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Build Your Own Iron Man Armor

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The fine folks at the Wired How-To Wiki offer this little weekend project.

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Build Your Own ‘Iron Man’ Armor

Even if you aren’t kidnapped by terrorists and forced to work in their weapons lab like Tony Stark aka Iron Man, there are many advantages to making your own full-body suit of bullet proof armor. Walking calmly through a hail of gunfire with rounds pinging off you in all directions is a handy short cut to superhero status, and it will certainly impress your friends and colleagues. It may also be useful during disputes with neighbors, and you’ll never need to worry about what to wear to a fancy dress party again.

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When you’re putting this much work into your armor, it’s tempting to go overboard with extra gadgets you may not really need. Inventor Troy Hurtubise has equipped his home-made armor with a transponder, a recording device, emergency morphine and salt compartments and a forehead-mounted laser pointer.

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Finally, spend some time getting used to your armor before you rush out to take on the bad guys. It’s not as easy as the movies make out; wearing medieval knight’s armor has been likened to carrying sandbags and wearing boxing gloves and diving boots with a bucket over your head.

Build Your Own Iron Man Armor

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The fine folks at the Wired How-To Wiki offer this little weekend project.

Quote:
Build Your Own ‘Iron Man’ Armor

Even if you aren’t kidnapped by terrorists and forced to work in their weapons lab like Tony Stark aka Iron Man, there are many advantages to making your own full-body suit of bullet proof armor. Walking calmly through a hail of gunfire with rounds pinging off you in all directions is a handy short cut to superhero status, and it will certainly impress your friends and colleagues. It may also be useful during disputes with neighbors, and you’ll never need to worry about what to wear to a fancy dress party again.

Quote:
When you’re putting this much work into your armor, it’s tempting to go overboard with extra gadgets you may not really need. Inventor Troy Hurtubise has equipped his home-made armor with a transponder, a recording device, emergency morphine and salt compartments and a forehead-mounted laser pointer.

Quote:
Finally, spend some time getting used to your armor before you rush out to take on the bad guys. It’s not as easy as the movies make out; wearing medieval knight’s armor has been likened to carrying sandbags and wearing boxing gloves and diving boots with a bucket over your head.

Build Your Own Iron Man Armor was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Happy Birthday Maurice Sendak!

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When people ask me about my influences, one of the names I always forget is Maurice Sendak. Sendak, who turns 80 today, and his seminal work Where the Wild Things Are, if not created my love for monsters, certainly fostered it. The tale of childhood rebellion and unconditional love fed directly into my childhood psyche and reality. My mother always encouraged me to debate, to wonder, to question. All the while, I knew she would always love me. When I began writing, the fact that my family would always love and respect me lent me the confidence to write what I felt and believed, regardless of what others thought. And of course monsters have always been a huge part of my creative reality.

Over time I read the vast majority of Sendak’s works but nothing stuck like Wild Things and for Halloween 1997, I was Max. You really have to love a children’s book to dress as the main character when you are thirty.

Thank, Mr. Sendak, for everything and a happy 80th birthday!

Happy Birthday Maurice Sendak!

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When people ask me about my influences, one of the names I always forget is Maurice Sendak. Sendak, who turns 80 today, and his seminal work Where the Wild Things Are, if not created my love for monsters, certainly fostered it. The tale of childhood rebellion and unconditional love fed directly into my childhood psyche and reality. My mother always encouraged me to debate, to wonder, to question. All the while, I knew she would always love me. When I began writing, the fact that my family would always love and respect me lent me the confidence to write what I felt and believed, regardless of what others thought. And of course monsters have always been a huge part of my creative reality.

Over time I read the vast majority of Sendak’s works but nothing stuck like Wild Things and for Halloween 1997, I was Max. You really have to love a children’s book to dress as the main character when you are thirty.

Thank, Mr. Sendak, for everything and a happy 80th birthday!

Happy Birthday Maurice Sendak! was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Philip K Dick Topples the American Canon

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This bit comes from Media Bistro:

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When the Library of America‘s publicist informed me that last year’s collection of four classic Philip K. Dick novels was their fastest-selling title ever, I was pleasantly surprised, but I wanted some proof. LOA marketing manager Brian McCarthy was happy to oblige, informing me that the Library had shipped 23,750 copies of Four Novels of the 1960s—the better part of two complete print runs—and that returns were a "staggeringly low" 5 percent. By way of comparison, the Library’s last major foray into science fiction and fantasy, the H.P. Lovecraft Tales published in 2005, sold 11,860 copies (with a similar return rate) in its first year (with gross sales-to-date now standing at 26,000-plus.)

