Essential Shopping

So Hulk and I recently returned from that grocery shop one does in order to have the supplies in stock to make it through that long Xmas period.

As the bags were being unpacked I overheard the following conversation:

Salsa Girl: Hey! What are all these Star Wars toys? 

Hulk: Mummy we had to get them because we don't have enough Star Wars toys.

Salsa Girl (with audible raised eyebrow): Really... not enough Star Wars toys hmmm.

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A Tale of Four Parties

Well, except one of them was a gaming event - but I am not one to let facts stand in the way of a blog entry.
And in any case, said gaming event did involve more drinking than one of the parties!


The celebrating kicked off on an unknown day with a Grand Final watching extravaganza. The event was hosted by The Wiggs and was only a short drive from work - and therefore long drive from home.
The day involved no less than three costume changes from yours truly as beginning the party in one's Collingwood jumper was against the rules of MrRogers and The Electric Tiger; and then one's lesser-of-two-evils coloured attire seemed rather pointless after, oh, 10 minutes or so of footy.

Lack of exciting footy action did allow one to have a catchup talk with Mrs BestFriendSincePrep and also indulge ones fondness for snacks.



The very next day saw another long drive to the vicinity of work. This one was in order to attend a milestone soirée for Supervisor Grand Chief K.

The event marked Hulk's introduction to high society as she, and Salsa Girl, fit perfectly into the Spring Racing garden party theme - oneself also fit perfectly into the sub-theme of car park.

Along the way to being shown the finer points of Croquet by Hulk - just hitting the nearest ball is apparently how one does it properly - one was able to pass pleasantries with the likes of Devil's Advocate (or should that be Devils ), The Administrator and Sonja Roster Queen.



One's third party was the regular all staff training day of which all I can bear to bring myself to mention is the provision of merely adequate amounts of food. Oh Mr Prada why to you torture me so!



Gaming Sunday, being the final of  the parties, began with Hulk's first board game - The Little Mole Who Knew it was none of his Business - big thanks My Guitarist for the poo-themed book, game, and plush mole bundle.
Gaming partying continued with a plethora of games and attendees - Legion2, Pirate Dave, Amoeba, and Miasmakat finally putting in an appearance after 15 years on the invite list - all of us dosed with lashings of the finest whiskey.


All in all a grand series of good times - and a jolly good reason for not posting anything for a month or more.
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Conquering the Maze

So Hulk and I were working on her activity book when this happened...

Gifted I tell you, Gifted!
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Fully Catered Training

Ah, yes. There are oh too few phrases that can bring one such absolute joy as "A Week of Fully Catered Training". However one has been double blessed this week as the companion phrase "including free ice cream fridge" has also been a frequent utterance.

It hasn't been easy though. Why yesterday there was sheer panic as the Today's Menu blackboard was still blank at the end of morning tea!!!!

As one heads into one's final day of training one is hoping for two things:
- the fulfillment of the occasionally uttered phrase "beer fridge unlocks at 2pm Friday"
- and one being able to discern just what this training is for.
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Playing Millennium Falcon the Right Way

Nothing makes a father's heart sing more than hearing the phrase,

"Dad, I want to play Milenum Falcon".

To find out that one has apparently been missing out all these years on the true majesty that such an undertaking could become is a gift beyond compare. Thank you Hulk for opening my eyes.

And thank you Zombie Monkey for that long ago gift of said Millennium Falcon.
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Take Hulk to Work Day

(Settle down Zombie Monkey, this isn't a superhero-related post!)

So, two days ago one undertook an expedition with Hulk to the furthest reaches of the city in a long planned visit to one's locations of daily toil, various.

The plan may sound grand but rest assured I had Salsa Girl's full support in leaving her Hulk-less for most of the day.

Leaving at the bright and early, finally fully dressed and everything packed, stroke of half ten we played "Daddy why is that car next to us?" for our hour long journey.

