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Humor in modeling,


odwinn

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This is true.......really!

Quite a number of years ago when our British National Championships was a much smaller event than now

I made up a small base with just 2 footprint indents simulated on it with a nameplate 'H G Well's Invisible Man on it and placed the base in amongst the figures class for a practical joke.

A friend of mine later said on the day 'You're not going to believe this but more than one person actually passed their hand over it to feel if something was there!'

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  • 1 month later...

There can be no humor in scale modeling. I've been a member of various model forums and even the old rec.models.scale since the 90s. This is serious stuff. Haven't you seen the flame wars? Men will hound one another for decades in order to ridicule each other over these wars. There's an old RMS feud that still pops up every now and again. That one's been in play since the mid to late 90s.

 

No humor, not allowed.

 

Precisely why I haven't been to RMS in a number of years (and don't miss it). I don't even remember the issue now, but I was getting beat up about something, and I said screw it, see ya. Rob, as I recall you were one of the peacekeepers (or tried to be).

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Mark, have you been looking over my shoulder? A great set of rules. It is hard to choose my favorite rule. I love 27 D. For that reason, I have all of the Profiles, in Actions etc. "There might be a kit of that airplane sometime". Also, 27 E caused me to check my list of decals. I found out that I had 1342 decal records and only 547 kit records. I got rid of a bunch of kits a couple of years ago but the point is made about decals. A friend of mine called decals "Eye Candy for modelers. (Blush) I found that i actually had 69 sets of F-4 decals.

 

Funny about decals. Sometimes I just pick up sheets! Two days ago, I went through all my different sets to figure out what I wanted to put on the Jerry. I am a TreadHead but I have aircraft decals, helicopter decals, car and truck decals, decals with different symbols on them, Railroad decals, plain decal paper, Warhammer 40K decals, and of course numerous armor decals. I NEVER throw decals away. I still have what's left of the set from the old Italeri Hetzer that I did way back in the 80s. No idea if they are usable......but I got them!

Edited by Mark Aldrich
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I don't know if he was the originator, but the copy of 'Rules of Acquisition' I have saved from a few years back were posted on RMS by one Al Superczynski. That name should be familiar to a few.

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Mark -- I must be losing my memory -- I would have sworn I saw you there back in the day, I know Rob Gronovious was/is, thought you were too. Anyway, RMS is Rec.Model.Scale Couldn't tell you last time I was there (8-10 years maybe), no idea if it even exists anymore.

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Michael,

Sorry, wasn't that big into the internet then. I just looked it up and it was a google goups thing ( I am guessing). I did join some of them. One was the shermanaloics???? Got very irritated with all the JUNK emails that came along with being a group member. Thanks for the heads up though. If Al Superczynski steps up and lays claim to being the author, I will definitely change it to be so!

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RMS is still around, although a mere shadow of its former self. I remember if you missed a day of reading, it would take hours to catch up. I visit it semi-regularly, couple time a week or so.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.models.scale/topics?lnk

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And Cookie still posts his reviews in the decade plus old format. They have their uses, but the valuable ones are the reviews that have photos. Like the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

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There can be no humor in scale modeling. I've been a member of various model forums and even the old rec.models.scale since the 90s. This is serious stuff. Haven't you seen the flame wars? Men will hound one another for decades in order to ridicule each other over these wars. There's an old RMS feud that still pops up every now and again. That one's been in play since the mid to late 90s.

 

No humor, not allowed.

 

Precisely why I haven't been to RMS in a number of years (and don't miss it). I don't even remember the issue now, but I was getting beat up about something, and I said screw it, see ya. Rob, as I recall you were one of the peacekeepers (or tried to be).

 

Peacekeeping wasn't meant to be on RMS. It was an UNMODERATED NEWSGROUP and they wanted it to remain like that. Netiquette was in its infancy and the old school members like to hide behind the anonymity of the internet and act like jerks.

 

Trolls and flame wars were the norm. Many a member left in frustration when they gave up on trying to make a troll see the errors of their ways. What they never realized is that the trolls knew what they were doing and their whole point in the pointless exercise was to get under someone's (anyone's) skin just to irritate them.

 

The victims always seemed to think that they would be the ones to make the troll stop being a troll; that they would be the ones to get through to them.

 

The only way to defeat the troll was to totally ignore them and add them to your "killfile" list. The killfile was a method that prevented a users posts from ever reaching your computer. Sort of like adding someone to your spam list. You would never see the troll's post on your computer. Unless, of course, the next victim replied to the troll and quoted the text in his response. And then the cycle would begin again.

 

Once you leaned to ignore the trolls, RMS was a valuable source of information. Today I still recognize old RMS trolls by name on various modeling forums, but they seem to be better behaved on moderated forums. The internet has made the world a smaller place and the chance to run into one another at national and regional shows (and get a punch in the nose) has probably tempered their tongues.

