Monday, March 30, 2009

ImagiCon -- where the hell was everybody?

So, ya... ImagiCon was this past weekend. It was technically a first time con, though it pretty much grew up from the ashes of OmegaCon. And, like... no one came. Seriously, I'm having a hard time giving any actual opinion on how well prepaired the con was, or how much fun they had lined up for anybody, because no one showed up. Like, at all. I mean, OK, a few people did. I forgot my real camera at home, and was reduced to just phonecam pics. In the end I didn't even really care.

Photobucket
She was the coolest girl at the con, because when the fuckaweful redneck shitmetal band wouldn't stop at the end of their set (they'd already run off 2/3 of the remaining people) she went and got security on them. I don't think she'd have done that if they hadn't told her to fuck herself when she asked nicely.

Photobucket

But it was like all night and day there were enough folks for a kick-ass block party, wandering around the BJCC wondering where everyone else was. If they'd all been in one room it would have been a party, but all spread out like that it just felt like a ghost town.

Photobucket

They did have one really cool thing going on that I've not seen before. They had little sets placed around the con, little back drops for picture taking. This is one of them:
Photobucket

They had folks in costume scheduled to be at each station most of the day, sort of like getting your picture made with Micky Mouse at Disneyland. Or you could use the backdrops for pics of anyone in costume. Either way, they'd have made for much better pictures than the wall of some hotel. If there had been anyone there to use them. They had about 4 of the set up: this one, a mad scientist space station sort of thing; and also a castle/dungeon, and a small jungle full of Face Huggers. Cool, cool idea that I hope to see again at a more generally interesting convention.

These are the last of my pics.
Now, I'm not going to identify these girls, because I don't want to single them out for another critical comment.
Photobucket

I've seen a good few of these new-school burlesque acts that have been popping up of late. I'm all on board with how its not just stripping. That said, if you're gonna take out the nipple factor, the skill level MUST come up to fill the gap, and in most cases, that's just not happening.

Girls, you can't just wear your bra, slap on some fake blood, wiggle a bit on stage, and call it burlesque. There really needs to be some practice and shit, ya know?

Photobucket

All that said, their teacher did have some moves and actually knew how to belly dance.
Photobucket

OK, this is the point where I want to insert a rant about how lame the scene is in Birmingham, how ever scene in this town (geek, punk, goth, hippy, raver, gamer, you name it) is self-defeating by assuming all things will be as lame as the last thing everyone assumed would suck, and about how the only way these scenes linger in their comatose halfdead state is by eating their young. But ImagiCon, I shit you not, wasn't even good enough to bitch about. I'd feel like I was getting all worked up calling a dead man lazy.

Snow Day!

Somehow, this never got posted, and just sat at "Edit." Oh well. Here it is.

About a month ago, we got an unseasonal snow. Actually, just about any snow is unseasonable for Alabama, so when you get it you play with it. This snow lasted all of like 8 or 10 hours, so there wasn't much time to plan or get anything really put together -- just grab some toys and a camera and get out to play before it all melts!

Checking the action on the new rifle:
Photobucket

Looks good!
Photobucket

Photobucket

Here you see Artemiss, taking advantage of the unexpected freeze and the opportunities it offers the modern zombie hunter. The undead freeze up solid, you konw.


Photobucket


Photobucket

...and the hunter stalks her prey, trusty rifle in hand.
Photobucket

Custom optics make hunting the undead a more practicable endeavour. Finding her target frozen in the snow, Artemiss takes aim....

Photobucket

...and celebrates another successful hunt.

Photobucket



I also wanted to get all barbarian and play with a sword in the snow. How very Conan. I claim a family heritage exemption on all this stupidity.

Photobucket

By the Power of Grey Skull!

Photobucket

Photobucket

Junk Shoppin'!


So we've been hitting pretty much every Thrift store, garage sale, junk shop, and scrap pile we can find lately. For the most part, there's not much to blog about in the "we went antiquing again," category, at least not for a Red Blooded American Man like myself. But there have been a few little gems. For one, I can tell you now that Huntsville is an undiscovered SteamPunk gold mine. Makes sense, all those old NASA sub-contractors, staffed by retiring former rocket scientists who never could throw away a box of old vaccuum tubes... But enough of that! I don't want our secret stash getting out just yet.

