Turn the Page: "Kaiju Winter" by Jake Bible

I'm back from vacation and am feeling the sadness of returning but I am happy to give you another most likely non-thorough book review. My next selection is "Kaiju Winter" by Jake Bible.

When I was first glancing at this title in the Amazon store on my Kindle, I immediately thought "Lame;" I was wrong. I loved Godzilla and all his pals as a kid and remember running up the block to the local video rental joint to get some sweet Kaiju movies on VHS. Even with my inner kid saying "Kaiju = Awesome," I was still skeptical on how well this book would keep my interest. I decided to throw caution to the wind and purchase this book. In the end, I couldn't be happier with it.

Kaiju Winter revolves around characters who are all basically interconnected in backstory, however, are currently separated in the book. It is a third person, omniscient perspective that "location hops" throughout the book. By "location hop" I mean one segment might feature Dick and what is going on around him and then in the next segment, the action revolves around Jane and her surroundings. This dynamic really gives the book a blockbuster Kaiju movie feel and keeps the book flowing. I had a hard time putting this one down; even on vacation.

I am feeling very positive about this book and I really don't think I have anything minutely bad to say about it. It was damn well worth the $4(don't quote me on the price) for the digital version and I am anxiously waiting for the next book in the series that is supposed to be named "Kaiju Storm." So, give it a shot unless giant monster apocalypse is really not your thing.

Turn the Page: "NPCs" by Drew Hayes

I'm actually on vacation right now and one of my favorite things to do pre-trip is to load up the Kindle with an amount of books I could never finish in a week. Here's to being prepared!

One of the books that I chose this time around is called "NPCs" by Drew Hayes. I was a touch skeptical when I read the teaser text on the Amazon entry for it. From what I gathered it would only really appeal to the mecha-geek sub-faction of Geeks, but I was wrong (or I'm a mecha-geek).

The book's humor is excellent if you have ever played through even at least one pen and paper RPG campaign and didn't text or play games on your phone throughout it (don't do this if you do; everyone else at the table thinks you're an asshole for it). I really liked the characters as well; they all did have a stereotypical archetype to them(completely on purpose) and they grow from there. I've read other novels of late that had teaser text that claimed the books were "the new thing of" or "a new look of" the Fantasy genre. Bullshit, says I!!! This is a new twist!

It is an easy read and enjoyable throughout. To be honest, it reads almost like a transcript of an RPG group's campaign in a literal sense. It will also make RPG players think a lot harder about how they roleplay in their campaigns, in my opinion. The adventurers in the book, who are controlled by players, come across as jerks and their behavior is on the whole disdained.

This brings me to my finally comment on the book before I shoo you off to read it. Generally, I abhor the mixing of universes. When someone from our world goes to another universe or alternate universe, I am instantly turned off because the content can become quickly tainted with cheesy catch phrases and a character who would in reality most likely die at the first sign of any real danger their smart phone couldn't get them out of. The worst is when the character from our time uses our slang around the denizens of the foreign universe only to confuse them and has to awkwardly explain the meaning of what they just said. Or, at a turning point of usually a giant battle, a surly medieval warrior who has distrusted the "outsider" breaks out with "yeehaw," "cool," or some other slang to show his now acceptance of the otherworlder. Dousche-chills galore, Batman! Not going to lie here; this book has a decent amount of that, save the last bit about the turning point of a battle. I feel it didn't bother me since the whole cross-universe thing was presented totally different here.

At any rate, it was a great book and I would highly suggest it. Check it out.

I'm So Board...

I know, I know, I know. Two posts in the same day, don't say it. I got itchy trigger fingers and  decided to post up some pics of the game board I just revamped. Dennis Leary once said that "Marijuana leads to Carpentry," he forgot to mention that tabletop war games also lead to it.

Ok, the story begins circa 2007 with the original table. I was still playing Warhammer 40k(the game that shall not be named, in certain circles) and loved Kill Team scenarios. I loved it more than the way the game was meant to actually be played. This made me construct the table so it was 4' x 4' which would be perfect for playing Kill Team.

Above is actually a newer picture of the table. It is 4 x 4 like I said and features sandbox-like sides. I built this figuring things wouldn't fall off it but after using it for a while, I kind of felt it was more of a nuisance than a help, in that eyeing up true Line of Sight as well as making certain measurements became difficult. 

The tabletop itself was actually a layer of 3/4" thick pink insulation foam which was affixed to board. I have no idea why I did this but in the long run it helped me big time because the wood was not completely destroyed when I began the revamp. On top of the foam, I atomized some wood glue(watered it down to a milk-like consistency) and affixed sand to the foam with it. I had painted the sand up to be a grey urban color but then after jumping into Warmahordes changed it to ye olde brown dirt color. 

For the legs, I went to ikea and bought these telescoping table legs that had metal discs with threads for the legs in the center. All in all, this feature was awesome. I could break the table down and store it away. I actually really liked this and kept the legs for a possible future project. On to the revamp.

The first thing I did was stain the sides; in hindsight, I did this too early but it all turned out ok. I was already staining a door saddle for my house, so I just did it while I had the stain out. Next, I stripped the table down to just the wood. I removed the foam and the table legs. You can see the foam in the pic above. Like I said, I don't know why I did it this way but it really worked to my benefit here. I took a spackle knife and just popped the insulation up. 

I decided to not go with the "sandbox" again and made the old bottom the new top. In the picture you can see the discs that the old legs screwed into; I removed these. I sanded down the screw holes.

I had some sub-flooring foam left from a floating floor I installed and decided to use this on the bottom (old top) of the table. I used an upholstery stapler to attach this to the board. I did this because the new design is basically a collar that will sit on top of a table. You'll see that in a few.

Next thing I did was add the first layer of trim and drilled the holes for some handles. Again, like a giddy little school girl in the Hello Kitty section of the Hallmark store, I stained the trim before I should of. Oh well, nobody's perfect.

Next layer of trim went on and got stained. Then I polyurethaned the whole thing. I didn't bother fully staining or polying the top. My good friend Steve and I had contemplated what to do with the top over a meal at a Chinese buffet. He came up with the excellent idea of making it modular. So, I could have an old school felt card table top or a "sand" top for war games. So, the idea was devised to make 4 x 4 MDF boards that had the desired surface on them and could be swapped out as desired. A hole was drilled in one of the corners of the board's top so i could stick a finger in and pop up the surfaces easier.

This next picture is the table that my gaming table was made for. It is a square bar top table that has a top that measures 40" x 40" and not large enough to play a legit game of Warmahordes. So...

Viola! The table is now regulation size and I can hang it in my garage to keep the wife happy!

Mr. Toomanie Projects

How do these things even start? What could I possibly type to keep someone's attention any longer than anyone else could? I actually contemplated this for a bit after deciding to start this thing. It reminds me of online dating and setting up that initial profile. You sit there and think "what the hell do I write?" It's actually not that easy, I mean if you actually start analyzing what people write on those sites you'll see that most people are smart, funny and love laughing. You may also notice, this may come as a shock, that a lot of them are seeking out smart, funny people who love to laugh. Surprise, surprise, sand in your eyes. Enough of that.

Anyways, I am a person who just loves cooking up new ideas and partially executing them, leaving them cold as an ice bucket challenger and then sometimes returning to them to maybe completion. This annoys the shit out of me, in that I want to be a better completionist... that's a word I just made up(you can use it, but you must do the quotation fingers and site my name). This foray may just turn into yet another cold case in the catalogue of projects but I'm hoping that the public exposure is a good motivator.

Ok, so, what kind of projects you may ask? I'm a gamer, mostly of the tabletop, board game and good ole' pen and paper RPG variation but I play video games as well. I'm currently working on my own in game that I would hope to eventually publish but this could be a pipe dream in itself. All in all, I'm basically going to just post all kinds of crap for you to hopefully enjoy.

Love it or leave it.