Upon arrival we were beset by besotted librarians all cooing and oohing at the level of cuteness on display. Hulk received her fair share of compliments too.

Once the likes of Bomber Babe, Lord of the Small Fries, Big J, The Administrator, Groovy Spirits, and sundry others had received critical exposure levels we moved on to the next branch.

This was a more relaxed experience with Country Girl, Sidekick, and of course Days of our Libraries, all being wowed.

After a short long-rambling-walk to a nearby park and back, we were off again to our final destination.

This vastly underpopulated building saw us dazzle The Beaumaris Ballerina with advanced toddler-ness before Hulk decided we needed to take much of the library furniture home with us.

Disentangling from that situation I thought I was home free for jumping into the car and zooming home until a nearby playground hove into view and proceeded to engage us in a short half hour play digression.

Eventually we made our way back north to safety - and one of us was even able to sleep for most of the journey home.

All in all about the same amount of work was completed as any given work day.
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The Resurrection of Disappointment

This weekend past saw the reinstating of a long standing tradition.

Oneself, along with BestFriendSincePrep, StumpyRudolph, MrRogers, Legion2, Gavman, The Electric Tiger, and one other, made a return to our annual camping trip - although Gavman's attendance being counted is in dispute as heading home for a dinner after several hours is either commitment to turn up at all or abandonment of the cause for the flimsy excuse of attending the one chance to catch up with a friend he's known 7 years longer than us.

Sorry that previous sentence should read "camping" or far too much civilisation is implied - although the use of no less than 3 tents this year created ample sleeping space which is a bit of a departure from the usual cramped situation.

It was a good return to form, after a four year break, as we notched up our 22nd trip with a minimal incident count - just a few scratches here and there and some minor burns. Maybe some muscles ended up a little achey as well.

There was the required roaring fire, much rubbishing talk, consumption of beverages, chopping, throwing, footy kicking, and many trips into the dark for harvesting bonfire fuel and other requirements.

One feels that one's blokey quota for the year has been adequately fulfilled.
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And D Winner is ...

As per one's previous posting I am crowd sourcing a D author for my A to Z of Unread Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors reading undertaking.

By virtue of one being on the shelf at one's working library branch I shall shortly be commencing a tome by Gardner Dozois - Strangers.

Congratulations to MatrixMan on the successful recommendation. Although Badger may have inadvertently won by virtue of handing the Legion a Space Opera collection containing a Delaney novella, without any knowledge of the competition being underway.

Amoeba shall serve out a one recommendation suspension after being yellow carded for continuing to recommend previously read authors.
And Pirate Dave's status is being considered after he went backwards and handed one an unread C author.

Sigh. Rules people, rules.
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The unread A to Z : Crowdsourcing D

One has finished a brace of titles recently, including:

Factotum - Parte the Thirde of the Monster Blood Tattoo series - 4 stars

The Road - a recommendation from The Maple Maverick after discussions of zombie survival and looking after kids - SPOILER: no zombies in The Road. 4 bleak stars

The Gods of Risk - a novella in the universe of The Expanse. A nice touch base between the 2nd and 3rd books. 4 stars - in space!


One is now considering that it is time for the next read in ones A to Z of Unread SciFi and Fantasy Authors quest.

One has progressed as far as the D and now has nothing on the to read pile that qualifies.

Ergo, I am reaching out to my network of loyal readers in order to crowd source my D - or at least a short-list of Ds.


The Rules
Titles should be in the sci-fi and fantasy realms, or speculative fiction if you prefer.

The Author's Surname should begin with the letter D, and they should be one who's wares one has not sampled before.

Here is my Author list of already read Ds from the last 8 odd years (one's inner sniggering schoolboy notes that one has read a lot of Dick books in one's life):

Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Martin Day, Guillermo del Toro,  Philip K. Dick, Thomas M. Disch, Sara Douglass

So get to it Internet, and recommend away.

