Fungi Friends and Freezing Footy

So this Friday last was another regular catch up organised by The Fungi Lady.

Also in attendance were:

• the regular Doom and Non-Gamin' Megan
• the slightly irregular Amoeba
• the highly irregular The Bastard.
• and, apparently, the completely non-regular MatrixMan conveniently gone before ones stunning entrance

It being nigh on a score of years since one had conversed with The Bastard a large part of the evening was spent on discussing topics various - work, current gaming undertakings, the gamers we both guided through our adventures, the very dad topic of our gifted children.
We both agreed that dealing with the tantrums, smart phone addictions, fussy eating, and stinky body smells made looking after our little girls a pleasure compared with all that gamer stuff.

All in all a great night that was over too soon and one looks forward to honoring the fungi ladies next organising effort.



Speaking of outings that could have ended earlier... one spent Sunday twilight attending the footy with The Great Sandro in 10 degree temperatures (plus a wind chill factor that lowered the temp to sub-zero by one’s reckoning).

To make matters worse the pies provided few opportunities for vigorous, joyful, and warming, leaping to one's feet.

Still, as they say, a win is a win, even if one does have to be chiseled free from the ice at the end.
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An Excellent Expansive E Book

One has finished the most excellent third volume in the Expanse Series by James S A Corey - Abaddon's Gate.

A solid 4.5 stars that kept me wanting to read more. If you like hardish sci-fi and interesting characters then you shouldn't miss it. And as a bonus when the current TV series becomes a world wide hit you'll be able to snob "I read the book years ago".

And now that that's finished I'm ready to move on to my E book in my A to Z of Unread SciFi and Fantasy Authors quest.

Unfortunately there seems to be a dearth of E authors. Still, there were a few good suggestions. Mr Prada was first into the suggestion box, however one had already sampled a Ben Elton book in the distant past.

It would seem that the suggestion of The Bastard, backed up by MatrixMan, is the winner with Gardens of the Moon, a little Erickson number (that begins a decology!!), except there is a delay as one is ordering it in from a rival library service.

Therefore, in the meantime, one will proceed with Fantomas's tactfully presented suggestion of a Warren Ellis near future novel, an author whom one has read some graphic novels of.
The volume in question - Crooked Little Vein - also happens to be sitting on one's library discards pile at home, which is excellent for one's lazy book selection style.
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More Traveller than Most

Well the other week my Traveller Fifth Edition Kickstarter loot finally arrived.

After having to put up with months of taunting from the likes of The Bastard and Fantomas - both much more minor Traveller aficionados than yours truly and not deserving of receiving their packages so much earlier than I -  one had to endure further taunting as the long awaited parcel just happened to be delivered to one's workplace on a day when one was working from home.

To make matters worse Sidekick commenced to text photos of said package along with implied threats to mark it return to sender.

Still all's well that ends well and it has been safely in my beloved grasp for more than a week now. I now have proof that I am more Traveller than most in the form of my land grants for imaginary worlds, sovereignty over nary a hundred of them, credits from the Far Future, and a tome of rules that could stop many a bullet.

While I had heard some scary tales of the books near decade of creation I still decided to participate in the Kickstarter to say thank you to the man who created a game I've played, read, and enjoyed for over 30 years.

The rules themselves do show every signs of being a vanity project with the topic jumping, rambling, and repetitiveness of a gamer gone too far down the path of not actually playing with real people and many additions of so-called "realism" with things such as spectrum ratings for characters vision.

The thought of running any game with it does make my brain hurt, but I may mine sections of it and I expect there will be some fascinated horror reading as I progress through it's 600 odd non-indexed pages with no table of contents.


Now while The Viking Hat GM may be right when he said "buying a 600 page pile of crap to say thank you is bollocks, just send the man some money directly", it just didn't seem as good a way to maintain my More Traveller than Most status.

The most worrying part of all this is that the book has a rather prominent 1 on the spine marking it as merely Volume number one in a series of books that will be created. One can only hope the next one takes a further decade to produce.
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The Last Hurrah

This Sunday last one held the last of one's monthly Sunday gaming days for some time - with Hulk's arrival scheduled for the end of the month it was thought best to not try for one more at the end of the month as well.

We had a cast of thousands. If you round up. A lot.

• Legion2, Badger (regulars)
• Gavman, Elfboy (semi regulars)
• Young Jim (transitioning to regular)
• The Bastard (pretending to be both semi-regular and transitioning to regular)
• Judge Mingus, Ball Boy (first timers)

Many games were played including a surprising slant towards one's favourites.

