The Lazy Weekend

One has just completed a most auspiciously lazy weekend. Thanks mostly to Salsa Girl having to work for one and a half days of it.

Apparently when one does not set an alarm one has a tendency to sleep until almost noon (nigh moon?) - especially when it's one of those rare weekends when Sister Serials makes no crisis calls from the library.

Of course such an alarm would have been set had there been an event on, such as the gaming extravaganza at The Bastard's which was booked in for my completely free and open Saturday for nigh on a month before a last minute change to the booked for Salsa time Sunday afternoon because of some inexplicable preference for Dragonmim and Pirate Dave being at the table instead of oneself. All explained with the flimsy excuse of "more people are available then" or some such.

Sigh.

In any case I made the most of my nothing time over both days, achieving huge amounts of rest and nothing. I believe I shall enter the working week fully refreshed and ready to go, go, go.

I'll just check this one more web site then get to bed...

.

Sans Salsa Nerd Night

So since the integration of Salsa Girl into the Freeloading household a Monday night tradition of sorts has been established and maintained with a 96% uptime.

This is the night when one indulges in tackling some of the many gaming projects one has on the go whilst Salsa Girl amuses herself in her own mysterious ways and never the twain shall meet.

Usually one uses this time for some sort of short or long-term preparation for the Tuesday Knights game or the Sunday boardgames but last night I took the the tradition up a notch with the first of a new twist - the monthly solo wargaming night.

I eagerly set up a scenario for the awesome C&C Napoleonics game and played it out against myself. Twice.

Now there are those that may call this kind of undertaking a supra-nerdy thing, but, contrary to the alliteration in the title of this post, surely it's not really that nerdy if I won both the games?
.

Conan and Sharpe's Waterloo

Well it seems to be the season for reviews as one finished both of the above named properties just before the very busy weekend.

The Conan in the title - who despite one's misleading title is not present at Waterloo fighting alongside Richard Sharpe - is last years remake moving picture which I was unable to see in it's proper environment i.e in the resplendent company of The Viking Hat GM, Exploding Ninja Pony, The Mad Magyar, and sundry others of a geekish persuasion.

Instead it was one's exercise machine distraction watched in 20 minute chunks over several days.

When watched in this fashion it comes up quite well and, despite Pirate Dave's lack of faith, I was able to last through until the end and in fact enjoyed it to boot.



Sharpe's Waterloo is the umpteenth (perhaps Pratcheteenth is more correct?) in the Sharpe series and sees him in attendance at the eponymous battle - in fact it sees him traverse much of the battlefield several times over the course of the day turning the tide at almost every appearance.

It was enjoyable military history fiction although unlike a previous Sharpe story one had read, involved very little plot other than the battle itself. Enjoyable and worth a read if you are inane way interested in things Napoleonic.
.

The Lorax

So it was with some little trepidation that one took Salsa Girl to a showing of this motion picture over the Easter Long Long Weekend.

One, of course, expects that the resulting product of any adaption from literature will not be able to match ones previous experience of said work. So with that in mind we watched, we enjoyed, and we came away with a three star rating in mind.

Now, unlike The Bastard, I am not one to launch into a shuddering spasms of fear at the mere hint of a musical number but even I wonder at the obsession with adding musical numbers to nigh all animation.

Still that is not my biggest quibble with the movie, mostly I was disappointed with the addition of a framing story that was non-existent in the original work - understandable to a certain extent - however when said framing story encompasses fully one third of the movie while major parts of the books plot are compressed into "and then it was all over" type voiceovers, I can only shake my head.
The moral compass of this extra story is all over the place - only save the world if it gets you the girl, capitalism and environment destruction is bad because we say it is, look at all the cool gadgets and great lifestyle we have... I better stop this before it becomes a rant of Zombie Monkey proportions.

Also, of the several creatures named in Suess's original creation only the titular character (snigger) is named in the film; the style of many of the characters is changed to a standard animation film human, presumably to fit better with the standard animation film plots that are spun through the framing story.

The lack of Suessian rhyme is a sad exclusion but understandable - although a nod or two to it would have been nice.

Still it was a reasonable two star film and I give it the three because, well, it is The Lorax after all.
.

Finding the Path

One's weekend consisted of several path finding attempts.

The first was on Friday eve when one, along with Legion2, had to find a way through the nigh-constant babble that is football watching with The Great Sandro. Entertaining but exhausting.


My second path finding expedition was my great journey North to collect an undelivered package from the depot. Obstacle after obstacle was placed in my path as first Saturday traffic, then abundant red lights and finally copious road works All conspired to keep me from my true path.

However I overcame and reached my destination, parked the car and made my way to the front door to be greeted by a sign that read, "Parcel pick up from side door". Finding the path to the side door one was confronted with a second sign, "Weekend pick up from warehouse door 4, ring bell".

Picking my way through a maze of parked trucks I found my way to door 4 using the clever technique of counting my way along from door 1.
Arriving I found a staff member having a break outside the open door. Upon stating my quest I was told , "nah, the bell is round the other side. Just stand in the doorway until someone notices you.".
Thankfully I was noticed in short order and then a staff member walked all the way back to the side office to fetch me my parcel and my ordeal was over.

Or so I thought.

Trying to make my way to my next appointment was fraught with roadwork redirections and much reduced speed limits which put the finishing touch on my 40 minute round trip becoming an hour and a half.

I guess there's a Caution in this for you all: make sure you are home when a parcel is delivered.


Anyway I did eventually arrive at my final path finding event - an actual game of Pathfinder at the mercy of The Bastard, with the likes of Fantomas, DragonMim and Pirate Dave as one's compatriots.
Lots of fun and sugar was had before I was forced to find the path home.
.