Late birthday gift to myself

Broke down and bought these for myself.  

I've had Fantasy Flight Games' "X-Wing" for about two years now.  I've not really played it ... just haven't had time.  Our old game group (mostly guys I work with) really haven't gotten together in a year or so ... so, no games.  So far I've got the starter set (one X-wing and two TIE fighters) and the Millennium Falcon expansion pack (got it mostly just for the miniature).  At $15 bux a piece, the miniatures had kind of hit a price limit for me.  They're good, really good miniatures but $15 is a bit much for me.  Now I've found a dealer selling them for $10 each and free shipping on orders so I'm giving myself the go ahead to start building my fleet and get this game rolling.

These will be the start of my X-Wing game miniatures collection which I plan on adding to each paycheck as well as making some custom capital ships / freighters / support craft through kitbashing.  The Tantive IV is one of my favorite ships in all of sci-fi shipdom.  My 8 year old mind fell in love with that hammerhead shape and those eleven blazing engines as soon as I saw it on the silver screen way back in 1977 and ever since then I've been looking for a good sized replica of this classic ship.  About two years ago I broke down and bought the $300 27 inch long Rand Cooper Tantive IV (currently saving up for his $500 38 inch long Imperial Star Destroyer) but haven't put it together yet.  Here's a Tantive IV in much smaller scale (still large) and it's prepainted and assembled so right out of the box it's a display unit.  I'll probably only have one Tantive IV in my collection but I've got up to three Rebel transports ear-marked for the collection and this will be my first one.  The local hobby shop wanted $50 for the Transport and $90 for the Tantive IV which, again, was a bit much in my book (and for my wallet).  I spend some pretty money pretty fast sometimes but even I'm prone to waiting until the price falls or shopping around for the best price.  I like to support my local shops but going online I saved about $40 on these two items (the Transport was $40 and the Tantive IV was $60).  That savings gives me enough money to either add four fighters to my collection or another Rebel Transport (and I've found an online shop that I'm going to give a lot of business to in the months to come).

So, that's the update.  Happy late birthday to me and it was a pretty good birthday with me buying myself the '89 Dodge Daytona Shelby back in June and now, two months later, these two sets of expansion miniatures.

Damnation Alley

Feeling in a vegetative mood I decided to blow the dust off the old "DA" DVD, throw it in the XBox 360 and take it for another spin after all these years.  I was not disappointed.  Sure "DA" has problems and loop holes but tha's what makes it what it is.  The effects are dated but "DA" is still a solid "B" movie.  Never intended to do anything but entertain a viewer with their mind solidly thrown into neutral, "DA" lives up to expectations and remains a cherished part of my post-apocalyptic media collection.


 

"Damnation Alley", by Roger Zelazny, was originally written as a novella in 1967, turned into a novel in 1969 (the year I was born) and then made into a movie based very, very, very loosely on the book in 1977 (the year that "Star Wars" first hit the big screen).  The book illustrated above is the edition that I first owned and read in the mid-1980's, a time when post-apocalyptic drama was in high demand.  I'm pretty sure I still have this novel in my extensive collection, I see no reason why I would have ever gotten rid of it ... it's a great story full of post-apocalyptic wonder and like so many facets of my childhood I like to revisit it every decade or so just to kick the tires and do a few smokey burnouts down "Memory Lane".

All in all, "Damnation Alley" is another example of the cliche where someone says "the book was a lot better than the movie."  In this case, it is true.  Damnation Alley was a pretty cool movie, all given, but it had very little to do with Zelazny's book and by "very little" I mean that it took the basic premise of post apocalyptic mayhem, took the name of the main character and used the idea of driving an armored car across a blasted American wasteland and ... yeah, the rest of it they just kind of made up.  

 

The one part of the movie, where the big war board shows all of the Russian ICBMs coming over the pole to hit American targets, the launching of the retalitory strike and the different canned film footage of nuclear explosions ... that's how we all thought that we would go, probably in our sleep at a few minutes till midnight but in the 1970's and early 1980's that's pretty much how we figured the human race would end.

"DA" starred several recurring Hollywood actors ... George Peppard, pretty boy Jan-Michael Vincent, and Paul Winfield.  

 

As far as action movies go, "DA" is a good 1970's film and it begs, just begs to be remade in this era of "let's remake everything because we've run out of original ideas".  Of course I'd like a more faithful to the book version but then that's just me.

 

What PA movie wouldn't be complete without some
mutated giant scorpions to cause our heroes grief?

Probably the most iconic thing to come out of "DA" the movie is the armored vehicle that our heroes travel across "Damnation Alley" in ... the "Landmaster".  Long a popular sci-fi vehicle, the "Landmaster" was a twelve wheeled ATV that was armored, was NBC sealed, had a segmented body, could drive with either set of wheels out of commission, had six heavy machine guns, a pair of rocket launchers in an upper turret, full communications suite, a side hatch, a top hatch, a rear ramp that could raise and lower, room for four, bunks, a shower, food and water for extended periods of time and could use standard semi truck parts to repair its power / drive train components.

The original story struck me as perhaps being the spiritual forerunner of John Carpenter's "Escape from New York."  You had Hell Tanner, the last of the Hell's Angels, living in a post apocalyptic California.  He's one of the last of the true bad asses, he's in prison, and he's offered a parole by the governor if he'll run some antidote or serum across country to Boston (or some other blue state Yankee stronghold) that has come down with some disease.  Since it is post WW3 and all humans are precious, California decides to send the medicine in several armored cars (referred to simply as "cars").  These "cars" are awesome armored, fully armed, fully supplied all terrain transports with flame throwers, fifty caliber heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, rockets and two giant blades that can slice out from each side.  In order to earn his pardon, Hell Tanner has to make the run through Damnation Alley, a narrow belt of less-destroyed America plagued with giant insects, giant scorpions, bandits, radiation, and terrific mega-storms.  I won't tell you any more, if you haven't read it, read it.  

You can pick it up cheap at most used book stores.

It's been a "Megaforce" kind of week ...

The title song to the 1981 Hal Needham military action comedy, sung by "707" (think of them as "SURVIVOR Light") has the lyrics of ...

There's something moving
In the air tonight
Something moving
At the speed of light

And it's calling
Calling, calling to you

I got a feeling
Rushing through my head
We might never get
This chance again

And it's calling, calling
Call to you, yeah

If the time should call
Should they'll find
What we believe
Then you can believe
I'm coming on

Like a mega force
Mega force
Like a mega force

"Megaforce" was calling to me.  For an entire week, "Megaforce" was calling to me.

It started out plainly enough ... I've got 707's song "Megaforce" on my iPod so I listened to that and started thinking how those first few guitar chords pretty much summed up the whole decade of the 1980's.  The '80's started out so strong ... so different, so full of hope, than the previous bleak, bland 1970's and here was a song that in just a few string licks pretty much summed the entire decade up.  As I thought about that, I realized that it had been a few years (quite a few) since I'd last seen "Megaforce."  I have it on DVD in my collection but it's a transfer from the VHS so "DVD Quality" is nowhere to be found.  Still it's viewable and in DVD format which is good since my last VHS player bit the dust many moons ago and I've never replaced it because the amount of VHS tapes I still own is less than the number of girlfriends I've had so ...

So I thought I might watch "Megaforce" again, maybe on a Friday night, grab a pizza and sit down with an old friend from long ago for about an hour and a half of mindless fun.  Simple enough.  Then I took my youngest daughter to the city park playground to play.  I like to look around the playground for stuff that people leave behind, just I guess some kind of sociologist / archaeologist fetish ... to try to figure out, from the stuff left, what kind of people had come before me.  Sometimes kids leave toys, broken toys, garbage, trash, broken toy jewelry, a condom wrapper or two (who fucks in a playground?) and other stuff.  This time was no different but I did find something pertaining to my plans ... there, in the dirt near a tube slide I found ... this!

It's one of the latest incarnations of the Hot Wheels "Megaforce Mega-Destroyer" fast attack vehicle as seen in the movie.  Armed with a gatling gun, an automatic cannon, triple rocket rack and a laser gun which raises up on a rear pedestal and can rotate 360 degrees, the "Mega Destroyer" had both a stealth skin and could run silently on electrics.  Hot Wheels planned a big tie-in with the movie, going to offer several die-cast toy cars but when the movie bombed at the box office the Hot Wheels stuff (and probably a lot of other cool toys) never appeared.  A few "Megaforce" Hot Wheels did hit the market but they were rare, low production and are sought after collectors items today.

