Monday, 11 June 2012
Wild West River board
I've got this piece nicely in hand now. I realised that constantly slapping glue and sand just above a carpet was asking for trouble, so I have moved the board up to the attic, where I shall work on it henceforth. I got the second rise to the bridge built up, and made sure it approximately fits the bridge. I'm not securing the bridge until later for a few reasons. I want to make sure I can paint the bridge from every direction, and I want to get it nicely settled into the board. I'm still toying with the idea of making it removable. Who knows? Maybe some reckless cowpokes with nitroglycerine will decide to blow it to kingdom come! The sand has been secured, and I'll probably do a bit more work on this tomorrow. For now here's where things stand. The tiny wee figure stood in the middle of the river is that GW Cadian officer who turns up from time to time in these photos to give a sense of scale. Yup, that's a 2' by 4' board, all right!
Monday, 4 June 2012
Iron Sky: a review
Those of us who watched the famous Star Wreck have long been looking forward to this even crazier offering from the same folk. Yes, you're going to see Moon Nazis returning to Earth in order to have their revenge. I shall avoid detailed spoilers. They fled Earth in 1945 and built a base on the dark side of the Moon. I greatly enjoyed this flick. The CGI is very good, especially considering their meagre budget. That sentence means what it says. It doesn't mean, "They did the best they could." It means they did a great job and I'm not entirely sure how, given what Hollywood films spend on CGI! Inarguably, when you have Space Nazis with flying saucers and armour-clad space zeppelins, you need either great models or great CGI. They have the latter. The look of the film is in all respects great.
But what of the script, direction and acting? Well, let's get the bad news out of the way first. If you like or feel sympathetic toward Sarah Palin, you will be very angry with the script, as Stephanie Paul's unnamed President of the United States is a Palin parody. If you feel America is cruelly misrepresented by the media, you will get so angry with the film that you will miss the ending. If you like your films stuffed with big names, again you're in trouble. The only chap I recognise is the delightful Udo Kier, who plays a post-Hitlerian Mondfuehrer (Moon Fuehrer) with restrained glee. If you are no fan of camp humour, then why in Heaven's name are you watching a film about Moon Nazis with Flying Saucers? Get off out of it, as they say down south! The only real question mark I have in my mind is that the film's mad scientist closely resembles Albert Einstein - but he is the stereotypical German scientist, despite his thoroughly anti-Nazi politics. That sums up the problems that some viewers will have.
The benefits are multitudinous. For you visual fans, Julia Dietze, Götz Otto, Christopher Kirby and Monika Gossmann are beloved of the camera. Really, they look great. More importantly than pretty actors and actresses, the script is wide-ranging in its satirical scorn. America and Palin are far from the only targets. I got a bit of a kick out of the name of a British spaceship both because it was a stereotypical name and because the odds against us having a spaceship in 2018 (when the film begins) are so long you could put them on end and be able to see Russia from here in Cheshire. There's an off-the-cuff joke about North Korea that goes down nicely, and a very well done skewering of the fashion industry. That becomes even more pointed when you think about Hugo Boss' involvement with the Nazis.
I mentioned above those folk who feel America is too hard done by in terms of international public opinion. They will fail to see the message in the subsequent part of the film: they will perceive an unfair suggestion that Sarah Palin is a Nazi - weird as that perception might sound to those of you who have seen the film. The actual message isn't that at all. It's a satire of advertising, and the foolishness and gullibility of both politicians and the public. The messages of the film are that greed, a desire for revenge and bigotry are all potentially devastating on a personal level and in a wider sense. We all know that, and one of the ways to ensure we act appropriately is to remind ourselves. This is a very amusing film which clothes some shockingly worthwhile messages in comic clothing that we may better learn them. Plus, it has pretty people in funky clothes and machines. I don't tend to rate films on any particular basis, but I guess I have to if I write a whole blog entry about one! So let's say it's 8 stars out of 10 on a scale where Sunset Boulevard is a 10 and Plan 9 from Outer Space is a 1.5. I'm sure I've seen worse flicks than Plan 9, but none come to mind right now. So check out Iron Sky, folks, if you like your satire, dieselpunk, pretty actors and actresses!
But what of the script, direction and acting? Well, let's get the bad news out of the way first. If you like or feel sympathetic toward Sarah Palin, you will be very angry with the script, as Stephanie Paul's unnamed President of the United States is a Palin parody. If you feel America is cruelly misrepresented by the media, you will get so angry with the film that you will miss the ending. If you like your films stuffed with big names, again you're in trouble. The only chap I recognise is the delightful Udo Kier, who plays a post-Hitlerian Mondfuehrer (Moon Fuehrer) with restrained glee. If you are no fan of camp humour, then why in Heaven's name are you watching a film about Moon Nazis with Flying Saucers? Get off out of it, as they say down south! The only real question mark I have in my mind is that the film's mad scientist closely resembles Albert Einstein - but he is the stereotypical German scientist, despite his thoroughly anti-Nazi politics. That sums up the problems that some viewers will have.
