Monte, What's Up?

This website isn't a "blog" (an online journal/diary), but sometimes I do just write about stuff that I've been up to. This is one of those times.

It's Finished!
The Star Destroyer is here. As I showed you a while back, I started building a Lego Star Destroyer that I got for my birthday. It took about six weeks, but I only worked on it about one to two days a week, for a few hours at a time.

You can see from the photo gallery how it went together.

I'm very impressed with the engineering that went into it. I wish Lego put the names of their designers on their products because this person (or perhaps persons) really deserves some credit. He came up with some interesting ways to make Lego bricks build things that they normally couldn't build without resorting to a bunch of new kinds of pieces every time. Note, for example, all the different angles involved. Lego is really only good with 90- and 45-degree angles.

I'm disappointed, however, at how fragile it is. Probably the same things that allow Lego to do things it can't normally do make it that way. Normally, once a Lego creation is finished, it's really tough. Not the Star Destroyer, though. I can't seem to even pick it up and move it from one part of the table to another without the bottom panels coming off or an engine falling off. Now, it could be that I did something wrong when I built it, but I don't know what.

So now people ask, "Where's it going to go?" My answer: "I have no idea..."

Speaking of Star Destroyers, if you want a way to check out how big one is compared to rebel ships, Star Trek ships, or a 747, check out a site created by Jeff Russell. It's the most geek fun you'll have had in a while.

Bye Jeff!
Even as you read this, my friend Jeff is flying to (or has just arrived in) London. Last week I helped him move all of his stuff into huge wooden crates (two of them, the size of very small shacks). Yesterday, Sue and I took him to the airport.

Jeff's move is meaningful to me in two ways. First, and most obviously, because he's my friend and I'll miss him. Second, though, because it's a brave thing to do. See, Jeff met a really nice girl online and they developed a nice rapport, and so he's gone to meet her. If things go well, and if he likes it there and can find things to do, he's going to stay there. Now, I'm a supporter of those who want to move near the people they care about, so I think that's cool.

But the whole thing has really put me in a weird place mentally. Basically, because he's my friend, I want him to find happiness and for things to work out there. However, that means he'll stay. But on the other hand, he's my friend, so I want him to come back.

That's one for people who think there's always a clear right or wrong answer to everything (those people bug me).

Kelpies
I get the weirdest (read: best) email. I've received a lot of messages complaining about the Fiend Folio's "kelpie" entry in my recent DMs Only column. They suggest that I didn't know that kelpies were actually related in myth to horses.

Scottish myth is one of the things I really like. To my knowledge, the kelpie legend speaks of a creature who could take the form of a (usually beautiful) horse waiting to be ridden near the edge of a river (usually near crossings), waiting to pull a man in and drown him. (A few stories say that the creature could make a sort of illusion so that, while it was in the water, it appeared to be on dry land, a horse waiting to be ridden, but if you got on it, you'd realize that you were in the water)

The legends don't really suggest (to me) a sickly, seaweed-covered warhorse splashing around in a pond. My real qualm is that the natural form of the kelpie shouldn't be a horse any more than it should be a human -- these, to me, are just forms it can take to trick people. Maybe it's the illustration that throws me, I don't know.

However, please allow me to state that this qualm is a very, very minor one (you'll note that the Fiend Folio won that match).