Unfortunately the "Megafighter" and "Tac-Com" are mislabeled.  The dirtbike is the "Megafighter" and the six wheeled ATV is the "Tac-Com".  Mattel put some money into this line in anticipation of the movie being a big hit and when it wasn't, well, the MegaDestroyer and Tac-Com vehicles were kept and simply given new names and reissued every few years in different color schemes.  The Hot Wheels "MegaDestroyer" I found in the city park is missing the laser gun, the rockets on top and is painted in a bright yellow paint scheme which includes the words "Nitro" and "Payback" on each side.

Here is a pic of how the original "Megaforce" Hot Wheels were packaged.

"Megaforce" ... Long a guilty little pleasure (right up there with Roger Corman's "Battle Beyond The Stars" and other '70's cheese), "Megaforce" is a movie that is often bad mouthed and ridiculed mainly by pseudo-overly intelligent movie savants that "just don't get it."  "Megaforce" hit the screens in 1981, was the work of Hal Needham (who brought us "Smokey and the Bandit") and starred a host of then promising faces; Barry Bostwick, Persis Khambatta (now with hair, last seen bald in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" as Ilia), Michael Beck, Edward Mulhare (who would later play "Devin" in "Knightrider") and Henry Silva.

So, I had the week started with sponging to 707 - "Megaforce" ...

Then I found the latest incarnation of the Hot Wheels "MegaDestroyer" at the city park playground ...

Then two nights later a friend on FaceBook posted a link not only to the 707 "Megaforce" song video but also to a remake by none other than KISS guitar alumni Ace Frehley ...  Frehley's Comet - "Calling to You" 

And that's when I just said "to hell with it".  "Megaforce" was calling to me in a big way and who was I to deny it?  Friday night I got pizza, sat down and watched "Megaforce".  My older daughter opted out of watching it (she knows my taste in movies) but my youngest daughter sat spell-bound watching the explosions, lasers and vehicles doing their stunts.  She loved the motorcycles and the dune buggies and when they started emitting different colored smoke screens she really liked that but when Ace Hunter's motorcycle lit the jet engine and started flying, well, that was just the cat's meow for her ...

... and sharing that with her I remember why I really like this movie.  It's just plain fun.  It's campy, it's cheesy, it's unbelievable, it's funny, it has some neat hardware (and pre-CGI whored out special effects) and above all this movie is just a C-130 full of fun.  If you can't have fun watching "Megaforce" then chances are your childhood wasn't a great one and you're probably not a very fun person to be around today.

So many people are quick to ridicule this movie and add it to their top ten list of bad movies that they miss what this movie really was; an allegory of the Cold War.  Maybe "Megaforce" didn't start out like that or maybe it wasn't intended to be an allegory of the Cold War but that is what "Megaforce" is.  

 Let's look at this concept closer ...

"Megaforce" starts out with two fictional countries, the peaceful Republic of Sardun and their aggressive neighbor Gamibia. Unable to defend themselves from the Gamibia incursion, Sardun seeks help from SCUFF (Supreme Command United Free Forces) for help.  Now Sardun and Gamibia are simply arbitrary, they exist as convenient stereotypes of any of a number of second and even third world nations out there torn between aligning their selves with either the USSR or the USA during the Cold War.  SCUFF is representative of NATO and "Megaforce" is a united nations ghost army, consisting of the best of the best, independent thinking soldiers from every free country in the world come together under one command to fight for freedom and fight against tyranny and injustice (aka "communism").  In other words, SCUFF is NATO and "Megaforce" is a multi-national crewed world police force capable of military strikes anywhere on the globe, they are the world's, the free world's preeminent police force and in that regard they represent America.

It's a bit of a stretch but that's what makes it fun.

Looking at the late 1970's and early 1980's, it was America's (and Europe's and NATO's) worst fear that the Russians would roll their armor into the Fulda Gap and that would be the end of Europe.  In that regard, America knew that we couldn't match Russia tank for tank so we made our tanks better.  We made our weapons better ... the M1 Abrams tank, the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the AH-64 Apache, the A-10 Warthog ... America took the technology high road and used technological superiority to counter numerical superiority.

It worked.

Of course had the Fulda Gap ever been overrun with Russians the obvious answer from NATO would have simply been to drop a few neutron bombs on the Fulda Gap and turn it into a giant parking lot full of glowing Soviet tanks but that scenario also never happened, thank God.

"Megaforce" wasn't just a allegory, it was a prediction that superior technology could counter vastly superior numbers and that better training and individual thinking could overcome group thinking and political indoctrination.  

