On details

On May 19, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn GeekLeave a comment

Spent the last couple of days putting this little thing together:

I took the picture from a couple of different angles and then realized if I was going to give you a picture of the Tantive IV, it really ought to let you see the engines, which are the most iconic part of the ship. And once again, while putting a Lego set together, I found myself musing on why the designers make the decisions they do on certain things, and just how dedicated these crazy bastards are to including Easter eggs. To wit, an earlier, in-progress photo of the front of the ship:

What you don’t see there is a third two-stud stack behind the white and blue one. That one has a white base and a brown top, to go with the one that is gold-on-gold and the one that is blue-on-white. Note where this is in the picture above; it’s completely invisible and covered up by the pieces that attach to those clamps on the side.

Why are those there?

Well, it’s C-3PO, R2-D2 and Princess Leia, of course. Each rendered as two single studs in the right color. And it’s just there to put a little smile on your face as you’re putting the set together, and as a little secret that you know about once the build is finished. The Tantive IV, of course, is the ship that Leia is trying to escape Darth Vader in during the opening moments of A New Hope, and so of course she has to pass the Death Star plans on to the droids.

In other news, as of last night I thought I’d fixed my computer again, only to spend forty fucking minutes trying to get the damn thing to launch Chrome this afternoon so that I could work on writing practice finals for my classes this week. The following all happened:

Apple Music crashed, repeatedly;
Chrome crashed, repeatedly;
One hard restart;
After the restart, my desktop images on my extra monitors were on the wrong monitors (?!?)
My touchpad lost connectivity three times, and had to be turned off and turned back on again;
Audio was coming through the wrong monitor at one point;
Every so often I could move the mouse around but couldn’t click and the haptics on my touchpad were disabled, and every so often I could click on things but not move the mouse;
Attempting to open the systems settings crashed every other open app, then the system settings opened as if nothing had gone wrong;
Probably a few other things.

At this point, I have officially caved and ordered a new screaming fucking beast of a computer that is so much more computer than I need that it’s actually kind of sad. Like, I’ll need to develop a new hobby or go back to gaming on YouTube or something to justify this purchase. Naturally, after dinner, the computer had mysteriously reverted to working just fine, and I’ve been sitting here for just over an hour, writing the two initial practice exams and this blog post with no issues of any kind. I have no idea what the hell is going on, but I’ve had enough of dealing with it.

In which I’m in trouble

On May 12, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn ReadingLeave a comment

Allow me, if you will, to show you a picture from a few weeks ago of one of my bookshelves:

Direct your attention to the upper left of that picture. Now look at this:

I’ve made this distinction before: my wife reads a lot too, right? Not as much as I do, but more than most people. My wife and I are both readers, but I have a second hobby, which is that I collect books. My wife distinctly and definitely does not collect books. We would be in desperate trouble if she did. She buys perhaps a couple a year and most of the time exists off of rereads and reading books I’ve bought.

I feel like I’ve crossed a line lately.

I’ve never really liked the covers to the Red Rising books, particularly the specific ones I own. If you look really closely at the dust jackets in the top cover you’ll notice a couple of small tears in Golden Son and a rub mark in the bottom of Iron Gold, both signs that I got the books from Amazon, because I wouldn’t have bought them from a physical store with flaws in them. Those awesome covers are not new books– I actually special-ordered custom dust jackets from Juniper Books to replace the original dust jackets on my hardcovers. Which I’m keeping, of course, although I’m not entirely sure why.

I’ve found myself really tempted by special editions of books I already own lately, too, especially if their original covers annoyed me in some way. For example, I think whoever is responsible for this abomination should be literally pilloried:

…and, as it turns out, there’s site called the Broken Binding that offers these fucking beautiful bastards, at the low low cost of $150 for four books I already own:

And, Goddammit, I’m tempted. Sorely tempted. I just kicked ass at work and I feel like I can justify rewarding myself, but shit, that’s a lot of money, for something just to look better on a shelf, which … feels unreasonable, even to me?

I dunno. My birthday’s July 5?

(I also keep almost ordering this hat, not because I think it would look good on me but because the model in the picture is rocking it, and I feel like maybe ordering clothing I can’t wear because it makes a different human look good is maybe a sign that having a small amount of discretionary money is starting to get to me. Can I just shift into Saves Money Guy for a few years, please? Enough for a decent emergency fund, or at least to pay for the new fucking computer I’m probably going to need soon without putting it on a card?)

(We won’t talk about how much of my money Lego is currently trying, and failing, to take from me.)

