PixlBit

Good morning Pixlpeeps! As I sit inside a cozy and warm home, I look outside and the sun is finally peaking through the clouds. The past couple of days we had nothing but rain so there was a nice gray sky with constant drizzle. On the first day I sat outside with some popcorn and a big jacket and enjoyed the sounds, smell, and view. My popcorn quickly became cold, but it wasn’t a big deal, I was outside for the show. Anyways it should clear up for a couple of days before getting more rain next week. I do like this time of year because it gets “California Cold” (50s-60s), snow is on the mountains, and of course some folks put up Christmas lights. Let’s get started with Quick Hits.

 

So I’m listening to this as I type this

 

I’m usually not a fan of depressing Christmas songs but I really do like Zooey’s voice and it fits with the song so it made the Christmas Playlist. Since I started with music I am still ripping my CDs. I hope I am at 50% finished because this is taking forever. I found a website that has album covers called Album Art Exchange. It is user based so if you need high quality scans give them a try. I don’t know if I mentioned it but since I’ve tackled this project I’ve made some changes.

-Under Album if the album or singles are digital I add “(source)” at the end of the album name. So if I bought a track from iTunes it would be: Album Name (iTunes)

-For Classical tracks from compilation albums at the end of the track name I have the composer’s name in parenthesis.

I’m also finding CDs that I have bought multiple times. So far I have found I think 5 that I didn’t know I had copies of. It sucks because that could have been 5 new albums but what can you do. I will do an updated CD list for 2019.

 

 

Over the past week or so I have caught up to my book pace on Goodreads. I went through five audio books, four of them in four days. I listened to more of my Graphic Audio collection mainly the Batman books. I read:

-Enemies & Allies (40s Batman & Superman team up)

-Batman: Dead White (Batman takes on white supremacists)

-Batman: Inferno (Batman takes on two villains in Gotham)

-Countdown: Based on the DC Comic Series (stuff that happens after Infinite Crisis)

-The Flash: Stop Motion (Wally West investigates murders in Keystone City)

 

They were all good reads that followed the same pattern of storytelling but still fun to read. I took a break yesterday, and probably today before I dive into Final Crisis which is currently loaded on my phone ready to go.

 

In eBooks Amazon had many of the Captivating History books available for free on Kindle so grabbed all of them and I started reading the Aztec History. My currently reading book backlog is starting to model Mount Backlog, the game backlog. I want to knock some of these out for 2019 as well.

 

I’ve started one of my 2019 Goals early in that I wouldn’t buy games unless I at least finish one of the games I am currently playing. My cutoff was the Black Friday pickups, and this was put to the test yesterday when I saw a bundle on Fanatical that for $5 you can get Knights of the Old Republic I&II, as well I think 6 other games. Heck of a deal but I really wanted KOTORII, but I didn’t buy it because I haven’t finished any games.

 

So the local Super Target closed about a year ago, and the building it was in is currently being renovated to be home to four stores. One of the stores opened last week and it is a liquidation store for places like Kohl’s, Macy’s, and Target (oh the irony). Items are 50%-90% off, and it is a fun store to just dig through but when it opened I guess checkout lines were around the walls of the store and it doubled on itself at the end. It was nuts. Since I had some time when they opened I decided to check it out. Think of it as a small Walmart where when you enter you are hit with racks of clothes, to the left side is furniture in boxes, behind the clothes are aisles of toys, home goods, electronics, and knick-knacks. The back wall was more toys, Christmas stuff, and housewares. By the registers is glass cases filled with electronics, video games, and TVs. I spent maybe an hour just going through finding all kinds of goodies, and I found some items, mainly building block toys

 

Lego Dimensions Adventure Time Level Pack for $15. I guess this could count as a game but I am not currently playing the full game and I am buying these just to add to the set.

 

 

Some polybag seasonal sets for $2, and $1.75

 

Random bag of parts for $1.75 (I wanted that octagonal piece)

 

A Lego Batman keychain in a Valentine’s Day suit for $3. I might get another, and remove the keychain part to add to the minifigure bin.

 

For the non Lego building blocks set I picked up this cool set

 

I saw these sets at a local sports apparel shop at the mall and I thought they were cool, just not worth the price, but this one was $15 and I figure it would be a cool set to have, and I have he instructions to build my own helmet.

 

Well the building blocks are a lot smaller than Lego but the plastic was solid

 

It was hard to read the directions especially because of the color of the bricks but they did do a decent job of explaining which level of the helmet you should be working on. After an hour this was my progress

 

I thought the directions to connect the facemask to the sides of helmet were vague, and by the time I got to building the back it was more of trying to get it to connect without having the facemask come apart. The weak part of this design is easily the facemask because it is so fragile compared to the sturdy body of the helmet.

 

Three hours later I finished

 

It is a solid helmet, if you don’t touch the facemask.

 

The helmet is the same size as a mini helmet, and would look good on a shelf. I’m going to use the directions to make my own helmet with actual Lego pieces so it will be much bigger but hopefully more sturdy.

 

Alright Pixlpeeps I am off. It is chilly and I am in the mood for soup. Have a good weekend!

 

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris