Dave's Rantlets

6:48am: Let's steal a planet!
Do you enjoy caper-style shows where clever rogues serve the greater good by mousetrapping baddies and hoodwinking well-meaning but inconvenient authorities? Or do you just want to see someone try to figure out the military applications of Cantor's Theorem? Then you should check out Christopher Anvil's "Interstellar Patrol" stories. Baen has collected the short stories Anvil wrote about the IP (and other stories set in the same universe), with the first volume available gratis in the Baen Free Library. The second volume has most of the "other stories in the setting" pieces, including "Cantor's War", and is only a few bucks as an ebook. While you're there, you might also want to check out the freebie Pandora's Planet.

4:59pm: Review: TFPrime Arcee and Ratchet Deluxe
Arcee is strongly recommended, Ratchet is recommended.

4:29pm: Kitbash: Magnet Coulson
Thanks to some bag-feeling, I got a blind-bag pack of Avengers Chibis that had Agent Coulson in it (and Thor and Bruce Banner). I converted it to a fridge magnet for spoilery reasons. It's hanging from the steel ruler in this pic:

3:01pm: ASH: Derek Radner's Private Journal #7 - Conquerors
Derek Radner's Private Journal #7: "Conquerors": December 2, 2017, Derek considers the forces that turn a man's fancy to thoughts of world domination.

6:14pm: My Little Drift


Once he was a Changeling, but he became a real pony with three magical katana horns, was taught magic by Celestia's long-lost older brother, and is far cooler than you will ever be.

...

Okay, he's just a pegasus who likes watching clouds, and is currently majorly deluded. Probably got kicked in the head by accident at some point, ain't been right since.

Drift, for those not familiar.

6:17pm: Review: TFCC Runamuck and Dion
Runamuck (Generations Wheeljack retool) is good, Dion (Universe 2 Hot Shot redeco) is indifferent.

4:15pm: Ach, laddie, be ye not eatin' tha' pizza!


Most bad signage is just boring stuff like "Customer Appriciation Day" (seen on the way home from the store with the above cursed food).

3:33pm: Review: TFPrime Commander wave 1
Optimus Prime, Bulkhead, Starscream, Megatron. All good, none great. The aesthetics of all but Starscream are hurt by the clear plastic gimmick.

7:02pm: Texas A&M Galveston TravelBlogue with photo gallery
Decided to just make it a webpage this time.

9:00am: ASH #117 - A Fire Afar Off Part 4: Thou Hast Seen Nothing Yet!
ASH #117 - A Fire Afar Off Part 4: Thou Hast Seen Nothing Yet! - A clue buried for over four centuries is the key to saving the planet from destruction, but only if the right people find it!

2:43pm: Comics for April, 2012
Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures #1, Arsenic Lullaby Pulp Edition (No. Zero, Omega), Young Justice #14-15, Marvel Universe Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes #1, Gold Digger v3 #135-137.

5:04pm: Review: TFPrime Voyager Megatron
AKA Pinkie Pie's pal.

6:44pm: My Little Skifanderi
(click for bigger)

Inspired by today's Girl Genius episode. I tried to give her a Foglionic face.

7:00pm: Job interview in Galveston
For those who don't follow me on Facebook, I got a site interview for a Director of Labs position at Texas A&M University in Galveston (it's on Pelican Island, next to a shipyard and a bunch of dirt, at least as of Google Maps's image). It's not tenure-track, but IIRC (my notes on it are at work) it's one of those "regular job" deals where it's renewable annually. Gonna be flying down shortly after giving my final exams (don't wanna give details on an "open channel").

9:11pm: Stick!
(Click to enbiggen)

Crazy Guy, my Jackie Chan homage in the Superguy setting, as a City of Heroes character.

6:12pm: When life gives you doubles...
...repaint 'em.

( Mega Bloks Dragon Swarm Pulse Gaia as Spike. )
( Wingless version added. )

2:01pm: Review: How To Draw Transformers Prime
Your typical crappy 32-pager, but it has a couple of worthwhile elements.

4:43pm: ASH #116 - A Fire Afar Off Part 3: Like Fire At A Distance
ASH #116 - A Fire Afar Off Part 3: Like Fire At A Distance - More of the history of the fight against Dimension Z is revealed, and the stakes start to look ever higher as both magic and science are predicting doom on a planetary scale!

1:52pm: Evolutionarily superior parodies
Do you have any songs where the parody more solidly occupies your brain than the real thing, even though you heard the real song first and hear it more often? I mean, sure, there's a lot of Weird Al tunes that seem more 'real' to me than the originals, but that's because I didn't hear the original until after hearing the parody, and I have Al on my iPod.

But how about parodies that manage to come into your brain and displace the previous resident? Several of the Dan Orr songs from Columbus radio in the 1990s do that for me...every time I hear "Big Ol' Jet Airliner" on the radio, my brain shifts it to "Busted Down In Berliner," for instance.

Anyone else have a song or two that stands out in that way?

3:09pm: Review: TFPrime Voyager Optimus Prime
Recommended, but with some problems to watch out for.

1:19pm: Lion, one day later
So, yesterday I spent the afternoon upgrading to OS 10.7.3, having dragged my feet on the Lion upgrade about as long as possible (a bunch of stuff I use is switching over to Lion-only soon, and it was either upgrade or start finding alternatives). While not as broken as the horror stories I heard about 10.7.0, there's certainly been changes, which I'll ramble about behind the cut.

( Some of these might be fixable, of course... )

2:59pm: Review: Bot Shots three-pack wave 1
The Autobot pack is a good deal, the Decepticon not as much.

11:22am: Contempt of Plot
Action movies are always kinda light on story, with plots that tend to be paper-thin (and recycled paper, at that). But sometimes the people responsible for releasing the movie just don't care. How can you tell? Because there's gaping plot holes that could be plugged by a few seconds of dialogue. And I'm not talking "assuming the audience can put two and two together" omissions, either. Real plot holes. But regardless of where the hole was opened up (writing, filming, editing), the movie that hits screens fails to make sense because of the lack of a few seconds of dialogue.

( Wrath of the Titans is a classic example of this... )

2:29pm: Review: Bot Shots Launcher wave 1
Both pretty good, but if you only want to get one, get Optimus.

11:24am: Young Justice thoughts....
I'm worried for Wally (but not the Beav). It seems like he's about the only member of the Young Justice team (Cartoon Network) that isn't carrying around a Huge Secret That Could Destroy Everyone's Trust In Him (corollary: ...And That Batman Already Knows About), which means it's only a matter of time before we find out something like "Oh, and while replicating Barry Allen's lightning strike, he accidentally killed a homeless guy."

( Cut for spoilers and length )