Miraclo Miles

Legends note The Legends APA benefit auctions I was originally planning to begin tonight have been postponed by one week. I want to get one or two procedural items in place, and when I'd originally planned this I didn't think I'd be finishing up a separate bank of auctions this Sunday. I'll talk that up considerably once those auctions are underway. I've received a box of things from Grant (which I've yet to begin writing listings for) along with a few items I've set aside, so our first attempt at this will be a modest one. I want to have a template for the auctions in place to help this go as smoothly as possible, though. This week's auctions , however... (yes, I'm going to be heavily into self-promotion mode today with not much more than 6 hours to go on the 25 lots I have up) - which are directed solely at helping me reimburse myself for some of the outlay on the latest clix set - are going in a fairly typical fashion. I was hoping for a more...

Middle of the weekend A day mostly of chores and errands, starting with finding the mislaid box of checks so I could reload the checkbook and bleed the account with a volley of new papercuts. I'm trying to keep from falling into the maddening trap of checking my auctions every five minutes. With over a day to go, despite much nosing around going on behind the scenes, to all outside observations it looks as if the first 16 of the 25 lots are getting no attention. The real action often only happens during the final few hours -- often just the last few minutes . Paying too much attention too early in the process... it's the watched pot. Obviously I'm hoping for them to take off, but my watching them isn't going to help any of that. At least I'm not stuck with a pre-blown weekend, as CryptLeak is. A program crash took out a major, critical mass of information. Despite spending thousands per quarter for a "service"/"support" contract, the software c...

'Night, Barney Unlike Abe Vigoda (or Richard Dawson , for that matter), Don Knotts is dead. The self-effacing comedic actor kept busy almost to the end, and has left behind a body of work spanning over half a century. Hmmm.... looking down the page it's interesting to compare an actor portraying a clueless guy and someone who isn't acting. Damn , Knotts was an even better actor than we knew..!

Rove's Playhouse (It's your turn to be the puppeteer!) Thanks once more to Tammy for passing along another winner. This time it's the Bush Speech Generator . It's a little clunky and will take a few minutes to get used to, but it allows one to select phrases and pauses and string them together into a speech. Sorry, you can't just type in text; instead you type a letter and a list of words and phrases starting with that letter comes up. Click on one and it's added to the speech. Once everything's in place click on the Speak! button and it compiles for a moment before Dubya starts spouting earnestly. It's necessary to play with it for a while to get both a feel for the editing functions (click drag and drop any phrase you want to get rid of over into the Bin for disposal, or if it's all gone terribly wrong use the newkyewlar option and hit the Clear button) and a sense of the phrases available. Given the nonsense the real life version's giv...

Drunk ? (Now Enhanced With Power) (Thanks to Tammy for the link today that brought me the pic I've added up top.) It's nearly 4am and I'm back awake again for no reason of any earthly good, so I may as well post something here in this sliver of time that's not beholden to the workaday world. When the Cheney/Whittington Texas shooting incident happened back the weekend before last I had as much fun with it as anyone in daily conversation - the first thing that came to mind was that Cheney getting to shoot someone may have been one of the few instances of sincere, human contact the man's had recently - but with all the blood on the hands of the Bush administration I couldn't get myself worked up over what was ultimately an accident. When Tammy ran a very nicely-written and sane piece on the special breaks Cheney and others in positions of power get versus what we, normal schmucks have to face I mentally nodded throughout, but I'm simply too accustome...

Criminalization instead of confrontation? (or Who's denying what? ) I've been aware that it's been illegal to publicly make a Nazi salute in Germany for decades, and I understand that such moves are part of an ongoing international apology for the Third Reich and their way of telling the world they'd never allow it to take root there again. Fair enough, though I'm a great believer that any measure to simply suppress something is doomed to failure. It only lends it a mystique that will, in time, bring it adherents. So, I suppose you can understand where I stand on the three year conviction of a Holocaust denier . The conviction and sentencing of British historian David Irving for the crime of denying the Holocaust is only going to lend him and his views the same mystique that every crank who's been suppressed by authority, all of whom want to paint themselves as a modern day Galileo, bring the Truth that "they" don't want people to know. It doesn...

Looking Around Not much time -- too much to get done today and it's already heading for 12:30 -- but I have been enjoying looking through these 360 degree panoramas . I just wish the guy got to travel more with his equipment. Back to me, I don't want to believe it's Sunday afternoon already.

Please, Mr. Postman Mostly more clix items following a domestic lead-in. Some housework and some errands today, including a run for a large meat buy; our freezer chest downstairs is set with the main courses for meals for at least the next two weeks, probably more than three. Speaking of the deep-freeze we're back into a winter's chill again. Today's local temperatures reached a ragged a fingernail above freezing, not that one would feel anything less icy with the gusting winds. It's a good day for indoor tasks, entertainments and to relax in the warmth. I have some correspondence to get to, along with some text to go along with the ebay auctions I'll be starting within the next... 17 hours or so. Last week while going through a folder where I keep financial items - be they bills I'll pull out within a day or two to write a check for and send off, or medical bills that are too frequently issued only to be sopped up a short time later upon re-application of ...

Damage Claim (Aftermath of the case of Collateral Damage) xercising more self-control than I'd expected, I didn't get home from work and errands until nearly 7pm despite knowing that FedEx had delivered my case of Collateral Damage at 11:35 am. This is something of a no-frills post, done because a few fellow clix fans (mostly silently) check in for updates. I might sweep through to dress it up a little later, but probably not. Once I had the case gone through I did a second sweep of the extras, culling the extra REV sets, then listed the mismatched extras, all of which took some time since I took the process of opening the boosters at a leisurely pace. I've waited this long for them, I may as well enjoy the process. Before getting to anything else, I have to note that one can get a feel for how retro this set is just by looking at the cavalcade of corny names. Okay, we're used to that in the costumed hero biz, but DC/Warner's insistence that the names on the dials b...

(Fairly Happily) Hit by a brick! (Heroclix -- nothing else in this entry -- so read or avoid accordingly; the only Krazy Kat & Ignatz reference in here is this one.) Yes, I know it's all a great deal of silliness, all the moreso when one considers the problems and shortfalls in my own life and the world at large, but three times each year there's a new Heroclix set and I continue to look forward to them much as any eternal kid does Christmas morning. Collateral Damage , the latest DC comics-themed expansion in the Heroclix game officially went on sale yesterday, and thanks to Mike T. , after a minor delay, I have mine. (Note: I've added some notes in red this afternoon.) Wizkids' reps had been claiming the figure collation and distribution problems seen in bricks of Armor Wars , and based on my brick I'd say they've taken a firm stride in the right direction. Indeed, between this and the case reports I've been seeing it appears they've gotten as ...

Not today... I was expecting to be able to report on my Collateral Damage brick today, but circumstances (ie the universe noted my hubris in telling several people I'd have it first thing today and so decided to keep that from happening) have delayed that until tomorrow . No great sorrow, to be sure -- but a small annoyance nonetheless. All info coming in so far at least at the case level is extremely encouraging, as reports of "complete set" or "only missing 1 figure" are all I've read. Seeing if that trend holds, and how the individual bricks are coming out, is the clix entertainment du jour for me. Too much else still on my plate for regular blogging to resume.

I'm not really back , but... I wanted to note that Jaws author Peter Benchley's died at the less than ripe age of 65, but it wasn't as a result of a "hunting accident" with Dick Cheney . Yow! Well, at least Cheney was only packing an odd, relatively wimpy 28 gauge shotgun instead of a more standard 12. As for me, I've gotten some things done, but not the big, work items. I'm heading into a week where the things threatening to come down on my head last week and the week before have simply been pushed ahead each time, as if I was going to find the time, energy and inclination to do them then . Still, much snow shovelled (we had over 12 inches fall between Saturday afternoon and midday today), more bills paid (well, checks written and envelopes stamped, waiting for Monday's mail) and the federal taxes done. My order for comics (month after next) was placed, too. Collateral Damage releases on Wednesday, so I have that on the trivial-but-fun front to l...

Break Not that it'll make much difference in terms of output, but I'm putting the blog formally on hold for the next few days. I've too many things to tend to, too few of which I want to do, and more is being added. I have to put this out of reach as a potential source of distraction, so I won't be looking here or at any other blogs for the next couple days unless I have a significant breakthrough.

