RPM TANKIETKA TKS - Beginnings of a Kit Review

Okay, let me admit to indulging in one of the nerdiest of hobbies. Yes, building plastic model kits. My little post ages ago of a picture of "Takeshi and Ichizo" in a Japanese military car was no accident. I got it from a modelling magazine.

Anyway, to your left is my somewhat blurry pic of the contents of the RPM 1/35 scale Polish Tankietka TKS.

I'm going to be doing a review of this kit. Now this will be a somewhat unusual review, because I'm just not that good at building model kits -- I'm lazy. It's more fun that way. If you look at most kit reviews you will find the builder is very adept with airbrushes and aftermarket parts and expensive resin or aluminum add-ons, but I just build out of the box and use the same techniques -- more or less -- as when I was a child. I've tried an airbrush, for example, and I just found it a nuisance. I paint with regular brushes.

THROWING MY HAT OVER THE WALL...

Okay, this is it. I've decided I'm going to blog now at least twice a week. And I am asking all of YOU out there to scoff, ridicule, and mock me mercilessly if I do not keep to this promise. The fact is, I've got things to say. But I always end up jotting them down on bits of paper or in my Byzantine, Kafkaesque file and folder system on my computer notebook, and very few of these writings see the light of day. Enough! Ya Basta!

QUOTE OF THE DAY -- WILLEM DE KOONING

"The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time."

Willem de Kooning

"The trouble with being rich is that it takes up everyone else's," adds Terence Davies (and I don't think he's quoting anyone here) in the film, Of Time and the City.

WHERE THE GIRLS ARE:URBAN LESBIAN EROTICA -- CHAT

Drop by for a Where the Girls Are chat as part of Pride Month on Tuesday, June 29. This will be at Beth Wylde's yahoo group.

Come and chat with editor D.L. King and the writers from the Where the Girls Are anthology!

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work."

Gustave Flaubert

A RAMBLE ON RHETORIC

Many controversies are billed by respectable opinion as very complex, hard to understand and cast in "shades of grey." The same worthies often call for a repudiation of "partisanship" in favour of "moderation" and "respectful dialogue." This all has the air of something only an ass would question. But it is often a cloak for hypocrisy the so-called moderate may or may not be aware of.

It is a good idea in such situations to ask yourself whose story is not being told from her own point of view, who it is who is not being heard from. Finding this story, in fact, just trying to find this story will often tear the mask off the smooth-faced "moderates" to show a face contorted by visciousness or ignorance.

Why, after all, do some people scream in such an ugly manner? It is often because they have already tried the measured tones the moderates affect to admire, and have not been listened to by them.

And what if, for example, a "moderate" parks a tank on somebody's foot and affects astonishment and dismay when the victim shouts and curses? Is it not obscene for our smooth-faced gentleman to prattle on at this point about "moderate dialogue" or the conducting of discussions "in a tone of mutual respect"?

AND AGAIN I POST RAQUEL FROM NAKED GUN 33 1/3...

. . . for the simple reason that she's just so darned gorgeous -- especially in what must be the sexiest dress of all time.