On one hand, you have Megaforce ... the best soldiers and technology that the free nations of the world can put together, composed of an elite raider force operating machinegun and rocket armed dirt bikes, machinegun, cannon, rocket and laser armed dune buggies and all coordinated by a six wheeled cannon and electronic warfare capable ATV known as "Tac-Com."  Supplemented by electrics, stealth paint and smoke screens, the vehicles of Megaforce are more than a match, one one one, for the outdated, lumbering armor of Gurerra and his forces.  Even the lowly armed dirt bike can take out a main battle tank all by itself if it can get close enough.  The Cold War allegory here, again, is a well trained, technologically superior military force can and will overcome a lesser trained, numerically superior force operating with a lesser technology base.  This was, in essence, the position of the East and the West during the Cold War.  Russia had more, America had better.

"Megaforce" visited the long standing conflict between the idealist and the realist ... Ace Hunter (Bostwick) remains an idealist while Duke Gurerra (Silva) has become and remains a realist.  One of the more striking moments of dialog in the film occur between Hunter and Gurerra when Gurerra says that Hunter shouldn't worry about his men, that the other members of Megaforce are expendable, they are just numbers to powerful commanders like Duke and Ace.  Gurerra says that in the 1970's that commanders like himself and Hunter could be idealists but in the 1980s that being an idealist was too expensive. 

Another blatant tip off to the Cold War allegory.

Later in the movie, Hunter sizes up the situation knowing that he and his men are heading into a trap and he uses one of the best cliches of the Cold War ... tried and proven true time and time again ... "Sometimes what works for you can work against you ..." and we see the Fulda Gap scenario reversed.

I won't spoil any more of this movie.  If you've seen it, you either hate it or love it and if you hate it you might hate it for the wrong reasons.  If you love it, I might just have given you another reason to do so, especially if you're like me and you grew up in the '80's during the Cold War.   

If you go into "Megaforce" expecting "Last of the Mohicans" or "Masterpiece Theater" then you're headed for disappointment.  Stark, bitter disappointment.  Otherwise, you're in for a treat.

If you haven't seen "Megaforce" (and why haven't you?!) then do so.  It's hard to find but worth the effort.  Pick a Friday night, order a pizza and sit down to an hour and a half of pure cheesy camp, of guys wearing spandex, riding rocket and machinegun armed dirt bikes, jumping over tanks and dropping handgrenades down open hatches ... if you like laser armed dune buggies and of cliches and humor that survive even over three decades later then you're in for a treat.

"Megaforce" is one of the forgotten classics, a cult film, a two liter of your favorite soft drink and pizza movie that is not only retarded but it's the good kind of retarded like so many lovable '80's films were.

Enjoy and remember ... the Good Guys always win.  Even in the '80's.

For more info, check out this fan site ... Megaforce HQ

Happy birthday to me!

Happy birthday to me and because the wife is off at camp with my oldest daughter and my youngest daughter is staying with my parents I'm all alone on my birthday and that means that I'm going to celebrate it by myself.  I'm going to be good to myself so I'm buying myself some nice presents.  

Three to be exact.  Three presents of one of my favorite movie spaceships of all time, the Millennium Falcon.  I saw these books a while ago, the Haynes manual at a Books A Million and the 3D manual at my daughter's book fair at school.  The miniature was a new arrival at the local hobby shop so I spent the $30 to get it mainly because, well, it's the Millennium Falcon and it's about the size of your palm and never before could you get a miniature this good looking and this detailed so, yeah, if I never play the game at least I have a conversation / display piece for my desk.

The Haynes manual goes into a lot of detail and includes various models the the YT-1300 freighter including my favorite (and hope to one day scratchbuild) the "Ooota Goota" from the old West End Games "Tramp Freighters" game book.

My favorite rethinking of the YT-1300 series freighter.  If I had a YT-1300, this would be the one that I would have.  There's a guy on the FFG forum that converts MFs to the Oota Goota variant.  I may buy one from him.

If you love the Falcon you need to get this book.  It's full of reference, information, pictures and history of this iconic ship all put together not so much as an owner's manual but more of a guided tour of the ship.

The second book I bought for myself was the 3D guide to the Falcon.  It's done in layers so each flip of the page takes another layer of the Falcon away showing more and more detail.  It was kind of marketed as a kid's book and I found this at my daughter's school book fair but it was so neat that I had to get it.