It was the sort of amazing never-to-be-repeated gaming event that the likes of, say, The Real Greg Dean, would be kicking themselves for missing merely for being interstate.

The mound of snacks was nearly legendary enough to satisfy the The Viking Hat GM (who is some sort of minor deity of snacktitude).

All in all it was a great send-off for the monthly gaming and if you didn't make it then you should begin preparing yourself for The New Beginning starting sometime in the future, taking some form, and being held in some place.
With advance warning like that there will be no excuse for non-attendance!
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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...

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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.
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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.
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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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Holiday Haze

So it transpires that when one is on holidays for weeks at a time things such as, say updating one's blog, actually become harder to make happen.

The very astute of you may have noticed that The Tales has been rather quiet for the month of October and much of this month as well. So quiet in fact as to have been non-existent. Well, as of this post, one is rectifying that oversight.

Such a lot has happened that one's usual highly-enjoyable ramblings could well go on for many a page and exhaust even the staunchest fan's endurance. Therefore I shall recount the happenings in bullet point style in order to regain somewhat of a regular posting style.

One has been through:

• the horror of a Grand Final loss endured with The Great Sandro fretting that a lead of 40 points could be lost in the final 2 minutes of the game while Legion2 and I tried to accept our tragic loss. This understandably took away one's will to blog for many days afterwards.

• the horror of putting myself through yet another of the The Viking Hat GM's fiendish D&D days. Albeit made easier by being held at Exploding Ninja Pony's new awesome Man-Cave (or Geek-Grotto if you are one of those pedants who prefers accuracy).This understandably took away one's will to blog for many days afterwards.

• the horror of realising that accepting Salsa Girl's Facebook declaration of our engaging situation announced it both far and wide and that "Facebook Friends" do indeed see what you display there. This one nearly confirmed one's Facebook shyness.

• the horror of another training day with free morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea . . . wait that one wasn't so bad. Understandably one was too bloated on returning home to conduct any blogging.

• the horror of having to set up one's new computer after the old faithful failed to respond at all. Of course this one made it rather difficult to get blogging done.

• the horror of realising that holding our sixth annual Absent Friends card day meant that we've been without an old friend for more than half a decade...

• the horror of yet another interstate conference junket with the threat of too many LibraryLand cocktails looming over one's head. Even Gamer Phil from an adjacent library service running gamer games in the evening couldn't help one from having many a drink thrust into one's hands (and yes, I do have to drink them). Still I managed to come through okay - at least from what I remember...

• the horror of another of our card tournaments where my cards refused to shuffle up in any sort of normal distribution pattern.

• the horror of a planning training morning timed to end before lunch so we can all head back to work! This one had me distraught for days and unable to commit any blogging activity.

• the horror of going to Geelong for another conference and, well, being in Geelong. The hotel gave me a room overlooking the stadium of the team that had so recently defeated one's Magpies and the trauma returned blotting out any thoughts of blogging.

• the horror of an afternoon under The Bastard's control in yet another irregular game. Maybe I shouldn't accept all these offers...

• the horror of ... ahem, the bliss of a week away down the coast with Salsa Girl. Time spent reading. playing Rummy, walking along beaches and cliffs. One did make an attempt to blog in the peace and quiet but that bX-1fv8xl error did in my mobile posting ambitions.

• the horror of a feline neglected for a week that decides the attention it is due shall be collected at 4am. Sleep deprivation makes one decidedly low in motivation to think up another of one's brilliant blog postings and high in motivation for disciplining The Tiger.

• the horror of BestFriendSincePrep abandoning one to make an international move of a few years and support his wife's career. Really, where was my opportunity to have a say in this decision?

• the twin horrors of a day of Gaming at the State Library (organised by Gamer Phil) followed by a regular Sunday's gaming. So many games to choose from, such little time...

• the horror of realising one has only a week remaining of one's holiday before having to dive into that mound of email and meeting invites.

• the horror of facing up to the construction of a huge update to the sadly neglected Tales. This one, especially, made it hard to get any blogging done.

Phew.

Regular service shall resume shortly.

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Stepping Ahead

Well the global corporate challenge finished in the middle of last week and yours truly managed to end it all in a winning position.

You see I was able to complete the challenge, in true Millenium Falcon style, by using less steps than anyone else in my team.
I am currently awaiting for my accolades to commence.


In other stepping news Saturday afternoon saw The Great Sandro and Legion2 at one's domicile for some good old-fashioned lounge room footy watching. We all had a great time watching the mighty pies go one step closer to the Grand Final.


