Speak Of The Week -- Advice Edition.

From one of those "These posts made me smile" lists:

 

"It's good to build a life you don't constantly want to run away from."

 

I recommend comic books, sci-fi and baseball, but you do you.   

As The World Turns

Empires are run by Emperors.

Kingdoms are run by Kings.

This makes sense to me.

Just look how many countries there are these days.

The Final Kitchen Fix. I Hope.

Early last week, I finally got the last comics glued down and covered in epoxy in my kitchen,

 

 

Yeah, that's my kitchen.

To make moving the fridge in and out of the kitchen easier, I placed it on a rolling cart and wheeled it into the living room for the 5 days I was working on this.

It turns out, having the fridge 10 inches above the floor is PERFECT for a guy my height.  The freezer is at eye level and there's much less bending and stooping to get at stuff down low in the fridge.

So...

 

And that's a riser for my fridge. 

 So today, it all got put back together.

 

And now my fridge floats.

 

It's been literally years in the making and a LOT more money than I originally budgeted for the project, but I think the results have turned out worth all the work and money.

Old. So, So Old.

One of those random "You know you're old when" lists from the internet.

Most entries?  Yeah, I feel that.

Best entry?

"I used to sneak out of the house to go to parties. Now I sneak out of parties to go home."

That made me LAUGH.

Then I realized, I'm actually much, much older than that. 

I never make it to the "leave the house to go to the party I eventually sneak out of" stage.  Nowhere on earth is as comfortable or inviting as my couch.  Drinking has no appeal, not drinking while being around those who are, even less.  I can't even remember why I enjoyed parties, bars and dancing back when I actually did.  All I can recall is hangovers, sweaty presses of people trying to get their drinks and the realization that I was either Dad Dancing or just plain goofy - in public.  

That's old. 

Oh and second best entry?

I have scars older than some of my coworkers. 

Sometimes, You CAN Speak It Into Existence

My last post was about my trouble with Linkedin.

This is NOT a post about resolving that.  That hasn't happened.

Fortunately, this post is about not needing bloody Linkedin, at ALL.

I am gainfully employed, once again.  It's night work, so that's awesome.  It's driving a truck, so that's awesome.  It's doing something good, every night, so that's AWESOME.

I water trees.

No, that's not a metaphor.  I really water trees for a living.  Big truck, water tank, hydraulic arm to get the water to the tree.  And they pay me for this!

 

The view from my new office.

It's awesome, all around.  I love that every night, my job is to make the city greener, help our trees capture carbon and generally pretty up the place.

In short, Linkedin can suck it.

Now, if I can just get that magic agent out there to love the novel submission, life will be steak and apple pie. 

Linked-Out

I've been between jobs long enough to have decided I'm just a poor, full time writer.  I am actively pursuing agents and submitting work with publishers and hoping that something pops.

That said, I wouldn't mind finding some work to put money into my account rather than watching it drain away.

So, I signed up for that Linkedin thing.  All good.  Uploaded a headshot, entered some experience and skills, invited a few of my former coworkers into my network and called it a good day's work.

Next day, I get an email saying my account is restricted.  No explanation as to why and my only option to get it "unrestricted" is to submit to a third party site that takes my picture AND pictures of my government issued ID.  

Wow.

And if you've not had the pleasure, let me inform you that Linkedin is now ENTIRELY people free in the customer service area.  It's all "here's the answer to a totally unhelpful, barely related question" and not one functional email link or even a form to submit.  If your answer isn't in the help section, you are out of luck.

It's been 48 hours.  Not a peep.  Their A.I. is obviously too busy to help.

At this point, I'm annoyed enough that should I ever get access, I'm strongly considering deleting the whole profile.  I need work and by everything I read, Linkedin is a great tool.  I'm just not sure that the trade off of my humanity is worth it.

It's literally "Old man yells at cloud."  I just think that in this case, since we've given up so much of our agency to the cloud, it's no longer ironic when I do it. 

No flying cars yet, folks.  But we're well on our way to being batteries that service the Matrix. 

So I Guess 5 Is The New 7

When Star Trek came back to television with Star Trek: The Next Generation, no one quite knew how long it would last.  As fans of the original show and its 3 seasons, we were hopeful to see at least that many, but then the writer's strike hit season 2 production and all bets were off.

Somehow, they managed to survive bad scripts and a clip show that rounded out season 2 and went on to an amazing seven full seasons, 20+ episodes in each.  Deep Space Nine and Voyager ran almost identical races, the only significant difference being Voyager's short first season.

Then came LONG drought of Trek on television.  When Discovery was announced decades later, we Trek fans were thrilled.  I think it's fair to say that most Trek fans weren't crushed when it only went five seasons of between 10 and 15 episodes. 

Personally, I was crushed when Lower Decks only went 5 seasons of ten episodes each.  That show is EASILY my favourite Trek since Deep Space Nine.  An animated treasure and I truly hope they find a way to bring some of those characters into future projects.

Then came Strange New Worlds, spun out of Discovery and EXPLODING onto our televisions.  

Back in the 90's, I kept screaming that instead of going forward in time (TNG, DS9, VOY) they should go BACK and make the Adventures of Captain Pike with THIS GUY: 

 

The Late, Great Ray Liotta woulda KILLED it.

While Ray Liotta can no longer pick up the mantle, Anson Mount's Christopher Pike is a very nice surprise and has entirely won me over.  I don't even hate the recast Spock. Don't love him, but I don't hate him.  Rebecca Romijn as Number One was inspired casting and won me over from the jump.

Happily and sadly, they've been renewed for a fifth and final season of only 6 episodes.

 

Another Trek entry I will miss when it's gone.

As much as it sucks that 5 seasons seems to be the new finish line for Trek shows, it's not entirely bad news.  I've said for years that I'd rather have 8 strong episodes per season of pretty much any show, rather than 20 episodes that are all only mediocre.  Why Hollywood can no longer sustain 20+ seasons of most shows is, in my opinion, not a question of not enough writers.  I think they finally figured out that if they hire the best writers, get good stuff out of them and don't bother slotting in meh episodes written by committee, the output might be fewer hours but better quality and thus more profitable in the long term.

Or not.  What do I know. 

With a definite finish line in place the season after the one they're currently filming, they really should be able to stick the landing:

 

We all know how this has to end. 

All I know is that I'll be glued to SNW for whatever they're gonna give us until they warp off our screens for the final time.  

Now if they would just give Seven of Nine her spin off, I could write a companion article entitled "Will 7 Go 5?" 

