So, if I want to buy a 100 Grand candy bar (or an Almond Joy, or a Heath Bar, or whatever), and I go to the candy aisle in the local gas station, or the one in the IGA, the candy bar will cost about two bucks, give or take. But! If I go to the local dollar store to buy the same brand of candy, packaged as four to six “fun sized” individually wrapped bars, each of these packages are $1.25, or $5 if I buy five. The aggregate amount of candy by weight is pretty much the same as if I bought the full-sized candy bar, but because they are packaged differently, it costs half as much. Does this make sense? No! It does not! I mean yes, I understand that one is positioned as an impulse buy and one is not, I do understand the psychology of the supermarket. I get it, truly I do. But it still boggles my mind.
Likewise if I go to the store to buy a 12-pack of Coke Zero, it will be somewhere between $8 and $10, but if Krissy goes to Kroger on a particular day and shows them her Kroger card (or whatever) then she can get the “buy two, get three free” discount, which again means the actual cost of the 12-pack is 40% of what its usual cost is. It works similarly for lots of other things, including things that are not junk food or drink.
“Congratulations, Scalzi, you’ve discovered coupons,” I hear you say. Look, I’m not saying any of this is new. But it does seem to me the variance in pricing is more significant now than it was before. I’m not exactly what you would call a price-sensitive individual these days, but I still finally broke down and got myself a CVS card because the difference in cost between having that card, and not, was high enough that my brain rebelled against needlessly spending that much more.
(Yes, I’m aware that CVS, Kroger, et al are data farming what I purchase. As a practical matter, I don’t really care if CVS learns I’m buying Doritos; they were tracking the UPC when I went to check out anyway. And as a general matter I’m not purchasing anything in a supermarket or pharmacy that I want to hide from data crunching.)
I know this is a bit of an aimless rant, but I think what I’m really getting at is that the answer to the question “why are things so expensive right now” really is “because fuck you, that’s why.” That candy bar quite evidently doesn’t need to be $2; that 12-pack of soda doesn’t need to be $8, and there are a lot of people who can’t afford the clearly arbitrary high prices that things have, who have to pay them anyway. It’s annoying for me, but for someone else it might mean skipping a meal or two, or more, here and there. It doesn’t seem fair, and it doesn’t seem right.
SUBCOLLECTION AHOY.Once I got The Bunny and Usagi Yojimbo, I realized I was on the cusp of a Rabbit People subcollection, so I immediately went looking for Jaxxxon and Captain Carrot. The McFarlane Captain Carrot from last year is going for ridiculous secondary market prices, but Jaxxon was dirt cheap, so I got him. I’d kinda always wanted him but didn’t have a good excuse to add a comics-only Star Wars rabbit man to the collection.
And he’s fine! Good for the clearance price. Pretty standard Black Series in terms of sculpt/paint/articulation, but pretty standard Black Series is pretty good.
For the pic, I am revealing a love of basic bitch food YouTube by admitting I’m aware of Australia’s Carrot Adventure Park, but there’s nowhere else I’d want to pose my rabbit people.
No Struggle Session this week — my summer of dashing around the world to see family continues (next up: chosen family) — but there’s a wonderful conversation unfolding in the comment thread on this week’s column about being non-binary and what binaries need to know about dating non-binaries. (Yes, Alex, there was a master plan!) … Read More »
Clangin’ and bangin’ in the iron church.So, at some point when I got Fishstick, I commented that I was done with Fortnite Weirdos, unless an Agent Peels or a Meowscles dropped into my lap at a reasonable price. So, yeah. Also I got Tomatohead and looked at a checklist and there’s maybe three more after this one, two I’ll be able to get at a reasonable price and one I probably won’t.
Meowscles, technically Hasbro Victory Royale Meowscles (Shadows), is the least weird of the weirdos in that he’s a buff dude in mostly black with a cat head. Still pretty weird but he’s no Beef Boss. He’s traditional Hasbro quality but does come with a weight bench as his deluxe accessory, which is a Useful Prop. Also his backpack is a ball of yarn. The rest of his gear is boring generic Fortnite shit.
For the pic I decided to pair him up with the SH Figuarts Tekken 8 King since he didn’t really get showcased in his debut pic. Also this happened shortly after that Poker Face episode but don’t think about that.
When you see a possibly terrifying mythical creature, is your first thought, I’m totally gonna pet that? If so, then Sara Omer, author of The Gryphon King, might have something in common with you.
SARA OMER:
At its core, The Gryphon King is about a horse girl on a quest for vengeance versus a man with cat-related PTSD. But before I can get into the infernal horse and lion biology at play, I have to gush about the monster-riding story more generally.
