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I happily present Keith Goldman's 2-2=2. I love his builds, and his style is not only technical with some great tricks, but he's got a great sense of humor as well. Check out more of his great works here. Above we've got a nice, dystopian style cookin' in the classroom. What's the shackled students' intrinsic motivation to learn? Not getting zapped, of course! Via the Brothers Brick Lego blog...

More stuff...

After my Catan post, I realized I've been through quite the dry spell here. I've had stuff going on, but not much time to just sit down and crank out posts here. Andy and Rucht's blogs are in the same boat though, so I don't feel that bad! Spring semester is wrapping up rather quickly, and this is the final stretch for me, so it's obviously occupying the bulk of my time. As we get closer to May, I'm having to step up with the paper writing and what-not, less time gamin' and paintin'. I don't mind the not painting bit (it's such a chore!), but not gaming as much as I'm used to, well that's a bit of a bummer. That's not to mean we've got nothing going on here though...

I'm getting my SuperSystem stuff ramped up. It's looking like I'll have four teams of Supers, of about four to six heroes each. Throw in that one monstrosity I hinted at a while back too...he's taking shape nicely as well. I added a couple of 360 games to the library as well, I'm thinking about hooking it up to the network, but I don't know, there's that whole time crunch factor I mentioned, maybe this summer. It'd be nice to play with my buddy out of state though. The comic book project is on a bit of a hiatus until I can afford some new bags and backs. They're not that much, but when you're buying them 400 at a time, it adds up quickly. The Warhammer stuff is super slow going, we'll just say it's more of a simmer, oh, while we're dabbling in the worlds of GW, I have added a fair number of rpg books to the library though, which I'm pretty excited about, some good lookin' stuff actually. The Eberron campaign I was getting ready to run ran out of steam, but only after I had bought the modules, source books, and miniatures, of course, heh. I was trying something new and went with a group of mostly non-gamer friends, which may have been the problem in the long run. I think that's the bulk of what's been cooking lately, as always, I'll keep y'all posted, hopefully a bit more frequently too...

More Settlers...

Well, we were all geared up to play some Forgotten Realms last Saturday, but that was a bust. I'd rather not dwell on this, so, umm, I won't, but let's just say "bah" and move on. We had a semi-full house, so we decided to go to the shelves for some gaming. We had World of Warcraft, which I actually love, even though it's been a while since we played it. This may be why we opted out of it, there is a bit of a rules ramp up, and I think we were all too cold with the rules to just roll out of the box. There were a few other usual suspects; Munchkin, Arkham Horror, Carcassonne even...but as you can tell from the pic, we went with good ole Settlers again.

We played a four player game first, I don't remember the particulars, just that I continued my perpetual losing streak. There was absolutely nothing noteworthy, from my perspective, that went down. We had a fifth person show up a tad later, so we finally cracked the seal on the 5-6 player expansion, woohoo. It's the little things in life. Anyway, the pic up top is from the five player game, with all the expanded tiles and kinda near the end of the game to boot. That's when I realized I hadn't updated the geek blog in a while, and an "action" shot of the board would be better than nothing. Okay, here's the deal: I suck at Catan. I love the game, it's a lot of fun, it's not too complicated, but the gameplay somehow still has a lot of layers to it. The interaction with the other players is great, and all in all it's a lot of fun. I have never won a game. I don't think I've even come close. If you look closely at the pic, I'm the color orange, you'll see there's zero orange presence on the map, haha. I took a moral victory in that I had the 'largest army', but that was literally all I had. On a good note, it was nice to watch the Vols beat Memphis and take the number one spot, and I'm not even a basketball fan...

World of Warcraft Miniatures Game

There's not a whole lot to say here, aside from the obvious. You can read the "official" stuff on the Upper Deck site. Also on there are some better images of the figs, including 360° views of the four preview characters shown above. The Gnome, Orc, and (Blood?) Elf I recognize, the thing with the tail, not so much. I've been out of the WoW loop for a while, he may be a playable race for all I know.

Mike McVey is a name that's been around the miniatures industry for a while. He's had some sweet gigs with some fairly serious companies, such as Privateer Press, WotC, and of course, Games Workshop. Now he's thrown his lot in with the powerhouse franchise of WoW, which could be a boon to miniature gamers, fledgling gamers I should say. I don't know how many current, veteran miniature gamers are out there now looking for the next, big pre-painted thing, but it might serve as a gateway game to former online-only players. They may get a pack or two, just to have a character to stick on top of their monitor, and maybe they'll give it a whirl. If they like it, they may take the ball and run with it, who knows, it could eventually snowball into them checking out other tabletop games. Even if just half a percent of WoW players turned out to get into mini gaming, that'd be fifty thousand new players on the scene. More consumers means more companies will put out products. Sure, a lot of those products may be crap, but it gives a chance for someone who may actually have a decent game to at least have a shot at getting it in the hands of the public. More of a market means more risks can be taken in a gamble for a payoff.

I'm not too terribly thrilled about this game, the minis don't blow me away, although I'm not the biggest fan of painting, so the pre-painted aspect is somewhat appealing. We've got the WoW board game on the shelf, and it's really cool, but that's about as deep as I want to wade back into the WoW pool for now. maybe I can score some of these new minis as singles to replace the monochrome plastics that came with the board game.

Throwdown in the Lost World

Monster Squad finds themselves on the wrong end of the law (again) as three of their number (the Scarlet Scarab, Wrecking Ball, and Jack o' Lantern) offer safe escort to the nefarious Professor Doctor Gugenstein to one of his secret labs. This particular lab is his mutagenic research station deep in the jungles of the Lost World, a 'hollow world' beneath the Earth's crust accessible only through the North Pole. In return for their service, Gugenstein will see if he will be able to reverse the Scarlet Scarab's outward mutant appearance.


Professor Doctor Gugenstein (center) searches the undergrowth for the glyph stone that marks the entrance to his underground laboratory. To have such a high-tech lair in such a savage place suggests that he simply moved in and took it over after being abandoned possibly eons ago instead of building one on his own. The ancient stone tunnel networks underground certainly suggest this.


Enter the Super Simians, intelligent and uplifted apes who have acted as a force of good for many years. Hot on the trail of Gugenstein, the Super Simians are looking for payback. The villainous Doctor kidnapped and enslaved one of the natural dire apes from the Lost World years back and tried to augment it in hopes for a super weapon. It was rescued by the Super Simians, who are currently healing it back to health at their base. They sent a team of three to exact revenge. Elasti-Ape and the Gibbon Glider are led by the mentally acute Harangutan.


Monster Squad is slow to act, but they must honor their deal with Gugenstein. From a distance, with kinetic rays from his high-tech visor, the Gibbon Glider blasts Jack o' Lantern to submission. Seeing an opening for attack, Jack o' Lantern rushes out towards Harangutan, catching him off guard and overwhelming him with a blur of melee attacks.


Tired of the Gibbon Glider's aerial attacks, Wrecking Ball uproots a massive pillar of black basalt to use as a projectile, leaving his charge, the Doctor, behind.


He lets loose, his massive frame throwing the automobile-sized pillar of rock as if it were a football across the cavern. His aim is off however, missing the high flyer by a long shot, but perhaps he can clip Elasti-Ape on the ground.


It misses, but gets their attention. Harangutan points towards the open opportunity, that Professor Doctor Gugenstein was left unguarded. Meanwhile, Elasti-Ape pummels Jack 'o Lantern from a distance with outstretched fists.


Jack o' Lantern didn't stay out for long, seemingly able to recover from the most grievous wounds. He was up quickly and to the Doctor's side, trying to stave off the Super Simians. Too late, the opening was too good of an opportunity to pass up and they were upon him.


The Gibbon Glider's soliloquy was a harsh reality check to the Monster Squad, as the doctor was lambasted for his unnatural acts, the Monster Squad realized that no matter the payoff, they had backed the wrong side. Gugenstein did not last under the fury of the Elasti-Ape and the Gibbon Glider. Where's Harangutan? A devastating blow from Wrecking Ball sent him "into next week". [in game mechanics terms, the melee hit knocked Harangutan back 20" through the air. From a single punch!] Staggering back, Harangutan eventually did return. Sacrificing himself, he launched upon the behemoth Wrecking Ball, hoping to tie him up long enough for the others to succeed.


The victors of the battle, the Super Simians. From left to right; the Gibbon Glider, Elasti-Ape, and their leader, the Harangutan. Crumpled at their feet is Professor Doctor Gugenstein, is this the last we've seen of him? Footage from the Gibbon Glider's visor "somehow" made it into the hands of the eager news media, who jumped at the chance to lump the Monster Squad into the same category of villains, vagabonds, fakirs, footpads, and n’er do wells as the atrocious Professor Doctor Gugenstein himself!

Tales from the Longbox

A little over a year ago I went about the arduous task of pairing down my comic collection. I wouldn't say it was "vast", but it did consist of about fifteen long boxes, roughly five thousand comic books. I can't understate the impact comic books have had on my life, I know that sounds dramatic, but they were my first forms of introduction to the world of literature, and yeah, I consider comics solidly as forms of literature. The only dry spell in reading and collecting comics in my life has been over the last few years, otherwise, I've always been meddling in them in one extent or another. This post will serve as a marker to my 'rejuvenation' project; getting the comics I decided to keep back in shape. I'm now down to four, maybe five long boxes, and they are all titles I decided to keep for one reason or another. I must stress, money, was not a factor in keeping titles, it was all about specific details key to each title. More often than not, it's just a "wow, this one is really cool" factor. As time (and money) permits, I'll catalogue titles, sort them by title and series, and put new bags and backs on them all. When it's all said and done, my collection will be somewhat static, but will be as pristine as it gets.


I was buying titles as far back as the late 70's, so my collection has got quite the eclectic mix spanning the last thirty years or so. I guess my collecting was at its peak in the late 80's and early 90's, so a large stack of keepers hail from then. Above is a smattering of titles from the middle of one of my boxes, I will have some gaps I'll need to fill over time as well. I might get things done faster if I didn't read them cover to cover every time I opened a new one up, heh.


Here's kind of a 'finished product' of what everything will look like. The first two long boxes are done; alphabetized, cataloged, organized, and slipped into new bags and boards. This took a lot longer than I thought it would, and buying new supplies from scratch is a bit slow going. I need to pick up a label maker and get some book titles on those file dividers too. As crazy as it sounds, what I'll do when I get everything in ship-shape, is post little blurbs (reviews, what-not) of each title, in order, of all the boxes. Daunting? Sure, but it'll be fun to do nonetheless!

Sunshine and Stardust

I can't possibly review all of the movies I already own, not all are 'geek' in nature mind you, but I'd say a large majority of them are. What I can do is at least review new movies as they're added to the collection, and of course movies I see in the theaters, and it takes a lot to get me out for the latter. I picked up a duo of movies this weekend though, and was simply blown away by both. I'll try to keep future reviews (as well as these) brief, 'cause who knows? Maybe I'll try to tackle reviewing the whole collection one day. Let's dive in...


Sunshine: You could get away with calling this one, "2057: A Space Odyssey" pretty easily. I lament not seeing it on the big screen, visually it's stunning. The film revolves around a mission of eight scientists on their way to our dying Sun to deliver a 'bomb' to try to rejuvenate the nuclear fission process to save Earth. Sounds simple, but it's done beautifully. The entire film takes place on the ship, beginning to end, and all the high-tech doo-daddery is juxtaposed with cold and magnificent beauty of space. Complications arise along the way, and although the pacing is somewhat slow (compared to most films today), the tension factor picks up. It's a technical space film, but you don't need to be a physicist to get it, it's not a horror film, but was pretty darn scary at times. It achieves some serious credit with me, paying visual homage to 2001, and a deep space crew dynamic mimicking the original Alien.

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Stardust: This film is a captivating, incredibly fun, high fantasy flick, with enough bite to be taken seriously, but enough tongue-in-cheek moments to make it truly memorable. A star falls to Earth, and a young man works to retrieve it, only to find a beautiful maiden. Also at play is the magical world of Stormhold bordering the human town of Wall, and when the two come into to contact with one another, the adventure begins. There are several sub-plots at work, all different factions, all vying to seek out the human star for their own purpose. It immediately reminded me of a live-action Miyazaki film, one of my all-time favorite writer / directors out there. There are air pirates akin to the Dola Gang from Laputa, and the Victorian era-infused with whimsical and pervasive magic, is incredibly reminiscent of Howl's Moving Castle. There was a great deal of swordplay, swashbuckling, and lightning harvesting going on with, to me, had a just a hint of the Iron Kingdoms. For the DnD'er, there's a few recognizable spells at work too; Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Burning Hands, and Heat / Chill metal.