Of Budgie Smugglers and Banana Hammocks.

After reading about Ray and Fran's weekend getaway to Nottingham I was introduced to the term "Budgie Smugglers". Now I could guess at what Fran was talking about but those of us in the Americas, although familiar with the concept, were unaware of this particular slang. Although I think Fran was just referring to form fitting undergarments the term refers to something we all know and love, the Speedo bathing suit.

Now someone had mentioned that in 'Merica we just call it a Speedo (I think it was Yank in Australia), but the actual slang is "Banana Hammock" (there's even a website). So, much like Coke or Xerox, the brand name has become a descriptor for the thing itself.

Hmm I wonder if Posties Rejects will come up with some other garment to help identify them at shows?

No missing someone at Salute in these bad boys.

And now some gratuitous pictures of said garment in action. Those of you with weak constitutions may wish to look away.

Make fun of my swim trunks, I F#$%ing dare you!

I won't say I look like Daniel Craig, but I wear a similar style of trunks to the pool/ beach. I used to wear what we call board shorts, but I'm not a surfer and the super long baggy fabric just holds water and is generally uncomfortable when out of the water.

An artists rendition of Fran and Ray's trip to Nottingham.

Getting ready to play Call of Duty?

And a message for you from Samuel L. Jackson if you are still using Captcha.

A to Z Blogger Book Survey

This went around about a week ago and I wanted to do it but just didn't have time so here is mine.

Author you've read the most books from:
That is a tough one as I tend to flit around a lot. But with the anthologies I've read lately it's a toss up between H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard I'm guessing.

Best sequel ever:
I can't remember who set the precedent, but I'll go with Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back. Still my favorite of the Franchise.

Currently reading:
Operation Barbarossa by David M. Glantz. I have to say it's pretty dry and I find myself avoiding it.

Drink of choice whilst reading:
Water or Beer. I don't think I drink all that much while I read.

E-reader or physical book:
I love physical books and find it hard to resist buying them, but I do like the kindle very much I don't get as many reproving looks from SWMBO because it doesn't turn into a pile of books.

Fictional character you would probably have dated in high school:
Lisbeth Salander from the Girl etc series.

Glad you gave this book a chance:
Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh

Hidden book gem:
The Eden series by Harry Harrison. An interesting alternate Earth where lizards are the dominant life form.

Important moment in your book life:
Picking up a copy of the The Two Towers in an airport bookshop in 1979. Started me down the road of D&D and gaming and my penchant for reading the second book in a trilogy first.

Just finished:
The last thing I actually finished was the H.P. Lovecraft Anthology on my Kindle.

Kind of book you won't read:
Not interested at all in Romance novels.

Longest book you've read:
I read several big books between dropping out of High School and attending college.  I'm not sure where the editions are right now so couldn't say how long they are. I am not counting things that were in multiple volumes like LotR or Shelby Foote's Civil War treatise. In no particular order: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer, and The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon.

Major book hangover because of  disappointing endings:
I can't think of one right now. My biggest recent disappointment was discovering what a racist Lovecraft was. It bummed me out.

Number of bookcases you own:
Full wall of the Den. One in the bedroom, one unused but needed in the garage and several folding ones in storage that need to come out.

One book you've read multiple times:
Lord of the Rings.

Preferred place to read:
In bed. Probably why I don't read enough. I usually fall asleep.

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you've read:
"I believe that, in a stupid society, intelligence is useless." - Shen Congwen (from a story in a collection called Imperfect Paradise that I read 10 years ago and can't find the page reference for)

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard The Tower of the Elephant

Reading regret:
So many books, so little time.

Series you started and need to finish:
The Song of Fire and Ice. Waiting on you Mr. Martin.

Three of your all-time favourite books:
This is a real tough one. Do I pick books that I read as a boy that hold a place in my heart? Is it something I've read more recently? If I exclude Tintin, my favorites would be The X-Factor by Andre Norton, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and ... perhaps I Claudius by Robert Graves.

