I finished the Jezzail Team today, as well as the two slaves that serve as crewmen on the Warp-Lightning Cannon. I can't post any pictures as my USB cable was destroyed when my dog stole my camera.

I'm almost finished with the Cannon's gunner, he just needs a couple of highlights, some detail work, and an ink wash. I am a little embarrassed to say that I seriously considered not showering so I'd have fifteen more minutes to paint this afternoon. I guess that's where the smelly gamer stereotype comes from, people who just need fifteen more minutes with their precious toys.

Well, I had to stay up extra late to do it, but the Jezzail Team is completely finished aside from painting and flocking the base. I made a little progress of the Warp-Lightning Cannon crew, but they are a somewhat more complicated project and I'll need some time to get them finished. I am reluctant to think about the fact that my new 2000-point army list requires me to purchase two more Poisoned Wind Globadiers and paint three more Poisoned Wind Globadiers. I am considering eliminating two of them from the list by giving my Stormvermin back their shields, but I still haven't decided if I want to do that. I probably won't, as I like the idea of the Stormvermin fighting with the halberds they're modeled with. So I'll just have to buck up and paint three more miniatures for my army.

I also managed to stick my hobby knife halfway through the pad of my thumb today. I was surprised at how much a small wound like that could bleed. As I was trying to run the wound under some water and open a Band-Aid with my other hand and teeth I wished that someone would invent a Band-Aid that you could easily open and apply with one hand.

I have been doing an amazing job lately of making lots of plans while performing no actual work on my miniatures. At least before I had the excuse that I didn't want to work on my Skaven until I had all of the parts for my last Jezzail Team. Well, the parts have been here for a week and I have done absolutely nothing with them except put a couple bitz on my desk and put the box with the rest of the parts in a precarious position on top of my parts cabinet. Oh, and sometimes when I'm in that corner of the house lighting the pellet stove I blow the dust off of the Pirates and Skaven sitting on my desk.

Today I went to Hobbytown and priced out every item I'll need for the 3000-point incarnations of my Skaven and my Orcs and Goblins. Then I came home and made my purchasing plan based on our current spending money schedule. According to the schedule, which will be out of date by next week, I'll finish buying Skaven sometime near the end of March and the Orcs and Goblins will hopefully be purchased and painted by the end of the year. Of course, with all the variables (i.e. me not painting anything for months at a time) it could be 2009 before either army is finished. But at least I have a plan all written out on a piece of paper that I can put in a sheet protector in my binder.

In all of the time I've spent waffling about the Warp-Lightning Cannon and Jezzail team I could have painted them, a unit of Clanrat slaves, and probably made a lot of progress on the Giant. I realize this, but it doesn't bring me any closer to actually doing it. Sort of like the realization that in all of the time I waste on the internet every day, I could clean the house and shed out, sell my comics and use the money to buy a rifle I've been wanting for a couple of years, rearrange the furniture, and start a workout program to reach my goal of a 300 score on an Army PT test.

I think the reason I'm posting this is because in the past my blog has motivated me to do the things I post about. I suppose I feel accountable to make actual progress in my life so I can write about it here. Tomorrow I'm going to make some sort of progress on the Warp-Lightning Cannon crew and the Jezzail team. And I'll post about it here after work. It would be nice to have my army ready for a game when someone on the Boisewarhammer Yahoo! Group gets around to challenging me. I should probably also have one or two reads through the rulebook, as a lot of it is still pretty fuzzy to me.

To recap, my mini-goal for tomorrow is to do some sort of work on my cannon crew and Jezzail team and then post about it here.

George Strait Concert

My dad and I went to the George Strait concert tonight. We weren't sure if we'd be able to get two seats together, as our tickets were for seats across the arena from each other. After looking around for a while we were able to find some seats with a good view of the stage and the big video screens.

The opening act was Taylor Swift. She appears to be some sort of pop-country artist who's got a hit on the charts at the moment. She was okay. The next act was Ronnie Milsap, who my dad says was big back in the day. He had some pretty good songs.

George Strait sang a lot of songs and put on a nice show. He had a good mix of his older hits and his new stuff. He played a lot of songs that I've heard on the radio at work but didn't know they were his songs. One of the best songs he did was a cover of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues." I had a good time and there was plenty of good music. And there wasn't a line for the upstairs bathroom, so that was nice. I probably should have brought my camera, but who really needs fuzzy pictures of a guy in a cowboy hat 200 feet away? It's not like I was close enough to get his flop sweat on me or something. It was a good time.

I was supposed to go to bed half an hour ago, but I haven't quite got around to it yet. I think it's because I actually worked my eight hours at work and came home a little later than I'm used to. It's good because it means more money in the bank, but it sort of throws my schedule off.

I think I am dying of some sort of bronchitis. I had a sore throat for several days last week and it transformed into an awful dry cough that I can't control. It sort of reminds me of the bronchitis I had for something like half of eighth grade. I laid on the couch and coughed for like six months. I hope I don't have to go through that again.