Sigh.

One day

On December 4, 2022 By Luther M. SilerIn life3 Comments

One day, I will write a coherent and interesting blog post. I was hoping that day would be today, after several days of bleh.

But after driving home from Chicago and spending … what, two? let’s go with two– hours grading, all I want to do is dissolve into a puddle in front of my PS5 right now.

We did go to the Lego store on the way home from Cary and I managed to get out of there without demolishing my bank account, so that’s good. It’s a really neat store. I mean, you can already kinda imagine what’s in there, but still. If I buy much more Lego I’m going to have to invest in a storage and display solution of some sort and that’s not happening, Goddammit, so we aren’t buying any more expensive sets for a while.

(Thank God they didn’t have the huge Star Destroyer set in stock, so I didn’t have to decide not to buy it. I think it’s discontinued by now.)

While I’m kvetching: does anyone think this is legit?

Thanksgiving IV

On December 3, 2022 By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

I straight-up forgot to post yesterday; I’m no longer remotely as pressed about posting every day as I used to be, but I do like it when I actively decide to not post on a given day rather than forgetting. But yesterday was nutso busy and I just forgot. I assume y’all have already forgiven me, if you even noticed.

And today I’m out of town, at my brother’s place in the Chicago suburbs, what we used to call North Northytown back when I lived in Chicago. We are watching football and my son is starting to agitate about heading to the hotel now that his cousin is in bed for the night. One way or another I wasn’t about to skip the night after forgetting. More tomorrow. We’re going to the Lego store on the way home and my goal is to get out without spending $500. We’ll see if I make it.

On complexity

On November 26, 2022November 26, 2022 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, movies1 Comment

What you’re looking at here is the engine block of the Lego model for the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. I’ve had it for a little while and wanted to get it built this weekend, so I’ve been been coming back to it intermittently for the last couple of days and right now I’m about halfway through the build. I’ve been really impressed with it so far, and it continues to amaze me how much entirely unnecessary complexity Lego builds into their modern models. First of all, they modeled the engine block. I don’t actually know if the hood for this thing is going to be removable or openable or what once it’s finished (if there’s a hinge assembly for it, I haven’t built it yet) but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they modeled the engine block carefully enough that you can actually identify individual parts of the engine and then covered it with a hood assembly that wasn’t meant to be removed. The grille in the front? Each of those little silver rectangles is an individual piece. That yellow X-shaped piece in the back with the yellow circle around it is attached to the steering wheel, which is actually set up in such a way that turning the steering wheel turns the front wheels of the car. There’s a whole steering column and what appears to be a gearshift next to it. There are stickers in places on the car that you will never see. The engine has belts, for Christ’s sake– you can see a bit of one of them, the red band next to what is clearly meant to represent the battery.

Do I want to find out what model of Cadillac the Ecto-1 was supposed to be and see where the battery actually is? Yeah, I kind of do.

I’ve been kind of in a funk lately regarding writing and the internet and a few other things, so this has been a nice change for me to focus on for a few days. The problem is these sets are expensive and they’re starting to kind of build up around the house and I don’t really need one more fucking thing to figure out how to display. But fuck it, that’s a problem for later, for right now I’m going to continue enjoy building the car.

EDIT: The hood does open. Entertainingly, the hood is one of the few actual flaws with the build, as it doesn’t quite close as tightly as I like and wants to be no more than about 98% closed. That doesn’t sound like it should be an issue but it means a few things don’t line up. I just need to make sure to display the car with the passenger side facing out, I guess. 🙂

EDIT EDIT: The hoses from the battery were in the way. I shoved them deeper into the engine and it’s fine now.

A project and a Project and a PROJECT

On October 22, 2022October 22, 2022 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, idiocy5 Comments

I decided that the basic, entry-level Rubik’s Speedcube that I have wasn’t as much of a challenge as it used to be– I still need the directions in front of me, don’t get me wrong, but I can solve it from basically any scramble to done in a few minutes, so I lost my ever-loving fucking mind and bought a Gan Mirror M Speedcube today. It took a good half-hour to solve from a pretty thorough scramble and broke my mind about halfway through. What the image to the right doesn’t really show you is that the colors will shift, going from blue to purple depending on your angle. It makes the cube absolutely beautiful to look at, but it means you can only go by the size and shape of the various sides to solve the thing, which is absolutely maddening, especially the first time you have to wrap your head around it and that one piece looks like it’s in the right place only shit it’s half a millimeter too thick so it can’t be the right piece.. I managed it, though, and once I can solve it as fast as I can a traditional speedcube I’ll start working on actually memorizing the algorithms so I can do it without the damn instructions on the screen in front of me.

