Robot Claw – Page 418 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Baked Octopus

January 27, 2015

I purchased KLS a ‘Makit Bakit’ kit for Christmas. Yes this is a kids item, but it’s fun so why not?

It’s just a metal frame that you fill with pellets of plastic and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Here’s a detail pre-bake:

So how did it turn out? Pretty good! The plastic is translucent, and the idea is you hang him up as a sun catcher:

KLS deviated from the instructions a bit by putting some specks of dark blue into his body. He’s like a blue-ringed octopus!

So thumbs up for Makit Bakit. If only they (still) made kits more to my liking…

My Very Own Odo

January 24, 2015

One of the more unexpected items I received for Christmas was this vinyl model kit:

Yes it’s everyone’s favourite changeling, ‘Constable’ Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. This kit was made in 1995 and KLS bought it new for under a tenner! Here’s the contents of the box:

Not a bad likeness is it?

I’ve assembled vinyl kits before, and immediately a problem was apparent. The age of the vinyl had made it hard and brittle, and there was no way I’d be able to cut off the flash without softening it first. So it was time to give Odo a hot bath:

A few minutes at a light boil was enough to soften the vinyl enough for the razor blade:

And soon the pieces were ready for gluing:

The second problem became apparent at this point: the kit wasn’t well designed. To be specific, some of the pieces didn’t fit well, and the fact they needed gluing (as opposed to using ball joints) was poor design in the first place! I soldiered on carefully though, and soon got to this point:

A bit more glue and some time drying and assembly was complete:

What’s that you say? “Where’s his legs?” The fact is the waist joints just didn’t match at all, and even if they had the upper half is so much heavier he wouldn’t ever stand so… I tossed his legs in the bin! I was happy with half an Odo 🙂

But I wasn’t finished yet! I was serious about this kit, and carefully began to paint him…

And mere minutes later, my very own Odo was complete:

Look at his flaming hair! His jaundiced skin! His inky-black jacket with red piping and silver trim. As one would expect from a design of my very own, Odo looks majestic.

Now before some of you get all ‘but that’s not canon’ on me, please be aware that this isn’t supposed to be Odo from the TV episodes.

No my friends, this is Odo from my unpublished DS9 fan fiction script entitled “Elegy of The Vampire Savior”. That’s the one in which Odo teams up with Space Dracula to save the colonists of the fourth moon of Nosferon from being enslaved by a tyrannical computer. This particular outfit is the one Odo wore during the logic battle with the Machine Brain, immediately after his fated lover Udu died in his arms.

If you’d like more details, please let me know.

I didn’t ever expect to get my very own Odo for Christmas. And now I wonder how I ever lived without him!

Around The World In One Day

January 16, 2015

I’m about 20 hours into my ~25 hour return home, and it’s been an unusual series of events. In no particular order:

– The food on the Sydney -> LA flight was actually good! I had a (cold) chicken salad for dinner and an omelette for breakfast. For the first time I can ever remember, I ate most of the meals.
– I read ‘The Wizard Of Lemuria’ (a 1965 Lin Carter fantasy novel) and watched only one film (the execrable ‘The Maze Runner’) the remaining 15-odd hours of flight so far were spent daydreaming or listening to music.
– I sat next to a 20 year old cutie from Vegas who is in the process of emigrating to Oz. Half the flight she was fast asleep, and the other she endlessly told me stories of North Sydney parties and her own (no doubt financed by rich parents) extravagant travels.
– My carry-on bag was checked in LA and since I was jet lagged I forgot to remove anything I needed, including my belt and coat. Therefore in Detroit airport (where I am now) I am somewhat cold and somewhat pantsless!
– The guy next to me on the flight from LA to here spent half his time bidding on ultra-expensive vintage turntables on eBay (I saw him make a $7900 bid!) and the other half writing poetry about snorting cocaine (“drinking lines of light”). I’m not making this up!

As expected I’m in a fugue, barely knowing where I am or what time it is. I need to eat but am not hungry, and I need to sleep but am not tired. I’ll continue to pass the hours until my last flight walking around listening to Morrissey at insane volumes…