This is better than other more traditional LoA "heavy-hitters" such as the first collection of Jack Kerouac novels (shipped just under 15,000 copies in its first year, with a return rate of 10 percent), two-volume collection of Edmund Wilson’s critical writings (9250 and 12%) and the American Poetry: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries anthology (4200 and 8%).

And the trend should continue with the second PKD volume (Five Novels of the 1960s and 70s which includes Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and A Scanner Darkly). The book is not due out until July 31 and pre-orders already exceed 10,000.

It’s a good time to be a Dickhead!

Philip K Dick Topples the American Canon

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This bit comes from Media Bistro:

Quote:
When the Library of America‘s publicist informed me that last year’s collection of four classic Philip K. Dick novels was their fastest-selling title ever, I was pleasantly surprised, but I wanted some proof. LOA marketing manager Brian McCarthy was happy to oblige, informing me that the Library had shipped 23,750 copies of Four Novels of the 1960s—the better part of two complete print runs—and that returns were a “staggeringly low” 5 percent. By way of comparison, the Library’s last major foray into science fiction and fantasy, the H.P. Lovecraft Tales published in 2005, sold 11,860 copies (with a similar return rate) in its first year (with gross sales-to-date now standing at 26,000-plus.)

This is better than other more traditional LoA “heavy-hitters” such as the first collection of Jack Kerouac novels (shipped just under 15,000 copies in its first year, with a return rate of 10 percent), two-volume collection of Edmund Wilson’s critical writings (9250 and 12%) and the American Poetry: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries anthology (4200 and 8%).

And the trend should continue with the second PKD volume (Five Novels of the 1960s and 70s which includes Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and A Scanner Darkly). The book is not due out until July 31 and pre-orders already exceed 10,000.

It’s a good time to be a Dickhead!

Philip K Dick Topples the American Canon was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

The Fourth World reviewed in NYT

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It’s too bad Kirby didn’t live long enough to see his epic Fourth World reviewed in The New York Times.

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It’s hard to know what a teenager would make of this. But Kirby was writing just as much for himself. He was 53 when he undertook the Fourth World, and a veteran of World War II. But as Evanier points out, and as is evident throughout this book, Kirby was deeply inspired by the young generation that was renouncing war around him. His understanding of the youth movement was perhaps idiosyncratic (in Kirby’s world, the “Hairies” built their perfect society in a giant missile carrier they called “The Mountain of Judgment”). But they too were forging a new world; and the pleasure he clearly took in their efforts seems to have balanced the bouts of Orion-like rage. In one moment, Highfather of New Genesis turns to one of the young boys in his care. “Esak,” he asks, “what is it that makes the very young — so very wise?”

“Tee hee!!” Esak replies. “It’s our defense, Highfather — against the very old!!”

This is probably the only passage in the English language containing the words “tee hee” that has actually moved me.

Continued…

The Fourth World reviewed in NYT

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It’s too bad Kirby didn’t live long enough to see his epic Fourth World reviewed in The New York Times.

Quote:
It’s hard to know what a teenager would make of this. But Kirby was writing just as much for himself. He was 53 when he undertook the Fourth World, and a veteran of World War II. But as Evanier points out, and as is evident throughout this book, Kirby was deeply inspired by the young generation that was renouncing war around him. His understanding of the youth movement was perhaps idiosyncratic (in Kirby’s world, the “Hairies” built their perfect society in a giant missile carrier they called “The Mountain of Judgment”). But they too were forging a new world; and the pleasure he clearly took in their efforts seems to have balanced the bouts of Orion-like rage. In one moment, Highfather of New Genesis turns to one of the young boys in his care. “Esak,” he asks, “what is it that makes the very young — so very wise?”

“Tee hee!!” Esak replies. “It’s our defense, Highfather — against the very old!!”

This is probably the only passage in the English language containing the words “tee hee” that has actually moved me.

Continued…

The Fourth World reviewed in NYT was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon