The B-24 of Yore

Somewhere in the mist of time there exists a Revell 1/92 B-24J Liberator. It’s a great kit.

I ripped this image off of “Old Model Kits” so I thought I’d better mention them.

This kit was one that I built several times. It finally appeared as a very boss “Pacific Raider.”

Oh hell yeah. I praise these kits, and other similar kits, even when I condemn them for their flaws. I still love what there is to love about them. They were good. They were fine. On-line reviewers used to respect the oldies and the classics.

No longer.

Today, we end up with just plain evil online snark intended to show how precious the author is by saying that old kits are “terrible” and unworthy of the time of the great master. I mean–are they trolling? Is that what it is?

Then I remember that “trolling” doesn’t mean what it used to. The internet is sliding downhill and it’s picking up speed. I used to be considered a “computer guy.” Now I’m a washed-up old doofus who doesn’t use social media.

Social media is for morons. Facebook is computers for people who can’t use computers. It allows people to gossip more easily. Twitter is good for two things–stalking celebrities (I mean, have you no shame?) and fighting. That’s it.

All the other weird and dumb social media “apps” are weird and dumb. The world of computing has become a wasteland inhabited by goofs who tell me that my style of computing is obsolete.

Maybe it is. Maybe it is. I don’t like model-building forums any more than I like Facebook. I’ve listed my reasons here and I can’t stand that the very worst of the forums are the “most successful.” It’s like finding out that crime pays–which I actually did find out and I still haven’t gotten over it.

Aging is difficult. It’s murderous to find out that what you thought was important can be scaled out of existence. By that I mean that a little fight in a little corner of the first world can suddenly be rendered irrelevant by the fact that a whole universe of new players can jump on board and just overwhelm what once was a spiteful and furious fight, turning it into something stupid. It’s all about numbers. We nerds who used to squabble on Usenet knew who we were and we squabbled like proper nerds.

But all that is just so much smoke in the wind. Now, it’s all about the latest fad or the newest super-specialized “wash” or “compound.” Don’t use the internet for research. Use the newest result of mysterious “research” showing that certain German planes were blue and certain U.S. tanks were yellow. Just follow the very hip and cool modeling celebrities on Twitter and you’ll always know what to do.

I know that I am a cranky old man, and I intend to get crankier. I know that my crankiness is inherited. My father and his mother (my grandmother) were just nasty people. I’m the same way. I can take other people and their endless posturing for brief periods of time and in small doses. I’m not proud of my affliction, but it’s mine. I know what it is. It’s not going away–not entirely. I take some lovely chemicals that are intended to control my hypertension (the relationship between being a sorehead and having high blood pressure is officially unscientific–so don’t mention it to the doctor) and also have the (unintended?) effect of cooling me out. I like those drugs. I like them a lot.

But that doesn’t keep me from being sore. Not entirely. So I blog, I draw cartoons, and I slave away at my novel, which has reached a very interesting point in its development (the first draft is finished).

Did I mention cartoons? Yes, I intend to scan a few of them and post them on the blog.

But not because I love people, in general. Just the opposite, in fact. Do not expect me to turn into comfy old Uncle Dan with his model building tips for a rainy afternoon, all peachy and keen. I’m a curmudgeon and I’m going to stay one for a while longer. You may find it interesting (or funny). But I’m the one who’s really paying the price.

And I know it.