Wild And Free

I went down to Galveston with my son last weekend, because his scout troop was doing a campout there. While we were driving around, I saw several houses with front yards that looked like this:

I was bowled over. It was so cool. I couldn't think of anything that could make your house look better in the spring that having a massive field of wildflowers in place of boring old green grass.

Then I saw this news story this week, and it made me sad. We worry about bees disappearing and what that might do to our way of life, but then somebody increases the beauty of the city while providing a habitat for them, and bullshit bureaucrats attack them over ticky-tack rules. We really do deserve to go extinct.

Soooooo Cute!

I know many people hate ewoks, because they're just teddy bears come to life, and they think that has no place in Star Wars. I can understand that, considering that I feel the same about battle droids, Babu Frik, Jedi celibacy, midichlorians, gungans, Vice-Admiral Holdo's prom dress that she wore for the whole movie, the First Order, Bor Gullet, those tick beasts that Anakin rode on while wooing Padme, CG Tarkin, the Holdo maneuver, the Book of Boba Fett, Dexter Jettster, babies being trained as Jedis, the stupid Mod kids in the Book of Boba Fett, Canto Bight, and dozens more things.

However, I like what I like. So, when I saw this at the store the other day, I dropped everything and bought it.

Look at that little guy! Isn't he darling! I've waited a long time to get me some ewoks in Black Series. Up until now, I only had one measly ewok. Now I have two measly ewoks. As usual, I couldn't wait until I got home to pull it out of the package.

It's a really good figure. I think it looks great. Although I can't help but complain about the price. He's not even half-size for a 4-inch figure, much less the 6-inch figures that he shares a toy line with.

Yet they still want to charge full-price for this minifigure. When there's a figure that's larger than usual, they don't charge the same. They make sure to charge extra, but when he's little, no change.

I suppose that's all my fault, though. I bought it after all. I voted with my dollar for this figure to cost the same. I guess I like ewoks too much, so I'm willing to pay a premium for them. Silly. I need to grow up and grow a backbone, I guess.

Anyway, here's my massive ewok collection in all its glory.

They're re-releasing Paploo this summer some time as well. He was previously only available in a special box set that included lots of figures and I couldn't afford. I can't wait till he comes along, and I can expand my ewoks to three!

Maybe I should buy a bunch of them and repaint them into other colors so they look like different ewoks, and expand my collection even more. That would be cool, so I probably won't be doing that.

Solving The Employee Shortage

About a year ago, I made a post about my desire to get the food-related Fortnite characters to be the waiters and cooks at the diner I want to put in my space station. It was too expensive back then, when it was selling for full price though.

Then I started seeing it appear at Ross. It still seemed too expensive, though. They wanted $19.99, which, when you do the math comes out to $5 a piece for the figures. That is exactly what I pay at Ross when I buy the solo-packaged figures, and I never balk because of the price with them, but buying four at once, made it feel too expensive.

Well, this week, I lucked out and found them at a Ross on sale from that original price. They'd marked it down to $13.99. That made them $3.50 a piece, and even I couldn't complain about that, so I bought it.

In my wanderings, I've bought a Peely (the banana guy) and a Tomato Head (the guy...with the...tomato for...a...why am I telling you this?). In fact, I accidentally bought two Tomato Heads, because I'd forgotten about buying the first one when I saw the second one.

So now I've got the serving staff. I just need the restaurant...maybe I need to stop dreaming and start building.

Anklecast 53: Sepia Tone Prison (Part Two)

Okay, folks, I'm back again with part two of "Sepia Tone Prison." It's time to find out whether William will finally get to move on to the next plane of existence, and what happens with Beth and Ryan. Jump right in, folks, the water's fine.

Afterward, Rish and I talk about why I wrote the story the way I did and whether I would have written it differently today. Spoiler alert: the answer isn't very satisfying.

Thanks to Bria Burton, Marshal Latham, and Rish Outfield for providing voices on the production.

Right click HERE to download the episode or click the play button below and start listening now!

Kick It Up A Notch, 5 Years Of Disappointment - Road To 50, Challenge Update

I’ve been Keto for almost five years now, and carnivore for four of those. What do I have to show for it? Disappointment mostly. In today’s update, I am reaffirming my intention to turn this crap around and get to it. ADF will be a part of it, and I will be that guy who almost made it to One-derland again. Before the year is out!

