The LEGO Party

Last weekend Hulk and I gave Salsa Girl some respite by attending a brick-based soirée.

Our inimitable host was Zombie Monkey and the occasion was the launching of his escape vessel for the escaping from our morally sinking country.

To this end he had created the crew as striking likenesses of many of the attendees.

I'm sure you will all marvel at the artistry he used to capture one’s visage as the ship's superhero in one's guise as Testosterone Man.

Zombie Monkey was also most generous with his Lego spare parts tubs allowing many who had not yet signed on to the crew to create their own likeness - although the sheer number of options was quite daunting.
Hulk herself had the dilemma of her natural blonde hair or a stormtrooper helmet.
FridgePower and Judge Mingus were busy sculpting their likeness while BallBoy created a masterful Darth Vader with pie-shooting canon, on a skateboard, holding a banana.

All in all a great afternoon, even if one's Sunday was filled with Hulk’s playful cries of "What happened to Tosterone Man’s head!"
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Getting the Band Back Together

So this deferred Australia Day Holiday saw My Guitarist host a barbecue at his Southerly residence to which much of the band was invited. Of course FridgePower and Judge Mingus come as a package deal these days so it was a tad easier to get the band members various on site, however, sadly, illness (and not musical differences as reported in the papers) prevented the appearance of LittleBigGirl.

In typical drumming fashion oneself - with Salsa Girl and Hulk in tow - did not arrive until the second verse but then immediately guided the rhythm of the remainder of the afternoon as the rest of the band followed my lead and gathered around my anchoring presence - it had nothing to do with my entrancing them all with Hulk's bountiful cuteness, I swear.

Typically most of the younger generation ignored my rock star presence, not to the Scary Uncle Phill levels of the past mind you, but you would think that  I would warrant more than a cursory hello from Thumper and Ball Boy seeing as I was apparently their second-favourite person in the world.

Still as they say, in the world of rock and roll, fame is fleeting.
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A Dream of Longhorn the Minotaur

So I had this dream the other night.

Or rather, fragment of a dream, as these things tend to not have nice clean beginnings and endings.

I was visiting FridgePower, Judge Mingus, Ball Boy, and Thumper. As is the way of dreams, stuff that one can't remember had already happened and my awareness and memory begins with Judge Mingus and I talking together in a room.

The good Judge was quite excited and bursting to contain himself and then looking around said:

"oh, you have to see my Longhorn The Minotaur costume. Ball Boy and Thumper love it and FridgePower won't be back for a while."

With that he grabbed a towel and began spinning it into a solid tube locker-room jape style, before turning around and ripping his shirt off. I was confronted with a broad-shouldered muscular back, covered in scars and tufts of ginger.

He spun back around suddenly and the first thing I noticed was that his missing eye - which had been a poorly healed scar earlier while still being completely normal - was now covered with a rather large piratical eye-patch.

And then, mercifully, I awoke.

Being the rugged and manly personage one is, I did not awake screaming.

But it was close.
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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 Silence of The Tales

So there has been another time of quiet from The Tales despite one's best intentions and all those promises I made to you all.

Personally I blame Judge Mingus for telling me that I was using the internet wrongly and thus paralysing me.

This happened at a stately dinner with the Judge and FridgePower on a hot evening several weekends back. Salsa Girl and I attended dinner and air conditioning at their domicile for a long overdue catch-up.
It was a great time, starting with a nice curry and ending with bowls of icecream.
We had much talking and one was even involved in a lot of educational experiences with their elder spawn Ball Boy as he introduced me to his variant of billiards wherein if you cheat the penalty is that you must take another turn - altogether my kind of game.


The following days full day of gaming may also have contributed to one's lack of blog updating time.


After that the work week becomes a blurry merry-go-round of project juggling punctuated with a sequence of beautifully timed equipment and service crashes. Of course there were the usual number of meetings and, as one has come to unfortunately expect, nary a free lunch to be seen among the lot of them.


And we come to the current weekend where one can say that a culinary trip to Fed Square to catch up with the Double Jays, their recent acquisition, and the menu at Chocolate Bhudda (not necessarily in that order) could be attributed some blame for the lack of updating The Tales.

Then today when some free time loomed was the day when one's internet router decided to push it's recent program of frustrating drop-outs into overdrive. Thankfully it is behaving itself well enough now that I am able to get this missive to you.


Oh and as to the verbal shellacking that Judge Mingus handed out to me about use of the Internet.
Apparently one has been neglecting one of the core functions of the Internetz and shall have to rectify that as of now.

So here you go:

As required by international law this is my cute cat picture for this year.

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The Ball Boy and the Baby's Birthday

My weekend just past was highlighted by the first non-virtual catching up I've had for a very long time with FridgePower and Judge Mingus.

Much of the visit time was taken up with the nigh-unstoppable antics of Ball Boy who began my visit as a shy, retiring youngster for a good long twenty seconds or so until I made the possibly fatal mistake of inquiring about his impressive collection of balls. (note that this must be some foreshadowing of the impending maturity looming in my future as I am, for unfathomable reasons, avoiding making the obvious - and hilarious - smutty turn of phrase)
This innocent enquiry lead to a cataloguing of every ball in the collection for my edification - "this is a soccer ball, this is a football, this is a basket ball, this is a small soccer ball, this is a flat beach ball" and so on.

After my spherical knowledge had been increased tenfold we moved on to creating things with wooden blocks and running marbles through our creations once or twice until we decided to demolish our creations and start again - many times over.

Thankfully the rest of my visit time involved quite a hearty midday repast which set all things right with the world again - although it is spooky that FridgePower and Judge Mingus knew which particular foods to serve up that just happened to be several of those amongst my thousands of culinary weaknesses.


After lunch had settled somewhat I made my tactical withdrawal from overexcited toddler tantrum territory and headed to the next appointment of my busy afternoon.

I managed to arrive fashionably late for Couch Killer's 1st birthday celebration, magnificently hosted by Vengeful Vic and MatrixMan. (I am a tad dubious about the fashionability of my arrival since I did swan through the door at the same time as Pirate Dave.)

With nobody the wiser to my previous events activities I was able to claim that I was starving and commenced to bring my stuffed level right up "to the gills" as they say.
Fantomas and ElfBoy were also in attendance along with various other party goers of all ages. Much fun and possibly too much ice cream cake was had by all - and it all still managed to last longer than any 70th birthday event I've attended - thereby proving that the young do indeed have more fun.


After all the excitement I headed home to privately suffer through some mysterious stomach-bloating-without-cause and a sugar-rush crash that hit me hard and for some reason left me seeing Neapolitan rainbows
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