I know it was only for four days, but I wrote every day that I said I would in October. That's something, right? Today was Halloween, but I still managed to write 721 words on my story, "Karma Is My Boyfriend."
That gives me 2,372 for the month, and I did at least 500 words for every day.
I also did editing on the audio of "Klaus Kringle," which I had made the goal to have finished by November 1st. Actually, the goal was to have both "Kris Kringle" and "Crossing the Globe" done by November 1st. I'm definitely behind of that. "Klaus Kringle" is 100% done with the recording, and probably 60% finished with the editing.
"Crossing the Globe" is at 0% in both stages. I did record on it for a while the other day, but the program crashed right in the middle and I lost everything that I'd done. That really irritated me, and I haven't gone back to it since. I will, though. I just need to have a time when folks aren't around, and it's quiet enough to record. With my new schedule at work, there's precious little of that time anymore.
I also finished the editing on my weekly weight loss video. So, I did an awful lot, if I don't say so myself. Pretty good to work in the writing as well. Hopefully I can keep all those balls in the air from here on out.
First non-weekend day doing the writing thing, and I did just fine again. I had my words written early in the day, which is the best way to go, if you ask me. It's that motivational thing about eating a frog. Supposedly, Mark Twain once said that if you have to eat a live frog, do it first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day. If you save it for later, you'll hear that thing croaking in your mind all day until you do. I guess get the hard things done first.
Not that writing is the hard thing, but it is the important thing. I could miss out on other things and it wouldn't matter, but my goal for the next 32 days is to write every single day, so it is important if I miss it. Therefore, the earlier I get it done, the better--the more likely that I do it and don't forget it accidentally.
So, today I wrote 572 words on my story called "Karma Is My Boyfriend." That puts me at 1,651 words for the month...also for the year. That leaves me still slightly over 300,000 words to go to beat my goal.
Oh, I suppose I probably ought to explain why my goal is 304,475 for the year. Rish called me up today an asked me why, after seeing that chart on my other posts. It's a pretty random-seeming number. Well, allow me to post another chart that I made back in 2019-2020:
That is my total from 2020. I got 304,474 for the whole year. It's the highest word total that I ever got in a year. I had the same goal last year, but I failed to achieve it. I only got this:
Because I only made through half of the year. I certainly would have achieved it if I'd stuck with it, but I let a family tragedy throw me off my game, ad quit instead. So, I'm still chasing that. My goal is one word more than 2020.
Now, I'm pretty certain that I will easily best that. I will probably get thousands of words more than that. In fact, back in 2020 I achieved that number by early September. I didn't write for the whole final two months of the year. I skipped 52 days that I could have written. 52 days times 1,000 words a day means 52,000 words. I could have had that many more. So, I expect that I will achieve that this time around, but I won't make that my goal this time. This time, I just have to beat last time.
I'm well on my way, though. I've hit 500 words every day so far. That's a great start, especially considering that my 500 words a day goal isn't supposed to start until December. Maybe I can move the timeline up. I'll see if I can't hit 500 words a day all of October/November, and if I do, I'll make December the start of 1,000 words a day. That sounds like a worthwhile stretch goal.
I got one other thing when I was at Ollie's this week. Last week, I brought home a ship from the Star Wars Mission Fleet line of toys to see if it would fit in with the 1/72 scale ships that I've been collecting for use on a mini version of Ankletown Station.
That ship was a good deal out of scale, but I suspected that I could probably adjust it to look like a ship that was in scale after all. I saw another ship at Ollie's last week, though, that might be in better scale. I considered buying it, but figured I would try a cheaper one first.
After trying the Ahsoka Tano ship, I looked into the scaling of the Razor Crest from the same line. The Razor Crest is supposed to be a much larger ship. It's not just a one person fighter, it's more like a bus or a semi truck. It's big enough to have a galley, a bunk, a head, and maybe a...I don't know...a mizzen mast. So, it's supposed to be larger.
I watched a review of the ship on YouTube where they measured the toy with a tape measure. It was 12 inches long. I looked up the supposed measurements of the real ship, and in world it's supposed to be 80 feet long. If you do the math, that means that the Mission Fleet ship is actually a 1/80 scale model (that is if I didn't totally eff the math up. I was struggling to work it out for some reason. Brain fart or something). That's pretty close to 1/72, so the ship should be just right for my space station.
So, while I was at Ollie's again, I grabbed it.
It's a pretty good looking ship.