Comeback Player Of The Year

Way back when, a year ago, I wrote a mournful post about our wisteria bush that we'd grown on our hammock stand. Our vivacious wisteria vine had a problem, and suddenly looked anything but vivacious.

I was really sad to see it suddenly die like that after years of cultivating it along until it had basically reached the level that we wanted it to be. I think it probably came from something the guys who resurfaced our pool did. All I could hope was that it would recover. There were still a few shoots coming out of the ground that had green leaves on them, so I could hope.

Well, now that a year has passed and spring is upon us again, it looks like our hopes were not in vain. The vine is coming back to us again.

It's going to take another few years before it gets back to being as full and beautiful as it used to be, but at least it's on its way, and we don't have to tear it up and start over. Here's a few flower pictures for this year...most are from the other side of the hammock stand, but they're nice.

Low Tide

I was watching a video the other day on YouTube, and it mentioned a pop punk band called The Wonder Years. Like Rish Outfield, I am a fan of that old eighties show, and I figured I should check out any band that had the good sense to call themselves The Wonder Years, but if it's also in a genre that I like, then there's double the reason.

I searched the band, and the first song on offer was this one below. I really liked it, and I've found myself listening to it on repeat all day long. I guess it really speaks to me. Although, if a song like this really speaks to me, then what does that say about me? I think I'll do my usual and not look into that too closely. I probably wouldn't like what I see if I did.

Focusing on the Basics; Overcoming Temptations - Road to 55 or 680 Challenge: Marshal's 2nd Update

Marshal has been having issues with temptations, so rather than stressing about trying to achieve BBBE, he wants to simply stick with the basics of hitting the carnivore goal before trying to take it up a notch to BBBE.

Vexillolilolilology

I don't know if I've talked about this kind of stuff enough on this blog or on podcasts, but I love flags. I love cool flags. I love flag designs.

I collect flags, but to avoid having a crap ton of folded flags in a closet, I only collect flags for states or coutnries in which I've lived...or a member of my family has lived. 

I've always dug flags, but after seeing Roman Mars Ted Talk about flag design, I've only grown to love them more, and particularly to root for the bad ones to get replaced with better ones.

So, the other day I stumbled upon this video that talks flags, and even talks about a re-design that managed to actually get past all the people who fight against change and fight for keeping their crappy designs just because that's what they've always had, and I wanted to share it with you. Here you are, a pretend vexillology class.

Weather In Action

Okay, I made a couple of pictures. They're not very good, but what do you think of how they look in space on maneuvers?

I don't know. It's pretty fun to do something like this. I bet if I put it in the hands of my daughter, who is a Photoshop wiz, it would look even more awesome.  Maybe I'll try that some time. Maybe once I get all the ships weathered and she can pick and choose what ships to include.

Stormy Weather

I kept going with the weathering. I guess it's going to be my theme for the week. Here's a few more ships that I updated with some wear and tear, starting with the XL-02. It used to look like this:

And here's its new look:

If nothing else, with the weathering it looks like it fits in with Star Wars ships better, since that universe is more known for being a lived-in universe. This ship isn't my favorite, but it looks a lot better than it did, I think.

Here's a side-by-side:

I also did the XL-15. Which once looked like this:

This one came with some partial weathering already. I guess it's supposed to be the post-hyperspeed flight of the ship. I just took it up a notch or two, making the ship even grungier.

It really toned down the burn marks with the dry-brushing. Not sure if that's better or not. I wouldn't have minded having them more prominent, but I can't put the toothpaste back in the tube now. I still love it.

Oh, did you notice that I clipped the blue backward-pointing things from the wings? I just didn't like them. They seemed like laser guns pointing in the wrong direction, so I snipped them.

Here's a side-by-side:

Lastly, since I had all the paints out and everything, I figured I'd try weathering one of my Star Wars ships. I got this X-Wing on sale at Walgreens. It used to look like this:

It already had it's own weathering as well, looking pretty dirty, or...as I've heard many people online describe it...like somebody spilled their coffee all over it. I took that and changed into the weathering that I've been doing on the Lightyear ships.

I need to find the R2-D2 that goes in the back. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I think it fell out while it was in the box in my closet. I sure hope so. I hope I haven't lost Artoo.

