Author Archives: tony

Stripes – Special Edition

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We watched Stripes at the weekend, one of the cheap DVD’s we bought recently.  Sure I’ve seen it before, but it’s a classic and I wanted my own copy.  While the box just says Stripes, the DVD itself has Stripes Special Edition printed on it, and sure enough, it’s got some stuff I’ve never seen before.

Since I haven’t seen this in the cinema, I can’t really tell if the extra stuff is what they normally cut from the TV version or if it was stuff that really never made it into the theatrical release.  Either way, it was interesting, but didn’t really add a whole lot to the movie.

This is a classic Bill Murray / Harold Ramis / Ivan Reitman film, detailing the story of a pair of near-dropouts who join the army.  Hilarity ensues as they stumble their way through basic training, form tight bonds with thier fellow servicemen and become deep friends of their drill sergeant (kind of).  It’s really a film of two halves, once they complete their basic training the film turns into a kind of spies-like-us pre-cursor and our heroes need to head into enemy territory to save their comrades.

It’s enjoyable, although I think it has lost its edge a little over time.  Worth owning on DVD, worth seeing if you’ve never seen it before, and definately worth seeing if you wonder where the Police Acadamy series of films drew their inspiration.

25 things about me (meme!)

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As seen here and Facebook (which I can’t link to because you’re probably not friends with my friends, and if you are, you already saw their stuff). On Facebook you’re supposed to tag 25 people, and they’re supposed to then do their 25 things thing.  Maybe I’ll post this on Facebook as well, who knows.

    1. I’m type two diabetic, through a mixture of genetics and too much pizza, your guess as to which has the greater effect is about as accurate as modern science’s best guess as well.  I was diagnosed in 2005.
    2. During university (or as it was when I started, polytechnic) in Sheffield, I would sometimes drink 7-12 cans of regular ice cold coca cola a day.  This in no way contributed to #1 above, really, no link at all.  During periods of revision or ‘last minute finalisation of essays’ (i.e. writing 3000 words from scratch in 2 hours), cola consumption could exceed this limit.
    3. John Hughes, John Landis, Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis basically formed my entire view of the universe.  Later in life, Kevin Smith simply confirmed it all to be true.
    4. I prefer savoury tastes to sweet tastes.  This isn’t to say I don’t like sweet stuff, but on the whole I enjoy savoury tastes more.  Despite the claims of the first GP I spoke to after being diagnosed as diabetic, my diet does not contain a lot of sugar, it consists mostly of savoury, sour, and umami tasting foods.  I stopped taking sugar in my tea in my early teens, and while I enjoyed jellies I always prefered the sour ones (clearly off limits now thanks to #1).  Note to America: By jellies, I don’t mean jams, I mean these.
    5. Clearly I enjoy food (as evidenced by my weight and #1), I most enjoy food which has a strong taste and I often find myself craving chilli based foods.  I am not afraid of some heat in a food product, but I prefer there to be a strong flavour to match it.  If I’m making home made chilli it’s not usually hot in a chilli sense, but it is often salty and has a very strong spice flavour.
    6. I spent several years at university associating strongly with Garfield for various reasons, but not least because he liked lasagne.
    7. I have absolutely no idea what blood type I am.
    8. I firmly believe that a technical skill is less important than the ability to understand problems and apply related knowledge.  If you have the ability to look at something, understand it, and apply related knowledge you can learn any technical skill worth knowing.
    9. I can’t sing, I can’t write music, I can’t play back music that I hear on a musical instrument even if I know technically how to play that instrument (keyboard and tenor horn as a child), I can’t dance, but I have exceptional rhythm and can hold a beat like the universe depended on it.
    10. I believe the phrase “sarcasm is the lowest form of wit” is actually irony.
    11. I could stand in front of 1000 people and talk about a topic I picked up 2 days ago and sound confident but I couldn’t start a face to face conversation with any one of those people about something I’ve been doing for 25 years.
    12. The music of my youth was Madness, Queen, Eurythmics and Adam and the Ants.  I still love the first three, but I don’t rate Adam as much any more.
    13. During an assembly at school when I was around 10, our head teacher explained that not everyone could be good at everything.  We were all different and had different strengths and skills.  I decided there and then that it was clear I would never win a race around our school playground with anyone else due to my weight and lack of physical prowess, however, I would be able to beat everyone else by running diagonally across the playground since I knew that distance was shorter than the length of the other two bits of that triangle.  I decided that maths would be where I excelled and was pleased with myself.  Seven years later I gave up A level maths because it was too hard, and discovered I could neither win a foot race, nor beat people at maths.  I resigned myself to knowing how to use an apostrophe (even if these days, lazy fingers and lazy proof reading mean I get them in the wrong place too often).
    14. I have never had a driving lesson and hence can’t drive.
    15. I used to own (when at university) a long black rain coat, which I loved dearly.  I also had a pair of jeans which stopped at the knees, because they had worn out, formed holes, and the bottom sections had fallen off.  When combined (coat and jeans), with the coat buttoned up, the bottom of my legs were visible but naked.  I used to go out dressed like this.  It scared people.
    16. I’m a negative person.  I don’t just believe your glass is half empty, I think you’ll find it has micro-fractures and is currently leaking water.  Soon it will be entirely empty and you won’t have had time to drink any of it.  I don’t always think negativity is bad, if that were the case the electron would really suck.  However it obviously has to be managed.  I find I’m very good at spotting the flaws in solutions, designs, plans, theories and ideas.  This doesn’t always sit well with the owners of those intellectual objects.  It doesn’t really make them any happier to realise that I’m equally negative about my own ideas, theories, plans, designs and solutions.  However, when I learn to channel this skill correctly and couch my comments in happy-talk, it usually leads to better solutions, designs, ideas, theories and plans.  Usually.  If you find me pissing on your bonfire too much, just remind me, and I’ll try and keep it under control.
    17. My bladder capacity appears to be immense.  This is due to a combination of factors.  A lot of cola and beer while at university, a distinct and deep hatred of shared urinals, general laziness and a propensity to end up sitting somewhere that means I have to ask people to move if I want to stand up and go to the toilet.
    18. I was virtually teetotal until I went to university, but it didn’t last long.  The first real drink I had was Newcastle Brown Ale.  It made me so ill I vowed never to drink again.  Until the next evening.  I didn’t really choose to be teetotal until university, I just wasn’t ‘in’ with the kind of kids at school who went out drinking and so never got invited out.  I don’t necessarily regret this, I’m just letting you know.  You know.
    19. If it hadn’t been for the debt of being at university and because I’m basically really lazy, I’d probably still be in higher education in some form or another.  However, the company I worked for in my third year placement on my degree asked me to come back when my degree finished, assuming I passed, and I’m always happy to fall into the easy option.
    20. Despite my mother smoking all the time I lived at home, I don’t smoke.  I did smoke a few cigars during one particular year (1991-1992 I seem to recall), but just stopped one day.  I don’t seem to have the kind of personality that gets addicted to things.
    21. Although I engage heavily in several hobbies which appear initially to demand a superb imagination (roleplaying, live action roleplaying, reading, etc.), my imagination basically sucks.
    22. I love debate.  I find discussing ideas fun.  I totally respect the fact that other people believe different stuff to me, and will happily debate it until it gets dark and then light again with no intention of changing their mind, and every intention of maybe changing mine.  However, because I am somewhat intense when presenting my current belief on any particular topic, most people think I’m trying to change their minds, get frustrated or angry at me and then shut up and move on.
    23. I am generally uncomfortable with physical contact, but try hard to ignore it.  This doesn’t mean I don’t want you to hug me, I do, just that I’ll probably look uncomfortable for the first five seconds and that I probably won’t initiate the contact.  I’m getting better.
    24. My self image is a cross between Neo (The Matrix), Clint Eastwood and Egon Spengler.  The reality is clearly a cross between John Belushi, Bill Hicks and Raymond Stantz.
    25. Despite the fact that I don’t recall every verbalising to my mother or sister that I love them, I do in fact, love them.