The benefits are multitudinous. For you visual fans, Julia Dietze, Götz Otto, Christopher Kirby and Monika Gossmann are beloved of the camera. Really, they look great. More importantly than pretty actors and actresses, the script is wide-ranging in its satirical scorn. America and Palin are far from the only targets. I got a bit of a kick out of the name of a British spaceship both because it was a stereotypical name and because the odds against us having a spaceship in 2018 (when the film begins) are so long you could put them on end and be able to see Russia from here in Cheshire. There's an off-the-cuff joke about North Korea that goes down nicely, and a very well done skewering of the fashion industry. That becomes even more pointed when you think about Hugo Boss' involvement with the Nazis.
I mentioned above those folk who feel America is too hard done by in terms of international public opinion. They will fail to see the message in the subsequent part of the film: they will perceive an unfair suggestion that Sarah Palin is a Nazi - weird as that perception might sound to those of you who have seen the film. The actual message isn't that at all. It's a satire of advertising, and the foolishness and gullibility of both politicians and the public. The messages of the film are that greed, a desire for revenge and bigotry are all potentially devastating on a personal level and in a wider sense. We all know that, and one of the ways to ensure we act appropriately is to remind ourselves. This is a very amusing film which clothes some shockingly worthwhile messages in comic clothing that we may better learn them. Plus, it has pretty people in funky clothes and machines. I don't tend to rate films on any particular basis, but I guess I have to if I write a whole blog entry about one! So let's say it's 8 stars out of 10 on a scale where Sunset Boulevard is a 10 and Plan 9 from Outer Space is a 1.5. I'm sure I've seen worse flicks than Plan 9, but none come to mind right now. So check out Iron Sky, folks, if you like your satire, dieselpunk, pretty actors and actresses!
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Gaming Board: Part 4 and Wild West river board
It's getting grander! As I said before leaving for Wales, my intention with the gaming board I have already constructed (which is a foot and a half long and wide) is to add to it with three boards of the same size, yielding a playing area of 3' by 3'. I don't intend to play any crazily huge games, so that will prove to be much more than I need, I'm certain. So on Wednesday night I trundled downstairs to cut up huge bits of plastic while watching Lewis. Our rabbit, Spot, has a thing for trying to dig up rugs and carpet, mistaking them for grass, doubtless. I told him off and wryly remarked that some day I'd teach him to stop it. A minute later he came over to see what I was doing, and knocked over my glass, soaking the floor. I presume that in rabbit-speak this means, "Some day I'll teach you to stop leaving full glasses where I can knock them down!"
Having mopped up all that stuff, I kept cutting plasticard. I was really pleased to find out that the large piece of 2mm thick plasticard I had ordered was not 48" long but a little over 54", thus perfectly providing the three large bits I wanted. So now I have the three large pieces and can start building them up. I'm going to be in Scotland for several days for another wedding, so I won't be able to do any work until Tuesday night at the earliest. I doubt I'll be back until about 10pm that night! As well as this plastic cutting, I have applied the first coat of sand to the Wild West river board. It is slowly coming together.
Having mopped up all that stuff, I kept cutting plasticard. I was really pleased to find out that the large piece of 2mm thick plasticard I had ordered was not 48" long but a little over 54", thus perfectly providing the three large bits I wanted. So now I have the three large pieces and can start building them up. I'm going to be in Scotland for several days for another wedding, so I won't be able to do any work until Tuesday night at the earliest. I doubt I'll be back until about 10pm that night! As well as this plastic cutting, I have applied the first coat of sand to the Wild West river board. It is slowly coming together.
Friday, 1 June 2012
Wonderful Wedding Number One
Last Wednesday I went down to Wales for my friend's wedding. We met at uni - wargaming, naturally - but since he lives in Swansea, and I in Cheshire, I tend not to see Mark that often. I couldn't turn down this invitation, mind, as I was the (Co-)Best Man! On the Thursday we trundled over to Cardiff and had a couple of games of Flames of War. There was Mark, Jay (the other Best Man), Mark's dad and a couple of his friends, and I - and Mark's younger brother popped in to say hi. It says how very rusty I am that I got outflanked by the same unit commanded by the same opponent in the same terrain in both games I played. Clearly, you do have to tell me twice! We had a nice time, and had a full day.
On the Friday Mark's affianced, Marie, was doing last-minute wedding stuff, so Mark and I got to take care of their baby, Lily. She's usually good as gold, but was teething. I know very nearly nothing about babies, and my dramatic reading of video titles failed to distract her from her primary purpose of crying. Mark was hoovering, and so couldn't help. Thinking back, we really should have done that the other way round. She's very fond of her dad, and doesn't cry if he's holding her. Well, she certainly cries a lot less, anyway! She seemed phlegmatic when Mark popped on The Walking Dead, and lots of chaps wandered about missing bits of faces and trailing their innards. I'm not much of a zombie fan. I heretically find Romero's original Dawn of the Dead something of a yawn-fest. Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed the show. Given my love of wordplay, my favourite bit was the appearance of a doctor called Jenner who worked for the CDC and even mentioned smallpox. Simple things for simple minds!
Come the Friday evening, we trundled out to TGI Friday's, where they kindly knocked up something vegan for me. Then at the end of the meal, as it was a special occasion, they gave Mark a glass filled with cream and three cherries. The idea is that one stands on a chair and tries to eat one cherry. Something got a bit lost in translation, and he ended up eating all three cherries and drinking all the cream! The truly remarkable thing was that his stomach did not then rebel against this alien incursion. I'll draw a veil, as is only proper, over the events of the rest of the stag evening, as is right and proper. Suffice to say that even Mark's ironclad stomach was eventually defeated.
The Saturday was mainly a day of rest, and saw us watch most of the second season of The Walking Dead. When Channel 5 catches up, I shall have to watch the last two episodes, as that is all I missed. The Sunday was the big day, and we all pottered about, preparing, putting on suits, gathering buttonholes and so on. Needless to say, there were hiccups. The bride had the rings at her parents' house, and had meant to bring them over on the Friday or Saturday. Having forgotten, Mark was to pop over on the Sunday to pick them up. But when he got there, only Matt was left in the house,the others having gone out, and they'd not told him where the rings were! Happily, they came with the bride to the venue, Sketty Hall, and we didn't have to come up with some crazy last-minute plan!
The bride looked lovely, the groom very smart, and both were brimming over with happiness. The marriage went off without a hitch, and then we adjourned for the wedding meal. After two very nice courses we paused before dessert for speeches from the Bride's father, Paul, from Mark, and lastly from me. I was a little nervous, but all seemed to go well. Then there was dessert, followed my merriment, revels, dancing and a teeny-tiny amount of drinking! I shared a taxi back to Mark and Marie's place, as they were spending the night at a snazzy hotel. All in all, a lovely time!
On the Friday Mark's affianced, Marie, was doing last-minute wedding stuff, so Mark and I got to take care of their baby, Lily. She's usually good as gold, but was teething. I know very nearly nothing about babies, and my dramatic reading of video titles failed to distract her from her primary purpose of crying. Mark was hoovering, and so couldn't help. Thinking back, we really should have done that the other way round. She's very fond of her dad, and doesn't cry if he's holding her. Well, she certainly cries a lot less, anyway! She seemed phlegmatic when Mark popped on The Walking Dead, and lots of chaps wandered about missing bits of faces and trailing their innards. I'm not much of a zombie fan. I heretically find Romero's original Dawn of the Dead something of a yawn-fest. Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed the show. Given my love of wordplay, my favourite bit was the appearance of a doctor called Jenner who worked for the CDC and even mentioned smallpox. Simple things for simple minds!
Come the Friday evening, we trundled out to TGI Friday's, where they kindly knocked up something vegan for me. Then at the end of the meal, as it was a special occasion, they gave Mark a glass filled with cream and three cherries. The idea is that one stands on a chair and tries to eat one cherry. Something got a bit lost in translation, and he ended up eating all three cherries and drinking all the cream! The truly remarkable thing was that his stomach did not then rebel against this alien incursion. I'll draw a veil, as is only proper, over the events of the rest of the stag evening, as is right and proper. Suffice to say that even Mark's ironclad stomach was eventually defeated.
The Saturday was mainly a day of rest, and saw us watch most of the second season of The Walking Dead. When Channel 5 catches up, I shall have to watch the last two episodes, as that is all I missed. The Sunday was the big day, and we all pottered about, preparing, putting on suits, gathering buttonholes and so on. Needless to say, there were hiccups. The bride had the rings at her parents' house, and had meant to bring them over on the Friday or Saturday. Having forgotten, Mark was to pop over on the Sunday to pick them up. But when he got there, only Matt was left in the house,the others having gone out, and they'd not told him where the rings were! Happily, they came with the bride to the venue, Sketty Hall, and we didn't have to come up with some crazy last-minute plan!
The bride looked lovely, the groom very smart, and both were brimming over with happiness. The marriage went off without a hitch, and then we adjourned for the wedding meal. After two very nice courses we paused before dessert for speeches from the Bride's father, Paul, from Mark, and lastly from me. I was a little nervous, but all seemed to go well. Then there was dessert, followed my merriment, revels, dancing and a teeny-tiny amount of drinking! I shared a taxi back to Mark and Marie's place, as they were spending the night at a snazzy hotel. All in all, a lovely time!
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