Unsinking the HMS Hood....

Apparently BJD psycicly project his insomnia to me last night. I couldn't get to sleep until 2:30. So I made good use of time for once and watched Dark Water via Starz On Demand (it wasn't that great imo) and kept working on the HMS Hood. All the life boats (that historically speaking were a waste of space since only 3 people survived her sinking), main armaments (four dual 15in. turrets), secondary armaments, and aft tower (behind the mainmast) are in place and just need some more touch-up painting. Pretty much all that is left is the mainmast, which is very delicate so I didn't want to attempt it so late at night. Looks like I'll hit my deadline of Thursday night for the finish and I might even have some time to finish up the WARMACHINE stuff.

Seeing as how I royally screwed up the paint job and the photoetching isn't all that spectacular, I ordered a second Tamiya waterline HMS Hood box (also means I get a second E-class destroyer hehe). Since I was ordering and there is a minimum purchase from the site I used (www.rocousa.com), I went ahead and added a couple of other ships to my roster; HMS Nelson (sister ship to the Rodney), Gneisenau & Scharnhorst (German battle cruisers, they jacked up some shipping until they were put out of action), and my first aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8 version I believe).

Unrelated:
I noticed in Publix the other day that Coca-Cola is cashing in on their "zero" line of products by producing Sprite Zero. Intrigued, I purchased some and discovered that I find it pretty tasty. How, the whole point I thought of the "zero" line of products was for them to be 0 calories and 0 carbs, thus effectively a diet beverage. However, I was struck by the odd site of "Diet Sprite Zero". Uh.....so you made a beverage that already had no calories and no carbs diet? Would that be anything like making a rice-cake out of a 3D render of a rice cake? WTF? I was disinclined to purchase said "diet" flavor since it appeared that the regualr Sprite Zero was sufficiently without substances.

Skrubbtilla is plowing the waves again......

Given that I want to bring at least one 700th ship down to Mobile this weekend, I've had to cut my time with the WARMACHINE stuff short. Good news is I'm making progress on the HMS Hood. So far, I have the main hull painted, the deck plates on, the forecastle and both funnels assembled, painted and attached to the hull. The bad news is that the colors are all wrong. The conversion chart that Vallejo Acrylics provides to convert from the Tamiya brand was made by a five legged, three eye blinded, half-midget laprachaun dancing, hyperglycemic sugar junkie after consuming sixty seven pounds of raw suger cane. As such any "true" enthusiasts would "laugh in my general direction" if I even hinted that this was a true scale replica. I hold my head in shame.

Someone recently asked why I don't post pictures of my crappy artwork. Two reasons: One, my artwork is the suck (at least to me). Two my camera is a piece of shit. Three I'm to lazy to bother to buy a camera. 1+1 = 3

To prove # 2 from above, here is the best picture I could get with my stupid camera. Notice the amazing detail and sharp color correction....NOT!

As for the WARMACHINE stuff, I have the MoW seargent assembled and just need to finish the basics of his face and halberd. The other two MoW are assembled except for their halberds, which also need painting. The Destroyer just needs final assembly and his axe painted. Once I've finished those items, I need to hit all four models with the super-BJD-washomatic. Then glue them to a base......viola.....finished. I might get to them this week, but most likely, I'll finish them up next week.

Kyra came by tonight to borrow my Internet connection. She's been calling my freakin phone of the hook to get her PC fixed (thanks Ellis ,,,, ;) ). I finally answered it b/c I was tired of it ringing. As such I was suckered into taking a look at her PC, which is total fubar, i.e. reformat time if not hardware replace time. She has two interviews for real jobs tomorrow and wanted to research the companies, thus the use of my internet. What!?!?!?! She caught me at a weak moment!

I had a meeting with the Prod. Mng. of our Yellowhammer product today. He wanted to ask me what I knew about one P. "Monkey Boy" Morton. Told him that Monkey Boy was his prefered named and that he is the bomb diggity (I know, I'm going to hell for lieing). Here's hoping that they can give a decent offer of $$$$$ to P so he can move back up here and out of his current crappy company.

Showdown at the party corral....

