Irvin Kershner: 4/29/1923– 11/27/2010

Thank you sir, for nurturing my imagination, defining my childhood, and starting me down the geeky road I'm still walking today.

Five Things 11/25/10

Hey you guys, I was sitting on the couch just now counting the minutes til face-stuffing time (aka Thanksgiving Dinner) and a wave of inspiration hit me. So I figured I would jump on the blog real quick and post another edition of Five Things. I know most of you are waiting for part 3 of the Wheel of Time figures to be posted, and I promise that will be before the weekend is over, but I think I'd like to break up the rampant nerdery that's been going on around here for a minute with something a little different. For those of you who are new here, "Five Things" is something I came up with to make myself more prolific and make it possible for me to post more frequently; its basically just five random thoughts, ideas or quick stories that pop into my head. Its stuff I find funny, and stuff to make you think (hopefully about how funny I am). This stuff tends to be a window into my somewhat, um... damaged psyche I guess would be the best way to put it. Its also something of a public service, as much of what I post in an attempt to make you guys laugh has the simultaneous effect of absolutely murdering any future political aspirations I might have, so there's that. Anyway, on with the Five Things!

Wheel of Time Action Figures Part 2: Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara

Hey kids, I'm back with part two of my custom Wheel of Time Action Figures article. Sorry it took so long between installments. Truth be told I didn't mean to make you wait quite this long, but I was just too lazy to take new pics. I photographed all of them tonight though, so it won't take me quite so long to get parts three and four done (unless I get too lazy to write, in which case you're all screwed).

Anyway, before I show you Mat and Perrin I have a little bit to add to the origin story from Part One. Now aside from all the stuff I discussed last time, I had an additional motivation going into the creation of the figures, that being that in 1998 as far as I was concerned there still hadn't been any accurate visual depictions of the characters as they're described in the books. I was reluctant to mention this at first because not only is it kind of arrogant of me to think I could do a better job than professionals (and we all know I'm only ever arrogant about my looks, intelligence, sexual prowess and general comparative stock as a better human being than most people, I NEVER brag about my artistic ability), but also because its kind of insulting to said professionals. But then I said fuck it, the Guide didn't quickly become known as "the big book of bad art" on the newsgroup for no reason, and complaining about Darrell Sweet's covers is tired and cliche at this point. So yeah, I figured my attempts couldn't be any worse than what was already out there, and honestly, I think the end results are better than the covers or anything in guide. And I say that with all humility. Now that that's out of the way, on to Mat and Perrin.

Wheel of Time Action Figures Part 1: Rand Al'Thor

Ok, so way back in 1998 I did something REAL geeky. Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it isn't, but before I tell you what it is I did (and if your deductive reasoning skills have recently been featured on failblog and you haven't figured it out yet), I just want to put this whole situation in perspective a little bit... because it was sort of a perfect storm of circumstances that lead to me having the time and the inspiration to do this.

OK, so as some of you know, back in the 9-8 I was entangled firmly in the rut that was my horrendous dead end relationship (with a whole two years to go!). My daily routine at that time consisted of taking the A train to NYU, getting class over with, and rushing back home as soon as humanly possible to enjoy the few hours of girlfriendless peace and quiet I had before she would get home from school or work and find some way to completely wreck my day ("completely wrecking my day" consisted of anything from asking me to do something I likely didn't want to do, to speaking to me, to just being within my general vicinity for several consecutive seconds... do you get the point yet? I didn't like her). Now, given that the majority of my life was a confusing, unhappy quagmire I needed to have several avenues of escapism just to maintain the state of casual, loosely-defined sanity that I usually exist in. Among those were obsessively watching pro wrestling, making weekly trips to the comic book store and Toys R Us, a new found fascination with hip-hop, and of course, reading nerdy fantasy novels.

Five Things 11/03/10

Just a few quick notes before I get into todays Five Things. For those that care I'm about 200 pages away from being done with Towers of Midnight (despite taking off yesterday AND being up til 5am this morning reading). My spoilerific review will be up in a few days. Also I'm helping out at the Brandond Sanderson NY Barnes and Noble signing next week, and I'll have a report of that up afterwards as well. The blogs gonna get REAL geeky in the coming weeks. Anyway on to the five things.

1. I have a piece of friendly advice for all of you. Be really careful around anyone who refers to their kitchen as the "meat and fuck room"