I saw it in the theaters and I liked it there.
So I bought the DVD and I still like it.
It's a good movie.
Craig is a good Bond.
Neither of his two entries have been perfect.
But they've been good and I liked them
Which is more than I can say for the last three of Brosnan's* films.
Still though,
Quantum of Solace is still a pretty stupid name if you don't explain it.
You know, like they do in the story.
*Why, oh why oh WHY? Brosnan was a GOOD BOND! He played the part well! He was probably closer to the character as he's presented in the books than any other actor, why was he given such shitty movies to be in?
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
New Swords, Part One
I didn't get as many good shots of the new swords as I would have liked, so I took some more and we'll see of these aren't a little better. I'm going to start with the katana, but if you'll forgive me I am going to forgo the Japanese terms in favor of using English because I want people who don't know the terms to be able to follow along without having to run to google every three words.
Sword in scabbard on stand.
Basic. Actually I've deliberately set it up sort of backwards, the other side of the stand has the company name and logo on it and who wants to see that?
The scabbard is wood, covered in gold paint and then lacquered.
These little gold flowers have also been placed on the scabbard before the clear layer was laid down, adds something I think.
For such a nice looking sword, I'm a little surprised at what I think is a nylon wrapping. I would have thought you'd use cotton, but they didn't. It still looks nice though.
The two sides of the handle with the furniture featured. Oddly, these are in reverse of where they'd normally be. Instead of resting your finger tips on them (if you're right handed) they sit against the inside of your knuckles.
See, that one on the bottom there would normally be up at the top. This isn’t necessarily an error though. At one time the fashion was for the bits to be placed like that, then they swapped them.
They look nice though.
Pommel cap. It's a bit loose but not a problem.
Side view of it. You can see where there was a bit of flash on the casting of the accent pieces, a bit of work with a file could solve that though.
The hand guard is nice, sort of antiqued looking.
Mirror imaged on both sides.
The steel has been folded several times to create this layered effect.
I'll try to post some better pictures of the layering later.
And I'm just throwing this in for flash.
Sword in scabbard on stand.
Basic. Actually I've deliberately set it up sort of backwards, the other side of the stand has the company name and logo on it and who wants to see that?
The scabbard is wood, covered in gold paint and then lacquered.
These little gold flowers have also been placed on the scabbard before the clear layer was laid down, adds something I think.
For such a nice looking sword, I'm a little surprised at what I think is a nylon wrapping. I would have thought you'd use cotton, but they didn't. It still looks nice though.
The two sides of the handle with the furniture featured. Oddly, these are in reverse of where they'd normally be. Instead of resting your finger tips on them (if you're right handed) they sit against the inside of your knuckles.
See, that one on the bottom there would normally be up at the top. This isn’t necessarily an error though. At one time the fashion was for the bits to be placed like that, then they swapped them.
They look nice though.
Pommel cap. It's a bit loose but not a problem.
Side view of it. You can see where there was a bit of flash on the casting of the accent pieces, a bit of work with a file could solve that though.
The hand guard is nice, sort of antiqued looking.
Mirror imaged on both sides.
The steel has been folded several times to create this layered effect.
I'll try to post some better pictures of the layering later.
And I'm just throwing this in for flash.
Eventually, someone will care.
“What appears to be mere curiosity in one age, may be useful in the next. Eventually, someone will care.”
Benjamin Stillingfleet
Liberty's Child (Day One)
Liberty’s Child
A Jack Collier Mystery
By Brett N. Lashuay
Day One: June 20th
I must say, I wasn’t happy to be in Marrakech. I’m not fond of North Africa as a general rule actually. It’s hot, it’s dusty, and if Henry had been able to speak Hovitos I wouldn’t even need to be here. Tracking a man selling stolen treasures from South America in places like this isn’t exactly easy. I knew this was the only place he could sell it though, even though it took me a while to get here. Still, I was here and that was enough I suppose, but it didn’t help with my annoyance. I mean, I’d managed to bring my piece home, why couldn’t he? No, I’ve got to go traipsing across the world looking for his damn rival.
