Old School <> Streaming

01.28.2018

Back in the days when tv stations had numbers, tvs had knobs, and nothing could be watched on demand, the local Fox station (which was and may still be channel 54) would theme a block of movies on Saturday/Sunday afternoons if there were no weekend sporting events going on. A batch of 3 action or sci-fi movies was common. They were never the best movies, but if it weren't for watching during the weekend I may never have learned I actually liked the Robert Urich space epic Ice Pirates.

As most know I have plenty of movies taking up shelf space. I've got more than a handful purchased since Black Friday that I've not yet watched. My whole reason for buying movies has always been "when I'm in the mood to watch (whatever movie) I don't want to bother with going out and renting it, I want to just pick it up, put it in the player, and start watching." My penchant for buying physical discs doesn't hold as much merit these days since it's admittedly easier to just click a button to stream said movie, but a habit started in 1989 is hard to break. The supplementary reason for buying movies instead of renting them is that I will often watch a movie more than once. Back in the video rental days, if I watched a movie 3 times it was more cost effective to buy it than rent it. These days I've been training myself to wait for a good sale on a movie than rushing out and buying when it's initially released.

Enough of that rambling tangent. I still like movies I've seen plenty of times. Part of me misses the days of turning on channel 54 and finding "Hey, these are some good movies they've decided to show today". To the chagrin of my old boss when I was working at the video store, I would often leave the tv on 54 on Sunday afternoon that play movies to tempt people to rent - but it still worked, people would rent what they saw playing on broadcast tv anyway. The other day Spaceballs popped into my head for some unknown reason. Well that would be a fine movie to watch. Spaceballs was not present in my movie collection. I could stream it for free on Hulu. I could rent it for $3 on Amazon, or buy the digital version for $10. Instead of any of that, I bought the disc for $10 and had to wait for it to be delivered. Saturday, sandwiched between Wonder Woman and Spiderman: Homecoming, I watched Spaceballs. While not one of those channel 54 weekend movie blocks, it was still a good batch of movies to watch together.

Next weekend it may be time to revisit Ice Pirates.

Permalink movies/tv/dvd random

A lotta painting to do.

01.07.2018

Part of my resolution(s) for the new year is to not get as much crap. I've got a lot of crap. I like getting crap, for whatever reason. The "getting" has often been the peak of my experience, ignoring "what to do after it's been gotten". Over the last year I noticed, or maybe concentrated, on my hobbies getting narrowed down to things that I both enjoy and don't feel overwhelmed by. The main constructive hobby I enjoyed was prepping for board games. Games that I don't necessarily play.

I have a lot available to paint. 2166 unpainted minis. That's a lot. If I were to paint 1 per day, I'd be finished in 2023. Those are just the 28mm scale figures. There are still different scale minis for other games - Team Yankee (1:100 vehicles), space stuff (Star Trek Call of Duty, Firestorm Armada) - who knows if I'll ever get around to painting any of that, honestly.

I'd told myself before I was going to concentrate on painting what I've got. I spent the weekend going through what I've got. I found minis that I'd forgotten I'd ever gotten. Some of them I can't see ever using. Why would I need 600 Zombicide minis? I played 2 games of Zombicide and didn't really care for it. Sure, I can use the minis for other games... but 600???

Making a list of what I've got to paint, as well as what's been painted so far, helps put things into perspective. Mainly, I have enough shit to paint for a long, long time, and with that in mind I have no need to get anything else that needs painting for the next half-decade minimum.

Except for the Star Trek Adventures game, once the miniatures start coming out. Those I can get. I mean, it's Star Trek. How could I not get them?

Next up will be to prioritze some of what I've got to paint. Some of those found minis would be useful in Walking Dead/Batman boardscape I'm constructing in the background. Cops, for example. I found batches of police from 3 companies - and who can't use more police in the world I'm creating? Nobody, that's who.

Permalink gaming miniatures hobbies

Townsfolk

12.30.2017

The final batch of minis painted for the year were a batch of Reaper Chronoscape figures that have been sitting on the shelf for a while. A 3 pack of Townsfolk (Chick, Jock, and Nerd) along with Deputy Wayne Tisdale and Dr Thomas Welby gave me a little break from zombies and zombie fighters. Out to try something a little different this batch was primed grey instead of my normal route of white. This served as a chance to see how the washes that I've come to enjoy would react to the darker undercoat. Turns out it made a bigger difference that I thought.

From a distance, or typical game table play distance, this batch turned out ok. I didn't even try to paint eyes (curse those eyes!). These also served as my first attempt at filling in bases with putty (Milliput). After my attempt YouTube showed me a couple of tips I should have used - mainly wetting my finger to smooth things out.

This batch served as a little change of genre that I needed. Next up is a combination of more Walking Dead minis and the first of the 4Ground Shotgun Houses. I'm putting forth a little extra effort on the house. We'll see, probably over the course of the next month at the rate I'm likely to go, if that effort makes any difference.

Permalink gaming miniatures

My Tony Robbins Is Coming To Town

12.25.2017

Not the most traditional of any blog post made on Christmas day, but this morning I checked my email and saw an alert that good old Kev was coming to Huntsville in May. Every other time I've had a chance to see him I've either been too late to the ticket line or there's a late night trip to Nashville involved.

This time, I was early enough for the general admission ticket line and it's a 6:30 show in Huntsville which should get me home and likely in bed by 10:30. 10:30 is a respectable bedtime for an old fart like me.

After seeing Kevin in Nashville last time I had told myself it would likely be the last that I would try to see him in person as I'd heard a good 75% of what he talked about before. That thought passed through my head as I clicked the button to purchase my ticket, but come on, he's basically coming to my doorstep.

At the very least I won't hear the story again of how his father loved Nashville and their trip to the Ryman. I have to see if that sentence comes back to haunt me in May.

Permalink road trip

Ballin

12.16.2017

I got a new toy. Well, for me it's a toy. Many years ago I gave up using mice and went with trackball(s). My trackball of choice was the Logitech Trackman Marble as I can use my fingers to roll the trackball instead of my thumb. I seem to have finer motor control over fingers. A Logitech trackball lasts about 3 years for me. That's when the left button decides to work intermittently. I don't think it's a problem with the components or a connection gone bad, but instead a build up of gunk from my fingers clicking the button for years. I know it sounds gross, but given the dirt I clean out of the ball holder (yes, that sounds bad too) about once per month I can only imagine what creeps into the crevices of the button.

I could try to clean it out, but given that one of those trackballs is $20 it's just easier to get a new one.

Well, the trackballs used to be $20 when I could trot down to CompUSA and pick one up. The last one I got (for work, Aug 2016) was $23.

Whenever it's time to replace a trackball I look to see if there's anything new that I want to try. Kensington has a nice selection, but the ergonomics don't work well with my hand placement. I could swear I've tried others but nothing else comes to mind just yet.

The latest flakey button induced search brought me to the ELECOM M-HT1URBK Wired Trackball Mouse. This one caught my eye because

• It's "big" and marketed for "big" hands. I have big, meaty hands.
• The ball is where I like it. For god's sake, no one take that out of context.
• It has a scrollwheel. That's sorely lacking in most trackballs. For those that have one, it usually sucks.
• The scrollwheel DOESN'T also act as a button.

After watching the inventory go from low to out-of-stock and back to low, I ordered one to try out. Sure, it was $60 instead of $23, but given the number of hours per day I would use the blasted thing if it was even a marginal improvement over the Logitech series I'd been using for at least a decade then it would be worth it.

After 4 days of using the one that came in, I like it enough I've ordered another one to use at work. The size is perfect for my hand. All the buttons are naturally located for where my fingers want to fall. The scrollwheel is quickly my favorite part. The buttons are a little soft when they click, but only because I've been paying attention to all the little details. When I press naturally those buttons act like they should.

Now, the funniest part to a boonie hick like me was that the package didn't have a bit of English on it. Elecom is a Japanese company, so I'm going to guess all those characters I couldn't read were Japanese.

Except "HUGE trackball". I could read that one.

Permalink programming/interweb