Hot Wheels Ford Transit Connect

Ford Transit Connect: HKH50.

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From the back of the 2014 card:

" Born: 2014
Birthplace: Dearborn, MI, USA
Designer: Hot Wheels® and Ford
Specialty: The special Hot Wheels® version of the Ford Transit Connect was created for the 2013 SEMA show. The real life version is fully loaded with custom features including two 18-inch tablets, a 55-inch television screen, gullwing doors and a built-in Hot Wheels® drag strip.
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This vehicle is from Hot Wheels Art Cars Collection. I have one other in my collection.

Alia Atreides, A Host of Characters

The Telling of the Priestess Alia’s Trance Through Song

“She rides the sandworm of space! She guides it through all storms. Into the land of gentle winds.
Though we sleep next to the snake’s den, she guards our dreaming souls.
Shunning the desert heat, she hides us in a cool hollow.
The gleaming of her whole teeth, guides us in the night.
By the braids of her hair, we are lifted up to heaven!
Sheet fragrance, flower-scented,
Surrounds us in her presence.”

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert

Rockmilk

"Rockmilk.-Lactus saxi. Viscous and heavy as magna, but bone cold. And dense with thaumaturgons, the charged particles. Worth several times its considerable weight in gold, or diamonds, or oil or blood.

'Ships don’t use fucking rockmilk to fire their engines,” Silas said. 'Whatever they are stockpiling for, its not just to keep their vessels trim.'”

The Scar, China Mieville

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon is an adaptation of The Adventure of the Dancing Men by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story takes place in WWII England and features a cypher, Professor James Moriarty and the usual assortment of henchmen.

Simple Scratch Built Robot is Coming Along

My first scratch built robot is coming along. The parts still need to be glued together and I am still brain-storming on how I want to move forward with the robots arms.

I have fashioned listening devices and a mouth piece that need to be attached as well as a access panels for access into the robots mechanical and electrical systems.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

A Sherlock Holmes story with a slightly different narrative.

A Lament for a Woman Left Behind on Arrakis

“Far within the fortress citadel, so deep within that the sound sometimes lost itself in the flow of city noises, a ten-string rebaba tinkled with a song of the Jihad, a lament for a woman left behind on Arrakis:

‘Her hips are dunes curved by the wind,
Her eyes shine like summer heat,
Two braids of hair hang down her back-
Rich with water rings, her hair!
My hands remember her skin,
Fragrant as amber, flower scented…
I am stricken by love’s white flame!’ ”

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert

A Song Popular on Nara j Worlds and Sung by a Young Fremen

“A wind has blown the land away.
And all the men!
Who is this wind?

The trees stand unbent.
Drinking where men drank.
I’ve known too many worlds,
Too many men,
Too many trees,
Too many winds”

A List of Espionage Thrillers

Here's another list. This one of espionage thrillers found in text and film.

1. A Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carrie
2. The Kremlin Letter, Noel Behn
3. The Billion Dollar Brain, Len Deighton
4. Funeral in Berlin, Len Deighton
5. An Expensive Place to Die, Len Deighton
6. A Dandy in Aspic, Derek Marlowe
7. Heirs of Cain, Abraham Rothberg
8. A Thousand Doors, Abraham Rothberg
9. The Looking Glass War, John Le Carrie
10. Hammerhead, James Mayo
11. Let Sleeping Girls Live, James Mayo

Miniature Robot Scratch Build-An Update

Using a verity of tools the electronics and mechanical pod is just about ready to to be droped in to the bay. There is still a little material that needs to be removed from the left hand side of the bay so the pod can be dropped in.

I have been brain storming about how I want to proced with the head and arm units. I believe I will start on the computation unit next.

Cyan Eyed-Short Dust SCIFI Film

Cyan Eyed features a air ship, that on first glance reminded by of the The Jenny Haniver, but on further inspection I noticed this vessel is a lot larger. Also, there was a robot or should I say a flying mech unit. A great short film by Dust.

“Once more the drama begins”

The Emperor Paul Muad’dib on his ascension to the Lion Throne

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“The sharply silver light of noon poured through clerestory windows on to the floor worked in green, blue, and eggshell tiles to simulate a bayou with water plants and here and there, a splash of exotic color to indicate a bird or animal.

Guildsmen moved across the tile pattern like hunters stalking their prey in a strange jungle. They formed a moving design of grey robes, black robes, and orange robes all arrayed in a deceptively random way around the transparent tank where the Steersmen-Ambassador swan in his orange gas. The tank slid on its supporting field, towed by two grey robbed attendants, like a rectangular ship being warped into its dock.”

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert

My First Attempt at building a Robot Miniature

This is my first attempt in creating a miniature robot in polystyrene and I have already found a couple of things I would have done differently.

The feet and legs need to be contoured. I will use my Dremel tool for that.

The large slab of plastic off to the left will be cut in two and will be adhered together. This will be the basis of the robot’s torso. I am planning on embedding a piece of either smoky or clear plastic in the robot’s upper torso.

I will also add some greeble to the legs and torso to give the piece some character. Although I have some ideas I am still little unsure how to proceed with the robot’s head section.

Shuttlecraft Kitbash

Box art can be found at Scalemates.

The author used a Heller Super Frelon 1/35 scale helicopter kit and kitbashed it into fabluous Shuttlecraft. Page provides lots of sequential pictures and construction details.

The Orgy as a Tool of Statecraft

"The most dangerous game in the universe is to govern from an oracular base. We do not consider ourselves wise enough or brave enough to play that game. The measures detailed here for regulation in lesser matters are as near as we dare venture to the brink of government. For our purposes, we borrow a definition from the Bene Gesserit and we consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and teachers, sources of the possible. Our goal is not to rule, but to tap these gene pools, to learn, and to free ourselves from all restraints imposed by dependency and government."

The Orgy as a Tool of Statecraft, Chapter Three of The Steersman's Guild

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert