Happy Birthday Mike and some stuff I won.

As you may have heard, Mike from Trouble at T'Mill just had his 50th birthday. (Congrats Mike) Being the generous soul that he is, he has decided to go ahead and do yet another giveaway. I wish I played Bolt Action so that I'd be eligible for that, but I am intrigued by Too Fat Lardies rules and would love a chance to win some.

So go enter the prize draw here.

And just to prove what a generous guy Mike is, here is what I won from him in his previous giveaway.

Some very cool Conquest Normans and a book set in the battle between Maude and Stephen to succeed King Henry. Sounds like there might be some good scenarios in there.

Welcome to Kev from Kev's Wargame Cabin not only a great painter but one of the gents behind Bloggers for Charity. Definitely follow these two blogs if you don't already.

I fear I am suffering from blog post build up, or blue blog if you will, so I will try to load some stuff in the schedule post thing. It's just my ADD as I buy more stuff and start new projects, forgetting to show you something else that I was think of the other day. Well you know how it is.

On a personal note, I've signed myself up for another 90 Day challenge at the gym. The goal is the same, get down to 10% body fat. I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but I tried to do it last spring and somehow strained my abdominal muscles so bad I could hardly walk and had to be on restricted exercise for over two months. Fingers crossed I can get it. My runs are going along better than I'd hoped, 7'30" avg pace/mile for a 3 mile run, and I'm at about 15% body fat right now. The trick is eating right to get enough calories to be able to exercise while still losing fat. I tend to go anaerobic a lot and just burn carbohydrate.

Big Lee's 1 millionth hit prize draw.

Shameless bid to gain five more entries into Big Lee's giveaway. You can find it here. Don't dally like I have, you have until Monday to enter.

I've been feeling a little run down after the big vacation. I found the spot on my ribs that I was denying is cracked. I don't have picto-graphic evidence but it hurts like hell if I press on it just right. So denial was not the cure all I had hoped it would be.

I'll share some pictures of San Diego and the Safari Park in a day or so, I only took about 1000. Lots of stuff from the Air & Space Museum and the Aircraft Carrier Midway. We also were stalked by a pair of Tigers.

I also hope to bring you an outline of my ancestors who fought in the Civil War. I'm sure I mentioned it before but Gettysburg sparked my interest again and I found a book devoted to the regiment my Great great grandfather was in. Also confirmed that elements of my grandfather's story is true, just not the specifics of time and place.

I've also been reading, albeit slowly, And a Bottle of Rum. In a bit of synchronicity my son is doing a summer camp about Pirates so my Pirate will be Jack Rancid, Captain of the Calico. If he becomes a pirate I'm thinking he will be Throat Beard the Pirate.

I'll finish up with  few milestones. I am now over 70K views and June was my highest viewed month ever with 11,679 hits. I am over 200 posts and have finally broken the 100 follower barrier. Now that I have achieved some of these targets I am going to focus more on comments and conversation as that is more appealing to me.

Welcome to new followers:

Don Hans of Realm of Citadel a fine painter and Oldhammer adherent. Check out his Thugs and Nurgle warband. And while you're at it give him a few more followers. You won't be disappointed.

Warlord Paul of The Black Hole great looking terrain and figures. It looks like many of the heavy hitters already follow WP. Be cool like us and follow him too.

I have actually primed a few fantasy adventurers and am trying just gluing them to the washer and will base goop after painting. The theory is it will get them painted faster. Already had one incident with the troll. I knocked him off his washer and so had to handle him to paint him. I ended up peeling off some primer with my fingers, so he looks like he has a skin condition on his hand. I'm going to try and make it work. I'm thinking an Orky green palette with maybe some grayish highlights.

I've rambled enough for now. Have a good one.

Keep Your Pimp Hand Strong

From www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

A few more giveaways to pimp.

Trouble at T'Mill is giving away £25 worth of Two Fat Lardies games here. I'm hoping to win this one as I'm intrigued by TFL but haven't pulled the trigger and ordered any of their rules. Still too many unread rule sets I guess.

Also James over at Exiles Wargames Painters is having a cool giveaway to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of his blog. You get extra entries for promoting and more still for writing a limerick, my favorite. You can find it here.