One's Sunday was spent with the likes of Fantomas, Gavman, Pirate Dave, and DragonMim, in the clutches of The Bastard as we took the first steps in his new Pathfinder roleplaying game campaign. He appears to have lulled them all into a false sense of security by making it a fun time but I, knowing better, have my eye on him and am ready to strike at the first sign of shenanigans.
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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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The Return of the Great Man

It seems that March is the month of returns.

First it was The Bastard's return to Sunday Gaming.

And now, this weekend past has seen the return of not only the footy but also my esteemed match-attending companion The Great Sandro.
We had another of our grand days out on Saturday last. I had presumed that my fellow black and white army members would be out in force and, hence, we needed to be at the ground well before the game itself began.
Suffice to say one was able to see first-hand what the slow influx of a passable crowd into an empty stadium looked like.
The match itself was fairly one-sided but a good result and we trundled home on the less than packed train that such a lower attendance match produces..

After the footy the real challenge began as The Great Sandro met Salsa Girl for the first time. All went well due to her choice to select her suburb of residence as her footy team aligning with TGS's number one team.
I believe that Salsa Girl has gained the okay to join us for an upcoming match - her first ever. One only hopes she can prepare herself to see her team being walloped while I gloat and cackle with glee at her expense - all in my typical gentlemanly way of course.
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The Return of The Bastard

No, the title of this post does not refer to one's return to posting after this most recent hiatus from keeping you all updated.

It instead refers to the reappearance at Sunday Games, after a four or more year absence, of the one and only The Bastard.

As befits his usual modus operandi he lugged along a large selection of new games of which we barely managed to scratch the surface by playing only two out of the teetering pile.

Also in attendance was Doom, although his new several-times-a-year frequency hardly makes an appearance worth mentioning. In the same vein I shan't even bother to mention the attendance of Pirate Dave, Legion2, or Badger.


The long weekend was rounded out by a trip to the residence of the Double Jays with Salsa Girl where one was able to easily take possession of the Rummy 500 Perpetual Trophy* for the first time ever after many months of playing with the group.

[* said trophy may exist only in my own mind]
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The Breakfast of Champions

With no Tales-worthy happenings at last evening's Lit-fest opening night I shall instead regale you with the happenings of today.

I was awake at the early hour of 8am to partake in a breakfast with Redneck Ben. Our venue of choice was in the local cafe precinct and we were served up a quite filling and delicious repast.

Our main topic of conversation - as we did wander somewhat, as one is want to do - was gaming and specifically our usage of the Fudge system to building systems that suit our own game running style and the particular groups of players we run games for. He did impart some advice for me that was eerily similar to both, advice that The Viking Hat GM has frequently espoused, and action that The Bastard frequently takes in the games he runs.
I expect much crying from my players when I deploy such strategies.


Breakfast was followed by The Afternoon of IT Support as I had to visit the family home to fix the internet connection yet again. Although this time Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad are away overseas. You would think that there would be no IT support required but, alas, the house-sitting friend has been having regular problems and leaving frantic telephone messages for me - my personal favourite being "the phone isn't working properly".

Sigh. An IT man's work is seldom done.
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Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is the second book in the same world and was recommended to me by Vengeful Vic. I have joyfully consumed it over the past month.

It picks up some of the characters from The Curse of Challion a few years later. I found it to once again be interesting characters in an intriguing situation. The stories are mostly low on magic and supernatural elements but the world seems to breath with a down to earth reality. One wonders if one is perhaps identifying with middle-aged protagonists over deference to your more standard young farm boy with a destiny.

There is however a darker, more disturbing side to my reading experience - other than the whole middle-aged thing - as many elements of the plot and setting bear some quite startling similarities to current happenings in my own game setting being regularly played on Thursday nights.
I am starting to believe that I may have come to the notice of the same plagiarising forces that have been copying The Bastard's bountiful gaming ideas for many a year. I shall have to search my flat and brain for idea stealing bugs forthwith.
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The Bastard's Birthday Dinner

It is only now after an early, nay, normal finishing time to my working day that I can once again find the free hours it takes for me to hand carve yet another missive to you my anxiously awaiting readership.

And what pray-tell I hear you ask could have changed so dramatically in the scheme of constant overwork that is my salaried life to allow such an unprecedented finishing time to the day of one Freeloading Phill?

Well 'twas none other than a day of training for yet another in the seemingly unending string of upgrades to stuff. My partner in training crime this time was none other than Supervisor S resuming her duties as my sidekick. For this educational outing we were under the esteemed tutelage of The Puppies and unhindered by any library staff with their insistence that the system they use every day should make sense to them.

The morning's downpour could not dissuade me from my attendance as I trudged knee-deep through the swirling maelstroms of overflowing city gutters to reach my destination.

My reward was an informative session with a minimal morning tea and a choose your own lunch. Luckily our early finish did still make it to the point where venue staff laid out the meagre afternoon tea which one was able to raid on the way out into city shopping and thence home early enough to have the time to compose some bloggage.


Hmmm, I seem to have not even broached the subject of my post yet so I had better get on with it henceforth.


I spent my evening last Saturday at a dinner in celebration of The Bastard's imminent ageing event. I was privileged to be there amongst his inner cabal as they whiled away the evening with intricate world-domination planning cunningly conducted in the form of frivolous conversation. Fantomas was there of course, and I was able to catch up with Unity and Krazy K for the first time in ages.

The venue chosen for this event was an Hellenic restaurant and as the platters of meat were placed before us we all had to face the very real threat of dealing with a serious case of meat poisoning. My particular indulgence was to be shared with The Bastard himself and Fantomas. Of course the lithe Fanty did not pull his weight and I was forced to consume the remainder of his share so that our Hellenic hosts would not scorn us for leaving much of our repast on the platter.

As there were several there in the family way the event finished at a reasonable hour and I was able to waddle home contented to spend the remainder of my weekend sleeping off my bloat and preparing for the hard week of work ahead of me.
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... The Collection of Short Stories

My apologies for going almost a fortnight between updates however I have been suffering under the ravages of my unshakable man-cold and - yes Supervisor Grand Chief K - working quite a lot.

The gap has however allowed me to gather up a collection of small tales of the events that have occurred during my absence.

So let's begin...

The Duchess and the Admiral
I had the opportunity to play this with Pirate Dave and Juzzy J Thursday week.
Hmmm, perhaps I better point out it was a role-playing game.
Hmmm, maybe a better further point out it was role-playing in the dice, pen, and paper sort and not the other kind.
Anyway, with The Bastard's back problems re-surfacing I have been handed the gaming reins and, as I am so busy with work, rather than spend oodles of time prepping I have been experimenting with some quick random dice rolls for the initial set-up and then improvising the evenings episode. I have dubbed it Random Travelling and with this Thursday's game going well it seems to be a success.


The Corporate Image
Friday week I was back in the Corporate castle working hard imaging up a pair of computers for the library. Whilst slaving away there I was introduced to The Warden the new boss of all things IT.


Farewell to The Doctor
After the hard working week my Saturday was a reasonably relaxed day at home. I finished my watching of the second season of the new Doctor Who. I am really quite fond of it, although I suspect the emotional resonance bits that I like were virtually non-existent in the original so traditional fans may want to burn me in effigy.


Avoiding doom with Doom
After a coffee catchup with Rugrat Twin the rest of my Sunday was devoted to gaming. The main
game of the afternoon was Doom's sprawling Arkham Horror boardgame and we were surprisingly effective in preventing eldritch horror from manifesting and destroying the earth - yay us!


The Twilight Party
After two long, hardworking days back at work I was looking forward to crashing this school holiday event. However Lord of the Small Fries banned me from participating despite my claims that an old man hanging out with teenage girls was completely on theme for Twilight and besides I am only a third of the age of perfect Edward. Oh well at least I was able to console myself with leftover pizza from the party.


Setting the date
Thursday morn brought me back to the Physio and we determined the date for my return to soccer. Oh and since many of you undoubtedly though this was Svetlana related I should mention that I had myself a quite short haircut afterwards that would most likely not be approved of by the lady herself and will most likely see her show up on my doorstep to chastise me any day now.


A real werewolf film
After making it late to farewell drinks because of having lots of work to do I scooted home to catch up with BestFriendSincePrep to go and see Underworld: Rise of the Lycans a really and truly werewolf film. Considering how bad the second in the series was this one was quite enjoyable although it was quite dark and I did feel like shining a spotlight at the screen to see what was going on.


The Morning Nip
I resumed my morning walk/jogs this morning after a couple of weeks off due to illness and work commitments.
So calmly dragging myself along the path I was suddenly beset upon by a vicious pack of bloodthirsty yippy dogs. One of them took it upon himself to stretch up and bite me just below the knee (the good one thankfully) then as I was busy saying ow he nipped around to do the other side. It didn't seem to bad so I let the owner off with only a mildly upset look and was on my way again.
Now in the cold light of afternoon I sit here anxiously awaiting the onset of rabies - or perhaps even werewolfism (and I really don't relish the idea of turning into a yippy dog at the full moon).
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.. Betrayed into Blogging

I am only able to make this blog tonight because The Bastard cancelled tonight's game due to health issues. I am outraged. Did I cancel because of my near-decapitated knee? No - well not more than once or twice anyway - so how dare he!

