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So a few nights ago me and the wife were watching some House of Cards and in the last episode we saw the main character shows a huge table he's been working on with some Civil War miniatures on it and that got me thinking how often and where have I seen miniatures on TV or in the movies. The ones that come to mind are: House of Cards, mentioned above 40 Year Old Virgin, where we get a few shots of Carrell painting some miniatures under his magnifying lense. On HGTV, there was a Househunters International, where they are looking for a place in Sweden and the guy that gets the house also has some kind of cellar outside in the common garden where he's got a collection of Warhammer miniatures. On the Olympics in the last few weeks, there was the one Canadian skier (don't remember his name) who has a brother with cerebral palsy and in the little human interest story, they mentioned the brother was an artist, and they cut away to him painting some miniatures as well as a big canvas with some flowers on it. I saw some article somewhere too, don't even remember what magazine, of some football player who likes to paint miniatures as well. Any other things that come to mind to anybody else?

Hi, I'm pleased to share this awesome kickstarter from Cryptozoic, The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary. It's based off the AMC series The Walking Dead. I apologize I should have posted this sooner, just been very busy. But there are still 5 days left to join, and I think it's totally worth it! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cze/the-walking-dead-no-sanctuary The game design looks intriguing, designed by brothers Adam and Brady Sadler. The figures are exceptional, very finely detailed and sculpted by Stephan. I was really impressed how well they came out. I was asked to paint some of the masters for Cryptozoic for their booths at San Diego Comic Con and Gen Con 2016. As a huge fan of the series both on AMC and in graphic novel incarnation, this is a really exciting project! Also check it out, this is so cool! The very talented actors Andrew Lincoln (Rick) and Norman Reedus (Daryl), with two of the miniatures I painted! I believe they were gifted the ones with the larger clear bases. How totally awesome of them is that? I can die happy now :) https://twitter.com/cryptozoic/status/756988054590533632 I posted some photos I took of the miniatures I painted here: http://minicreatures.blogspot.com/ Come join an awesome kckstarter!

I haven't actually seen "Frozen" yet. Movie's been out awhile, but I've been busy. But I can tell you chapter and verse what HAPPENS, oh yeah. And the snowman is named Olaf. And it's an allegory for bein' gay. Except when it isn't. And it's a feminist fable. Except when it's an allegory for oppression of women. And best of all, you can have "Frozen" cereal for breakfast, "Frozen" Campbell's soup for lunch, and a "Frozen" frozen dinner for dinner, and in between, you can play with enough "Frozen" toys to recreate the entire movie, before finally going to bed on "Frozen" sheets, pillowcases, and comforter! I am starting to dislike a movie I have never actually seen. It's happened before, too. I didn't WANT to hate "E.T." It came naturally, though. The movie came out in 1982, and I went and saw it in a theatre. I thought it was a bit kid flavored for my taste, but not a bad movie at all; rather liked it. And I forgot about it about ten minutes after I walked out of the theatre. "Star Wars," it wasn't. For about a month, everything was OK. And then, the happy meal toys appeared. And the collectible set of glasses. And the marketing tie-in with Reese's Pieces. And the coloring books. And the toilet paper. And the sheets. And the windup toys. And the cereal. And... for something over a year to 25 months, I literally could not go out in public without having ET shoved down my throat in some form or fashion. Staying home didn't help. They attached ET to anything they thought might possibly sell better with a frog-faced alien on it. Reese's Pieces' sales went stratospheric, and everybody else wanted a piece of the action. I literally couldn't watch a half hour sitcom without seeing some commercial with a clip from the movie in which ET was trying to sell me anything from hair conditioner to brake fluid. And one day, I turned on the radio, and Neil Diamond of all people sang, "Turn on your heart-liiiight..." and I literally jumped back from the radio in horror. No, NO, NOT HERE, TOO! And the [expletive deleted] song went gold, and they played the fraggin' thing every five minutes, and I literally went out and bought my first Sony Walkman so I could listen to music without having ET stuffed into my poor ears. I wondered in calm horror, did they pay Neil Diamond to sing an ET song, or was he so wild about the movie that he wrote and sang the fraggin' thing out of sheer enthusiasm for the Culture God that was ET? The phenomenon was that saturated in the fraggin' culture. To live in America was to eat, breathe, drink, and sleep ET. And to this day, if the thing comes on TV, I'll change the channel as fast as I can reach the remote. I've only seen the actual movie twice, but after a couple of years of marinating in the cultural phenomenon 30 years ago, I'm marked for life. Pavlov's dogs drooled, and I flee ET. I mourn "Conan The Barbarian." I didn't want to dislike "Conan." I really liked it when I went to go see it in the theatre. But later, my roommates and I splurged for cable with ALL the premium channels, and that night, we made popcorn and prepared for the SHOW. And we clicked on HBO. What's on? "Conan The Barbarian," with Arnold Schwarzenegger. How about it, guys? Meh. Seen it. What else? Showtime! They try harder! What's on? James Earl Jones? No, Thulsa Doom.... in the middle of "Conan the Barbarian." Ah. Well. What else? Cinemax! Awesome! The Home Nudity Network! What have they got? Ah. "Conan The Barbarian." A couple of months later, we had the cable company pull the premium channels. And for 25 years, I haven't been able to watch "Conan The Barbarian." It's especially bad with songs, though. I don't hate "All About The Bass." Not yet. Or "Take Me To Church." I'm getting there, though. But they haven't been ramrodded HARD enough yet. I don't walk into stores and hear it blasting at me through the sound system yet. And they haven't coopted the song for commericials. Yet. So far, I can escape from it by simply twisting a knob. Not so "Elvira." Not the erstwhile Mistress Of The Dark, Bad Movies, and Cleavage. Her, I still like. But the song of the same name by the Oak Ridge Boys, I cannot stand. Because once again, back in the 80s, something went wrong with reality, and the dumbest song ever written became legally mandated to play on every broadcast medium, nonstop. "Ail-VAH-ruh, ah oom poppa, oom poppa mau mau, Ail-VAH-ruh..." There were days I kept the Walkman headphones clamped on my skull nonstop, to keep the earworms OUT. There was no ESCAPING it. At least one radio station in central Texas played the [expletive deleted] thing four times an hour. I heard it leaking from car windows, in sandwich shops, walking down the street... it Would. Not. Stop. To the point where I finally snapped, and killed that one guy who was walking down the street singing, "...oom poppa mau mau, oom poppa, oom poppa, oom poppa mau mau..." Yup. Snapped. Shrieked like a banshee with kidney stones, and with strength borne of sheer wrath, I uprooted a STOP sign and beat him to death with it, right there on the street corner. I'm lying, of course. I gritted my teeth and kept walking. But it was a near thing. Anyone else got a tale of a thing that may or may not have started out as a good thing... until sheer involuntary immersion in it threatened to make you crazy?

