Blog Frustrations and Legos

Before I ever started this blog, I had been reading several others. They were interesting, funny, and on occasion, insightful. This is what I wanted to be. I thought that as I used the blogas a venting location for the frustrations I was going through withmy marriage and other things, I would be able to be witty and bitter, kind of like old school Denis Leary. Angry rantings of a bitter person that turned out to be hilarious. In the beginning, I had a moderate amount of success with this as I told stories about what had happened. I had continued using a moniker that had been placed upon me by coworkers, Bitter C.

Since I left my wife, the amount of things that have happened for me to be bitter about has decreased to almost zero. Of course, the things that could   be happening in my life that would make for an interesting blog has also dropped to zero. I really don’t have a social life in my new locale, the people here frighten me. I thought I would be used to rednecks and hillbillies. I grew up in Idaho, and have lived in Arizona and Texas. The people here in West Virginia are a different inbreed of redneck and hillbilly. One evening, not long after I arrived here, I was sitting in a Chinese Buffet restaurant, in a booth behind a man and his two young daughters. They were all very loud people, and it was impossible to not overhear. The first indicator that I was in a different world was when one of the girls made a comment regarding an earlier incident of her fathers flatulence. “Well, that’s why your mom left me,” was his reply. After that, I heard the following: “No! It’s your birthday, and we are NOT going to go to the damn Dollar General! We’re going to Walmart!” and “Boy, I wish I had had smart kids.”  The apple cant fall far from the tree when it doesn’t fork. It reminds me of the joke where a man was trying to console his brand new ex-wife as they left divorce court by saying, “Don’t be so sad, we’re still cousins!”

So, the blog has suffered. you are supposed to write what you know, but if I were to do that, all I would talk about is what I do when I get home after work. It doesn’t amount to much, and it doesn’t vary much from day to day. Boring life, boring blog. Occasionally, I will find an off the wall story on Fark or Digg, and it will fire me up enough to write a post about it. That doesn’t happen very often. Things that interest me are typically fringe or niche topics that the general populace doesn’t “get.” Things like Anime and Lego’s. But, just so I can post something,I am going to talk about Lego’s anyway.

I have been a huge Lego fan for a long, long time. After my first marriage ended, I bought a lot of Lego sets. It was a way for me to spend my weeknights at home. I hadn’t wanted my first marriage to end, and it really tore me up. I was on anti-depressants for a while, until I found that they were doing more harm than good. I was using sleeping pills nightly to go to sleep. The hours between work and sleep were the problem. My brain wouldn’t shut the hell up. It would interrupt TV shows and movies, making me wallow in the events that caused my depression. Reminding me that at that moment, my ex-wife was in bed with the boyfriend that she had left me for. Lego’s were an escape. It gave me something for my brain to focus on. I was able to occupy my brain so it wouldn’t have time to show me imagined scenes of what could be going on a thousand miles away. It was too busy trying to tell if the brick in the instruction manual was dark gray or black. It was busy trying to figure out what step had been screwed up so it could be fixed. The number of dollars spent on Lego’s was directly proportional to my level of depression. The more depressed, the more Lego’s were bought.

After the depression eventually faded, I was able to actually enjoy Lego’s for what they were instead of as an escape. I had moved on to a higher paying  job, and was able to afford bigger (and cooler) Lego sets. After ten years of this, I had accumulated a huge bucket of Lego’s. I decided to put the whole lot on eBay so I wouldn’t have to move them again. I sold them as a lot since I had not been saving the boxes, and when I took the models apart, I just threw the parts in one big bin. I sold the whole collection for around $1100. This was the biggest mistake I have ever made on eBay. Since then, I have attempted to obtain some of the sets that I had sold, and found at least three that are selling for more than I sold my entire collection for. I learned my lesson.

