Random Unplanned Purchases

A few weeks ago, I saw a sign in the nearby Barnes & Noble that everything was on sale for 25% off. A friend of mine, and a former employee of the store, posted on Instagram that the landlord wasn't renewing the lease so that store was going to be closing. That explained the sale.

25% off of retail pricing doesn't even put it into Amazon pricing let alone eBay pricing, so I made a mental note to keep an eye on the signage as these things tend to progress to deeper discounts over time.

Last week, another friend, knowing bookstores are my Achilles's heel, messaged me that everything was 50% off.

 A few days later,I had a chance to pop by on my lunch break. The sale was in full clearance mode - up to 75% off.

I should add that many of my friends are well aware of my mantra that "You're losing money not buying it" when items are on sale. So it was inevitable that money would start to jump out of my wallet with discounts like that.

Discretion and valor and all that, so I did my best to limit my purchases. I checked the magazines and while some of the history ones were interesting, they weren't in my current research areas (which sounds fancy, but just means WWI Southern Front and British airbone in WWII). The history books were disappointing - lot's of WWII titles, but nothing in my narrow interests. How many books about the Battle of the Bulge are there anyway?

The "big score" was Star Wars X-wing by Fantasy Flight Games, seen here still proudly in shrink wrap:

I've had this on my "I should check this out someday" list. At $10 USD for the set it was a no-brainer. In retrospect, I probably should have bought a couple of sets to have the additional ships and bits and bobs.

The other item that I picked up will no doubt be unsurprising given I am known for my cultured tastes:

I have long been a fan of SpongeBob Squarepants (I think I first started watching it in 2000 or thereabouts - the marching band episode was the first one I ever saw), so resisting this was neigh impossible for a fiver. 

You might be thinking - "he's off his rocker" - but seriously, the first 3 seasons are excellent, with the 4th being tolerable. Beyond that it definitely gets too over the top cartoony - undoubtedly some executive at Nickelodeon decided the show was too smart and needed to appeal more to children (seriously, watch the first season, it's not nearly as goofy as later seasons and a lot of the humor, while not dry,  is more sophisticated than the cartoony buffoonish-ness of later seasons).

In any case, my partner tolerates my singing "Striped Sweater" and "Krusty Krab Pizza" spontaneously during the day, so it's my hope I'll be able to convince her to play this with me (it helps that she likes the regular edition of Fluxx). My son,  though he dislikes anything not on a screen for the most part, seemed at least mildly intrigued by a game with a SpongeBob imagery (it's one of the cartoons we watch regularly together - at my behest. He'd watch YouTube videos featuring other people playing video games if he had his choice).

Full retail price for the two games would have been $60 USD, so not a bad haul for $15. 

I tend to prefer independent booksellers or eBay even, but I'm sorry to see the store close. A book store is preferable to 90% of the other stores likely to take that spot. I will pray for a Hobby Town or perhaps a craft store. Hoping for a dedicated game store is just a bit too unrealistic - though there are none in the city proper that I am aware of.

Soldering On

It turns out super glue is not the way to fix a broken rifle on a Britain's figure.

Now, don't get me wrong, I thought it worked, but when I went to move the figure (well over 24 hours later), the broken bit just fell off again. Subsequent attempts failed, even after doing my best to scrape off the dried glue and some paint.

Somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain I recalled someone somewhere on a blog mentioning solder.

I don't recall the exact context but to that person I say thank you!

I pulled out my soldering gear (I usually use it for quick and poor repairs of my effects pedals and such for guitar) and after much swearing and gnashing of teeth (I really need one of those third-hand tools) voila:

Badly soldered but repaired broken rifle.

OK, pretty it is not, but it is a strong repair - both the rifle bit and where the strap attaches to the leg.

Here it is after a touch up of the paint and the figures (this one and the one with the broken strap that I did manage to repair with glue):

A fire team. A squad. A platoon. Whatever you want to call three figures on a base that's arguably too small for them.

Close enough for government work, as they say.

And just for giggles, these plastic pre-paints arrived last night:

These are not the droids you are looking for.

I have been eyeing this Jawa pack for a few years now (seriously), mostly because I love R5D4. If that's NOT R5D4 being used as a horse, I don't want to know.

CTS is having a sale on the long since discontinued Star Wars Unleashed Battle Packs - said to be 1/32-ish - and since I was ordering stuff from them for their Black Friday sale, I thought I owed it to myself to get these.

I plan to acquire Sand Troopers for a little payback scenario (Jawas: The Revenge) - hopefully from Santa or my own rather depleted hobby budget (thanks to the AiP sale):

Image found on Internet. It's available from a bunch of t-shirt sites.