The problem isn’t finding a shady bastard, the problem is finding the one who stole for profit the thing that you’d rightful swiped for a museum acquisition. If all I wanted to do was beat up thieves who were selling things they shouldn’t be selling, I could just start punching people in the street at random. About the only thing you’d have to do is avoid the natives, they’re probably just people going about their business. Any visitor is probably a thief, a fence or a thug who works for one of the other two.
This gave me some trouble for the first few days, but I spotted my target with a bit of luck and discovered where he was staying. All of which led me up to the spot I was in now, standing next to a door so that when he walked in I could nail him. The heat of the place was getting to me, but I had to wait until he returned from his showings for the day because this had to be done in private.
The room in the old town was small, consisting of a small wooden table and chair and a single bed. The blinds on the window had been pulled, but the job had been incomplete and blades of light were falling on me as I leaned against the wall and waited for him to come back. An overhead fan spun listlessly over head, failing to cool the room by even a degree. If anything, the fan was helping heat the room by pushing the hot air down to where I was, making sure I didn’t have a moment to cool down.
I’d been waiting here for nearly an hour when I finally heard a key hit the lock on the room’s single door. I tensed myself up, letting my muscles bunch and tighten. The door swung open and the Frenchman walked into the room. I put my right hand on the door and pushed it closed. His head turned to his right from the sound, which was a mistake because I was coming for his left. I punched him in the left kidney and as he started to shout I got around him and hit him with my right fist across his jaw. He dropped the bag he was carrying and fell to the ground. I gave him a quick kick in the stomach to keep him on the floor and then decided to give him another kick in the face, just so I could say that all four limbs were in on it.
I reached down to the floor and grabbed the bag, taking it the two steps to the small table to check it. It had been wrapped up in a bath towel that had itself been stolen from a Holiday Inn. He’d covered the statute in black enamel paint, to hide the fact that he was carrying a golden idol. I reached into my front pants pocket and grabbed the balisong I’d bought. I couldn’t go around with a gun, because I didn’t need that kind of hassle here, but I needed a weapon. Fortunately there was a kid selling these cheap knives in the street for three dollars each. If I buried the knife in the sand for a thousand years it might become priceless, but I doubt it. The movement on it was actually pretty good as I did the trick of opening it one handed that Tracey had taught me so many years ago.
My eyes flipped back to the French archeologist who was just starting to try and sit up. I turned the statue over, and found it was mostly hollow, which would explain why Henry was so bad as guessing its weight. The inside had even been covered with the black enamel, but it was a fairly simple job to scratch along an edge and show the gold underneath. I wrapped the statue back up, secure in the knowledge that I had the real thing and wouldn’t have to come back later. I turned to look at the man who was on the floor looking up at me, the blades of sunlight slashing bright strands across his face.
“You don’t come looking for this again, do you?” I flipped the knife closed again.
“No,” he said shaking his head.
“Good,” I nodded and tossed the re-wrapped parcel into the bag. “Then I won’t have to cut you to ribbons.”
I turned away from him, opened the door and walked out. I was ready for him to come down the stairs and cause trouble, but evidently he wasn’t. I got out into the street, still expecting him to do something, but I melted into the crowd without a single utterance. I wasn’t in the clear of course, because it was very likely that the people he was in talks with to sell the silly thing to would still want it, but I was nearly there.
I felt like I was being watched the whole time, but I resisted the urge to glance around me every ten seconds or to sweat more profusely than I already was. The heat was bothering me, even though it would actually be worse at home because without the humidity you barely got a chance to notice the sweat before it was gone.
It took me half an hour to get to the new city, another twenty minutes to get to the courier’s office. Sal never had a store front in any of the cities where he kept offices, which sometimes seemed like every city in the world that could cope with having air conditioning and modern offices. He always had a small office in some modern building that had sprung up in the last five years or so. I have no idea how many offices he has, beyond the ones I’ve been in, but there are a lot of things I don’t know about Sal. Still, the firm of Sal Melina, Private Shipments has never let me down yet. When it comes down to it, Sal could have his office in a horse stable, dress like the a clown or scream state names along with their capitals every two minutes and I’d still leave my packages with him. The simple fact was that if you left something with Sal, it got where it was going.
Walking into the office building was heavenly, the initial blast of cold air was enough to raise goose bumps on my skin, but after that it was cool, clean air. Suddenly, I wasn’t in North Africa anymore, I was simply in the business world. There were men and women in suits, discussing business affairs, worrying about how much money they were making. I went to the building’s registration, found the floor and walked to the elevator.
There was a good looking young woman sitting at the single desk, her dark hair twisted into an attractive braid, as it always had been. That was the nice thing about coming to Sal, everything about his office was reliable, right down to Anja. She stood and smiled at me as I came in and set the duffle bag down on her desk.
“Hi Jack,” she said with a smile.
“Hello Anja,” I said putting my hand on her left hip and sliding it round the small of her back to give her a hug.
“Is it going to Troy?” she asked as we parted.
“No,” I said shaking my head. “The University.”
“Can’t Henry manage to get anything home on his own?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, “Maybe he’ll start reclaiming things on his own. Also, if the French Secret Service comes around, which they won’t, we know nothing about this right?”
“Of course not,” she smiled.
I smiled back, and there was a lot that could have been said in those smiles. Of course if either of us was going to say those things, we would have said them by now. We would have said them in Paris or Bangladesh, or any of the other places where she’s been when I needed a courier. It might seem odd that the same woman, desk and chair is always here when I give Sal enough time, but then Sal is an odd guy. It suddenly occurred to me that he could be right there in the second office.
“Is the boss here?” I asked Anja.
“Do you need him?” she asked, skillfully not answering my question in any way.
“No,” I shook my head, “Not really.”
I reached into my pockets and my finger touched the closed knife. I took it out and held it out to Anja, who took it and looked at it. She raised her dark eyes up to me and raised her left eyebrow, which is a trick I just can’t do. She held it up to show it to me and then spoke the question in her eyes.
“Should I send this with it?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said nodding. “It’s going to be on his expenses anyway.”
“Okay then,” she said and smiled. “See you next time Jack.”
“See you next time,” I agreed as I walked through the office door and headed out into the North African heat.
Another two days and I’d be in Casablanca, and from there I’d get a flight to Detroit Metro. Sunday night, I would be sleeping in my own bed and Monday morning I would walk into the office. I wondered if Debbie would be there, or if I should call ahead. Part of me was sure she was in the office waiting for me to arrive and part of me thought that she was just hanging out with friends or going to the beach or something. I decided to surprise her, see if she was going to the office without having to. I left the modern office building, back into the dusty and hot streets of Marrakech. Soon I would be back at home, and then I could start to finally work out what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life.
This is part one of twenty-three, come back next week for part two and every Thursday until we're done to see what happens next. If you get lost, one of the tags here should help you. The Wonderland tag will take you to the story while the Jack Tag will take you to Part One of every story we post here.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
La Baginski El Graboini*
*Yeah, okay, I can’t really speak Dutch
Grab bags are a gamble, but usually one that pats off enough for you to want to play again. Does anyone remember my adventure with the Archie McFee surprise bag? You should, some of you now have the stuff featured in those photos.
