League Assignment: Cool Story Bro

     Our Tale Opens....

    on a middle aged man, somewhat thick about the midsection but trying to lose weight and get back in shape...

     A man with a single desire on the night our tale unfolds- a desire to put carbon arrows into paper targets, pull them out, and put them in again. I slung my battered old compound bow into the trunk of my civic and started the car.

     Seems easy enough, I suppose. But to be interesting, the story has to have conflict, and this is a story of MAN Vs. THE ELEMENTS

     You see, this night was a night of late season snow in Colorado, and late season snow on Colorado doesn't mess around. and my Civic, while very reliable, tends to turn into a sled once snow gets above the bottom of the car. The bottom of the civic isn't that high off the ground, either.

      I made it three blocks before I started getting hung up badly. This was a heavy, wet snow, like trying to drive through Jell-O. No wimpy powder snow here, this was snow with a vengeance. so I turned the car around and started back up my street. I live on a cul-de-sac, on a hill, and winter weather and gravity and grade are not friends to my car. I got about 25 feet up the hill before the car started to hang and slide. I backed back down and retried, to no avail. So I parked on the avenue and decided to hoof it back home. Abandon the car, abandon the bow, abandon the journey.

     We take an aside here, to cover how I'm dressed. I'm wearing:

• a wool pea coat- good choice
• a hat- good choice
• khakis-indifferent choice
• no socks-pretty rare I wear socks anyway
• moccasin-style loafers-not a good choice

     So I start hiking up my street, seeing people out doing things with their cars through my badly snowed up glasses, seeing people I don't really recognize, but I don't often see my neighbors anyway. But I slog through the slush and snow to see...the other avenue, not the houses at the end of the cul-de-sac.

     What this means to the layman, (someone not familiar with the topography of my neighborhood) is that I have just spent somewhere between 10 minutes and an eternity walking up

THE

WRONG

DAMN

STREET

 

I parked the car further along the avenue than I thought, and went up the wrong block

 

     I toyed with some choices at this point. stay here, build a snow shelter, raise sled dogs...or start walking. I walked, because I'm not sure where you even get blubber from. I walked down the hill, down the avenue, and back up the next hill. I found my house almost at the summit, I shed my snow-matted coat and hat, peeled off my snow-crusted shoes and went and put my feet in a warm bath. And when I could feel them...they hurt.

 

 I walked down and recovered my car the next day-no one had hit it in the snow, the bow was OK for having been in the trunk overnight. It took a little work to drive it up my hill, but I made it.

 

     So now I'm much more careful about the weather when I am planning on going to the range

Update: Links Begin!
GI Jigsaw tells the tale of painting of the 2nd Engineers
Achievements in Gaming gets taken to school by his son
Geeky Vixen shows us her true fangirl colors
Jathniel tells how a family relationship was "transformed"
Brian of Cool and Collected spins a tale of Rocky and the land before Spoilers

and the others yet to come
 

 

League Assignment- My Life in One Square Foot

    
     In the movie "Any Given Sunday" (which I have not seen, but probably should) Al Pacino's character, Tony D'Amato gives a speech about life being a game of inches. This is approximately a square foot of those inches. A square foot of stuff I love, stuff I need, stuff I sometimes struggle with...

     my PC-I spend a  lot of my life seated here, both for my paid job and my life outside it. Loaded on the screen is unrendered artwork in Carrara 8 of the Amateur Skeptics, of which I am a part. in the background, not fully intended, is my desk phone which I use on that paid job. In front of the monitor is Optimus Prime, who has guided me with his wisdom for a long time through his many incarnations.

     Scattered across my keyboard are my leatherman Skeletool(don't leave home without it, or save versus crippling urge to check and recheck pocket at -8), My Blood Pressure Medicine, and barely visible behind Tango, the Avengers on DVD. Note- this is the first time Tango has seen the new Camera, and he was UNFOND, hence he is within my steely grip rather than perching. He is also eyeing Optimus' Ion Blaster with an eye toward taking me out


My Co-Leagues/Colleagues had these square feet of their own:
The Nerd Nook showed us a few of his favorite things
Brian's post at Cool and Collected runs the spectrum from explicable to downright mysterious
Achievements in Gaming gave us the pic and the list, topped by the Man in Black
Happy haunted Sunshine House can seriously pack a square foot
Stunt Zombie shares my taste in Multi-Tools
Jathniel gives us a glimpse into Sci-fi, baseball, Mustangs and the scripture, to his soundtrack
in D.I. Treasures post, the space between his treasures is...more treasure
Pop Rewind gives us two bloggers, and two feet for the price of one
AEIOU and Sometimes Why gives us a window on the soul
Diary of a Dorkette shows us a world of imagination and role models...
Retro Robot Review has a multi-tool hidden in his post too

League Assignment: Why Did I buy That???

