Space Marines progress

Please ignore the unfinished Imperial Guard Baneblade sitting on the side of my kitchen counter work-area. But I thought I would update on the progress of the Space Marines (those following my Twitter closely over the weekend might have noted I was in no mood to use any more super-glue for a little while). So anyway, in the meantime, I had completed the first of 2 Tactical Marine squads (this one a 5-man team and borrowing a Flamer from the other Tactical Squad sprue). Did I previously mention that I got to work assembling the Predator right after I finished the Dreadnought?
So anyway, I primed everything in black first as a base coat. Then I used a red gloss spray can (generic stuff again) to give the primary colour to the team. There will be 2 distinct schemes going: a "white" team and a "red" team...

The white guys, I'm not sure if I blogged previously (my memory is going). That's a Chaplain and a Command Squad that I built earlier on before I snagged the Megaforce box deal. They are also incomplete but, hey, whatever. The only thing really annoying me now is that there was also a Command Squad that came in the Megaforce box. I had hoped that one of them would be a Terminator Command Squad but... oh well...

Dreadnought Logistics

Yesterday I blogged about how I got my hands on that crazy big box of Warhammer 40'000 pieces. Afterwards, I assembled the Assault Marines squad and started going through the rest of the plastic sprues deciding what to tackle next. I found the sprues for the Dreadnought.While it's never explicitly stated in any of the official fiction, the Dreadnought some kind of cyborg that houses what little remains of a dead Space Marine. Cross a mecha with a zombie and you get the idea. The fluff details how the Dreadnought's "machine spirit" only knows that it wants to either "sleep" or to "fight" and is always tended to by a group of Techno-Marines or "priests" chanting their litanies.
As it turns out, the Dreadnought kit does not come with a manual. Instead, the build is supposedly so simple that Games Workshop saw fit to just print a blow-up view of the kit on the back of the box. The problem is then, there is no printed manual to include whenever a Dreadnought gets repackaged. I found myself in a local gaming store looking for such a box and when I did, tried my best to commit the image to memory so that I can get started when I get home. Thankfully it does not appear particularly difficult and I should be able to complete the build fairly easily. And if it doesn't, perhaps I can try a litany to the Machine Spirit...
PS: as you can tell by the photos, by the time I got around to posting this entry, I was just about done! I'm so smart. :p

Shout-Out for Le Griffon!

Most often when you walk into a liquidation area or discount store, you don't know what you'll find - in fact, chances are, you don't even know what you are looking for other than that it should be cheap and good. Once in a while, you stumble on something you really were specifically looking for.

I was in my hometown visiting the local gaming store, Le Griffon, where I've made a habit to check their clearance section. The store offers the usual -10% on suggested retail price on all Games Workshop product (a practice I've seen pretty much at all indie stores). But from time to time, something will be oddly priced and I don't know if it's a mistake or if they did that knowing it would never sell at the SRP (like this rubber-foam thing I got for $27).

And sometimes... things like this weekend occur: I found a Space Marines Megaforce for a ridiculous $157. There it was sitting in the clearance area with the usual sticker price ($250-10%=$225) and the clearance sticker of -30% bringing this sucker down to a crazy $157.5 ...told you it was crazy. I chose not to mention the other box sitting in the regular aisle without the -30% sticker.

For the uninitiated, every once in a while Games-Workshop likes to put out a big box which features a severe bulk discount on the contents. The "megaforce" size boxes contain quite simply enough parts to build a fully playable army. The Space Marine box gives a commander and his squad, several troops units, assault specialists and scouts, a Predator tank, a Razorback APC model and a Dreadnought mecha. And yes... this'll take me forever. Over the weekend I finished the APC and have since started on the Assault Marines...

Yamato's Fyana in 1/12

Instead of blogging my new 1/12-scale Brutishdog mecha figure, much more interesting is the a pilot figure. The mysterious Fyana was the prototype "Perfect Soldier" who figured in the main conspiracy in Armoured Troopers VOTOMS.
The figure is a beautiful sculpt molded in several kinds of plastics. Dropping the complex series of swivel joints that made up their Chirico figure, Yamato went with more conventional ball-joints on Fyana.
Fyana also comes with several swappable parts: helmet with targetting array in place or raised, her hair down, eyes open or closed, and neck with or without flight's colar. Considering the scale (1/12) the bits are impressively detailed.
Chirico gets a new pistol and a new hand to hold it. The set of new pieces gives him slightly better proportions - his mid-section get longer to make him a bit taller, and his head is a bit bigger. Oddly, because the pistol is much smaller than the Robocop-like gun he came with, his optional hand is smaller than the original hands. Of course, most importantly, he looks a bit more heroic standing taller than his counterpart.

Reaction: Iron Man (spoilers!)

Finally saw Iron Man to kick off the summer movie season and I absolutely loved it. I tried desperately to avoid spoilers but it was impossible to avoid the hype. Thankfully, nowhere during the course of the film did I find myself let down. The film hit all the right notes.

But rather than a long-winded review of the obvious, I thought it'd be fun to give you a rundown on source context instead. In no particular order...

1. The film sticks very close to the origins. An industrialist captured by foreign military and to escape, secretly builds a suit around a chest-plate that's barely keeping him alive. Surely a sign of times, the baddies are updated from Vietnamese rebels to a terrorist cel in Afghanistan.
   
   
2. Speaking of the terrorists, they're called "The Ten Rings", a nod to the magic rings worn by The Mandarin, one of Iron Man's comic book adversaries. For more on that, I highly recommend the animated movie released direct-to-DVD - it's a completely different, yet similarly entertaining interpretation of Iron Man.
   
   
3. I loved the updated version of Tony's chest plate. Every adaptation of Iron Man has featured this plot device in one way or another. Either it's an iron lung, an artificial heart, or some kind of device keeping shrapnel out of his organs.
   
   
4. Other technical reference: The suit being assembled around him like a shell by automated robot arms? That's from Ultimate Iron Man ("Ultimate" is a newer version of Marvel; a publishing stunt attempting to drawn in new fans by discarding 50 years of history and starting from scratch). The look of the final suit is based on the current suit, while the look of the prototype is based on the suit from the pages of Tales of Suspense back in the 60's.
   
   
5. "Jarvis" the AI ... also happens to be the name of the butler working at Avengers Mansion (more on Avengers later).
   
   
6. Reference to the War Machine: from the classic comics, Jim Rhodes temporarily wears a heavily armed unpainted version of the Iron Man suit... "maybe next time," he mutters in the film. More on good-old Rhodey later...
   
   
7. Happy Hogan, loyal employee for Stark is briefly mentioned (he's the limo driver in this film). That was cute. And of course, comics legend Stan Lee plays... Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner?! I had a chuckle at that cameo.
   
   
8. Obediah Stane is a rival to Stark in the comics. I thought it was a little odd that he was Starks mentor but of course, everything fell into place when Pepper discovers the plot to kill Stark. His "Iron Monger" suit was an excellent take on the "unrefined but I'm better than you" design.
   
   
9. The body-guard cover story offered at the end? It actually worked in the comics, albeit slightly differently. This is where Rhodes comes in: he's not only a personal friend of Tony's in the comics... he's also stepped in as Iron Man before and not just War Machine.
   
   
10. I notice they've updated the acronym of SHIELD to be more America-centric (the comics call them "Strategic Hazards Intervention and Espionage Logistics Division")... they snuck in "Homeland" in there. SHIELD is the Marvel Comics version of Men in Black, sort of. They know everything and that's all you really need to know.
    
    
11. Speaking of SHIELD, "Marvel Ultimate" depicted Col. Nick Fury, director of SHIELD as an angry black man... his look was modeled after Samuel L Jackson. Casting this cameo with Samuel L Jackson was a cute touch. Art imitating life or life imitating art?
    
    
12. We all knew the cameo was intended to launch a future Avengers franchise. The Avengers are Marvel's version of the Justice League. Double-trivia: I find it interesting the choice of words they used for dialogue. "Avenger Initiative," says Fury. "The Initiative" is the title of this past year's running plot line throughout most of Marvel's comics in the wake of a "Civil War." Stark reluctantly finds himself the new director of SHIELD and he begins what he calls "The 50-State Initiative" whereby SHIELD will be responsible for training and deputizing super-powered-heroes to act as law-enforcement teams - a team for each State... bringing the Marvel version of the USA dangerously close to being what is effectively a police-state.

Needless to say the film leaves the franchise ripe with opportunity. And after such a huge opening weekend, Marvel saw fit to announce its plans for the next several years the following Monday. Who could blame them?

Who's the bigger jerk now?

I'm going to invoke Gabe's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory today. For the record, this is a true story about my family and I.

I was in Oregeno's Pasta Market in Ottawa's Byward Market area. The hostess accidentally asked me if I was there for the "brunch buffet or regular menu" even though it was already 1pm. In turn, I mis-heard her and thought she asked about a "lunch buffet."

So I asked about it when the waitress arrived. She explained that brunch was indeed over and that they were back on the regular menu. But then something really strange happened... she asked if we needed a few more minutes with the menu (I said yes) then without taking drink orders, she left! She never even came back with water either.

Another table was seated next to us - they ordered beverages first. Admittedly, while she was taking those orders, my mother (who can be naïve, sometimes) opened her menu again. Alright fine: that was a mixed signal. I understand that often a closed menu will signal a server to take your order. But the next time she came by to take the other tables' orders (you know, the one that arrived AFTER us), the waitress left again without taking our orders!

We discussed the situation briefly and then very promptly got up and left. I don't know about anybody else but I did make eye contact with the waitress on my way out the door. If there was any proof-in-the-pudding it was that nobody tried to ask us to stay or apologize.

I can be "understanding." I know that it looked weird - a group of people ask about a menu that was unavailable, possibly cheap (because my mother asked how much the buffet would have cost during the confusion). I don't blame anybody but ourselves for getting profiled. But understanding the situation doesn't make our treatment any less fucking racist. Racial profiling is harmless only up to the moment you make a decision to act based on such assumptions. It's like the staff did everything possible to make me feel unwelcome.

Needless to say, I've posted my thoughts on Yahoo's Restaurant index for the world to see.