Pilot's Log

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of May 17, 2012

In the coming weeks, you will have an excellent chance to develop more skill in the art of high gossip. High gossip has almost nothing in common with the mindless prattle that erodes reputations and fosters cynicism. It's not driven by envy, pettiness, or schadenfreude. When you engage in high gossip, you spread uplifting whispers and inspirational hearsay; you speculate about people's talents and call attention to their successes; you conspire to awaken generosity of spirit and practical idealism. High gossip is a righteous approach to chatting about the human zoo. It might not flow as easily as the cheap and shabby kind -- at least at first -- but it lasts a whole lot longer and creates connections that help keep your mental hygiene sparkling clean.

Dad also found Mum's stashed copies of my sister Lynn's short-lived tabloid paper The Ponderer, of which Mum, brother Dana, and other talents including Matt Mikas and David Klein were contributors.

[Previously posted on my Facebook webpresense:]

It's Publisher Clearinghouse Sweepstakes time. I get a mailing teasing me about a $3 Million Dream Home--but somehow I think I'd be happier with a dozen $250K homes, scattered about the nation/world. What would $250,000 US get a fella where you are?

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of January 12, 2012

I suspect you may soon find yourself in a situation similar to the one that 19th-century American President Abraham Lincoln was in when he said the following: "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea. But if this is tea, please bring me some coffee." In other words, Sagittarius, you may not be picky about what you want, but whatever it is, you'll prefer it to be authentic, pure, and distinctly itself. Adulterations and hodgepodges won't satisfy you, and they won't be useful. Hold out for the Real Thing.

The other day I looked through a pile of old periodicals for sale and found three of the Ducimus Camouflage & Markings pamphlets. I can't believe that I'd never seen any before, and suddenly I want to get both the compiled volumes. So what if they're innaccurate, dated and low tech...they're worth having.

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Scale models, comics (tho' not like I used to), movies on DVD, and loads of books and magazines related to aviation and aerospace.

Yesterday on Facebook, the FB presense for HobbyTown USA asked, "What hobbies haven't been invented yet?" to which I replied "Fashion Fabbing."

Turns out I wasn't that far from the mark. Today I got the latest issue of Laser Focus World and its cover story is about printable 3D metamaterial. Just as stereolithography can make solid objects, it could also make fabrics. Already they are talking about fabrics that light up, change colors, even display video (imagine a movie theater without the need for physical projectors!--or laptops without the mass of a video unit!).

In theory, you could have your measurements on file, get a design file, and have a suit constructed by a fabbing machine with absolutely no tailoring and it would fit you perfectly, as well as have features that you can't get from a store-bought suit. How about a t-shirt that cycles through a variety of graphic "screens"? A travel jacket with a built in GPS so all you have to do to get directions is look at a sleeve? A space suit or wet suit that is seamless and completely impermeable?

We ARE living the future.

FP

Planning out a wargame army can be a lot of fun AND a lot of work. A while ago, I was inspired to create a non-historic force for Flames of War and other 15mm-scale wargames based on the amateur militia Billy Joe's Boys, from the spoof movie Suppose They Gave A War And Nobody Came?. It's a parody of a modern cavalry troop, yahoos riding in old jalopies with Army Surplus armaments.

Thanks to Gear Krieg, statting out the vehicles wasn't tough. Plus I'll use a few off-the-shelf pieces to keep my force "sanitary" for tournament play. But I was getting antsy about paint schemes, numbers of miniatures needed, and other details.

Then I decided to do a rethink from a graphical perspective. An old wargaming magazine called S&T ("Strategy & Tactics") bundled games into their issues by reducing the pieces to a map, a rules booklet and a sheet of punch-out cardboard counters called "chits". They're a simple design and would do double duty, as both labels for miniatures and a "cheat sheet".

So I came up with a blank:


Which I could color and overlay with numbers or military symbols. From there, I filled out one for my Billy Joe's Boys troop:


This set uses military symbols from the current NATO symbology system to describe 104 miniature pieces in the still-hypothetical troop. As my force is nearly all mounted in vehicles, I use the triple-circle icon on the lower center of the inner box to mean "mounted" in the majority of my chits.

Explained, one by one:
* Two command vehicles (Billy Joe Davis and his deputy)
* Eight Security teams
* Ten Carbine teams
* Ten Flamethrower teams (tho' these may be replaced by other weapons)
* Ten Heavy Machine Gun teams
* Ten Light Antitank Weapon teams
* Ten Medium Antitank Weapon teams
* Ten Heavy Antitank Weapon teams
* Three additional Carbine teams
* Four Mobile Observation Post teams
* Four Tank Destroyer vehicles
* Five Antiaircraft Gun vehicles
* Three Heavy Mortar teams
* Twelve Motorcycle Recon teams
* Three Ground Attack Airplanes

This total force is bigger and far more powerful than the troop in the old movie, but perfectly legal for Flames of War once it is arranged into platoons. That's why I call it a "Doomsday Roster"--it is the unit at its maximum level of organization and equipment.

Wizard and ToyFare magazines are going out of business.

How To Repossess A Jumbo Jet From A Defaulting Airline. Courtesy the B@d@$$ Reverend Prez.

Finally got my sample copy of Videomaker magazine after over a month and a half's wait. Of course, in an age when personal portable phones have built-in video, the actual "stand-alone" video cameras themselves have gotten supersophisticated. Everything's High Def now...of course, that means that second-hand pre-HD format cameras are real cheap now. Looking at this stuff "cold" shows me that I have a lot of terminology to learn.

I'm not subscribing to this magazine but using my copy as a springboard for my own education on the subject.