P.S. Obviously, if they do give Seven her spin off and it does go to five seasons, there would be a follow up to that, entitled: 7 of 9 To 5

 

Islands in the streaming...

Feelin' Kinda Trekkie...

After revisiting Peter David's Q-in-Law and really enjoying it, I felt sort of nostalgic for the great Trek of yesteryear.

I guess I'm not the only one.

Lookie what I ran across just this morning:

Five spectacular retro look posters promoting the soon to drop Season 3 of Star Trek Strange New Worlds.

A hundred years ago, when posters were something you bought in a roll at a department store (I know, I'm old) I'm seeing a couple of these on my bedroom wall, easy.  One of these days I'll share my still in progress Trek themed studio space.  If I can, I think I'll find a way to fold some SNW images in there somewhere.... 

In this Trekkie's humble opinion, now that Lower Decks has run its course of 5 seasons, Strange New Worlds has done a great job of picking up the torch and running with it.  The musical episode last season was truly a stand out and the story-book come to life on the Enterprise felt like an episode of old school TOS Trek, something that was entirely missing from the less than stellar entry that was the 5 season run of Star Trek Discovery. 

I am an outlier in most Trek circles in that I put Deep Space Nine at the top of my rankings, but I think most Trek fans would rank Strange New Worlds somewhere near the top of their lists and most of us are looking forward to its return on July 17.

For now, we have some pretty spiffy posters to look at. 

As Good As I Remembered

I just finished rereading it and can happily report that it evoked several laugh out loud moments.  David's writing expertly captures the cadence and tone of the stars of Star Trek and you can hear the cast delivering his dialog as if it was an episode rather than a novel.  

Q-in-Law is still a joy to read, nearly 35 years later.

 

  

And for the record, it was an axe.

The Most Right Thing I've Ever Heard...

...and possibly the most depressing.

There's a show from AppleTV called "Extrapolations".  It's 8 episodes that explore the possible future we are making by ignoring the obvious issue of climate change.  I rarely post about this subject because I honestly don't have enough knowledge to argue or debate it effectively.

I'm on the side that believes we're doing a terrible job as stewards of the planet, but I'm not going to get all preachy here.

I just wanted to share this one quote, because it so eloquently sums up the real problem.

As they discuss a possible future where humans have digitized themselves and plan to physically incarnate into new bodies in a future where all the planet's problems have been solved, one of the characters points out:

"What makes you think that the world is going to get better?  Human history is the story of one terrible catastrophe after another, most created by our own hopelessly incorrigible selfishness.  Well, the problem with beaming into the future is that where ever we go, we'll have to take us with us."

Yep.  The nagging worry that I have for the future isn't that humanity won't fix things.  It's that we'll fix things and then find a whole new way to fuck it all up.  

The Best Writer You've Never Heard Of Has Died

Peter David was one of those writers that fly under the radar, despite a huge body of work.  He died at the age of 68 this weekend and I am saddened by the news.  Ironically, today is International Towel Day, a tribute to another great writer, Douglas Adams.  Peter David was a writer who had an equally, if perhaps less unconventionally, sharp wit.

He wrote a ton of comics, television shows like Babylon 5 and Young Justice and bunch of novels, many of which are absolutely excellent and usually very, very funny.

I personally discovered his knack for quirky humour in a Star Trek novel.  There have been hundreds of these written and you could be excused for considering them the sci-fi equivalent of the Harlequin Romance novel.  They're often very forgettable and rarely much more than a throwaway read.

Q-in-Law doesn't deserve that comparison.  In this brilliant little book, the all powerful entity, Q, comes aboard the Enterprise and winds up in a romantic relationship with Lwaxana Troi.  As part of their courtship, he grants her the infinite powers of his kind.  When the romance is revealed to be an experiment that the curious Q was performing rather than a genuine love affair, things go quickly and hilariously off the rails.  

 

All powerful god vs. jilted woman.  He's toast.

 

The formidable Lwaxana Troi refuses to give up the powers she's been granted and in grand style she uses them to get revenge on the "man" who jilted her.  There's a chase scene through the corridors of the Enterprise that I would dearly love to see realized on film.  I can't clearly recall if an axe or a chainsaw is involved, but either way I think "Q" actor John DeLancie should be given the opportunity to attempt to portray a tree in fear for its life.

It's a testament to the creative genius of Peter David that I recall the book pretty vividly to this day, some 30 years after I read it. I can honestly say, there isn't another Star Trek novel (I've read most of them) that had the same impact.

Thank you for the laughs and great reads, Peter David.  Your work may not be the most well known, but those of us who know it, love it.  I shall have to hunt up some of your books in my collection this week.  I know I'll get a kick out of whatever I find.

Keep an eye out for Peter David written television, novels and comics.  They're always worth your time.

Yes, I Know It's Irrational...

...but after the Jesse L. Martin show got through a second season, I really had high hopes for a nice long, cozy run. 

By now, I really should know better. 

 

Pointing out that I'm irrational for hoping this show would last is...irrational.

Like so, so many shows before it, The Irrational has fallen to The Curse of GB Likes Me.

At this point, I have lost track of the great concept shows that have died early deaths, seemingly for no better reason than the fact that they are shows that turn my crank.  Off the top of my head, with a little help from the Google box, here's a list of GREAT recently come and gone after one or two season shows:

Firefly

Limitless

Forever

Pushing Daisies

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Painkiller Jane

Alphas

Almost Human

Dollhouse

Jericho

FlashForward

Constantine

Revolution

Sense8

Terra Nova

Rome

Agent Carter

Pitch

Alcatraz

Carnival Row

Lovecraft Country

Copper

The Bondsman (yep, they cancelled Kevin Bacon's new one)

Brimstone (yep, they cancelled the show Kevin Bacon cloned...)

Mindhunter

A League of Their Own

Gentleman Jack

Now, aside from being collectively depressing when laid out like that, what else do these shows have in common?  With only a couple of exceptions (Almost Human, Mindhunter, Copper, Carnival Row) they're none of them procedural cop or lawyer shows.  There's a smattering of medical drama with Forever, a couple of FBI/CIA agent main characters, but for the most part, all these shows dared to look for an audience that wasn't looking for another "cop/lawyer/doctor solves/wins/cures" show.  Even when they embrace the procedural, non-cop main characters are not often embraced by the mass audience, as Limitless, Carnival Row, Forever and The Irrational learned the hard way.  

Those of us who are always looking for a new show that isn't a retread of the last 70 years of television success are left holding the cliffhanger.  We hope for more, but are rarely rewarded.

How dare we expect our shows to last?!?

So Irrational of us. 