And finally here's the Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing game miniature of the Falcon itself.  A little pricey at $30 it was worth every penny.  The attention to detail is amazing and even the gun barrels on the upper and lower turret are individually molded (and probably fragile as hell).  That's attention to detail!

So, all in all, happy birthday to me!

New blog! The March of the Twelve Backs!

 

I decided to start a "Star Wars" blog, filled with memories of my childhood and what it was like to be a seven year old kid when "Star Wars" hit the big screen in 1977.  I decided to do this because if I didn't separate the "Star Wars" memories from the rest of the things I wanted to talk about then the "Star Wars" memories would rapidly drown this "Angst and Speed" blog.

The years from December 1976 to December 1979 will always be golden for me ... a special time of magic and wonder.  The new blog is called "The March of the Twelve Backs" and the title is taken from the name of the card stock that the original twelve Kenner Star Wars action figures (released after the movie) used back then.  There were a hell of a lot of Star Wars products back then, speculation, talk ... Star Wars affected people around the world like a cultural supernova.  I'm a huge fan of the original 1977 Star Wars movie ... the first release ... before George Lucas re-released it and stuck the tagline of "Episode IV: A New Hope" into the prelude scrawl across the stars.

For me, there was only one "Star Wars" and that was the original, 1977, unedited release.  Everything after that pretty much blew sweaty Bantha genitalia.

There was a very palpable magic in "Star Wars" ...  Lucas was hailed as a visionary but as the decades would prove he was much less a visionary as he was a revisonary ... often with terrible results.  Lucas said that when he made "Star Wars" he set about to "Give a fairytale to a generation that didn't have any fairytales."  Of course, my generation had fairytales.  What Lucas meant was that he was going to give a fairytale to a generation that had no fairytales because they didn't believe in classic, traditional fairytales.  Lucas set about to turn "Star Wars" into the biggest, whine-fest of a liberal fairytale that the world had seen.  What started out as a simple tale of good versus evil with good triumphing over evil must have really messed up Lucas' mind and laid his spirit low ... all the talk of how evil Darth Vader was threw Lucas into overdrive to correct that perception.

How is "Star Wars" a liberal fairytale?

Easy.

It's the story of Darth Vader, aka Anakin Skywalker, and how it just wasn't his fault that he turned out to be evil.  In a liberal mindset there really isn't any such thing as good and evil, there's just different shades of gray.  No one is evil, no one is responsible for what they do or did, they're all victims of bad childhoods, not getting a pony for their 8th birthday, growing up in a single parent family, playing violent video games ... to a liberal anyone who does something bad is never at fault ... instead, it's their circumstances which are to blame.  Liberals are the kind of people who, when one person shoots another person then the person who used the gun and pulled the trigger isn't to blame ... no, they are just the victim of all the bad things that happened to them in life.  Oh, and it's the gun's fault for shooting the other person.  Liberals love to blame inanimate objects and give them animate traits and since liberals really can't punish a handgun they instead try to punish the company that made the handgun ... rather than punish the person who actually pulled the trigger and shot the other individual.

I've come to realize that most liberals are simply suffering from advanced mental retardation.  You cannot be a liberal unless you are severely mentally retarded because what they use for logic makes no real sense at all and defies everything else that we know is sound and true.

Darth Vader / Anakin Skywalker is a perfect example of liberal logic.  

Anakin was from a single parent home and over the six different movies we come to find out that Darth Vader, once considered cinema's reigning black armor clad prince of evil, was not so much a tremendous villain as he was just a tremendous fuck up.  After he is thrust into greatness at Naboo he consistently fails to live up to expectations after that.  In the second and third episodes he is refused what he wants, he breaks the rules of those who have taken him in and ultimately his greed and desires destroy everything around him.  He was supposed to bring balance to the Force, according to a prophecy, but instead he destroys the Jedi order ... almost.  In Episode IV he is tasked with retrieving the stolen plans to the Death Star and he fails in that ... it's only when the plans come blundering back his way does he get a chance to redeem himself.  Further charged with protecting the Death Star from starfighter assault, he fails in that task.  In Episode V, Vader is tasked with finding the rebels and when he eventually does they escape leaving him, literally, empty handed at the end of the movie.  Oh, he caused the rebels grief in Episode V but he really didn't do any permanent damage.  In Episode VI, he is charged with protecting the Emperor and the new Death Star.  In the end, he wusses out, attones for his sins, and, well, the rebels win (with the help of some teddy bears with sharp sticks).  "Star Wars" (1977) is an amazing film.  Taken as a whole, the story given to us in Episodes I to VI leaves a lot to be desired and ultimately disappoints in a huge way.