Rob was in town this past week. In honor of his visit, a party was thrown. I, of course, was in attendance. Good beer, great company, and excellent food......for real...I'm so there! Party started early for me. I offered to donate my tap for the keg and as such I needed/wanted to be there early (at 5pm) such that no one had to wait on me for the sweet nectar. The keg arrives, we get it loaded into it's customary spot, but when I am tasked with tapping the thing, disaster strikes.

To all visible appearances, my tap looked to be in tip top shape. Unfortunately, there was no way I could really test the internal seal, which turns out was unable to performs it's duties. So I'm in a bad spot, I'd promised a tap, it's around 6 pm, people are starting to show up for beer, and no tap. Rob and I jump in the car and go searching for a tap which we find at Vulcan Beverages near UAB. We get back, tap the keg, and all is right with the world.

The party was a blast for the most part. Beer pong was played and lots of Flip Cup was played. I was actually decent at Flip Cup to my surprise. Everything was going groovy until all of a sudden I hear shouting inside the house. Ruh roh raggy!

Apparently a young man was seen making kissy face with another man's woman. The boyfriend goes berserk, the accused flees the scene (to outside the house), and just about every other male in the house runs to either play interference with the boyfriend (vouching for the accused, that he wouldn't do that sort of thing) or provide general security. The females gather the girl in question (who is ....well...."blasted" just isn't a strong enough word to describe her state of inebriation).

So the accused is in a bad spot, because the boyfriend could most likely break most of us in half, but the boyfriend, while remaining visibly angry, keeps enough cool not to start throwing punches. Now half of the guys are inside talking with the boyfriend, I'm on door security trying to make sure everyone is separated, and the girlfriend is outside. This girl couldn't even stand up, she had two other young ladies holder her up. Since I was sort of in the middle of the conversations I was in a position to hear all sides of it.

While at first it seemed the accused was guilty of "extracurricular spit swapping", I'm pretty sure he wasn't at fault. The primary evidence I have for this is that after the incident, the girlfriend was trying to kiss/tongue just about anything that moved. The two girls holding her up, me, Rob, the lamp post, all while her boyfriend is threatening murder on a guy who, in his semi-drunken stupor, wasn't fast enough to get out of the girlfriend's tongue exploration way. What a mess.

The thing that hit me (intellectually speaking) was that, to a number of observers, it was crystal clear that the accused was a victim of a drive by slutting (i.e. the situation was clearly the girlfriend's doing and she was at fault) yet the boyfriend in his "love" for her couldn't see it. To him it appeared as if she was honestly minding her own business when this punk-playa tried to bust a move on his woman. Tis a shame, because the boyfriend seems under normal circumstances to be a really great guy.

Bottom line though, is that this incident was just another example of how we, as faultable humans, can be so blind when it comes to things close to us. We all have our faults, things we rationalize, excuses to make. Far be it for me to deny that I'm just as guilty as the rest of mankind.

Inspirationalizationalism......

For the first time in a very (very, very) long time, I actually stayed late working on something (the "Acquire" project for my new job). Almost an entire hour. I probably would have stayed later but I was on the phone with Big'J (he worked from home today) and he told me to go home. It was weird to actually want to work again. Hope this doesn't start a trend with the new job.

Still playing with the water effects. For the fifth day in a row, I've put a layer of "goo" on my trash surfaces trying to build up some depth and play with different surface textures. Think I found one with a brush that I like.

Pat called me today to let me know he had a phone interview with someone from my company (different product than either of mine). He said it went well, though nothing technically specific. I'll probably "drop in" on the person he talked to just to get an insiders scoop.

Almost done reading the HORDES rulebook (the fluff sections). I'm getting closer to choosing a faction. Alright, getting sleepy.

Mmmmmmm...turkey is good....

Life has been a mix of hectic and quiet. Erin is still here. She'll be leaving Friday afternoon. I'm glad she visited, but I'll be most pleased to get my personal space back to skrubb-normal. Doug's visit was a blast, played lots of Halo 2 co-op and had many many beers with Rich & Laura, Ellis, Rob, and Crazy Socks Shaw. Looking forward to having many more beers with the same peeps on Saturday night.