After I was laid off in Washington, I went back to Idaho and then Texas. I had been unemployed for a long time, and wound up working at Walmart to try and keep up with the wife’s medical expenses, child support and car payment. Depression had sunk in again. Working at Walmart did have one advantage, the head of the Toy department really liked me and would let me know when Lego sets were going on clearance. I was able to start collecting again at a discount. After leaving Walmart and getting a better job, I kept an eye out for Lego bargains, and the collection grew again. None of the sets were as cool as what I had before the eBay mistake, but the sets were able to turn my brain away from the deepening depression I was falling into as a result of another failing marriage.

In 2007, Lego announced a new set to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars movie. They already had the Star Wars license, and I had several Star Wars sets, but this was the pinnacle of Star Wars Lego’s. It was a detailed model of the Millennium Falcon, scaled to the same proportions and the famous Lego mini-figures. It would be the largest Lego set ever made at 5,195 pieces. This was the acme of geekdom for me, and I had to have it.

Lego Ultimate Collectors Edition Millennium Falcon

The big problem was cost. It was only available on the Lego website, not in stores, and would run $500. As much as I loved Lego’s and  Star Wars, I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money. So this purchase has been a dream of mine for two years. One of those “someday” things that you hope you will get around to, but fear you never will. Well, this year’s tax return was probably the largest I have ever received. I followed one of the rules that I have tried to ingrain into my kids, “Do the have-to’s before you even think about doing the want-to’s.” I used the tax return to pay off my motorcycle, which gets me an extra hundred dollars a month in my pocket. I paid off two old debts so that they would get off my credit report. I put a decent chuck of money into my savings account, giving me my safety buffer that had been lacking since I moved up north. And I still had enough left over to finally get the Millennium Falcon.

There is a mall about an hour away from my house that has one of the few Lego Stores. You can get the “Lego Exclusive” items there without having to buy them over the Internet and wait for shipping. As an added bonus, if you buy in-store, they have those little cards like coffee shops that they stamp for every x  number of dollars which entitles you to gift cards. I have a policy to never spend money I don’t have in pocket. I don’t spend money based on the anticipated arrival of more. I had received the tax refund, paid the bills, and could finally make the long drive to get the Lego set that weekend. And… I had to work that day. One of the rare occasions where I need to be in the office, even though the likelihood of anything happening was slim. So I sat, all damn day, thinking about how I could have already gone to the mall and gotten home with my dream Lego’s and be putting them together. Finally the end of the day arrived, and I went to the mall. I walked straight to the counter, where I was courteously asked if I could be helped. “I would like one Millennium Falcon, please.”

It was a long walk through the mall back to the parking garage, that box was heavy! It weighed around thirty pounds, and was awkward as hell to carry through a crowded mall. If I hadn’t been so enamored of my purchase, I would have used it to start smacking people. I simply cannot believe the society we live in. More than once, I saw the slow moving people in front of me turn and see me walking behind them with this huge box on my shoulder, and not move to the side. I even had one idiot walk a bit faster to get on the escalator before me. Dude, there will always be big soft pretzels available, I don’t think the extra two seconds would have caused your death by starvation. Fucker.

I got my purchase home, and finished up the previous Lego project. I have been assembling every Lego set I have so that I can document missing pieces so I can replace them from the Lego web site. Then I started sorting the Millennium Falcon pieces. With almost 5200 pieces, this is not a set where you just dump them all in a Rubbermaid container and start building. Well, OK, you could, but it would increase the build time immensely.

I have been taking a digital photo of every single step of the assembly, and will be posting it to another web site, once I get it done I will post a link here. In the meantime, I just have to remember to take the time to eat while I build. And I have already picked out my next Lego purchase. The Eiffel Tower.