No, mostly I'm making this post just as an excuse to post these two old phone cam pics. I found these at an antique store -- seriously, not making this up -- two doors down from my local game shop. They are never open when I'm over there, so I never went in. Well, turns out its about the manlyiest antique shop I've ever seen. Like, old coppies of PlayBoy stuck in between old rusty syths and old steel Coka Cola vending machines, good condition 1950's cap guns right next to giant gold clocks. Fancy stuff. These two sort of sum up the best, at least in my eyes. The picture above is a 1940's battery tester, held over what I think is some kind of circuit tester, also 1940s vintage. The battery tester feels like a piece of farming equipment, with that heavy old wooden handle and big steel teeth. It feels like it still works.... daddy want!

Here's the other noteworthy item:
Photobucket

Its about 250 pounds of beautiful, functional, polished brass manufactured in 1904 by the National Cash Register company, later to be known as NCR. This is the company who made my first computers in the 1980s, where my father worked as a tech and salesman after he got out of the Navy, where my grandfather was a MainFrame tech back when he got out of the Navy. I grew up going to company picnics in the company's sprawling private park in down town Dayton, Ohio as a kid.

And these folks, right next to my FLGS, have a working 1904 Nation register. If I had $350 burning a hole in my pocket... (well, OK, I'd probably buy a gun, but still!)

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Ultimate Utility Belt

OK, here's one that you lot should have some good ideas on. I'm putting together an Ultimate Utility Belt. Think less Bat Man, and more Bug Out Kit for day-to-day action. Items must be real and functional, so no comics nonsense or anti-vampire bullshit. I'm also more interested in minor day-to-day micro-catastrophies than the end of the world. Sure, all this shit would be useful if the undead rise from their graves, but I'm more likely to get a flat tire.

From a design standpoint, I'm looking at multiple small sub-kits that could be swapped out for expected conditions -- no reason to carry a soldering kit on a kyack trip, and the snake bit kit would be less useful on a day at work than a day on the river.

So far, here's what I've got (I'm listing subkits and major components, not every little widget):

1. Fire - lighter, flint/steel, magnezium, tinder
2. First Aid - bandages, disenfectant, superglue
3. Medication - asprin, asthma medicine for Celeste, antihistimine
4. Snake-bit kit
5. Sewing kit with nail files and stain remover
6. Tire repair kit - fix-a-flat, vinly repairs
7. Rope, wire, ducktape, WD-40, vasaleen, grappeling hook
8. Environmental -- sun screen, poison ivy, water purification
9. Navigation and Signals -- compass, mirror, flair, LED flasher, throwys
10. Safe Sex kit - male and female condoms, dental dam, lube packets, rubber gloves
11. Emergency spare batteries -- AA, AAA, C, 9v, watch
12. Plastic sheet, bags, poncho
13. Tobacco and pipe, waterproof
14. Condiments -- salt, pepper, soy sauce, non-dairy creamer, instant coffee, sugar
15. Note taking kit - paper, pencil, pen, waterproofed
16. MultiTool, can opener, hammer, razor blades, fishing hooks, saw
17. Food -- jerkey, MRE stuff, etc.
18. Portable soldering and welding kit
19. Small binocular or telescope, lense cleaner
20. Mosquitto netting, mylar thermal sheet
21. Survival handbook
22. Disposable camera
23. Eye glass repair kit
24. Blade Care kit - wet stone, oil, ToughCloth, rag
25. sling and shot
26. Nuts, bolts, screws, nails, etc.
27. Bathroom kit -- hand sanitizer, TP, mouth wash, tooth paste, tooth brush, tampoons (I'm told this one could make me a hero with the right woman at the right time)
28. Marking Kit - sharpie marker, chalk, flourescent spray paint
29. locksmith kit
30. Fire extinguisher/baking soda

So far, that's what I've got. Any suggestions?

Like this Pocket Grappeling Hook

Monday, March 9, 2009

I Learned to Solder

I learned to solder this weekend!

You'd think I'd have picked up that skill somewhere, but it never happened. So I ordered up a kit from make: that had a beginner and a slightly less beginner kit with a soldering iron and how-to book, and cranked out the amazingly useful breadboards you see above. One of them worked, the other, well... I lost a resistor in the carpet and couldn't find one handy to salvage anywhere, and then I decided not to waste the few good components (LEDs, batter strap) on something that I didn't really plan to use. But it was just a learning exercise, and learn I did.

The fun part was when my Dad randomly came over in the middle of it and started spouting half-remembered 30-year old Naval soldering mnemonics. That part was priceless.

So, strike "lean to solder" off the Desirable Skills list. I'd also like to lean how to solder pipes and do some basic brazing, but for now, no toy is safe!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

I'm so BORED with olive drab!

I'm so frackin' bored with painting olive drab! Actually, I'm kinda bored with painting miniatures in general. And pretty damned burned out on WWII as a whole, at least the version of the war fought without benefit of daemons and jet packs.

So, its time for something different.

Actually, there's a lot swirling around on this one, and the timing is all sort of coming together for me. I've been getting a bit worn out on painting various shades of brownish green and greenish gray for a while now, but I've been plugging ahead, partly just to have something to do. Idle hands, and all that. I made it a personal goal to FINISH THE FUCKING PARATROOPERS before starting anything else. That just made things worse. I mean, they are so damn close! All I've got left is to finish a scout platoon, paint the objectives, paint the command and hero elements, do up a few markers, and that's it. Well, then I'd have to go back and retail all the previously finished stuff to bring it up to the same standard as the later finished stuff, and add flock and other foliage, and fake snow. But man, they are close! I really don't want them to join the ranks of half-finished armies filling my shelves.

On the other hand, I was thrown out of the main BattleFront forums a while back. I'm not going to rehash the entire sordid affair now, but basically I was getting very critical of BF's newer products, and the guy who is behind the stuff I was being most critical of runs the forum. I made a comment that gave someone grounds for complaint, and I was shown the door, along with CrazyIvan, another infamous loud-mouth. This started an exodus of other loud-mouths to STCC, our local gaming forum -- you should drop by, you'll like it. Much talk was made of our banning being the beginning of the end for BF as they slid inexorably into GW land. Their most recent army book bears this out, with all manner of stupid shit.

Then today they announced the rules and location of the 2009 National Tournament. Hum, how to put this..... fuck 'em. I wasn't that big on it anyway, but they've done a few things that just pissed off pretty well everyone. Its in the middle of no where, so there shall be no extra-curricular fun. No popping out to Historicon between rounds this year. It's in a rented athletic center, so we'd probably have to put up with jocks in the lobby. But the real shark-jumping deal killer are some of the rules in the painting competition. From their announcement:

1. All entries must contain nothing but Battlefront Miniatures.
7. National Tournament participants may not enter categories with components of their army considering those components will be unavailable during the day.

Most of the other rules suck, but those two pissed off pretty much everyone on both sides of the fence. The power gamers basically have to bring two armies, one to fight and one to show off. And anyone who, like me, mixes brands has just been auto-disqualified. My masterpiece is no longer a tournament-legal force. In a historical game. Without copyright restrictions.

And I was struggling to get that shit painted?

So, OK, BF is doing its level best to blow the Flames of War community to shreds. That's fine, I was getting bored, anyway. I need something new, and I need something wierd, damn it! I need gyrocopters and genetic super soldiers! I need airships, with pirates, and maybe aliens. Or deamons, those would work, too. I need to MAKE some shit, and get some real creativity flowing. I need wild parties with fancy people who don't take anything seriously, except for cool things that shouldn't be taken that way at all. I need some new music, too.

I need SteamPunk.

I've been resisting the siren call of hammered brass for a few years now. The whole SteamPunk thing just pulls in the best parts of damn near everything I've ever liked, and wraps it up in DIY coating of live action not role playing party time costume fun with live bands and Tesla coils. But I knew once I jumped I'd be in it up to my eyeballs. Well, the hell with it, I jumped. The basement is now full of brass and cogs and telescopes and toy guns and freaky monsters and all the horror, fantasy, leather, cyber, archaic mixed up nonsense that Mrs. Utini and I have been collecting for years. The whole thing fits like a well-worn glove, probably because we've had our fingers in all the holes all along. We're finally just giving in, and putting all the pieces together. I mean, what umbrella but SteamPunk could cover Lovecraft, Pirates, and WWII all at the same time? (No, at least at this point I don't feel like sub-dividing out DieselPunk. Its just a continuum between Steam and Cyber, anyway.)

So the game table is covered in brass bits, monster specimens, gun parts, sticked up weirdness and all manner of shit from the thrift store. And it is beautiful. The creativity has flown like blood in the gutters of boredom. I have my new. And it's something old, that I've had all along. Its really very liberating -- damn near EVERYTHING I like fits, at least partially or with overlap, into SteamPunk, just as long as you define that term broadly enough.

Obviously, I'll be posting pics.

This does not mean the end of wargaming and miniature painting. But it does mean its going to take a back seat for a bit. I'll finish the paratroopers, and I'll finish my retroactive updates about them at some point. And I'll still be playing games, probably as much as I do now. Hell, we've got a Descent campaign starting in a week and a half! But there will also be pics up here for all the new crazyness.

Because new is good.
And Old New must be very good.

Monday, February 2, 2009

updates to come

I'm gonna start updating this thing again, I swear I am! Look, look, I made a list of minis I wanna buy, right over there to the right and down a bit!