It doesn't look cartoony at all to me, despite coming from the Mission Fleet collection. There are a few things that might be a little off. The cannons on the side look like they might be a little bit big, but not terribly so.
Nothing looks weirdly proportioned like the hands and feet of the figures that it came with, however.
They're not bad figures, just too cutesy...and of course way out of scale for what I'm after. I actually like these figures, and I'll probably find a place for them in one of the little cubby holes that inevitably get created when I make the spaces for the bigger characters that I need to display on my Wall of Voodoo.
What I mean to put this ship with, though, is figures like these Lightyear astronauts.
It seems to me that that is exactly the scale that ship had ought to be for figures of that size. Big ships like this one almost never get a toy that's in the proper scale for the figures that it comes with. They made a great big ship with HasLab a few years ago, but even that one was smaller than it should be. To make it in proper scale would simply be unfeasible, because it would have to be so enormous that a kid wouldn't be able to play with it at all.
So, this scale is perfect for me. Oh, here's a shot of it alongside the starfighters that the Lightyear figures came with.
Looks good to me, like a C17 with a fighter jet escort or something. Which is probably a pretty good comparison.
So, I'm happy with it. I suspect that it's the last ship that I'll get from the mission fleet line, however. I don't think they have many others that are in proper scale for what I'm looking for.
I don't know how long I'll keep up this daily report thing, but I'll do it for a little while...at least until I feel like I've got the writing habit in place. Here's another daily update. It's day two of my new writing push, and I managed to write again. It was another 500 word day. 546 to be exact.
Still working on the story for Marshal's contest...hopefully I haven't missed the due date already...Oh, crap! I guess it was due on May 1st. I suppose this one will just have to be for me. It's already 4,159 words long anyway. The word count limit was 7,500, which I think the story will exceed, so it probably wouldn't have worked anyway.
Anyhow, here's my chart updated for today:
Pretty cool that I've managed 500 words both days already. Still a month from the 500 words a day goal, but already crushing it. Aw, yeah!
Last week, I went to Ollie's, which is a half hour drive away, to check to see if they had some GI Joe figures that I'd heard on some YouTube videos they were offering. They didn't have what I was after, and I was a little bummed, but they had other things that made the trip worthwhile to me. So, it wasn't a bad experience, and I was willing to give it another shot this Saturday morning.
This time, I was a little more happy about my experience, because they had one of the things that I had gone there in search of in the first place.
Yeah, that's a case of Sgt. Slaughter figures there on the shelf. That's the guy that I was there looking for. Sgt. Slaughter original cost $33, and I was going to skip it altogether. I'd already bought the Action Force version of Sgt. Slaughter, so I didn't really need one. I wanted one, but I didn't have to have it.
Now that it's shown up at Ollie's, however, I wanted it bad. Mostly because, as you can see down there on the bottom of the box, they only wanted $13 for it. I grabbed it right away.
It's a pretty dang cool figure. Sarge is a really big guy too. I set him up next to my other Sgt. Slaughter. Here's how they compare.
The Action Force guy looks like the Hasbro guy's younger brother or something. I'm particularly happy to have actually found the target of my search here. The best part is the one accessory that Sarge comes with.
Yeah, he comes with a miniature version of himself. This toy comes with a toy version of itself. It's a toy within a toy. It's a toy inception. I actually did a post about this way back when they first announced it last summer. Now I have toy inception in my collection as I always hoped I could.
Oh, since I was at Ollie's, I got the Snake Eyes movie figure as well.
As with Sgt. Slaughter, I already have a Snake Eyes...but this guy was only $5. I couldn't turn it down.
The one I have is not the movie figure, so they're not the same. I was thinking I could pull the Storm Shadow out of the lineup of Cobra figures that I have on my shelf...
And put him together with this Snake Eyes in the middle of some kind of ninja battle in their own little cubby hole.
The new vintage-style version of Firefly is coming out right now, so I could easily swap him into Storm Shadow's spot, so it wouldn't even leave a hole in the line.
Good trip to Ollie's this week. And it looks like it won't be my last. I texted my nephew about how I'd found Sgt. Slaughter at Ollie's, and he asked if I could pick one up for him as well. I was already home, and not about to drive the half hour back to the store, but I told him I'd head over next week to see if I could get one for him still. I could give Ollie's one more chance to have Crimson Guards available to buy, and get my nephew's figure too while I was there. We'll see how it goes.
