On the Rooftop

Welcome to the Prancing Peacock

Here's the front counter of the Prancing Peacock Inn, part of a miniatures and terrain set I Kickstarted a while back. I think I may finally be getting the hang of dry brushing. 

Here's the view behind the counter. 

 

A Shriek in the Night

 It is just before midnight, and after long hours of restlessness I am finally drifting off to sleep. Suddenly, curled next to me, Sylvia shrieks, her scream reverberating through the moonlit night. Startled, I jerk back to wakefulness. 

"What's wrong?" I ask. 

"I was dreaming of peanut butter!" Sylvia answers, and instantly falls back into slumber. I am left to wonder what's so scary about peanut butter...

Sign of the Times

Welcome, reader. I see you've found a pair of the special glasses that open your eyes to the truth of the world. We are being programmed by forces malicious and cruel, and recognizing that truth is our first step to liberation. 

You may have surmised that I opened the candy after all. I realized that the wrapper would fit perfectly into this 28mm sign. This'll be a nice little pop culture touch in my modern 28mm-scale city. 

Six Million Dollar Mag

Many years ago, almost certainly in Leaf Rapids, I bought this issue of Charlton's The Six Million Dollar Man magazine. Published in black and white, the magazine included comic stories and photo essays. 

The story descriptions on the table of contents provide a decent preview of the writing style used for the scripts. It's a very strange style; dry, with sudden jolts of emphasis. The art inside is quite decent, although the male gaze was definitely heavily in play when it comes to the women characters. 

If I still had the cover, I might have considered keeping this. But I lost it so many years ago I honestly don't remember what the cover looked like. And so the one and only issue of this magazine I ever read slipped into the recycling yesterday as part of my merciless quest to create space. 

Consume Obey Reproduce

These sinister candies came in the mail today. Given the wrappers, it seems I must eat them . . . and yet I fear the consequences . . . 
 

Na Noo Na Noo

Last night I painted this cheerful visitor from another world. Not bad, if I do say so myself. 
 

Higher and Lower

A few days ago, Letterboxd introduced a new statistic for Patron-level members: films you've rated higher or lower than the average Letterboxd user. 

Above, you'll see the ten films I rated more highly than the site average. I rated some films highly because of perceived technical excellence, hence the high ratings for controversial films like Triumph of the Will and The Birth of a Nation. Others I rated highly for entertainment value, such as Enter the Ninja, Bad Taste, The Phantom, and Snakes on a Plane. The rest I rated highly because I thought they were good stories competently told. 

Here are the films I rated significantly lower than the site average. These ratings are, I fully admit, more subjective and less rational than my higher than average picks. Simply put, for one reason or another, these films rubbed me the wrong way. Here you'll see that I'm not a fan of Disney or Mel Brooks. I don't like films that are overly sentimental or mawkish (Beaches, Funny Girl, E.T.). I'm not a fan of jingoism (Top Gun) or white savior narratives (The Help). The Florida Project is a technical masterpiece and tells a very important story, but its opening scene made me grind my teeth and took me out of the rest of the film. 

Please consider that these ratings are all snapshots of my feelings at the time. Looking back, I'd probably rate Chariots of Fire, Absence of Malice, Snakes on a Plane, Them, Bad Taste, Enter the Ninja, and Black Belt Jones a star or half-star lower. On the other hand, I can't see changing any of my ratings in the "lower than average" tier. 

Reading Ruination

In January, I read five books. 

In February, I read five books. 

In March, I read five books. 

In April, I have read no books so far. 

This is much slower than my normal reading pace. I can't blame the pandemic, because I wound up reading slightly more books in 2020 than I did in 2019. 

Am I just getting old? Is this what cognitive decline feels like? I love reading as much as I ever have, but my focus is really impaired when I try to read for pleasure. 

Oddly enough, I find that I can read with the speed and focus I'm used to if I'm sitting in the car waiting for someone. A few days ago I read over half a novel that way in about 40 minutes. But I haven't touched it since. 

Maybe I just need a change in scenery or routine? 

Vaccinated, Part 1

Today Sylvia and I received our first of two doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. We were told that it's a sixteen-week wait until the second dose, which seems like forever. But we already feel a bit safer. Not that we'll drop our guard! 
 

Nuke Buggy

Here's yet another dune buggy, but it represents a new personal milestone: this is the first time I've used a stencil and weathering pencils. The stencil, of course, was used to create the radioactivity symbol on the hood. I used some sand and rust weathering pencils to add, well, sand and rust to the vehicle. My models still don't look as realistic as I'd like, but I think they're getting a bit better, inch by inch. 

The driver's arms are raised up off the steering wheel not because he's panicking, but because I glued them at an angle too high to give him the ability to grip the wheel. So he'll probably play the role of "terrified passenger" more often than "driver." 

The Greatest Challenge Yet