The Comic Struggle

As much as I have enjoyed doing the comic, it seems to be a source of frustration for me. I have always struggled with drawing the things I see in my head. They just don’t seem to translate to the page for me. It’s almost like I can see the picture, and in my mind, I can see the individual strokes of the pencil to place in on the page, but then my hand doesn’t want to cooperate. But I don’t have that same problem when I have a reference picture in front of me, which you can see by the “filler material” I put up. I probably did that pencil drawing in the same amount of time that I spent putting together the first three panel comic.
I read a LOT of webcomics. I look at the artwork, and it just seems so fluid. Like the artist just sat down with a sharpie and a napkin at a McDonald’s and these clean lines spewed forth, while the other hand ate a Filet-o-Fish. A lot of my problem, I think, is that I cant seem to find the balance between a “comic” view and a realistic view. I want to do the simple drawings, clean lines that still get the point across, but I always seem to wind up getting bogged down in some stupid detail. I spend an hour or two sketching and re-sketching just trying to make that stupid back pocket look right.  I read the comics that I like, then I study the art itself and try to see how its done. My right and left brain get into a massive fist fight over this. The art side is screaming about how you just need to let it flow, while the intellectual side is arguing about how it “just doesn’t LOOK right.” I seriously think that if I wasn’t pressuring myself to do a drawing quick, I would be drawing individual hairs in my beard, getting upset because I did not get that one right at the corner of my mouth that always curls in and bugs the hell out of me. “It’s not important!” screams the art side, its just a representation!” And the other side shouts back “But it isn’t accurate!“

So, I struggle. I have several ideas, several comics in my head, but getting them to flow and fit into the boxes is also a struggle. So I came up with an idea. Fuck the number of boxes. Use as many as you need to tell the story. That worked, and I was able to finish the sketches on the comic I was working on. But it wound up being depressing rather than funny, and it never got past the sketch stage. I either have to find a way to make it funny, or save it for later when it may actually be poignant.

I am also struggling with the graphics tablet. For a brief moment, I forgot the adage that an old friend taught me: “Pay for the best and never regret it.” I spent $50 for a graphics tablet to try it out when the “real” one runs about $300. You just don’t get three hundred dollar quality for fifty bucks. The nib on the pen sticks occasionally, and when you have 1024 pressure points in a quarter inch of play, that is a HUGE deal. The pen is battery operated, which means that you get used to its quirks about the time the battery goes dead, then you put in a new battery and the damn thing is too responsive, more than what you had just gotten used to.

I saw the inspiration for a new comic, part of the single panel WTF moments that I see around here. If I can tear myself away from the new World of Warcraft expansion for a while, I might be able to get it down on the digital page and posted. But tonight, I play WoW, and tomorrow I make my famous Cherry (and one of strawberry this time) Dessert for an office party.

Various Updates

I originally started this blog as a way to get some of my pent up emotions out. I had always heard that if you were struggling with something you couldn’t talk about, you should write it down. Different variations on the theme, such as write a letter you don’t intend to send, keep a diary, whatever. So that is what I was doing. In the back of my mind, I suppose I had hoped to become one of those popular bloggers that get hundreds or thousands of readers, but that isn’t the case. My personal interests and the things happening in my life are just so compartmentalized, that by their nature, there isn’t a huge interest. So I started using the blog to let the few people who read the thing know what is going on with me. That amounts to about a half dozen people who actually know me, half of those I talk to on a regular basis.

The point is, I am not sure why I do this anymore. I keep checking the stats, but I my most popular post is one I wrote a long time ago about an experience I had with my sister. In that post, I talked about riding my motorcycle alongside my sister who was on a four wheeler like the guys from CHiP’s. The make of the four wheeler and the names Ponch and Jon are the things that get the most search engine hits. Now this one will too, I suppose.

So anyway, I decided to give a few updates again. First on the agenda, the social scene. I gave up. I tried going out to places where I could meet new people, maybe have a few laughs. This area reminds me of high school. I went to two separate bars on several occasions, and found both to be the same microcosms. There were groups of people, and if you weren’t already a member of those groups, you weren’t going to be a member of them.  I usually wound up sitting at the bar, watching the groups interact and occasionally trying a friendly “Hi,” but except for one person, there was only a courteous “hello” returned. So, I gave up. I could stay home and be bored, and it didn’t cost me five bucks a beer and a half hour drive. I suppose when the time comes that I get lonely enough, there are always the strip clubs. It’s their job to make you think they are interested in you and everything about you. I know it isn’t true, but sometimes you just have to suspend your disbelief to enjoy life a little.

