Month: May 2020

Top Almost Twenty-(ish) Movies

Posted on by Greg

On a whim the other day I went through some of my old draft posts and realised it was getting kind of cluttered. It was full of thoughts that never got finished and half formed ideas that I never got around to. Most of them were unpublishable, either due to the moment passing or me just not remembering where I was going with the ideas. I ended up deleting a large amount because I know I’ll never get back to them and their time is gone but I kept a few to work on over the next few weeks.

This is the first one that I’m performing thread necromancy on. I’ve polished it off as best I can and added a few bits here and there. Let’s see how it goes.

So a little over a year and a half ago (Holy crap, I swear it was just yesterday! – Editor), some of you may remember that I did a 7 day book challenge on Facebook. Seven covers of books posted without explanation. Of course I followed up here with the explanation as to why they affected me so.

When it ended, I said I would revisit the topic because there are so many more books than 7 that have affected my life. The more I thought about it though, I realised that every book I’ve read has shaped my life in some form or fashion. Even the ones I hated.

So, what else could I do. Well, this being the modern age and me being a typical Gen-X-er. Why movies of course. I grew up in the middle of the movie rental era (heck come to think of it, I witnessed the whole lifespan of the movie rental phenomenon right to the bitter end, but that’s a blog post for another day.) Back in the days when “please be kind, rewind” actually meant something, I’m pretty certain that I watched most of these movies before it was age appropriate for me to do so. It didn’t do me any harm beyond fuelling my already overactive imagination. Movies may not have had the same impact as books on my young life, they certainly stoked the fires already there.

So without further adieu, here are some of the movies that shaped my youth (In no particular order)

Continue reading “Top Almost Twenty-(ish) Movies”

A Brief Musical Interlude

Posted on by Greg

Awhile back, before all this Covid-19 crap hit the fan, I saw someone post an amusing musical thought experiment on Facebook and figured I’d get around to writing about it at some point. Well, apparently I didn’t.

Now that I have the time, I’ll take a stab at them and see what comes from it. Now obviously I could do this on Facebook but as my trust in the platform’s security is less than zero and while these are fun thought experiments, they’re also thinly veiled social data mining experiments. I’ll play, but in my own corner of the internet where no one goes and therefore less likely to be seen by anyone.

First up. The question was: What is a song that you love by a band that you hate, and then What is a song that you hate by a band that you love?

First one is easy enough for me. I can’t stand Red Hot Chili Peppers in any form and usually turn the station whenever I hear them. I do however really enjoy their version of Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground. It’s so frenetic and enthusiastic and I can’t stop myself from cranking the volume every time it comes on in the car.

Second one, not so easy. If I look at a lot of The Tragically Hip’s catalogue, there’s quite a lot that I’m not fond of, especially their later work. It’s good and I’ll listen to it, but it just doesn’t speak to me as much as Road Apples, Fully Completely and Day For Night do. That being said, I think that I’ll have to pick Fiddler’s Green off of their Road Apples album as one I will always turn off when I hear it.

The second challenge was that if you were to have a virtual concert and could only have bands that started with the letters of your name.

G – Green Day
R – Rage Against The Machine
E – Everclear
G – Garbage
O – Offspring
R – Rush
Y – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

M – Modest Mouse
c – Cage The Elephant
F – Foo Fighters
A – Arctic Monkeys
L – Linkin Park
L – Lumineers

While there isn’t any Tragically Hip or Twenty-One Pilots, I think I’ll have a good time nonetheless.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled social distancing.

Well, Hello There.

Posted on by Greg

Ok. I couldn’t resist a little Star Wars inside joke on today of all days.

So, the world is still spinning off its axis and into oblivion. COVID-19 is still going strong. The orange idiot in the south is still suggesting to his cult that they should inject themselves with bleach and UV light as the cure and the rest of the world watches in dumbstruck awe at the shite that pours from his mouth unfiltered.

Thankfully some parts of the world are showing signs of coming out on the other side of this. Lots of places are starting to reopen, though quite frankly, I think it’s too soon. Still no legible cure in sight and the best we can hope for is more social distancing and lots of PPE?… Not the best plan guys.

Anyways… I had originally decided to do a dorky Star Wars pun and make a post about Miniature painting. I hadn’t intended this post to go off the rails and be a state of the world post, though with as pervasive as this thing is, it colours everything we do these days whether we realize it or not. So before I get distracted any further, back to the original plan.

Since the lockdown and stay at home order, I’ve really tried to find something that centers me and calms me down. Too much shit going on in the world these days. I’ve stepped back from most of my video game time (plus my wife has been addicted to Sims4 on the PS4 lately so sharing a console can be a pain) and went old school. I read. I work on my Star Wars campaign and I paint miniatures.

I’ve been painting minis since my AD&D days back in grade 5 (thankfully none of those paint jobs survived) and after a 15+ year hiatus, I realized I missed it and decided to get back into it. I’ve had my new paints and miniatures for a couple of years now since I got back into the hobby but I can’t ever seem to get motivated to start painting with the same sort of passion that I used to. I’ll paint a base coat here, a shade there. One brushstroke on and off every other week sort of thing. I’ve used the excuse that I didn’t have enough time, or that maybe my passion had faded. I certainly don’t have the same skill I had back then and my eyes and hands aren’t as deft as they once were.

During this silly stay at home lockdown, I came to realize that my passion hadn’t faded, I did have the time, and sure my hands and eyes weren’t as young as they used to be but I wasn’t dead yet. As for the skill and “muscle memory”, after a few false starts I came to realize, that yeah I didn’t have the same skill I did before, I actually was better than I used to be. I just needed to do what everyone does… practice.

And practice I did.

After about 6 hours of futzing about, I finally came up with the first model in about 20 years that I have actually completed and am satisfied with.

  • REAPER GUS SKU 1537
  • REAPER GUS SKU 1537

Now, I can’t say that I’m 100% happy with him, and I could go on and on about what I see wrong about him still, but I honestly learned to accept when I’m done, rather than he’s “finished”. I could fiddle about with him for another 20 years and still not be finished.

I actually went well outside my comfort zone and posted this guy on one of the painting groups I’m a part of on Facebook and it was the weirdest feeling. First, I rarely post anything other than a positive comment here or there and I mostly lurk and admire all the amazing paint jobs and painters whose skill I won’t ever achieve. Yet I took the risk and I was amazed at the feedback and response. It’s the oddest feeling to have a 100+ random strangers like and comment on a piece you worked on. I got a ton of great feedback and it helped a lot to rebuild my confidence in my abilities and the realization that it didn’t have to be perfect, just better than the last one.

Yay me. Since I posted the pic on Facebook, I’ve put more paint to models than I have in years and I look forward to posting more of my work in the near-ish future.