50 Years Of Baseball Fandom...

...and I've NEVER seen THIS before:

 

 

And probably never will again!

It's 10:22 PM. Time To Mow The Lawn.

At least, that's what my neighbour thinks.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm fine with it.

I am wondering how the rest of the neighbourhood views a gas mower at this hour.  🙉

At least it'll be tidier in the morning.🤷

And Superman. I Also Shill For Superman.

 

Like this is a surprise.

 

P.S.  

This looks awesome.  I cannot wait!

Legal To Drink Across Canada

As of today, May 13, 2025, Greybishop's Board is old enough to drink in every Canadian province.

Most provinces have an 18 year old legal drinking age, a few, like Ontario have that age set at 19.

The blog turns 19 today.  This is post number 1369.  That's a hair above 72 posts a year, about 6 per month or one every 5 days or so.  That I'm still posting that often is sort of amazing to me.

I truly had considered shutting this thing down back at post 1000, but it looks like I'll be ranting and raving here for the foreseeable future.  I'd love to hit 2000 posts someday.  I predict that will take until sometime in the mid 2030s.  Assuming there's still internet, electricity and breathable air at that point, I hope I'll still be telling you all about the little things in life that make me smile, frown, laugh and cry.

Happy Birthday to the little blog that could! 🎂

And best wishes to all of my readers for the next year.  I'll keep a light on here for you. 💡

Yes, I Shill For Milkbone

 

How can I not?

Superhero Shows Aren't Always Super...

... and certainly there were varying levels of quality in what came to be called "The Arrowverse" from its initially great early seasons of Arrow through some very uneven years for every show that Arrow spawned.

Arrow itself was amazing early on, suffered from some weak seasons but ultimately spooled out a show that redefined the concept of superheroes on television.  Say what you will about it, but it moved the needle in the right direction for everything that came after it.

The Flash was never as good as its first couple of seasons but had some greatness left to give over its eight year run.

Legends of Tomorrow started off weak and ended strong.

Black Lightning never really found its footing but had some superb moments during its run.

Supergirl was always uneven but had a strong lead and some great supporting characters that occasionally were as good as superhero shows can be.  And one of the best musical television episodes in history, too.

Stargirl was cute and I loved that they were able to bring characters like Hourman, Dr. Midnight and Wildcat to television for the first time, even if they did it by basically putting the Scooby-Doo gang into superhero costumes.  Never a great show and often as corny as Kansas at harvest time, Stargirl did have its own kind of charm.

The one exception to the choppy scorecard for Arrowverse shows was the final property to spin out of that universe, Superman and Lois.

 

It went by so fast.

Over the course of four almost uniformly strong seasons, this show spooled out a sprawling story about love, family, sacrifice and joy and it did it with a dwindling budget, casting changes and despite its home network being sold to a group that prefers cheap unscripted game shows to high budget superhero content.

I just finished my season four dvd set.  It's bare-bones.  No special features, just the 10 episode season on three disks and that's it.  

Thing is, it's so damned good they could have doubled the price and it would still be worth owning.

The last fifteen minutes of the final episode serves as an epilogue not just to the season and not just to the show but to this version of Superman's Clark Kent's life as we were lucky enough witness over the show's run. 

It's fifteen minutes of damned near perfect television that caps an excellent run of four solid seasons.  I can't recommend it highly enough.  Start at the beginning, enjoy forty episodes of quality superhero storytelling that weaves heart, family, love and joy through every story line.  

And don't worry, Superman and Lois brings the boom, regularly. 

It went by so fast.  

Legit Question

Why?

I heard someone say they were going horseback riding today.

I'm not wondering why they would do that.

What I want to know is why do people call it "horseback" riding.

 

I just don't see another option here.

 

I mean, how much horse-side riding do people do? 

 

Okay, fine.  Some.

Still, if you tell me you're going to go and ride a horse, I'm gonna assume you're planning on riding on its back.

I mean even if the lady in the picture above told me she was going to ride a horse, I'm still picturing her on the horse's back, not dangling off it's side like a crazy person.  

If you tell me you're going horse-side riding, I'm picturing you with cartoon horseshoe prints all over your ass and cartoon birds circling your head like you're Daffy Duck after he's been hit with a frying pan.

That's just science.

The San Penguinisco Treat!

I just finished watching the National Geographic series, Secrets of the Penguins.

Great stuff, ably narrated by Blake Lively and full of typically beautiful scenery and adorable penguins.  As you'd expect from National Geographic.

Unexpected?

This:

 

 

What do you get?

That's a male Macaroni Penguin on the left.  And a female Rock Hopper Penguin on the right.  They're two different species and we have the distinct privilege of meeting their offspring.  Two Rock-a-Roni Penguins.  Never filmed before and rarely recorded in history.

The show didn't name them, but I can't help myself.

 

Wait for it.

That's the Rock-a-Roni Hamburger Helper on the left.  

On the right?  

The Rock-a-Roni And Cheese.

You heard me.

Quitcherbitchinaboutthesuit!

I've said it here often.  Comic book fans will argue about ANYTHING.

Incessantly.

This year's biggest target, by FAR, is the suit Superman will be wearing in this summer's Superman movie.

Here's my official word on this, thanks to this new picture of it released today:

 

If we'd gotten this picture to reveal the suit, it would have been a quiet day on the intertubes.

Relax.  That's Superman, right there.  

And Lois is wearing purple, which is straight out of the comics and a couple of animated versions, too.   

Works for me.

My Favourite Story This Year

Somewhere in Czechoslovakia, there are a slew of civil engineers who can take a year or two off.

There was a parcel of land, once used by the military as a training area, that the local officials decided to return to a natural wetland state by building a dam on the local river.

To this end, they started the usual procedures.  You know, studies, planning, permitting, etc., etc., and the work takes years to get started and years more to complete.

Meanwhile...

 

When you least expect it...beavers!

 

A family of beavers migrate into the area where the officials are planning to build this dam and (shocker!) build a dam.  Pretty much right where the white hardhat brigade had planned.

In two days.

The resulting water level change produced a wetland area roughly twice the size of that which had originally been planned and saved Czech taxpayers something on the order of $1.2 million dollars.

Plus, built in natural engineers are now in residence.  The beavers continue to build dams and regulate the water in the area, much to the delight of the officials in charge (and in funds!).

The whole story is here if you'd like to know more. 

Take the day off, boys.  Beavers happen.

Huh. Sixty Years With NO Refresher Course.

I've been driving for about 38 years, since I was around 17.

At the moment, I'm training to upgrade my license and an interesting fact came up during that training today.