Bonus points if the book is available in the work catalogue

Even more bonus points, and the win I guess, if you place your recommendation into one's hands.
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Rememberance

It's not an easy thing for a workplace to lose a colleague.

It's also not an easy thing for these posts to The Tales to be serious - but we'll see how this goes.

It was sad news indeed for the library service to hear that The Hellenic Hoofer had succumbed to the illness that had cruelly sprung itself upon him in the months after his commencement of retirement but before his many great plans could be enacted.

The past week as seen many memorable moments relayed back and forth in the workplace - particularly from those who have known him much longer than one's scant nine years.


One's personal remembrances include:

His love for advocating teen reading and the regular foisting of teen Scifi and fantasy books upon oneself, all of which turned out to be good reads indeed... which possibly says something about his ability to perceive one's mental age.

His treating of every fantasy book one recommended as a historical puzzle to be solved, resulting in statements such as, "after I worked out it was a variation of medieval Spain I lost all interest in the story and couldn't finish it".

His love and loyalty for the Doggies in a long-suffering way.


However most of all, in my capacity as the IT Guy in LibraryLand,  I remember the oh so frequent phone calls that always seemed to begin with a shouted, "It's not effin' working".


Vale Peter.
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The Aged Sir Clive

So this weekend past Legion2 and oneself headed out for the celebration of Sir Clive Pitbull having survived to a ripe old age.

Said celebration was held in the unexpectedly most hipster joint one has ever attended - our night was beset with bearded waiters, activations, twists, bespoke music, and infusions.

One was particularly surprised that experimental blendings of beer and strawberry cost one more than the default boutique beer, or, after tasting, anything at all.

Poor Legion2 was disdainfully slapped down for having the temerity to ask for a smaller glass to end the evening when anyone who's hip should know that one-size-only is where it's about to be at.

In any case we had a great catch up and natter and were able to monopolise Sir Clive's time for much of the evening.

I was even able to sneak in late with Salsa Girl none the wiser - although Hulk did stir and put me to work before i could collapse gratefully into my waiting bed.
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A Great Footy Night In

With The Great Sandro on an overseas jaunt, it fell on Pirate Dave and Legion2 to fulfil the role of ones company for the comfortable at home watching of the Collingwood v Carlton game last night.

It was a great night of sporting with our team - the magpies - far out-sporting the other teams players with some magnificent sports activities.

Ones only regret is that ElfBoy was not present for the required stirring of the losers.
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ps And here are all the apostrophes removed from the above for fear of placing them errantly - Devils Advocate and other apostrophe people please add them back in as appropriate.
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Party and Sick

Hmmm, it appears that this post is become somewhat like a pair of Young Ones episodes.

One has neglected several weeks of blog posting under the duress of having been suffering insufferably under a most debilitating dose of man-cold. In fact the tail end is still hanging around which is why I will have to do nothing other than laze around all weekend.

So, what has been happening? You ask.

This weekend last Several weekends past Salsa Girl and I had the surreal experience of going out together, to dinner, well before Hulk's settle time - all thanks to the brave generosity of Freeloading Mum, who settles Hulk herself and claimed "it was no trouble and thanks for the wifi access".

Our out was to the Huck's party for Doom and Non-Gamin' Megan. As they had the temerity to be monopolised by their other guests, one was able to have long overdue catch-ups with The Fungi Lady, Amoeba, and Agent Smith.

All in all a great night out - even if the end of it was a tad fuzzy...

Otherwise it has been pretty much business and man-cold, as usual, lots of work, lot's of whinging and a few more books knocked off.

Once one's health returns then you should all expect the Tales to return to it's usual bounty of efflusient, sparkling and incisive wit, comment and malaproprianisation.

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When the Girl's're Away ...

... one obviously starts to have a problem with the proper commission of the apostrophe.
     (apologies to Devil's Advocate & LittleBigGirl for the pain the title caused)


In any case, with Salsa Girl and Hulk off north visiting Grandma J it is time for one to cut loose.