I have been having a really relaxing break so far– recall that even if I hadn’t quit my job, this would be a four-day break because of fall break, and I’m technically employed by my previous district through next Friday anyway– and I spent a couple of hours a day working on the Lego set for the Space Shuttle Discovery that I bought a month or so ago. The thing is a beast, coming in at just over 2300 pieces, so naturally as I was moving it from my office to my room, where it will be displayed alongside all the rest of the NASA Lego sets (excepting the Apollo Saturn V rocket, which I haven’t built yet) I managed to knock half the fucking wing off by bashing it into the doorway. I got it fixed, nothing missing, but the torrent of swearing attracted attention all over the house. I think this will probably turn out to have been more fun to build than the Saturn V, which is probably going to end up kind of repetitive, but either way it was a blast to put together and I think the model of the Hubble Telescope that came with it is cool enough that I’d happily have bought it as a separate purchase on its own.

Also, somehow, my wife and I went from “Should we replace the carpet in the living room?” to having an appointment for a man to come out on Wednesday and measure our living room for our new carpet in less than 24 hours. Have I posted pictures of my living room recently? Because there are thirteen completely full bookshelves, a sofa, and a fucking piano in there. Guess who said the words “I have the next three weeks off, I can get the room cleared out!” out loud, like an idiot?

Sigh. At least I’m not gonna be bored.

What a day

On August 24, 2022 By Luther M. SilerIn life1 Comment

I made it through a full day at work today, and it was a good day. I am trying to not get too far ahead of myself, but I think– I hope— that I’m going to really like my kids this year.

I got home and my Horizon Forbidden West Tallneck LEGO set had arrived, finally, and I put the base together. It was surprisingly fun.

Then I started finding out details about Pres. Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, and it looks like it’s going to be a, uh, big fucking deal. I’m not going to talk about it much because everywhere that can provide tons of details is utterly borked right now, but everything I’ve seen looks like really, really good news.

Good day today. Is this what optimism feels like? Christ, this might be optimism!

Some random thoughts and also I build a toy

On July 28, 2016July 28, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Stories2 Comments

Stayed up last night and livetweeted the convention up to the point where Tim Kaine’s speech finished; I’m always amazed that I don’t have a ton of unfollows during these things, as I tend to tweet a lot when I’m watching anything remotely political. But no! Only six people all day yesterday, which is a perfectly normal number. I ended up liking Tim Kaine more than I thought I would– a thought that I think my Twitter feed shared. There was a lot of making fun of him going on but it felt affectionate, if that makes any sense, and dude has succeeded in making his stupid Donald Trump impression worm its way into my brain– meaning that every time the idiot says “believe me” again, people are going to hear Kaine doing it. He’s like Ned Sanders, but with a really sharp knife, the kind where you don’t realize anyone cut you until your head falls off. I still would have preferred several other options, but I’m starting to think I can get to like this guy.

Anyway it’s my day off and I decided to build the Millennium Falcon. Legos have gotten fucking complicated, guys.

That’s a lot of bags. They are labeled 1-8, but several numbers have more than one bag, some of the bags have other bags inside them, and one bag has no number on it at all. There’s maybe 12 outer bags. That is one big-assed instruction manual. I got through about 90 pages of it before deciding I’d had enough for the morning.

This is the part where I realized I’d screwed up for the first time, as you really need to pay attention to the colors in the instruction manuals and the right pieces were inexplicably in the unlabeled bag. At any rate, you start by building the superstructure of the thing and I made mine too short.

There, that’s better. As it worked out, this was my only big mistake, or at least the only one I’ve noticed so far. The engineers for these things are crazy people and the people who make the manuals are crazy geniuses.

Adding the floor.Finishing the first step of the build with some work on the underside. This is crazily complicated already. All of this was the first bag, by the way. On to the second bag. We’re making progress! The end of Bag Two, which was mostly furniture and detail stuff. Also, I got to put in some decals.

The end of Bag Three. Which, weirdly, doesn’t look all that different from Bag Two at first, until you look a little closer.

And here’s the end of Bag Four, putting me halfway through the build. At this point I realized my eyes were bleeding and decided to be done for a bit. There are at least two more minifigures in the bags somewhere, because I haven’t found Rey or BB-8 yet. The first four bags took about two hours, so I’ll probably end up finishing this tomorrow. Whee!