I had to take a written test before I could get in the training vehicle, much like you do when you first get your learner's permit for a regular car.  The test for being allowed to drive a transport truck is more detailed and challenging, but nothing most people couldn't do with a bit of study.

What's fascinating is that if I hadn't taken that test a couple of months ago, I might have gone 60 years or more without any sort of formal re-testing of my driving skills.  If you don't have an accident or incident, no one will check on your driving ability until you reach the age of 80 (or in the neighbourhood, depending on your local laws) when age forces drivers to take a written test and/or some sort of cognition testing.

Think of how many bad habits the average person develops when they do any complex task regularly.  Now magnify that by not having those skills and habits retrained regularly over decades.  For the most part, we get our license to drive as teenagers, so almost every driver on the road has NEVER been tested for competency at the task in their ENTIRE ADULT LIFE.

When I climbed telephone poles for a living, we had a one year training cycle.  We would review and retest on 12 different major skills, one per month, every year.  Driving, climbing, electrical safety and nine other major skills got reviewed every single year.  The safe driving review was only one morning of class and one morning of practical skills tests once a year, but it's still far more than most drivers ever get. 

Unless your job has a driving component that your company reviews with you for insurance and safety reasons, you go through life, driving your 2000 pound death machine and nobody ever checks in to see if you're still doing things as well as you did them when you first learned to drive.  As a teenager.

That is INSANE.

As eye-rollingly dull as it may be to have to sit through a review of basic driving safety and skills, it is the only way I know to keep those skills sharp and front of mind when performing repetitive tasks.  It is SO easy to slip into a dangerous habit, since we humans so easily fall prey to outcome bias.  If I don't signal a turn and there is no problem or negative reaction from the drivers around me, I'm more likely not to signal the next turn and so on.  It's a terrific way to develop confidence in toddlers learning to walk but it can work against us and often does as adults performing complex tasks.  

As someone who has driven professionally for many years, I can tell you that the "average" driver is terrible.  Myself included, I've never, ever run across a single driver who believes their ability to be less than excellent, let alone one who believes they would benefit from a refresher course.  You just have to drive for a few hours to see that the MAJORITY of drivers do dangerous things regularly and experience tells me that none of those drivers believe that they are one of the bad drivers on the road.  In my humble opinion, anyone who believes themselves safe and competent behind the wheel should be willing to take (at least!) a written test on signs and road rules once or twice a decade and submit to a full in car driving test once a decade.  AT LEAST!

I'm being retrained as a professional driver at the moment and it has opened my eyes to some of my own bad habits, accrued over decades of driving without incident.  I may be accident and incident free, but I'm not nearly as good a driver as I believed I was before the training started.  I have the slight advantage of a decade of yearly review of safe driving practices thanks to my previous employer, but it's been 5 years since I've done that and that's enough time to see complex skills degrade.

Beyond retesting, which I honestly think we should implement, I think there are other road safety measures to be looked at and brought more strongly to the public consciousness.

I know.  Now I'm just bitching.  My blog, my bitch.  

The unnecessary carnage that happens on the highways and roads is almost entirely preventable.  In my lifetime we have convinced almost everyone to wear their seat-belt, put their kids in proper child seats and reduced the once common practice of drinking and driving by a large amount, mostly with educational television commercials and school programs.  We need to do the same with speeding, tailgating and reckless lane changes.

Until that happens, please slow down, back off and check your blind-spots.  

Human error accounts for 90% or MORE of all fatal road incidents.  "Accident" implies that there was nothing anyone could have done and that simply isn't true.  Speeding, distracted driving and impaired driving combine to cause around 50% or so of all of those fatalities.  That's three VERY preventable causes that kill more people every year than I care to think about.

Nothing is likely to make driving a 100% risk free venture, but we can and should be able to do a lot better than we currently are.

I'd also like to see automakers forced to limit the speed of any road legal vehicle to 130 KM per hour.  That's 20 KM or 10 Miles an hour faster than any legal speed on any road in North America that I'm aware of.  Why do we allow cars and motorbikes on our public roads that can effectively travel at double or more of the fastest legals speeds?  We can and do limit the speed of transport trucks for safety reasons, so why not cars and motor bikes?  There's no good reason not to do it.  Anyone who wants to go that fast can join a racetrack and risk their lives in private, away from the public.

When I lived in Dubai, every driver seemed to drive within feet, if not inches, of the proceeding car's bumper.  In my 55 years, I've been in 9 rear end accidents as a passenger.  Seven of those happened in the three years I spent in Dubai.  

If you catch yourself speeding, tailgating or changing lanes without checking over your shoulder, you probably do all those things a lot more than the one time your noticed.  Bad habits compound over time and we all have them.  The trouble is, if my bad habits meet your bad habits, it could be fatal.  I think we'd be wise to try to work towards that NOT happening.  

I didn't even mention texting and driving because to me, if I need to remind you not to do that you're already dead.  Or worse, you will one day kill someone else, maybe someone you love.  It just hasn't happened yet.

The political will to make the common sense changes that could easily, vastly improve road safety doesn't exist anywhere that I've run into.  Maybe it's time someone bitched a little louder.

Baseball. Building English One Mash-Up At A Time.

Every so often, baseball creates new words.  "Slurve" is a pitch between a slider and a curve ball.  There's a "Splinker" between a slider and a sinker ball.  There's also a "Chitter" (gotta watch that pronunciation on air!) between a curve ball and a splitter.  And many others.  This year we got the phrase "Torpedo Bat" added to the lexicon.

Last year, an announcer dropped "drop ankle" instead of "dropped anchor" as he referred to a runner rounding first base and stopping quickly.  Sadly, it didn't catch on, despite my best efforts.

Most of the new baseball words and phrases aren't likely to make it into regular use.

This one should.

During a game between the L.A. Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs, a ball was hit down the first base line.  Freddy Freeman tried but failed to dive for the ball as it shot past him.  The announcer, in the heat of the moment torn between "Freddy made a valiant effort" and "Freddy made a gallant effort" said:

"Freddy made a galliant effort."

Spellcheck gives it the red wavy line, but I like it.

Galliant.  It's going in my personal dictionary.

But She Wouldn't Even Get The Joke...

A quick bit of current affairs in case you missed it.

A biotech firm, Colossal Biosciences, claims to have resurrected an extinct species.  

The Dire Wolf roamed North and South America during the last ice age but went extinct long before Europeans landed here.  They also happens to be a key species in the Game of Thrones novels and tv series.

The link to the story is here.

