February 2, 2002

Apoligize for the massive 'Sprue Withdrawals' many of you have gone through over the last month! There were a couple reasons for a lack of new Sprues... 1) Busy month at work, 2) not a damn thing going on to write about!!

Finally able to get back to the website and start catching up last week! The Gluie Awards were finally all tabulated and the results posted. Once again I'm torn whether to continue doing these. Received only 136 votes last year and this year I got in a total of about 137, but actually some didn't have the name filled out, or a few folks clicked on the submit without filling out any picks... so actually the number of actual votes only came to 130 this year.

Now on the one hand, even with just 130 votes... to tabulate all those by hand takes quite a while! On the other hand, there must be at the very least 500 or so folks that visit all the various Modeling boards, and yet only 1/5th take the time to vote. So the question I asked myself is, Is it worth it?! I'm thinking, right now, that it isn't... but will see how I feel this December.

Other than the low turn out, found the voting trend pretty interesting this time around. Take Polar Lights, for instance. The large majority of voters didn't pick them as number one this year. It was only because PL was picked by everyone, whether 1st, 2nd or 3rd, that the math resulted in them getting the highest points! But when you take into account that in 2000 PL produced twenty-four kits, and last year only three new ones and 2 chromed reissues, you can see it was a very different year for the Styrene side of the house!

Hardest thing for many voters was the simple fact that there were TOO many choices in each catagory to simply pick three!! Personally I like that, because it gives the results a more 'shotgun blast' trend! If any one kit is able to get high points even when the catagory is highly packed with choices, then to me that kit really made an impression!! Look at the difference in numbers between the Science Fiction kits and say, the Fantasy kits! Eight-Three kits to pick from in Fantasy as opposed to only 14 in SF! All 14 kits in SF had votes, but 11 kits in Fantasy didn't get any... and only nine kits got 20 or more points! Now to me, that's exciting to watch!

Another thing that I find exciting is when I know the dude voting and his picks absolutely blow me away!! A guy, that before this I'd have pegged as a monster lover, votes for all superheroes... or a guy I thought only liked figures, leaves all the figure catagories blank and votes only for props, vehicles and SF! I'm also flabbergasted when producers don't vote for ONE of their own kits!! I'm not sure if they think they CAN'T vote for their own, or if they actually feel the picks they chose are the best of the best, even if that means better than their own stuff?! If the latter, damn, I'm impressed!

Ol' Diceman was up in my area last Tuesday and we ended up spending the day together... spent the day finishing up my Chris Elizardo ROSIE kit, for the upcoming Model Maniacs magazine. The old boy isn't to shabby with a brush and his dry-brushing technique is pretty damn good!! Also took a jaunt down to my local hobby store, where he was pretty much surprised at how high the prices were down there!! Seems good ol' New Jersey is somewhat cheaper!!?!! Had lunch at Applebee's and pretty much spent the day talking about the hobby, certain bulletin boards and the folks who visit them, hobby shows, recasters, best blackjack hands and who not to sit next to, and overall busted each others balls for nine or so hours!!  :)

But what we pretty much realized, once again, is that this IS just a hobby and what goes on around here really can't be taken too seriously! So if your feathers are still bent outta shape, get over it!

I'll be moving the 2001 Kit Release pages (featuring a healthy 339 Garage Kits!!) over to the FortuneCity server, inorder to make room for the 2002 New Release page. Here's hoping 2002 brings us 339 more kits to celebrate over!!

Oh, and before I forget... Yo! Tony!! Gundam's ain't models!!   :)

Til next week...

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