Five Things I Learned In Alaska

Five things! In just 96 hours! US speed run!

1. Alaskan schoolkids are extremely smart. Or at least, they are in Anchorage, or at least, they are in one school in Anchorage. Or at least, they are in one school in Anchorage, and in the past. The '71 graduating class of West Anchorage High School's - home of the fightin' Eagles - pooled their dollars for a huge mural on the side of the school. The principal at the time said "Fine, you can have an eagle, but NO REFERENCE to the year you're graduating!". They said "OK, sure!". Then the little dickheads commissioned this.

I love it. Legend has it that at their 10 year school reunion, they all got given detention.

2. The forests of Alaska are fucked. And it's not just the wildfires that are already consuming human civilisation. Someone let some European bark beetles loose, and they've been munching their way through the pine forests like they're Pac-Man, and ghosts have just been ruled unconstitutional. In a lot of places there are more dead trees than living ones. As a metaphor for how European immigrants showed up and ruined everything with their rampant consumption, it's... well, it's supremely depressing and fucked-up. Which at least tracks.

3. Grizzly bear cubs are absurdly cute, and surprisingly good climbers.  They also like to use road signs to scratch their backs. We'd all do it, if it were socially acceptable.

Sorry about the window-frame getting in on the action.

4.  There are five types of salmon in Alaska. We got taught a trick for remembering them, using the fingers on your hand. "Thumb" rhymes with "chum". Your pinkie is for pink salmon. You wear silver on your ring finger, so that's silver salmon sorted. Your middle finger is the largest one on your hand, reminding you of a "king", who traditionally were taller than most people due to having access to actual nutrition. All makes sense, right?

One more digit, one more fish: the sockeye. I know what you're thinking: 'Oh, OK. Index starts with "I", as in "sockeye", it must be that!'. That is because you are a REGULAR HUMAN PERSON. No such logic for the mushroom-added chancers who've inveigled their way onto the Alaskan Piscine Pneumonic Panel, though. No, for them, the link is "You wouldn't want to accidentally have your index finger sock someone in the eye". Rubbish. You sicken me. Zero starfish.

5. Moose are BIG. They're also more dangerous than bears. That makes sense, though. They're on a hair trigger, because they have to worry about bears. Bears only have to worry about picnic baskets, and where their next back-scratch is coming from. 

SO ENDS ALASKA.

Tales Of The Far West

It's hard to maneouvre in Vancouver

When jetlag's bagged your hide 

And like barracuda in Vancouver 

We're sunk in synching tides 

Yes, we're intruders in Vancouver 

Big cats come from the wild 

And like a cougar in Vancouver 

To get here cost our pride

Friday 40K: Strikes And Strike Forces

Good morning, humans. It's a strike day today, so what better time to show you what's passed across my paint desk recently. Somehow I've found time amid all the exam board/student support jobs in the last three weeks (done at half pay, no less) to finish the last ten Orks from the Assault On Black Reach Boyz Mob. Very proud of these; if they're not the best squad I've ever painted, they're surely in the top five.

Here's all eighteen of the emerald hooligans, all of them desperate to kick yer zoggin' teef in.

Also, we once again Compare and Contrast, with my latest 'Nid Warrior painted like it's 1996. He's simple, he's bold, he's got a ludicrous gun in ludicrous colours. Ah, nostalgia.

One last picture I wanted to show you: I've finally gotten every one of my painted miniatures into glass display cases at the new(ish) house. The wider cases are for 40K, with the smaller cases being taken up by Warhammer, Dreadfleet, Battlefleet Gothic, Space Hulk, and Talisman figures (along with some spare 40K scenery).

Pretty proud of this set-up, even if a miscalculation regarding plastic pegs caused one of the shelves to fall, taking out three Blood Angels Strike cruisers and nine assorted System Defence installations on the way down. That was a sombre day at Casa del Calamari, I must tell you.

No Apologies For The Infinite Radness 1.2.16 - "Leif Erikson " (Interpol)

The thing about Interpol’s debut is that it sounded so much like Joy Division. The thing about Joy Division is that I only really liked them when they weren’t sounding like Joy Division.

You can see the problem.

Sure, points for honesty. The brief, tyrannical reign of New Wave 2.0 was always about extrapolating what could have come after the 1989, had the music industry not chosen instead to wholesale recycle the Seventies with far worse fashion. If we hadn’t had the gall to mock trousers that were needlessly wide at the ankles while wearing T-shirts that changed fucking colour. If you goal was a do-over, who better to base that on than one of the greatest what-ifs of the eighties or any other decade? Let other bands hide their guiding lights under a bushel. As their first album declared, Interpol was letting you know exactly where the flame spilled out from.

Not that light is in evidence here. Even the night is blind here, finding what might be pinpricks of illumination through heat alone. The one mode that Prelimterpol tended to get right for me, as we’ve discussed, was the cavernous soundscape. The alien world described over a distorted connection by a feverish, dying astronaut. “Leif Erikson” nails that mode perfectly, from the title outwards; an insomniac always on the verge of falling asleep, experiencing the flow of time as a moonless sail across an infinite, glass-flat sea. Trapped in the liminal prison where everything thought circles, ripping your skin with each rotation. What was it she said about me? What if she shows up early? What if I’m as dead as she thinks I am? Everything repeats, everything hurts, nothing resolves, nothing heals.

There are songs you should only listen to at night, and songs you mustn't listen to at night. This is both. A hymn for the gloaming. A warning of what’s coming, on those nights where sleep is an ocean away.

B-side:

New Load Of Balls, Please

Predicting a close one for the snooker this year, lads, though I'm even less certain I'm getting this right than I usually am - yesterday just felt too crazy to properly parse. Ah well.

Selby 18 - Brecel 16.

Good Friday 40K

Jesus! He'd probably be into 40K, innit. Likely play as Chaos, too, really wind up the SO-CALLED religous authorities. Just how he rolled.

I've been busily chipping away at the same Assault On Black Reach mob of Orks that I've had on the go for well over a year now. Another five of them have fallen off the end of the conveyer belt.

Along with the three I'd already done, that puts me almost halfway through the squad.

I also finished my last Advaned Space Crusade Tyranid Warrior too, still clinging doggedly to my bare minimum/ham fisted incompetence colour scheme that has graced my 'Nids for almost three decades now.

The other big development in my hobbying is that I've finally got enough glass display cabinets to house every miniature/scenery peie I've painted since I was sixteen. I had planned on photographing them to include in this post, but one of the shelves collapsed on Monday, dropping three metal Strike Cruisers on my collection of resin Imperial Defence Platforms, causing some pretty aggravating  

I've managed to salvage two of the crusiers and all the platforms (though one of the latter looks like its had a brush with the Warp that it won't be coming back from). The last ship should also be fixable, but it's going to need pinning, and for that I need to find a drill-bit that I haven't spent a decade using to re-open superglue nozzles that have gummed themselves shut. Until I've managed that, I don't have the heart to show you the 99.5% of my collection which isn't smashed to bits.

Anyway. Happy Easter.

A Tale Of Cocktails #61

South Side

Ingredients:

50ml gin
25ml lemon juice

25ml simple syrup
5 mint leaves

Taste: 8
Look: 7
Cost: 8
Name: 6
Prep: 7
Alcohol: 5
Overall: 7.2

Preparation: Gently muddle mint leaves and lemon juice. Add other ingredients and shake with ice. Garish with a mint sprig.

SURPRISE! We are EXTREMLY BRIEFLY back!

A south side is a mojito without the faff or the dead wood. Half the time, twice the strength. MATHS.