I wonder how brisk the trade is for the stars and stripes? When Crypt Leak passed along a piece about an enterprising Gaza shopkeeper , I couldn't help but wonder how much of the international market in U.S. flags of various sizes is due to similar demands. I lack the time (and probably motivation) to look into it further, but it's likely that not all of those cheap, Chinese-made U.S. flags are coming to the U.S.

New Marvel expansion & Starter set coming this June The mining of fans' wallets continues! Nine days from now (February 15th) the next Heroclix espansion, the DC comics themed Collateral Damage, hits the streets, so it's time to light the next beacon on the Heroclix path by announcing the next Marvel set and the new starter set. (Oh, before moving on from Collateral Damage , I want to note that along with the promise that they've ironed out problems at the brick level - which so upset many fans when they debuted the marketing tactic in Armor Wars - so that a much broader, more pleasing sample will come from buying a shrink-wrapped brick, I've also been informed that this will be the first expansion where they've gotten the shipping schedules well enough in hand that they won't be shipping in waves. Reportedly, if a retailer ordered ten cases he should have ten cases by release day, not 20% of that. So, if nothing else, there shouldn't be any shortages....

"Oh, Christ! She found the bottle..." A little while back Tammy came up with a link to a gallery of advertising shots , mostly from the 1940s and '50s. The approach was often well over the top and open to reinterpretations. Here are some of mine. Sally's pork fetish made her easy pickings. Do I need to re-caption this? I wouldn't suggest any travel plans for the morning... and make sure you have something to read. Sunday morning with the Java Junkies Damien's Stamp of Approval Gehenna's Finest Baked Beans I see this Ritalin plan goes back a ways. It would be bad taste to serve these to lepers. (I see someone found some use for a dense head of cabbage, though.) Powered by a series of nuclear explosions? What could possibly go wrong? It's really just a question of which one Bob drinks first. The brave men of Cuisinart Company From the mind of Homer Simpson Lon Cheney's most challenging role Amphetamines were very popular in the 1950s... "Are...

Grandpa's back in the box for the last time Al "Grandpa" Lewis died sometime Friday night at the age of 95. His career as an actor going back to 1959, he remained active until just the past two or three years. Rather than shying away from the celebrity of his role as Grandpa Munster from the 1964-66 tv series , he embraced it and made the role part of his public persona. Among his accomplishments was his 1998 campaign for governor of New York, when he ran as a Green Party candidate and pulled in 52,533 votes, assuring that the Greens an autoomatic ballot line in New York for the following four years.

Members Only For a couple reasons Highlander 's decided to make his blog - The Miserable Annals of the Earth - a members only affair. If you're interested in making the list drop H an email at docnebula@gmail.com. The situation's developing - the elements coming together - so watch over there for any new developments. I'll likely be mentioning it over here, too. That is all. Have a nice day. Oh, and, be sure to drop the weapon.

Screams of fanboy fiscal terror? Okay, no, I'm not going to go overboard with this , but I figured I'd note it. While they're being cagey about it, muffling info that's leaked, it seems all but certain that this will be compatible with Heroclix. That being the case, I could see buying lightly into this for the sake of having some creatures to mix into scenarios, especially if the zombies look cool. No images as yet, though they'll probably start soon enough. The big premiere for these will be at the big gaming conventions this year, with a special "big" Horrorclix surprise at GAMA in March, which likely means they're kicking off the debut season with a convention exclusive big figure. I'm expecting they're going to be sticking to public domain and generic creatures, which - as I understand it these days, due to copyright laws functioning the way they were originally intended to - includes the works of H.P. Lovecraft, which are in the public do...

Punxsatawney Phil Emerges From Burrow Collapses From Heat Stroke Six more weeks of what , Phil? We're still waiting for winter to begin! It's nearly 60 degrees around here today. Short sleeve shirt weather... and it's February 3rd. (Apologies for the crappy photo-edit. I gave myself five minutes to find and doctor a shot of Phil, and my photoshopping skillz are sad, not mad.)

Two years, 865 posts February 1, 2004 I started doing this on a lark. My first thought is that when it comes to what's not right in my life, disturbingly little's changed. That's not good. I'm not finding myself wanting to belabor the anniversary, simply to note it. Maybe I'll feel differently later in the day.