Krazy Glue Review

I am kind of a guy of habit. If something works for me, I like it. I will continue to use it and it usually takes a lot to change the way I do things.

I build and repair a LOT of miniatures. I mean a ton. I probably go through more super glue in a year, than most people do in their life time. And my favorite has always been Krazy Glue. I didn't like the gel, or the pen. I liked the one that game in the small tube with a little green pin cap. Worked great, whenever I glued anything it held great and I had little in the way of problems and I rarely had to hold 2 pieces together more than a few seconds.

Now when company tries to improve their product, I have no problem with that. But they should at least make sure it is better than the old one. Remember New Coke. Yea, just like that.

So a couple months back, the wife walks in with not a green Krazy Glue container, but a Purple one. Hmmm, still looks like the krazy glue I like except it is now purple, and turns clear when it dries. The idea is you can see where it is, and don't put your fingers in the glue. Sounds great.

Then I try to use it. And use it and use it. Finally last Saturday, after holding 2 pieces together for over 2 straight minutes only to have it fall off like I had put nothing on it at all, I through the piece of garbage away. This stuff looked like grape koolade and it glued about as well. It would not glue metal or plastic. If you held it on and propped it up for 15 minutes, it would finally stick, but it would never bond with the metal, which is what it is supposed to do. When I'd have pieces I had "glued" on with this junk, fall off. You could see the dried super glue and it would just flake right off.

So I pulled up the backup my wife gave me. Some Elmers super glue. I thought maybe it was the metal, or something like that. I held the pieces together for less than 15 seconds, and it was glued. No movement at all. Did a second piece, same result.

So I am officially changing my product and sponsorship (well, if I had a sponsor) to Elmers. This stuff is a bit new to the super glue world, but I love it. it works better than the original Krazy glue worked.

Don't even bother with that new purple Krazy glue. Hell you might as well use your own spit and see how that works out for you.

Until next time...

Ping Pong is like...

A well-seasoned middle aged prostitute.

Hell yea, does it get any better than that. Yes I saw Balls of Fury tonight. Man if you like spoof comedy at all, you will love this movie. Best comedy of the year so far for me.

Until next time...

I Heart Peter Jackson

The news came out yesterday that Peter Jackson and the New Line Cinema settled their disputes over money on the LotR and it opened the door for Jackson to produce The Hobbit.

In the press release they are actually going to produce 2 movies, the Hobbit and a Sequel. What the sequel can be I have no idea. Either they will split the book into 2 parts or just do the Hobbit as one, and something totally different for the 2nd film.

While yes the LotR movies did not stick to the books, and changed some of the dialog, overall it is the best movie ever made. Even if it is 10-12 hours long.

So I am so looking forward to this. I for one actually enjoyed the Hobbit more than the LotR. Though I love both. I hope the movie does the book justice. But with Jackson producing it, I'm sure it will.

Until next time...

Lions and Giants and Eagles, oh my!

I know its been a couple days since I've posted, but I had to take in the whole Cowboy loss and try to make some sense of it.

And I have come to the only logical explanation there is. Tony Romo's girlfriends have got to be banned from ever attending any Cowboy game. EVER!!

Seriously, we were one good play away from winning that game. One good pass, one good run. But several things added up to the Boys looking miserable.
1. Romo getting his hand hurt. Not sure when it happened, or if it was aggravated from the earlier time he hurt it or what. Whatever it was, it was affecting him from early on and just got worse as it went along.

2. Owens just giving up. I saw him several times give up on routes because there were 2-3 players around him he wouldn't even try to fight through it. He just gave up.

3. Eagles defense gave a great effort with the coverage and getting to Romo.

4. Gerard going down with the knee injury. After that Romo suffered all of his sacks.

5. The running game. We gave up on it way too early. Romo wasn't passing well, and the backs weren't doing anything great, so we just stop running and put everything into Romo's injured thumb? That made no sense.

6. Lack of intensity. I think the Cowboys are so full of themselves right now they think they can cruise to the playoffs. They beat Philly earlier this year and figured they could do it again without trying too hard. In the NFL if you are not playing at 110% every play you will get hurt. And what happened, a lot of injuries.