Work is pretty calm. My boss (B) and her boss (D) pretty much don't talk to me anymore. I found out that June 2 will be my last day with my product (I happened to take this day off too hehe). This piece of information, which some people would consider important, was provided to me by the guy who is pathetically trying to replace me. Weak! Tuesday at around 4pm I was jump started on a project for my new department. It's both exciting and painful. I was getting real nervous this afternoon working on it because none of it makes sense, but then I spoke with Big'J who told me not to sweat it. None of them have figured out this particular product and it is the hardest (maybe second hardest) project they've run across. I think I'm picking it up pretty fast considering I have no documentation or experience dealing with this particular type of stuff.

Paints and stuff came in on Monday. HORDES Prime has some GREAT artwork. The entire book is in color (suck on that GW!!!) and the flavor text is pretty good, not the best I've ever read, but pretty good. My paints arrived with one extra soldier (I paid for 19 but 20 arrived). To bad it's a color that I won't be using (chocolate). AS of yet, I've either been unable to paint at all in the evenings (sick, dinner with Erin, Lost, etc..) or when I do paint a little it's been on the 28 WARMACHINE pieces sitting in my paint area (Destroyer <5>, 3 MoW Shocktroopers <6>, Adraza, Severous, Vlad <2>, and Kardov). No time for boats, though I'm not in a huge rush to get back to the ships until I figure out the water stuff.

Big'J and I ate lunch at the apartment today and played with (well I played some more with) the Vallejo Water Effects. It's pretty stinking cool, though I still haven't figured out how to get the results I want and my online searches aren't helping much. The stuff has this baby blue color to it and is the consistency of room temperature butter. So far Big'J and I have just finger painted it onto scrap pieces of plastic just to see what it does. I've also been trying to texture some of it with a brush, but I honestly don't think I'm skilled enough in the fine arts to whip this stuff into shape. None the less, I should be able to make something "acceptable" though nowhere near "good".

I apologize for the dryness of this entry. I'm just not feeling like my usual (funny ?) self tonight.

Had turkey sandwiches for lunch.......

Garden of Skrubbzen

I managed to survive a full day in my zen state. Bossman G also never bothered to come up to the second floor of our building. What a stooge.

In the end, though, it matters not. Around 3ish this afternoon I noticed Big J's boss walking towards the stairs. He looked at me and said, "Just keep smiling the rest of this afternoon. It's a done deal." It took another 45 minutes before my two current bosses made it around to me, but they broke the news. I'll work in my current position for another 2 or 3 weeks while training another guy to try to fill my shoes (which he can't). Then I move downstairs and work "part-time on-demand" for my current department, and the rest of the time I work for Big'J (guess I have to refer to him as boss J from now on).

The announcement is supposed to be made early next week, though apparently a few people in my department were told today (I was congratulated by someone who I didn't tell). The transition doesn't offer much in the way of monetary gain (something like 2% increase), same benefits, new management, new series of products, and no more long stretches of ultimate boredom. The main thing is I'll no longer be a Code Janitor. I'll have the chance to be a full member of the development team and from discussions I've had recently with Big'J ....... er...... boss J, I will be the lead developer on the COLD project, which represents about 60% of the department's revenue stream.

So YEAH ME and HOORAY BEER! Glad it's over with and double glad that it worked out in my favor.

God made the universe in 7 days......can my boss make a decision in 14?

Job News:
Today was "supposed" to be the day. My boss's boss's boss (we'll call him G) is in town and we were "supposed" to have a sit down this afternoon. To recap: I needed to ask for my boss's (B) permission to apply for a different position within the same company. The position is in Big'J's department and is open immediately (err last friday actually). She's pretty useless when it comes to decisions so she dumps the decision up to her boss (D) . D in turn pretty much is a chatter so we talk. But, D is about as usefull at decision making as a seventh toe on a footless mongoose. SO he in turns bumps it up to his boss G. G wants to talk to me in person but it will be another 7 days until he gets in town (today is the 7th day).

G wasn't due in until noon, so I just sort of spent the morning in my cube focusing on attaining the Skubbith level of Super-galactic Zen-oneness (it's the level right above terracota belt). Went to lunch with Big'J and he tells me that G is going to lunch at 1 with someone else in the building. No biggie, means I won't see him until at least 2. Around 3 D sends me an IM, "I just left a message with [G]. He's pretty busy today so he might not have time to meet with us. Maybe tomorrow morning". Leave it to the beaver to give me that warm fuzzy fealing.

Therefore, I'm still stuck in freaking limbo. I'm starting to polymorph into a githzerai (MM v3.5 pg129, Programmer/Wizard 8/1 HD 12d6+12 Init -2 Spd 20ft AC 18 Base Atk +2 NG CR 6). What the heck am I going to do with pointy ears?

On the Skubbtilla (Flotilla + Skrubb = Skrubbtilla, don't confuse it with Skrubbzilla) front, I'm still on pause. Apparently my "in stock" items from the warstore were actually "back ordered". Just received notice that my shipment went out today (3 days late) and will be here on Monday. Guess I just have to keep painting my WARMACHINE stuff. I have a basecoat of terra on the destroyer, all 3 MoW Shocktroopers, Vlad, and The Butcher. Tonight I'm working on the red accents (in no way is that a communist joke).

Not weekend....but lazyend....

I've been pretty lazy this weekend (thus lazyend), but did manage to do a few things here and there. Most of Sunday was spent rearranging a few things around the apartment and cleaning up a bit. Irish Erin is coming to stay for two weeks (she should be here late tonight), so I'm both nervous and excited.

In ship news I've hit a big bump. First, I brought the Skrubby Roger up to work on Friday (I went in early) and put it on the little shelf in my cube. Most people are impressed by it. I think that just shows how hobby-lame some of the people I work with are. I started working on the HMS Hood. This was the first waterline kit (Tamiya) I bought and I'm pretty impressed with the detail in it. I started putting on the photoetched railings...........dear lord grant me patience!! The photoetched parts are REALLY REALLY small, like imagine parts smaller than a human hair. Yet, the parts I've added really look nice on the ship and make it look a lot more authentic.

I finished adding the main deck railings and started to work on the main conning tower (bridge). As I finished the first (of four) levels, I decided that I needed to paint this things as I build it. The pieces above will make it really hard to paint afterwards. To my horror I discovered that the Tamiya paints SUCK. First off, they are acrylic paints that I think use an alcohol base instead of a water base (means they STINK, as in smelly). Second, they don't coat worth a crap, I found that I had to do a 2:1 paint to thinner ratio to even get close to a usable paint (means I have to mix every batch of paint, which is a total pain in the patuie). As a result, I've packed them away and put in a replacement order to The WarStore, for about 20 Vallejo equivalents (Vallejo paints are the bomb-diggity yo!). So, I'm at a stopping point with the ships until my paint arrives. ,Side note: I hate BJD! I hope you (BJD) took a few pictures of that 1/72 ship at the D-Day museum. If not, I'm going to boycott 1 rib at the next rib party as punishment!)

I did switch gears and went back to my WARMACHINE models just to keep active. I finished the two Devouts I had about 80% completed. I also did a little more work on my 2 Protectorate warcasters (Adraza and Severous). I think I'm going to switch over and start working on my three Man-o-War Shocktroopers though.

Work is still in limbo, so no news as of yet.

Avast ye lazies...

Two Fridays ago, I get a call from Big'J that the other developer in his department turned in his two week notice. Big'J's boss, let's call him K, then tracks me down and says he wants me as the replacement. SWEET!!!!!!! This was the job that I was originally trying to get a year ago. The following week (Mon-Thurs actually) K is out of town so we don't get much discussed. Friday, K is back in town early so we talk business and come to terms.

My company currently has a minimum two year placement policy unless you get your manager's permission. Basically, once you take a job, you can't apply for another job in the company for 24 months without your manager's approval. As I have been here for no longer than 11 months, I kinda need my bosses permission to change jobs/departments.

Diet Dr Pepper is pretty good.

Last Friday after I talk to K, I then make the trip to my boss's boss (let's call my boss B and her boss D). I tell D that there's this position I want and that it's good for my future. He then wants to discuss "why" the position is better for me than my current. After about an hour and a half, he seems to disagree with what is good for me but says, "I'm not in the business of holding people back. So, let me think about it for a bit." I, having no other choice, say okay. As I leave his (D's) office, my boss (B) comes stolling into D's office. Within 38 seconds, the door is closed and I know what they are talking about.

"I love lamp."

So K (my hopefully new boss) wants me to start work pretty darn quick, especially given the fact that I have exactly NO WORK to do in my current job. D & B however, seem to think I'm EXTREMELY busy and am indispensable to our product. BAH! WHATEVER! Now it appears that D & B won't make a decision, they want to pass the decision up to D's boss, our general manager.

"Lost" is new tonight.

Now I (and K) have to wait for another seven days (while I do nothing but surf the net during the day) to sit down and meet with the General Manager. I've never met this guy. I wouldn't know him from Adam, as the expression goes. But somehow, suddenly I am important enough for this guy to want to sit down with me in a week's time to talk about what I want to do in the company. Let's just ignore the fact that I've already told them what I want to do.

The moral of all this (and I didn't think I would ramble on about this particular topic) is that I'm in a very crappy mood and have been drinking beer all week. Now, on to other things....

My Tower Hobbies order cam in today. 12 paints from Tamiya for the ships I already have (each at about a 40-50% discount from MSRP), 1 700th scale waterline Bismarck produced by Trumpeter, a book on German Heavy Cruisers of WW2, and a book on German Battleships of WW2. The Trumpeter kit looks decent, but seems to be inferior in quality to the Tamiya ones. I haven't had examples of each kit side by side yet, so it may just be my imagination. All I'm waiting for now my copy of Basics of Ship Modeling by Mike Ashey before I begin the frustrating task of building the "Chase of the Bismarck" ships.

I still haven't brought the Skrubby Roger to the office yet, though I want to put it in my cube (wherever it may be). I don't really want to walk in at 8 am with 30 other people looking at my like I'm a complete and utter dork walking in with this stupid ship. Best idea I've had so far is to put the thing in a box (if I can find one big enough) and bring the box in, sans stares.

The tv show Scrubs, should be renamed to Skrubbs.

Weekend ju ju.....

Saturday, apparently was Laura's birthday (Happy Brithday again!). Rich called me Friday night and invited me over to celebrate. I was stoked!! So I get up after sleeping in on Sat. and decide to go looking for an outdoor chair (The Bicycle Shop in Modile has the one I want dammit) and just some general shopping.

My first stop is the Hobbytown USA in Trussville (about a 25 min drive from here). I was very impressed with this location. The store was clean and orderly (at least as far as hobby shops go), and had a very nice collection of things I was interested in: about eight 1/700 waterline ww2 ships by Tamiya, another 5 or 6 full-hull or waterline ships by Trumpeter, the Tamiya paint line (I bought some spray primer and paint thiner), and a growing collection of games workshop stuff (good to look at, but not buy). I also took a gander at their books section, but didn't find anything worth buying. BJD calls me in the middle of my visit to tell me he's also in Hobbytown, so we compare the stock of the Mobile location and the Trussville one. Pretty funny, if you ask me.

I then head back to my area of town, eat some lunch and hit Lowes, Walmart, & Home Depot looking for an acceptable chair. No luck at all three places. At around 2:30 or 3:00 I get a migraine. SUCK! I almost never get migraines. I lay down for a bit, then decide to call Rich and Laura and tell them I can't make it. After several hours of suffering I decide that I really would like to wish Laura a happy birthday in person, so I dope up on pain medication and head over to their place.

R&L's gathering was quite enjoyable (even with the headache). Brian was actually in attendance, which was a huge shocker. It was great to see him, even though he apparently is a gimp from falling off a rock or something. I stayed pretty late (Laura kept threating me not to leave, I was scared....) and had a chance to talk to Rich about my interview with his company. What I did not expect was Laura chewing me out about the interview. She was slapping me around for not calling Rich before I showed up to the interview to at least let him know it was happening (my bad) and for asking my one question (which was, "So, what exactly does InterMark do?" HA!). Funny stuff!

Sunday was pretty boring, just work on the ship (see below) and run to Publix (I needed some more tea and generic vanilla wafers). I really should have started cleaning the place up for Erin. The great Irish jewel will be staying with me while she does oen of her clinical rotations up here at UAB. Oh well, I clean this week.

