Wrestling manager Captain Lou, Cyndi Lauper’s fake dad, and Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Lou Albano passed away today at the age of 76.

Aw, man. I think I’m going to have to get back to watching all of the Super Mario Bros Super Show that I have on DVD.

via Kotaku.

Actor Patrick Swayze, best known for his roles in the films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, has died after battling pancreatic cancer.

The Houston-born performer, who studied dance before tackling a career on stage and screen, was 57 years old.

“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,” said a statement released Monday evening in Los Angeles by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.

via CBC

So first, it looks like Deb and I will be able to save about a grand on wedding costs by decorating the hall ourselves the night before the wedding. So it looks like I probably won’t be able to make it for a barbeque Friday night, which really sucks. But I’m pretty sure we can all agree that saving a thousand dollars (possibly more) is a pretty strong motivator and should count as a good excuse.

Bry and I will be sleeping at home Friday night and will likely be up and about some time around 10am (although Bry probably much earlier), I’m going to aim to have a good night’s sleep and try to be as well-rested as I can. The wedding photographer will be coming by around 1pm, I think (maybe a bit later), to take photos of “The Boys getting ready”, apparently. So all Groomsmen should try to be at my place by around 12:30 so we can make sure we’re all dressed and ready to go. My address, for those who don’t know, is:

328, Westminster Ave N.
Montreal-Ouest

A quick Google maps search should bring that up no problem. From there we’ll kinda just hang out and do final preparations until around 2:30 when we head over to the Church. At the chruch you guys will be ushering the guests in and showing them to their seats in the pews. Deb’s parents and my Aunt Sue and her boyfriend are seated on the isle in the second row on the groom and bride’s sides respectively. The front row will be for the groomsmen and bridesmaids on the groom and bride’s sides, obviously.

Once the guests have been seated we all retreat into the minister’s room and kinda just relax there until we’re called out. Once we’re called out, we file out, me at the head and make our way across the isle and form a line going out from me to the right of the altar (to the right when facing the altar). Then When Deb comes down the isle and I stand next to her, the minister will tell you to sit and you guys (and the bridesmaids on the other side) can then go caterpillar like in-file into the first row of pews from the outside. That is to say, Bry and Alex, at the head of the group, will start to walk back past you guys to the right and around the end of the pews, then make their way towards the isle end of the first row, you guys just follow in the order you’re standing (we can work out order when we meet up before we go to the church).  From then on, most of you are done your jobs and can just enjoy the wedding, Alex and Bry still have stuff to do, but they know what and should be fine. Once the wedding is over everyone just kinda makes their way out the front doors of the church.

The only other thing to note is that Deb wants to film ther wedding ceremony. We’ve got a great new digital camcorder and we need someone to do the recording of the wedding. Deb’s suggestion was Joe, and that works for me. I also would have suggested Carl, but being a groomsman, that would make for some weird camera angles and POV changes.

So anyway, any and all who read this and are coming to the wedding (groomsmen especially), reply and let me know if it’s clear enough or if you have any questions.

U.S. actor David Carradine was found dead, naked and hanging from a rope in the closet of his luxury Bangkok hotel room on Thursday, Thai police said. He was 72.

via Reuters

So really it’s a matter of what you want to get a lot, or a little. By the same token, If you really wanted to go nuts, greenputty.com offers a bulk bundle of 24 units of green stuff by adding $200 to the base of $20. So, to compare if you really needed a lot of green stuff, to say, build a bookshelf out of or something you would be looking at $227.59 from greenputty, or $346.76 from the war store. The savings!

And just for the fun of it, what does Games Workshop charge you for the same amounts of green stuff? Well, assuming you go the cheapest route and buy it in-person at the GW store.  For one package of the stuff it comes out to only$13.80 after tax! But oh, wait, that’s for a third of the amount so it’s really $41.40 for the equivalent of one brick. Or, if we wanted 3 bricks worth, it would be $124.20. And lastly, how does GW compare to the massive bulk order of 24 bricks of green stuff? With a whopping $993.60 after tax, that’s how!