Can they bounce it back Saturday night in Carolina. I sure hope so, but the dreaded December Funk is raising its smelly head.

As for my Fantasy league, that ended this last week. I ended up in the regular season with a 14-1 record after losing my first game. (That I really should have won. Damn receiver drops an easy pass that lands in his arms in the end zone.)

So now I have made it into the playoffs and I have to face one of the other 3 top players in a 2 week single elimination tournament for 1st place and the money.

Wish me luck.

Until next time...

Painted last night

I got to put in a good 2 hours last night. So finally got to painting a horse body of one of my Dogs of War fast cav. I'm not real satisfied with what I got here, but wanted some other opinions.

He still needs a ton of work. Haven't done any metal, detail work like the face, or clean up. This is just the torso and horse body finished.

Pic 1: Ouch, got the flash too close to him. As always, click on the pictures to enlarge the pics.



Pic 2: A much better shot down the left body side.



Pic 3 is a nice shot from the rear of the model. The horse haunches I spent about 86.5 hours on last night. So that is what I'd really like some opinions on.



Finally Pic 4 is a right side body shot.



I've never done any real blending before, so that was what I was going for. Those rear haunches have about 63 layers of paint on them. ;-) So feel free to be kind or brutal. Don't worry about the stuff that is obviously not finished. I'm looking for comments on the horse body and the upper torso flesh. The layering and blending.

Thanks.

Until next time...

You are an ASS if...

There are a ton of things I consider you to be an ass if you do them. But when I put these little posts out, I'll trim it down to stuff that has happened to me recently.

All 3 of these occurred in the last 24 hours.

1. You are an ASS if you take stuff out of someones shopping cart and steal their cart.
Yea, really, I turn around for a couple of minutes looking through this jumble of movies and someone took my damn cart. I couldn't believe it. I found my stuff laying on a nearby shelf. So I had to pick up my stuff and carry it all the way to the front and then ask the greeter guy to get me a cart because it was outside the area I could carry my merchandise. What an ASS!!

2. Not as big an ass but still one, I finally found a short checkout line as all the self-serves were full of idiots who can't figure out how to operate a coke machine much less a self-serve check out. Anyway, it is an express lane, which made me even happier until I get there and find the one guy in front of me has around 30 items in his basket for the less than 10 items lane. Small ass, but still an ass.

3. You are a humongous ASS if you are too stupid to merge into your exit lane when you can, and speed on up to try and cut in at the front, and then when you are unable to do so, you just stop and block traffic completely in my lane. WHAT AN ASS!@!

While I don't like it when people speed around and merge in ahead of me when I have waited in line for 10 minutes, your just a jerk. But if I'm not getting off there and you are totally blocking my lane because your too much a wuss to complete the jerk move you just performed. Then you are an ASS.

This morning on the way to work. Our highway is 5 lanes. 2 exit off to the right to get onto 820 from I20. It was pretty backed up. Luckily I don't go that way.
So I'm on 20 going west in my now almost empty lane as everyone is getting off onto 820. So I finally speed up after having to wait in the huge backup for 10 minutes and I get to about 40 when I realize the idiot right in front of me has her blinker on to try and merge into this solid mass of cars that are not moving. And she is stopped, waiting for someone to let her in.

It is people like her that make my commute to work long. If the people getting on 820 would simply get in the long line and wait their turn it would probably go smoother, and quicker. Instead half of them idiots have to get into my lanes and then slow down while they try to force themselves back into the 820 lanes. That backs up my lanes, which should be just flying through.

Anyway, so this pisses me off and I lay on my horn. I do believe it is illegal to stop on a major highway unless the guy in front of you is stopped. Since there was no one within 500 yards in front of her, she was breaking the law and being a safety hazard. So after a few honks she decides maybe this is not her day to be that big an ASS, turns off her blinker and speeds up missing her exit. So sad, too bad. Next time get in at the end of the line and wait your turn.

So if someone was an ASS to you recently, let me know.

Until next time...

