Ok, so before I forget, this week’s pledge(s).
Last week I got quite a bit of Castle Grayskull printed (although I did “outsource” it to the local Eagle Lab as my 3d printer struggled with some of the larger parts, even once it finally started printing properly – with PLA rather than ABS).
So this week is the boring stuff – filler, primer, sanding, filling, sanding, sanding, filling, more sanding, then more primer and maybe even get a coat of paint on there. To be honest, if I get that far, I’ll be quite pleased; any more and I’ll build the missing turrets “old school” (3d printing them would mean more time cleaning them up than if I built them with bits of pipe and modelling clay).
Other hobby-related stuff (though not exactly miniature/terrain building) is getting my Prusa i3 clone finished (it arrived this morning and I’m desperate for a few hours to myself to get it built!).
1) Kickstarter happiest to see? Of course it’s got to be Mel’s Terrain Tutor book.
I think Kickstarter is a little saturated with tabletop gaming stuff at the minute. And the “original” idea behind Kickstarter – to raise funds for indies to get a product/idea off the ground – was long been replaced by a pre-order system (which all the major manufacturers exploit, even if they don’t actually need the funds upfront, as it’s clear they’re going to bring their product to market – and be successful with it – anyway). I think this is a little sad. I’m utterly underwhelmed by Kickstarter these days. Except for Mel’s book 😉
2) My little sister called up my playlist on my phone a while back. She pointed out that every album I currently have either originates, or sounds incredibly like, the kind of stuff I was listening to as a teen in the early nineties. She’s not wrong. I like loud, fast, happy guitar-based rock music. Last.fm introduced me to a few new sounds, but ultimately even that ended up playing the same dozen or so artists on a loop. Much like the Seattle sound in the 90s, I refuse to even acknowledge the existance of Spotify.
I miss the smell of vinyl, the excitement of waiting for a new album to be released, which you then had to bunk off school to go and buy on the day of release, and I still have a massive collection of picture discs and shaped vinyl, somewhere in the loft…
Music in the 2010s? The 555% story of Ginger Wildheart going solo and independently self-publishing was really inspiring. From the verge of giving up – and numerous spells in and out of rehab/institutions – he turned to his fan base and produced some amazing songs (outselling Simon Cowell’s top 3 artists on the week of release, but the “official” charts refused to acknowledge it)
I don’t know much about music in the 2010s 😉
3) With a wealth of TV and streaming movies and downloadable games, I’ve yet to actually take advantage of such services. I used to write games for the Gameboy Advance (and lots of other platforms as a hobby). Playing video games does nothing for me. I don’t have enough hours in a day to do half of what I want; if there were 48 hours in a day, I’d still only get about half done! There isn’t enough time in two lifetimes to be playing video games for me! Same goes for TV “box sets”. Sure, I’ll tune in to the odd episode of Only Connect, but I’ve never yet watched an episode of Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, 24, The Wire…. I don’t feel like I’ve missed much (jeez, I really do sound like an old fart).
I still have a strong affinity towards Star Wars (yes, I even like the new sequels, though obviously not as much as the original IV-VI episodes – and we don’t talk about I-III; for me, they’re the same as seattle grunge and spotify – non-existant).
And I just bought a whole load of Masters of the Universe miniatures on a whim – they’re quite fun.
I like the look of BlitzBowl – it’s nice to see GW revisiting some of their “vintage” specialist games – in the late 80s I bought Blood Bowl and loved it. Then I played it a few times. And it turns out I loved the *idea* of Blood Bowl, just never quite found the game as fun or as satisfying as the fluff suggests it should be. Blitz Bowl looks like the game Blood Bowl should have been!
