It's arrived for everyone now, the second half of my story from the very first Broken Mirror Story Event Rish and I ever did. Listen to find out what happened in Joe's search to find out why a ghost is haunting his home, particularly his baby monitor. Why is that ghost coming for his son?
Afterward, Rish and I talk about the story behind the story, why and how it was written, and just how much of it was autobiographical. (spoiler alert: It's just the boring parts that are real).
Check it out on your podcast feed or to download the episode, right click HERE. Or you can just click the play button below and listen right here and now.
We planted a bunch of sunflowers this year, and I made sure to get both the regular yellow blossoms as well as the more exotic red ones. So far, the only things that bloomed are the yellow ones...until now. Here is our first (and probably only) red sunflower of the year!
Today, we start with a Titan Heroes Iron Patriot. This one, I think, is supposed to be more of a comic book style figure. It's one of many that I've meant to paint up and make more fancy and impressive. I haven't gotten around to it yet, so I just put him up as is for now.
Then there's these guys...they actually have nothing to do with America at all. They are just cool aliens wearing red and blue armor, so I lumped them in. They are Halo figures called Jackals, and I really like them.
Okay, today, we have the Captain America robot armor from the MechStrike toy line from Hasbro. A few years ago, they made figures that came with armor that they could put on and...enhance their fighting, I guess. They did Iron Man, Captain America, and a few others, I believe...Black Panther, Thanos, maybe Hulk. Anyway, I thought the Captain America one would make a fine addition to my 4th of July shelf.
I think he might even be passably cool if I did some weathering on it. Maybe I'll give that a shot sometime.
Next we have one of my favorite 4th of July figures of all, possibly the most American figure you can get: Eagalus.
Eagalus is from the Mythic Legions line of figures. When they first started off, they did a bunch of figures based on birds, making blue jays, storks, cardinals, and the like. When they made the eagle, they decided they had to take it a step further and do a patriotic version, and this is the most star-spangled thing I've ever seen. America, F--- Yeah!
This week I did a 72-hour fast as a part of my routine of eating BBBE carnivore. How did it go? Was it hard? And what kind of effects did it have on my ketones and blood sugar? Watch to find out the exciting conclusion!
Come on, Costco, seriously? It's still only June 28th. This is a little egregious.
Halloween costumes more than four months ahead of the holiday? You gotta be kidding!
Somebody on Facebook suggested that maybe these were just for the summer conventions. I wish that were true, but the big convention in Houston, Comicpalooza, happened a month ago, so they're both too late and waaaaaaaay too early.
Today, we get the late-seventies/early-eighties version of Wonder Woman, played by Linda Carter, wearing that super American flag-centric cape. Isn't it beautiful?
And for our second, we get the 4th of July Avengers...these are three figures that I just group together because they are similarly sized and have no one else to stand with. One is the 7-inch scale Fireworks Team Leader from Fortnite (the same figure as yesterday but in a larger scale). One is Uncle Sam, from DC Comics. The last is a figure called Omega from Fortnite. I painted this figure to look this way, but sadly, I haven't quite finished it yet, so he looks a little unkempt. Since I won't get around to it in time, I'm just putting him up for now. Maybe I'll finish him before next summer.
Okay, I'm going to have to start doing at least two figures per day, because there's only a week left, and I have more than fourteen to go. So, today we have the Fireworks Team Leader from Fortnite. This is the 4-inch version, that's why she's holding the cupcake flag.
Then I have the Iron Patriot from the very end of the Avengers: Endgame movie. I love this guy, because he comes with so many weapons to attach. It really is what I imagine this character to be like, armed to the teeth...you know, like a War Machine!
This guy here is a bit of a custom job for me. It originally was an Iron Man figure called the Atmosphere Armor. It was blue, silver, and black. I looked at it and thought, "If I paint all the black parts red, it would make a cool Iron Patriot, and I could get it for Ross prices!"
So, that's what I did. It probably needs another coat of red over the black parts, and then a coat of clear gloss over the red to say that it's finished, but for one month out of the year, it's good enough to display.
This is the retro 4-inch Captain America figure from the retro line that just kicked the bucket recently. I think Hasbro was seeing all the money that Super 7 was making selling crappy 80s style figures from every 80s property they could get their hands on that looked as if they were made by Kenner, and they decided to make their own using the properties that they controlled. Weird considering that Super 7 makes Reaction Figures of GI Joe, but Hasbro makes the same thing with Marvel. Whatever. Anyhow, behold the beautiful retro Captain America.