Just as children wish for puppies, children reading fantasy books wish for dragons. The unbreakable bonds between fire-breathing beasts and reluctant heroes populate epic fantasy stories, but if giant flying lizards aren’t your style, there’s any number of mythic monsters that might be mountable (monster romance implications of that statement aside). I love a dragonrider story as much as the next person, probably more than most people, but there’s a whole ecosystem of underutilized fantastic monsters out there that deserve some time in the spotlight. In the empire of Dumakra in The Gryphon King, there is at least one stable full of flying horses that didn’t ask to be ridden into battle or form lifelong bonds with power-hungry morally gray disaster princesses, but we can’t always fight the fate we’re dealt.
Growing up, having my own horse was as much a fantasy as having my own dragon, but I like to think I lived a tangential horse girl experience. I wasn’t yet in kindergarten when I learned to ride horses, taught by the grandfatherly carriage driver Mr. “Grandpa” Clint, who drove his carriage around the town square. After learning how to drive a carriage at an age that was definitely not road legal (to the chagrin of many other children), Grandpa Clint taught me how to ride a horse at his stable. The horse for the job was an ancient old white gelding living a life of comfort in retirement, and who I enthusiastically urged to a flying gallop my first time on the trail. I had a wonderful time as my mom and Mr. Clint raced after, concerned I would be terrified or die, probably. Surprise, I lived. I think everyone should experience that exhilaration, and a few hundred feet off the ground while you’re at it.
I had a formidable collection (army) of Breyer horses, although unlike Nohra in The Gryphon King, I didn’t grow up with an imperial stable. But some family friends had their own horses and boarded them nearby. Sometimes I would get to go ride or hang out at the stable and in the pastures. Rambo, their stubborn paint gelding, was barely tall enough to even be considered a horse rather than a pony, and I vividly remember a time he got kicked, presumably for being an asshole, and the bloody branding of the hoof that slowly healed. For this and other reasons, I’m convinced every horse is a little like a dragon.
There are multiple breeds of mythic horses I added to the bestiary that is The Gryphon King. Because why stop at sky horse when you can have water horse? And when I really got to thinking about the biology of pegasuses, I wanted to explore their avian side. What better way to celebrate the incredible Eurasian horses and the birds of prey in the region than combine them into one omnivorous monster that has an appetite for blood? As if horses weren’t already dangerous enough, now they really, really want to eat your fingers and the barn cats. And—oh, look—the battlefield became good grazing once the fighting’s quieted down. Really, pegasuses are a little terrifying, and they’re not even the most threatening strain of horse in Dumakra.
The moral is that if you make a bird big enough, humans begin to look like the small animals scurrying through the tall grass, evading tooth and talon. And what’s more terrifying than horse-eagle? Lion eagle.
I have utmost respect for anyone who can make a big cat with a massive wingspan seem docile and friendly; I just think, considering the injuries a falconer could incur and compounding those with what might befall your average lion tamer, you should have to sign a few release waivers to approach a gryphon.
Maybe I made all my animals ferocious because nature is ferocious and dangerous, and when people play at power, they don’t come close to the might of beasts. But their actions have often irreparable impacts on nature nonetheless.
Fear and respect can coexist. Add a little human curiosity, and I would never fault anyone who decided to ride a murder horse. The Gryphon King is for the readers who would go out of their way to pet a man-eating monster, who would risk it all to bond with a creature that could kill them a few different ways on purpose or by accident—I’m a little scared for your wellbeing, but I respect the drive and share the dream.
For this episode of Sex & Politics, Dan chats with novelist Jonathan Parks-Ramage about his new book “It’s Not the End of the World” a dystopian novel with plenty of GAY SEX. Dan and Jonathan talk about how gay romance is often misrepresented in fiction, queer parenting, why kinky men are turned on the “fascist … Read More »
Krissy is off visiting friends for a couple of days, and so it falls to me to take the dog for her daily walk through the local nature preserve. I mean, I could not do it, but then I would disappoint Charlie, and, look, you just do not want to disappoint a dog. She will look at you all mopey and sad for the whole rest of the day. No thank you. A walk is vastly preferable. Plus, you know. I need the exercise too.
A bit more Classified for the pile.Mindbender has been a longstanding preorder because he has purple tight pants with a deep crotch V, metal suspenders, a cloth cape, and a head sculpt vaguely reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik. There was no not getting that one.
He comes with a tank and a hose and three weapons to plug into the hose for some reason and the usual “pistol to put into the holster” that most Classifieds come with but the draw is the purple, the cape, and the stache. And they deliver.