So why did Darth Vader go from being the epitome of evil to being the posterchild for liberal pantywads?  We can thank Lucas for that because unsatisfied with a simple tale of good versus evil, Lucas instead had to give us five more movies to explain why Vader really wasn't evil ... he was just misunderstood ... and each of those five movies took the "Star Wars" name and franchise and ruined it more and more with each new movie until by the end of the entire six part story the original magic that was "Star Wars" was pretty much dead and buried for all time.

The original 1977 "Star Wars" movie is the best.  

My new blog, "The March of the Twelve Backs" will be about the magic and awe that George Lucas brought into the world in May of 1977 ... the first and last time that he did so.  The blog will be about memories of a time when magic was real and that magic was everywhere.  If you were a kid way back then and you were lucky enough to see "Star Wars" in the theater back in 1977 then you know what I'm talking about and I think you'll enjoy this new blog.

Enjoy!

Top 20 General Rules for Successful Relationships

If you want to avoid a whole hell of a lot of misery in your life then print these rules out, staple or tape them up where you can reference them and commit your social life to following them.  If you do, you'll be a lot happier.  Trust me.  Also be aware that while these rules are set in stone the use of excessive alcohol and / or illicit drugs may make these rules (in hindsight) seem flexible, especially while you are under the influence of said alcohol or illicit drugs.  Be warned!  These rules are not flexible.  If you bend them (or worse, break them) then prepare to pay the consequences that come with your decision to do so.

Top 20 General Rules for Successful Relationships

 _________________________________________________

(learned the hard way from 1984 to 1992)

1.       The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Remember this!  There are very few exceptions to this rule and those exceptions are very far and very few between.  If you think you’ve found the exception to this rule … you haven’t.


2.       Never make someone a priority in your life when you are little more than an option in theirs.


3.       You can’t change a person so don’t try.  What you see is what you will get, now and forever.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.


4.       Never give anyone a second chance.  Ever.  It may hurt like hell when it happens but years from now you’ll thank yourself for having a spine, a set of balls and dodging a whole bunch of misery that was heading your way.


5.       Never date anyone who has more emotional baggage than they can carry.  Life is too short to be someone else’s emotional pack mule.


6.       You can’t save everyone so don’t try.  Chances are you'll be lucky to save yourself.


7.       Never take anyone for granted.  Never allow yourself to be taken for granted either.


8.       Avoid women who have more problems than you have.  Financially.  Emotionally.  Intellectually.  Period.

9.       Don’t go slumming.  Ever.  Financially.  Emotionally.  Intellectually.  Ever.  Period.  In other words, use yourself as a benchmark and never accept less than what you are capable of in anyone you intend to spend a good part of your life with let alone plan on spending the rest of your life with.


10.   Avoid women on the rebound.  Life is too short to be someone else’s emotional trampoline that they can jump up and down on until they feel better or until they get their life back in order and decide to move on.


11.   Avoid the immature, the emotionally stunted, the psychos, the medicated, the codependent, the needy and the clingy.  All the makeup in the world can't cover up crazy.  You have been warned.


12.   If she’s willing to leave him for you then she’ll be willing to leave you for him (or for someone else).  Don’t be surprised when this happens.  After all, if he couldn’t trust her to stay when something better came along how can you ever hope to?


13.   If she drinks or smokes more than you, move on.


14.   If she can’t let go of her ex … if she still has feelings for him, feels sorry for him, pines for him, wants to meet with him for lunch or repeatedly talks to him via phone / email / texting then move on and don’t look back.


15.   If she is divorced with kids, tread carefully.  Her kids will come before you.   If they don’t, you’re looking at the wrong kind of woman.  Multiple kids by different men (especially if they were married at the time that they had them) should be your immediate cue to avoid saying anything deeper than “Hi.”.


16.   If she’s materialistic or focuses only on one aspect of your life (your guitar playing, your car, your motorcycle, etc.) … move on.  Fast.


17.   No woman is worth your tears and the woman who is won't make you cry.


18.   If she says any of the following then leave skid marks from your shoes on the pavement when getting away: “I’m not like all the others.”, “I won’t hurt you.” or “I won’t lie to you / cheat on you / leave you.”


19.   Don’t waste time playing silly or stupid games.  Life is too short to play silly or stupid games.  If she wants to play silly or stupid games then let her … with herself and by herself.


