Alas, the porch is fully enclosed, so the box can't be seen from outside. It's only a porch in the sense (common in these parts) of a sort of outermost, semi-finished, not-heated-in-the-winter junk room. It was a proper porch once, and got semi-finished later on, but that was well before my time.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

IMHO, I wouldn't repaint it.

As a model building, war game playing, costume and prop loving nutjob, I think distressing just makes everything cooler.

----
Now Playing:
Black Label Society -- Destruction Overdrive (The Blessed Hellride, 2003)

Forever rolling on
The wars we wage unknown
Eternal is the blessed end.
Destruction overdrive
Disregard for life
Obsessed throughout the end of time...Oh, YEAH!

< THIS SPACE FOR RENT >

The back is in slightly rougher shape:

(Admittedly, I took that picture before we sponged off most of the dust and grunge.)

Anyway, I'm not talking about a complete repaint; just that there are a few places (like along the bottom molding there on the back) where the paint is completely gone and could stand to be touched up a little. Distressed is all well and good, but we wouldn't want people thinking I was deliberately going for the circa-1980 "gosh, the TARDIS prop has been allowed to get into really shocking condition" look. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Aheh, I see what you mean. Yeah, whistling shit-can TARDIS is not so good.

Still, even with needing some TLC, thats pretty hot. Could you be bothered to keep us updated as you fix it? I'm interested in how you plan on proceeding.

This also reminds me...There are several nerd questions that I ask people I'm getting to know; "If you were a transformer, what would you change into?", "Empire or Rebellion? Defend your loyalty." and of course, "What would your TARDIS look like?". :)

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Now Playing:
Soul Coughing -- Rolling (El Oso, 1998)

know you got it but you got to go
I'm gonna get into the batter so the mix might glow
I hate to do it, but I did it though
I'm gonna bite into the body like the risk is no
I got the souped up car and what you call
tripping on the boom-bap etymological
I ride the fader and I ride it low
I'm gonna slip into the field like Han Solo...

< THIS SPACE FOR RENT >

Well, I'm probably not going to do a whole lot, apart from putting the beacon glass back on whenever Dad gets it up to me. Maybe touch up the paint where it's been knocked off entirely, if I can get a decent match to the existing color; maybe take advantage of the more advanced facilities I have here in the 21st century to do up the graphics a bit more authentically. We made the "police public call box" sign by hand, using only the stencils available at the local hardware store and some lighter blue paint (and Dad freehanded the "public call" part), which is why it's not in the right font, and doing up the sign on the little door was entirely outside our powers at the time. (Similarly, it hasn't got the top signs on the other three sides, as it should, for two reasons: one, they would make it slightly wider such that it would no longer fit through a 36" door, and two, we'd have had to make three more of the damn things.)

I'm rather proud of the way we did the frosted glass effect on the windows. Each one is actually a single piece of plexiglas, the kind cheapass storm doors are made of. We turned them into frosted glass by sanding the inside surface with a fine grit sandpaper. It looks much less convincing from inside, but with the door closed I think the illusion's quite good.

>"If you were a transformer, what would you
>change into?"

Eclipse
Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Intelligence

"I was never here."

Profile: Eclipse was one of the original Autobots who accompanied Optimus Prime on the voyage that would involve Earth in the Cybertronian Wars. In 1984, when the Autobots and Decepticons reawoke on Earth and resumed their hostilities, Eclipse was one of the Autobots most impressed by the small, fragile but clever inhabitants of this new world, and one of the first to recognize that, as uninvited guests upon the planet, the Autobots should take steps to establish friendly relations with human authorities.

Optimus Prime thus assigned Eclipse as the main Autobot liaison to the organization established by the concerned human governments of Earth to monitor the Transformers' activities on Earth, assist the Autobots whenever possible, and keep the general populace calm: the Overwatch Agency, more commonly referred to as the Men in Black.

In this role, Eclipse spent more time among humans than his own kind, and more time as an automobile - one of the Men in Black's trademark black Ford sedans - than as a robot. He traveled the North American continent with two human partners, Overwatch agents Ken Stanfield and Jim Edwards, keeping tabs on the activities of the Decepticons and suspected human collaborators. He spent time in Overwatch's labs as part of Optimus Prime's technology transfer program, letting human scientists examine his workings. And he loved every minute of it.

