Distracted By Awesome

For the first time in a while I got a Sunday off that I didn't ask for. That partially explains why I haven't posted anything here until now, but what else was responsible for me slacking off on my writing?

Pinkie Pie doesn't know the answer to that question, and frankly, neither do I.

CURRENT MUSIC:
Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori - "Out of Shadow"
Halo 3 Original Soundtrack

There's nothing like the feeling of air in your face as you drive around. From the real-life asphalt of the 101 to the virtual hills of Installation 04, that surge of vigor you get is a feeling that's very hard to mimic... unless you're transcribing the feeling through music.

"Out of Shadow" takes that surge and mixes it with a "we're taking Earth back" feeling. Heard in Halo 3 as the Master Chief and the survivors from the Crow's Nest launch a vehicular counter-attack against the Covenant, the track blends quite well with the setting. Since it does that both in-game and in real-life (it makes driving trips seem more adventurous than they really are), I figured I could use that kind of energy to type this here entry up.





Well, evening, y'all. I know, I know - late entry, but eh. I've been busy enjoying my Sunday off. So, like I was asking in the beginning: what else was responsible for me slacking off on my writing? Well, let's see here. These are the reasons I'll be citing today.





Blogging
(But you just said you didn't start this blog until now...?)

Uhm, yeah. That seems confusing. While it's true that I didn't start typing this entry up until about an hour ago, I have indeed been working on my blog, but I've been working on something pretty secretive since today (albeit in an on-and-off fashion). It'll take some time for it to be revealed, so don't get all excited and wonder what it is it's supposed to be.

Of course, just to tease y'all: more info on this tomorrow.





Lego Things
(Building a future project, one brick at a time.)

Yesterday I found out that the sixth series of the Lego minifig collections were in the Target I work at. I took a look at the sixteen various figures available and ended up buying a few after I found that one of them was a space marine.

Now, I don't know about you, but the concept of wars in space have always carried a great amount of cool with them, despite the potential bloodshed. Something about people in powered, armored spacesuits and wielding a neat assortment of small arms always makes a scene seem cooler.

I spent some time during my lunch period to check each of the pouches they came in (because a random minifig out of the sixteen are packaged inside) in the hopes of finding the space marine armor. Some were obvious (they didn't have any big, bulging pieces that felt like armor), and some were confusing (the "Aztec warrior" and the old merman both have large pieces - an elaborate headdress and the tail piece, respectively - that felt similar in size inside the pouch). My lunch ended, and so I settled on getting a few pouches. Turns out that I got not one but two space marines - which means double the armor! Yay!

Ladies like armor plating. Sergeant Johnson would know.

Yeah, Lego!Josh looks awesome, I'd day. The Lego Company did a pretty cool job with this stuff. So well, in fact, that I can see many sci-fi Lego fans rushing out to get these to create their own space marine army. It's perfect for StarCraft and Warhammer 40,000 minifigs as well as any other military science fiction settings that've been transformed into Lego. Even without the space combat, powered suits still look cool in land battles, so I'm not afraid of finding more suits for my armies to use.

But then I thought, "Hey, war sucks sometimes. We need something to fight for." It took a while to think of reasons to fight, but somehow, "music" ended up on that list. And then I thought it would be cool if a musician was in one of my Lego armies. And then that train of thought spiraled out of control and got to the point where I asked myself, "Why do I not have a band in Lego form yet?" So I looked through the pieces I had on me and found out that I did have enough to create a band (sort of)!

Presenting my fictitious Lego band "TreSkullz" (pronounced "Three Skulls")!
From left to right: Sporto (pronounced "sport-O"), bass guitar and vocals; Liva "Shocker" Adley, lead vocals and lead guitar; and Travis Oremo, trumpet.

In prior minifig collections Lego released instruments as well as clothing that seemed like generic rock star material. While I used some of them outright (both "Shocker" and Travis Oremo are sporting outfits featured directly from the factory line), I had fun creating Sporto - you just gotta have that outlandish-looking band member who visually stands out somehow. The shield on his head is actually attached to the hair - there's a little section where the hair actually allows the use of holding something that can be gripped. (And yes, in "reality" that shield is more of a mask for stage performances... and maybe public appearances.

Suffice to say: I had some fun tinkering with my Lego collection today. First time in months - I miss it.





My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
(text blah blah)

This is why I need a second monitor - so I can multitask better than I already can on the computer and look somewhat awesome for doing so. Anyway, with work being work and me being me, I got sidetracked to the point where I wasn't able to keep up with the second half of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's second season. That changed, thanks to today being a day off and the fact that Youtube has the entirety of season two up (you gotta love Hasbro's positive attitude towards all this publicity).

So while I was having Lego!Josh model for the camera in that power suit (that wasn't the only photo I took of me him) and creating TreSkullz from my pieces, I had buffered the episodes I hadn't watched yet and watched as I played.

Wow. I was actually surprised with how much I was amused. There were some things that I either loved and/or laughed at that I want to share. Since I know a majority of my readers out there aren't bronies or pegasisters (resistance is futile; you'll join/tolerate the herd eventually), I'll be short and sweet with these mini-reactions.

My favorite moment of all time for this session of pony-watching?

Solid Sparkle, tactical unicorn extraordinaire.

Twilight Sparkle looking a lot like a certain Metal Gear Solid character. With the way she acted in the last parts of the episode, it made me wonder if some of the writers and/or animators are Metal Gear fans...

Very important question, indeed.

Honorable mention should go to Pinkie Pie and her idea of a chimicherry - er, cherrychanga - uhm, chimicherrychanga - urrr, that thing she talked about that surprisingly sounds interesting for me to cook!

What else?

• Fluttershy being assertive. WOW. Just... wow.
• The Flim Flam Brothers. Oh, and Applejack's hilarious letter at the end of it all.
• BIG MACINTOSH SPEAKING. My mind was blown.
• Hahaha... Rainbow Dash is an egghead. Daring-Do was pretty cool, too. =D
• other things I forgot.

Hehehe. All of this was so awesome. In order to make the rest of my night 20% cooler, I'm going to have season two as background noise while I play Mario Kart 7.





Well, that's it. I'll catch y'all later!