League BR Game: Twins of Khorne vs Dwarfs Pt 2

Here was the setup at the end of turn 3 when I left off:



Turn 4a: Dwarfs: The dwarfs don't have a lot to do. The Hammerers turn to move towards the middle of the field. The Long beards continue to march towards my side.
The Thunderers fire and wipe out my marauder horsemen closest to the hammerers.
The bolt thrower combat continues on, with no clear resolution in site in the combat with 2. The smaller combat, I manage 2 hits and 2 wounds, removing 1 more bolt thrower.

Here was the battlefield after his turn 4:



Turn 4b: Chaos: Somehow with all my frenzied troops, I had no charges at all.
so I ran my heroes unit around the backside of the graveyard. And then had my general join the unit.
I moved everyone else up ready to charge the next turn.
I moved up my full cav unit at his hammerers, and then thought that isn't a smart charge, so I backed them up some.
I forget to move my 2 marauder completely as they had been in the same place so long. So instead I throw at the thunderers, killing 1.

Looking back, I either should have ran my chaos knights completely away from the right side of the board, or had my general join the unit. That might have made a difference.

In combat, I wipe out the last crewman on the left bolt thrower, I win again with the combat, but again they hold.

Here is the field after turn 4:



We had a discussion somewhere around here about what the objectives were. My opponent had it in his head he was supposed to get in my deployment zone. I said, oh no, you are supposed to kill my general. So I must be the one to get in your deployment zone.

On this info, he stops marching his longbeards unit towards my deployment zone.
As it turns out later, I realize his was to kill my general and mine was to stop him from getting in my zone. So we played it as I had to get into his zone. I didn't realize the mistake till later.

Turn 5a: Dwarfs: Again, not a lot to do. The Hammerers move up, the Thunderers turn around. Longbeards aren't sure what to do, knowing they cannot catch my fast cav and now with no objective to march too and out of the game. They just sit.



Turn 5b: Chaos brain fart time: I do not know what possessed me to be such an idiot, but I am.
General's unit charges the thunderers. If the 2 marauders also charge, he cannot stand and shoot. Duh!! He stands and shoots. Since his champ has heroes he waits until I am 8" away, so all his shots are short range. He ends up wiping out the 2 guys in the unit. My hero #2 takes only 1 hit, which he fails to wound.
My General ended up taking 3 hits, he wounds with 2. I'm thinking ok, 3+ armor save piece of cake. I roll my 2 dice.....a 1 and a 2!! OUCH!!
Luckily this was my general and not my hero as I have the Gaze of the gods. So 4+ ward save. A 1 and ...... a 4. Whew!! I live.

So the hero and general make it to the Thunderers.
The centigors join in the bolt thrower combat.

Then we measure from my last chaos knight unit to his Hammerers. I measure out 14" and am easily short. Ahhhhh!!! this unit is my stable unit and has a 16" charge. I am just at 16" and can squeeze through to make it. NOOOO!!! Not the charge I wanted to make.

I don't move my guys around a lot, including forgetting to move the 2 marauders again!!

Here we are after the charges:



I decide to do the hammer combat first, so if I can kill the BSB, that will help things a lot.
His general goes and whiffs, doing only a single wound and I save.
I then whiff badly, killing 2 normal hammerers, but nothing on the BSB. He wins combat by a bunch, I break and flee a whopping 7". He pursues 8" and catches me.

I wipe out the bolt throwers, but because of my 2 marauders, the centigors cannot overrun into the flank of the thunderers. Ugghhh!!

Finally my general and hero go. I do a total of 5 wounds and his champ does none back. So he only has 2 ranks (thanks to that 1 axe throw) and US, so I win by 2, but he holds.
If I charged with the 2 marauders, the 2 knights make it in and with the banner, I probably win by a lot more, break them and then maybe even have a shot at the other longbeards on the last turn. Oh well!!



Turn 6a: Dwarfs: Again not much to do. The Hammerers turn to face my centigors which I have no intention of charging with.

In combat, my General and Hero combine do a total of 2 wounds!! Luckily he whiffs back as well. So 2 wounds verse only 1 rank (thanks to that lone axe throw) and US.
He has no musician, so it is a draw, and I keep my frenzy. Sweet!!



