The Secret Lair

So, there was this Comic-Con thing. Or, as some might say, “geek prom”. Yes, it had vast serpentine lines of costumed fans. Yes, the rooms were turgid with unwashed humanity. But much to my delight, it was quite the fun time.

It is true that one cannot appreciate the size of the convention until one actually goes there, but I found that a big part of enjoying the craziness is best summed up in Cmar Comic-Con Lesson (CCCL) #1: be Taoist. It is nigh impossible to “rush” from one area to another with the crush of people involved, especially if your goal is on the other side of the convention center, or one of many things offsite, where “offsite” is usually the downtown area across train tracks that forms a massive, slowly navigable bottleneck at peak times. Make sure to allot enough time to attempt to do the things you want, and if you miss out on something, accept it and move on.

Despite the crowds¹, Comic-Con is exceedingly well organized from the standpoint of managing human traffic. Although at least one of the security policies was rather annoying², event lines were clearly marked and efficiently run. The interesting thing about those lines is CCCL #2: you don’t really get in line for an event, but really you are in line for the room. When a panel is over, the room is not forcibly cleared before the next one starts – it is entirely possible for most people attending a 10:00 panel to just stay for the 11:00 panel if they want to, meaning that very few new people would be allowed in, even if there were a lot of people waiting in line to see the 11:00 panel. Functionally, that means that waiting in line for a thing will not necessarily lead to you getting in to see that thing. On Sunday, we waited in line for two hours for an event that we missed because not enough people from the previous panel left the room for us to be allowed in. Some companions of ours waited to get into a room that had six events in a row they would have enjoyed seeing; after four and a half hours, things slowly cleared out enough so that they made it in the room to catch the last two.

This made me exceedingly pleased that I am not a rabid fan of any Media People Or Products On Display, because down that path would have lain sour disappointment if I missed something. Even though I waxed enthusiastic about all games Bioware last time, going to extreme lengths just to ensure I got into any associated events just wasn’t worth it. This leads us to CCCL #3: if there is something at Comic-Con you absolutely must see, plan ahead and make the time. The Sunday panel we missed was with the cast of the current Doctor Who series, and if we truly had a moral imperative to make it, we should have arrived thirty to sixty minutes earlier than we did. That said, it was no big loss, and I much prefer the chunk of extra sleep I partook in instead.

As to panels, we made it into several that were entertaining, if not incredibly newsworthy. Felicia Day and Dragon Age series writer David Gaider were the highlights of a session on the upcoming Dragon Age: Redemption web series, which looks to have cool potential. The Legendary Pictures event had the most star power, featuring Guillermo Del Toro enthusiastically discussing the upcoming kaiju apocalypse flick Pacific Rim³, and Jeff Bridges describing his role as a monster hunter who goes through apprentices at a disturbingly high rate in The Seventh Son⁴. A panel with author Christopher Moore was flat out hilarious, and it was interesting to hear how several colleges and at least one seminary use his novel Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal as a positive teaching tool about the story of Jesus⁵. The “best worst panel of the con” was the one before Moore’s that we went to to guarantee ourselves seats, and was a spotlight on graphic novel innovator Jim Steranko. I could write a whole column on the disturbing epicness that was his stories, but for here I will note that he is a man who’s hair, ego, and tales are all equally amazing⁶. Finally, we made it into the Hasbro/Marvel toy line unveiling, which was mainly interesting to see the depth of investment and critique from hardcore collectors in the room⁷.

Of course, there was far more to the con than panels. The dealer’s room is a sprawling beast of a complex where everyone from major television channels and toy companies to independent artists and comics creators come to hawk their wares. It’s a significant task to navigate with all the people, and I certainly didn’t see all of it during my 4 days there. Additionally, many of the vendors have things to buy that are exclusive only to the convention and are there in limited numbers⁸ This makes CCCL #4: plan ahead for exclusives to buy, and who to see. Though I was ignorant of the exclusives before the start of the con, I did manage to get a few as gifts. Um, which weren’t all for me, I promise. Far more fulfillingly, I was able to meet and financially support many of the artists of webcomics that I read on a daily basis, which was truly excellent.

w00tstock was outstanding, and therefore CCCL #5 is that w00tstock is a can’t-miss event for anyone of a geeky persuasion. Wil Wheaton emceed what amounted to a three and a half hour variety show of music, comedy, and other skits that are hard to quantify, but highly entertaining. As with prior w00tstock events, it included a host of entertainers and special guests, prominently featuring musicians Paul and Storm as well as Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame. While it is an occasional year round traveling show, I expect that it will continue to to be a Comic-Con staple in future years.

Finally, I did make it to the Viva La Lucha! lucha libre show. As a fan of the gladiatorial craft of professional wrestling⁹, I can say that this was the best live wrestling event I’ve ever attended. 95% of the audience was Spanish-speaking, and it was a fun bit of cognitive dissonance that the entire thing was announced in Spanish and that any wrestler who spoke to the crowd in English was automatically on the side of evil. Not knowing who most of the wrestlers were or being able to understand what was said left only the the wrestlers’ in-ring performances (and some out-of-ring theatrics) to tell the stories involved, which was splendidly done. Several renowned lucha stars were present, including Solar (who started his wrestling career the year I was born – yikes – and can still seriously go in the ring) and the dancing, chair wielding L.A. Park. Between the quality of the wrestler’s work and their close interaction with an enthusiastic audience of 800 people, this is the type of wrestling show I wish more non-wrestling fans could see to better “get” what makes well-done pro wrestling a fascinating and cathartic storytelling medium.

So, would I go back to Comic-Con? Despite the fun I had, to go for the whole four day convention, especially without “I must do this or I will wail and gnash my teeth” goals, is an exhausting (not to mention, expensive) prospect that doesn’t seem worth it to repeat. Going back for a day or two, especially with a specific focus, seems more like it for any repeat visits. Comic-Con is about geek crass entertainment and commercialism on a truly epic scale, and as such is inherently a hollow thing. Ultimately, the best times of the con were those centered around experiences and shared with friends, which would have to be CCCL #6: go with those you enjoy. As with any gathering of like minded folk, that’s what truly matters.

That, and melty-faced Toht. Mmmm…

1. or, rather, because of them [↩]
2. On most days, security personnel were instructed to not let anyone stand or sit anywhere in the areas where panel rooms were, in order to keep lines organized and adhere to fire safety regulations. The challenge with this was that you weren’t able to pause and eat, or even rest, in those areas, because you would be told to “move along” by security… and unless you moved outside or to a different floor, you’d run into the same problem a minute or so later. [↩]
3. “It’s giant f**king monsters fighting giant f**king robots!” [↩]
4. Sadly, not that 7th Son. [↩]
5. If you haven’t read his novels Lamb and Fool, then do that. Now. [↩]
6. He built a zip gun in high school shop shop class to fight off a local gang. He trained with his fists so much that his knuckles developed knife-like edges, and he had a lady from the audience come up to feel them as proof. He can see normally in near darkness. He once destroyed a motorcycle gang with a Ford Pinto. [↩]
7. When it was announced that the Legends series of figures would have an improved hip articulation, a man in the audience immediately started screaming a repeated, high-pitched “THANK YOU!” to the panel of designers. [↩]
8. Hasbro, for instance, had several limited edition toys, including a 22 inch deluxe Optimus Prime Transformer and a special 8 pack of never-released Raiders of the Lost Ark action figures, including the German mechanic who gets hamburgered by the plane propeller, and Toht with both normal and “melty-face” heads. [↩]
9. Which makes me, by default, not much of a fan of boring trash that is routinely put on by the WWE. [↩]

Last installment, we worked on the barrel of the pistols. You may have gotten impatient, painting the barrel already. That is OK, it shows initiative, make sure you are able to give the rest of the raygun similar attention.

The grip of the gun is next. This is where we really get to destroy things and rebuild them better than they were before.

Take the Nerf Maverick pistol that we’re going to use as the grip of the raygun, and your favorite dremel tool or hacksaw. The hacksaw was my favorite for this, since it didn’t melt the plastic and gave me nice clean cuts. The cuts should be made Just forward of the main body of the pistol, and just behind the cylinder. If you are patient, you might want to cut all of the rest flush.

You might want to save the other bits for later projects of your own. Now you can take the rest of the pistol apart. I didn’t use the slide on the back of the pistol, so we can put it and the springs it has off to the side.

You should have something that looks kind of like this.

Now take apart the two halves of the but of the gun. I took out all but the trigger springs out of this one so the trigger will still appear to work.

The real reason however is the electronics that need to go in here.

Inside the gun there is an LED that will light up a piece of plexiglass, and some more wires that will connect to lights on the outside of the pistol.

Also, as you can see in the opened up image of the pistol, there is one of our plumbing connectors. You will need to cut a hole, I used a Dremel and a knife, that will allow the threaded portion of the connector to sit inside the grip of the pistol.

This will allow us to attach our conduit to the pistol, which both appears and actually gives power to the gun. Unfortunately, I don’t have an image of the hole as it is cut, but you can see the result in the images of the connected conduit.

We won’t attach it now, but to show you where we are going here is an image of the grip and barrel mated together.

If I were to make this again, I would mold a mating ring that would more seamlessly attach the barrel and grip. As it is, it looks decent enough.

Next time, we’ll start wiring together the electronics and attaching the gewgaws that will make your ray gun look more interesting and distinctive.

I went on vacation last week. No, I’m not going to display my pictures here. You can visit my Flickr stream if you want to see classy photos of Easton and Gettysburg Pennsylvania or Ken Newquist.

No, instead, I want to share the results of The Vacation Plan. The plan was this:

1. There is no booking of hotels before the vacation. We do everything from the road.
2. We have no idea where we will wind up day to day.
3. No more than five hours in the car on any given day.
4. We go until the money runs out.

We started a week ago Friday with $1500, a minivan, three kids and a mother-in-law. It was decided that the best way to begin was to visit Easton, PA, home of the Crayola Factory. On that first day, we broke rule #3. Easton is a long, long way from Cleveland. Admittedly, we probably could have shortened the trip by not going to Pittsburgh to visiting Affogato¹, but hey, I’d been trying to get there for a while, I thought I’d indulge myself. Good coffee, and Victoria, the owner, is a real sweetie.

Seven and a half hours later, we found a room in Easton, paid more than we thought it was worth, and grabbed dinner at a local pub. Next day, we had the fun of meeting Ken and his darling kids for a day at the Crayola Factory. We happened to arrive for the 15th anniversary of the museum/oversized hands-on preschool. Frankly, it was swamped, but it was also amazing. Creativity gone wild, kids making things out of modeling form, construction paper, markers, crayons…I felt like a little kid myself.

We thought that we’d head on to Valley Forge the next day, spent a couple of hours, then on to Gettysburg. Then, math happened. Gas was a real killer. Within the first two days, we’d burned through the first third of our cash.

Plans were amended, much to our benefit. We decided to skip Valley Forge and head straight on to Gettysburg. With the heat wave rolling over the midwest, three hours of battleground touring caused tempers to fray and exhaustion to mount. That night we welcomed the sweet, sweet air conditioning of the Motel 6, and later, the most excellent dinner and cold beer of the Appalachian Brewing Company.

The next morning, breakfast was had and we’d had enough education, it was time to be moving on toward home and some more familiar territory. On to Monroeville to the local Barnes & Noble for the kids to spend a little of their hard-saved vacation money, and then to scenic Hermitage PA. The local pizza joint was excellent, and as a view into local culture, it was educational. The pizza place, bar, and gun range were all in the same strip mall.

Finally, even the kids were done with pools and hotels. We packed up, made one more stop off at an outlet mall to get a little something for my wife, and headed back home. All told, we did not spend every last cent (we had about $100 left), but we did cut the trip short from the originally hoped-for seven days to four.

In the end, it’s not really about the money or the time…the experience of a family vacation, free of real plans or schedules was massively relaxing. I highly recommend trying it out sometime.

1. The cafe where The Baristas is filmed. I like this webseries. Read my review. [↩]

WARNING: Slightly Steampunk

So last time, in Building a Raygun, we assembled some components to build our raygun. This week, we’ll assemble the barrel of the pistol.

So from our parts list of last week, you’ll need the following.

• 1 – Handheld, battery powered, plasma globe
• 1 – set of cheap plastic venetian blinds
• Loctite No Mess Adhesive
• Masking tape or painter’s tape
• 1 – hole punch – 1/8″ or 1/4″ size, depending on how big you like your rivets

The plasma globe is the core of our barrel for this build. It’s handhold is a great shape for the barrel of our brass or iron (your choice) raygun.

It’s lines are too sleek and machined to make a really good steampunk or dieselpunk weapon however. We need to break those up, and add some gew gaws to make it more interesting.

So here is what it looks like out of the box. I bought two of these, since it was only going to be a little more effort to make a pair than to just make one.

Once you have the plasma ball unpacked, now it’s time to get out the venetian blinds. I had a broken set laying around that I kept for the plastic, but they were $5.00 originally, so not a big cost there.

The plastic in the blinds is supple and fairly thin, which makes it great for modeling and other uses such as this. The curve of it however, doesn’t always work for us. For this use though, it’s perfect.

So, cut a strip of blind so that you have multiple strips that are just about the length of the handgrip. Using scissors is going to be easier than a knife, because of the curved shape. Round the edges slightly, so they look rougher, more hand shaped and machined. You’ll need a fair amount of these, so you will need at least two slats from the blinds.

At this point, dry fit them around the handle, see how things line up. If your globe is like mine, the power switch is on the side of the handle. You will want to use a knife or hole punch to make a hole for the switch. I also used this piece as the first glued piece.

After your dry fit, it’s time for the No Mess Adhesive. I won’t tell you how to apply glue, hopefully you can do that. If not, then you’ll need to report to Minion Reclamation for… training.

Glue the power switch plate on first, making sure not to get glue into the switch. Then with a slight overlap, lay down the next one. When I did this, I put on about three at a time before I needed to stop and secure them. I used velcro bands to do this, but you can also use tape.

Allow these to dry for a while. I waited overnight, since I wasn’t in a hurry. If you are currently under alien or robot attack, you can go faster. If it’s zombies, then you have the time to wait and do it right. After you are done it should look something like this image.

Gew Gaws and Rivets

So it looks pretty cool now, but it’s missing something. Bits and bobs! Gew gaws! Rivets! Now is the time to rummage through junk drawers, bits boxes, and even old pens from your desk.

Get all sorts of bits that you can find, and while you think about them start punching out rivets. To do this, I had a 1/8″ hole punch and took the same plastic slats from earlier, and punched out circles. A lot of them. Once that was done, I started gluing them on places where it looked natural where the rivets would go.

At this time, you can also check how well the plates were glued down. If there are gaps like mine had, you can use a toothpick to apply some more adhesive and secure it again until dry.

If you look at the end of the globe closely, you can see that there is something sticking 0ut of the end that wasn’t there before. That’s actually a pen cap, but you should call it an Ionic Concentrator. It just sounds better when you explain it.

Feel free to add fins, veins, piping, whatever looks cool to you, to add to the barrel. Save some of those bits that don’t seem to fit, since you will be doing similar things to the main body of the gun.

When you add things to the barrel end of the gun though, take care you don’t glue or weld the battery door shut. You’ll always want to make sure you have fresh batteries with which to fire.

Now as tempting as it is to start painting, wait. Ok, don’t, I didn’t. Make sure you have the ball itself well taped so paint doesn’t get on it, and start with a coat of black primer.

Once that’s done and dry, you can pick your color(s) and go for it. One thing to keep in mind. You will want the rest of the pistol to look like part of the same gun, so make sure you have enough of the same paint, and that you paint all the parts in a similar fashion.

If you don’t think you can do this, then wait until closer to the end before painting. Though you can still do the black primer now, since you’ll need it anyway.

I’m not going to show you my paint job yet, since that would ruin some of the surprise of the later parts. For now, you have enough to do for a week. So get to it!

If you’ve followed along, I want comments and pictures.

Next week, the main body of the raygun. So get out that hacksaw or Dremel multitool.

Overlord Miller has already noted his admirable vacations plans for this week – an unplanned, extemporaneous exploration of the untamed Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I applaud this. It is precisely the type of creative, relaxing decompression that everyone should aspire to. That noted, it turns out that I’m off on a bit of a trip of my own today. Is creative, relaxing decompression on the menu for me?

No. Quite the opposite: I am headed into the San Diego Comic-Con.

I’ve never had any significant interest in attending this geek trainwreck-to-end-all-trainwrecks, namely because it embodies the “media” side of convention fandom which has never really resonated with me. Also, walking into a poorly ventilated structure sausaged full of 150,000 or so people isn’t the wisest idea, medically or otherwise. However, Laura managed to score us tickets, and we have friends to stay with minions in the area to provide us with shelter and nourishment, so the trip is officially on. Thus far on the docket:

• The convention itself – The schedule is daunting, to say the least, but there are a few things I can see myself wading in to line for. In particular, my enchantment with all things Dragon Age and Mass Effect will spur me to hose down the staphylococcal masses with alcohol hand sanitizer on my way to any Bioware panels, and my support of the Warren Ellis documentary on Kickstarter suggests I should attend that event as well.

• w00tstock – We have snagged tickets for w00tstock Thursday night, which is somewhat hard to define, but I am assured it will be vastly entertaining.

• Viva La Lucha! – I haven’t finalized this, but really, how can one pass up going to a Lucha Libre wrestling show at a YMCA 15 miles from the border with Mexico? Answer – clearly, one can’t.

I expect I will have some manner of report on my return, which might include images and/or sound. To best focus my enjoyment in this zombie outbreak waiting to happen, do any of you have any recommendations for must-see goings on or not to be missed local establishments? Or better yet, are you going to be there?

I am out on vacation this week, taking the family hither and yon, or more accurately, yon and hither across the vast wilds of Pennsylvania. Where in Pennsylvania, you ask? There was no plan. Other than starting off in Easton¹ at the Crayola Factory.

The full recounting of the trip will appear next Monday.  That being said…I am curious. Do you have any plans for a summer vacation? How do you like to spend that time?

1. home of the ever-erudite Ken Newquist [↩]

Dear Duke Nukem Forever,

I’ve been giving your offer a lot of thought, and I’m not going to go out with you.

Since we had that whirlwind relationship in the past, I do think I owe you an explanation. We dated steadily about 15 years ago, and believe me, you were seriously funny and talented. Your selection of weapons and gear was at turns satisfying and inventive, which is what I want out of a first person shooter. Your gameplay was solid too, although I always thought that Doom’s was better overall, which is why I insisted on an open relationship. And yes, even though I stopped seeing you after about a year, I’ve occasionally gone out with one of the Doom siblings pretty regularly since then. It’s a good thing you’re not the jealous type.

I think what attracted me to you originally was your “bad boy” image. Especially in 1996, it was an alluring thing for a game to be so leading edge, and so crude. You used colorful language. You showed me strippers, although there were pixelated pasties instead of nipples. You even promised a boss enemy that you’d take off his head and, uh, defecate down his neck, and you did just that, reading a newspaper all the while. I suspect that you were trying to be the ultimate action hero, and be as sexy as possible for what you thought your potential partner-gamers were: young men with a low brow sense of thrills and humor.

I have fond memories of our time together, so when I found out that you were coming back on the scene, I really wanted to hear from you. A couple of weeks ago you hit the market again, so to speak, and rang me up, but I suddenly became a little worried. I mean, you’ve been through a decade and a half of plastic surgery with numerous surgeons, and as a doctor I know that’s never a good sign. So, I delayed in saying yes, and you’ve gone out with numerous people in the interim. They tell me that my fears are correct; the surgeries didn’t improve anything in terms of your gameplay or graphics, and in some cases have left some pretty ugly scars, such as immensely long load times.

I’d be willing to overlook all of that, just to have a date or two to relive the good old days. Unfortunately, it sounds like there’s another thing about you that hasn’t changed: your attitude. You strode back out on the dating scene with the same shtick, expecting people to find you just as hot and irresistible as we did in the late nineties. I am told that you show female nipples. You let us help you aim your pee into a urinal. You allow us to slap a stripper’s bottom, or better yet, smack alien breasts that are growing from a wall. Many of your recent dates have found these things to be, frankly, rather offensive. These things don’t offend me, but they just strike me as sad. Silly. Stupid.

See, I’ve grown up a bit since last we met, and more importantly, games and gamers have too. Part of why people were attracted to you was that you advanced first person shooter gameplay and mixed it with risque content in a novel way. Games have improved vastly since your heady 3D days, and if your graphics and gameplay haven’t kept up, then I can’t imagine our date being that enjoyable. Moreso, that group of young men with a low brow sense of thrills and humor that you think are so into you? It turns out they aren’t your main audience anymore. Almost three quarters of the US population plays video games, of which almost half are women and the average age is 37. In any case, for those of us that want crude humor or sexy titillation, there are better dates to be found for far cheaper in other places online or in person.

That’s not to say that with a lot more work, you’d have a chance in the future. I still enjoy partying with a rough, hunky action hero-style shooter. Serious Sam is over the top and has a mouth on him, but he’s immensely fun to play and amusing without being stupidly crude. It’s just that now you just aren’t talented or funny enough in 2011 to be worth even a simple fling. Here’s my advice: go find a better, dedicated surgeon to do some major structural work on you, as well as a good psychiatrist to help you through some of your maturity issues, and I might give you the time of day. That said, I suspect you won’t be able to give up your past enough to be relevant in the present, and that just makes me sad. Good luck on your future endeavors!

Regards,

The Bad Doctor (who’s not as easy as you think)