marcus_talbain

it was snowing last night,

big heavy flakes from a black sky.

I was walking along one of the paths between the buildings, a long walk, late, coming up on 10, no one else around.

the lamp was high and bright, and was throwing a cascade of silent sparks.

and I was walking on a river of shadows.

they rushed past me, around me, over me in a silent stream to gather and drift at the base of the lampost.

my shoes crunched on the untrodden snow as I walked the shadow river.

If I knew how to swim I could follow it from whence it came, maby stop in for tea at the house of red fireflies and say hello to the ladies that work there.

Ahhh, to just sit back and relax a while, drink the ancient's mead, let the world pass me by for a century or two, see what the future holds, see if we finally get around to terraforming mars...

Allways wanted to go hanggliding in Valles Marineris on mars, has the grand canyon beat hands down.

just relax and let the winds carry me, flying the valley between the unending walls of stone.

just me and my shadow, drifting along...in a river of shadows...on a snowy night...as I walk the paths between the buildings.

Heh, just one of those nights.

*blinks*

ya, he was a big guy.... over six foot, muscular, heavybuilt but not fat, hairy, wearing lots of worn leather, had a big beard, but with a sorta twinkle in the eye, yaknow, one of those ancient and wise as the earth dudes? like santa's brother the biker.

ya, so he was standing there, and I was standing there.

I nodded at him and grunted a hello.

he nodded at me and did the same.

was a really nice day.
not too hot, not too cold,
clouds in the sky but didn't look like rain.

just makes ya think.

they have been doing some freakin crazy stuff with genetics.

I mean, fish antifreeze in strawberries, glow in the dark hamsters, hell did you hear about the Goat Spiders? no foolin, they stuck spider genes in goats and now they can get spider silk from the milk, craaaazy stuff.

but that's life eh? never know what's around the corner, the more I think about it the more it scares me, but Man I can't wait till the next suprise rolls around.

its a good time to be alive.

Heh, hit Zul'gurub today and just powered through Bat, Snake, Bloodlord, Spider, Thekal, and Woosholay. Decided to even take two wacks at Panther for the first time (didn't drop her though). Hopefully tomorrow we can drop Panther and then finally attempt and hopefully kill Hakkar.


...and still I am denied my Bloodlord's Defender...

Maaaaan, I wonder if I should update this thing more often.....

well, a new semester has started, and its been off to a bumpy start to say the least, I began fully registered for four classes, Technical Writing, Philosophy (Ethics), Statistics, and Metalsmithing. however when I showed up the first day everything just went downhill, Statistics decided to change its time without notice, (meaning it now conflicted with my Philosophy) the teacher for Technical Writing decided not to come to Alaska, and they didn't have anyone handy to sub, and when I got home I got a call saying I couldn't be in the graduate philosophy thesis class without being a philosophy graduate....WHAT!?!? turns out that when I had registered I had entered 30507 insteads of 30501, (I totally blame the advisor's handwriting, that thing looks like a seven!)

so the past two weeks have been spent trying to get into three waitlisted classes, my new schedual stands as Metalsmithing, Digital Photography, Photoshop (still waitlisted) and the Philosophy course (the Right one)

which brings me around to the whole reason for auctually updating my LJ, turns out the Digital Photography teacher is using a Blogger journal ( http://uaf258.blogspot.com/ )and is encouraging us to make ones ourselves, so i'm just being lazy and reviving this one.

Progress on the Ubersmackendownenmecha has been slow (mainly being derailed by spring break), I currently have both feet and the upper and lower legs, and I have templates for the core, I just need to get that built, and then I can begin work on the church.

Messing with my LJ layout, I think this is a bit better.

Completed my 3D design Art Project a couple days back, was going to turn it in today but class was canceled due to teacher being in hospital. nice lady, hopefully she's ok. got a digital camera from the Library, and got some pictures of my guy.

can be seen here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/marcus_talbain/gallery/000048tp

ehh, seen it around, might as well.

Ten Things I have Done that you all probally have not:

1) been hit by a double trailer semi going 80

2) collect meat cleavers

3) changed a flat tire on the side of the highway at 40 below in the dark

4) eaten moose, bear, reindeer, and ptarmagin

5) have some 500 paperback novels in boxes in the basement

6) taken the transmission out of a Jeep and fixed it (auctually that's sorta still in-progress, its in the basement on the table)

7) mailed teeth to a friend in another country "because I allways wanted to go there"

8) made upside-down diaromas on my ceiling as well as having throwing stars imbedded in my ceiling over where I usually sit

9) framed my disks of FF7 and hung them on the wall

10) been photographed with the govenor, completely by accident.

in my search for joints I made a most interesting and fortuitous discovery which should work beautifully for its intended purpose, in the basement we have a truely unbelieveable amount of "Stuff", everything from heavy equipment, such as a very nice radial-arm circular saw that we have never auctually had working (but will of course get up and running....eventually) to boxes upon boxes of equipment from when we built the house some 20 years ago (give or take a few). We have chainsaws, hand saws, car parts, boxes of tools, boxes of product from the business, frames by the boxfull, books, old sports equipment, lost civilizations, you name it. We even at one point bought basically all someone else's "Garage Stuff", nice guy, "Wally" we just refer to it as "Wally's Stuff" although its rather hard to tell it apart now, its all mixed together, we have enough tools down there to open a hardware store. Well, among all these various odds and ends I found an adjustable table-mount work light with some Quite interesting joints, see picture: http://pics.livejournal.com/marcus_talbain/pic/00004035 the light happens to have two of these joints which should work perfectly for the ankles. Now if I can only find something equally suitable for the hips i'll be all set to have a fully-poseable Walking Tabletop Harbinger of Doom. Instrument of the Emerpor's Wrath, or Ubersmackendownenmecha... depending on the game setting its being used in.

I have been working on various revisions to the final design. Armorbimbo, the maker of the original paper-printout design, was nice enough to provide a Blockhead shoulder design which I will be incorporating. i'm currently planning to have certain key pieces have several interchangeable variations, allowing it to be Space Wolf for 40k, Ratzi, or Turtle (maby Bear) for Critter Commandos, and Atlantean or Black Powder for Mage Knight. these will most likely take the form of differnt heads, banners, and tower tops that I can swap out.




and a quick comment on This:
http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/main.html

...if they screw it up, if they desecrate it in Any way, they die.

hmm, might as well put this link up in the main journal,

crappy scanner pics of some of the progress on the Leviathan:
http://pics.livejournal.com/marcus_talbain/gallery/00002383

pease do keep in mind that those pieces are all untrimmed and unsanded, current plans are to make the underlying structure out of wood, (the lower leg is made of 1/4" plywood, the toes are carved out of blocks) and then layer it in plasticard along with anything else I have handy, some pieces from Hirst Arts molds ( http://www.hirstarts.com ) will probally be making their way on there as well (thanks to marcmann1975 for the idea).

progress is coming along suprisingly well on the Leviathan, I have both feet and one lower leg constructed, i'm currently looking around for items I can make joints out of.

I will be using the legs as part of project for my 3D design class, but afterwards they will find their rightful home as part of the leviathan.

I am thinking of making differnt tower cap pieces for it, and making the rest of it sufficiently generic that with a few quick modifications it can be decked out for different armies.

I like wargame miniatures, as perviously stated, Mage Knight is among them, but hardly exclusive.

I also enjoy modding figures, constructing terrain, and even constructing entire figures, which in fact I am embarking on at the moment (hey, I got some space freed up in my room, can't have that).

my current project though it a bit more...substantial...than previous ones.

I have enjoyed looking at the monster Leviathans (the Mortis "Blockhead" and the Crusader) that were untill recently offered at www.dreamforge-games.com however with them being discontinued I have decided its time for me to make one of my own. Over at www.paperworlds.com there are print-out instructions for making a crusader, however I have decided to go for something a bit more substantial than cardstock or foamboard. I have chosen to use thin plywood.

lets see how it turns out (if I can get some webspace set up i'll post WIP pictures.)

ya know, in cleaning there are differnt types of stuff, some stuff you can just trash, other stuff is nice stuff that you want to keep, and you can stick it on a shelf or hang it from the ceiling or whatever...

but then there's that Other stuff, stuff that has too much...worth...to simply be thrown away but not enough relavance to keep, and for one reason or another would be...inappropriate to give to a thrift store or such.

there are the two dozen various pocketknives and multitools people have given me over the years, a sword or nice knife you can hang on the wall, but WHY do you need more than one or at most two of these?! I carry and use my Spyderco "Native" and my Swiss, I have for years and will continue to for years, and yet I have a Leatherman, Gerber, and countless pocketknives just laying around collecting dust.

Mage Knight figures, I enjoy Mage Knight, however there are figures that I -Know- I will never field, they aren't in any way bad, just redundant, most are doubles, some are supersceeded by a slightly better or more versatile figure, and some I just have too many of to ever use...

i'm currently trying to deal with them using eBay and shipping them to online aquaintences in other countries.