Now I’ve learned a little about how these things tend to work recently. You tend to get three kinds of items in a grab bag. Overstocked items that aren’t shifting fast enough, discontinued items that are just lying around taking up space, and samples from manufactures that can’t really be sold as normal products. From what I’ve learned they tend not to be big profit items, if you get a $50 grab bag, then it probably cost them close to $50 to fill it. However, and this is the important part, if you check the list price you can often find you’ve got anywhere between two and five times the value of the amount you paid. A $50 dollar grab bag can get you $150 worth of stuff (by the prices listed in the catalogue) so it usually comes off feeling like a good deal. It works for the shop, because they get rid of unmoving stock, make a sale, and the customer usually feels fairly warmly toward the shop.
The only real peril in buying a grab bag is that you never know if what you’re going to get in the package. No choice means it could be a lot of junk, or just stuff you plain aren’t interested in. However, as people learned to their possible chagrin, I have ways of dealing with that. I keep a drawer O’ fun and the things I don’t want go in the drawer for later distribution. Actually the drawer is the third stop. Syd and Hol get pick over stuff I’m not interested in before the drawer gets it.
So what I'm leading up to is another set of photos! Today's box O' fun comes from Swords Of Might and I got the $100 option.
SO I start with the box. It’s about 4 foot tall.
36.7 lbs
So what happens when we open the box?
Now I saw the big box on the right, but I didn’t want to get to the big stuff at the start. So I moved some of those packing peanuts aside and started on something smaller. Now, we’ve got $100 that we paid, so what value did we get? I’ll keep a running tab of the prices.
A skull goblet that should cost $22.50.
Well, it’s pretty ugly, but in a neat way. I’m quite fond of ugly, but skulls bore me. There is actually a glass in the goblet though. You can remove it from the resin base, which makes it easier to clean.
Skull ashtray? Is it worth $18? Up to $40.50
Oh my dear, you are ugly aren’t you? Doesn’t need to be used as an ashtray. You could use it as a present for people who like skulls.
Now, there was another sticker on this box claiming $49.99. I didn’t notice it until after I put the camera away. I’m claiming the lower price for fairness, so we’ll say it’s 90.49 so far.
Oh my lovely, you are ugly aren’t you?
A hideous metal pole. And what does it do?
You pull it apart and there are two swords inside. I’d promised Syd she could have one of the swords, but I soooo wanted to keep this one for myself.
Hmmm…. No marker of price. Gimme a second.
I think the best thing in the package is in this box.
Sword, bag, that box contains a stand.
Layered steel? Not bad.
Nice looking…
I got kinda pissed, because I’d promised Syd one of the swords right? I wanted that ugly pull apart sword, but I would be damned if I was giving up this beauty. I sighed and resigned myself to her taking the ugly dragon sword.
Very nice. There is bit of damage on the back of the box (not pictured) which is probably how this got into the grab bag. However! There is no damage to anything else in there, just the carrier box which will probably end up tucked away in a closet until we move and I need it again. So who cares if there is a dent in the box?
I didn’t get a better shot of the scabbard. Now… I didn’t find this sword, but I found things like it. Looks about worth $250 on the site. So that puts us up to $340.49 now.
A CHEAP AXE!
The handle is wrapped in plastic!
Decent blade I guess. I can’t find it on the site… let’s say… $15 which brings us up to $355.49 so far.
Simple 8 sword wall hanger. I can’t find it on the site, they’ve got one like it that goes for $24.99, but this one is a bit more simplistic than that one. Say 19.99 which brings us to $375.48 now.
I did not see Eragon. HOWEVER! This would probably be a sword I could give to Syd. It looks okay, right? She wouldn’t want my ugly, ugly pull apart blade… right?
I clearly decided that I needed two shots of it uploaded onto the internet.
Original price? $169.99! Total? $545.47
Back of the box.
Comes with a plaque!
Nice looking sword.
Decent detail.
Interesting pommel.
Are we done yet? Well no. I saw the bottom of the box, I didn’t see anymore stuff. I grabbed the box and heard something rattle. I didn’t want to reach to the bottom of the box. So I upturned it…
HA! FOLDERS!
Cheap folders!
Whenever you see something calling itself a “Super Knife” and claims “Best Quality” you know you’re getting shit. Nothing on the box claims its price. I’m pegging it at $9.99 for reasons you’ll soon discover. $555.46 for those of you keeping score.
BLAND!
MEH! Nothing wrong with it… I guess.
Night Warrior? $9.99? That sounds more promising. ($565.45 btw)
Oh look at that box. You KNOW something terrible lies within.
OH! I am entraptured!
How terrible! OOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
No idea who Tom Anderson is, but he made a knife that got a Tom Cruise movie named after it.
$9.99? I am noticing a pattern! 575.44
Looks okay. You notice it comes with a tool?
That tool (in this shot at well) is for tightening or loosening the tension on the blade. So it won’t flip open too easy but you can crank it down if it’s too hard. Not wild about this blade design, but Holly might like it. Or someone else might like it.
SILVER! DAMASCUS! KNIFE! The words themselves fill me with horror. $9.99 again! Leading to a current value of 585.43 which ain’t too bad.
Not just any knife, a DELUX knife.
That’s deluxe these days, is it?
I am not blow away by the deluxness.
FINAL ITEM!
Oh M Tech, it’s so cute that you’d suggest a retail price of $19.99. It’s cute that the shop made it the customary $9.99 leading us to a $595.42 total value.
Actually, not a bad looking knife. And we get another tension tool.
So what do we have? 12 items, had they inserted just one more knife we’d have a $600+ value, and while not everything is awesome, I got some things I really like. The folders can be picked over by Syd and Holly, and anything they don’t select will go in the drawer for later distribution. All in all, pleased!
Next time I hope to snag one of BudK's grab bags, which are cheaper and probably come filled with wonderfully cheap folders.
Grab bags are a gamble, but usually one that pats off enough for you to want to play again. Does anyone remember my adventure with the Archie McFee surprise bag? You should, some of you now have the stuff featured in those photos.
Now I’ve learned a little about how these things tend to work recently. You tend to get three kinds of items in a grab bag. Overstocked items that aren’t shifting fast enough, discontinued items that are just lying around taking up space, and samples from manufactures that can’t really be sold as normal products. From what I’ve learned they tend not to be big profit items, if you get a $50 grab bag, then it probably cost them close to $50 to fill it. However, and this is the important part, if you check the list price you can often find you’ve got anywhere between two and five times the value of the amount you paid. A $50 dollar grab bag can get you $150 worth of stuff (by the prices listed in the catalogue) so it usually comes off feeling like a good deal. It works for the shop, because they get rid of unmoving stock, make a sale, and the customer usually feels fairly warmly toward the shop.
The only real peril in buying a grab bag is that you never know if what you’re going to get in the package. No choice means it could be a lot of junk, or just stuff you plain aren’t interested in. However, as people learned to their possible chagrin, I have ways of dealing with that. I keep a drawer O’ fun and the things I don’t want go in the drawer for later distribution. Actually the drawer is the third stop. Syd and Hol get pick over stuff I’m not interested in before the drawer gets it.
So what I'm leading up to is another set of photos! Today's box O' fun comes from Swords Of Might and I got the $100 option.
SO I start with the box. It’s about 4 foot tall.
36.7 lbs
So what happens when we open the box?
Now I saw the big box on the right, but I didn’t want to get to the big stuff at the start. So I moved some of those packing peanuts aside and started on something smaller. Now, we’ve got $100 that we paid, so what value did we get? I’ll keep a running tab of the prices.
A skull goblet that should cost $22.50.
Well, it’s pretty ugly, but in a neat way. I’m quite fond of ugly, but skulls bore me. There is actually a glass in the goblet though. You can remove it from the resin base, which makes it easier to clean.
Skull ashtray? Is it worth $18? Up to $40.50
Oh my dear, you are ugly aren’t you? Doesn’t need to be used as an ashtray. You could use it as a present for people who like skulls.
