Odds and Ends

Looks like I'll have a full menu of modeling and painting this weekend...

Ravening boxed set, command squad, and a pack of meltaguns.  Not pictured, the pack of storm shields I ordered.  Big pimpin' two wheeled command squad incoming.  

Before I put these together, though, I'll be painting my last two Reaper Bolt Throwers for my Dark Elves.  They are primed and sitting on my painting table.  I'll do a step by step pictorial on those for your viewing pleasure.

Now that the hobby crap is out of the way, I'd like to take the opportunity to criticize well liked people in the GW blogging community.

Stelek comments, quite rightly that 5 rounds of play is tough in a single day, but isn't too tough to ask when you're competing for a nice cash prize.  But I do have a bone to pick about the harshness of waking up at 7:30 to play.  Boo hoo!  I wake up at 6 A.M. everyday for work, and even earlier on the weekend for cycling training.  I don't think people who are out of college and living (ostensibly) in the real world should have any problems with being up and functioning at 7:30A.M.

This is a good tactical article.  This is not.  I love Fritz and I respect the work he has done for the 40k blogging community, but sometimes I feel like BoLS will publish some "tactics and strategy" articles that are basically filler.  I don't know what kind of pressure Fritz is under from Bigred to pump out articles regularly, but I think Spacecurves set the bar high enough that I'd rather reduce the posting schedule and put out more quality stuff than the current system.

In a non-wargaming note, it used to be that money could buy you the legal system through hiring a high priced defense lawyer and expert witnesses.  Now- apparently- money gets you off without even having to spend it.  Just BEING rich is now a defense in court cases.  If you are not familiar with this story, let me recap it for you.  

An ultra-rich hedge fund manager was driving down the road in his Mercedez, when he inexplicably veered into the bike land and hit a cyclist from behind causing life threatening injury.  Rather than stopping and calling 911 to get the cyclist emergency medical attention, Mr. Hedge Fund decided to just continue driving, probably to avoid having to take a DUI test would be my guess.  So he left the cyclist for dead on the side of the road.  The crime itself is heinous enough, smashing a 2500lbs vehicle into a defenseless person and fleeing the scene is absolutely awful.  But to have the temerity to argue that he should be let off with a slap on the wrist because a felony charge would "jeopardize his job" is the most egregious miscarriage of justice imaginable.   OFCOURSE IT SHOULD JEOPARDIZE YOUR JOB!  If I got found guilty of selling cocaine, the law firm I work for could, and should, fire me and I should lose my license to practice.  When you commit a fucking crime, you should pay the fucking price, even if that means you lose your fucking job.  

I don't blame the defense attorney for doing his job, but the prosecutor should be fired.  The guy's entire job is to see that justice is administered in the best interest of the citizens of the State of Colorado.  Unless you can possibly argue that the average citizen is better off with this maniac getting a slap on the wrist, this is gross incompetence.  Or maybe the State could just admit that it is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ultra-rich.  John Edwards (the disgraced political candidate, not the disgraceful psychic who takes advantage of old women) was right when he said that there are two Americas: there is the America that 99% of us live in, and then there is the America that the nation's multi-millionaires and billionaires live in which is essentially a consequence free paradise.