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And I have learned one very important fact about forums.....NEVER EVER ask a simple question.......sheesh!!!

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Mark -- Here is a pretty little box I've found, someone named Pandora left it upon my step, would you care to take a peek :( inside....? Rob --Oh man, now you're bringing back some memories. I remember the 'killfile' thing, but I never could figure out how to use it. And trolls, oh yea.... One that comes to mind was AZHoser-- proved you actually could polish a turd or some damn thing. Took it to a Nats or something? Unfortunately(?) my modeling hasn't changed a lot since those days; I read magazines and forums, and look at pretty pictures 50 to 1 over what I might paint and glue. You don't get beat up as much that way.

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AZHoser, I remember that name. Of course there was also the infamous Dave Merriman, apparently a very good modeler and the only one there ever was. The rest of us lower life forms were "kit assemblers". If you didn't build it from toothpicks, balsa wood, scrap plastic and a dogbone then it wasn't a real model. You just assembled a kit.

 

I have an annoyingly long memory and recognize many of the old trolls because they still use the same email address 15+ years later. Heck, I still use the first email address I ever got from way back in 1995 or 96.

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Ahh yes, Dave Merriman, I do remember his opinion of those of us who apparently lacked the talent to actually "build", and merely glued pre-molded bits together and had the audacity to call ourselves 'modelers'.... I was just reading a post about him the other day on Starship Modeler. Whoever posted wasn't berating his modeling talent (at least when it came to scratchbuilding 'real space' vehicles), but his interpersonal skills were mentioned as being less than stellar (no pun intended). To quote a line from 'Desiderata, "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself". No matter what skill is the subject at hand, I'm more talented and less talented all at once, and the beauty in that is that it allows me to learn and teach, both of which I enjoy a great deal.

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There can be no humor in scale modeling. I've been a member of various model forums and even the old rec.models.scale since the 90s. This is serious stuff. Haven't you seen the flame wars? Men will hound one another for decades in order to ridicule each other over these wars. There's an old RMS feud that still pops up every now and again. That one's been in play since the mid to late 90s.

 

No humor, not allowed.

 

Precisely why I haven't been to RMS in a number of years (and don't miss it). I don't even remember the issue now, but I was getting beat up about something, and I said screw it, see ya. Rob, as I recall you were one of the peacekeepers (or tried to be).

 

Remember the camouflage B-58 Hustler feud? It brings back memories. That's why I don't go the RMS any longer.

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RMS has just been bypassed by more efficient modeling forums. Take this forum, for instance, you can just read sci-fi, armor, aircraft, etc. On RMS, you have all topics in one long string of USENET posting, many of which are virtually unsearchable.

Bad behavior here leads to removal of that person. Bad behavior on RMS leads to multiple participating members leaving the discussion group.

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Remember the camouflage B-58 Hustler feud? It brings back memories. That's why I don't go the RMS any longer.

I missed that one, but I think a camo B-58 would be kinda cool, and not only a 'what-if' but a 'why not?'. I can think of all kinds of bizarre ideas for that one. Personally, I think we should have painted the tops of the Blackbirds like old tarmac. Could have left them sit outside and the Roosky satellites wouldn't have seen 'em....

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Personally, I think we should have painted the tops of the Blackbirds like old tarmac. Could have left them sit outside and the Roosky satellites wouldn't have seen 'em....

 

Now that, to me anyways, is probably the BEST idea of a camoflague idea yet!

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It would be much cheaper just to lay out cardboard SR-71 shapes with shadows on the tarmac right? :smiley17:

 

Actually, I thought of that too, right after I posted my other idea. If we had a schedule of sat flyovers we could set out a whole buttload of the cutouts (15-20), then for the next flyover, drag them all inside . They would have thought we had whole squadrons of them, then when they saw them gone they'd think they were out on missions somewhere. Like I said, the ones we actually did have, paint the tops concrete gray with tar stripes and oil stains, or paint the runways splotchy grass green and brown, then paint general aviation planes on top and more green and brown splotches. It would look like just an old uncontrolled field out in the middle of nowhere. Or, or....the hole place shades of brown with painted rows, then in a couple weeks add some light green dots in the rows, then bigger dots, and bigger dots, then slowly paint over the whole thing shades of green with goldish spots, then in August/September start painting it splotchy tan, then late September go back to rows of darker brown and tan lines..... Planes? What planes? There are no planes out here, just cornfields.

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Well, yea, but... Like I was told, and like I told others, there are other assignments I could give you, take your pick. And when the question arose of what the "other assignments" might entail, I and they were told that answer would come after the choice was made. I don't recall those other assignments being anywhere near as pleasant as the current task. Nor do I recall the same person posing that question again.

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