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Yesterday’s post got me thinking about how words and the power behind words can actually hurt people.  They can you know.  Words like “brainiac”, “bookworm”, “nerd”, “spaz”, “geek”, and “absent-minded professor” were used as weapons against me to make me cry and warp my self-image when I was a mere unformed boy.  I do not deny that I was smarter than the average kid.  I also recognize that my lot in life was probably better than that of people assaulted with words like “fatty”, “moron”, “loser”, and “queer”.  Being skinny as a child, there was actually only one of those deadly words that was never flung my direction.  Words like that have the power, not only to hurt, but even to cripple and kill.

We all stand naked at times before a jury of our peers, and often they decide to throw stones.

I try to commit acts of humor…

Yes, I am an addict.  I have a mania for buying dolls… er, I mean, action figures.   It began when I was nine back in 1965.  Yes, G.I. Joe got me hooked.  Specifically, the G.I. Joe sailor.  I still have that sorry pusher.  He has detached arms held on by strings and the shirt that he wears.  He is play-worn and so far from mint that he’s only valuable to me.   I still have the Marine dress uniform hat on him, the sole surviving piece of the second costume set I ever got for him.  The first costume, given to me for the same birthday, big number nine, was the frogman uniform, long since disintegrated into black rubber pulp.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly like my sister’s Barbie.  Yes, the idea was to buy costume after costume, the drive for fashion being the primary source of income for Hasbro and…

So, today I am lazy…  I chose this old picture to re-post and bore you with for today’s Paffooney because I intend to take my kids to see Tomorrowland at the dollar movie theater in Plano.  (For those radical rednecks following my blog in order to get the necessary logistical information to assassinate me for the dual crimes of talking negatively about the Confederate flag and being a liberal, how do you know I didn’t change the name of the theater to protect the innocent the way I do with people?  And now might not be the best time to be exercising your open carry rights in a local movie theater either.) I have already seen the movie, and even reviewed it for my blog (Tomorrowland Review), but I wanted my kids to see it because I love it.  And they were in Florida vacationing on the beaches…

I have spent a good many hours over the years painting metal miniatures and drawing illustrations for the old Dungeons and Dragons game.   I love it, and simply can’t stop.  So now I will inflict more colored pencil foofram on you…

Whitebeard began as a rumor, a character’s father who had long been lost at  sea, a ship’s magical artificer who used wands and energy tools to make practical magic flow through the ship, a man with many secrets and a dark, buried past.

Of course, I borrow heavily and steal like a pirate to create characters.  These two came from a cartoon show on Cartoon Network, a roguish waif and his blue goblin crony.

And there have to be bad guys.  This sinister sightless mage came from a published adventure in Dungeon magazine.  I heavily modified him and gave him powers the original author never intended.

These two…

One of the most interesting parts of the old-time Dungeons & Dragons campaign were the elves and the part they played in sweeping adventures and war.  Elves, who revere magic and live closer to nature than humans, were a popular part of our game.  Nobody wanted to play an elf, however.  They just wanted to recruit them as NPC hired help.  I was able, though, to create a few with character.  The elf Fernando was a thief and an illusionist.  When a Minotaur killed him, the players worked hard to bring him back from the dead.  Of course, he was named after one of the players, one of the reasons they were fond of him.  The elf Apollo was inspired by the Elfquest characters of Wendy and Richard Pini.  Those comics were read and reread till they started to come apart at the staples.  I still have them.  The Paffooney…