I would add more but the internet is wonky and the air is filled with onion and making my eyes water.

Games played, Comics read, giveaways entered.

Hi All,

Still on vacation, and as usual not really finding the time to get to all the things that I packed for down time during the trip.

We just finished our second game of Conan Munchkin in as many days. My daughter won yesterday with an actual strategy and some fairly cunning play. It makes a barbarian father proud. My son won today, and although my wife helps him make most of his decisions, he had a pretty good end game for the win. My wife threatened me with the sofa after I played a Level 19 wandering monster on her to stop her from reaching level 9. She ended up having to run away and died in the attempt.

I purchased a couple of graphic novels yesterday. The first was King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword

From www.comicastle.com

Good quick read, great art. I think you can't go wrong with any of the Timothy Truman Conan comics.

Next was the Walking Dead Vol 1.

From darkfaerietales.com

I am an avid follower of the television series and considered buying the compendium, but didn't want to carry the phone book sized thing in my luggage. So I've gone with the trade paper graphic novel. Even if you know the story from the show the book is different enough to keep it interesting. This book was like potato chips, I devoured it and wanted another immediately. Although it has a lot of swear words my 7 year old was very engaged by it and even picked it up and read some on his own. I'll take it because he is not a very strong reader and avoids reading at all costs. If he has to be exposed to a few "sentence enhancers" along the way, that's a price I'm willing to pay. He hears that and worse from his old man anyway, so who am I kidding.

Now onto pimpin' the giveaways.

I got over my self pity and threw my name in for the Darksword miniatures over at Wargames and Railroads here.

I then also jumped in on the 100K views giveaway happening over at Trouble at T'Mill, you can see the prizes for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Good luck to everyone entered.

Final days to get in on the Modular Gaming Table

Dreamfish, from over at Realms of Miniatures is winding down his Indiegogo for his Modular Gaming Table here.

Same picture borrowed from Realms of Miniatures

Also welcome to new followers:

Eldorf.Dragonsbane: Your friend connect does not list any blogs you write but your avatar looks similar to Doug, whose two blogs I just followed. If it is you I'll link to your blogs, if not let me know if you have a blog and I'll link to it.

Asslessman is the author of Leadplague a talented painter and devotee of Oldhammer (aka WFB 3rd edition). I'm not sure why I'm not showing up on you google friend bar, I'll go ahead and fix that.

Pimping Tamsin's giveaway and the rules of Buffet Line.

Hi All,

  Just pimping Tamsin's giveaway to shamelessly earn more chances to win. You can try for the dual giveaway of purchases from GZG and/ or Baccus here and the box of Warlord Games 28mm Brits here.

While we were in Vegas I had to educate my son about Buffet lines.

What is the first rule of Buffet line?

Don't touch anything with your hands!

What is the second rule of Buffet line?

Don't eat stuff until you get back to your table!

He didn't get the fight club reference. But we actually did see a sign discouraging people from just standing in front of the crab and eating it from the service line.

Pimping some giveaways

Hi All,

Just pimping some more giveaways.

Back to the minis has. Blood Bowl Figs, Foundry Painting and Modelling Guide, GZG NAC starter Fleet, and now Two books. Good stuff. Put your name in the hat and boost his page views.

Also check out Hive Zero and his Epic Giveaway. Even if you don't want Epic space marines give him a bit of encouragement. There's nothing worse than having a giveaway that no one enters. Come on it's free stuff.

Welcome to John Yorio. You also don't have your blog listed in your links, but I know it is Table Top Diversions, a very nice solo, rpg and eclectic miniatures games blog.

And now, just to increase hits on this post and thereby hopefully drive traffic to the aforementioned giveaways lets talk about our favorite ladies dressed up as Princess Leia in the Jabba slave outfit.Shall we?

First off the original, Carrie Fisher.

Hard to beat the original.

 Next, Adrienne Curry.

 I had no idea who she was.

Then Jennifer Aniston as Rachel from friends.

This one made an impression on me because of the comedy of her fulfilling Ross's geek fantasy. Admit it, it's yours as well.

And last but not least Olivia Munn. I do know who she is and I'd have to say she is my favorite.

And then for comic relief, an impromptu Jabba's lair scene.

From  college humor