Turn 6b: Chaos: Can I pull this off. Roll for drunk, of course, my centigors in the middle go frenzy and charge right into the damn hammerers!! Ugghhh!!

I move the rest of my guys to claim table quarters. Shooting does nothing.



In combat, I go ahead and go hand weapon and shield with the centigors. His general gets in 3 wounds with his first strike. But with a 5+ armor save, I save 2 of them. With my 15 Attacks back, I kill a single damn stunty. Again, the dice cursed me.
His BSB and champ do 3 wounds between the 2 of them, I fail every save. And the final centigor fails his insane courage and heads for the hills.

In the last combat, my general and hero finally go berserk and wipe out 6 of the thunderers and he breaks and is run down.

Final positions:



When we added up the points, with his hammerers, longbeards, general, BSB and thane untouched, the dwarfs were up by 240 points. And he had a banner of mine from when the hammerers broke the knights.

I luckily also captured a banner and had 2 table quarters, so he was only up by 40 to make it a draw.

Mistakes I made:
1. If I run my chaos knights and centigors away from the hammerers, that is 480 points I save.
2. If I have the marauder horsemen join in the combat with the thunderers, then while they may have died (-50 vp) the knights would have probably lives +120 vp.

So I basically threw away 550 vp that would have given me the win in the final 3 turns of the game.

Mistakes my opponent made.
1. deploying 2 of his 3 main units against the board edge. With the chasm over there, I would have put some of the warmachines there, and the rest in the graveyard.
Thunderers were fine, 1 Long beard unit there.
Then put the other guys where he put the organ gun.
2. Pulling his units back and leaving the warmachines hanging. If he moves his units out some and with good spacing, if I hit his units and overrun I run right past the warmachines, giving him more turns of shooting. If I choose not to overrun so I can charge the next turn, he gets more shooting.
3. Deploying the warmachines so far up. I never understand why players put warmachines on the front edge of their deployment zones. I don't usually do warmachines, but if I did they would be on the back board edges.

I hope you enjoyed the report.

Until next time...

League BR Game: Twins of Khorne vs Dwarfs

I got in my first Warhammer league game against a great guy with a Dwarf army.

My army list was as follows:
Exalted Hero of Khorne on Chaos steed w/shield, Gaze of Gods, Sword of Might, General
Exalted Hero of Khorne on Chaos steed w/shield, Great Fang (no armor saves)

4 x 5 Khorne Knights w/standard, musician.
(1 had Banner of Fury and the #2 hero)
4 x 5 Marauder Horsemen w/Flails, Throw axes, mus
2 x 6 Centigors w/Spear, LA, Shield, Throw axes, mus
2 x 5 Dogs of War fast cav with Bows, shields, mus

His army was:
Dwarf Lord w/Shield bearers, grim armor, shield, Sword with swiftness and 2x fury runes
Thane BSB w/ Oathstone, grim armor, Rune of battle
Thane w/Oathstone, grim armor, shield, rune stone
Thane w/Oathstone, grim armor, shield, rune stone

17 Hammers w/Champ, standard, Rune of Battle, rune Stoicism
(Lord and BSB in here)
19 Longbeards #1: Std, champ, HA,sh, Rune Courage (thane in here)
19 Longbeards #2: Std, champ, HA,sh, Rune Courage, Rune Ancestor (thane in here)
10 Warriors w/HA, sh
10 Warriors w/HA, sh
20 Thunderers w/champ (champ has pistols)
4x Bolt throwers with Engineers 1 with rune of Immolation
Organ Gun

Here is a picture of the Dwarf deployment:



As you can see we only rolled 4 pieces of terrain. This would work in the Dwarfs favor. 1 Woods, 1 broken terrain, which we used as a graveyard that provided soft cover and a defended obstacle if you were on the walls. An old ruin, that we considered hard cover and defended obstacle and finally a chasm (big hole in the ground). Represented by the black hole on the far end of the pic.