He's a tiny little guy. The flag he's holding is one of those toothpick-sized ones that you're supposed to put in cupcakes at your 4th of July picnic. I had to wrap the stick with a little masking tape to make the pole big enough for his hand to grab though.
This past weekend, my wife and I went to a place called Fredricksburg for our anniversary. In general, it wasn't for me. It was one of those places your wine aunt will visit to go shopping at those quaint little shops packed full of useless decorations and dumb shirts and to, of course, drink a bunch of wine.
Also, it's a German town, or settled by Germans back in the 1800s, so it has that aesthetic too. Not only are there a bunch of wineries, but also a bunch of breweries. All the restaurants are German-themed too, so it was schnitzel and sauerkraut with bratwursts or nothing, which I didn't hate, but I was trying to stick to my beef, butter, bacon, and eggs diet, and I could not.
It was so freaking hot too. We're having a heat wave...a tropical heat wave, and the temperatures are above 100°, with heat indexes above 110°. It's brutal out there. The heat sapped our will to go out and do stuff pretty quick. In fact, it sapped our will to live.
The AC at the hotel was really good, however. So, at least there was that. We even forgot our swimsuits at home, so we couldn't even go out and use the pool at the hotel, the one activity where we probably wouldn't be dying of heat.
One thing I did enjoy, probably because we got out and went to it the first thing in the morning, was Wildseed Farms. It's a farm (oh, and also a winery, because it's Fredricksburg and everything is a winery here. Even the McDonalds probably has a vineyard out back), that grows wildflowers, and harvests the seeds for sale. They had a trail in the back of the place that you could walk through and get a look at their wildflowers. It was pretty nice.
And you know me, I love me some wildflowers.
If they're grown at a farm and planted by people, are they really wildflowers? Not very wild, is it?
The wildflower farm also had a butterfly garden, where they planted a bunch of milkweed, and the monarchs were swarming all over that crap.
These two videos are interesting, just look at all of those butterflies moving from one flower to another.
Here's a couple more videos in the more manicured part of the butterfly garden. There's plenty of butterflies here too, but now we can get even closer to them with our phones.
We left the farm with a bunch of seeds that we're planning on growing next spring, and clothes that we were starting to sweat through. I was kind of glad when we left for home, which meant we could stay in the car with the air conditioning for several hours before getting out again.
Okay, today we have...Not Captain America. This is actually a US Agent figure from the Falcon and the Winter Soldier series on Disney+.
He was Captain America for a little while, but was then let go after getting caught on cell phone video killing someone who had already been neutralized. Never fear, shady old Julia Louis-Dreyfus is here to recruit him into the Thunderbolts. Yay.
This one is one of my favorite Captain America figures. This is the Face-Off Captain America that Toy Biz put out back in 2006.
Rish and I were big-time toy hunters in those days, and we got all the different variants of the Face-Off figures. They came in two-packs with a hero and his arch nemesis. Captain America came with Red Skull, who I wasn't particularly interested in. I only wanted to assemble the Avengers, so I sold the Red Skull off, and kept this Captain America.
For years, I swore that it was the best Captain America they ever made, but a few years back I finally had to admit that their most recent release of a classic Captain America outshined the Face-Off version, so I retired this Cap to the holiday decoration roster. But here he is now, it's his one time to shine each year.
Isn't it nice that the Star-spangled Man with a Plan gets to pose next to a star-spangled bow? I bet the bow has a plan too.
Are you dying to know how my story, "The Ghost in the Monitor" ends? Well, the second part is now available on Patreon. For as little as a pledge for a dollar a month, you could be listening to the end of the story now. Maybe consider joining on with the other supporters on Patreon, you'll be glad you did.
This one is Citizen V. I don't really know much about him, to tell you the truth. He just looks great all dressed in an American flag-themed costume. I think he's actually a bad guy masquerading as a good guy, and using the stars and stripes to fool America into thinking he's out for their own good. Hmmm...
This week, things really started to come together. If it wasn't for the fact that we celebrated my wedding anniversary this weekend, I might have had a perfect week. No matter. I'll just get right back to it, because I am getting totally used to this, and I'm loving it.
I put up my 4th of July decorations, including some bunting, bows, and of course, my America-themed action figures.
Here's one of the America-themed, in fact he's the captain of them.
I've got tons more, and I think I'm going to post one a day as we head toward the Fourth. I think that might give me a post a day until then...though I may have to start posting two when we get close. I'm not sure. I haven't counted them yet. See you tomorrow with another salute to America.
