Iron within!!  Iron without!!

Finally done painting these guys.  It’s a Warsmith (the old school one, not the ridiculous-looking Warpsmith that’s the current release even if I’ll have to use its rules), a 10-man Iron Warriors squad with a couple of meltagunners and a power claw/fist Champion, and you can see the Forgefiend looming in the background, sporting two ectoplasma cannons and his non-ecto head this time around (he’s been fielded with twin hades autocannons and the ecto head the two times he’s fought thus far).

The next trick will be getting my hands on a Heldrake, then deciding what Legion colors to slap onto it.  I still have a few without due representation (Death Guard, Emperor’s Children, Alpha Legion, and Night Lords) so it’ll be one of those, and then I’ll build a squad of guys to go along with it as I’ve done with all the others (Word Bearers got their Dark Apostle, a 5-man squad, a squad of 10 Cultists, and a Rhino to tool around in as the prior project to the Iron Warriors).  Thinking maybe Alpha Legion next since I don’t want to Nurgle up the Heldrake for Death Guard and I don’t want to deal with an Emperor’s Children paintjob.  Night Lords I’m really considering leaving as my 30K army when Horus Heresy 2:  Electric Boogaloo gets its release and their rules (hopefully) come with it.

Really just glad to be done with these guys.  I don’t ever want to deal with yellow-and-black freehand chevrons ever again.

Kor Zedar, Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers Legion, leads the charge of a squad from the 1st Coterie of the 64th Host from their venerable Rhino transport.

So Texas Tech sends me this nifty email advertising this badass program next summer (July timeframe) where I could fly over to the UK and and spend a month helping excavate a Roman fort near the site of Hadrian’s Wall.  It would count as 6 hours of credit at 4000-level.  The thing says ‘no prerequisites’ and to check out this weblink for more information.  Not-so-casually drooling on myself, I proceed to do so, because I think I would spend a month with a constant hard-on for my senior-level Historian hands to dig in the English dirt for Roman artifacts.

Turns out you have to be an Archaeology major or Classics minor to go.

Fuck you, Texas Tech.  Fuck you to death. 

I’m back.  Sorry about the silence, the laptop had to go into the shop for a replacement screen and I spent the week in a public computer lab where I dared not Tumblr. 

It’s 0215 CST, and I’m sitting here awake, browsing Tumblr, listening to Mary J Blige and painting little rat people for an army that isn’t mine for a game that I don’t play.  There is definitely a strange disturbance in the Force.

While I admit I’m not a terribly huge fan of him (in fact, I think he’s overrated), even I confess that David Beckham looked pretty damn hot on Hell’s Kitchen tonight.

So I’m finally watching Sherlock.  Got my hands on season 1, so we’re off to the races.  I’m a lot behind on this, but with Game Of Thrones off-season I suddenly find myself with time to catch up.

Guess who got his grubby pirate mitts on an advance screener of Prometheus?

Guess who just watched the advance screener of Prometheus?

Guess who isn’t feeling really comfortable right now because of Prometheus?

Ignore the smirking Master, he’s just here as a snide “I told you so” towards me.

Tumblr is rife with condemnation of the state of North Carolina and on President Obama’s little blurb where he says he personally thinks anyone should be able to get married. Okay, but what does that all really mean? Not as much as you probably think it does, sort of like how the crazy UFO-abductee woman on the bus says she believes that in Heaven clouds rain gumdrops and everyone rides unicorns.

On the matter of marriage, the President is allowed an opinion just like any other voter, but he is powerless to alter the definition of a marriage once a state has decided what constitutes it. Like all would-be messiahs, this one’s words amount to wind; makes for a nice soundbite, but is otherwise meaningless and hollow except to lure the ignorant into voting for him on the presumption that he’ll do something about it if your state happened to do what North Carolina did. He won’t, because he can’t, no more than just because he likes the Chicago Bulls means he can order the NBA to let them win all their basketball games. He stated his opinion, which he’s entitled to do, but beyond that he just stated his opinion, as he’s entitled to do, not promised a full Congressional hearing to decide whether or not to amend the US Constitution to allow for marriage regardless of sex, gender, orientation, species, etc etc, because that’s literally what it would take. Marriage is a state right, not a federal one; if your state is full of discriminatory morons marching to the tune of their imaginary friend or are just stingy, miserly businessmen who realize that equal marriage rights mean taking it on the chin for full insurance and benefits coverage and don’t want to foot the bill, then move to another state and get married there. Your options are extremely limited otherwise.