The moral of the story, don’t go with GW unless you really only need a little of the stuff and don’t ever intend to use it again.

Dom Deluise passed yesterday.  I remember watching him as a kid on both Cannonball Run I & II, and who could forget him in Spaceballs in the most disgusting costume ever.

Heres some outtakes from Cannonball Run I.  One of my favorite parts of both of those movies.  Especially when Dom can’t stop laughing.

via TIFR

Anyway, that aside, and back to my eldar army. I also did a re-count of my figures and it turns out I had a fieldable squad of Warp Spiders all along! So, after updating my army list, my totals are:
Army Total w/o Wargear: 1576
Fieldable Army Total w/o Wargear: 1386
Current Battleforce, Wargear in: 1249

So that puts me at a current battleforce build of:

HQ
2 Farseers
3 Warlocks

Troops
4 Dire Avengers + 1 Exarch
10 Guardians
8 Ranger Pathfinders

Fast Attack
4 Warp Spiders + 1 Exarch

Heavy Support
1 War Walker
1 Heavy Weapon Platform
1 Wave Serpent Transport

So I’m quite pleased with my army list and now that I’ve got that taken care of, I’ve started on assembly the units for my battleforce that you guys go tme for my birthday, and even have some photos!

So, I spent a couple hours carefully picking through my battleforce box on Saturday night checking to see which units I had instructions for and which I didn’t and which would be the easiest to start with. So eventually I realized that I had no instructions for heavy weapons platform and its two accompanying guardians. The had pretty easily identifiable pices and since they had no instructions I figured if I could puzzle them out, there would be less guess-work later when I moved on to the guardians, which also had no instructions. So, first I put the weapons platform together and opted for the eldar missile launcher mount as it offers two missile choices and provides a blast weapon with a good range and strength. I got it together quite easily, and the turret portion turns nicely should I want it to move, and the hover base seats cleanly into the baseplate, so I was pleased. I then moved on to the two crew guardians for the platform, they had their legs, and chests as a single piece on the sprue, so I only need to glue on the back, arms, heads and any accesories, which I did. There was a loose Shuriken catapult for the guardian that couldn’t hold his, so I glued it fo his back, making it look kind of like an antenna, which sounds weird, but actually fit the styling of the eldar units surprisingly well. Please excuse my pictures, I took them with my cell phone.

Surveying the field

Assault at White Loaf

So, quite pleased with my assembled minis, but very tired, I went to bed. Then last night, Deb was tired and decided to turn in around 10:30, so I took the opportunity to assemble the rest of my guardians. Having done the other two succefully, I felt more confident to tackle the rest of the little buggers. Of course, the standard guardians, unlike the weapon crew ones, come in 10 pieces instead of 5. So, I very carefully cut the pieces for one guardian out fo the sprue, made sure they my cuts were clean and satisfactory, then began meticulously glueing them together in sequence. It went really slow, but went well. So I tried another, my morale boosted, quicker, but just as well-assembled. So here I was now fully sure of what I was doing, and what sorts of freedoms and lee-ways I had when assembling the figures and I began to carefully stream-line the process. By the time I had finished the first 4, I had determined a method to quickly, effectively, and easily assemble the last 4 guardians simultaneously, adding slight variations to poses and placements to make the squad look more dynamic and life-like. Take a look:

Hanging with the Heavies

So far I’m very pleased with my progress so far, next up is likely going to be the war-walker and then the dire avengers. The Wave Serpent I’m likely going to leave for last as I need to do it in two parts since I have to prime and paint the cockpit before I can fully glue the thing together. So, I’ll leave you with two more pics, one of my Seer Council units, and a very blurry one of my currently fieldable army.

There were originally some conflicting reports on whether he had truly died or not, so I was waiting for some decent confirmation before I said anything.

RIP Dave.

PS: This latest Order of the Stick comic is a brilliant homage.

via Escapist Magazine