20101123 - War Games CQB

On an isolated island somewhere in the South Pacific, our favorite boys in green face off in one of their usual bouts of fun and war games. Though they all fall down eventually, they just keep getting right back up to do it over again the very next day. Such is the eternal life of a venerable toy soldier.

This 1:32 Scale diorama was created with air and hand-brushed acrylic paint and spray enamel on fiber board and Styrofoam (with just a few little digital enhancements here and there). For this particular project, I used 63 of the 'Toy Story Green Army Men' (from the 72-piece "Bucket O Soldiers" playset). The diorama itself, I created primarily from garbage. Yes, garbage!

You see, in South Korea, all household trash must be meticulously separated to comply with the government's national recycling program. However, as one might imagine, not everyone here (or unfortunately, even in many other parts of the world) is particularly orderly, conscientious. or fastidious when it comes to putting out their garbage.

In fact, South Korea, like other countries in the Asia Pacific region in particular, tends to be quite awash with litter (particularly in certain areas) because many people here are either just too poorly educated (or just too lazy) to put their trash in the proper receptacles. But then.... there's the South Korean government that doesn't even provide public trash cans! And no, I'm not joking.

But the good news is, that if you're a big, "dumb," foreign (American!) guy like yours truly, then all you need to do to find some real gems from time to time is to take a walk around just about any neighborhood in South Korea on any given day.

So, believe it or not, this particular project was assembled using a discarded fiber-board table top I found on the curb outside my apartment. Then I added a few strategic sprinkles of aquarium rocks and various pieces of Styrofoam that tend to get carelessly thrown out on just about every street corner over here.

I'm not really sure if Koreans don't realize that improperly discarded Styrofoam blows away in the wind with relative ease, or... they just don't really care. Though, sadly, I'm afraid that it's more often the latter rather than the former.

Anyway, my trash collecting ways makes my Korean wife sometimes affectionately refer to me as "고물상 (Gomul-sang or, junk man)!" Ha-ha! Or rather, bwu-ha-ha! Because, as the old saying goes, "One man's garbage is another man's treasure." ;)

Lastly, if you love toy soldiers (and specifically little green army men) as much as yours truly, you've absolutely got to check out Mega Hobby.com.

Growing Up to Be a Proud Toy Geek

Now what's happening in the video above, is what I call FUN!  The annual G.I. Joe Collectors' Club parachute drop (though this specific clip is from the 2009 drop event at the Hyatt in Kansas City, Missouri​).  'Cause hey, if you never get in touch with your "inner child," you're probably never gonna have any real fun in this life.

Psst!  When most kids enter puberty, they start to feel a curious need to "grow up" a lot faster than necessary.  Mostly because of the way adults treat them.  Most kids have no power over how they are treated, so they want to hurry up and "grow up" and get all that power!

But power is a drug that doesn't necessarily make people well or happy.  So, when puberty hits, many kids feel they've outgrown their toys, and they start doing other so-called "fun" things, usually out of a sense of peer pressure, or sheer curiosity ('cause they haven't figured out yet, how much being an adult actually really SUCKS, compared to being a carefree child).

So some kids start smoking at average age 12, drinking, doing other drugs, and getting into all sorts of other, more or less self destructive behaviors and bad habits.  I don't care what you think you should be able to smoke, it's bad for your health.  You like herbs?  Take vitamins or something!  Almost any naturally occurring plant that has some health benefit has to be regulated and processed properly to get the truly beneficial ingredients to react properly in the human body, and to avoid the possibility of inadvertently abusing the substance.

Don't believe me, ask a certified health professional.

Sick?  Go to see a doctor and get a prescription.  If he or she says, 'Sure, go sit around and toke it up at home!  Get the munchies and be almost totally useless for long periods of time,' that's fine by me.  I mean, if something actually, really is good to treat cancer, then you might want to have a doctor tell you that it's okay before buying ANYTHING from the neighborhood pusher.

So I don't care what anybody thinks about my big boy, toy geek hobbies and creative interests.  I choose sobriety.  I choose creativity.  I choose to live life, in full command of myself AND my inner child, and not miss whole parts of my valuable life from being "high" or "hung over."  After all, as Ferris Bueller put it, in John Hughes' hilarious 1986 classic coming of age film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."  Though I'm not at all sure his hooky playing behavior in the movie is really the best example of how to not miss a single moment of invaluable human life.  Oh well.  To each his own.  And I choose action figures!