So lack of posts does not mean lack of creative geekyness. I’ve got a huge backlog of great new stuff to post about, but first…
The unveiling of the new Geek pad. Our Media/Gaming/Hobby room is nearly complete! I plan on posting the specs soon, but for now I’m very excited to release some pics.
I’ve recently found myself completely obsessed with Doctor Who, so much in fact that I’ve recently purchased a new pair of Converse Chuck Allstars just because the Doctor had them. So as get further into the show I’ve started collecting the characters to paint.
My collection is still quite small, but so far I have have collected:
A painted TARDIS and clear resin TARDIS from Ainsty Castings. (I regret getting the painted TARDIS, it wasn’t that it was painted bad, I just know I could have done much better.)
The 9th and 10th Doctors; Dr Malcolm Ecclescake and Dr Hugh McCrimmon from Heresy Miniatures.
And one Daisy Taylor from http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk.
Next up on my wish list are some more great miniatures from http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk. I happened to stumble upon this site one late night after a couple of season one episodes and a few drinks. A bad combination when it comes to any sort of spontaneous purchase willpower. I only ordered the Daisy Taylor mini at first because I had no idea who the other characters where at the time. I was very impressed with the figure, and now that I’m farther along in the series I am now working to get the other characters. I am now on season four.
So current items of interest are, Captain Jim Barrowight (£4), Casual May Killan (£4), Scary Statue Coven (£12 set) and Corn Doll Hoedown (£10). All can be found here: http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/minis.html.
Not sure who these are? If your not watching Doctor Who and you consider yourself a Geek, you are doing something wrong… Go watch it!
The highlight of the Detroit Fanfare for me was Robocop! You may have heard about the Detroit Robocop statue project, if not you can find more information about it here.
Ever since I heard about the project I’ve been looking for a unique way to celebrate the fact that Detroit was getting a Robocop statue. I wasn’t quite sure what to do until finally I found out that Peter Weller was going to be in Detroit.
I picked up some Robocop models from http://www.bambammodelproductions.com/blog/sci-fi/robocop/. Pictures/site probably looks familiar, I recently did the site for BamBam and did a lot of the photos for them. =)
Anyways, here’s the semi-finished model, signed by Robo himself. I still need to paint the figures, but the base is done. I had a lot of fun with this one.
Peter Weller was great, he let me take the picture even though the fanfare people did not allow it, This was a great addition to the collection. This is a hometown gem for the collection, I cant wait to finish it.
All in all we had a lot of fun at the convention, Xander had a blast. He was a little scared at first but he warmed up quickly. After a while he really enjoyed all the cool costumes. He even got his very own storm trooper tattoo.
There were some great artists at the Detroit Fanfare this weekend. These were just a few of what the ones that really stood out.
Kurt Einhaus | http://kurteinhausart.com/fantasy-painting/
Michael Calandra | http://www.calandrastudio.com/Calandra_Studio.html
Dave Aikins | http://daveaikins.com/
Dave is an interesting character, I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Motorcity Comic-con in May, this time I came prepared. Dave does the artwork for both Zombies and for Many of the Nickelodeon books such as Dora, Diego, SpongeBob and Backyardagins. So while I got my Zombies game box personalized with some cool zombie art, Xander got a few of his favorite books signed as well.
Jeremy Bastian | http://jeremybastian.blogspot.com/ Jeremy was one of the Artist for The Guild Tink one shot comic; he did the Tink tall tale story piece. Of course I had him sign the comic for me.
Diana Harlan Stein | http://www.naiadstudios.com/
Diana did a great transformer character for Xander, this is a photo of a copy, but check it out.
I took my son Xander to his first comic book convention this weekend, it was a great time. We had the opportunity to mean Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Firefly & Serenity) as well as Peter Weller (Robocop). The fair was at Cobo Hall in Detroit, it wasn’t quite as cool as Comic-con, but it was still fun.
Here are some of the events highlights for us:
Adam Baldwin (Jayne) signing my Hero of Canton poster.
Adam was very cool to talk to, we talked a little Firefly of course and he mentioned he would love to do it again. But the thing that really set him apart from other celebs that I’ve talked to was a chat about our kids. Having an almost 1 and almost 3 year old I asked Adam if he had any good parenting advice. His whole hearted answers seemed really out of place coming from Jayne, the same man who said “Do you know what the chain of command is here? It’s the chain I go get and beat you with to show you who’s in command.” on Firefly.
Paraphrasing an awesome ten minute conversation, his advice was 1.) Take lots of pictures and video, especially while they are still young. 2.) Don’t ever fight with your spouse in front of your kids. 3.) Tell your kids no, yes is good sometimes, but they need to hear no. 4.) Save your money, and most importantly; 5.) “Never yell at your kids with hate in your heart.” Adam advised that you should be more like a coach, be instructional and guide them.
It was just really cool to hear advice like this from him; sometimes it’s easy to forget the actors have lives just like we all do.
More to come later…
Hello world!
It’s been a while… We’ve recently moved the beautiful Ann Arbor Michigan. The move which took place in June has consumed most of my time, and whenever I had some free time had been working on other projects. Anyways, time to get back at it. I have some great stuff to post, stay tuned!
Really, the CDC posts a zombie preparedness plan as a way of spreading real preparedness of a “real emergency. This brilliant marketing campaign is not something you would expect out of the CDC, but it’s real.
“There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e.” as quoted directly from the CDC website. The post goes on to link users to the zombie preparedness 101 which intends to give good preparedness information for all important emergency situations, zombie and other.
This is a great idea, with the exception of massive alien takeover, I can’t think of anything pre-disaster that would drive a bigger audience to the CDC site. The problem is, the CDC must not have properly prepared its servers for the massive onslaught of traffic brought on by this post, because rather than zombie survival information, the only thing coming up on the CDC blog site is the browsers loading… message.
Hopefully they get on top of this server issue soon, because this campaign is seriously EPIC.
[http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse/]
*Update:
Shortly after I posted this I was able to get in, and I was not disappointed. This is a great article released by the CDC, I highly recommend the read. This will not just help get you prepared for a zombie attack, but also to prepare you in the event of any other important emergency’s. So, aside from the server mishap, way to go CDC, +5 geek points for you!
I had a great time at the Motor City Comic Con today. I got to meet some great celebs and artists, get some cool autographs and photos and buy some nice stuff for the geek den. I really wanted to take my son Xander with me, but he was still recovering from a cold, so it will need to wait till next year.
Here are some of the better photos from the event.
Tricia Helfer signing my Battle Star Galactica poster at the Motor City Comic Con. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just told her I was nervous, but i love her work.
Brent Spiner giving me a “Manly hug”. It was really great to meet him, it brought bake a lot of great memories of watching Next Gen with my dad as a kid. He signed the perfect photo for me, its of him as Data painting. It’s going to be hung up in my Painting room.
I had the great honor to meet and get a personally signed print by Larry Elmore.
Random Starwars goodness, some great photos of the 501st Legion and Rebel Legion.
So to continue with my little food recommendations section, I want to post the amazing French toast I had a few weeks ago a Café Felix. This stuff was great. It was like pure unadulterated French toasty heaven in your mouth, which lasted for all of about 5 minutes… I couldn’t help myself, next time I may need to breathe between bites…
This French toast is rivaled only by one so far, that being the Village Smithy in Carbondale Colorado. This is the best hands down French toast I have ever had. Pour some syrup over those luscious mounds of strawberry banana and you’ve got yourself the closest thing to “food pron” as you will ever see. If you get a chance to try this, you will not regret it. If you can’t make it to Carbondale, try it at Café Felix.
Hungry yet?
The Aether Podcast