This is why I don’t support marriage as a state-sponsored institution in the first place, no matter what flavor it comes in. Property law is the only secular aspect of a marriage, the rest is religious. If property never entered into the equation, the state wouldn’t care if you dragged your ‘79 Pinto into a chapel and got hitched to it, and I don’t even know if they made a Pinto in 1979 but the point is made. People dragged this issue in front of courts waaaaay back in The Day when marriages were arranged and property came along with the rings and the courts made it subject to secular law, which means if a state says NO on a secular legal level, like with a full-on public vote, then NO becomes law in that state. You want the state to butt out of it? Divorce property from marriage; you’ll just be two people living in the same place and person A’s stuff is person A’s and person B’s stuff is person B’s and that goes for EVERYTHING including insurance and benefits and entitlements and God help you if you have kids because it’ll be God’s problem if you decide you can’t stand the other person anymore and want out. Legal entitlements? None. Legal responsibilities? None.

If you’re holding your breath for Obama to tell North Carolina that their voting population doesn’t matter and that he’s issuing an executive order to overturn their new amendment, I suspect you will die a very impressive shade of purple.

Day 6:  We have failed.  The zombie horde penetrated the gates during the night.  This morning, there were hundreds of them.  We fought as best we could, the scientists frantically trying to figure out a way to stem the tide before our ammunition ran out, but to no avail.  The final strongpoint was breached, and the laboratories violated.  Our scientists are dead, or worse, and I type this from inside a closet while the battery of my laptop holds out.  I won’t last even as long as it will:  I was bitten before I could get the door sealed, so I’m infected.  I have probably minutes left alive now.  The sounds of gunfire ceased a while ago, I do not believe anyone is left to resist them now.  I can hear them outside the door, scraping and moaning.

I wonder if I’ll know how to unlock this door when I turn.  I don’t intend to live long enough to find out.  I have one bullet left.  It will have to be enough.

Day 5:  Finally, we catch a break.  Using some toys the scientists managed to cook up in the lab, a strike team succeeded in infecting a superzombie with a modified form of flesh-eating bacteria that accelerated their mortification by a factor of God-Only-Knows but it was fucking fast.  To make matters even better, these little nasties only eat superzombies, so after they were done feasting on the first one, they vaporized and went at the other three.  Dr. Zomboni’s superzombies are no more.  In the process, we only lost one operative, obviously not me.  There is hope for the future of, well, myself at least but perhaps humanity at large.

Day 4:  I totally forgot to do this last night.  Yes, I’m still alive, and still human in case being undead carries an argument for being alive.  Our mission to take out Dr. Zomboni last night failed, and now there are four superzombies running around that can heal stunned zombies, basically mobile respawn points.  These superzombies have become sort of pack leaders for these things, organizing them into large roving groups and chasing down lone or straggler humans who can’t make it between safe zones in time.  I know for certain I shall have to venture forth today, and that my survival is no longer a guarantee.  I had a close call last night when one of my classmates was revealed as a zombie and came after me once the class let out.  I shot him, but I can’t shoot a group of fifty of them and expect to come away from it.  I shall have to be stealthier than I ever have been before to make it to and from class today.

Day 3:  things have just become dire.  Our mission to destroy the laboratory where the zombie population has massed from has failed.  The foul agency that created this plague has succeeded in resurrecting their greatest and most diabolical creation, the dreaded Dr. Zomboni, an undead scientist whose goal is, in very Davros-ian fashion, to create a superior species than humankind.  With his return, it’s become apparent in very short order that the Stenches are already being modified.  Our weapons deliver less damage than originally reported, and their numbers have increased yet again.  I don’t know how many we lost on this mission, but I’m not ashamed to say that in keeping with the best of Sith traditions, I personally used three as a shield in order to effect my own escape from the clutches of a Walker mob.  I am still human, and survive, but if Dr. Zomboni succeeds in his ultimate goal, no amount of cunning or firepower may prove adequate.