All of that is pretty cool, with a side order of ethical concern.  Should we be bringing back species that Mother Nature took off the table thousands of years ago?  What about species wiped out by human action?  If nothing else, you do have to ask the Jurassic Park question:  Just because we can, should we?

None of that prompted this article. 

CNN has a feature called "Five Good Things" that comes from their audio side.  Here is the link to the transcript for this week.

This week it featured this exchange between the CEO of Colossal Biosciences and the host, Krista Bo:

Krista Bo
By using genes from their closest living relative, the gray wolf, they've created three pups. And maybe you can guess what their names are.

Ben Lamm
'The first are now six-months-old, that's Romulus and Remus.

Krista Bo
Now, in case you're like me and didn't watch "Game of Thrones," those are characters from the series. HBO, by the way, shares a parent company with CNN.

No Krista, they aren't.  Romulus and Remus do not appear anywhere in the Game of Thrones books or television show.  The third pup, a female, was named "Khaleesi" after the title given to  Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones.

Romulus and Remus are the mythological founders of ancient Rome, famously and (I thought) universally known to have been raised by a she-wolf as depicted below in one of the most famous statues on the planet:

 

Yeah, Romans had some weird ideas...

 

Back in the way, way back I used to have a bit of a reputation for being a sarcastic so-and-so when I ran up against people confidently proclaiming stupid shit.  Lord knows I've had it done to me more than once!  I might fancy myself something of a wordsmith, but I was once fully and rightly burned on the use of "penultimate" in an article I wrote and it still stings.  If you put it out there, someone will call you on it.

I wrote all this without knowing that the third pup was indeed named after a Game of Thrones character.  Sadly that makes all this slightly less sarcastically perfect, but I'm gonna go for it anyhow, since it's not clear from the transcript and I still like the gag...

In this case the obvious and perfect rejoinder would have been:

"How does a CNN host not know that Romulus and Remus come from Roman Mythology?  What, were you raised by wolves?" 

You can see the problem.

Respect. Mad Respect.

Q:  So, do you want to go up in the second tallest building in the world?

A:  Not particularly.

Q:  Do you want to go out on the roof?

A:  Why would I want to do that?

Q:  Do you want to jump off?

A:  Nope.  Obviously.

Q:  What if we build a big safety rig and man it with a dozen stunt professionals?

A:  Still nope.  And why isn't one of them doing this?

Everyone knows that Tom Cruise does a ton of his own insane stunts. He's an anomaly and for good reason. If Cruise gets hurt or dies while getting his latest adrenaline fix, hundreds of people would be thrown out of work as production is paused or even scrapped on whatever 300 million dollar film he's on at the time. 

As a general rule, I am not a fan of big name actors doing the really dangerous stunt work, for that exact reason.  I can't tell you how many articles I've read about productions that had to pause because (insert big name actor here) got hurt during a fight sequence or some other stunt sequence.  

Why risk it?  These days, between slick camera work, CGI and deepfake technology, there's little need to put so many people's livelihoods (not to mention the actor themselves) at risk, particularly on a big blockbuster with a capable CGI team.  Most Hollywood Health and Safety departments would agree.

  

Star of the big movie does what?

I have great respect for Ms. Pugh's bravery in doing this.  I really do.  I'm pretty sure you could pay me what she's making for the movie and I'd still say nope to jumping off that building.  And I used to climb telephone poles for a living.

I just think it is unnecessary and more than a little selfish of her.  While a stunt person's life is as valuable as hers, if a stunt performer gets hurt or dies, there's a professional pride taken in having that film or show go on to completion in honour of that performer.  Risk is their business and they get paid for being willing to risk life and limb.

If the star of the show is hurt or killed, a lot more people suffer directly as a result. 

All that said, Thunderbolts* looks pretty damned good and I'm looking forward to seeing it!

 

What an asterix.

Bionic Bust Out!

I've already told you the story of these models.

 

Pretty much hate orange, but this came out well.

This time I didn't have the presence of mind to take process photos.  I battled the dreaded "orange paint on white plastic" problem by assembling the full Steve Austin figure, masking the non-orange bits and spraying the figure a dark orange.  It's the same colour I used on my Scooby-Doo models a few weeks back and it's too dark and too glossy, BUT it did cover the figure with no streaks.  Once that was on, I overpainted with a matte orange acrylic and it came out pretty well.

 

I'm also very happy with the rusted door and the base overall.

Again, I cut and fiddled the "removable" panels that cover the bionic parts, making them look like his jumpsuit had ripped open.  It's not perfect, but it works far better than a part that covers the whole point of the model.

 

At least you can SEE the bionics!

The base wasn't particularly challenging and it came out nice once I painted and aged up the bricks and rusted down the door.  It's always nice to have a base with some character to paint and this one, while very basic, has lots of character.  It comes in plain white plastic and would look nice even that way, but I think I made it look pretty spiffy!

Probably the most challenging figure of all of the Bionic Man/Woman models, since the jumpsuit is orange and there's lots of little detail to paint.  The zippers, the boot laces, the patches and flag all came out pretty well, but I didn't spend a lot of time on any of them, just gave them enough detail to pass inspection.  I'm old and unless I bust out a LOT of magnification, stuff like that is just too much anymore.

I'm still pretty happy with this one.

Thanks, Uncle Jim.

Not My Favourite Phrase.

This isn't here for the reason you think it is. 

Sure, I'm all in on Never 51. I'm pretty sure I'll never meet a Canadian who isn't.

I find "elbows up" a weird flex, since I've never once heard the phrase until all this stuff started.  Surely we could have found a better national battle cry.  Still, I'm for anything that makes it clear that we're us and we're damned well gonna stay that way, so there's that.  It's also odd that I've started using "weird flex" in my writing.

And I would have answered "Mandel", not "Meeker" and it's still a Canadian answer.  I'd have missed the 2 on 1 hockey question though, because I'm one of the rare Canucks who doesn't love (or even like) hockey.

But none of that is why I posted this:

  

 

The reason I posted this is to point out the sheer, totally mind-whiggin' weirdness of Mike Myers having whiter hair than the Prime Minister of Canada.

When the hell did that happen? 

The Beginning Of The End?

Bugs Bunny is to Warner Bros as Mickey Mouse is to Disney, at least for most casual movie and television consumers.  There are folks out there that don't know much else about either studio that still know that much.  

So learning that Warner Bros might be looking to sell their Looney Tunes stake is shocking.

 

What the fuck, doc?

It stems from a report that Warner Bros might be selling a single Looney Tunes film, Coyote Vs. Acme, that they had cancelled as a tax dodge earlier this year.  It seems that they are looking to offload the completed film and that seems to have generated the buzz about selling the whole catalogue.