20.   If she suddenly walks out on you and what you both have for no really good reason then just remember; she’s someone else’s misery now.  Get on with your life and forget her.

Bonus Rules !!!

21 - Never date a woman who drives a car that you can't afford to replace.  If she drives a car that you can't afford to replace, you're the toy.

22 - Never put your dick into crazy !!!  (Actually this should be rule #1)  I shouldn't have to explain this one and if I do then you're too dumb to be having sex.  Just don't ever, ever do it.  Never, ever, ever.  Period.

“There comes a point in your life when you realize who matters and who never did, who won't anymore and who always will.  So, don't worry about people from your past because there's a really good reason why they didn't make it to your future.” - Unknown

The limits of technology

Snapped this the other day ... off the "Laugh USA" channel on XM.  Thanks to the limit of the character display, it made it even funnier.

Life imitates art ...

So I was back on my audio-video detail running siamese coax cable yesterday at one of my scales office (a very old building full of spiders and other not-fun-multi-armed-things) and amid old spiderwebs and dirt-dobber nests I see something … familiar.  

I lean closer and there, stuck in an old, torn open spider’s egg sack is something which I can’t identify but which looks totally like … the “Ffffffuuuuu” meme face!  I took the best picture I could because whatever it is that's making the "Fffffffuuuuu" face is pretty small and would fit on the nail of your little finger.  Still, while I was running cable through the ceiling I kept saying “Ffffffuuuu” in my head over and over again and I kept turning every now and then to see that weird little face hanging there in the old torn open egg sack stuck on the awning beside where I stood on the 8 foot tall ladder.

Pontiac Shrine

The wall in my office at work and the Pontiac shrine built there ... 

The big rectangular frame is a custom framed Pontiac ad from 1985 showing a black and gold TA in the same paint scheme and options as my '86 along with a copy of the RPO callout (75 RPO codes!), a dealer postcard from the same year showing a black / gold '85 TA at speed on the highway and a copy of the original window sticker. 

The small picture at the top is supposedly of the last US Pontiac built (a plain vanilla Grand Am destined for a rental fleet). 

The large framed picture is a two page spread from the 1985 Pontiac full-line catalog again showing the black and gold TA. 

Of course there's a 24" by 36" framed "Smokey and the Bandit" movie poster (saw that in the theater when I was 7, along with "Star Wars") and finally the small frame in the middle is my first speeding ticket from 1986 when I was 16 years old. Definitely a keepsake and maybe a rite of passage.

On the shelf behind my desk I have an old TA cap along with a pair of 1:32 scale models, unopened, still shrink-wrapped in the original boxes.  The one on the left is a black and gold 1985 Pontiac Trans Am by Monogram and the one on the right is a 1985 Pontiac Firebird (Trans Am) by MPC.  What's interesting to note about the two kits is that the Monogram kit features a TPI V8 with a manual transmission ... a power train that wasn't available until 1987 due to emissions standards.  The MPC version features a Crossfire Injection V8, a EFI motor that disappeared from the lineup over a year before the new bodystyle was presented.

Ghosts of the past: bones from long ago.

I spent Thanksgiving with my wife's parents and family and after dinner I went walking in the woods with my soon to be 10 year old daughter.  It wasn't too long, following the cut paths behind my inlaws' house that we found ourselves at the old dairy barn that's more of a ruin than a barn these days.  It's where we used to (and still do, I guess) store large items like trailers, tractor attachments, tractors, building supplies, etc.  

The dirt beneath the tin roof is so fine that it's almost like gray colored powdered sugar, almost like lunar dust ... each step makes a small dust cloud and leaves an imprint that won't be disturbed until something else comes along to disturb it.  Wild animal tracks litter the dust as do the occasional curving track of a king snake or other type of no-shoulder.  Amid rusty chains, bits of tin roof wadded up in the mega-storms of the past decade and old farm equipment like broken shovels, rusting plows, etc. I found a small area that held some personal items from a time that now seems like it was centuries ago but in reality wasn't more than a little over a decade and a half gone by.  Personal items that were just huddled together in a pile ... discarded, broken, but never really thrown away because there's a difference between something that's been discarded and something that has been thrown away; one still lingers ...

These items were kept for one reason or the other, that reason now lost to memory and time, and these items were eventually deposited here because it was felt by those who moved them here that I would maybe one day have a need for them again.  Somewhere in all those years these items went from being trash to being nostalgic. 

