Lies, Damned Lies and ...

So... where does Miniature Brains for the Home stand as far as the great and wonderful Blogniverse is concerned? Right here . Where does my far more affable and wittier ( probably from all the P.G. Wodehouse he reads ) Brother stand? Here. Huh... same rating. I never did trust statistics much. I'm surprised as he gets far more traffic and comments than I do ( as far as I know, my visitors consist of Brian, Jeff and a mysterious stalker ... ).

Haunted Dimensions

Paper models of the Haunted Mansion. Woot! MORE projects!

Throwing in the Towel

I don't give up on projects. I will put them on hold indefinitely, or put them away for a re-think, but giving up is something I don't usually do. I have an N-Scale craftsman building kit, for instance - "Watt Moreland Waxworks" - that I started eight years ago and am only about 25% through (it's a bear of a kit with a million tiny parts, each of which needs its own colour of paint - that and I've had plans to add light and sound to it which need solidifying...I can work on it for a week or so and find I've spent the whole time doing shingles on a tiny section of roof). But I'm in no race to finish it - never am with anything - it is a hobby after all.
Unfortunately, sometimes I do come up against a deadline (Halloween) and while I do work well under pressure - this time I've had it - there's not much I can do to finish Boba Fett on time and under budget. I think this was a project where my ambition was greater than my ability, or I just made some bad decisions in the construction process re: materials and methods. I'm sure #1 would have been happy with something that looked vaguely Boba Fettish ( I've paused for a minute to see if I can think of a joke to go along with that... but not this afternoon - it's not there), but I really wanted a proper "bucket" - as it is referred to on the Star Wars costuming forums. It looked simple enough, and the prototype I put together looked OK, but the finished product needs more work than I can put in this weekend (keeping in mind I've been on this for a month now). And I know now what I should have done and I should have experimented with different materials. But that's hindsight and #1 needs a costume. He's happy to go as "Link" again, which is good and we have all the pieces from when he went two years ago ( although some are a little tighter than they were). That and I promised he could use my ipod and speakers to blast the "Zelda Theme" from behind the shield I made for him.
I don't know if I'd try to make to Boba Fett costume again - it's one of those things it would have been nice if #1 had had a part in making it, but he's still clumsy with the scissors, and there's no way in heck I'd let him cut some of the cardboard I was using with a utility knife. Maybe in a few years time.

This Week....

Three things of note:

a Don Martin Collection - The only reason I read (past tense) MAD magazine. OK, Sergio Aragones, Spy vs. Spy and the occasional movie parody. But Don Martin was my hero. If I don't get this for Christmas, I'll be buying it myself. Why? Captain Klutz, Demeaning Plebney, Fester and Karbunkle, SHTOONK, DAWK and NATIONAL GORILLA SUIT DAY!







This video of the "Code Monkey Dance". There's a lot of dancing on You Tube, lots of it NSFW, but this one is pretty good. Worth watching for anyone who works in an office - I think a lot of jobs are equivalent to being a Code Monkey






Guess who wants to be "Boba Fett" for Halloween this year? ( no- not me, I wanted to be "Shaun of the Dead" but I couldn't find a cricket bat ).

Girl Genius

I first met Phil Foglio at the Comic Shop a whole bunch of years ago. He was publishing an illustrated version of Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures. I keep buying his stuff and love reading Girl Genius online. This particular short adventure had milk coming out my nose... "Fools! I will destroy you all! Ask me how..."