The Temple 16 – Catching Up

I had big plans in December to blog an update on my 2023 hobby goals, and then I blinked and it was Easter. I’ve missed you all and I’m going to do better about engaging on here.

So, some catching up:

One of my hobby goals for 2023 was to paint a 2,000 point Warhammer 40K army. I did not accomplish this but got a smattering of units painted, more than I’ve ever done in a year:

• 10 Ork Kommandos
• 10 Ork Stormboys
• Ork Battlewagon
• Ork Trukk
• Chaos Land Raider
• Chaos Rhino
• Death Guard Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour
• A few squads of Plague Marines

Around 1,300 points across three armies. That may not seem like a lot, but for most of the time I’ve been hobbying, I’ve been afraid of painting my models because I’ve been worried I’d mess them up with my sub-par painting. My painting still isn’t great but I’m getting better and I’ve come to enjoy it. Here’s to more painting in 2024.

Another hobby goal was to acquire two superheavy units. Well, I got a Chaos Knight from my friend Barry in December and have been slowly working on it. I got all of the weapons options magnetized so I can run the Knight in three different configurations. I’ve been slowly painting it too, which I’ve really enjoyed. He’s still held together by a lot of sticky-tack, and I still need to do some painting, and I’ve yet to do things like weathering and washes, which are coming. Hoping to have him done in another week or so.

Weapons options:

In another hobby update, I am revisiting the Bibliotech, one of the first INQ28 models I ever built. He’s actually my avatar on here.

As a reminder, here is the weirdo:

I’ve never been happy with his base, and so I picked up this number from Etsy:

More on his re-basing soon.

On another fun note, Az of Azazel’s Bitz Box did a fun thing where he turned fellow bloggers into zombies. Here’s yours truly on the left, repping a St. Louis, Missouri, USA t-shirt, featuring the Gateway Arch:

Fun stuff.

I recently became a member of the local Contemporary Art Museum, and got to dress up a check out the Spring/Summer opening:

I don’t get it, but I like it.

Free drinks for members.

On the writing front, my poem “Tell Me the Story of Something Ending,” appeared in Issue 13 of Haven Speculative. Here’s what the editor had to say about it:

“There’s Matthew Roy’s “Tell Me the Story of Something Ending,” about community and love after the end of the world.”

He summed it up well.

I also discovered that one of my short stories was produced as a podcast last June on CreepyPod. (I knew they were going to produce it, but I completely missed when it dropped.) The podcast is behind a Patreon wall ($7/month), but if you’re interested, head here and pull up June 27, 2023. The story is called “Door” by Matthew Roy.

I’ll have some more updates soon, but I’ll leave you with this meme that has lived rent-free in my head for more than a decade of office work. Just as relevant now as it was when I first saw it.

Thank you, as always, for visiting the Temple.