I have had an opportunity to write some more on the book. It has been difficult, because I only have one “fan” who waits for the next chapter, and she has already heard the whole thing. So it seems that I am only doing it for me, and then it becomes easy to put it off. But, I have posted three new chapters in the past week, and I have found that I am enjoying the process again. It has been so long since I wrote it, that sometimes what happens comes as a surprise to me. I get to do the second draft edits while I type it up, and I am getting excited. I am getting closer to the denouement, and I think that is the part I am most happy with. So, hopefully, I can maintain my focus and get the book done before too long. If you are reading it, and you are enjoying it, let me know. Let others know. If you know someone who has the same literary interests, tell them about it.  If you aren’t reading it, the link is over there on the right. Give it a look. I am still hoping to self publish the thing eventually, probably on the Kindle to start with. I am afraid that if I don’t get enough interest in this book, the second one will never get finished. And that one focuses on Tink.

Once upon a time, I used to get very interested in Photoshop Contests on Fark.com. I enjoyed playing with Photoshop and this looked fun. While looking around the web for other examples, I stumbled across HeroMorph.  This was a fun place. People were taking photos found on the web, usually nekkid wimmins, and using photoshop to “paint” superhero costumes on them. At the time, the community was very active, and there are some really talented artists out there. I tried my hand at it, and posted this. I was really happy with it, and was even nominated for the “Best First Manip” award. I didn’t win, but hey, you know, an honor and everything to be nominated. I did the whole picture using a laptop and one of those laptop style mini-mice. Ever since, I have wanted a Wacom graphics tablet. If you don’t know what those are, they basically give you a electronic mouse pad and a pencil to use as the mouse. They are much better for control, and feels a lot more natural for drawing. But they are VERY expensive. Even the smallest one $100, and wanted a bigger one. In the time since then, other manufacturers have begun making graphics tablets that are cheaper, and I finally bought one last week.

That brings us to the next point. If you combine the previous two chapters, you can see how I came to have this idea. I have always enjoyed drawing, and the experiences I was having in bars were so odd, I thought that I could do a webcomic based on those experiences. So, after getting the graphics tablet I made a webcomic. The link is over there on the right, its called True Tick Tales. Right now, I have just made a new blog to post the pics in, but if I make more, and they get a few hits, I may put them up on a site designed around webcomics instead of blogs. Again, please take a look and offer opinions.

A friend told me that I have more hobbies than anyone he has ever met. I think this could very well be true. I look in my storage shed and see all the hobby related boxes. Drawing, movies, writing, anime, cross stitch (shut up) and Lego’s. I have been able to get my Lego’s out and put them together, and have been enjoying myself immensely. I can finally put them together and actually leave them together for a while without worrying about a goddamn cat shoving them on the floor and scattering pieces everywhere. I have already found two sets that are missing pieces, and I only hope that I can find them in the Lego Bulk Brick section to replace them. The Grain Combine is missing a taillights on the right side, as well as its CB Antenna, and the Dinosaur Hunting Helicopter is missing its nose gun, and one of the mini-figs is without a weapon. Shameful. But the big Lego set, the Mother Of All Lego’s, is the Millennium Falcon. Oh. My. GAWD! I have wanted this thing since it was announced. It’s HUGE. It has one of the largest piece counts of any Lego set. It is built to scale around the mini-figs. It is also very expensive. Very, very expensive.

I have a big Corona Bottle Bank that I toss my loose change in, and that is my “Get the Falcon, and maybe the Star Destroyer, and if there is some left over, the Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower” Lego fund. As you can see, there is still a lot of room left in the bottle. Not long ago, I counted the change, and its just shy of $200. I estimate that when the bottle is full, it will be more than a thousand dollars in change. I dont know if I can wait that long. I have seriously considered making a new page on this site and adding a “Donate Now” button to my PayPal account. I figure that if that one guy can make a million dollars selling pixels on his web page for a buck a piece, maybe I could get some interest on Digg to get enough people to “Help fill the bottle” and then blog about building them, along with pics. Obviously, I really want those Lego’s.

