Mouse Whistle Traction Company

Delving into the acrhives of old projects ( new projects are few and far between), I came across the MWT special. Powered by a gutted 4 wheel drive toy truck, it's entirely scratch built from 1/8" plywood and coffee stir sticks stolen from Starbucks. The Wallace and Grommit figures complement it nicely.
The idea's not original - it came from Bruce Bate's Birdwater and Raspberry railroad.
Bruce did very clever illustrations of strange, logistically challenged locomotives for the now defunct AWNUTS magazine (Always Whimsical, Not Usually To Scale).
This is the kind of modeling that appeals to me - ratcher than trying to emulate a specific period in time or particular locomotive - I want to capture a kind of distorted resonance . More of a comic book version of reality. I'd rather be making a five year old laugh than a forty year old appreciate the fact that I put the correct defibrillated waffle blower for the 1949 Bloagtaffle 8-8-8 on the left side where it should be (except for the 1949 Q series where it was 14" more forward).

Ruby

I haven't mentioned much about the trains - I think I wrote about all I could on the Lynx Mountain and Blackberry page ( which I haven't updated in some time - there are still baby pictures of No 1 son and no mention of No 2). But here's the latest addition to the roster - a cantakerous little dragon called Ruby. Ruby came from an Accucraft kit. Yes, I had to put it together. It wasn't difficult - I've made more complicated models with Meccano - but the neat thing is she's live steam. The two knobs on the rear control gas flow to the burner and steam to the throttle. The lever is forwards/neutral/backwards. I've had her running (sort of) three times now. Current problem is the timing. Steam engines have a complicated system of valves and eccentrics that all have to be in the right position at the right time. On the first run, Ruby ran better in reverse than forward. I though this was me setting the timing off a bit, but apparently that's how it comes from the factory. Huh. So off to the Internet for some wisdom .
Yow. This is a little more complicated than I thought. Which kind of ticked me off at first - I mean, who wants a toy that you have to adjust until it works? Oh yeah - me. I'm the guy who built his own telescope instead of buying one from London Drugs and spent a week aligning the optics. Then there is the hand laid track in the railway which takes me a day to make 6 feet. And the laser show, and the sound system... OK - a lot of things don't quite work as well as something from the store, but it's the journey, not the destination. Unless the destination is like ,Disneyland, then it's all about the destination.

On Awesome, Good and "Eh...."

I used to read hobby magazine like Model Railroader and Garden Railways. Not for a while. To be honest, I think I've had enough of seeing the spectacular quality of work some of these people do. It's the same with any hobby magazine, DIY blog or even the R/C helicopter I saw being flown today like some kind of dragonfly on amphetamines - some people are just too damn good at what they do. It's kind of a Marth Stewart mentality - do it, do it extremely well, and in huge quantities like it's the only thing you do 24/7. I know I'm supposed to be inspired by the meticulous craftsmanship, but even pre-kids I swear I never could have put that kind of time and energy into something.
At one point I do remember reading and article about legendary model railroader John Allen, when he mentioned even he got tired of his masterpiece railroad "The Gorre and Daphetid" and wanted to chuck the whole thing and go sailing - that I appreciated.
I suppose I've never had a true passion for anything I did. I've built a lot of stuff, but I think it was just for the fun of building it. I know far too many times I've finished something just because I started it, but not because I really wanted to. And it suffers - usually it's something that I can tell will never be all I want it to be because be ambitions are greater than my abilities.
I think it's time to cull the project collection and focus on one or two.
Or maybe find a new hobby.
Now where's that "Build Your own Sports Car" book....

Sam and Max - Freelance Police

I'm not a gamer. This is not about video games. But this is good.
Sam and Max: Freelance Police has risen again.
Once upon a time there was a very funny comic that was turned into a "point and click adventure game". It was funny, fun to play and didn't hurt my brain. The company that made the game made other similar games like "Monkey Island" and "Full Throttle". I liked these games too. A couple of years ago, they said "we're making a sequel to Sam and Max". All was good. Then the Bozos took over. "This game is not what the consumer wants - they want more 'Star Wars' shoot-em up themed games, so we're canning all adventure games - piss off wankers" (OK I added that last bit).

This was not good. Apparently the game was all of 90% complete when they dropped the ball.

I'm not impressed with todays computer games. Oh sure, they look great, but the basic premise (and ask a gamer this) has not changed in ten years. the big sellers are "First Person Shooters" where you're a gun that shoots stuff. Ok, there's "real time physics" where if you shoot a chair, it falls apart like a chair would... and there's AI where if you shoot at someone they shoot back and might hit you... and there's multiplayer capability which means you and a bunch of other guys can shoot each other.... whee....


Anyway, Telltale Games has picked up the rights to the Sam and Max gaming world.

All is good again.