Category Archives: Spero

No Data Centers in Spartanburg County-SpartanNerd Protest!

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PICTURED: Masterverse New Eternia Whiplash, Super7 Ultimates Battle of the Mounds Conan the Barbarian, Figura Obscura The Mouse King, Masterverse New Eternia Evil Lyn, Masters of the Universe Classics Battle Cat, Masterverse Battle Armor He-Man (kitbash) , and Masterverse New Eternia Snout Spout. All will be featured protesting in this entry. (If I have a posted link, you can click to see the review of the figure!)

The SpartanNerd hasn’t been one to protest historically. But when they are building a hyper-scale AI Data Centers a mile from his house…a data center that the community didn’t approve of and didn’t want…but the county council allowed to pass in under the radar…here is a reason to protest. I have attended two of these outdoor walk-around-with-a-sign events and also a “town hall” that seemed to be lip service only…voices were not heard. I have found a real mix of political differences, etc. But none of us want this. It is truly bipartisan…actually multi-partisan when you talk to these people. Everyone is concerned about multiple problems that will come up. So with a little help from my friends…

He-Man and Battle Cat lead this protest at the Nerd Fortress.

NO DATA CENTER IN SPARTANBURG COUNTY

We didn’t ask for it or want it. The old “Kohler” plant…yes it has been a useless empty building for awhile, and that is bad. BUT permits to put a large AI Data Centers here were all approved behind closed doors in county council meetings. They have not been transparent and are obviously receiving kickbacks. People did not know about it…and it seems to have been designed that way. They have clear-cut the trees all around the property, have tons of earth moving equipment there doing things…and other large equipment. Everyday an army of workers are there, including some that arrive in a retired school bus. And the police are out there directing traffic on Pine Street for this giant nuisance of an eyesore. One of my children asks a question…”Did they think about the wildlife in the nearby Croft State Park?” NOPE. It’s all about the money. (The SpartanChildren are actually adults now with VALID OPINIONS!)

COUNTY COUNCIL LIED

The Mouse King (I actually see more of a rat than a mouse) is reminding us about sins of COMMISSION and sins of OMMISSION. There is some of both going on here.

If you are not transparent to your constituents and your community, you are in fact lying. If you stand up and tell people it isn’t a data center, and behold…it is a data center…then you are an abject liar.

There is a feeling among the community members actively moving against this data center that the “elite” in Spartanburg don’t really care about us in the county. They are “detached” from it because they don’t live in the suburban/rural area we live in, and so they don’t even care about how bad it will be for our community.

AI IS EVIL

Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian. Yelling like a crazy man. Because he’s pretty mad. (I wonder if the actual Govenator would be against this?)

AI…not to insult your intelligence, reader…but Artificial Intelligence is showing up everywhere. I have seen these tools and been told to use them at work. It is showing up in search results without me asking…in things like Microsoft Word and even WordPress that I write this blog on. But I am frankly a lot scared about it. It turns out that basically all of us are using it whether we agree with it or not. You can’t just “turn it off” if it is baked into something like Windows or MacOS. (Have you tried a Google search lately? It feeds you an AI answer before showing you the search results.)

These convenience issues aren’t the real issue in my opinion besides the fact that it is a “tool” that is everywhere. It is that AI “regurgitates” stuff that was actually created by humans. I work in the arts. When I studied for my Masters in Music Education, I took a class about experimental music. One of the things actually invented in the 1980s was a computer that had every measure of Mozart programmed into it. It could then create new music by Mozart. This was done for several other composers like Vivaldi also. As a part of the class, I played some fake Vivaldi and some real Vivaldi for my wife to see if she could tell which was real…she couldn’t…

Nowadays we have Johnny Cash singing Barbie Girl through the power of AI. Does anyone think He would be OK with that? I’m not. BUT…It is the future we have to think of. Are our children ever going to know what real rock, country, rap, gospel, or really any kind of music is? Something like Gorillaz or K-POP Demon Hunters is already a fictitious band. AI is just another step towards removing the soul from what used to be creative activities that were exclusively human.

One of my children has another contention with AI. It is PLAGIARISM. AI could listen to SpartanNerd’s album PREACH! And then someone else could virtually use my chops. I would never know!

KNOW MORE (No Data Centers)

Evil-Lyn reminds us that in order to have power, we have to know more. We need to be informed about how bad the AI data center will be for our community.

I haven’t heard a single positive thing about this data center. From the beginning of it happening to last weekend’s march. Do the people behind it not have anything positive to contribute? Do they know that the points I am about to make are TRUE?

Power consumption– It was said that the AI Data Center would only use 48 Megawatts. Last month the company applied for hundreds more.

Snout Spout and Brainy Smurf (on a vintage glass!) remind us that water is a finite resource.

Wasting water- The data center will have to be cooled using water. At one of the “town hall” meetings it was insisted that the data center would use a “closed system”…something like a car radiator uses. It was also said to use the same amount of water as a large Home Depot. This was a complete and utter lie! Already it is apparent that the area they are digging out, etc is much larger than a Home Depot or similar big box store.

This turns out to be another lie!

Noise pollution- There are going to be massive TURBINES running this data center! At first it was said to be something like 4 turbines. Now it is something like 14. Running 24/7. There is a train overpass about a mile up the road. I can hear it pretty clearly some days and times. I guess it depends on the weather, the train, and other variables. This data center is going to be pumping out noise pollution like that CONSTANTLY.

Light Pollution– I remember standing in my yard a couple of Thanksgivings ago with my brother discussing the world. It was a new moon or at least it seemed to be moonless…and the stars were so clear. You don’t have to get much closer to the city to lose that. But the data center is bringing the light pollution to us. I would like my pretty sky back, please!

What’s in a name- This company has changed the name of the project several times evidently. (It was called project Spero at one time). And these data centers are popping up all over the county, and one that the community fought has moved just down a little ways to Union county. Why do we need these things? Are they adding anything to anyone’s life? Someone might say “It is creating jobs.” Evidently not. Somewhere between 20 and 50 jobs. And the nature of what it is means that it might start with a larger number, but it will definitely streamline as AI becomes stronger so that there will be less workers needed to keep the servers and drives running. If there were good things for our communities, why aren’t the companies aggressively sharing that? I tell you why…they know it is bad. Did you know that they store spent nuclear fuel in South Carolina? It is like we aren’t valuable or something and politicians and companies just use us as a dumping ground. The brand new and sudden AI data center problem in South Carolina is the latest example.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Go to the protests. Write your congressmen or county council person. Or even better talk to them face-to-face. Show up at the marches. Go to the “town halls” and hope they aren’t just empty pageantry. VOTE! It looks like almost every County Council officeholder has voted for this thing to happen, and the community doesn’t want it. So we will vote them out! There’s also money pulling the strings if you look hard at the issues. I have made it a point not to name any real names (and I am using action figures!). But they are on Facebook. It is a large presence in the group “No AI Data Centers in Spartanburg County.” You should go there and get involved!

Animal Warriors of the Kingdom Weapons Loot (Red)

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To see video of the AWOK red weapons loot box, click here.

I already reviewed the gold weapons loot, which you can read here.

This time I really wanted to catch the packaging. It was more impressive with the gold weapons, but it still rocks pretty good. (The back is the same, featuring Pale.)

In this set, you get a pair of hooked daggers, a pair of axes (possibly throwing axes), a knife or short sword with a mysterious hole, a bow, the same two-piece spear as in the gold set, and a scimitar.

I decided to get out of the light box and outdoors for these pics!

Here you can see them racked with the gold weapons on my custom weapons racks. Notice that I added that string to the bow.

Here is Savage He-Man riding on my pet potbelly, Nori. He really lends himself to the use of spears. The spear that came with him is very nice, with nice paint. But the AWOK spear is longer. I prefer the red to the gold for a character like this.

Clearly Trap Jaw wins this exchange. Man-E-Robot has successfully parried the short sword attack with the scimitar, however Trap Jaw is swinging with his own dagger arm to cut the hoses. (It could be that Man-E could “ripost” and stab Trap Jaw.)

Least impressive are the curved daggers. I thought they would look good with Beast Man, but they are underwhelming. This is the final picture of the Mythic Legions arrow. After I moved Man-At-Arms from outsided to indoors, I dropped it somewhere.

I want to know why we didn’t get a proper string and arrow with this bow? Even a plastic molded string would have been sufficient compared to no string. I fashioned this bow string out of a piece from a party hat. Notice that the Mythic Legions quiver fits nicely on Man-At-Arms armor, and also notice the figure stand he is on. This is the Mythic Legions figure stand, and I planned on reviewing it in the future, but…spoiler ahead. It is terrible.

Finally, Ram Man with the two hand axes. Because he is an axe wielder naturally, I knew he would look good holding them both. Imagine this dynamo ramming in and swinging those axes!

Rating. Well, I mean they are different enough from the gold weapons…But female figures or figures with smaller hands can’t hold these weapons. I was very tempted to try the bow with Teela for instance, but I am not risking stretching those fingers out or breaking a thumb.

I feel like these want added paint more than the gold ones. The gold weapons have dark handles and wraps, with additional paint on the jewel in the sword. But these weapons are all the same sort of drab color. I have to mark down for the bizarre exclusion of a string or arrows for the bow (We could of at least had a molded quiver, like the Mythic Legions). The packaging is really good however, and these weapons add alot to what you can do with the figures. But they feel less glamorous. In fact, there is another blue and gold set that I have been tempted to pick up…I decided on this instead and kind of feel burned. (There is this shield with a face on it that looks too “smiley” for me). But at least that set had more color

So my rating? 3/5. They aren’t terrible. But I had to improve the bow, and I feel the need to improve the paint. What do you think, Hub City Geeks? Do you think a 3/5 is a fair rating? Let me know in the comments!

SpartanNerd Unboxing and Review…Animal Warriors of the Kingdom Weapons Loot (gold)

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I ordered the Animal Warriors Of The Kingdom gold weapons loot pack from BigBadToyStore, as I was looking for weapons packs and weapons, weapon racks, and other related items for 6-7 inch scale figures. I was specifically looking for things that were cheap, but probably would work with my growing collection of MASTERVERSE. This weapons pack caught my attention because I thought it might go well with the Super7 Ultimates! Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Mounds figures and King Conan with the throne of Aquilonia that should be arriving within a couple of months

Animal Warriors Of The Kingdom (AWOK) is a line of action figures by a company, Spero, that I am not very familiar with. There are named characters apparently, but I am unaware of the story at all. In my mind, it’s a little bit like the Mythic Legions, where the figures could be any generic fantasy Idea. Most of these figures look like they fit well with the ThunderCats. There are several different colorways of these weapons, as well as variations of what weapons you can have in a “weapons loot”. It was the gold weapons that stuck out the most to me. Below are pictures of the package.

These weapons came in a wonderful window box…it was really very nice. Maybe I should have videoed this box because it is hard to do justice to the effect of holding it and looking at it. When my wife saw the package, she said “That is a terrific shadowbox.” It’s true. There is an orange Sunburst in the background and the weapons are suspended in a blister that allows light in and shadows to fall behind. It’s a boring window box otherwise, but the main idea here the weapons inside are very apparent. These weapons are just attached in a blister. There is no kind of weapons rack or other storage solution, which is just too bad. (Almost my only complaint!). The character on the back is apparently named “Pale,” (Question? ”pronouced “Pail” or “Peh-Leh?”). which is information readily available if you look at the other offerings from the line. He is some type of simian.

The weapons included are: a large mace similar to some weapons in Elden Ring, a broadsword with a jewel in the hilt (very original), two guns (one a shotgun and the other a muzzle-loader type of pistol…both in the safari hunter style). What first appeared to be two pieces- a scepter/magic staff and a short sword, are actually meant to combine to be a long spear. I suppose you could technically keep them separate. And my favorite…a battle axe.

The SpartanNerd has been working on his photography game little bit. You can see that I have a new light box set up. I’m also working on diorama pieces and so here are weapons racks that I made homemade. I found many of tips on the internet about making weapons racks for G.I. Joe classified guns, and also there are racks available to buy. Mostly these are for guns that come with G.I. Joe classified or Marvel Legends. In my case I want a more barbarian, Masters of the Universe congruent look, so I just made an A-frame similar to what we got with Castle Grayskull in the 1980s, and also a square one similar to the Masters of the Universe Classics version. 

I won’t lie to you. I thought about buying the Classics version again, but there aren’t that many of them out there for sale and what is for sale is well over $50 used. I remember when I had this, I wasn’t that happy with it. It seems to me like I could not get the weapons on there the way I wanted, and sometimes the tight pegs would rub the paint off of the weapons. I resorted to rubber bands on it also. Looking at old pictures of it doesn’t bring back great memories. Why aren’t there more diorama pieces readily available to purchase to help fans like the SpartanNerd and the Hub City Geeks out?

I decided to break out the She-Ra from the San Diego comic con exclusive 200x from I don’t know, 2003 or 2004. I keep her in her window box but take her out on special occasions. Her style of sword and the gold motif on her armor match up very well with Movie He-Man and the golden AWOK sword. Now is a good time to point out that none of these weapons will work with 7-inch scale female figures. In the case of this sword and also the guns below, you feel like the fingers are stretching even on larger hands.

I like characters that are like walking weapon racks. Case in point, Two-Bad here can run with the whole mercenary motif. I need to talk about the size of the handles of these weapons. In order for Two-Bad to hold the rifle, I had to face it into his body first in order to wedge the handle into his fingers, and that twist it around. Even this way that handle is so thick it does not want to give me the desirable Sergeant Slaughter type of pose I would want. These weapons were terrific with other toy lines, case in point the redeemer here holding that golden Mace just seems perfect. (The Redeemer can’t hold the guns. His fingers are too stiff. Too bad, because he only has trigger fingers.)

Vikor fending off a Mythic Legions skeleton army builder. A good test case for a future Conan model. From this picture, don’t you think that the handle looks too big? Because Ultimates Conan figures are basically Masters of the Universe Classics figures, I wonder if there will be drama. This sword looks great otherwise in Vikor’s hand.

I’ve had terrific fun posing and taking pictures of my figures with the Animal Warriors of the Kingdom gold weapons loot set. The weapons look great in the hands of male MASTERVERSE, MOTUC, Mythic Legions, and even Spawn figures. The shadowbox packaging is a neat trick. Be careful with the hands as the handles on some of the weapons are a little thick. I am curious about how well they fit in the hands of the AWOK figures. Spero offers plain army builder figures out there for low prices. Maybe I will get one someday and see. Of more interest to me is the set of armor I saw on Big Bad Toy Store. 

I am rating this set 5/5. The weapons look great and that is really the whole point for me. They can add a new dimension to figures like Two-Bad or Barbarian Skeletor. I don’t warrant subtracting a point about the handles…after all I did get the weapons into the hands of the figures and nothing broke and no paint scratched or peeled off. (But it is worrisome.)

Do you agree with my 5/5 score, Hub City Geeks? Let me know in the comments!