So, anyway, that’s it for the update. At least all I can think of at the moment. Please help me promote the book, and the comic. Spread the word.

Rantings of BitterGeek

Last week, I picked up my copy of Heroes, Season 2. I had been re-watching season 1, then followed that up by watching season 2, then got caught up to the current episode the past two couple of nights watching them online. I had high hopes for this series, and the first season delivered on those hopes. There were a few things that I felt the series could have done without, and in a few cases, I thought that there were a few too many characters. After getting caught up, I felt the need to rant and rave, and if I blog about something in my old bitter manner, maybe my friends will stop calling me a pussy and I will get a few more hits on the blog.

What the fuck is up with Peter the Retard, henceforth known as Petard? The future version keeps trying to go into the past to fix things before they go wrong. His latest tactic? Have his past self get Sylars power so he can understand the workings of the space time continuum and figure out how to fix it all. OK, so we saw in the future that there was a friendly relationship between Sylar and Future Petard, but he decides it has to be younger Petard to do it. Why? He had finally figured out that he was an idiot and kept screwing things up, so why didn’t Future Petard get the power and figure it all out BEFORE he went into the past and fucked it all up? I have heard of dumping the workload on someone else, but dumping it on your younger self? “I don’t have to do it because I already did it.” And how come the only abilities he is able to absorb are super abilities? Couldn’t he hang out at MIT and get smarter, so he isn’t always fucking things up? How about football, or basketball? Rock Concerts?

And who the hell is keeping track of the alternate time lines? Have these writers never read any sci-fi? Even Back to the Future did a better job with time line continuity. Scarface Petard was a part of the alternate future where New York was blown up, but here he is again, same old scar. And how the hell did he get the scar with Claire’s healing powers? Did the Haitian sit there for a few weeks keeping his powers in check so everyone would be able to tell the difference between good Petard and Bad Petard? And the Irish girlfriend that he accidentally dumped in an alternate future. Yeah, she’s gone now. He left her there, went back and changed history and that time line vanished, taking her with it. “Sorry, babe. I was totally gonna come back and get you, but I had to shoot my brother and turn him into a Bible thumper. When I thought about it, your time line was gone. Don’t worry, though. Your brother is already dead because of me, so there isn’t anyone to mourn your loss.”

We spent a lot of time in season one showing Hiro’s growth, even to the point of his dad explaining what a waste he had been up until he discovered his powers. Now, Papa is proud and even left him 51% of the company. But we keep seeing Hiro as a idiot, a perpetual comic book man-child that doesn’t have the ability to grow up. And his dad, “I’m gay but I have a kid” Sulu, knew what a idiot his kid was, as shown by the two DVD’s he left. The first one said, basically, “There is something really important in my safe. It’s so dangerous, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. So don’t open it.” When the DVD’s come out, I will slo-mo that to see if I am right and Sulu is suppressing a chuckle. You know that after he stopped recording, he said to him, in Japanese, “That little shit is TOTALLY going to open the safe.” Sure enough, Hiro opens the safe and there is another DVD in there. First thing it says? “I told you not to open the safe!” If you knew he was going to do it, why not give the damn thing to someone you can trust to follow your every order without question, even if they think its wrong. Like your DAUGHTER! You know, the one who proved her worth in Season 1? But no, you have to give it to the kid who is sitting in your office reading comic books and fucking with time because he is bored. Are you even surprised that he got it stolen about fifteen seconds after that?

Now, on to New Orleans. And the new character, re-using a first season actress because she is the one everybody is hot for, goes and looks in a coffin to see herself, amazingly NOT in little bits in spite of being blown up last season. And the only one around in the house? The dead lady’s son. “Hey little Micah, we know this is a tough time for you and all, but we are all heading out to get some chow. You stay here, alone with your dead mom, and we will bring you back something. Kay?”