The people who put these items here were mistaken in their value and the only value that these items have now is in the memories that they bring racing back upon seeing them once again.

At the very top, the round piece of ribbed plastic is part of the air cleaner from my '88 Toyota Turbo Supra.  Moving down we have the right side cowl panel from my '95 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R (bought new) after it was replaced when I put the bike down on its side to avoid being T-boned by a driver that wasn't paying any attention to the task of driving.  The round piece to the right of that is the crankshaft cover from the same bike, punctured when it hit a sharp piece of metal embedded in the city street (and from which the hot oil from my engine soon drained).  The ribbed hose tube is the air intake from my '88 Toyota Turbo Supra ... I think. It may be from one of my other high performance toys.  The big white and green piece to the left of that is the front cowling of my '95 Kawi ZX-6R ... the name of the bike still visible over the left side turn signal housing and the headlight cavity as well as the twin snouts of the ram air system.

The front cowling could almost be the skull of the old ZX-6R ... it would be bleached of color were it not for the top cover afforded by the rusty tin roof of the building.  A skull ... of a high performance machine long ago reduced to spare parts and salvage.

Memories.

I purchased the '95 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R brand new in June of 1995 ... 9 months after a drunk driver totaled my '93 Honda VFR750F (and almost killed myself and my girlfriend / fiance ... Cindy).  I had just quit Ideal Software and gone back to Magnolia Federal Bank, I was a month away from getting married and I'd been staring at the pictures of the '95 Ninja ZX-6R in a cycle mag for months now.  I finally bought it, as a gift to myself before I got married.  I had a lot of memories on that bike ... especially with Cindy tucked in behind me ... the high revving engine, her chest pressed into my back, her helmet against mine ... chasing sunsets and dreams every time we could.  The Ninja ZX-6R wasn't just a super sport bike, it was an escape pod, built for two.

Three years later, in August of '98, I was sport touring with my riding partner, Julian, and coming out of a bad turn at the Lawrence county / Marion county line, heading to Monticello, I hit a deer at 70mph.  The Ninja went 300 feet in the oncoming lane of traffic (two lane back road) and I went 150 feet in my lane of traffic, destroying my helmet, my gloves, my Ray Bans, my Hein Gerrick "Ninja" leather jacket and taking about a foot of flesh off of my leg.  Oh, and I dislocated my shoulder in the process.  

Fun times.

No, seriously ... fun times.  I look back today and laugh, just like I did when I managed to pick myself up off the pavement just in time to see my Ninja do its last roll and slide to a stop, rear wheel still spinning.  The first thing I asked Julian when he stopped his bike, dismounted and ran over to see if I was okay?

"Was that cool?"

I took six years, shy two months, from that accident to get back around to throwing my legs over a motorcycle and that was when I bought my 2004 Honda CBR600RR for my birthday that June.  Ironically, Kawasaki had designed the ZX-6R to fight Honda's anticipated CBR600RR way back in '95 but when Honda failed to introduce the 600RR, Kawasaki was left with perhaps the best 600cc bike in the world at that time ... and no competition to duke it out with.  The irony comes from the fact that six years later I would buy the very bike that my ZX-6R had been designed to combat but that had been a no show way back then.

The fuel injected Honda CBR600RR is lightyears better than the '95 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R but I still hold a special place in my heart for that snarling Ninja and its fast revving 600cc carb fed liquid cooled inline four.  Eight years later, I still have the Honda in my garage.  It doesn't get ridden as much as it used to but like the Ninja it replaced the Honda is still an escape pod and every now and then I get to throw my legs over the saddle and pull the loud handle to get away from it all.

I stare back at the front cowl of the '95 ZX-6R.  Just a part now, a physical shard of a memory of a part of my life.  It's moments like that which really make life worth living for.

Flotsam and jetsam.

To some people these pieces of flotsam and jetsam from my life are just that ... flotsam and jetsam ... but to me, seeing these forgotten pieces again after all of these years ... still collecting dust and never again to be used ... seeing this pile of discarded items brought back memories.

The good kind of memories.  

The kind of memories that are unexpected and come back to you in a rush.

I think I'll leave this pile of parts here, kind of a shrine, relics from before, ghosts of the past and bones from long ago.  Every now and then I'll revisit them, having forgotten them, until one day I find myself here and the bones are gone ... finally discarded by someone and all that will remain will be the memories.