Because it's a mostly-white ship, it's hard to see the silver paint, but it's got a bunch...maybe more than it should, since I had a hard time seeing it on there and kept putting more on. Here's a side-by-side:

I wonder if the lighting conditions were the same, how different they'd look. The all white ships are definitely harder to dry-brush, but they take the black wash a lot better. All in all, I think it looks good too.

Maybe I'll see if I can't throw together some pictures with the ships in action together in space. I'm not much of a Photoshop wiz, but I'll give it a shot. See you tomorrow with that, hopefully.

Bad Weather

Continuing from my post from yesterday, I kept going with more spaceship weathering. I moved on to the ship that I most wanted to weather since starting this collection of Lightyear Hyperspeed Series ships. This is the Armadillo...with a name like that, Star Command probably constructed it right here in Texas...and I love the look of it.

I found it for half off at Target a long time ago. It was the first Lightyear ship I ever bought.

It kind of looks like a big brick of brown poop or something straight out of the box, but it is ready to be turned into something much cooler. The first thing I did was take the teeth sticker off. I'm not a fan of that. I don't know why Star Wars had to put that onto all of their Clone Wars ships, ripping off the WWII planes that did that. 

The prequels suck, and even though people say Clone Wars improved upon them, giving them good back story and the like, it is still prequels era garbage. Polishing a turd and all that. But it's even worse when Lightyear rips it off from Clone Wars. So, it had to go.

Next I weathered it with black paint thinned out by a very small amount of water. Lastly, I dry brushed some silver on to give it more wear in certain places.

Here's how it looks now:

What do you think? Here's a side-by-side of what it used to look like to what it is now:

I love it. I might have gone a little heavy-handed with the silver dry-brushing though.  Some spots feel like I did a bit much. I don't know. I still love it. It looks like that old rust bucket has seen lots of action, and really is a reliable old girl. 

Makes me think of this exchange from Firefly:

Mal: She won’t be winning any beauty contests anytime soon, but she is solid. Ship like this, be with you ’til the day you die.
Zoe: ‘Cause it’s a death trap.
Mal: That’s not— You are very much lacking in imagination.

Or better yet, the line from the salesman in the same episode:

Salesman: Yep. Real beauty, ain’t she. Yes sir. Right smart purchase, this vessel. I’ll tell you what, you buy this ship, treat her proper, she’ll be with you for the rest of your life. {but Mal’s attention is on another vessel} Son? Hey, son! You hear a word I been sayin’?

How's The Weather?

Last week, I showed off some pictures that some people had shared of their own repaints of some of the ships from the Lightyear movie. I said that I ought to get working on weathering some of my own ships and see how they look. Mostly I don't bother to actually ever do anything, but this time around, I went for it. So, here we go.

I decided I would start with these two ships. First up was the XL-07 on the right. With watered down black paint for a wash and dry-brushed silver enamel, I turned that ship into this:

Here's a side-by-side before-and-after shot, since I actually have two of those ships.

Now it was time to do the other one. I used the same method, and now the two ships match.

Here's another side-by-side with this ship too:

What do you think? Pretty good? I really like the way they look. I want to get after weathering all the rest, and maybe making the first bits of a space station. Maybe I could make the Valkyrie headquarters for all these ships to dock at.

Monkeying Around

If you wanted something cute to say, "Awwww," at, well, you've come to the right place. This week, there was a monkey at my work. I guess the zoo was doing a segment on the show...or it might have been a petting zoo, I don't know, I don't watch the news, I just produce it.

The lady brought it into the newsroom, and all the girls gathered around and fawned over the monkey. One girl did run for the hills when the monkey screeched. "Uh uh, I ain't getting my face bit off," she said, "I like my face too much to go without it." I think she was remembering this story from last month where a woman in Oklahoma almost had her ear ripped off by her pet monkey.

Anyway, nobody was mauled by the monkey, but it certainly did disrupt the work that was going on. I ran over and snapped a quick picture to share with y'all, but mostly stayed at my desk editing for the news like the good little corporate drone that I am. So, I have this to share with you, go ahead and let it out..."Awwwwwww!"

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, and...

I think one of my eggs is from Jupiter.

Who's Walking Over My Bridge?

I was out on a walk the other day, and I walked along the canal to a bridge right on the very street that I live. I stopped to take some pictures, and what did I find?