It's not totally insane, business wise, at least on the surface.  The just released "The Day the Earth Blew Up" has under performed in theatres, despite outstanding performances from Daffy Duck, Porky and Petunia Pig.  It's a fun little film, but it's not making the money the studio had hoped for.  Perhaps they think that the Looney Tunes properties have had their day and are looking to cash in and move on.

 

A title that implies a bomb.  Not the best look.

I am torn.  Part of me can't fathom Warner Bros without Looney Tunes.  The rest of me wonders if a new regime in charge of Bugs and company might be able to infuse the characters with new life.  

I honestly think that either way it goes down, Warner Bros might just be the next "Big" studio to get broken up and sold off, a la 20th Century Fox.  My brain boggles at the idea of Bugs Bunny or Batman moving to Disney, but with all the iffy numbers and news from Warner Bros lately, I can't rule it out.

One of these days...

Some Unsolicited Advice.

As a kid, I wrote a ton of poetry.  In High School, I took writing courses and one of the things we had to do was read our own stuff in front of the class at the end of the year.

I LOVED doing this since I could pick what to read.  I don't like reading long form narratives in public as I read fast and tend to stumble over the words as my mouth tries to keep up with my eyes.  Poetry is different, since I can find the rhythm and it flows much more pleasantly.

One piece I read was a short poem ironically telling the reader not to laugh or make a show enjoying life.  I don't have the poem anymore, but I recall the last line being:

"Don't play in the parks or swim in the pools, don't laugh at all because laughter is for fools."

I was 14 or 15 and pretty proud of it.  I knew it was good when everyone was totally silent after I finished.  Then a girl said very loudly:

"You didn't write that."

Well, I did.  Unfortunately her comment really flustered me and I probably didn't defend myself too effectively.

Years later, in my late teens at a friend's wedding, I was asked to give a speech and I wrote a Shakespearean sonnet.

In the washroom later that evening, a stranger said to me:

"You didn't write that."

Well, I did.  In fact I incorporated the bride and groom's names into the poem.  That ain't easy in iambic pentameter!

Sometime not long after that, I just stopped writing poetry.  I honestly think in part, at least, because of those people questioning my authorship.  Defending that is exhausting and I didn't enjoy it.

No one (except my first girlfriend, who was showered in romantic poetry - I was 17 and horny, what can I say?) really ever encouraged me to write poetry, but I was good at it and probably could have done something with it if I'd stuck to it.

So that advice?  

If someone in your life has an artistic soul, even if what they produce isn't your thing, encourage them.  Humanity needs more poets, more artists, more dreamers, not less.  Sure, the chances of making a real living at these things is slim, but not pursuing poetry into my adulthood is one of my regrets.

Don't let someone you love give up a passion.  While I don't blame anyone for not being encouraging, think how grateful I'd be if I was a working poet and had someone in my past who had been my poetry cheerleader.  

Be that person for someone in your life.  You never know what the rewards could be, but you're a helluva lot more likely to enjoy them one day than if you help churn out another middle manager.  

My New Wallpaper...

... which accurately reflects how my spirit animal would prefer to handle mornings.

I never bought into the concept of spirit animals until I realized mine was a sloth.  It turns out I was just too lazy to go to the trouble of buying into the concept.

A Heartfelt Apology. A Bit Late.

I want to apologize to a whole bunch of people.

Here's the deal.  I am currently doing some training and part of my day involves dealing with a trainer who is blatantly and unapologetically flaunting the non-smoking workplace rules.  We're in a remote location and there's little chance he'd be caught unless someone turns him in.  I actually like the guy and he's in the 70 year old range, so I'm inclined to give him a pass, since I am only in his office for a few minutes each day.

The thing is, I come home and stink of tobacco, even with just that short exposure.

So I want to apologize to all the non-smokers I've done this to during my years of smoking between 1985 and 2003.  

To every non-smoking television and phone technician, plumber and electrician; every non-smoking hotel, restaurant and bar staffer; every non-smoking co-worker, band-mate and house-mate: every non-smoking family member, friend and acquaintance I ever forced to exist in the exhaust of my addiction to tobacco, I am truly, deeply sorry.

It was incredibly rude and thoughtless of me and all those like me.

For those of you who smoke and are unaware that your habit is forcing the rest of the world to shower and launder their clothing after you interact with them, you do, you are and it stinks.

I am so sorry.

Watson. I Tried.

I wasn't sure after one episode.

I wasn't sure after two episodes.

I was pretty sure after three episodes.

After 10 minutes of episode four, I'm certain.

Medical dramas are rarely my thing.  I enjoyed this year's Brilliant Minds, but that's the first one I've liked at all in a long, long time.  

The much praised House was about as close as I've come to enjoying a medical drama in years and it wore thin after a few episodes for me.  It was a medical take on Sherlock Holmes and even that twist didn't really draw me in.  When I watch a detective procedural, once the who/why/how is revealed, I get a sense of "aha" from the resolution.  In a medical drama, I hardly ever get that because the culprit is rarely anything I can grasp as a layman.

Watson is yet another medical take on the Holmes mythology that just didn't work for me.  I like Morris Chestnut, but the cast around him (except Richie Coster as Shinwell - chef's kiss that guy!) is so painfully "built by writer's room sub-committee" as to be laughable.  Making the sidekick the leader of this band of ridiculous misfits is a risky strategy and in this case...

 

Sidekicks are sidekicks for a reason.

Moving on.

Kevin Bacon - Going Where Many Have Gone Before

Kevin Bacon's next project is something called "The Bondsman" and if you find yourself having deja vu, it's because you're having deja vu.

From BleedingCool.com:

"Kevin Bacon's Hub Halloran is a murdered bounty hunter who's back from the dead after being resurrected by the Devil to trap and send back demons that have escaped from the prison of Hell."

Off the top of my head:

Brimstone -  Ezekiel Stone was sent to Hell for killing a man in cold blood. When a breakout of 113 of the worst souls occurs, the Devil tasks Stone with hunting them down and sending them back.

Reaper - Sam Oliver is a college drop-out who turns twenty-one and learns that his parents accidentally sold his soul to the Devil before he was born. Now he has to work for the Devil as a bounty hunter for escaped souls.

The Collector -  Centuries ago, Morgan Pym made a deal with Satan: his soul, in exchange for 10 years with his one true love. After she died, Morgan--desperate to avoid eternity in hell--agreed to become a Collector, charged with collecting souls from those who had made deals with Satan.

