Pilot's Log

I just downloaded a paper model .PDF file from RapidShare, and noticed through my search for the file that a lot of hosting sites have been hit with takedown notices or Russian viruses. If you have your eye on a download, get it now--but be very careful about it.

1) Plan 9. Based loosely on the notorious Ed Wood horror schlock spectacles, this series is about a duo of uniformed LA cops who are put on the Weirdo Beat to "keep them out of trouble". The scripts are written by a committee of Internet-forum dorks and Middle School Kids, with the lowest possible production budget and the worst actors who carry SAG cards.

2) Sucker Punch: the Virtual Reality Reality Show. Contestants are recruited from computer gamer conventions. After having their virtual reality characters codified by real-world physical tests, the contestants must run them through adventure worlds created by inmates in psychological asylums, who are strung out on medications of various kinds and babbling to voice-recognition computers equipped with AutoComplete.

My FreeWill Astrology Horoscope this week was all about the idea that I would have to examine my relationship with money, and actually, I have. Then again, who doesn't?--The Income Tax work for last year is coming.

But what is really behind my self-examination is the fact that I'm selling off a bunch of wargaming-related stuff I've owned for years and never used.

I was seduced by the Warhammer. Still, I never could afford to buy the darned Rulebook or the necessary dice or templates or any of that. I bought a dozen Sisters of Battle figures, a Rhino to go with them, and the supplemental Rulebook "Chapter Approved" and a few issues of White Dwarf magazine. Just enough to keep me interested, and just enough information to be dangerous in terms of generating an obsession.

I set about assembling an Army in a roundabout fashion...but I bought things I could afford. Dollar store toys, mainly. I could get a squadron of tank toys for the cost of one Rhino. I could get to-scale planes, gunship helicopters, missile launchers...all it took was a sense of scale and imagination. I had confidence in my scale model talents that I could convert any cheap toy I could come across into a model suitable for a tournament session.

I also bought loads of Warzone figures, when that game was on the way out and the pieces were remaindered at the stores. I'll probably keep the lion's share of those.

But anyway, I spent money on these things that I later missed. Now the best I can hope for is a portion of what I spent, returned when/if I sell them. Assembling an Army isn't as important to me as it used to be. I never considered my buying an investment. It was just part of my overall behavior.

I have this greater need, more than playing the game or having THINGS, to exercize my ego by MAKING SOMETHING THAT IS MY OWN. I'm not happy with being constrained by the Rulebook. I'm not happy with a game that limits my creativity beyond the surface. I have this fear that the Virtual World that is embodied by MMOs could be so confining as well. Not because I want to be cheesy and want to win (I don't so much care about that) but because I think it would be bland and boring. Could you understand that?

In the meantime, I have a list of goods to post to the SurplusWargaming forum on Yahoo.

FP