Mario Block Box

I had the idea of making a gift for someone. This person hasn't seriously played a game since the days of the N64, but is really into retro things. While my mind ran through ideas of games to make something from, I thought of different icons from retro games. While some ideas were great, they would have required much more time than I had. Finally, I settled on the idea of a Mario Block. But, that's boring, so I thought-- Hey, I can make it a box to store things in. Awesome, and functional. Woo

The first task was the decide how to construct this box. I decided on corner trim from Lowe's. It was already in the right shape ( L-shaped) so I just had to miter-cut the pieces to the correct length and angle to make them fit together. I then glued the panels in place. Voila! A box!

Inside the box.

Primed the box and sanded it down a bit for paint application.

Painted yellow with gloss enamel paint from Lowe's.

The question marks were cast from one question mark that I cut from styrene and glued together to give a 3D effect.

The box, sitting in my workshop, drying with some clear-coat polyurethane. 

 The lid. Each side of the cube has 4 1cm squares cut, painted, and glued to the surface.

 A plush mushroom inside. Surprise!

The completed box!

Tokyo Marui Biohazard / Resident Evil Samurai Edge Std. Mod Airsoft Gun Review

You can apparently get an Airsoft gun, depending on the type, for fairly cheap. And then there's the Tokyo Marui guns which are accurate even to the feel of the weight in some cases. They cost a bit more. In fact, while I was impulse-buying this beauty, my cousin said, "You know, for the price, you could almost just buy a real beretta..." Quite true, but real berettas don't say "S.T.A.R.S" and "RPD" on them. Just saying. It's spring-loaded, so everything clicks in place. The safety works. The slide slides. The ammo clip release is in the same spot as a real gun. When you pull the slide back, it locks in place til you pull the trigger. Again, I don't know a lot about guns, so I can't say exactly how accurate any of this is--but you could certainly fool me with it.

Let me just start this review off by saying that I have never used a real firearm in my life. I'm sure the process of picking one up and getting it ready to fire is quite easy. That being said, I still really have no interest in owning a real gun. This is about as far as I'll go. AND LET ME TELL YOU, THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!!!


As a huge Resident Evil fan, this gun is sweet. Again, I've never actually fired a real handgun, so I don't know how accurate this thing is, but you could certainly fool me with it. Well, minus the massive amount of orange paint that was on the tip. This is placed there as a legal matter since these are so realistic that they could easily be mistaken for real guns. It made the gun look gaudy and dumb. Very fake, which is the purpose.

Of course, with some google-love, I was able to find an article that said the easiest way to remove the paint was mineral spirits, or paint thinner, goo gone, or nail polish remover. I read some that said that nail polish was only a good idea if the such-and-so was metal, but not on plastic. Who knows. I went with nail polish remover and it worked pretty well. But let me tell you, for as well as it works, it's not a magic "orange-removing chemical" you have to really work at this to get the paint out of some of the nooks and crannies. Mine still has some orange on it in those hard to reach areas. I'm actually considering going over some of the areas with some flat black or gunmetal black paint just to get rid of that orange.

This airsoft gun is exactly as you'd expect it. It says "Racoon Police - S.T.A.R.S" on the handle engravings. On the slide it says "Mod. Samurai Edge. Law Enforcement Only" on one side, and "S.T.A.R.S. RPD Special Team" on the other. I really couldn't ask for a more accurate piece of work without owning a real gun. My hat's off to Tokyo Marui for this excellent airsoft gun.

Pros:

• Very accurate.
• Very awesome!
• Fun to play around with.

Cons:

• Nearly as much as a real gun ($150)
• Might get you shot for real.
• Not very useful against real zombies.

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Bioshock EVE Hypo Injector Replica Review

Hm, ok, so this review isn't really going to be much of a review since I didn't take many pictures. In fact, I only took one picture. It looks mysteriously  like the thing from Bioshock. It was mass produced by NECA, who make the most non-posable action figures ever (They still look really cool, just more like statues--but less like statues than DC's Warcraft figures... but I digress...) This little prop is pretty cool, though. It costs right at $15 on bbts.com.It has an LED light that activates when you push the injector at the top. It nicely clicks in place so you can leave it on. That's about all it does... seriously. Waste of money, I'd say. But, I waste lots of money so it seems like a worthy investment to me!

I should have some more reviews up soon. I got in a TON of stuff since my pile-of-loot from BBTS was starting to look imposing. I was actually waiting for the Fansproject Bruticus add-ons to come out, but that'll have to wait til July. ;-;

Til then, though, I'll have some reviews up on the Alternity Skywarp, Animated Blackout, Revoltech Mari, Revoltech Jack Skellington, and some other stuff I may have forgotten to review.