Yes that's right, it's time for a three day frenzy of sans-pants partying, mad gaming madness, and other general hullabaloo!

The Tiger shall be hiding in the furthest reaches of the household to escape the non-stop party action engulfing the household.

Wooo! Yeah! PAARRTTTEEEEEEEE!


Although... perhaps one might instead just indulge in one's first sleep-in for nigh on two years.
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Endsinger by Jay Kristoff

This hefty volume concludes the Lotus War in a most satisfactory manner.

In fact one's biggest complaint is the back pains caused by lugging it around for nigh on three weeks whilst consuming it.

A solid four star read that has once again inspired many a roleplaying game idea.


Also, given his past commission to create the skyship from the first volume,  one cannot wait to see the Zombie Monkey lego rendition of the final climactic battle of thousands upon thousands of troops and giant steampunk robots and demons from the hell pits.
Shouldn't take too long one would think...
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It was 20 years ago today...

That sergeant Tuck and the band had their final play...

Yes that's right dear readers - the Malaclypse III final gig was a score of years ago.

Mal 3 was one's 7 piece ensemble from uni days that after several glorious years was broke asunder by musical differences.

One's co-conspirators in the band were: Tuck, Leader Robin, Judge Mingus, FridgePower, My Guitarist, and Saxxy J.


So enjoy a small pictorial return to those heady days of alternative funk rock n jazz fusion punk.

Not the Final Gig, but close.

One powering through the Final Gig.

The Final Crowd.

The Final Set List

And remember:

We're bicycle bad guys, we've got blood on our minds.....

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Three Years in the Reading...

Well today one finally finished one's reading of Tolstoy's War & Peace.

Or as I believe it should be called:
War & Peace & Peace & War & War & Peace & Peace & Peace & Peace & Peace & Peace & Peace & Peace & War & War & Peace & Long and Rambling Meta-Physical Second Epilogue.
In Summary: I tend to agree with  FridgePower's assessment of Tolstoy's work - needs more explosions and less Neighbours.

It has been one's in-between ebook reading - usually on one's phone - for occasions when one is without one's main read of the moment.

Still, despite the reading being a bit piecemeal, it did scratch one's Napoleonic itch somewhat.

It also gives an excellent feeling of what it would really have been like being involved in the Napoleonic Wars for the common upper-class aristocrat.
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Guardians of the Galaxy & Gridlinked by Neal Asher

Today's post is about the consumption of media various.


Guardians of the Galaxy

This one was a birthday present from Freeloading Mum. And by that I mean that one traditionally spends one's birthday money on b-grade sci-fi and fantasy that one has missed in the previous year.

Well this turned out to be a fun little romp very much in the vein of The Fifth Element level of sci-fi. Thankfully for one's tastes there was very little superhero-ish in there although sequel talk involves many spandexians apparently.

All in all a solid 4 star fun pic with the only real cringe moment being the hero's put down of the villain at the end.

I look forward to watching mother's other present in the near future, in glorious 3D - the much vaunted by The Real Greg Dean, Pacific Rim. And I tell you if it isn't every bit the cosmically mind blowing experience that The Greg has promised there'll be some mighty vengeance coming his way!


Gridlinked by Neal Asher

This one was my latest read and jumped to the head of the pack on the recommendation of Scary Spice.

It was quite an enjoyable future space opera with loads of wow tech and obscure aliens.
Unfortunately having recently read Ian M Banks Consider Phelbas one was struck by apparent parallels and coincidii, in military tech and delves underground after artifacts -  to the point that one could joke about it being extremely well written fan-fiction.

That aside though it was a solid 3 and a half stars and I will undoubtably dip into the Polity universe again in The Future.
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Spin me Right Round...

... Like a Record baby

So last weekend was one's 45 birthday.

I had a smallish gathering with the minor theme of "Bring a 45".

There was some excellent catering by Salsa Girl assisted by Freeloading Mum - although I do have to take issue with the idea that I had to give everyone a piece of MY cheesecake birthday cake!