I redid my Orcs and Goblins army list before work. I couldn't find the previous list, although in retrospect I realized that it's here on my blog somewhere. But it was nice to start fresh. I did a 1000-point list, a 2000-point list, a 2250-point list, and a 3000-point list. I sort of imagine the lists following the career of an Orc Warboss during his rise from a tribal chieftain to the leader of a large Waaaggghhhh! I ditched the Savage Orcs completely, and tonight when I priced out the list it came to about $100 less than the previous list, even though there are a lot more miniatures in this army. I think it's cheaper because I've got so many plastic regiment boxes in this army as opposed to all of the metal miniatures in the other one.

I've been going over the list in my head and comparing it to my Skaven lists at the various point levels. I'm having a hard time deciding if the Skaven would have a chance against the Orcs and Goblins. As far as I can tell the Orcs and Goblins would overwhelm the Skaven with sheer power. I don't think my Skaven army list has enough numbers to be the horde army it's designed to be. The deciding factor would probably be the various war machines (Warp-Lightning Cannon), weapon teams (Jezzail teams, Ratling Gun, Warpfire Thrower), and specialized troops (Poisoned Wind Globadiers, Plague Censer Bearers) in the Skaven army.

I had a bit of a World of Warcraft burnout today and didn't really feel like playing at all. I think it has to do with the fact that it's the part of the week during which my wife and I work opposite schedules and don't ever see each other. I was having a good time and leveling pretty fast when we played together this past weekend, but playing alone seems to go very slowly. I'm also to the point where it's about time to transition to the next area, but I still have a lot of quests in Hellfire Peninsula. Anyway, I didn't feel like playing World of Warcraft today.

Instead, I reworked my Skaven army list and wrote it all up the way I've been meaning to for the last little while, implementing all of the changes that I've been thinking about. Not a lot changes in the list, but I'll end up having to paint two or three extra models for the 2000-point list. I also made lists of miniatures I still have to purchase for the army and miniatures I still need to assemble/paint for the army. And I even stuck all of these lists in sheet protectors in my binder. It helps that my package from Games Workshop arrived today, containing the Jezzail shield and cavalry base I needed as well as some Plague Monks and Censer Bearers I need for the 3000-point list. With all of the parts here, I should have a little more motivation to push through and finish this up. One of the guys in the Boisewarhammer Yahoo! Group said he's giving me another week or two before he issues a challenge to my army. We'll see if I'm ready by then. I don't plan on playing unless every model in my army is painted.

I'll probably rework my Orcs and Goblins list tonight after work. It needs some help, and I'm still trying to decide if I want to go with the Savage Orcs theme or stick to regular Orcs.

I'm pretty excited for the George Strait concert coming up this Friday. It should be good. I'm still not sure if my mom or my dad is going to go with me. I tried calling them today, but the phone was busy.

And my wife told me that for Valentine's Day she's taking me to see WWE: Raw when it comes to Boise in February. I'm not way into wrestling and I don't watch it every week or anything, but we've gone to the last couple of WWE events in Boise and it's always extremely entertaining. Last time the WWE was in town we took my sister and brother-in-law. They weren't sure if they would like it, but they had a great time. If you get into the show with all of the rivalries and good guy/bad guy moments, it's a fun thing to go to.

Yesterday my dad asked me why I don't post anymore. I blame World of Warcraft. Blizzard recently released an expansion called The Burning Crusade, which raises the level cap to 70 and opens up a new continent to play on. But before I could do much in Outland, I had to finish grinding Timbermaw Reputation to get my Defender of the Timbermaw trinket. The trinket is totally not worth all of the effort you have to put in to get it except that it's such a long process that I haven't seen a whole lot of people who have them.

Once I got my trinket my wife and I started questing in Hellfire Peninsula on the new continent. It's a huge area with a lot of quests. There is a lot of money to be made there, so I should have my Epic Mount (finally) pretty soon. One disappointment for me is that the Uncommon (green) items you get from quests are often better than the Rare or Epic items you slaved to get before the expansion. I spent 500 gold on a Core Marksman Rifle and by level 62 I've already replaced it with a crossbow I got for killing a few big rock giants. Oh well. Overall it's pretty fun.

My Skaven army has been on hold mostly because I've been playing World of Warcraft, but partly because I'm missing a couple of parts for my last Jezzail team. I finally ordered the parts, as well as a few pieces I need for the 3000-point version of my army, so maybe once they get here I'll rediscover my motivation.

Luckily I will be able to take pictures, as my camera was nearly destroyed by my thieving dog. I found it out in the yard yesteday, covered with mud. Aside from the rubber USB covers missing, a problem with the lens cover that I was able to fix, a chewed-up USB cable, and a missing lanyard, the camera is still in fairly good condition. Our Basset Hound is the sneakiest dog I've ever seen. Every time we go out in the backyard we find socks, pens, remotes, sandals, batteries, and all manner of other junk that he spirits away without our knowledge. Last week he even stole my wallet and scattered cash, cards, and account numbers all over the yard.

I really should start work on my Warhammer Giant, but I probably won't for a while yet. He's probably the biggest project I have to do to get the Skaven up to 3000 points. Most of the other additions to the army are one-off characters or small units of specialist troops. I am somewhat worried that since I am not adding many big infantry units to the army, it will lose some of its "horde" feel, but I think the Giant, the bulked-up Plague Monk unit with Censer Bearers detachment, a Plague Priest, a Grey Seer, and 3 more Rat Ogres will be enough to intimidate the enemy. I am adding another unit of slaves as well, so that will fill out the numbers a little. I think once all of that is done I'll definitely be ready for a change from painting brown fur.

The Pirate Tavern project is on hold at the moment. I still have not picked up any sand or any washers to base the remainder of my miniatures on. I also have not acquired any new minis to fill out the roster I have in mind.

I did some work on my Warp-Lightning Cannon today. It's pretty much done, so now all I have to do is paint and attach the the crew and get the base all sorted out.

In World of Warcraft I finally got to Honored status with the Timbermaw tribe. I only have to kill like 5600 more furbolgs and then I'll have the Epic trinket I want. Hopefully by the time I do that I'll have enough gold to buy an Epic mount as well. Then I'll just have to grind PvP for three years and grind to level 70 to have all of the gear I want.

I've been planning on posting for a while now, but I always find something else to do before I get around to it.

We had our PT test today. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but at least I passed. I'm pretty sure that the two mile run was a little more than two miles. There were a lot of people who didn't pass the run portion, and my time was something like 16:05, when I've never run two miles slower than 13:36 or something like that. I started getting suspicious when we got to the halfway point and the timer there was calling out that 8 1/2 minutes had gone by. I think they just took someone's truck out and drove until the trip meter clicked over to one mile and called that the halfway point, and I'm pretty sure that person's trip meter was a little bit off. Hopefully next time we do the PT test on a track.

I haven't taken a lot of time to work on miniatures lately. I blocked out the main color on the Warp-Lightning Cannon, but it's been sitting untouched for several days now. Last night I was looking at it from a few feet away, and I could probably get by with slapping a couple of ink washes on it and painting up the crew really fast. But I think I'd like to put a little more time than that into it. To work on it I'll need a pretty solid chunk of time during which I can put my full attention on it. I don't think I'll finish it otherwise. I also edited my Skaven army list a little bit. I did a lot of experimental changes, but nothing really good came out of it, so the only actual changes I made were to cut out the Stormvermin's shields and add two more Poisoned Wind Globadiers.

I also came up with the extra list to bring the army to 3000 points. I beefed up my Plague Monk unit by quite a bit, adding four models as well as a Plague Priest with Flail and Liber Bubonicus. I also added a unit of Plague Censer Bearers, another Poisoned Wind Globadier, 3 more Rat Ogres, a Grey Seer, one more Night Runner, and 2 more Jezzail Teams. This is in addition to the Giant and 20 Clanrat Slaves that I added to make the army 2250 points. My only worry with this list is that for a horde army there aren't a whole lot of models in this 1000 points. But I think that my opponent will have enough worries when I roll out 5 total Rat Ogres, a Giant, and more magic than you can shake a stick at. If I ever go absolutely hog-wild and add another 1000 points to the list, I'll probably add a bunch of Clanrats and Slaves bolstered by some of the cheaper Heroes.

I toyed around a little with the idea of cutting the Savage orcs out of my Orcs and Goblins army and using regular Orc models instead. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, the plastic regular Orcs are a lot cheaper. Two, they are more poseable. I think the Savage Orcs only come in four different poses. The plastic Orcs can be posed however you want. It's still up in the air, but switching to the regular Orcs would change my list a lot, as I would probably switch all of the Savage Orc characters, the regular Savage Orcs, and the Savage orc Boar Boyz to regular Orcs, and that would open up a lot of points to spend on something else as well as change the entire look of the army. I like the stone weapons and animal furs look a lot better than the heavily armored green guys look.

The thing that has been taking up huge amounts of my time lately is World of Warcraft. I've been trying to decide what to do with my character. So far I've come up with a few items and skills that I want for him and I've been grinding for those almost nonstop. There is a tribe of bear-looking things called the Timbermaw. If you kill enough of their enemies you can get a trinket that summons a Timbermaw to fight for you. Unfortunately, you have to kill about 3 million of the enemies to get the item. I've also been working on my fishing skill in the hopes of winning the weekly fishing contest, as well as because it's the only skill I don't have maxed out. And, now that they've released the preview of some of the level 70 PvP gear on the World of Warcraft website I'll probably go back to grinding for PvP armor once I get the trinkets and whatnot that I want. And the expansion is something like ten days away now, at which point I will have to start grinding to get my Hunter to level 70. I also may start a Dranei Priest. I'm not sure. Just in case, I flew around the game world today and bought every vendor-available Jewelcrafting recipe, so I wouldn't have to wait in line to buy them when the expansion hits. I'll just be able to mail them to my Priest when the time comes to start it.

I wrote a huge list of things I want to do this year. So far I haven't really done much of anything, though. I guess that's sort of par for the course when it comes to New Year's resolutions.