Busy Busy

So it's been a while since my last post and clearly I didn't starve to death after all, which you know is a plus. Still unemployed and still looking to try and end that unlucky streak cos it's getting depressingly long now. Still I try to remain upbeat. I had a good Xmas, smaller and a bit quieter than usual and maybe better for that. My 37th birthday is in a few days and not at all sure what I am going to do for it. Normally I'd go to the Chinese place for all you can eat and stuff myself there, then head to the Odeon and watch 2-3 movies back to back, but that takes money I don't have sadly. So I'll likely stay in and paint.

I took a couple months break from painting after getting my ass handed to me in a 6th edition game of Warhammer 40k, but I'm back at it now and nearly finished 3 new units to add to my Imperial Fists which are:

• A Stormtalon Gunship (slightly converted to fix the gawd awful chin turret).
• A Land Speeder Storm (pain in the ass to paint, but it looks good when done, shame the rules for it are crap).
• An Attack Bike (magnetised the weapon port so it can be fitted with either Heavy Bolter or Multi-melta depending on which role I need it to carry out on the battlefield)

I've also finished the Whirlwind Missile Tank that had been on my painting desk for a year and have made a good start on my 3rd Tactical Squad (armed with Plasma Weapons to deal with pesky power armoured opponents) and an Aegis Defense Line. I have the remaining 4 members of my Chapter Master's Honour Guard, a Bike Squad and a 10 man Assault Squad to finish once those are done and then onto 2 Devastator Squads, another Attack Bike and a bunch of Transport Vehicles which will finish off what I currently have figures for.

I have a tax rebate coming and also the first of what should be several payments for wrongly sold Payment Protection Insurance, so will be clearing the debt I owe my best mate with that and I might treat myself to a Land Raider with what's left over as I really want one and ideally a Terminator Assault Squad to deploy from it and an Army Transport Case and on and on. And after that there's the desire for a nice game table and scenery to go on it and *sighs* it really is a very all consuming hobby.

Still it keeps my mind occupied, which DDO doesn't do so much these days and I'm sort of taking a bit of a sabbatical from it between updates. There is a big update due at some point in February but until that goes live it's very much a case of "been there, done that" many times before and so I'm taking this time to get a lot of painting and reading done.

I have a stack of like 4 novels on my To-Read pile at the moment and at least a couple more in my shopping basket on amazon to add to it as soon as I can afford them. I've also been making my way through a lot of trade paperbacks over the past year, both the GI Joe ones that IDW put out which I buy and the DC Comics ones that my good friend Ian buys and generously lends me. I have mixed feelings about DC's New 52 as while the quality of a lot of the stories and art is very good, their continuity is now a huge mess and while that might not bother new readers, it certainly bothers me. DC had such a great continuity starting from their total reboot of Crisis on Infinite Earths in the mid 80's and it seems like they have just thrown that all away for a short term sales boost.

So that's me currently, not at work but rarely idle. I do wonder what I am going to have to curtail when I do get a job and have to devote a great chunk of time to that.