Well, he said, I’m back…

Hi all

I have been long absent, and yes, I suck.

It’s been a rubbish and challenging couple of years. Personal issues saw us move back to Quebec, which was good for the lady, but rather less good for me. My film got made – so I have my first film credit! Though I likely won’t see any money from it for a long time, if at all. Worked on a script for a really big film, that fell apart due to the lead guy’s personal problems. That was painful because a: I did a lot of work on it and b: it really could have gotten some serious support. That left me high and dry.

In response, I went back to university whereupon I made an almost instant name for myself as a highly competent student, with various professors lined up wanting to drag me into the history or Irish departments. The wheels sort of came off in the spring where I ended uip with mild pneumonia. Like really mild. But if that’s just a taste of what the full blown thing is like…oh hell no.

Also discovered last summer that someone had broken into the storage place where I’d kept a bunch of my figures; they stole three GW carry cases worth and the Realm of Battle Game board, along with a bunch of Mithrils. Not all, but sufficient that I think, here, where is that…? oh. Lost my Mordor army, my Isengard army and my beloved Mithril Dol Guldur and GW Elf army along with some random others. Worse, these things are probably close by (small towns, and one likely culprit) and its not as if anyone is able to realise any of the value of the figures. No one is going to know what the significance of an MX Troll captain is, for example. I do feel guilty that I’d never replaced the bases on the Mordor Orc army collection, or that the Isengard figures were unpainted, or that the Elves were half painted. It hurt, too. All that work. Further, the GW stuff can’t be replaced since the prices have all gone into the troposhere.

This was a year for theft. Someone robbed our bikes. Someone robbed the front wheel (!) off the bike a friend gave me to replace the stolen one :p Another breakin saw the lady loose her jewellery collection.

No one was hurt.

So, older, wiser, sadder, with a GPA of 3.95 (damn you pneumonia!) and trying to write a book. About sums it up.

How is everyone?

Gavin

Well, thank you. Part of the problem is that a lot of stuff was stored in the in-laws barn, all locked up safe and sound. The barn, however, had started to…shift a little, on its foundations. It sort of made things drift sidewards and had somehow made the door hinges loose. Turns out if you pushed the door just so, it would open.

The second bike, fortunately, has this REALLY big scary lock on it. It’s just that, unbeknownst to me, the front wheel had an automatic release lever, so someone just wandered by and pulled it off. However, on the day that I discovered this, in perhaps one of the weirdest coincidences ever, I went to tea with a friend, then walked to her her friend’s house…and said friend announced they had a basement full of bike wheels. No, really. Saved me forty bucks on a new wheel.

Anyway, certainly a year of getting bigger and scarier locks. The odd thing is that Montreal was sort of a place you could leave your bike sort of sitting there and no one would care. The in-law’s home town was the sort of place that no one locked their doors.

Of course, being from Dublin, where everything is locked, it was a sort of swirly mental condition. “What, nothing’s locked” — “we’re locking everything!”

It’s all good. I am well. No one was hurt.

As for the realm of battle board, for my birthday last year, all my friends pitched in to replace it. Even friends I hadn’t seen in years. Even friends who consider the collection of little metal things to be some sort of extreme deviance. It does help that I tend to go out of my way to be nice to everyone, all the time.

Of course, I have been so busy with university work that all I do is occasionally look at the thing and go: well, one day I’ll play with it. One day :p

Thank you Ori. I believe I painted your plastic namesake the other day

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It was reasonable. Not my best job, but reasonable. Also, when it comes to GW figures, despite all their fanfare about high quality plastics, plastic figures still have rubbish detail.

I’ve been cursed, since about 2010, with living places where the light’s a bit off. I’ve also run through good brushes and so on.

So, right now, I am trying to get good brushes, the right sort of paint palette, and then work out the best way to illuminate figures. It’s surprisingly tricky! I made a hames of the plastic Balin yesterday, so I’ll have to try and fix him this evening.

I should take a series of pics of the Goblin Town goblins, so we may all join together in mutual loathing of the things