Thursday, January 10, 2019

Crimes were committed, for sure

Just watched Fantastic Creatures - Crimes of Grimblebimblebumblyboo and didn't think much of it really. Terrible pacing and rather confused, directionless plotting. I get that writers like to give their characters some depth (usually), but that doesn't mean that every single character has to be emotionally wracked and distraught ALL THE GODDAM TIME.

Johnny Depp's Grindlewald was a bit of a relief in that respect — no emotional self-flagellation, just got on with the EEEEEEEvilness, like a proper villain.

Also, like a proper villain, he was always polite. That's how you can tell your proper villains. Manners.

I imagined Grindlewald's aides taking new people aside and saying, sotto voce, "Don't stare at the eye. Just don't." And then later on, sweeping up little piles of ash and muttering to themselves about stupid fucking people who just couldn't resist staring at the fucking eye when they'd been specifically told not to stare at the eye.

Also, when did Dumbledore et al. stop wearing natty tweeds and trilbies and stuff and take up wearing all those hippy velvet dressing gowns? Was it the sixties? Is that what did it?

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Scrabble Box

Every household needs a box to keep their Scrabble set in, and this is now ours.

The original cardboard box finally gave up the ghost and disintegrated, so I made a new one, a bit sturdier than the old.

This is the first time I've tried a faux-finish. The top and bottom are just 6mm MDF that I've stained with a grain pattern, then shellacked and waxed. The sides are some bits of 8mm oak tongue-and-groove* I had lying around, and the inside is paint.

The most expensive part of the whole thing was the brass fittings, which cost an unreasonable amount of money. I would have liked to have had a bright brass latch as well, but I didn't have one handy, and I wasn't going to pay an exorbitant amount to get one.
* Actually some groove-and-groove. The reason I had it in my wood-pile is because somebody fucked up and then threw it in the rubbish.