Here is my setup and the first ever picture of my fully assembled army in one place:



As you can see I am still playing the ghost brigade. But I do have my fist unit I'm working on.

Here is a graphical shot of the battlefield from my side of the board:



On my side, the Brown knights are the chaos knights.
The blue horses are the Marauder horsemen.
The Brown arrows are the centigors.
The Pink units are my Dogs of War fast cav.
The 2 red guys are my exalted heroes. The general has the yellow star on him.

On his side, on the left are his warriors.
The white guys are the long beards.
The Blue ones on the right next to the long beards are the hammerers with Lord and BSB.
The unit next to them are the Thunderers in their 5x4 block with Archery school.
And finally the warmachines are pretty easy to tell.

Due to limited terrain on Lorenz I had to make due with what they had.
woods = woods.
Pyramid with a skull = graveyard/broken ground.
2 walls = The ruins with walls.
The swamp = chasm.

I was looking for stuff that was closer to the right size more than anything else.

My opponent does use his Archery school on the Dwarf Thunderers. I use my Stable on my far left hand chaos knights, so they now move 8 instead of 7.

We roll and draw objectives. It is a pitched battle.
His objective, kill my general. My objective, prevent him from getting in my deployment zone. (We screw this up badly later, I will explain.)

We roll for first turn, we each roll a 2. So with his +1 he wins and goes first. I would have let him anyway.

Strategy: I decided the Hammerers and Lord with tons of ruins was probably more than I wanted to deal with. While 20 thunderers was nasty, I wasn't too worried about them. (should have been more.) But I figured, I'll plow through everything else and get the minor win.

Turn 1a: Dwarfs: He moves up the Long beards and hammerers on the right. He moves his warriors and longbeards in the middle back, which confused me a bit. And then fired his 4 bolt throwers killed a couple of marauder horsemen.

Setup at the end of turn 1a:



Turn 1b: Chaos: All of my units sprint forward. I had to get to these missile troops quick and take them out. I couldn't screw around with the bolt throwers and let them get flank shots on my knight units.
My Marauders throw their axes while the right side DoW shoot their bows at the far right Long beards killing one.
My 2nd DoW on the left shoots at the Organ gun crew, hitting 2, but only killing 1.

Here is the setup going into turn 2:



Turn 2a: Dwarfs: Longbeards and Hammerers charge the Marauder horsemen. I flee. End up running through my DoW cav, but make the panic test.
That is all for movement, as the 20 Thunderers can draw a very slim LOS to my far right hand Chaos knights, but with 20 shots, they only kill 1. Whoohoo.
The Organ gun, the blasts out 10 shots and wipes out the entire unit that is with the general, leaving only the general.
Bolt throwers kill a couple (I only show 1 missing but it should be 2 dead) from the unit with the hero #2. This is my knights with the banner of rage.
And I think one of the center centigors bites it to a bolt thrower as well.

Setup after turn 2a:



Turn 2b: Chaos: Time to charge. The centigors in the woods go frenzy and charge the left bolt thrower. The other centigors and general charge the organ gun.
The 2 marauder units in front of the graveyard charge the other 3 bolt throwers.

the fleeing marauders rally, run right back to where they were and threw their axes again. Combined with the DoW bows, we kill another long beard. Sweet.

Everyone else moves around a bit.
Here is the setup after the charges but before combat:



In combat the Centigors wipe out the bolt thrower crew, who then have the Immolation rune go off killing one centigor. I then overrun into the dwarf warriors on the left.
The General wipes out the 2 organ gun crew and overruns into the warriors. The centigors choose not to overrun into the longbeards.
I win both combats with the 3 bolt throwers in the graveyard, but he holds with all of them.

Setup at the end of turn 2:



At this point in the game, everything is going as planned. If things continue on this path, the game should be mine.

Turn 3a: Dwarfs: The longbeards charge the centigors who flee.
The hammerers charge the marauder horsemen again who flee.
The Longbeards squeeze up between the hammerers and the chasm. Thats it.

In shooting, the 20 thunderers take aim at my chaos knights. All 4 dead, OUCH!!