A week ago, I gushed about the new album by Blink-182, quoted line after line of their song that left me feeling inspired, and pledged to start writing right after my birthday. Well, today is the day after my birthday, and it's time to get started. So, today I pulled up my story, "Karma Is My Boyfriend," which I began writing a year ago for Marshal Latham's Quordle Quell Story Contest but never finished, and began typing away at it again.
I'm here to attest to the fact that it was fun, I enjoyed my time that I spent on it, and I wrote 533 words. It was easier than I expected for the first day. I was fully prepared to only get ten words and quit if I had to, so long as I could say that I wrote something. Instead, I wrote enough to have made my goal of 500 words...my goal that won't even begin until December.
Right now, my goal is simply to write every day. I'm just trying to get back in the habit. I guess day one of establishing the habit went well.
So, here's day one on my new chart toward the future. My old shit ends here tonight.
...But I just felt like it. I have no good reason. It was full price, and I am almost certain that I will see it someday soon on clearance, but I bought it anyway.
It's not even a great figure. Too much gold on this guy. The better version is the one that comes with the goofy dinosaur armor.
That's the one that I actually want. Because it comes with the stupid dinosaur crap, though, it costs double what the other one does. so, I have more patience to wait for clearance for that. Hopefully I can still manage to get it then, because I think Iron Man is definitely a character that belongs in Ankletown Station.
A while back, Disney decreed that they would not make any more 'slave' Leia toys. That meant that even though they now have a new amazing face painting technology that makes the toys look as realistic and accurate as can be, they will not be remaking the old Star Wars Black Series figure of Leia in her sexy metal bikini again. The figure that I have is the only one I will be getting.
But the face on that thing looks terrible. It's super basic, almost primitive compared to what they have now. I see all the new Leia figures coming out, and their faces look great. No chance for a new figure to go with all the other Jabba's palace figures I have, however.
Unless...
A lot of people will buy newer figures and swap the heads over to older figures that need an upgrade. I talked with Rish about that, and he suggested that I needed to get the Yavin ceremony figure of Princess Leia. The hair was pretty much the same for both figures, so it would be a perfect swap. Of course, I wasn't going to pay full price for just a head, so unless I found it for cheap...
In steps Ross. I was there the other day, and I found a Yavin ceremony Princess Leia for $5. At that price, I could bear to buy a figure just for the head.
I pulled my other Leia off the shelf to try the head swap. The hair really was pretty similar.
She had winding braids on top of her head in the new one instead of golden combs or whatever that is, but it's close enough for a less fussy fan like myself.
When I pulled the heads off and swapped them, though. Things didn't look right. The new head was a little bigger, and it sat on the neck wrong, way low, making her look like she had no neck. I messed with it a little until I thought it looked right. What do you think?
It might be a little big. I can't decide if I like it or not. Maybe I am one of those fussy collectors after all. For now, however, I put her back in her spot on the shelf with the new head in place.
Stuck in that crowd, it's hard to see any issues at all, so I'll probably just stick with it. Unless, I suppose, they decide to change their mind and release a new version of this figure sometime in the future. You never know.
The final part of my novella, "Do Over," is now available over on Patreon. You should head over and check it out! If you're not a member of the Patreon, you should head over, join up, and then check it out! See you there.
Marshal Latham, who has spent a great deal of time on the shows here at Big Anklevich On Health, has been continuing his journey Into Health. He's spent the last 75 days working to get himself back on track. Now that he's reached the end, how did it go? And what is he planning from here? Watch to find out!
My wife dragged me to the Home Goods store this weekend. She wanted to look at their Christmas stuff...yeah, the week before Halloween that's what she wanted to do. She used the excuse that she needed to get some shampoo that they have at TJ Maxx, which is apparently an affiliated store or something, because the two stores are combined into one, like you can sometimes find with KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut.
Since we were in TJ Maxx, I told her I was going to look at their toys. They usually only have crap that babies would like, but I figured I'd look through it anyway. It was better than looking at shampoo and Christmas decorations.
I found something that I liked, surprisingly enough. It was this thing:
Well, not exactly that. Mine is a little different. For starters, mine has a different colored top to it. Oh, also someone had stolen the astronaut off the package. That was fine, because I didn't want the astronaut. I would have just thrown it out. Even better, because the figure was gone, they'd marked it down to $4.50. I didn't have to wonder if I was spending too much, therefore.
