Archive for 2010

The best mayor of Rome

I want to close this year with the image of the best mayor of Rome: Gianni Alemanno. You can see here his concept about recycling. He took off bins to streets so now people have to throw away their litter (inside paper bags!) only in (secret?) selected open areas on the street where a dustman collects them, when he is present obviously. This service is activated only in determined hours in the morning, during the day is impossible to throw away your litter. So lazy people throw away their litter everywhere, even in the bins for plastic or glass (the ones that remained at their place). But there is also people unable to reach dustmen, even because people work in the morning. And if you buy a slice of pizza there isn’t a place where to put the envelope.
The recycling fact is only an excuse for some matter of money. I think all this thing costs more than before, and there is no more recycling. The upper picture explain all the situation on the new service to a cleaner Rome. It was took under my house in a normal day.

I could say more on this great mayor and his great management, his scandals and his inefficiencies, but I think you can just see this photo where our mayor is doing one of his habitual activities. With a free translation, the surname Alemanno can be interpreted something like “Oi! I eat!”.

In this night there is the tradition to throw away the old things that you don’t want in the following year. I’m thinking about someone…

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Sheep and their shepherds

Luca is back in Rome from London to visit his parents, with wife and children. And so a new reunion of old chaps was setted! Here we are at the beginning of the evening, at work with forks and mouths. We ate (for each one): 1 crocchetta (boiled ground potato, then fried, with mozzarella inside), 1 fiore di zucchina (fried zucchini’s flower with anchovy and mozzarella), 1 oliva ascolana (fried minced olive with ground meat), 1 supplì (ball of fried rice with tomato and mozzarella), 2 arancini (big ball of fried rice with meat and other things and spices), 1 pizza (big like a roofing tile). I had some traditional sweets at home, but we only drink water and digestives.



After the dinner we played with Song of Drums and Shakos, 2 (I and Luca) vs. 2 (Paolo and Narciso), with a scenario managed by Diego. Turns was driven by playing cards. Glorious French have to sack some sheep (we simulated them with white dices!) to bastard goddams. You can guess which side I was. Well, more than skilful shepherds we were only dedicated to shoot enemies. At the end there were so many cadavers and sheep were almost useless because there were not more alive stomachs to feed.


Final photo! Outside the temperature is low so my chaps seem inflated to cover from cold. Or fried and pizza inflated we all!

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World without end

Today we played with Trivial Pursuit and Visual Game, classic games to play during parties with unprofessional players, but some days ago, during Christmas shopping time, we found time for an afternoon with boardgames. This time was “World without end” turn. The explanation of the rules by my friends was more complex than the game, so I found some elements only playing it and I had a bad performance. It is the following of the “Pillars of the Earth”, and the graphic remind it. Here you are in a successive moment respect the construction of the cathedral, now you are building the city. The mechanics are different but there is a touch of the first title. There is interaction with the other players, but it is not so great. What can I say? Well, it is a fun game, easy to play even if you cannot plan a lot in advance so there isn’t a strategy to apply but all is a bit casual, or at least I tried this. Interesting game, but probably not the best game around. I want to play it another time with more conscience.

Here Paolo and Franci in Christmas version with my gifts.

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Merry Christmas

It is Christmas! And this year I want to offer this card from a Micronauts collector friend of mine.

merry christmas

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My personal painting service

I want to show to you my personal painting service: my father!

angelo moscarelli

He is the man that paints all my miniatures, free of charge. He is guilty of the passion of mine for modelling , because when I was a child he built some airplanes from a modelling encyclopaedia. After his example I started to build my models, and in my later age I found out that I could put my passion to the plastic soldiers in my little age together with modelling, playing with them in a smart way too.
He is not the skilled painter of the world but he is my father and he paint for the love that he has towards me, and this means he is the best painter in the world!

angelo moscarelli

Here we are together at Paris, last year. I was the one with the shirt I will wear when I won the Anticamente championship.

Today is his birthday! Happy birthday dad!

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Just arrived: a mayor for Flyton

This is my mayor. He arrived this morning by mail from Madison WI. This nice guy made of lead is the result of a great idea: honour a dead father with a miniature that represent him. His name was Dan J. Binsack and you can find more informations here. A lot of people bought this lead person, especially in the circle of Very British Civil War players. So he is present in a lot of games. I found for him the role of mayor for my Flyton in my future games.

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A viaduct for Flyton (part 1)

I spoked about more bricks for my town. Well, these are made of polystyrene.
I bought for 4 quid from Scalescene (see here), a maker of train modelling scenery in form of pdf, the draws to print. You have got the basic pieces to build a viaduct, its length is how many you want, the only thing to do is to print more sheets to apply on cardboard.
But what is thought for train modelling is different from what is for war with lead people, so I could not use cardboard, I needed more hard and durable materials. And something modular too, because I haven’t the need of a fixed scenery, but something always different and easy to store.
So I called my friend Fabio from Bologna, the artist of polystyrene, and he decided to bring to reality the viaduct!

viaduct viaduct

Here you can see his child Alice while he was buying the polystyrene sheet. (Imagine the scene: “Come with me Alice, daddy are going to bring you in a beautiful and interesting place”) Its thickness is equal to the wideness of the road on the viaduct, so the only thing to do is cut bricks and after dig the arches. It seems simple, innit? So, it is simpler to say than to do, but this polystyrene artist can make it with mastery, I’m not capable to do a clean work like this.
The following step is to print a lot of arches on adhesive paper and attach them on the polystyrene.
I want a viaduct of about 1.5 metres, so he have to do a lot of work. In a following post we will see the progresses on this project. I’m informed of every step through mms from his mobile, so I’m waiting news like you.

viaduct viaduct

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Next stop: Flyton!

“I’m building an English city in 28mm scale. For now I have got a double deck”. I told this phrase almost eight months ago. After I told it I found it very funny, because you cannot do a city with a bus…
Instead it is partially logical. I want a city to set my skirmish games, because in skirmish battles with firearms you cannot have a scenery based on a lawn (the first who moves kills all with a burst), and put some tins or books around is dreary. So this bus is the first thing I bought to set a scenery, the first brick of my city.

bus stop

bus stop

I bought for few quid on E-Bay this old model, almost a wreck. I repaired some lost parts, put the numbers of the 12 line (I was taking this bus line when I went to Luca’s house) and changed its disrupted adverts with Marmite ones. Its aspect is around the ’50 I suppose, but I will put it in every set since 1938 to 21th century. Who cares is sometime it will be not chronologically exact, it is always a double deck, an English icon.

bus stop

Here you can see the second brick of my city, a transport from 1938. And sunday I bought a railway crane and a van. More bricks are on arrival…

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