Shipwreck is an older figure who’s been on my list for a while because despite not being a Retro Card, he still bears a strong resemblance to the cartoon character and also, of course, Shoreleave from Venture Bros. He comes with swappable hat/no hat head tops, a rope bandolier, a grappling hook, a big pistol, a Put It In The Holster Pistol, and A PARROT.
For the pic, there was a bit of serendipity. The process went like this:
Who should Mindbender mind control?
How about the Sesame Streett crew and their letters?
OK, need a background. Let’s start watching Arise, Serpentor Arise where he debuts.
What’s that? He’s in a purple dreamscape full of ALPHANUMERIC SYMBOLS?!
Also, Ernie and Shipwreck both have birds? Also I need to figure out how, hopefully, Bert’s pigeon ended up in the wrong bag because I couldn’t find it?
Boom.
I know Scarlett looks weird. Awkward pose and weird angle and some iPhone camera warping. Nothing to be done about it except redo the whole shot and that wasn’t gonna happen.
Know your worth.Here’s the other half of the latest Cartoon Collection wave I got (to hell with Fang Man) - Grizzlor, the knockoff Beast Man from She-Ra.
He’s standard Cartoon Collection stuff, although his accessory, the Moon Mirror, is actually finished with a surprisingly high quality mirror sticker or paint job.
Pic inspired by me originally deciding I didn’t need a Beast Man and regretting it and also eBay fuckers listing him for INSANE asks for a year-old toy.
Hilariously, I went hunting for backgrounds, and decided on this one which turned out to be from the actual Moon Mirror episode. SYNERGY.
A queer woman has a non-binary, AFAB spouse. Her partner can mime the action of cunnilingus with their tongue, flicking and teasing across the dinner table, like a horny lizard. The caller wishes she could do the same, but her tongue just doesn’t work that way. She also gets low marks on her oral technique, … Read More »
I’m a 44-year-old woman with a history of childhood sexual trauma. I enjoy sex if I’m with a partner I feel very connected to emotionally, but I’ve never had an orgasm. Because of this I tend to rely on pleasing my partner during sex rather than my own arousal. It works OK for me at … Read More »
It’s 1987 and my friend Tommy Kim has an idea to make his college applications stand out from the crowd: In addition to the usual essays, grades and test scores, he’s going to include a cassette of songs he’s written, performed by a band he put together, and professionally produced in an actual studio. The band he put together included a bunch of friends and schoolmates, including me on drums and my pal Kevin Stampfl on bass. Our name: Dead Rats Don’t Fly, or “DRDF” for short. Why did we call ourselves that? Look, pal, it was the 80s, okay. Lots of things didn’t make sense. The four-song EP we cranked out in two days of studio time was called 327, named after Tommy’s room number in the Holt dormitory at Webb.
So, how was 327 as musical statement? Well, it is exactly the music that you’d expect from a bunch of rock-loving 80s teenage dudes of varying musical abilities hastily tossed together into a band with only two days of studio time at their disposal. Are the songs… good? With all love: No. In the performances, can you sense primordial musical talent waiting for its moment to arrive? Also no. Could the drummer keep a beat without speeding up? I mean, sometimes? Tommy did get into college at least one place, so it did what it was supposed to do. Otherwise, it’s a kind of a mess.
But I think it’s an endearing mess, and at the time, waaaaay back in 1987, when we got our band copies of the EP (on cassette! It was the 80s!), we thought it was pretty damn cool. Kevin and I drove around in his Mustang, listening to the thing, kind of dazed that we had actually been in a studio, and that music we made had been committed to a permanent medium. 327 isn’t exactly good, but 17-year-old me was still proud of it, and I had a blast playing songs with my friends. And that was a good thing.
(It also allowed me to play a great prank: when Steve Shenbaum, one of the singers — yes, we had two — arrived at Northwestern for his freshman orientation and met his dorm’s resident assistant, the RA said “Steve Shenbaum? Of DRDF? Dude, that’s my favorite band!” and all the upperclassmen in the dorm were able to recite the EP’s lyrics to him. He was amazed, as he recounted to me a couple days later when I called him to see how his college experience was shaping up, and eventually it was my giggling into the phone as he told me about it that revealed that I had called his RA a day before he showed up to set the bait for him. It was delightful. I believe Steve has forgiven me. Probably.)