I like mine better than the one in the picture above that I found on Amazon. If you look at it compared to the Apollo 11 capsule, they're pretty similar in shape.
Similar window shape and stuff. I think I could probably get away with doing nothing more than just weathering the toy and make it look a lot like the Apollo 11 capsule. But I could take it further and paint it in shades of brown to really bring out the look.
I wasn't sure if the capsule would work for what I had in mind. I was thinking it could be an Earth-based capsule that had somehow made its way onto Ankletown Station. It could probably fit in with the 1/72 scale things like the Lightyear ships I have.
Doesn't look too bad, does it? About the right size. I posed it with some of the one inch tall figures that came with the Lightyear spaceships to see if it looks silly or good.
Again, I think it doesn't look too bad. It's probably a little big. Those capsules were so small that they barely had room for the astronauts inside of them, but it could be a capsule from a more advanced rocket or something. I think it still works. I'm going to have to give this thing a good paint job, and throw it on a landing platform somewhere in the station. I like it.
My wife wanted to sit down together and watch some TV. I was surprised by her suggestion, though.
"Why don't we try this show?" she said, and pointed to the TV.
I looked up and saw this:
My mouth dropped open. She'd never suggested that we watch that kind of thing together before. I was down for one of those ones where the tomboy lets the guy pound away with his hammer, though, if you know what I mean. I was a little surprised, however, that she would be suggesting something like that when the kids were still awake.
"Sure," I said.
Then she put it on, and my hopes were dashed. It turns out it was just another one of those home remodeling shows. Good bones means something totally different in the renovation community.
I fell all the way out of ketosis, and needed to do something serious to fix it. I've always heard that the fastest way back into ketosis is by way of a fast, usually a 72-hour fast, so that's what I did this week. Big time fasting, and some good carnivore set me straight, but how well did it work?
Ollie's is a half hour drive for me, and not in a direction that I'm going anyway, so I don't go there very often. The trip I made out there was only my third trip ever, and the store has been open more than a year.
While I was there, therefore, I wanted to make sure to get anything that I really wanted, so I didn't have regrets, and feel the need to drive back out there again in a few weeks...or days.
One of the things I was looking at, and wondering about, were these spaceships from a toy line called Star Wars Mission Fleet.
This is a line made for little, little kids. It's one of those ones where the figures have great big feet and big hands, to make them look cuter, and the ships tend to be blockier, rather than their usual sleek shape, like that X-Wing you see above.
However, the ships aren't always that way. I've often looked at some of the ships they have at Walmart, and wondered how well they would scale into either of the ideas I have for space stations...either 1/18 scale or 1/72 scale. More likely that it would be 1/72, but who knows. Maybe a 3 3/4 inch figure could fit in behind the wheel of one of these ships.
I never have checked to find out, however, because they cost a decent amount of money. the last thing I want to do is pay a bunch for something I just can't use.
However, at Ollie's they were only asking $4.99 for some of the ships, so I decided to buy one and see how it might scale. I chose the Ahsoka Tano Jedi Starfighter.
It looks pretty good, as far as the shape of it goes. Not weird or misshapen in an attempt to make it look cute. The figure was pretty much a worthless thing, though.
I couldn't think of any use that I'd have for that.
I put this ship next to the Lightyear ships that I'd gotten over the last while.
It doesn't look ridiculously large or anything, but it definitely doesn't look like a single person starfighter that it is supposed to be. I looked at it, and thought that I could make it look like a ship that maybe four or five people flew in if I painted it right. I just needed to paint that canopy, and leave only a tiny portion clear for the much smaller crew to see out.
I'd have to remove that droid head too. I wondered if I could salvage it and use it for a droid that could walk around the station. It's much smaller than the droids that I just got a while back when I was visiting Rish Outfield though.
Maybe I could get it off and use it on some other ship, or maybe it could go on a much smaller droid...like a Chopper sized astromech. There has to be something I can figure out. I was thinking that maybe I could use the gun that it came with to go in the empty hole the droid head leaves vacant.
It fits into the three little slots that it has made for it in the two wings and right at the front of the ship, but moving it back where the droid was would probably make it so the crew couldn't see out the front. I'll probably have to try something different.
What color do you think I should paint this thing? I was thinking it might be fun to make it silver. The idea reminded me a lot of Queen Amidala's ship from The Phantom Menace and also of Max from The Flight of the Navigator.
I have a tendency to always want to make spaceships silver, even though it's kind of boring and generic though. It's some kind of 50s sci-fi thing that rules me, I don't know. Maybe I'll make it white, and give it a couple of stripes or something like a regular Star Wars ship.
On YouTube the other day this video came up on my feed:
This guy was going on about how Ollie's Bargain Outlet has a bunch of GI Joe Classified figures on for cheap prices. He had a picture of two Crimson Guards and a Sgt. Slaughter that he'd gotten there. The Crimson Guards were marked at $4.99 and the Sgt. Slaughter was marked at $12.99. Those figures retailed at $24.99 and $33.99 respectively.
I was very interested to hear this. I'd passed on the Sgt. Slaughter because I'd picked up one from Action Force already, and the one from Hasbro was so worthlessly expensive. I was pretty sad to pass it by, though, because the Hasbro one comes with an accessory that is an action figure of itself. It's like an action figure inception, a figure within a figure.
Now, if they're suddenly showing up at Ollie's for much cheaper, I had no reason to turn it down, and a good reason to hit the road and see what Ollie's has. So, that's what I did the other morning.
I was disappointed when I arrived, however. There were no Sgt. Slaughter figures anywhere. There weren't even any Crimson Guards. I already have three of those guys.
But I would happily build the largest army I could of them. Ten, twenty, thirty? I'd buy them all.
What they did have was a load of those figures from the Snake Eyes movie. There were a few Snake Eyes figures, tons of the Baroness, tons of Storm Shadows, tons of Scarletts, and tons of Akiko (the character invented for the movie that doesn't exist in GI Joe lore from the past).
I looked through their other offerings, because they had to have a thing or two that I'd like to buy. It's a big store, and they have a lot of toys. I found several things that I considered getting. Then I came across something that surprised me...Star Wars Vintage Collection figures.
After gushing so much about how they had one or two of them at Ross the other day, I couldn't ignore something like this. They had Kuiil, the ugnaught who helps Din Djarin in The Mandalorian.
I have one of these figures, but I saw somebody do a video on how to use him to make a highly articulated jawa, and I bemoaned the fact that I didn't get more of him the one time I saw him go on sale on Amazon. I could totally buy as many as I want now that they are only $4 though. If only I could find the jawas on for $4 too.
I was thinking about seeing if I could switch out the heads on Kuiil and baby Anakin.
I tried it, however, and their heads didn't really fit very well on the body of the other. Also, they looked pretty silly. Kuiil is much heavier than Anakin, so their bodies didn't swap out well.
They also had a character called Luminara Unduli.
I had the sneaking suspicion that I already had this figure, but I couldn't confirm it from Ollie's. I tried to search through old blog posts on my phone to see if I ever mentioned it, but never came up with any. I gave in and bought it. It was only $4, so if I had it already, it wouldn't be a huge disaster.
As soon as I got home and checked the blog posts on my computer, though, I found the figure in one of the posts I'd made about taking the census of Ankletown Station. Dang.
But it was okay. She comes with enough accessories that if I removed a few of them, she could easily look like a different person.
Makes a pretty big difference, I think. If I had to take it further, I could even put this head onto one of those Valkyrie bodies, and she could be one of those ladies with her helmet off. I don't know that I'll go there, but I could.
Lastly, I also found this old figure of Ponda Baba, known to us older folks as Walrus Man.
It's not actually an SWVC figure. It's from back when they tried doing Star Wars Black Series as a 6 inch line as well as a 3 3/4 inch line. That didn't last long, but there are apparently some figures still hanging around from those days.
I pretty much buy any figure that is an alien, so this guy was a must. He even comes with an extra arm where you can simulate it being cut off by Obi-Wan.
"This one's not worth the trouble."
So, those were my pickups at Ollie's. On the way home, I passed a Ross, and figured I would stop in and see if they had anything I hadn't already seen. They didn't. There was a Target next door, and this weekend was its grand opening, so I figured I'd check it out too.
In their toy section, I found something I'd yet to see in the wild, Cad Bane--the bounty hunting space cowboy that got his live action debut in the Boba Fett show that sucked so badly last year.
Cad Bane was probably one of the coolest things about the show, and I was happy to buy this figure, even though it was at full price. He's pretty nice. He makes me wish that I'd bought some of those old Dime Novel Legends figures back in the day, so I could make them have a high noon confrontation. A stand off between a cowboy and a space cowboy could be pretty fun.
Anyway, these four new figures make a pretty good addition to my population.