Sail the high seas.....

It's done. Seven days of work and more than seventy thousand four lettered words have been spent. The picture above was taken with my camera phone to it's really crappy. The good part is that because the pic is crappy, you can't see how completely untalented I am at building models.

I told myself that I was going to do any rigging, but four of the sails didn't have supports and required attaching to the rigging. As such, I needed a little bit of rigging at least, which in turn became more rigging and before I knew it, I needed to add more just to balance things out. The rigging is NOT accurate in regards to real ships, but I think the pattern looks kinda neat and sort of "simulates" real rigging.

The lower hull is a darkish borwn to represent aged wood, while the main hull is black (it's a pirate ship, why would it be all bright and shiney?). You can't see in the pucture the gold details on the captain's cabin or the bow. The sails were painted with Light Parchment acrylic paint (Americana brand) which I discovered at the art store Michael's. I really like the color on the sails. It reminds me of slightly aged canvas.

I guess the model isn't truly finished, as I need to find a permanent mounting and add the pirate flag on the stern flag stand. But the major pain work is complete, so I'm going to call her done.

It's a floater....

Phew.....the hull is together. That sucked, there was so much surface area that had to be held together while trying to maintain slight curves on multiple surfaces. Thanks go to the man/men/women that invented rubber bands. I spent the rest of the night working on the little parts that are mounted to the very front of the ship and remounting some of the things I broke when putting the hull together (6 or so cannons).

Tonight should be more work on the outter pieces of the ship like the cannon doors, ladders, bulkheads, etc. I'm also going to start prepping the masts though those might have to wait for tomorrow night, as I want to get some detail painting down on the main body before all the sails get in the way.

My British 1/700 fleet arrived today: HMS Prince of Wales, HMS King George V, and the HMS Rodney. The Prinz Eugen also arrived. These ships look really nice, so lets hope I don't screw them up.

Life-long sorority...

I reached my goal and then some on the ship last night. I added several coats to all the upper decking items and they have been secured in place. Tee gun deck and the upper deck have been attached to each other (I even managed to get the curve of the decking right). The outer hull was given 2 coats of brown over the white giving the ship a wood like color below the waterline. I also added a second coat of black to the sections above the waterline. While most of this was drying from paint or glue, I started working on some of the subassemblies that will be placed around the ship (like the 2 little boats that are stored away on the deck, the anchors, the rudder, etc.). Most of these items where given a basecoat (or 2 of white as well).

Tonight I should get the decking and the hull assembled (I made sure to get some rubber bands from work today to help holder everything together while it dries).

I would have made more progress, but I went out to Zapata's (a south mexican style restaurant) to have "dinner" with by neighbor Sara and her fiance (dinner turned out to be 2 beers). On arrival I notice there is an additional person at the table. I think, "cool, I get to meet somebody new and make fun of them". So I am introduced to Tessa. Apparently Tessa and Sara were in a sorority together and are now thicker than thieves, as it were.

Tessa has a nasty Southern accent, imagine someone who grew up in the deep woods of AL and you might get close, and I'm pretty much put on my guard right there. Girls with Southern accent's can easily be upgraded to snooty beyatches. But I get ahead of myself......so, I try to be polite and kinda sit back and enjoy my beer. Sara is apparently on the verge of a breakdown (all tearing up) because there's some other girl at her work that "hates" her. Of course, Tessa agrees that this other girl at Sara's work is an evil bigot whore.

So after about 45 minutes of the screech fest, the fiance and I try to politely inform these two girls that life is just unfair. Merry Christmas, it sucks. You don't have to give people a reason to be nasty or hateful. Dear lord what a mistake that was. Sara pretty much tears up and starts to go on and on how she can't get over the fact that someone doesn't like her. "OMG, like how could someone, like not like me??!?! I'm, like, the nicest person!" GTFU!!!!!!!! (its like STFU but grow not shut)

Then Tessa chimes in how she can't believe it and it wasn't like this in the sorority.............................this would be the point in the evening where I just about pull a Terry Tate Office Linebacker move. WTF do you mean, "It wasn't like this in the sorority?" Dear lord of the mighty cheeto! This is followed up by me commenting on how these two girls just aren't very prepared for the real world. To which BOTH of them respond, "We were in [insert sorority letters here]! It did prepare us for the real world!"