Wynonna Earp - Wyatt Earp's Great-Great-Grandaughter uses his cursed gun, Peacemaker, to return to Hell the souls of Wyatt's 77 kills who return to earth every generation.

Lucifer - A nice reversal on the trope sees Mazikeen, a demon trapped on earth, become a bounty hunter of fugitive humans for the last few seasons of the show's run. 

And I'm 99% sure there are at least a couple more series that I've seen that walk this same patch of ground, not to mention a bunch of Twilight Zone/Outer Limits/Night Gallery, etc. episodes with similar (if not identical) premises.

I haven't seen much about this one, but I'll be shocked if it gets more than two seasons.  This concept is one of those "hard out of the gate" ideas that rarely (Wynonna Earp being my favourite exception) has the ability to escape the "been there, done that" curse of the procedural.   

If you find yourself having deja vu, it's because you're having deja vu.

Wherever This Is...

...I want to go there!

However, I will definitely "forget" my bathing suit.

I Can Rebuild Him. I Have The Technology.

This past weekend was spent in my happy place.  

I spent most of it building the Six Million Dollar Man model I raved about last week.

It was terrific and I think it came out pretty well.  Even thought it's a "snap-together" model, I glued and puttied all the seams to get a look like my other model work.  The tighter fit on the snap-together seams was actually a problem at times, since the putty would get squeezed out of the joint rather than filling it.  I got there in the end and I'm pretty happy with the build overall.  I took pains to recreate the missing hand and I also cut the "removable panels" to (hopefully) look like his sleeve and pants leg had been ripped to expose the bionics beneath.  

 

A good look at those exposed bionics.

 

One of those hands was custom made this weekend.

 

And I reiterate: "Hoisting the gorilla" is NOT a metaphor.

I think he came out pretty well.  He's taken pride of place in my living room and the other four models from the series will join it when I can find the time to put 'em together.  

It really was a lot of fun and I had a lot of warm, wonderful moments that felt like my Uncle Jim was peering over my shoulder while I worked.

While I can't go back and thank the man for the part he played in making me who I am and who I still strive to be, I can share his my joy at recalling his love with you, dear reader.  I hope you have an Uncle Jim in your life and more importantly that you are an Uncle Jim to someone in yours.

Now This Looks Right.

A lot of digital ink has been spilled regarding the costume that the new Superman, David Corenswet, will wear in this summer's Superman movie.  The reviews of the outfit are decidedly mixed and I'm not 100% convinced either way.  I like the cape, I like the updated "S" and I'm happy to see the trunks back but the overall effect is not the streamlined look I would prefer.

 

 

Somehow, this just looks bulky to me.

The most recent picture to surface, on the other hand, looks EXACTLY right.  Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor looks like Lex Luthor to me:

 

That's Hoult on the left.

He looks like someone who would be willing to go toe to toe with an all powerful alien.  As he should.

Now we just need to see him in his Iron Man Power Suit.

Love. It Takes All Kinds.

 

If it works for you and you're both consenting adults, who am I to judge?

So...Pluto And Back...FOUR Times...

In the 1970s, the BBC produced a show that has been making waves ever since.  You could say, it's connected to today.

The show?  

Connections

 

Ah, that leisure suit.  He actually burned it, years later.

 

James Burke leisure suits his way through history, connecting the discovery of the "touchstone" or chert, which is used to test the purity of gold, and similar ancient, seemingly minor discoveries and inventions, through several dozen fascinating steps (Connections - get it?) to the Space Shuttle.

 

We watched it in high school in the 80s and I have since watched it a half a dozen times over the years.  He made two more "Connections" series as well.  A terrific way to learn about stuff you'll never need to know and very, very entertaining.  At the end of it all, you'll have a much deeper appreciation for how human history and innovation unfolds and affects your life every day.

Some of the best television ever produced in my opinion.

He's back, just recently.

2023 saw the release of "Connections with James Burke" and I missed it, somehow.

I'm catching up now.  He just dropped this little bit of "holy shit, that's amazing!" on me:

"Okay, now the amazing bit.  There's about two yards of DNA in almost every cell of the human body.  With the body consisting of about 37 trillion cells, that works out to about 46 billion miles of DNA.  More than enough to stretch all the way to Pluto and back, four times."

If that isn't interesting enough to get you to look up James Burke and check out his previous work on the original "Connections" I cannot help you.  The man and his work are priceless treasures.  For me, Burke is right up there with Attenborough and Sagan.  

 

And it's all done without a leisure suit in sight.

Let Me Tell You About My Uncle

The picture directly below is not a picture.  It's a vivid memory.

 

"Hoisting the gorilla" is NOT a metaphor.

Almost 50 years ago, my parents sent me to visit my Uncle Jim in Toronto.  I think I stayed with him and my aunt for about a month.  They were an older couple who had never had children.  My uncle was retired on medical grounds with terrible, debilitating arthritis that gnarled up his hands so badly that even a simple handshake was painful.  He had been a lineman with the hydro-electric company, so I suspect he had once been very talented with his hands.  

My Uncle Jim was the kind of adult who talked to children, not down to them.  He would ask about my political opinions and earnestly listen to whatever nonsense my seven year old brain believed about politics.  He never laughed, just nodded and asked more questions.  When he took me somewhere like a museum or a mall, wherever I wanted to go, whatever I wanted to see was fine by him.  As a kid, I was used to my parents busy lives, meaning if we went somewhere, I got dragged along.  What they needed to do always seemed more urgent than what I was interested in, so trips out with Uncle Jim were a joy. 

I wish I had realized how special he was at the time.  

Uncle Jim is one of the few people I'm related to that I can honestly say I have great respect for.  The reasons for that are many and personal, but for this story to mean anything, you need to understand he was my favourite uncle and for good reason.  He is someone I dearly wish was still around to talk to, laugh with and ask advice of.  Plus, he never once missed a chance to sneak a five or ten dollar bill into my hand when we would part ways after a visit.  In those days that meant comic books and candy for days!

Uncle Jim took me to my first baseball game and if you've been paying any attention at all around here, you know how much that means to me.  It was the first year that the Blue Jays existed and I've been a fan ever since.  That was back when they played at old Exhibition Stadium, on a diamond that had been cobbled together on the field used by the Toronto Argonauts, the city's football team.  I didn't see another live game until the 21st Century.  

That was one of many, many wonderful memories he gave me that summer.  My aunt was still working at the time, so it was pretty much the two of us for the whole time I visited.  Museums, subways (something we didn't have where I grew up), parks and most especially, the TOY STORE in the Eaton Centre.