     This is a post about regret. not so much regrets about things I missed that I wish I had bought(lots of those) but about things I was kicking myself for afterwards.



     For me, the regrets fall into categories, and I will illustrate each category with an example.

• Category 1: like it but I paid too much, A.K.A. the badgers curse. I tend to get frustrated searching, and buy things on line. nearly every time the arrival of my shipment corresponds with finding the item in the store. Ex: Bought Generations Sergeant Kup on Ebay, and found him at ToysR'Us about two days before my package arrived

•  Category 2: bought it...hate it, A.K.A. this looked better in the package. Sometimes I make impulse buys, and live with the sadness of a not-thoroughly-researched collectible. Ex: Transformers Prime Beast Fire Predaking...he should have been so much more. He was built around a battery box and a light-up gimmick, and he suffers for it. Ex: HTFD Elita-1.... she's just sad- doesn't really hang together in either mode, and doesn't really look like anything as a robot

• Category 3: Like it but I bought too much A.K.A. Man Overboard. I don't buy to invest (anymore) but for a while I was buying to customize. Buying up extras of Star Wars figures to repaint/part-swap and get that perfect expanded universe/role-playing character...well it seemed like a good idea at the time, and reasonable. Flash forward to me, selling what I can of TPM/POTJ figures and donating bins of same to the Goodwill, and just hating to go through them, but hating to have them here... 1990's comics fell into that category, and Todd McFarlane figures of all stripes

     Am I wiser? maybe. Sadder? probably. I like to think I learned to be more certain of what I really want, and how to take steps to get it. The future will reveal it's secrets in due time...


Jathniel got stung by a POTJ figure too...BILLY DEE!
Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang shares some of my sadness over McFarlanr toys, plus a few tears over other lines
The Nerd Nook tells of collecting vintage star wars- the toughest job you will ever love
Monster Cafe sings a (Soprano) tale of Full houses and Simpsons second thoughts
That Figures tells a story of things he didn't buy with great eloquence
The Dusty Shelf weaves a lament of Bats and Men, and comic values gone awry
Retro Robot Review shows us his stooge side...Nyuk,nyuk,nyuk
AEIOU Asks us (sometimes) WHY a random bag o'toys from a thrift store
and Brian from Cool and Collected shows us "holy awkward hand positioning, Batman!"





 

League Assignment: My Latest Obsession

     I heard a comic(don't remember who) describe himself as OCD/with ADD- he was constantly changing what he was obsessed about, and I think the describes me as well

     I see....I covet. the images from 2014 ToyFair were bad for me, because I saw so much that I wanted that was not available yet, and would not be for some months. I know it gives me stuff to hope for but it also

MAKES ME CRAZY

 

Now I've seen the masterpiece bumblebee which I thought was second quarter 2014...and it is if you consider November to be 2nd quarter. I don't think anyone does. I saw the Mara Jade figure from the Star Wars Black series at Target and picked up Armada Starscream instead thinking I would just pick up Mara Jade next time(hah- ended up buying her from hasbro toy shop after a couple of frustrating weeks hunting) 

 

 

     but for my latest obsession, I have been learning about Conflict Materials. I have been learning about them, and mining them...Stone, Iron, Coal, Gold, Diamonds, Lapis, Redstone, all mined under armed conditions, where zombies, creepers, spiders, and skeletons are constantly trying to kill you.

 

     What I am trying, cleverly, to say is MINECRAFT

 

I'm not sure what draws me, whether it is the sense onf imaginary accomplishment when I find a good vein of minerals, or the feeling of exploring as I GO DEEPER but I feel like I have to mine a litte each day, and it's been affecting my blogging

 

     so now I find myself in a pimped out suit of magic armor, with an enchanted diamond sword, wandering through a lego-world of minable blocks and collecting  minerals, mining things, and generally wasting time entertaining myself...

 

 

Sexy Geek is obsessed with Oliver

Yelinna from Traveling Pics is obsessed with The White Stuff

Retro Robot Review likes his arcades Fun-Sized

You Can't take the sky from D.I.Treasures

Nerd Nook loves The Goldbergs

G.I.Jigsaw has a muppet mania

Pop Rewind is looking for Orange Drink Rewind

Brian from Cool and Collected is Binge Watching...

The Dusty Shelf has a new obsession that is just...FANTASTIC!

Diary of a Dorkette is bringing Archive room 2.0 online

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Been down - way down

In a deep, dark hole...with monsters surrounding me


I am not depressed, not overly. What I did however was get involved in MineCraft

is MineCraft a metaphor for depression? Do the imaginary accomplishments, such as finding Iron or Diamonds fill some deep inner need for me?

To be truthful, I'm not sure. All I know is that I have managed to arm up with a diamond sword and a full suit of iron armor, and I am strip-mining blocks

I may even be Fracking- I'm not sure