In combat, the centigors are no longer frenzy, but still manage to kill 3 dwarfs and win combat. The dwarfs hold.
My general with his strength 6 sword, kill 4 dwarfs, win and again they hold.
Both Marauders vs bolt thrower crews combats I win, but thanks to the BSB he is holding with all of them.

Setup at the end of turn 3a:



Turn 3b: Chaos: My far right Chaos knights charge into the flank of the warriors. My chaos knights with hero charge into the long beards. The fleeing marauders rally and run up to the flank of the hammerers. The centigors also rally.

Shooting sees another Longbeard fall to a DoW bow. ;)

Here is the setup after the charges:



In combat, I do the far left combat first. The knights and centigors kill all but a couple of warriors who then flee. Both units pursue. The centigors hit my general and stop, while the knights hit the warriors fighting my general.

I then do my generals combat. If I win and he flees, my general can pursue into the flank of the longbeards. That would be cool. But in some impressive dice rolling, I wipe out the entire unit and all my units are just stuck there. Ugghh!!

So I do my heroes attacks next. With 5 no armor save strength 5 attacks, my hero wipes out 4 of the stunties. My knights account for a couple more. His thane and champion attack back and kill 1 knight. I win combat and the Long beards roll a 12 for their break test and are promptly run down.
In the graveyard, I'm slimming down his crews, but he is refusing to budge.

End of turn 3:



At this point in the game I am really feeling good. I've taken out over half his army and still have most of mine left. If I take out the thunderers, it should be all over. Or at least I thought it should.

With 3 turns left, what could possibly go wrong?

Find out next time in Part 2 and the exciting conclusion...

Cowboys and Next

Another great nail biter as the Boys brought home another record to go 12-1 for the first time in franchise history. If it wasn't for New England they would easily be the favorites to win the super-bowl. As it is, they are not given a chance.

But the Jedi Romo did what was needed as he guided the team down in 2 minute drills at both half time and end of the game to win it 28-27. Someone upstairs is definetely smiling on the Cowboys this year.
Luck was a definite factor as the Lion's miss the field goal, then fail to pick up the fumble. Either of those win the game.

Go Cowboys!! 15-1 and the Super-bowl here we come.

Also over the weekend I got to see the movie Next with Nicholas Cage. I wasn't so sure about this movie going in. He can see 2 minutes into the future. And has learned to absolutely use this ability to its utmost potential.

There is a real nice twist at the end, that really caught me by surprise. I liked the special affects and the story.

I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.

Until next time...

Tin Man Part 3

WOW!! Got to watch the last part of Tin Man last night and I have to say, I love it. This is hands down, easily, the best Sci-Fi mini-series they have ever done.

WARNING SOME SPOILERS!!

The tie in with the old series and the Gray Gail and Dorothy, WOW!! Who saw that one coming. The Tin Man finding his son, only to find he had lost his heart as well.

Going through at the end and making sure everyone had their brains/courage/heart, totally great.

And then in the end, they did it very well. With everyone doing their part to defeat the evil witch who melts in the end.

There were a couple weak points, like how the hell did they make it back to the northern castle, 1, really really fast, and 2 without having to cross the ravine or 3. go through the papei(sp?) fields.

But if you leave out just a few parts, Tim Man could have stood up as a movie on the big screen if it wasn't so long. I've seen a lot worse there. Great acting, great script, very few "logical" flaws, great special affects, great tie ins with the original Wizard of Oz, while having a complete story of its own. I love how they tie in magic with technology, how they have an underlying story of the French resistance in WWII (not sure if the original had that, it may have.)

This film hits on several levels.

Just fantastic.

Until next time...

Tin Man part 2

I got to watch part 2 of the Sci-Fi mini-series last night and I have to admit, I am still very impressed by what they are putting on the screen.

No real flaws in the story. (Though I am questioning a machine that will destroy the land you rule. I am thinking it is something else.) I love the new twist they threw out in part 2. The relationship between the daughters was explored more fully and all the sudden DG is not the innocent victim as much as we were led to believe.