All hail the Internet

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I was reading a blog which led to a blog which led to a flickr page which led to a blog which led to a website which led to a flickr page where I found this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ollym/3034897951/in/set-72157607801959609/

Which is cool.

(edit: It’s a guy who’s done some re-imagined movie posters, which I got to from a guy who does 60’s style book covers for novelisations of current movies – here).

Painting Diary – Hasslefree – Eve – part one

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Introduction

Eve leg strapsI really enjoyed writing the Sasha Dubois painting diary posts (start here), they actually made the process of painting the figure more interesting.  I thought I’d try stepping things up a notch, have a go at one of Hasslefree’s awesome sculpts (Eve), and write a few posts on doing that.  In terms of anatomy, relative sizes and detail it’s probably the best miniature I’ve ever tried to paint.  Usually things like belts or leg straps are 0.5mm or more in depth on miniatures, if you consider the scale (28mm being around 168cm) then a 0.5mm strap is about 3cm deep (I think), which is clearly unrealistic.  However, we’re talking about ‘representative’ miniatures, so it’s never been an issue for me.  Hasslefree sculpts are on the more realistic side of the barrier, so leg straps have a tiny depth (see image), barely any higher than the surrounding leg.  Painting this figure is going to be a challenge.

To add to that challenge, there are some amazing paint jobs of Eve on the Hasslefree site, the people who paint those mini’s are real artists and their attention to detail, brush control and fine touch is beyond me.  So I just hope I do the figure some kind of justice in my own way.
Continue reading →

Size matters

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So, here’s a collage (I love Picasa) of 10 miniatures.  In theory, these are all 28mm or 32mm scale mini’s.  It’s 1024 wide so if you’re looking at this on your smart phone you may want to wait!  Click for the full size image.  From left to right, top to bottom they are, Big Boris (Heresy), Echo (Black Scorpion), Black Jack Davey (Black Scorpion), Sheriff (Black Scorpion), Sadie (Hasslefree), Tony (Hasslefree), Shimmer (Hasslefree), Ceril (Hasslefree), Kat (Hasslefree) and a dwarf from Rackham for a completely wacky counterpoint.

Miniature Size comparison

Glue!