Eventually, though, the party had to end. Stanfield retired in 2004 and Edwards moved up to an administrative position after the Decepticon siege of Autobot City the following year, and though Eclipse genuinely tried to start over with new partners, it just wasn't the same. He retired from Overwatch, returned to Cybertron, and threw himself into the job of field operative with the newly established Autobot Galactic Intelligence Service. This agency's job was and is to keep Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobot leadership apprised of the new, and much more complex, galactic scene in which the Autobots have been players since the Earth-Cybertron axis brought them into the mainstream of galactic governments in 2006.

Eclipse is senior enough to warrant a staff position with AGIS, but he wouldn't leave the field for anything. Laconic and often gently sarcastic when he does speak, he is a persistent, reliable, and smoothly competent special agent, adept at anything from simple information-gathering to illicit reconaissance, sabotage and even, should the situation require it, assassination. He believes that planning is important, but improvisation when plans go wrong is critical, and works hard to be adept at both.

Eclipse is very fond of humans and human-like species, and enjoys working with them, though he is prone to compare any humans he works with to his first human partners. Like Kup, Eclipse is reminded of some other situation by almost any situation he finds himself in; unlike Kup, he doesn't feel compelled to tell a war story every time that feeling strikes him.

Profile: Eclipse is quite stealthy, especially for his size. In car mode, he has the knack of blending seamlessly into the background, a completely forgettable shadow in a crowd. Often even people who have taken note of him in his car form remember only that they saw "a black sedan, kind of old."

Not that many people who have spotted Eclipse remember him at all. From his headlights, he can produce a flash of light that can blind or confuse most species and, if executed properly, even erase the short-term memory of most sentient lifeforms who look directly at it.

Eclipse is one of the few Earth-converted Autobots who can still assume his original Cybertronian car form. Twin jet boosters give his Cybertron form blazing speed, but thanks to imperfect energy transfer from his Earth-converted power systems, his endurance suffers. He can only sustain the form for a short time, after which he must return to his Earth form to recharge.

In robot mode, Eclipse wields a photon rifle with a long-range telescopic sight attachment and carries a Type 3 de-atomizer pistol as his sidearm.

Weaknesses: Eclipse's Earth car mode is not very fast, and using his Cybertron mode can exhaust him, leaving him vulnerable.

Statistics:
STR 7 INT 8 SPD 6/9 RNK 7 END 8/5 COR 8 FRP 6 SKL 9

[NOTE: Stats before slashes are for his robot and regular car modes;
after slashes, his Cybertron car mode.]

>"Empire or Rebellion? Defend your loyalty."

In the end, I doubt it really matters. Life for the citizen on the street in that period of galactic history was pretty miserable all the way across the board. Cowering in the basement and wishing the noise would stop doesn't particularly demand allegiance to either side.

>"What would your TARDIS look like?"

That ought to be obvious - it's a Pepsi machine. Not always the same Pepsi machine, it does at least make an effort. But a Pepsi machine, all the same. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I like it. That sounds like a reasonable, achievable set of objectives. The good news is most paint departments can get you a balls-on perfect match to most colors nowadays, if your sample scraping is clean.

I shuddered slightly, when you mentioned sanding plexi. I had a job where that was required, sanding acrylic sheeting...by hand...with an orbital sander. I've managed to get over the initial symptoms of carpal tunnel I was suffering from. On the upside, I have some badass wrists now!

>

>
>
>Eclipse
>Allegiance: Autobot
>Function: Intelligence
>
>"I was never here."
>

Hahahahaha! THAT is so *you*! Honestly, My first glimpse of the car there was "Dammit, that makes sense."

Nice balancing on the weaknesses and stats, btw.
>
>>"Empire or Rebellion? Defend your loyalty."
>
>In the end, I doubt it really matters. Life for the citizen on the
>street in that period of galactic history was pretty miserable all the
>way across the board. Cowering in the basement and wishing the noise
>would stop doesn't particularly demand allegiance to either side.

IMPERIAL PEON #1: "How do you know he's the Emperor?"

IMPERIAL PEON #2: "He's the only one not covered in shit!"

I like it.

>>"What would your TARDIS look like?"
>
>That ought to be obvious - it's a Pepsi machine. Not always the
>same Pepsi machine, it does at least make an effort. But a
>Pepsi machine, all the same. :)

Well, yeah. That I had gathered. I hadn't actually meant the questions to be answered, but hey, this was cool, getting a look inside your cranium, chief.
----
Now Playing:
Tsuneo Imahori -- Cynical Pink(Trigun - Spicy Stewed Donut, 19??)

1. "Blunderbuss" is a Stryker MGS. Sounds like Cpt. Hecktor Barbossa.
2. Who's paying more, right now?
3. A utility outbuilding. Or a beige governmental filing cabinet if indoors.

< THIS SPACE FOR RENT >

I've often thought that if you had one whose chameleon circuit was at least programmable (if not functioning automatically), and you had a house somewhere, the thing to do would be to make the TARDIS look like your house when you were at home. We've seen a few times on the show that TARDISes can both engulf objects when landing upon them and take off leaving things that were inside them behind. If you were good enough at parking, your neighbors would never know the difference unless they came inside. Even then, you could probably do something clever with the door positioning such that they had to go through the normal house to get to the Console Room.

Mind you, that's overthinking the plumbing more than a little. It's just as easy to disguise it as a fridge (or a Pepsi machine) and stash it in the kitchen. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

And if you weren't quite good enough with the parking or dropped a closeparen somewhere or there was a bug in the software, you'd end up with a House of Leaves incident.

Well, yeah, there are always risks in stupid TARDIS tricks. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

At least it's ignorable. Also, by not dispensing tasty chilled beverages, I'd never have to fight my way past a bunch of thirsty folk to get to my escape route! :)

Of course, now I just thought of how much of a bastard I'd be if I locked it in as a RedBox vending machine...In "Non-Functioning-Replica" mode. >:]

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Now Playing:
Mesu Kasumai -- Global Now (3 Channel Metropolitan, 2003)

http://www.8bitpeoples.com

< THIS SPACE FOR RENT >

No, no, it's a good idea if you're actually trying to be incognito. Particularly in an office or military-post setting. What's one more file cabinet? Something like this would be good too. Nobody ever notices those.

Or, if you didn't care about being noticed but wanted people to keep away, there's always this. :)

>Also, by not dispensing tasty chilled
>beverages, I'd never have to fight my way past a bunch of thirsty folk
>to get to my escape route! :)

That's offset somewhat by its usefulness in razzle-dazzling the rustics. "Behold! I have summoned forth the effervescent spirits."

... or something like that. :)

>Of course, now I just thought of how much of a bastard I'd be if I
>locked it in as a RedBox vending machine...In
>"Non-Functioning-Replica" mode. >:]

"Man, all this thing has in stock is Inglourious Basterds."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Yeah! especially if the real TARDIS entrance is at the back of the cabinet, behind the flannel and the vacuum. Having to wrestle your way past closet kipple to escape the DALEKS would be comedy gold.

>Or, if you didn't care about being noticed but wanted people to keep
>away, there's always
>this.
>:)

YEah, that'll get it noticed..It'll also keep 'em away, probably. This has caused me to to start coming up with alternatives to the filing cabinet. I hadn't really considered how many things would make great disguises for a TARDIS! :D

>That's offset somewhat by its usefulness in razzle-dazzling the
>rustics. "Behold! I have summoned forth the effervescent
>spirits."
>
>... or something like that. :)

Hahaha...That's incredibly coldhearted. Just imagine the Adams-esque world where primitive man discovered refrigerated, carbonated beverages before fire.
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Now Playing:
Band -- Song (Album)

< THIS SPACE FOR RENT >

Yep -- both the video (They released Shada on VHS with Tom Baker adding a bridging to cover scenes not shot) and in the audio adaptation (With Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor), that's exactly what happened......

Craig