Speaking of betrayals, I have now settled reasonably comfortably into Beaumaris branch after managing to get out of Brighton alive. I've even done more RFID tagging here in two days than I did on 2 months at Brighton. I guess you could say that Brighton is a high-maintenance branch, but I never would.

Oh and speaking of bastard GMs I spent a little while before putting the hat back into The Viking Hat GM's name for the handful of posts for which he'd made an appearance. It seems he didn't like it's absence, despite the fact that only a small handful of geeks would even understand the phrase for which he is named. I hope he's happy now and stops victimising us at the Monday night game.


Now on to more important matters - Days of our Libraries has accused me of still being wedding-drunk during the scribing of my previous posting.
This is patently preposterous and this photo from the wedding, courtesy of Rugrat Twin, should emphatically clear my name.

... A Horrible Discovery

Ironically thanks to the work of ArchEnemy my attention has been brought to Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

It is the latest work, nay masterpiece, of Joss Whedon.

And it has the added bonus of making it through the anti-video net of SoccerBuddy and the fun police down at the corporate IT department.

Do yourself a favour and go view it now, I'll be waiting when you get back.

...

...

Bah, I can't be bothered waiting any longer.

It will give you a good idea of how my Thursday night gaming group's super hero game went... except without the singing... and the dialogue was probably worse... and it probably made less sense... actually it's not very much the same at all.

Anyway, other horrible things that happened this week include:

• going all the way out to BestFriendSincePrep's country mansion only to be beaten soundly at my own games
• my Tuesday gaming group deciding (eventually, oh the indecision) that Deadlands' supernatural western setting was what we'd play next
  
• Innocent Em beating me to the end of 2.0
• my falling for the latest ploy of Torchwood - taking me out for lunches and dinners to make me fond of her
• making a cameo appearance at Sandringham, my home branch, after being on desk at Hampton
• the return of The Bastard for the Pirate Dave birthday edition of Thursday night gaming
• having The Great Sandro over to watch the Collingwood vs Nth Melbourne game debacle
  

... A Whole Lot of Waffle

Contrary to what the title might suggest there is no tasty light batter cake content to this post.
It is merely a convenience for Supervisor Grand Chief K so that she knows that there is no need for her to bother reading my musings as they will, like she commented on my last post, just glaze her eyes like a freshly cooked waffle.



No sooner had I whinged last post about not having anything to blog about than it all starts to happen.

Thursday Morning I finished reading Across Realtime by Vernor Vinge. It's actually two books - The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime - that explore an imaginary stasis technology and it's ramifications. I really quite enjoyed them both - so much that I bought the company, that is I'm basing my short Thursday night roleplaying game on it while I fill in as gamesmaster for The Bastard who's out with a back injury and having as much trouble standing up straight as a syrup soaked waffle.

That night I continued on my pathway towards eclipsing Ronaldo as I blitzed my way to another two goals at soccer (12 goals in 17 months). The extreme heat kept the numbers low so we joined with the other field of regulars for an us versus them game. I was obviously one of the stars of our team in my Svetlanaland national team jumper as they were shouting at each other to "guard Svetlanaland" when we went into attack. Unfortunately we seemed to be the much better team with a 13-2 scoreline, crushing them like a waffle in a waffle iron.
Technically they actually won due to the "last goal wins" rule in effect when the nasty hockey players kick us off the field.


Friday was an extended session of setting up new public PCs at Beaumaris branch and simultaneously trying to solve one of those wonderful intermittent printing problems that said new PCs were having. I think I've worked out the cause but with SoccerBuddy away at training there was nothing I could do until Monday.


Today I took a walk over to Rugrat Twin's to help get her mobile broadband working only to discover that Evil Twin had already got it working. I was a bit miffed that a mere Doctor had done my job and felt like going out and operating on people to show him what it feels like when someone else does your job.
Anyway Rugrat Twin and I decided to walk into the city and do some shopping. Whilst there we ran into Doom who is living the gamergeek dream and working in the city game store.
Walking home was a little harsh in the afternoon sun and I was feeling a little like an overcooked waffle, but eventually we were home and it was time to take a quiet Saturday night and relax around the house.