Over the Fourth of July weekend, I went camping with some friends of mine in Routt National Forest near Rabbit Ears. For me, this was mostly getting reacquainted with camping (I hadn’t been camping in almost 20 years) and also an equipment test (I had mostly new gear, on account of not having camped as an adult). Continue reading Gone Camping
All posts by The Plaid Mentat
Fully Painted Aquan Armada
Last weekend, I was able to complete one of the projects on my 2016 goals list – I painted all of my Aquan Prime ships for Firestorm Armada. It’s been a very fun project, and I’m glad to have it finally completed.
Pictures after the jump. Continue reading Fully Painted Aquan Armada
Chronicles of the High Inquest
I just recently finished one of my favorite book series – The Chronicles of the High Inquest by S. P. Somtow. The first time I read these was while I was in college, after pulling The Light on the Sound and Utopia Hunters from a box of books going to the goodwill. It took me a fair bit to find the other books in the series (I wasn’t able to find The Throne of Madness until I moved to Boulder, well after my first read through), but after getting myself new copies of the whole series and reading them start to finish again, I’m glad I did. Continue reading Chronicles of the High Inquest
What hunting was like after Supernatural
Where videos from 2002 are difficult to find, videos from Supernatural are nearly too many to sift through. Still, this one caught my eye as worth posting – now that we have a major network show about hunting that has lasted 11 seasons, what does hunting look like?
So if Hunter: The Reckoning gets a credit card commercial and Supernatural gets a comedy movie, what does that tell you? I don’t know either. Maybe that I need to spend more time writing.
Anno 2070 – More Spreadsheets!
I’ve been playing a fair amount of Anno 2070 recently. When I first started playing this game, I tried to play it like a city builder; I tried to create an island that was balanced in its production and consumption to minimize transport of good over long distances. Needless to say, my early attempts were a jumbled mess and while they had reached a level of stability, any growth beyond engineers was quite impossible.
After doing some digging online, I had a revelation – I wasn’t playing a city builder, I was playing a game about commodity transport. Continue reading Anno 2070 – More Spreadsheets!
What hunting was like before Supernatural
I happened to be looking through some of my old files the other day, and I found these old commercials for the Hunter: The Reckoning game for the X-BOX.
On the one hand, this game came out in 2002 for the XBOX, which makes me think that console generations are a lot more spread out than they seem. On the other hand, this game came out 14 years ago, which is a bit frightening because the trailers are very hard to find on youtube (in fact, I couldn’t find the judgement one at all).
The First 90 Days
In the interest of improving my management skills, I read the second half of The First 90 Days based on the recommendation from a coworker who recently moved into a management position. I only read the second half of the book, as I’ve been a supervisor for a while, and, according to the person who recommended it, the first half was more focused on the first 90 days of a transition, while the latter half was more general purpose. That being said, what follows is a high-level review of what I read – please keep in mind that when I critique the book below, I really mean the last five chapters, rather than the whole book (though I’ll be saying “the book” more often than not for shorthand). Continue reading The First 90 Days
Dice Boxes
Whenever I’m at Hobby Lobby, I take a walk through the wooden box section and see if anything really catches my eye. I personally have no woodworking skills or experience, but my father was a magician when it comes to wood stuff, and I’ve seen lots of other people do some pretty amazing things from plain beginnings. A couple of months ago, I found a wooden hinged box that I somehow imagined I could make into a decent looking dice box. So, with my brother’s graduation and cousin’s birthday upcoming, I thought I would give it a shot.
A couple of pictures of the finished products after the jump. Continue reading Dice Boxes
Dream: Shadowrun Heist
In this dream, I’ve got a third-person perspective on your typical Shadowrun heist. Even though it’s third person, and I’m not there, I’m part of a team – we’ve got our muscle, breaking and entering specialist, decker, and one other guy that no one really knows what he does. We’re breaking into a building to steal some expensive goods from some mega-corporation. This time though, there’s also a second team. Continue reading Dream: Shadowrun Heist
Imperial Knight Assembled
For Christmas this year, the family that I play Warhammer 40k with every year (Cody, Ian, and uncle Clayton) pitched together to get me an Imperial Knight kit. As the epitome of the walker, this has been on my list for a while, but I’ve never managed to pull the trigger. Getting one from these guys though, was exceptionally special, and was pretty amazing. So… …I managed to get it built, and there is one big picture after the jump. Continue reading Imperial Knight Assembled