I thought the Dog was lame until you find out he's not really a dog. Though why Raw cannot tell he is a traitor seems to be the biggest flaw I've seen in the story so far.
The farmers turning carnivorous is a bit weak as well, but not every story can be perfect. And is that field in the middle of every path to everywhere??

Overall, still an excellent story, with excellent dialog, great scenery shooting, very good special affects and a flow that keeps me wanting more. Maybe it has to do with me getting to see it without commercials, but it definitely has me hooked and I can't wait to see the finale tonight.

I have to say, this is the best Sci-Fi original mini-series they have ever produced. And it rates in the top 2-3 best shows they have ever produced. Battle star Galactica and Stargate SG-1 also rate up there in no particular order.

I'll have my final thoughts on the whole series after I see part 3.

Until next time...

Tin Man: Initial reactions: SOME SPOILERS

I am of course a huge Sci-Fi channel fan. And I've been seeing promos for their new movie Tin Man for some time.

It finally started on Sunday, and so we recorded it as well as part 2 on Monday and part 3 last night. Generally we don't have that much time for TV, but since all the series shows, Heroes, Chuck, etc.. are coming to an end, we figured we would have time to watch them.

As it turned out, last night we were free and so up came part 1 of 3.

I am not a huge fan of Sci-Fi movies usually. They are more often than not, poorly written, badly acted and short on money when it comes to special affects. I still have bad dreams of Raptor Island where the blood splatters looked like a bad video game.

But Tin Man looked different right from the start. Lets start with one of my favorite new actresses Zooey Deschanel from other movies such as Failure to Launch,
Almost Famous, Bridge to Terabithia and of course the movie I fell in love with her, Hitchhiker's Guide. We also have Neal McDonough as the Tin Man. Now add in a plethera of other very good character actors including Kathleen Robertson as the the Evil Witch and Richard Dreyfuss as the Mystic Man (Oz).

After that they add in a fantastic world where the evil witch has already taken over and a bunch of jack booted thugs called the Long Coats carry out most of her desires.
The script so far has been excellent, compelling, imaginative and unique so far.

The way the writers combined a completely new story but still tied it to the roots of Wizard of Oz is just short of astounding.

Of course you have Dorothy, who is called DG in Tin Man. She rides a motorcycle instead of a bike and is raised by 2 people who are not her parents. Including Em instead of Auntie Em. In Tin Man she is just trying to find her way home after being swept up by the tornado and plopped down in The Outer Zone, which is called the O.Z. by the locals. She is told to follow the old road or brick road, which happens to be made up of yellow bricks. She follows it to the Central city, instead of the Emerald City to find the Mystic Man, ie. The wizard.
But in fact she is supposed to searching for the Emerald (great tie in) so she can find her place as Queen of the O.Z. which is her true home.

On her journey she finds Glitch, who has had half his brain removed, and there is now a zipper on top of his head. He makes a great scarecrow. And later turns out to be the chief adviser to the Queen.

They then find the Tin Man, who is an ex-cop from Central City. His wife and son were stolen from him, and he was trapped in an old Tin diving suit and forced to watch their abduction, over and over again. DG frees him, and he is now sworn to protect her. They even have one scene where he gets an old axe to carry around.

Finally, the cowardly lion is one of the most imaginative new characters. A wolverine humanoid who can see the future and the past with their hearts and have the ability to heal. They look ferocious but are really very timid. Raoul Trujillo, does an outstanding job in this roll.

At the end of part 1, the four of them have gone to see the Mystic man and told to search out her home in the Northern Island. As she gets there she realizes this is her home and all the stories her "father" told her all those years were about the O.Z. Her mother isn't there, and the place doesn't looked lived in. Raw feels great pain here and shows DG that this is where her Sister, the wiked Azkadellia, had killed her as a child. Her mother had given DG some of her life force to revive her and sent her to the other side to be raised.

About that time Azkadellia shows up as well where they throw in the scene of her mother calling for DG just like in the original Oz when Dorothy looks in the crystal ball.
Then they escape and run but Azkadellia's tatoo's become flying creatures that look pretty close to monkeys. They chase them through the columned hall the same as in the forest scene in Oz. They end the show with three of them captured and the Tin Man killed.