Unapologetic fanboy for:
I was going to say George R.R. Martin, but the delay in getting on with the game of thrones, in both book and video, is damping my enthusiasm. Maybe Bernard again.

Very excited for this release:
Bernard Cornwell, The Pagan Lord.

Worst bookish habit:
Buying or borrowing books and then not reading them.

X marks the spot - Start at the top left of your bookshelf and pick the 27th book:
Attack and Defense by Ishida and Davies

Your latest book purchase:
Pre-ordered Bernard Cornwell's The Pagan Lord on my Kindle.

Zzz snatcher book (the last book that kept you up waaay too late:)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I was going to try and link to the ones that I have seen but I'm tired and can't seem to find them all. Off to dream of Budgie Smugglers. ;)

Home made Wet Palette

Hi all, after reading Paradox0n's post here and generally having trouble with paint drying too rapidly here in Phoenix, I decided to go ahead and make my own wet palette.

I was one about the size of a 15" laptop for sale at JoAnn for about $34, but as usual thought I could do just as well at the grocery store. Store Brand Parchment Paper $2.50 on sale, Store Brand Tupperware $3.99 on sale and Brand name Sponge cloth $2.99. So essentially enough for two wet palettes for $9.48 excluding tax.

So far it has worked like a charm, my paint on the palette stays wet. Who'd have thunk it? I left some paint in it for about an hour and a half while I did other things and it stayed wet. Perhaps the paint sucked up a little too much water in that time but not too bad. So a big thank you to Paradox0n and I think you'll see some more output from me as I don't have to struggle with the paint as much.

The parchment has lifted away from the sponge after an hour of painting.

Welcome to new follower Attila13, I'm not familiar with your avatar and don't see a blog listed for you. Let me know if you have one.

Magnifying Visor

I went ahead and purchased a magnifying visor to help with my deteriorating eyesight. It seems I am suffering from the inability to focus up close, even though I have been near sighted my whole life. Quite frustrating really. You may recall that I have a magnifying lamp that I mentioned here, but I find it to be problematic in some instances as I bang paint brush and knife handles on it as I'm trying to work.

The visor gets around this rather well. I ordered this one from Amazon for $6.85 and it arrived in two days.

From Amazon.com

The knob adjustment for size can be difficult, and the plastic pad across the forehead a bit sweaty, but it works pretty well. It has the fixed magnifier, another inside the visor that flips down, and the small one that swings down on the outside. I did a couple of hour session with it last night and it worked fairly well. The light is pretty good and runs off of two AAA batteries. It can be adjusted vertically and horizontally. One word of caution. Be careful when flipping the visor up. I had a few instances where I was tilting my head down with the visor up and it flipped down of its own accord. The visor drove my glasses into the bridge of my nose, which is annoying at best and painful at worst. The hinge adjustment knobs seem to be difficult to tighten sufficiently to totally remove this possibility. And then my wife says it makes me look like James Hom from Blade Runner.

I got it from here. Where he got it from is anybody's guess.

In other news (ie putting this here to remind myself), Warlord Paul has listed some more blogs that may be of interest here. Orlygg at has a post about Oldhammer in the States here. I want to get back into 3rd edition, but I fear I'm so far behind on painting etc that it will lead to stress related illness. In any event I will tap into what is going on.

And lastly just to inform those of you who are into 1/72 in general and fantasy at this scale in particular I stumbled across a blog that was new to me. Cheap Fantasy Minis is definitely worth your time and ranks highly, in my opinion, as a resource for those interested in this niche of a niche.

Had a great weekend. My son's team won their first flag football game of the season, and my back only hurt marginally as I got thrown around. Also the weather actually felt cool with a breeze. I have some volunteering to do at the school today and a project to design some sort of background for a Tai Chi presentation. Other than that I hope to get these figures painted and play out my next battle for Talomir. You can see the battle reports that have already come in at Talomir Tales. My Tereken forces were defeated and there is now an enforced peace between us and Altengard for the next two years.