Uncle Jim was one of those wonderful grown ups that didn't really know how to say "no" to a seven year old boy when he set his heart on something.  Looking back, I know that he and my aunt weren't wealthy, living in a small one or two bedroom apartment, probably just managing with his pension and her wages, but I'm pretty sure that every time we hit that toy store I came home with something and probably not something cheap.  I know my parents had money trouble during the recession in the late 70's and I'm pretty sure my aunt and uncle were in a similar boat, but to my recollection, that man denied me nothing.

Back to that picture above and the memories it evokes.  In my childhood, few figures loom larger than Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man.  I have more than a few recollections of running across the school yard, jumping off a wall, throwing a pretend punch or lifting something "heavy" while making the "da-na-na-na-na" sound that accompanied all of Steve Austin's "bionic" action sequences.  Between Batman and Steve Austin, I was convinced I'd grow up to be a superhero.

When I saw the Six Million Dollar Man models in the store, I was instantly captivated.  I needed them.  Even if I'd never, ever built a model.  I recall my uncle teasingly telling me that I wasn't old enough for them, since they're "8 and up" but I eventually "convinced" him.  Thank goodness they were snap-together! 

My uncle, bless him, bought me the one above.  And the paint.  And brushes.  I can only imagine what the model, half a dozen or more jars of Testor's model paints and some brushes set him back, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the budget.  

We brought it home and I set to putting it together.  I clearly recall getting stuck and being unable to get the gorilla's head to snap in as it was meant to.  Pretty sure there were tears.  Remember, Uncle Jim could hardly use his hands, so he could really only offer encouragement to me as I navigated building my first model, ever.  Eventually, I got it all put together and I think I painted it that night or maybe the next day.

I was hooked.

Over the course of visit, Uncle Jim bought me the entire set of four.  I distinctly recall running up against my first frustration with paint colours as I learned that orange didn't cover very well when applied by brush to plastic when I built this one:

 

To this day I dread any red, orange or yellow parts of a model build.

 

You know when you listen to an old person tell a story and there's a hitch in their voice when they recollect a particular part of the story?  In my internal monologue, I had that hitch when I was reminded of these models one night a couple of months ago.  I don't recall what triggered the memory, but it popped up and wouldn't pop down again.  And once again, there were tears, for entirely different reasons.

 

I was on a hunt and over the next month or so, I found all four of the models in the series:

 

 

"Wrestling the alligator" is also NOT a metaphor.

 

 

Okay, so "Bonking the Biker" might actually be a metaphor.

In my quest to complete the set, I also discovered that there was one more that I'd never seen:

 

 

And "Fixing her bionics" is DEFINITELY a metaphor.

The Bionic Woman only got one model in the same style, likely because the model company assumed that model building would be more a "boy" thing than a "girl" thing.  They probably would have sold more of these if they'd put her in an action pose like the four Steve Austin models, but it was the 70's and I suspect  model and toy companies hadn't really figured out how to handle female action stars yet.  In the time, I likely would have thought the same and left the Bionic Woman model on the shelf, regardless of the pose.  I was seven, so I've forgiven myself the schoolyard sexism.  I bought one of these before any of the other.

 

Times change.  Plus, it has a cool backdrop AND you get Oscar Goldman in the kit.  Not sure why the boss would be handling Jaime's bionics instead of Dr. Rudy Wells, the bionic technician, but there it is. 

 

I was very lucky to find all but one of these intact and in the original cellophane.  It wasn't cheap, but I did get pretty good deals on them, thanks to a little digging and haggling.  The only one that wasn't still sealed was the first one, with the gorilla and the tears.

 

The "Fight for Survival" (that's the one with the gorilla) kit is one that runs into the hundreds of dollars if you can find a new one, so I had to bite the bullet and buy one that had been previously assembled.  It was cheaper because someone had decided to glue the snap-together model.  Thanks to that, I got a good deal.  Fortunately, with a little gentle persuasion, (almost) everything pried apart easily thanks to old, brittle glue.  I did break the two posts that snap the gorilla's feet into his body, but I will be able to make an invisible mend there and thanks to the weird way they modelled the legs and feet, I would have had to putty that seam in any case.  It looks like he's a dude in a gorilla suit with shoes shaped like feet under his pants otherwise.

 

And Steve is missing his right hand for some reason.

 

 

This is gonna be fun!

I'm a lot more skilled and a lot more patient than I was back when I first built these with my Uncle Jim.  There's a removable panel on the arm and leg of each Steve Austion figure that you can pop off to expose the "bionic" part inside.  I plan to do a little modification so it appears that Steve has ripped his pants and jacket to expose his bionic parts.  

 

I plan to do these with putty and glue and then paint them and display them as a tribute to my uncle.  They might be snap-together models meant for the younger set, but they're pretty well detailed and with a little effort I think they'll end up amazing.  I'm at least certain that they'll be better than what I built back in 1977.

 

It is funny that these days I invest a lot of time building figure models yet I've never associated that passion with the models I built as a kid, since I built tons and tons of cars, boats and planes in my later childhood and into my teens but not one figure model.  I thought of it more as an extension of my miniature painting hobby but it turns out I was just going back to the beginning.  Go figure.

 

I am not certain, but I doubt that I brought the originals home.  Pretty tough to pack plastic models in a suitcase.  I'm reasonably sure that they got tossed sometime not long after I left.  I don't think they went with the decor. 

 

I can't blame my aunt and uncle for not hanging on to them, but I like to think that Uncle Jim was proud of my seven year old's ambition for doing the whole set and I'd love to be able to show him what I'll make them look like now.  I know he'd be fascinated with the process and I hope that my rediscovery of something he gave me in childhood would bring him something like the joy he gave me all those years ago.  

 

So what's the first step?  Gotta replace that hand.  It turns out that the gorilla's feet are almost identical in size to Steve Austin's hands.  So:

 

 

It's not perfect, but it's a great starting point.

 

A little epoxy putty mould gives me a place to start.  I plan to build the whole model and then cast the hand from more putty.  While it's still soft, I'll sculpt it a bit so it looks like the left hand above and then glue it in place.  It's on the underside of the gorilla and I plan to display these high up, so it'll need to be convincing.

 

I have trouble drawing or painting hands in two dimensions.  Sculpting one in 3D is a first for me (I did manage a "hand" on my Green Goblin miniature in my chess set, but it was more luck than skill) so this will be an adventure.

I hadn't even thought about these in many, many years.  I build a LOT of figure models, but somehow it never occurred to me to look into these.  Now that I have, I'm itching to get started.  I'm already having fun building them in my mind, so it's going to be a great few weeks while this progresses.

Thanks, Uncle Jim.  Again.