I have been keeping all the stuff I've been gathering for Ankletown Station in a big storage tub for a while, and adding bit by bit as I go. I haven't gotten it all out and looked at it to see just what exactly I have for a long time, so I decided to do that today. Check out this picture.
Sorry about the rug as the background, it's just too busy and makes it very hard to see the figures and stuff, but that is what I have on the floor of my den and the den is where I emptied out the box...so that's where they ended up.
Anyway, that's a lot of figures. There's 36 Fortnite figures.
31 Final Faction figures with 3 vehicles.
18 DC figures (5 Batmans? What the hell?) with a little speeder bike-type vehicle.
As well as five more vehicles (a Batwing, a Batmobile, a police car, and two motorcycles).
3 Jurassic Park figures, along with six dinosaurs.
3 Lightyear figures with a couple of vehicles.
A couple Transformers that are a good scale to match Star Wars guys, as well as the head of a Grimlock that I think I'm going to have mounted on someone's wall like a hunting trophy.
Four Marvel figures (I don't know if Spider-man will make any appearances on Ankletown, but I have him if I want him).
A few crappy Reaction Figures from the 80s Dune movie.
10 Halo figures with some assorted vehicles and other accessories.
A few random figures from various in-scale lines that I may or may not use.
And 52 Star Wars figures (as well as a goofy-ass Ronto from the Special Editions)
Along with all of that, I have done a couple of custom figures.
Not only that, but this was just the stuff in the storage box. I also have an AT-AT, an AT-ST, a Sand Skiff, and various other figures on my regular shelves. They'll stay on the regular shelves, but they could also make an appearance on Ankletown sometimes as well.
Looking at all of this stuff, all I can say is that I have plenty to start a little town with. I think I might need to make a little pledge to myself that I can't get anything else until I make at least one building. So, that's the deal. I can't buy anymore until I make a first building for Ankletown Station. Next time you see me posting on here about Ankletown, it will be to show off the first thing I built. Hopefully, it will be worth showing off. See you soon.
After getting that dinosaur for a beast of burden that I talked about in my earlier post this week, I went out on my usual rounds to check all the Targets, Walmarts, and particularly Rosses to see what toys they had. At Ross, I found that they made Titan Heroes Jurassic Park dinosaurs. Titan Heroes are the Hasbro line that usually makes cheap yet durable 12-inch figures of Marvel and Star Wars characters. Little Anklevich has a whole collection of them.
They tend to have pretty good sculpting, but are always horribly lacking in painted detail. They're made for little kids, and they aren't that particular about that kind of stuff. Titan Heroes are the toys that I have repainted into really nice looking display pieces a few times in the past.
So, you know what you're getting. It's a decent toy with little to no paint. They usually sell for pretty cheap, maybe $10, although with inflation, they're probably up to $12 by now. Well, they had a dinosaur that was basically a velociraptor...although I think it had some other name like ultracoolasaurus or atrociraptor or some crap like that.
Since it wasn't a velociraptor in name, they felt free to cast the toy in a different color. This one was white, and since it was a 12-inch toy, it was pretty big too. It would be perfect for a 4-inch figure to ride on.
The worst thing was that they wanted $9 for it...at Ross? That was pretty much regular price at the regular store. Why was it so much?
I was on the phone with Rish at the time, and we talked about it. He was out and about looking for toys too, and was right near a Ross, so he stopped in to see if they had one at his store too, and he could see what I was talking about. We talked about it, how it would look with a figure on the back, what could be done with the figure, and by the time we were done, I had decided to buy it.
Then I went to the front, and saw that the line was about a mile long, and would take at least a year to wait through before I got to the register. I went and put the toy back.
But I didn't forget it. Now, today, I decided to go back and buy it after all.
It's not bad. I wish the stripes continued onto the tail, but I may have to add some myself to make it match. As expected, it will need a little paint to bring out the detail that is in the sculpt, but this thing will look great. It's pretty big for a velociraptor, so it will be great for a 4-inch figure to ride on.
I need to figure out how to make a good, yet easy to make, saddle to put on these dinosaurs, and I'll be good to go. I watched this video from a woman who made her own saddles for Schliech horses...
but her video just made me tired. I wonder if I could just buy one of those cheesy horse-riding toys that you see at Walmart and the like, take the saddle off, and put it on a dinosaur. I had plans to do the same thing with battle cat's saddle and a polar bear that I put up around Christmastime.
So, this saddle:
On this figure:
Like this:
Yeah, it needs some adjustment, but usually with some heat, the plastic becomes pliable and will change its shape to what you want for it. So, I think it will work in the end. Would the same be the case for a horse saddle on a dinosaur? I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out what I do.