Being the theme instigator I dutifully hauled my pristine collection of 45s from the late 80s downstairs - about 50 of them in all. Amongst their number where such gems as Samantha Fox - Touch Me, of which, with my newly acquired mature status, one is not ashamed (although probably 15 year old Phill should be).

Several others provided their own input including ElfBoy with an extensive compilation collection; Legion2 with his hauntingly familiar collection (in that shared bedroom growing up kind of way); and Badger with some prime Brit Punk. I was, however, disappointed to see no Smith & Wessons brought along.

Badger's standout contribution was providing the whole audio and phonographic equipment, without which we would have been unable to hear these gems of the songwriters craft. Impressively the turntable was a vintage 80s Marantz still in perfect working order.

Dropping the ball on the theme front were BestFriendSincePrep and StumpyRudolph, representing one's school friends neither of them had any knowledge of their 45s, or indeed of which number drink they were up to.

Representing the creative side of music were past (and future??) band mates FridgePower and Judge Mingus, along with their own personal creations.

Most parts of the party went well, although Hulk did insist on being sensitive to strangers and require alternating bouts of individual care from Salsa Girl and oneself which was the sole reason there are parts of the party that one cannot recall.

After most had taken leave Legion2 and Pirate Dave (returning from DragonMim's overshadowing 50th event which kept many others away) stayed long into the evening playing the Magic card game and helping one with ones overabundance of whisky. In fact I believe I may have been playing the game on muscle memory at one point and events and my thinking became decidedly fuzzy around the 1:00 am mark.

All in all a most excellent occasion.
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Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

So, there's nothing like a train line closure on the way home for helping power through the back half of one's novel.

Several hours of diverted journey and awaiting evening transport gave me the gift of finishing this one the other night.

It is the fourth of the Dresden Files and continues the tale of the weary wizard detective Harry Dresden and his encounters with the supernatural.

It is a solid 3.5 star read with a protagonist it is easy to empathise with as he is bludgeoned by the world in his simple quest to get home on the train...

... ummm

... or something like that.
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Games Galore

The year's gaming is off to a smashing start with a brace of gaming events having already been completed.

New Year's Day was an all day Magical event with Gavman and ElfBoy both using aquiring pass-outs for the days event.

Last week one once more got away with running a games event in the library, for work, and payed as well.
It went off smashingly with both Pirate Dave and Scary Spice helping out - although Nemesis did turn up to play as well, throwing a dark shadow of sabotage across the events.
Many games were indulged in including one's gallant 1 game all chess draw with a 9 year old girl, Castle Panic, Get Bit, Saboteur, and Fox and Hens.

And one also took advantage of the long weekend to indulge in the typical Aussie pastime of staying inside for gaming.
Joined by Pirate Dave, Badger and Legion2, with Gavman joining later in the evening we powered our way through Samurai Battles (the game where the result doesn't matter especially as Pirate Dave continues his dominance); Eldritch Horror; Say Anything; and too many hours of Magic.

All in all one is just about gamed out - except for tonight's role playing gaming night which I can't wait for.
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The Great Pants Disaster

Here's a cautionary way for The Tales to begin a fresh new year.

If we heed this caution then these circumstances shall never befall you or I.

One's anonymous associate Freewheeling Bill is about to return to work and through no fault of his own bad planning and laziness he delayed having all pairs of his work pants repaired until the last Thursday of his holidays - said pairs having split themselves over regular intervals last year culminating with a magnificent rending mere days before his summer holidays commenced.

So, due to a freak occurrence of bad luck, after finally submitting the passel of pants for correction, the repairer was temporarily closed in the one window of collection opportunity that Bill had in his busy Final Friday.

A further lapse of memory occurred to cause Bill to miss the chance of a Saturday pick up and the repairer is closed on Sundays.

And thus poor Bill is going to have to return to work tomorrow sans pants.
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