Now, there was another sticker on this box claiming $49.99. I didn’t notice it until after I put the camera away. I’m claiming the lower price for fairness, so we’ll say it’s 90.49 so far.
Oh my lovely, you are ugly aren’t you?
A hideous metal pole. And what does it do?
You pull it apart and there are two swords inside. I’d promised Syd she could have one of the swords, but I soooo wanted to keep this one for myself.
Hmmm…. No marker of price. Gimme a second.
I think the best thing in the package is in this box.
Sword, bag, that box contains a stand.
Layered steel? Not bad.
Nice looking…
I got kinda pissed, because I’d promised Syd one of the swords right? I wanted that ugly pull apart sword, but I would be damned if I was giving up this beauty. I sighed and resigned myself to her taking the ugly dragon sword.
Very nice. There is bit of damage on the back of the box (not pictured) which is probably how this got into the grab bag. However! There is no damage to anything else in there, just the carrier box which will probably end up tucked away in a closet until we move and I need it again. So who cares if there is a dent in the box?
I didn’t get a better shot of the scabbard. Now… I didn’t find this sword, but I found things like it. Looks about worth $250 on the site. So that puts us up to $340.49 now.
A CHEAP AXE!
The handle is wrapped in plastic!
Decent blade I guess. I can’t find it on the site… let’s say… $15 which brings us up to $355.49 so far.
Simple 8 sword wall hanger. I can’t find it on the site, they’ve got one like it that goes for $24.99, but this one is a bit more simplistic than that one. Say 19.99 which brings us to $375.48 now.
I did not see Eragon. HOWEVER! This would probably be a sword I could give to Syd. It looks okay, right? She wouldn’t want my ugly, ugly pull apart blade… right?
I clearly decided that I needed two shots of it uploaded onto the internet.
Original price? $169.99! Total? $545.47
Back of the box.
Comes with a plaque!
Nice looking sword.
Decent detail.
Interesting pommel.
Are we done yet? Well no. I saw the bottom of the box, I didn’t see anymore stuff. I grabbed the box and heard something rattle. I didn’t want to reach to the bottom of the box. So I upturned it…
HA! FOLDERS!
Cheap folders!
Whenever you see something calling itself a “Super Knife” and claims “Best Quality” you know you’re getting shit. Nothing on the box claims its price. I’m pegging it at $9.99 for reasons you’ll soon discover. $555.46 for those of you keeping score.
BLAND!
MEH! Nothing wrong with it… I guess.
Night Warrior? $9.99? That sounds more promising. ($565.45 btw)
Oh look at that box. You KNOW something terrible lies within.
OH! I am entraptured!
How terrible! OOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
No idea who Tom Anderson is, but he made a knife that got a Tom Cruise movie named after it.
$9.99? I am noticing a pattern! 575.44
Looks okay. You notice it comes with a tool?
That tool (in this shot at well) is for tightening or loosening the tension on the blade. So it won’t flip open too easy but you can crank it down if it’s too hard. Not wild about this blade design, but Holly might like it. Or someone else might like it.
SILVER! DAMASCUS! KNIFE! The words themselves fill me with horror. $9.99 again! Leading to a current value of 585.43 which ain’t too bad.
Not just any knife, a DELUX knife.
That’s deluxe these days, is it?
I am not blow away by the deluxness.
FINAL ITEM!
Oh M Tech, it’s so cute that you’d suggest a retail price of $19.99. It’s cute that the shop made it the customary $9.99 leading us to a $595.42 total value.
Actually, not a bad looking knife. And we get another tension tool.
So what do we have? 12 items, had they inserted just one more knife we’d have a $600+ value, and while not everything is awesome, I got some things I really like. The folders can be picked over by Syd and Holly, and anything they don’t select will go in the drawer for later distribution. All in all, pleased!
Next time I hope to snag one of BudK's grab bags, which are cheaper and probably come filled with wonderfully cheap folders.
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