At Castle Bedlam, in the Iyanden Craftroom, where miniatures are painted, quilts made, and various projects undertaken, there is the Garage Sale TV, which has a built in VHS player. Being who we are in this house, there are still VHS cassettes hither, thither, and yon, and recently, I wanted some back ground noise while I painted, so I stuck a cassette in there. I hadn't actually LOOKED at this cassette since 1994 or so, but it still played fine... and gave me a surprise. Used to be a show on USA about bad movies. It was called "Reel Wild Cinema," and consisted of Sandra Bernhardt doing kind of a postmodern Elvira gig as they show really bad old movies, edited down to allow for the time constraints. She also conducted a short interview segment, once per episode, with a bad movie celebrity... some included Russ Meyer, Dave Friedman, and Mamie van Doren, among others. This particular segment was themed "Sword And Sandal," and the main movie treat was "Medusa Vs. The Son Of Hercules," an ancient Italian dog from the sixties, in which the Son of Hercules must scare up an army FAST before the evil invaders come, but for some reason, Thessaly's entire army went out, one at a time, to deal with the Medusa, and never came back. So now it's up to Junior to go out and kill Medusa, which will make all the stoned soldiers come back to life! If they did this today, it might be an entertaining piece of cheese... but when we finally see the Medusa, it's hilarious. Rather than do the whole "woman with snakes for hair," thing, they decided to dress someone up in a tree costume with a sort of face hung on the front, and a spotlight for the single eye. It doesn't look much like a tree... but it looks more like a tree than anything ELSE, including a Medusa. And if you look into its spotlight, you suddenly become frozen and painted gray! ...well, I hadn't seen this show in twenty years. I'd forgotten I recorded the episodes, back when it was on. And I wound up forgetting all about painting as I watched this gawdawful movie. And I had more fun than kittens doing just that. I went online looking for the show. I'd gladly buy the entire series on DVD, but it doesn't seem to have ever been compiled or released, and it barely appears as a footnote anywhere. And I mourn for this awful but gloriously entertaining show. It reminded me of another show I liked, once... "The Evil Touch." Ever heard of it? Didn't think so. I used to think I had imagined it, until I finally found it on the Internet. Australian TV show, kind of a Twilight Zone thing, anthology show with each episode being self contained and having a different cast. Anthony Quayle did the Rod Serling duties, and the first episode featured a monster in a lake. I ate this show up when I was a kid. But after its initial run, it vanished, and never went into reruns, and I never saw it again. Until there was IMDB, I seriously began to wonder if I'd just imagined the whole thing. Still wish I could see the episodes again, just to see if they're any good after 40 years... Anyone out there have a fondness for something obscure that most other people haven't heard of?

>>here<<

This is the best offically BBC sanctioned fan-made video of clips from Doctor Who I've ever seen. It's by someone called Babelcolour. There is literally something from every episode through 2011 (yes, even the lost ones). The music is a witty mix of the Doctor Who theme and "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This" (they call it "Whorythmics"). And the sound clips are marvelous. EDIT: My link was wonky. Please scroll down to post #3, where Argentee kindly put in a working link. The link may be a little funny. My ipad refuses to let me watch Youtube on Safari, instantly bouncing me to a special Youtube app which will not let me copy the web address of where to get it. But I got to this video by first linking to its comments page, which seems to have bypassed that particular annoying feature, at least temporarily. Until I tried to reload the window, whereupon I had to play "Load Safari and try to close that window in the split second before it loads the Youtube app instead. Close Youtube and repeat until you are fast enough." I hate the ipad Safari Youtube policy.