impressive. I did play, judge, and enjoy the remake when it came out from WizKids. I finally decided to get the old version as well. It took a bit of searching, but I was finally able to track down the boxed set and all the books and supplements.

I remember the Space:1899 game when it first came out. While interesting, I never managed to get it. Much, much later, I was able to get a copy of Ironclads and Ether Flyers. The rules seem fun enough that I picked up the reprinted rules of Sky Galleons of Mars/Cloudships and Gunboats. While great, I was missing the maps and ships. I started making some ships out of balsa but got side-tracked. Luckily, I was just able to win a boxed copy of Sky Galleons of Mars on ebay for a good price.

I’ve picked up most of the new Hasbro/Avalon Hill games except all the Axis and Allies variants. I’m still missing the pretty copy of Acquire, the Diplomacy with the metal figures, Betrayal at House on the Hill. I was missing Nexus Ops (now rereleased by Fantasy Flight - but I just won one as well). I’m not really chasing those down yet but I had a copy of Monsters Menace America in my hands at Valleycon for $25 and put it down to complete a quick sweep of the rest of the dealer’s room. As soon as I did, it was scooped up by another. It took four or five years before I was finally able to find another for a decent price.