One of the coolest things I've seen while living here in Houston was the Waugh Drive bridge bat colony. I took video of it, and Rish Outfield thought it was so cool that he wanted to do a commentary on the video. I'm going to see if I can't hang out on the bridge at sunset someday soon, and see if I can't get myself another video of a bat colony taking off for the night. Of course, as you might expect, I'll post the video here if do.

I Promised I’d Be Good - Road To 50 Challenge Update

After failing too frequently in the early going of this challenge, I swore to do a full week of BBBE to gain some points back. How did it go? Watch and find out.

More Flowers

A few weeks ago, I talked about the zinnias that had reseeded themselves and were growing up through the rocks in our backyard. We've had pretty poor luck with flowers over the years here, but the zinnias that my wife planted last year did so well, and even came back again on their own. This gave me an idea.

You see, we have this mailbox...

Everybody in the neighborhood has the same mailbox. It's all brick with that planter box on the side. Some people have planted bushes that grow out of there or roses, you know, stuff like that. We...well, we've always just had dirt and a few weeds in that stupid planter. 

One year I tried to plant teddy bear sunflowers in it, but they died off before they ever even managed to make flowers. That's the closest I ever got to getting anything worth looking at in that silly square of dirt. This time, it's gonna be different though. I'm determined.

Since those zinnias did so well, that's what I'm planting. On top of that, I made an alarm on my phone to remind me to take the watering can out and give those flowers some love each and every day.

It's going well so far. I planted the seeds about a week ago, and here's how it looks:

That's a lot of little sprouts. I'm pretty excited to see so many.  I haven't even had to water for the last few days because we've gotten so much rain, but my alarm has gone off, and I've gone out and checked each and every day just in case. I'm going to win this time. It's going to look nice for the first time ever. It will be so cool a few weeks from now when it looks like this:

Wildlife

I've been going on walks as often as possible recently, to help me feel a little better and stick with my eating plan. It's not hard, because they have these absolutely beautiful trails that wind through my neighborhood.

Sometimes I see wildlife out there too. There's squirrels, of course, but I've seen armadillos, deer, dozens of different kinds of birds, and I even showed off the video of the rabbit that I saw in my Easter post.

Sorry, that picture should be better. It's a still frame from a video.

Today, however, I came across some new wildlife that I hadn't run into before. I got a picture of them before they disappeared back into the brush.

I'm a little nervous to go out into the trails now. They looked kind of fierce. They did leave behind some meat hanging from a rope, though. I can't say why, but I really want to eat some of it, and since I'm on the carnivore diet, it fits right in with my plan, so maybe I'll just take a bite...

Squadron Of Twelve?

I posted a little while back about my growing collection of Lightyear spaceships. It had made it to eight, and I was despairing as to whether I would ever find the last four on sale anywhere. These were the last four ships, the XL-04:

The XL-05:

The XL-08:

And the XL-10:

They're alright, but most of them aren't amazing. The only one I really want is the XL-08, because it actually looks different than the rest. Although I kind of want the XL-04 just so that I can have Buzz in Boba Fett's outfit. 

I was vexed, however, to see just how hard it was to find anyone that was offering them for sale. The only place I could find that had the XL-08 listed for sale was Entertainment Earth, and they still wanted full price plus shipping for the thing. There was no way I was going to pay that.

Then I actually looked a little closer at Entertainment Earth's listing, and I realized finally what the problem was.

I was just looking at the price and frowning, and moving on, but I should have looked at that great big green bar going across the screen. This was just a pre-order. The toy wasn't even scheduled to come out until June 2023 according to the website.

It's time to kiss this ship goodbye. There's no way I will ever be able to buy it, because there's no way it will ever come out. I'm sure Mattel has already canceled these things. 

This last wave of four ships is never going to hit stores, because the movie tanked, and nobody is buying the toys. The rest of them are already showing up at Ross for $5. They're not going to be throwing bad money after good to produce another shitload of ships that nobody (but me) wants to buy. So, it looks like I've got myself the full collection.

I'm kind of sad to see that the XL-08 will never be mine, because I really like its design, but I guess I'll just have to make do with what I've got and call it good. Maybe I should start trying to gussy the ones I have up with some weathering and see how they look after that. I searched online and found some pictures that one guy took of the XL-07 after getting the weathering treatment that looks frigging amazing:

And another guy did a really sweet weathering and upgraded paint job for the XL-01:

I hope mine can look as good when I'm done with them. The Valkyries will be so proud to fly these ships around in Ankletown Station.