I misplaced my 327 tape years ago, and of course these days I don’t have a cassette player anyway, and for years the EP passed into myth, and then into legend (for, like, the extremely limited number of people who know the band members and/or ever heard the cassette or heard DRDF play live at our single concert). Then a few years ago Steve sent me an MP3 rip of his cassette of 327 (see? I told you he’s forgiven me!) and I had it again. I listened to it! It was still terrible! Nevertheless I took one of the songs from it, called “It’s a New Reality” (I wrote the lyrics for it, you see), cleaned it up slightly with Logic Pro, and put it up on YouTube. A fun, or at least nostalgic, time was had by the 1.6k people who listened to it since I posted it.
But what of the rest of 327? Well, it’s a few years later now, I’m somewhat more proficient at musical production, and music recovery tools are better these days, so you know what? Fuck it, I’ve gone back and rehabbed the entire EP now. I went in, stemmed out the vocals, drums and other instruments, cleaned and brightened them, moved around some of the bum notes to get them (mostly) on key, sonically painted over the clicks where I hit my drumsticks together, and in one place patched a place in the recording where a tape head clearly jammed up, leaving a blank space in a song, pasting in the keyboards and adding a bridge vocal.
The cleanup has reveal 327 as a minor classi — no, actually it hasn’t, it’s still a bunch of 80s kids bashing together tunes on a tight schedule with more enthusiasm than actual talent (well, the guitarist, a ringer Tommy brought in named George Huang, was actually talented; he was our age but had clearly been playing for years. The rest of us? Hey, we tried!). Also, it wouldn’t have done to try to erase every artifact of its 80s amateurishness, and I’m not that good an engineer anyway, so there’s still tape hiss (and lossy MP3 simmerwarble), compressed dynamics, variable tempos and other evidence that what you’re hearing was hauled up from the subterranean depths of four decades ago. Don’t kid yourself. If you’re listening to this, it’s out of curiosity more than anything else.
Which is fine! And better than fine! 327 (now named 327/38 to note that it’s been 38 years since we got together to make this — actually maybe 39, since I’m a little fuzzy on the exact dates, but it hardly matters now, so I’m sticking with 38) is an artifact of another time and place, when hair bands ruled the earth and teenagers made their music fast and dirty in studios rather than on their laptops. It wasn’t a better time (I like making music on my laptop, thank you!), but it was a different time, and it shows. We had fun, and that was its own excuse. Plus Tommy got into college!
Enough with the liner notes, here are tunes. Note that on the original 327 some of these songs may have had different titles, but I can’t remember what they were. It’s been a while, okay?
One Hit (To the Body): If memory serves correctly, this is a song Tommy wrote about being nostalgic for a bunch of friends at… summer camp, I think? There’s a tape warble in the middle of the song that I left in because I don’t how to fix it, and also it adds a sort of verisimilitude to the 80s experience, that horrifying moment when you wonder if your tape player is going to eat your cassette. 80s kids know this pain.
It’s a New Reality: Our hit single! I wrote the lyrics imagining David Lee Roth singing it (the arrangement in my brain was different than it is here). Tommy wrote the bridge about rock and roll being in our blood, because we needed a bridge. There are some very 80s guitar solos in here. Thank you George, wherever you are! You’re probably a doctor now or something. But you could rock back in the day.
Tears Go Rolling: The album’s “epic,” with two lead singers, different parts in entirely different tempos and soaring guitar solos designed to wrench the lighters out your pocket to wave in the air. Yeah, the 80s were all about the epic. This is the song where there was blank spot in file and I had to patch it. I nailed the instrumental patch but you’ll probably be able to tell where I dubbed in my voice. Which is okay! It doesn’t have to be seamless! I do enjoy the idea that 56-year-old me is collaborating with 17-year-old me. Hello, 17-year-old me! Enjoy your hair!
Pauline: The opening guitar riff feels kind of Red Hot Chili Peppers (in contemplative mode), and then the middle the guitars go a little Johnny Marr. However, don’t actually expect either RHCP or Smiths! The guitar is leading down you a path! The song itself is going somewhere else entirely!
There, I hope this musical experience has been everything you’ve hoped for and more. Also, surprise! 327/38 is also available on streaming. The long-lost EP absolutely no one was asking for is now everywhere! So now you never have to be without it. Ever. And thank goodness for that.
Now, for the sake of completeness: Credits!
327/38 Originally produced by Tommy Kim, additional engineering by John Scalzi All songs Tommy Kim except “It’s a New Reality” by Tommy Kim and John Scalzi
Chris Godfrey: Keyboards John Herpel: Guitar George Huang: Guitar Scott Moore: Vocals John Scalzi: Drums Steve Shenbaum: Vocals Kevin Stampfl: Bass
You may ask: Will we ever get the band back together? Well, if Spinal Tap can do it after 41 years, it’s not out of the question. Maybe Tommy needs tenure.
I swear, the multi-arm romance thing isn’t a fetish. I just think it’s funny. And I’m too old to discover a new fetish anyway.This shouldn’t have been in my July Pile. I bought Okeatos, a Cosmic Legion to be named later, and, at long last, the Vampire Phalanx Legion Builder I’d been meaning to buy as soon as I had enough figs on the slate to justify the ten bucks shipping from the Four Horsemen store.
So I got ‘em during the last 4H In Stock sale. And they shipped a few days before we left for Japan. And arrived on our first Friday in Japan. And got porch pirated sometime between Friday afternoon and when the house/cat-sitter came by that weekend.
So I begrudgingly went to rebuy, and learned that Vampire Phalanx was out of stock. Gone forever. Dammit. So I got the other two from BBTS for the same price but cheaper shipping. Hence the July Pile.
Apparently Okeaetos is one of those Masters of the Universe tribute figures, but not the Stratos one which is super obvious. He’s apparently Webstore, a MOTU dude lame enough that I don’t own him as a Cartoon Collection and will not be picking up just because of the connection to Okeaetos. But this guy is cool.
He does rank slightly above average on the Mythic Legions Jank Scale. His hips are almost too loose and his back-plug-arm-socket thingy doesn’t like staying in his back and there’s definitely a small back panel thing that fell off him at some point and I do not know where it came from or where it goes. But otherwise he’s neat.
Watch him soar. OR. Tudyk plus Tudyk equals FordykRegarding K2S0, or possibly K2SO, I’m not willing to try to use the internet to tell which it is - A lot of Black Series figures of late have been Just People because, well, a lot of the Star Wars content of late has been Just People. I get that. But a lot of them don’t make for great toys. But K2 has everything. Big droid, featured in several excellent properties, Alan Tudyk voice, so I decided I did in fact need one. And since he’s a Big Boy Robot at Standard Figure Prices, I don’t even mind the lack of accessories. What would he come with?
The original plan was to have him swiping a Stormtrooper off the bridge, because under no circumstances was I going to be buying the Weird Guy In His Thirties Wearing A Little Bit Of Stormtrooper Armor figure they made from the series, but then I was reminded we had an old Wash action figure made, by of all people, fuckin’ Funko ten years ago. (Those things I was willing to look up) and,m well, how could I not?
It’s a short and sweet oldy but a goody this time out, from Buddy Holly. Why this one? Why not? It’s been covered by just about everyone, from James Taylor to Erasure, and I really like the song, and I had free time this weekend, so here we are. If you like it, fabulous, if you don’t, well, it’s two minutes long, it’ll be over quickly enough.
And for those of you who have somehow never heard the original, here you go:
I had the luxury of choosing who dolls 36 and 37 would be on account of the July Pile of Loot spanning the boundary, so why not do two good big boy dollies, Jada Toys Blanka and Sagat!
They are beeeeefy. They’re to scale with the rest of the line, so they’re clocking in in the seven to eight inch range. Still have that glorious Jada movability, although you can’t quite get Blanka down into the deep deep crouch because, well, physics.
But they come with the extra hands, extra head (Blanka), effects pieces, and effects stand (Sagat).
Not sure what Jada’s going to do with this line after the one I’ve been waiting for since the jumnp (Vega) drops this fall, but I think there are a couple more deep cut New Challengers characters to pull from.
They shouldnt’ve pissed him off.The July (Technically End Of June) Pile of Loot kicks off with Cartoon Collections Orko, with a guest appearance by the Mythic Legions Evil Magic Effects Pack!
I freely admit that this is the most Robot-Chicken-Ass idea, but our influences are our influences.
Anyway, the figure is nice. He comes with the parts to turn him into his weird uncle (A scarf with a beird, a square-eyed head) but my square-eyed head is defective, missing the little rubbyer plug with the actual sockets for the ball joints in the neck and hat. I thought about caring, and then I thought about the kind of people who would give a shit if I decided Uncle Montork had round eyes instead of square ones, either from a failure to poster-tac the sockets or an unwillingness to digitally edit in the eyes from the alternative head, and also the fig was twenty bucks, and I decided against caring.
Instead, I used the poster-tac to get the Mythic Legions mandalas to stay up as a platform for Orko and also on Tekken plastic text stands.
The one flaw in Classic Collection, their inability to bend at the waist for shit, bit me on the ass once again, so if Prince Adam vomiting looks odd, that’s why.
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scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-07-12 08:25 pm
