No Bangs, Baby. Whimpers. Whimpers only!

Haagen Dazs has been degraded recently. So it ends up on the pile of stuff that’s gone downhill. I alone am left to tell the tale. Me and a few other chubby diehards.

The real problem is that “most people” do not seem to know or care what made Haagen Dazs (almost) unique. They will continue to eat that shitty Ben and Jerry’s until the cows come home. They do not taste any difference, and will comment on my blog (if I allowed dissent, which I do not young Skywalker) that I’m an idiot and spreading lies…

But B and J and all the rest (and Haagen Dazs, now) mess with ice cream until it don’t taste right. They put “gum” in it so that it will have the right “mouth feel” (yich!) and they blow air into it to screw us. It’s evil.

The difference between me and various other, younger cats is that I have made and eaten home-made ice cream in an old-fashioned ice cream freezer. Salt water and all. If you ain’t eaten “home made” then you do not know what ice cream is supposed to taste like (Haagen Dazs was very, very close) and you should shut up. The real deal is perishable, difficult to make and melts like a bitch.

But it was, and is, heaven.

But, considering how fscking fat I am and how fscking fat the whole world is becoming– I’m not surprised that the best way to get fat is being executed by a death squad on the edge of town. Maybe, just maybe, you should HAVE to make it yourself in order to be allowed to eat it. Safer that way. Maybe God never intended for the mass-production of good ice cream to fatten us all into rolly-polly hurdy-gurdy…

What?

Let’s talk about model paint.

RPM/Testors has been shut down. No more Testors MM Acryl for me and you. With that stuff off the market, I can suggest only some rather half-assed alternatives. I mean, going to the store to buy paint is what I do. It defines me. Now, I am reduced to getting the Badger Model Flex. It will work and can be mixed with MM Acryl and Pollyscale. So I’m good.

Revell paint is good. If you are starting from scratch, you could do a LOT worse. I really would like to be able to go to Hobby Lobby and buy it, but as far as I can tell, that’s not an option right now. So, okay then.

But.

But but but but.

There are about a zillion new kinds of paint coming out and some of them are just so FINE. Mmm mmm mmm.

FINE!

But they are (mostly) intended for airbrushes.

The brushpainters are being squeezed out by collateral damage. Nobody intended for us to be hit by the missiles. But it happened, and we are just as dead.

The airbrush has been sucking the life out of model building for a good long time. Don’t think that this just started up last year or last decade. The airbrush has been the elephant sitting on the 600 lb. gorilla in the room since plastic kits had a “boost” in sales around 1965, and magazines appeared and the hobby became (sorta) mainstream.

The airbrush was, even then, pushed as a kind of “all purpose problem solver” and the fact that airbrushes came with health dangers was swept under that filthy rug where all those tiny antennae and landing gear struts are still tangled in the shag fibers.

Swept under The Carpet Monster itself. Yes, I went there.

Currently, you can go on-line and, if you are reasonably sloppy, you will NEVER find a reference to brushpainting plastic models. No such thing. The paints that are appropriate for this are the subject of never-ending (and really weird) discussions where half of the neebles venting their opinions DO NOT PAINT MODELS WITH BRUSHES.

But they still have an opinion on how to do it. What the HELL?

The very worst thing in the world is Vallejo Model Color. This stuff is hideous. If you can “make it work” well, damn, you are a freakin’ magician, my friend. But some people just keep on repeating that it’s good for “brushing” when it very certainly sucks donkey balls.

So why do I have to put up with this?

I don’t. I’ve bailed out on forums and I’ll bail out on anything else where the words “Vallejo Model Color” are not crossed out and replaced by the word “shit.”

Vallejo Model Air is not nearly as bad, but it’s not really good. It’s just acceptable.

But the thing is, I was over at Hobby Lobby and I’ll be damned if they didn’t have Vallejo Model Air and a bunch of airbrushes.

What… is…this?

Is using Vallejo paint and spraying it all over the place now considered a proper manly activity, like watching football? Well? What is this?

Ah hell. I’m getting too old to get worked up over this stupid crap. But my paint reviews and my efforts to ‘splain why one kind of paint is good (self-leveling) and another is bad (brush marks) is something that I never imagined would be such a struggle.

To paint with a brush, I just need a paint that goes on smooth and dries hard. It should not bead up if thinned, and it should level itself out as it cures. Pollyscale did this, but Testors bought it and shut it down. MM Acryl did it, but now that’s shut down. Badger Model Flex does this– but it’s kinda hard to get.

Now there are “figure” painting brands of paint that are “meant for brushing.” Like “The Army Painter.” I like their paint, but I’m not going to go out and buy up a dozen colors and try them. No. That ship has sailed. I’m no longer the paint testing guy. To much expense. No payoff.

I do NOT like Citadel paints, because they are “figure only” because of they way they are made/marketed. If you can make it work, good for you.

There are other “figure” paints but they all remind me of Golden acrylic paint. Very good stuff– for what it is. But it’s not plastic kit paint. Dammit. It’s not. It won’t work for that.

Why the hell is it that an expert on this subject (me, goddam it) cannot be heard on this? Why is my knowledge hidden away on this blog? You tell me. Vallejo Model Color IS NOT good for painting plastic models. Other brands of paint are much, much better.

Tamiya paint can be used (by an expert) to create magical finishes WITH A BRUSH.

Who elected the dopes who insist that it’s “impossible” to use just because THEY can’t use it? Well?

I’m really tired of trying to co-ordinate this. That’s why I just can’t work up the enthusiasm to keep on writing a blog about paint. It’s exhausting to tell the truth and be told that it’s unimportant and wrong.

So be it.

Stay tuned for Episode 16 of Lion Squadron.

6 Replies to “No Bangs, Baby. Whimpers. Whimpers only!”

  1. So I read this again….
    Yep, crap proliferates endlessly, whether it’s Model paint, models, Ice Cream, AR-15 “platform” guns, shoes, socks, opinions, truth… everything is so frantically commodizized, AI interpreted for you, Federal reserve notes, all done up to be easily manipulated, sold, shredded, re-sold, re-soled, re-souled. …. I love my dog Riley, he’s honest, loyal, brave, beautiful, smarter than your 5th grader,
    watches over my body and soul…he’s a Kelpie, solid black, ancient highland collie, bred with Dingo in Australia. If you want to see the best Dog movie ever find “Red Dog”, on Amazon and other places.

  2. Damn, I haven’t had Haagen-Dazs in years. I would have eaten a lot more of it back then had I known its quality would go down the drain. You should do a homemade ice cream post sometime.

    1. My experience with home-made ice cream is as distant and special as the Spartans standing up to the Persians. I do seem to recall that it happened in the back yard on hot days, and my brother and I (age 8-9) helped to assemble and watch over the old electric ice cream “freezer” with a motor that groundgroundground — stirring the cream and sugar…

      …and lemon. It was always lemon. You can’t buy lemon ice cream. Sorbet, yes. But this was real ice cream. Lemon. Home-made.

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