[unofficial weekender] Brainfarts

[grantinvanman 2502xp 0]

I’m stuck on the basing for my 8th Army British. Had to repaint the bases after a wash turned out poorly. I’ll just add some flock and I’m done.

As an aside…
If you ever think this is an expensive hobby, buy an old motorcycle. It’s like putting all your money on the fire pit, all at once. One more week of burning money and it will be rideable. I’ll be dead broke though 🤣

[limburger 21920xp 1]

I’d say any hobby is expensive once you start adding the numbers … it all tends to accumulate over time.

[sundancer 43383xp 1]

Don’t start adding up numbers. That way only madness lies.

[pagan8thParticipant 12681xp 0]

Numbers are just a way of keeping score… the show how much you love your hobby.

[sundancer 43383xp 0]

Or how much you hate paying rent and eat XD

[sundancer 43383xp 1]

So I played KoW on Universal Battle against the squirrel lord. And to everybody’s surprise I kind of won? Sort of?

I also had the 250th Hobby Hangout (including hot tub)

And I (virtually) added to the pile of plastic. Ordered me some Armoured clash. But that doesn’t get shipped until end of April so technically it’s not on the pile yet!

How’s your week?

[pagan8thParticipant 12681xp 1]

It’s my week off, so it’s going ok.

Painting Afrika Korps and wargaming with them tomorrow. A few more minis due to arrive today.

Rewriting the Achtung Cthulhu campaign by modiphius to make it less combat focused as too much combat (there seems to be a fight every 30 minutes) in an RPG is boring and it’s near death every time (creating new characters constantly detracts from the story – TPK means dead campaign).

Any RPG adventures I’ve seen lately seem to be all about combat and tactics. That’s what wargames are for.

[grantinvanman 2502xp 2]

It’s been a weird week. Super productive painting wise, only to keep my mind off my hemorrhaging money – which thankfully has come to a close! The bike gets delivered back to me Tuesday. And it looks AWESOME. I was so excited I actually forgot to take a pic at the shop. The bill was $300 less than I estimated too!

Also, I play guitar, and I have a Malcolm Young signature Gretsch (which has a hilarious story behind me getting it!), so today I found him a friend, a new all-black Gibson SG standard. Fresh out of the box. Local shop has a no money down sale on. Heck yes, I’ll walk away with a new guitar! Rock on, 🤘🗿

Other than that, my sleep has been horrible (stress), so maybe now it will be better.

Whew. What a week. And it’s only Wednesday.

[limburger 21920xp 1]

I wish I had the patience to learn to play guitar.

Other than Guitar Hero / Rockband on easy mode I’ve only dabbled in Rocksmith.
The latter was the reason I got me a guitar (the cheap Stratocaster from what I think is Fenders’ budget brand?)

I doubt I’d ever get to a level when I can play stuff and improvising really sounds like an impossible task.
Definitely want to get going again, but I never can keep focused enough.
It doesn’t help that Rocksmith won’t play as it likely will depend on servers that are no longer active (because why make games that last when you can squeeze money out of players  ? eh, Ubisoft ?)

One can dream though …

Anyways … Rocksmith was cool. Especially the automagic backing band thingy they had.
//
Fckn Postal service has been trying to deliver a package 3 days in a row. And not a single day did they actually attempt a delivery.  They did have time to shove some spam folders in my mailbox.

/rant

It’s not Battletech, but bits for my smart home setup …

Almost weekend. I hope I can do some spring cleaning with my hobby.
I found my airbrush compressor. So that’s one excuse less for me not to do something once I get that set up again.

[blinky465 17033xp 1]

@limburger – learn how to play a barre chord.

It’ll be the most challenging thing you’ll do on the guitar. And the most liberating. Honestly, learn to play an “e shape” barre chord and an “a shape” and you can play pretty much anything after that. I’ve been getting away with it for over thirty years.

Improvising is just playing stuff you’ve already learned, in little sections. Stick with it. Playing an instrument is probably one of the best things you can do with your time!

I’ve missed you guys.
I moved house last November. And things have been a bit weird with work and everything. But I saw the Spring Clean Challenge and figured it’s time I rejoined a community and started to “hobby” again.

How’s everyone else doing? (sorry I don’t have time to trawl the last six months or so of forum archives, so feel free to repeat yourselves).

[grantinvanman 2502xp 0]

@blinky465 welcome back!

@limburger – he’s right! Barre chords and “cowboy chords” are like 90% of music. The first 5 frets is where most of it happens.

Improvising, learn a simple scale –

12-15

12-14

12-14

12-14

12-15

12-15

 

Boom, you’re in solo territory! And that scale can be moved around. It’s classic.

My weekly instructor has toured with Asia, opened Madison Square Garden for the Queen Musical (!), and has four albums out. Sam Coulson if you want to look him up. Also on YouTube.

Painting more Necrons this week – two large flyers, broke out the airbrush as it made for smoother coats …

 

[sundancer 43383xp 1]

wb @blinky465

I tried learning guitar twice. with a 20’ish year gap in between.

My problem is: my left hand pinky finger does zero. And by that I don’t mean I can’t move it (hell I use it for 10 finger typing all the time) but for some reason I can’t get it to work with the strings. it just stops doing any movement when the hand is at the neck of the instrument.

Also I’m a lazy git.

It’s Friday. Eyes and nose are dripping with hey-fever. Stay safe!

[pagan8thParticipant 12681xp 1]

I sympathise @sundancer as I’m having similar reaction. It’s either hayfever, or a cold as the symptoms seem similar.

[grantinvanman 2502xp 0]

It is the season… last snow of spring (until May Long Weekend, it ALWAYS snows, because it’s the first camping weekend of the year!) yesterday. Today, it will be 8c, tomorrow double-digits!

And then people here will suffer from hayfever and stuff. I don’t, luckily, but mrsgrantinvanman does.

Necron flyers get finished today, and then on to US Infantry in 12mm …

[limburger 21920xp 1]

@grantinvanman the numbers … they’re like gibberish to me.

I think the real trick is understanding how to actually hold your fingers on the strings and how to hold onto that plectrum thingy.

I’m thinking about glueing it to my fingers to make it behave. It’s probably the result of an accident I had as a kid (I’ve got a nice 10 cm scar on my wrist … ). As a result the tips of my fingers are a bit numb.

Finding an actual teacher that has the patience and skill to make that part understandable is probably what I should be doing instead of looking at youtube videos of various folk claiming they can teach how to play.

Got to admit that the time I spent with Rocksmith and getting more than the occasional note to play was amazing. The difficulty spikes that would happen once it noticed you could hit the notes was annoying as fck though.

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