Leading by Example

So once again The Tales is an example of a particular type of behaviour on the Internet.

This is a caution for all you aspiring blog-authors out there:
Should you take the opportunity to additionalise the content of your communications via reference to other postings on the Internet you may find yourself the target of a cruel characterization along the lines of "so you're freeloading from other people's blogs now" (thanks a lot to the anonymous FridgePower).

I think this blog post explains my position, you just have to change the authors name to my own and it should work - in order to save time I didn't bother reading it properly.

Now that I have successfully defended my behavior I shall tell you about my leading by example in the Global Corporate Challenge. I have shamed my team by, several times in the past week, achieving steps equal to double my daily average. The walk is now in your court Team if you dare to match my statistically huge effort. Let's see you all add ~5,000 steps to your daily amount!
For more of my GCC goings on read this blog and change the author's name to mine. I think that should save me the effort of writing it all out.
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The Synchronicity of Blog Postings

So Salsa Girl and I had an event filled weekend.

Our Saturday eve was spent at BestFriendSincePrep's for a lovely dinner and some playing of Carcasonne - which I dutifully played for last position in order that my evening's company should feel good about their games playing.

One's Sunday involved a trip to Bendigo for the birthday of Salsa Girl's lovely grandma.
In a strange coincidence FridgePower and Judge Mingus made a similar trip to Ballarat on the same day.
To save me some time and effort read all about FridgePower's wonderful experience and substitute Bendigo for Ballarat and you pretty much have what happened - although Salsa Girl wouldn't let me stop for food every time I was hungry.
Sigh.
Next time I believe I'll be truckin' with FridgePower.
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Anthem by Ayn Rand, and Onwards

One knocked over this little recommendation from The Maple Maverick in only a few days. It is of an ilk to such classics as 1984 and Brave New World - and shows it.

The author presents it as her anthem to ego and living for oneself in a repressive society and it is such given the over the top repression the society has devolved into. One can see great shadows of growing up in the newly communist USSR cast over the whole book along with a healthy dose of new American Red Scare.
There is not much of new substance if one has read the aforementioned other two in this genre but it's short length, easy style, and historical interest make it a reasonable read.

Speaking of great shadows I have now commenced reading the epic Song of Ice and Fire - as heavily recommended by ArchEnemy (i.e. "read it or I'll burn your house down") and sundry others.
It is quite good so far but carries the heavy weight of expectation that has been built up over the years by the many glowing accolades it has received.

At the low reading rate one has managed to achieve this past year it's going to be fingers crossed that one can finish this first massive tome before the year's out let alone the other dozen or so volumes these fantasy epics usually run to.
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The Joys of Calendar Syncing

Having to work at the corporate castle for a few days puts one in close proximity to the likes of The Jolly Giant. The consequences of this are that one is chosen to be a tester for the new mobile connection into our wonderful email and calendaring system.

It all seems to have worked well as my little calendar app has had work meetings and tasks sprung up throughout it like a virulent fungus.

Of course the horrible downside of this is that one now has lost the ability to spend time joyfully entering each work event into my mobile calendar and of course skip meetings with that most handy of excuses

"I must not have updated my mobile calendar so I didn't know the meeting was moved".

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The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

I finished this piece of post-cyberpunk storytelling over the weekend.

I enjoyed the writing and the scene setting was very immersive. I call it post-cyberpunk for various reasons, among them are: the lack of mechanical high tech which comes from it's post oil crash setting rife with genetic engineering, the focus being on small players in the big corporations rather than the typical rogue loners, and of course it's coming twenty years after the cyberpunk boom.

The story moves along reasonably well and one's personal race to the climactic ending was enhanced by several locomotive-based commutes of reading.

All in all a good solid three and a half star read.
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In the Lair of the Dragon

I'm going to gloss over the silence of the last few weeks - ignoring such excuses and incidents as: increased workload of project implementation and library refurbishment, busy social life, footy game days, gaming events, cinema excursions and many other sundry events and happenings from the lost fortnight.

Instead I am going to jump straight to the recent events without any dilly-dallying.

This Thursday last I made my monthly attendance at the fortnightly game run by The Bastard. This episode was back at it's spiritual home on the DragonMim's dining room table.

The gang was all there, Gavman with his tactical nous, Fantomas with his rules stretching nous, Pirate Dave with his rules knowledge nous, The Bastard with his rules ignoring 'kill them all' nous, DragonMim with snack providing nous, and ArchEnemy with his usual day to day brand of evil.

All in all it was a rip roaring session of goblin bashing and bastardry. I only wish it didn't take one's body several days to recover from the huge amount of snacks that DragonMim forces one to consume at these events.
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