The Dice Challenge

So Lee was bemoaning his statistically aberrant dice rolling here, and Ray offered a challenge to see if anyone could possibly roll worse here.

Die	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Avg.
d4	2	4	4	2	2	4	4	4	3	4	3.3
d6	6	4	3	4	2	5	5	2	1	5	3.7
d8	2	6	1	4	3	3	5	1	6	4	3.5
d10											#DIV/0!
d12	5	6	5	8	10	6	5	12	9	4	7
d20	2	17	1	17	8	6	17	19	9	8	10.4
d100											#DIV/0!

So mostly average to above average. Nowhere near Lee "Dice" Hadley's awful luck. I was rather displeased to find my dice spread out on the table, and floor and nary a d10 to be had. I'll have to turn the place over to locate them.

Well as Leonard Courtney, 1st Baron Courtney of Penwith, said. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:1stLordCourteney.jpg

And some random pictures of dice:

It has occurred to me that I am behind on my schedule to play out this nest game with figures. Time to get cracking.

Wishing a friend some luck

Hi all,

A few days ago Justin over at The Royalist Roundhead posted about his terrible real life luck lately and his solution for uplifting his spirits a little bit in his post here.

Knights of the Dinner Table rings a bell somewhere deep in my subconscious but I'm not sure I've seen it before. I didn't quite get the comic that Justin linked to, I felt like I was coming in in the middle so here's a link to a random one that seemed funny to me.

So pop on over to Justin's blog to say hi or give him a show of support. He's a thoughtful and interesting guy. And if you feel inclined to subscribe to KODT tell 'em Justin sent ya.

Answers to the 10 (these go to 11) questions.

I'm a sucker for these blog questions. This one was started by The Laughing Ferret here. Many of you answered directly on his post, I think I'll do mine here so I can add silly pictures.

1. Dinosaurs or Dragons?

Dragons, because Dinosaurs let themselves go extinct.

2.  In an RPG would u rather be a Player or DM?

Player. Although I am a little of a control freak I never was a very good DM.

3. You have a Time Machine: you can only take a trip to the future or the past. Return or not is your choice.  Which direction & how far?

Tough one, but I still think my answer is I'd suck it up and graduate from High School instead of quitting and getting my GED.

4. Favorite Online Comic

I feel like I should have one but I don't read online comics. Maybe that should change.

5. Of these Empires which do you feel is the BEST Empire and the WORST Empire? 

Roman, Mongol, Spanish, Russian, British, American. 

How you define Best and Worst is up to you.  

If you're feeling up to it, rank them from best to worst 1-6.

I admire the accomplishments of Rome the most, for me it's a toss up between Russia and Spain for the worst, but probably Spain for being the most exploitative.

Countries the British haven't invaded in white.

6. Who wins the fight?  Roman Gladiator or Samurai ? 

If we consider training and will to win being equal then I give it to the Samurai who has the technological edge in perhaps the best sword ever made. Otherwise it's too much "my style beats your style" which is bullshit.

From www.worldofjapan.net

7. Who wins the fight?  Darth Vader or Witch King?

As much as I love Darth Vader he was really only good at bullying kids, old men and Fleet officers. Witch King hands down.

8. Who wins the dogfight?   Starbuck in Colonial Vyper or Luke Skywalker in X-Wing?

Luke, c'mon he has the force. And holy frak?! I thought Starbuck was a dude!

9. Who wins the battle of wits? Tyrion Lannister or Wesley? 

Mark Messier!

10. Money & Time no object, what movie or novel would you like to have the armies and terrain in miniature to recreate and expand on, and in what scale?

Tough one. Probably Middle Earth although Hyboria is a close second. And 28mm if money is no object.

11. Human Beings die off. What species rises to take our place, becoming the next sentient species with a global civilization?

