The SOPA Strike

You may have heard of the US law changes being made to supposedly stop online piracy.

Now while one has never been a great advocate of piracy - it's just too much effort for one as lazy as I - one can see the implications of websites being forced to close because it is possible for copyright materials to be posted and/or shared in the comments pages; and the simple next step that these allow of government censorship of criticisms in the name of protecting the "public" - definitely worthy of a Caution.

One shall be making the great sacrifice of stopping one's prolific output on The Tales for several days in order to help bring wider attention to the Internet Strike. You may find sites such as Wikipedia following one's lead today.

I middling sized summary is here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/

A more extensive collection of information is here:
http://youranonnews.tumblr.com/post/15783460213/stop-sopa-the-essentials-summary-and-bill-text

The Biennial Pratchetting

This morn on one's commute to work one finished the latest Pratchett Discworld volume.

Latest, that is, for me.

Witches Abroad is the twelfth of Terry Pratchett's humorous fantasy series and was published some time around the pre-cambiran era (or 1991 if you insist on being exact).

One found it to be the usual enjoyable little romp with some fun characters.

I am very much looking forward to reading my next Discworld book when the time rolls around in 2014 and then finishing the series with book 39 some time around 2070 - as long as he hurries up and stops writing more of the damn things.
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The Draw of Victory

This evening last one was lucky enough to attend the local World Game event in the company of Gavman, ArchEnemy, and sundry others - about 18 in all. The match in question was between The Melbourne Victory and The Adelaide United.

Due to Gavman's renowned network of connections he had been able to wrangle us seats in a suite at AAMI stadium and we made the most of the accommodations. There was a main room with seating enough for the full compliment of attendees and a fenced off balcony section with all our seating in a quite acceptable proximity to the play.

The excitement was palpable in the air before the match even began as the first round of free drinks and nibbles began to circulate.

Enthusiasm grew throughout the match as Victory scored a goal and the calamari and chips arrived.

Half time was quite the occasion as several plates of pies and sausage rolls appeared before us.

The second half grew to a crescendo as Adelaide scored an equaliser - and accompanying flare in the crowd - and hope began to fade in the hearts of those, such as ArchEnemy, with a true passion for the Melbourne Victory team.

The peak of the match was reached with barely a quarter hour remaining as warm scones with cream and jam made their most timely appearance.

One thinks this soccer watching lark is something one could become quite used to.

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2011 A Year of (Gaming) Wonders

As one hasn't produced one of these for a good couple of years - 2008 was the last in fact - I thought it was about time I subjected you all to another run down of a year's gaming.

So here is the summary of my years gaming for 2011.

All up I had 111 gaming events for the year!

98 may be a more accurate number taking out the ones that were traditional cards played along with a dinner catch up.

That is down by 10 to 20 on 2008 but I have gladly traded some gaming time to spend more in the esteemed company of Salsa Girl.

The occasions break down like thus:

46 sessions with my Tuesday Knights group

• 2 playing Magic as the main event (there are usually some games each week)
• 31 playing or running roleplaying. 
• 22 running the Traveller Diplomatic Action game.
• 4 playing Fighting Fantasy Role-play under Legion2's control, 
• 5 playing ElfBoy's Terra Australis game.
• 13 playing board and card games

21 sessions with the Black Guild on Thursdays

• 7 running my Phudge fantasy game Mundus Scenecit
• 3 just chatting - as happens sometimes (as opposed to the 50% chatting that gaming usually is)
• 7 playing The Bastard's D&D 4th edition Dark Sun game.
• 4 playing the ever awesome Tribe8 under the guiding hands of Fantomas.

1 of The Viking Hat GM's old school AD&D days

3 afternoons playing The Bastard's bimonthly Pathfinder fantasy game.

10 Sundays gaming group days playing board, war and card games

6 Spontaneous boardgaming get togethers

3 Spontaneous Magic playing sessions

3 Magic Tournaments amongst our group of players - missing only one new set for the year

1 poker night

13 sessions of Rummy 500 with the Double Jays and Salsa Girl

1 visits to LURG my old uni games club - although no games were played!! (I'm looking at you Camo Spice)

2 evenings playing Werewolf with librarians - run by Gamer Phil while at conference

1 attendance at International Day of Gaming @ the Library - as organised by Gamer Phil at the State Library

All up I played with about 40 different gamers (and about 28 non-gamers).

• 8 players on Tuesdays
• 8 on Thursdays (4 shared with Tuesday)
• 10 at Sundays gaming, 5 from Tuesdays, 1 from Thursdays, 4 not. Multiple attendees: 5 from Tuesdays, 1 from Thursdays, 2 others.
• Spontaneous Magic was only with Tuesday night gamers.
• Poker was with 4 non-gamers.
• Rummy was with 4 non-gamers
• Magic tournaments brought 5 from the Tuesday group, 1 from Thursdays and 2 others
• The old school AD&D was with about 8 gamers and no crossover with other groups.
• The Pathfinder game was with 5 Tuesday/Thursday gamers and 1 other.
• The Werewolf with librarians was with about 20 non-gamers.
• Gaming in the library added another 13 gamers

One thinks that's a reasonable return for a hobby for which one has an obviously mild passion.

I expect to up the ante in the coming year and push on for the magic 150 and I'm sure nothing will hold me back from fulfilling such a humble ambition.

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Embassytown by China Miéville, and 2011 Reading Roundup

I managed to finish this one while living life on The Berm.

It's a solid three and a half out of five however being Miéville I was hoping for a four or five.

I found the basic premise to be too much of a thought exercise to make the story feel realistically possible.
Eg (very minor spoiler)
The aliens have people act out similes so they can then talk using them, but how do they even conceive of them in the first place?

Easy to read, well written prose but again - like his previous novel Kraken - a point of view character that just moves the story along rather than being a distinct person.

Worth a read but probably not a re-read.


Reading Roundup 2011
While about half of Embassytown was read last year I've been counting books read for the year by completion date. That leaves one with the grand total of 14 books read for the year down again from the previous year (though I did read rather a lot of gaming PDFs over the course of the year so it is difficult to tell if one is actually in a reading decline).

Three books vie for the According to the ratings one dishes out on Library Thing, there are three books viewing for one's best read of 2011.
While none of them stands out from the others I would give the edge to The Hallowed Hunt by Lois Mcmaster Bujold.

My worst book was the execrable Swine Fever by Andrew Cartmel of which I had my say previously on The Tales.


Well now on to my 2012 reading and here's to reaching the lofty heights of 2008's 26 titles and 2009's many high-rated reads.
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Life on the Berm

So it transpires that spending a week or so of one's holiday time up at Bermagui - or The Berm as one has popularised it - is an experience awash with Cautions.


Firstly one should note that filling a long drive with constant jovial conversation along the lines of "why is it only 80 here? Oh look at that funny-shaped tree. I saw another cow. Stop going so slow. I'm hungry." and so on, is perplexingly annoying for those such as Salsa Girl who for some reason think that moments of silence are a requirement in a five hour drive.


My next Caution concerns the opening of windows for refreshing night breeze when staying in a mosquito infested locale. One should be especially alert for windows missing the fly-wire screen necessary for a nights sleep uninterrupted by nigh-constant buzzing and biting.


Further Cautions concern the dangers of sudden loss of stretches of time in the afternoons caused by partaking in perfectly normal amounts of food and drink. As one is far too rugged and manly to "nap" these can only be explained by some kind of local time distortion unique to the coastal area.


Additional things to be Cautious about include: assuming that the sea shall be as hot as the day itself; kayaking into shallow regions where the mud clutches at ones bottom (kayak bottom that is); strenuous river swimming that can easily be averted by standing up and walking through the hip deep water.


One should also be aware that holidaying far for the big smoke can lead to sporadic network connections that make it hard to feed one's not-at-all-an-addiction desire for Internet access and can in fact lead to sudden dropou...








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