My response: "I'd like to call in the parents police and have your parents hauled away for improper use of a prophylactic with intent to damage the future intellectual capacity of the human species!"

Say it!!!! Say it!!!!

I spent 3+ hours running around town last night. Have I mentioned how much I REALLY don't like the hobby stores in this country? So I visited 1 Hobbytown, 2 Michael's, and 2 Hobby Lobby (which isn't very hobby and would make a stupid lobby). I ended up with some basic acrylic paints, a set of new golden nylon brushes, and a 1/700 waterline pair of ships (HMS Hood and a E class Escort).

So back to the Jolly Roger.......touched up the paint on the lower/gun deck, applied the basecoat color to the pieces for the upper deck, gave the hull 2 coats of white below the waterline and 1 coat of black above, and managed to get about half of the upper deck pieces in place. All of this while watching the Last of the Mohicans on HBO (great movie).

Today at work I've pretty much spent my free time researching the sinking of the Bismarck (german battleship), specifically looking for the major ships involved. I found the Prinz Eugen, Prince of Wales, Rodney, and King George V in the 1/700 waterline format (all by Tamiya), but can't freaking find the payoff. What the hell? How you going to make all the other ships and not make the FREAKING BISMARK!!!?!?!?!? What's the point? It would be like making a PBJ sandwich without the stupid sandwich...all you have is the PBJ (which is tasty mind you but hard to eat from a sandwich bag........don't ask).

Looks like there is one plastic kit out there for the Bismarck in the right scale that "says" it can be assembled in either full hull or waterline (by Trumpeter). Looks like Tower Hobbies has it for less than $20 too.....goodie!! I also spent a few bucks on a photo-etch thingie. I've never heard of these (I'm sure BJD and the crew know all about it, but I don't...yet), but supposedly they are supposed to be extras for the model ships that make it look more accurate and bring out the detail.

The photo-etch thing I found was from Gold Metal Models and is for the HMS Hood, King George V, and the Rodney. I'm thinking this might be over kill for me, because I'm not so concerned so much with the physical/historical accuracy of the models and there's a lot of things on this sprue that I don't have a clue about (like which of the radar antennas I'm supposed to use). Anyway, it was only $18 and it goes with 3 of the ships I plan on getting.

So back to the Jolly Roger, tonight I'm hoping to finish out the upper deck pieces and get the gun deck and upper deck glued together. I'd also like to get some brown below the waterline on the hull too.

Yarrrrrrrrrrr........rrrrrrr.......

After sitting in painful silence as BJD constructs another group of finely detailed models, followed by a 4 hour drive home, I somehow decided to not be a utter jerkoff and just be a total jerkoff. Last night I began the construction of the Jolly Roger (by Lindberg).

I'm not so sure about the final rigging, the stupid instructions aren't very clear and I'm not the brightest on "real" ships, but at any rate I started the damn thing. I have no idea the what scale the thing is in and I really don't care that much. I don't plan to keep it for long once I'm done (it only cost me like $6). I am however hoping that it will inspire me to move on to some more interesting things (like 1/700 scale waterline WWII ships).

After one night of watching 2 episodes of Entourage, 1 new Sopranos, and 1 new Big Love, I had all 30 guns painted and assembled, the lower decking was cleaned and the supports were in place, and then the guns put in place. If nothing else, at this stage all those cannons pointed out look pretty impressive.

Tonight I'll gather the upper decking pieces (which are more varied than the lower), get them painted, and hopefully started assembly. Of course, all of this after I go to a couple hobby shops (of which most SUCK THE BIG ONE he in B'ham) and get some bulk acrylic paints (black, white, brown), some larger brushes, and some more stupid freaking glue. Why the hell would you put a viscous material that melts plastic and bonds the melted pieces together inside a PLASTIC FREAKIN container!?!?!? Do you enjoy having the damn bottom fuse shut after two uses!??!?!?! JERKS!