Lizards, and I'm sure recently watching the Star Trek episode "Arena" with the Gorn in it has no bearing on my choice.

And finally I'd like to welcome four new followers to the blog, the last few posts I have completely forgotten to acknowledge them.

Emilio, I'm sorry but I can't tell if you have a blog. Let me know if you do and I'll post a link.

Legatus Hedlius needs no introduction. An international man of mystery with no fewer than 15 blogs listed. I follow Legatus' Wargames Armies and Roman Wargames Armies I think.

Guidowg comes to us from This Ain't living.

The Miniatures Man writes the self titled blog The Miniatures Man.

I have not had the time to go through your sites, I will do so when I get my latest project more under my belt.

Check out this game table.

Hi All,

  I seem to have hit my yearly April lull. Just having trouble organizing my thoughts and my games. I decided that buying more figures might help. :p

 I just wanted to give some support to Alex from Realms of Miniatures and his Kickstarter Indiegogo for his Modular Gaming Table.

From the Indiegogo page for the table.

If you haven't seen it, check it out. I only wish I had the talent to build and or design something so cool.

I was trying to pace myself with posts and then my wife got sick late last week and kept me up all night with her fevered delirium. It basically knocked my even more on my butt and I started getting the "woe is me feeling. I'm hoping today to snap out of it and get on with my projects and chores. I'm even beginning to feel optimistic about being able to run in the race I signed up for this Saturday. Although I'm still a little worried that I'll over do it.

Anyhow, giveaway and pictures of recent largess will be forthcoming.

Welcome to three new followers:

Andrew Saunders of Loki's Great Hall, fantastic painter who is currently doing two giveaways. He has just added a whopping 60 followers to his blog. That's how it's done.

Jiaqi of Toy Construct and five other blogs I didn't know about. To be honest I haven't had a chance to really look around too carefully, sorry. But it looks like a good mix of topical stuff and general hobby info.

Tartar Sauce. Sorry I don't see a blog in your links, just sites you follow. I also don't recognize your avatar. So if you have a blog, just send me the link.

Off to wash dishes and do the shopping while I listen to the news of the day, screw assholes who bomb stuff. Not much else to say about that.

One year ago today.

Another idea passed on from Phil at The Wargaming Site.

Go back one year ago today and post a link to a post you wrote then.

Hmm I didn't post on the 13th but on the 12th we have Nicholas has Chosen which I think was my first prize giveaway.

And then the 14th Interesting Painting Site which was where I found out about making my own washes. I still need to try that out.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

From: http://media.brain-terminal.com/promo/videos/poster/memory-lane.jpg

PS- I have no idea what this image is all about. I just found the juxtaposition funny.

Old Stuff Day

I saw this originally mentioned over on Creative Twilight who credited the idea to Warhammer 39999. But the first concise explanation I saw for what this is was on The Wargaming Site.


"On this day, each blogger can go through their history and find posts that they’d like to shake the dust off and present again to the community at large. Some suggestions for content that would be good to post: 

* Posts that you considered special that didn’t receive as much attention as you thought they deserved
* Content that people liked in the past, but haven’t seen recently 
* Posts you might have created before your site received much traffic, and now deserve to be reshown
* Or any content you’re particularly proud of!" 

So here are my entries:

Flag Ripple Tutorial Series

How to Texture a Flag for Ray Part 1 the one that started it all, only got 42 views and the comments were that it was difficult to understand.

Flag Ripple Effect Video Tutorial was my attempt to show in realish time how to do it. I thought it might be clearer. Only 24 views and a "worst ever" review on Youtube for my efforts. See what you think.

Alternate Flag Ripple Tutorial actually got 71 views so as such was fairly popular by my blog standards. It took a question about possibly doing the ripples from a source image of actual rippled fabric. As it turns out it is a better way to do it. I was thinking of making another video on this method, I'll edit it to be concise, and perhaps a listing on TMP.

