Blues

The world lost the great Doc Watson today. My best friend Alan introduced me to his music over 30 years ago as "Chief" breezed through his German Basic Course and I struggled through Basic Korean.

Chief and his wife Theta lost one of their little furry buddies this week, so I'll raise a toast to Doc in the Great Up Yonder and to Missy finding a warm sunny spot down on Piddler's Green.

Memorial Day Gunnyness

This Memorial Day Weekend, my buddy Frank is coming down for some drinking, BSing, and computer war-gaming... and maybe a tour of the DM Boneyard.

Frank and I have been war-gaming since we were both instructors at the Goodfellow AFB School of Applied Cryptological Sciences, playing Panzer Strike, Typhoon of Steel, and Overrun! on his alien Apple IIGS. Our game experience gave us a little something-something on the podium; him more so, being a Marine and all. I think my Army compatriots were surprised enough that I could tell my FROGs, Towed's, and amphibians apart.

After his last visit, when we'd rolled the D&D polyhedral dice and come up with late-year PLO versus an unnamed Western army, we discovered some new game mechanics dealing with IEDs, suicide bombers, suicide tanker trucks, etc. Frank wasn't too happy when he discovered my next game featured a modern Islamist sub-cult against his beloved US Marine Corps. So this Memorial Day Weekend, we'll play our beloved Steel Panthers MBT and we will NOT endanger even the digital lives of our closest Allies. Time to remind Frank about some of the fun game vehicles like the EE-9 (pictured) while ignoring other stuff.

The Man Just Can't Stop Bowing

End of Another Sunny Day

I knew I could count on my movie chums!

Something Gunny

We were too short-handed to video most of the stages, so let this tide you over until next time.

On the Set: The Midnight Man

The production of Steve Anderson's horror flick "The Midnight Man" is still on-going and the body count increases with every shoot. At the right, Director Steve instructs young Victor in the Fine Art of Impalement.

Steve's Teen Streets Production Company produces high-quality shorts featuring talented youths from the Tucson community.








This Saturday, we shot the rare daylight scene in the flick, the finale, right after the Friday night shoot shown above.









Fortunately for the kids, only we crew were subject to the short turnaround. The Oro Valley desert location was offered by the gentleman on the right. Yes, they carried a comfy couch into the desert to watch the proceedings. Director of Photography John Sears is shooting the movie on a Canon 5D Mark II and I'm Location Mixer.

New Gig

How on earth would I spend my Saturday night trapped in a Tucson earthen cellar with a bunch of giggly high school girls with a severe Earworm problem? Doing Location Audio for Steve Anderson's new fright flick, "The Midnight Man," that's how!

Shoppin'

Photo-Shoppin', that is.  It's not perfect, but good enough for unsolicited gratis work for a relative of a relative.  I'm sure he can use PS Essentials to repair the spot I overlooked.

I'm glad Professor Steve gave us a lot of retouching lessons, since the textbook was kinda spotty on the subject.

Pretty Awesome Short (Oscar-Winner)

h/t Pia

Men of War 2.0

Working on pre-production for my next movie, Men of War 2.0, an action-fantasy short that will feature a guest appearance by some North Korean combat aircraft, as well as this F-14 Tomcat. My shooting buddy Big Bob did wonders producing two identical aircraft, one with the landing gear down (pictured), the other, gear up. I took delivery of both this weekend. Thanks, Bob!

The bad guys will be two pairs of MiGs (FLOGGERs and FULCRUMs); the kits are in the mail. Getting NKAF decals was another problem. I didn't mind shelling out over ten bucks (including shipping) for a set of 1/48 scale NKAF roundels, but for the 1/72 scale MiG-23, I had to settle for Yugoslavian roundels and hope no one looks too closely. Y'all won't, right? I'll have Bob paint each without identifying bort numbers so one plane can double as his own wing man (so I only needed to buy one of each type).

As far as paint schemes go, the NKAF doesn't show up at western air shows, so I had to resort to Google and Bing Maps to do a little aerial recon for me. Looks like they're still using the bare aluminum scheme they used during the Korean War, which simplifies things greatly.

Now to set up my spare room as a green-screen studio and start experimenting.

Update: Aw, crap, I got outbid on the Yugo decals anyway! It was actually just as easy to buy a 1/72 scale MiG-15 and hoark the decals from the kit.