And lets just go ahead and kill Parkman and Mohinder. Give someone the ability to grow big like Super Chief and step on the bug Mohinder is becoming. Actually, I don’t think its the cockroach that everyone else does. I think its a lizard of some kind. Future MoLizard doesn’t have more than four limbs, and the shit he peels off of his back is more like scales than bug exoskeleton.

And what the hell. Are we going to eventually find out that Mama Patrelli is immortal, has been around for thousands of years and fucking EVERY ONE of the “special” people are her kids? And if they had Adam locked up for thirty years and they fucking KNEW about his miracle heal all snake oil blood, why is ANYONE associated with the compaby even dead. The guy from season 1 that Daddy Bennett blew the brains out of? He should still be alive. Linderman? Alive, not a FUCKING GHOST. All the people that Sylar killed? Find their brain, pop it in, shot of Adam blood, BOOM. We know who Sylar is.

The only thing that really connected with me was the whole Sylar/Daddy Bennet partnership. That was classic buddy cop formula, and it worked. I would really like to see that come back into play. Sylar always trying to find a way to treat the bad guys like a soda bottle and get the powers, Daddy Bennett always trying to figure out a way to knock off Sylar and get away with it. Tons of room there.

OK writers. Here’s the deal. I know what you have to do to get this show back on track. Go to the biggest comic book stores in the area, and find the two guys that are arguing about some stupid aspect of comic book storylines. Watch for the ones that cite references. Hire them. Do this in about four or five different places until you have ten or so. Their job? Sit in a room and watch the episodes over and over until next weeks script is done. Then they read it. I guarantee you that they will point out every continuity issue, every plot hole. These people are your demographic, they will keep you on track. And they work for Cheetos and Mountain Dew.

The Vacation That Won’t Be

I don’t know what the heck happened the other day, but my hit count spiked huge!

I am only a few days away from what I am loosely calling a vacation. I call it that because I won’t be at work. But I have much to do in the two weeks I am granted away. Two different graduations in two different states, which just happen to be 1500 miles apart. Legal wranglings on two different issues, as well as grabbing the rest of my stored crap and transporting it those same 1500 miles. I have a feeling I will be quite exhausted when I am don’t with my period of rest and relaxation.

Don’t get me wrong, I am excited about going back to my old stomping grounds. I honestly cannot remember the last time I was there, but I think it has been almost two years. My mother is giddy with anticipation, she has been calling me for two weeks to see if I have left yet. The drive will be long, and sue to the limited time, there wont be a whole lot of sightseeing opportunities along the way. Besides, I have seen most of it anyway. I have made this drive a time or five before. I know I will be spending most of the drive looking at gas prices and cursing.

I bought a new GPS for the drive, even though I know the way. I know what is going to happen. I will be getting phone calls throughout the day of arrival asking how long before I get there. I want to be able to glance at the GPS and see the ETA, and relay it promptly. Besides, I like having a female voice telling me to “exit right, then, stay left.” Somehow it doesn’t annoy as much as when the spouse does it. I know the GPS is doing it’s job, but the spouse apparently just forgets that I have been where we are going many, many times. I keep waiting for her to tell me what exit to take to get home.

There is just so much to do in the next few days. Tomorrow is the “take care of all the business stuff” day. Paying the bills before I go, getting the laundry done so it can be packed, doing some cleaning, etc. I have so many new gadgets I am very glad that I bought the big laptop backpack to have room for it all. I have no idea how often I am going to be in a position to actually post anything, but there aren’t that many people reading this thing anyway, so I doubt there will be an excess of disappointment. I do think there may be a lot of stories to tell when I get back, but we’ll see.

When I starting posting chapters of the book, I had already typed quite a bit. I just copied and pasted what I had done in sections. I only have one more section to go, then I have to get back to transcribing/re-writing. The gap between chapters is about to get wider, sorry.