Maps of Greyhawk

Did you play AD&D? Did you stomp around the Flanaess slaying Giants and whatnot? Or did you just spend hours looking at the old Greyhawk maps and Gazeteer? Well prepare to have your mind blown by the truly awesome maps of Anna Meyer!

Fabulous maps of Greyhawk only got 23 views. Now it is quite possible that you all have just seen her stuff already. LOOK AT IT AGAIN. But seriously, she is constantly updating the maps and releasing them free on her website Fantasy Maps by Anna B. Meyer. If I had any gripe at all it would be that these are all post Greyhawk Wars. But that is just sour grapes because that passed me by when I stopped role playing. (Basically 1985).

Boardgame Resources

The Boardgame Resources wasn't really much of a post so it only garnered 17 views. Too bad really because the stuff on the site I linked to is really great. For this one I'll make you go and look at my post.

Don't overlook Cthulhu

Again The Cultist wasn't much of a post and only got 13 views. It was essentially a reblog pointing to a youtube video that had been a submission for a Strange Aeons competition. The video is quite good and really got me enthralled by the idea of setting up my own Cthulhu campaign. I still haven't done it, but I hope to this year.

Well that's my look back at Old Stuff. I hope you enjoyed it.

And just a note about turning over a new leaf blogging wise. I have righted a terrible wrong and followed back people who followed me over the last year plus. As I said there really is no excuse, just a thought at the time that I wanted to stay on task with my own blog. I've since come to realize that my interests are so all over the place that there really is no point to trying to compartmentalize on blogs I follow. I will however, still try to restrict the blogs I follow to game related as much as possible. I also think that active blogging (ie more commenting, replying etc) is driving more traffic to me. I could be wrong but there seems to be a slight up tick.

A rash of good posts

"It's not herpes if it's all over!" - Peter Segel's character in Knocked Up.

I've just noticed a couple of trends in the blogs I follow that are worth taking a look at.

Ahoy matey, model ship building:

http://gowansmodelblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-to-build-wargaming-warship-part-1.html

http://gowansmodelblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-build-wargaming-warship-part-2.html

http://saxons-and-vikings.blogspot.com/2012/10/ship-building-1-getting-started.html

http://saxons-and-vikings.blogspot.com/2012/10/ship-building-2-ships-sides-preparation.html

http://saxons-and-vikings.blogspot.com/2012/10/ship-building-3-finishing-hulls.html

http://saxons-and-vikings.blogspot.com/2012/10/ship-building-4-viking-ship-complete.html

Boys do Battle Cry:

http://littlejohnslead.blogspot.com/2012/11/finally-got-up-steam.html

http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.com/2012/12/prairie-grove-refight.html

And of course an explosion of activity concerning the Portable Wargame et al:

http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/2012/12/lots-of-portable-wargame-action-but-not.html

The Colonel's Cardstock list

Hi All,

  Just a quick re-blog of the phenomenal list of Paper craft resources and reviews that Col. Shofer is putting together here.

  Once again a case of sychronicity (once again a word that blogger sees as mis-spelled and is not in dictionary.com) as I have been looking over paper craft table top solutions.

Enjoy.

Where some men have gone before.

And no it is not a setup for "your mother" jokes.

I read this over at the Axis of Naughtiness here. And it looks totally awesome. If I only had some super geek friends to play with. Many of us of a certain age **cough 40+ cough** probably fantasized about being on the bridge of the Enterprise, I know I did.

This would be cool to play, but I find that I need a pause button as real time strategy generally sends me into rage that can be harmful to electronic devices and drywall. I've gotten fairly proficient at repairing drywall, computers, not as much.

I can also see a skype or VOIP session ending up like the infamous DOTS game.

This guy uses normal gamespeak (ie he curses a lot!)

And this remix:

At 16sec sounds like me. Okay the 2nd one is funnier but more explicit.

And welcome to Simon (sorry to welcome you after all the cursing) who is a very talented sculptor. He has several blogs but the most recently active is My Wargaming Corner.