So far, as you can probably tell, I am really enjoying the show. I grew up watching Wizard of Oz every year while I was a child. And the fact that they can change the story sooooo much and still stay true to the roots of the story makes me give this mini-series a big thumbs up.

I can't wait to watch parts 2 and 3.

Until next time...

GO COWBOYS!!

I know the game is 5 days old already, but I never got a chance to blog about them. Green Bay just looked pathetic against the Cowboys right up until Favre got hurt.

After that you could see a noticeable let down by the Boys in Blue and let the Pack slip back into the game. But they woke up enough to finish them off strong and never really let them close enough to make them worry us.

Probably the worst thing to happen was their QB-1 getting hurt and had to leave. That was why we let up. The Boys just cannot let up in that situation. The biggest thing that helped us though. #31 sitting on the sidelines when they went 5 wide. Williams just cannot cover and Coach Phillips is figuring that out.

I am loving the DeMarcus Ware, Greg Ellis, meet you at the Quarterback, combo. They are a 1-2 punch that is outstanding.
With Henry getting back on the field more and more along with Newman and we have a very nice secondary. Now that Reeves has gotten in a lot of experience, he makes a great 3rd back for those nickel and dime packages we use so much of now days.

But my hat is off to the O'line this week. OMG!!! Romo was back their sipping tea. He had so much time, he would look around and see no one was near him. Green Bay was supposed to be this great pass rushing team. I know their top guy was out, but replace the guy they had with the starter, and I'm not sure it will be near enough.
That was just fantastic.

With Terry Glen supposed to be back in 2 weeks (he better be, I have him sitting on my Fantasy League Bench ready to throw him in), will anyone be able to stop us.

Oh yea, stop down, New England still looks pretty good. But after 2 weeks of near losses, is this a Patriot let down, or other teams finally finding chinks in their armor. Dallas I think showed people the way. Then the Colts and Philly.

New England defense is great if they know you are going to run, or know if you are going to pass (which most people have to when they are down by 21 to the Pats offense). But if you can do either, they are not that good. And you can score on them. I really think the Ravens blew it last night. They had that game won in so many ways. Just 1 yard. They needed 1 yard to get that first down and keep the Pats off the field. Then just 2 yards. 2 yards out of the end zone.

So wouldn't it be cool to see the 16-0 (then 18-0) New England Pats in a rematch with the 15-1 (then 17-1) Cowboys in the Super Bowl. What a great game that would be? I think it would be really close as I think the Pats are beatable. And I think the Boys are the team to do it. Perfect season, but lose in the super bowl. Sweet.

And I think these last 2 weeks have shown the Pats to be mortal after all.

Until next time...

And The Army Marches On...

I made some great progress on my army this last weekend.

Finally after about a year of buying the miniatures I have accomplished the following:

1. Had to check them all as several were broken upon opening them. So had to get replacement models.
2. File down all the mold lines. OMG!! Confrontation miniatures are horrible with mold lines.
3. File down all the glue joints. Confrontation coats their miniatures with something that prevents super glue from bonding properly. I had to go back after pieces fell apart, file down where I was joining the pieces and re-glue them.
4. Assemble all the miniatures. The average miniature had 8 pieces that had to be glued together. A very big chore.
5. Convert the spears into flails. On my Marauder horsemen I wanted a mix of throwing axes and flails. So I built 2 flail models for each unit so a total of 8 guys with flails.
6. Fill in the holes with greenstuff. The models were horrible about fitting together properly. Plus I didn't want them all in the exact same, turn to the right pose. So I had to fill in a ton of cracks and gaps with greenstuff.
7. Put sand on all their bases.
8. Glue them on precut metal bases.
9. Prime them all.
10. Build magnetic movement trays to help keep them from falling over all the time.

And now after all of those steps, I am ready to begin painting. The first coats of paint hit the models yesterday.
The army is very playable and semi-transportable now. So I'll just paint is as quick as I can. With only 63 models to paint, it will hopefully come out looking pretty good pretty quickly.

I'll start posting some pics as I finish them.

Until next time...