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So I’ve been ordering a bunch of miniatures recently, a couple or three from a range of different places to find out which ones I like best.  You can get an impression of the miniatures from the on-line shops but you’ll never really know what they’re like until you get some.  From Hasslefree I bought Ceril, Eve, Kat, Tony, Sadie and Shimmer.  I can’t believe how clean the molds are, virtually no mold lines and absolutely zero flash.  The mini’s are really delicate and very fine.  They’re beautiful, but I fear I won’t be able to do them justice when painting them, and personally I think I tend to prefer slightly over-scaled miniatures (heroic scale, 32mm, whatever you want to call them) with slightly exagerated features.  We’ll see how they work out.

From Heresy I bought Big Boris mk2 and some green stuff (modelling putty, to fill gaps when I’m putting multi-part mini’s together).  There was quite a lot of flash on the axe, but hardly any mold lines or flash anywhere else.  The figure is pretty big as 28mm scaled figures go, I’ll get a photograph of them all together sorted out with a ruler or something.  I got Big Boris because I wanted a go at painting flesh with a lot of area to work with, and he fits that bill.  I’m eyeing up the sci-fi range at Heresy, so you may see some more stuff from them soon.

I bought three mini’s from Black Scorpion miniatures, really to see what scale they were and get a feel for them.  I got Echo, Sheriff, and Black Jack Davey to see what the various ranges were like.  There’s a lot more flash on these figures than Hasslefree or Heresy, and some quite large pieces of metal left over from the molding process.  They’re also much more like the figures I’m used to when compared to Hasslefree (they’re slightly less realistic and more overscaled), but that’s good, because I think that’s what I prefer.  They’re nice figures.

Then last night I found a link to another UK miniature place (Copplestone Castings) on a forum, and ended up buying a few miniatures from them (clearly, not arrived yet), to see what they’re like.

Most of the Hasslefree miniatures are multi-part, because the angle of the arms or various weapons prevents them from being cast a single pieces, the Boris mini from Heresy is also clearly multi-part for the same reason and also so that several options can be provided.  The Black Scorpion Miniatures likewise, have several bits.  So over the last couple of weeks and for a few hours yesterday I’ve been glueing them together using super-glue.  I don’t think any of them are large enough to need pinning (strengthening the join with metal pins), but I guess we’ll find out when I try painting them if they fall apart.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

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Forgetting Sarah MarshallNormally I avoid romantic comedies, not because they’re stupid or dumb or only for girls, but because I find too many of them predicated on confusion and misunderstanding.  I really don’t enjoy those as the basis for a story, sure they’re present in most stories, just about all comedies and plenty of life experiences, but when they are the sole basis for a story about relationships I get annoyed.

I think it’s lazy film making to write a story of boy and girl meet, boy makes assumptions about girl, relationship develops, truth emerges, boy and girl split up for stupid reasons, comedy ensues, boy and girl work it out and get back together.  Because I find the parts of movies where two people are mistaken about some basic truth and that confusion causes conflict between them annoying, I really don’t cope well when the entire movie is built around it, and I’ve seen too many romantic comedies built on that exact foundation.  Yeh sure it’s a generalisation, sometimes I laugh at comedies built on confusion and I can deal with it, but when there are so many movies to watch I don’t usually take the risk.

Then a friend of ours said I had to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall because it was just awesome and amazing.  I’d already been pondering how unfair my movie watching preferences were for Grete – do we want action with guns or action with swords tonight (or teen comedies from 1985).  On top of that, I caught the last third of Knocked Up a while back and laughed pretty hard, so I promised Grete I’d watch more comedy with her.  Forgetting Sarah Marshall seemed like a good place to start.

First and foremost, this is not a romantic comedy based on confusion or misunderstanding, there’s one tiny moment where we thought it was about to descend into that and then gloriously it didn’t (it turned into a bit of a blow job joke instead).   Sure, we have the standard ‘thing goes wrong and we have to stop being together’ moment and then the ‘we realise we’re being stupid and get back together’ section, but they feel natural and organic and amusing.

At the outset our main man is dumped by his long term and famous TV star girl friend (one Sarah Marshall) and the film centres on his attempts to pick himself up and forget her.  It’s a small cast and I’m a huge fan of small casts, and the dialogue is sharp and interesting.  While the overall story arc is actually pretty obvious the twists and turns are interesting and there’s a couple of sweet moments I wasn’t expecting.

Despite my reservations, I quite liked Russel Brand.  The rest of the cast was pretty good and I especially liked Mila Kunis.  Kristen Bell was the weakest of the crew I felt (Sarah Marshall), but it may be because of the role and how Sarah has to be portrayed.

I have to say it wasn’t as outrageously funny as I’d been led to believe, and while I certainly laughed out loud a few times, it was more of a general smirk and chuckle kind of film for me.

Despite that minor quibble, it was an enjoyable film, with some truly touching moments next to some truly funny scenes, and I was left feeling pretty happy by the end.  Note, there are a couple of scenes of full frontal male nudity, so make sure you’re not eating or drinking anything you might not be able to get out of the carpet if you’re easily surprised.